In Every Moment of My Life

First part

Nostalgic thoughts come over me in tidal waves when I remember the old days, carrying me upon its waters in a roiling sea of infinite longings.

I tend to think about the past a bit too much, which partly explains my episodic outpourings of nostalgia in my blogging endeavours, though not entirely, I must admit, for how I feel in the present is rarely alleviated by what I can perceive from a distance of a few years or even decades now.

Distance of a few years can bring on pure, fascinating nostalgia you cannot let go of. When you become acutely aware of a fond memory, no matter how much you try, it's hard to forget, and not being heedless to it is an act of sacrilege, forgetting a precious little as you go on in your life. The past was better than the present, and the future holds no remorse for the passing of the present it never deserved. I only live in the present half-heartedly.

My mind is overflowing with memories of those bygone eras, those past times that have given me everything my heart could ask for. Even today, I passionately seek everything in my power to hold on to them for dear life, lest running the risk of depleting them to the depths of my heart where they might fade away and be forgotten, reflecting on those junctures each day as if my life depended on it, heart and soul. But having said that, I am not fixated on my past experiences because I know what is probably causing these sometimes pleasant and sometimes emotional outbursts within me and why I feel this way. My heart is broken, spliced into bits, and tossed away. A heart knows its heartaches, the pain of the past days especially. When I think back to the good old days—my childhood and adolescence into the 1990s, which are the only times I hold on to—I feel a keen appreciation, immensely grateful even, for the lifelong love of reminiscing fondly the sacred, sun-kissed, endless summers of the past so much.

That's life for me to lead.

Although some may view the past with rose-tinted glasses, I naturally suspect nothing but a stupidly profound longing for simpler times when things were less complicated, tech-savvy, pre-digital, and low-tech before the digital age took hold of our mind and, by gradual extension, our social culture, and universally made everything openly noisy, confused and unpredictable. In these challenging days, however, everything seems to be moving too fast to keep up, changing beyond all recognition of things we used to hold dear. While some find the continual excitement exhilarating, for others who aren't as fortunate as them, it's a daunting task.

Politics and Shopping, Anyone?

It's interesting to note how our contemporary social culture has developed a deep fixation on two new hot fads that have become quite a fashionable trend in our chaotic time: Talking about politics and going amok shopping simultaneously—the one without the other cannot exist. Mall-hopping shopping, a relatively recent phenomenon in our economically revived country over the last twenty-odd years, remains a perfect example, while politics has always been our favourite pastime.

People prefer "quality time" outdoors, implying that home is no longer the ideal place for such moments. Talking about current party politics, casual storytelling, excessive mall shopping, and making impulsive purchases to fill their shopping carts with as many items as possible—sometimes all in one trip! Aaha!—while discussing the nationwide political scheming and conniving that are taking on a different tone to democracy, broader meaning even, has become the new world order. Imagine the thrill of coming up with political standpoints that tell something about how woke you are politically and how evolved you are as a shopping addict. Although it is intriguing to envision having political views, I do not hold any that sycophants tend to have. (While I'm uncertain about the correlation between politics and shopping, perhaps the connection is merely a figment of my imagination, nothing else.)

**

For instance, consider this: The glamorous, gluttonous monotony of constantly accessing smartphones and getting online obsessively checking online prices and comparing it with what's available 'offline' (guilty as charged!) and stuff like that has, in direct consequence, created a lifestyle of loneliness and stagnation, which slowly and surreptitiously has evolved, thanks also to the COVID-19 pandemic years, into a new manic craze, so much so that the enslavement of the mind by all things digital tech and hi-tech—"always on 24/7"—has come a full circle into triggering guilt-inducing mental health problems among many and turning us into bona fide addicts of all things mundane. Work-from-airport, work-from-home, work-from-anywhere, work remotely, and whatnot have become the new model code of conduct for keeping our jobs. This digital nomadism has enabled people to work from anywhere, making the line between work and leisure increasingly blurred. Therefore, as a result, it's challenging to find a healthy balance between using technology and living a fulfilling personal life—one that excludes digital technology entirely for some time in your daily routine. People are always connected, making it difficult for them to disconnect. The degree to which we have become so intimately entwined with our digital lives that losing or misplacing your phone can cause you to feel a panic attack.

This hyper-social age, which essentially is an age driven by envy, has created a culture where people feel a greater need than ever to stay connected at all times, leading to a routine habit of being constantly available 24/7, making it difficult to unplug and unwind. Personally speaking, we all appear to be chasing the elusive goal of finding a sustainable balance between using technology at the click of a button and living life to the fullest, which means saying goodbye to a relaxed mindset or a peaceful state of mind.

Our Smartphones are making us seriously hooked to technology: the constant use of it is leading to an overproduction of dopamine hormones in our brains, which, in turn, draws us into a vicious vortex of online shopping, endless scrolling, social media bingeing, and other digital vices that make it difficult to break away from. The craving for these new-age activities is so acute that we can't resist overcoming the intense urges and breaking the habit. That is never going to happen, ever. If we have access to technology the way we do now, overcoming the temptation to follow its associating fads is next to impossible. Whatever this world is going to become.

It will be sorrier than it will ever know.

(To be continued…)

By Arindam Moulick

Also published in Medium

Click here to read

Alone in Alwal

Anecdotes from The Past - X, final part

Long-lost childhood friends, separated by time, gravity, and unknown geographic locations, as it were, have been persistently the one thing that has grieved me the most. More than thirty-six summers have passed since Raju and I last spoke, and even longer since my last contact with Poonam, Ruby, Sushila, and other dear friends. 

I wonder where they are and what they have been doing over the years. That's decades, my God, not years, and the ultimate realization that it's been that long is almost surreal. So long ago. I've wanted to get in touch with them for a very long time, but I've never gotten around to it because, God knows, it's an unattainable goal, and I have no idea where to begin. But I will keep trying, not give up until the day I draw my last breath. If I get to meet them, it will be the most rewarding discovery of my life.

Aside from scouring social media sites, I tried asking a few folks from my earlier days, but I couldn't do anything that would bring me to my old friends I desperately, rather urgently, wanted to meet. Where was I supposed to look for them? All those years went by pretty quickly. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to find them. Life's gotten rather complicated, hinging on unsustainable technology take-over of human-made systems that have lured us into the intricate trap of goals, achievements, and money, unlike the good old days when all we had to do was grow up and be happy. Nothing in the world seems fascinating anymore when your friends are gone, and happiness is hard to come by when one human is hell-bent on (mortally) hurting another. Have you ever noticed that the world seems less charming when your friends aren't around? There may be the Taj Mahal, the Colosseum, Lake Baikal in Siberia, the glaciers of Antarctica, the moon, the stars, and many other things that amaze you, but all those things become insignificant when you lose your friends. Those wonders don't interest you as much as they used to when you had friends with you to marvel at them.

Things have changed. Everything has changed and is no longer ordinary. But I wish I could find a way to remind each other of our shared childhood past, no matter where we are in the world; it would be a great opportunity if we could see each other and relive our old days, wouldn't it?

I purposely have four or five worthy friends only. They have been with me for a long time, and I am with them. We share a social bond forged through sometimes sarcastic, sometimes sober fun, pursuits of happiness, and conversations over biryani at lunch or chai in the evening. They are trustworthy; we can even go as far as babysitting one another. A few choose to stay as familiar acquaintances, coming and going out of the social circle as they do. Still, I remind myself that acquaintances and friends may go on different paths but run on parallel lines, so both groups work, as it were. Thanks to social media and WhatsApp messaging, they are just a phone call or a line of message away. I hold them in high regard.

**

(But I'm aware I have lost my childhood friends. Still, I can't help thinking I have not lost them yet. I might find them one day. One of these days, I should head out to find them, wherever they may be, any place they are. I can't wait to see my beloved friends again.)

**

When the Hindi action-drama film Ghulami came out in 1985, it immediately became a favourite. It lingered in our minds long after we saw it for the first time at Manorajan, our go-to open-air movie theatre, where we watched movies of all genres, including vernacular, English, and foreign language films.

Even the big entertainment films of the ‘70s and '80s, like Shaan, Trishul, Laawaris, Satte Pe Satta, Kabhie Kabhie, Silsila, Noorie, Sanam Teri Kasam, Yeh Wada Raha, Zamaane Ko Dikhana Hai, Hum Kisise Kum Naheen, Betaab, and Naseeb, had much more star power than any off-beat arthouse film could excite youngsters; Saaransh, for example, was undoubtedly not just a good but an outstanding arthouse film, but given our youngish predilection for the dhoom-dhadhaka element coupled with the song and dance numbers in films like Disco Dancer, Coolie, Dostana, Ram Balram, Desh Premi, Kudrat, Prem Rog, Tohfa, Ram Teri Ganga Maili, or Pataal Bhairavi, we wanted it to be all that and more, with Amitabh Bachchan, Shashi Kapoor, Shatrughan Sinha, Rishi Kapoor, Jeetendra, and Dharmendra being our all-time faves at the time. And they continue to be so, even though these remarkable actors are not much in the reckoning anymore, with Shashi and Rishi Kapoor having passed away.

The film Ghulami was at once maundering and intensely emotionally violent, full of bloodletting and great acting. Among its songs, especially “Zeehale Muskin Makun ba-Ranjish…” and “Mere Peeko Pawan…” are two of the most heart-wrenching musical compositions that elevate moments of wonder and admiration, leaving a lasting impression on us friends. Raju particularly liked the actor Mithun Chakraborty’s exuberant acting style in the movie, echoing my views exactly: I felt his unique timing was impeccable. Depicting the caste and feudal system in the north Indian state of Rajasthan, dominated by a wealthy landlord who harbours deep-rooted caste prejudices against farmers in particular and peasants in general, the film is a genuine wonder. Regretfully, Mithun Chakraborty and Reena Roy never took home any award for their performances in the movie despite their superb character portrayals and acting prowess. That’s a major lapse. “Koi shak?”

We would discuss movies for hours on end. Movies that weren't the typically entertaining Hindi flicks we loved to watch at the Army-maintained open-air theatre or OAT. As school-going students, however, we also enjoyed watching what used to be called "art cinema." Every other year, the much-loved Doordarshan channel aired brilliant movies such as Bawarchi, Golmaal, Anand, Baton Baton Main, Choti Si Baat, Rajnigandha, Nadiya Ke Pyaar, Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro, Saagar, Chashme Badoor, and Chitchor. I remember how much fun Raju and I would have watching movies together on Sunday nights in the 1980s, like Love in Tokyo, Love in Shimla, Kashmir Ki Kali, Kati Patang, An Evening in Paris, Phir Wohi Dil Laya Hoon, Safar, Amar Prem, Don, Johny Mera Naam, and many more, including many television shows we adored like Yeh jo Hai Zindagi, Darpan, Khandaan, Hum Log, Nukkad, Neev, Star Trek, Different Strokes, Rajani, Buniyaad, Paying Guest, Chitrahaar, Katha Sagar... the list is endless. Doordarshan, the only television network station of its time, used to broadcast unforgettable TV shows that brought great joy to everyone. Doordarshan was the golden era of television.

When Raju and I first watched Pather Panchali (Song of the Little Road), one of Satyajit Ray's masterpieces depicting a naturalistic portrait of rural life in Bengal, I remember being struck by the bleak poetry of the movie. While I watched, I recall being tearful by the hardships "Apu and his family" faced at their crumbling home. But Apu and Durga were content with their life in the rural village, with all their mischief, discoveries, and joys. But the ultimate tragedy that displaces the family was not far behind, particularly after Apu's sister Durga's passing away.

Among the most vividly remembered is a scene where the father comes to the hamlet bearing gifts for Apu and Durga, and the mother tells him their daughter has died suddenly. That scene is among the most iconic cinematic moments in global movie history. At that point, my eyes welled up with tears. Raju was also visibly moved by the power of that scene.

A month later, at Raju's place, we watched Goopy Gyne Bagha Byne, a fantasy adventure comedy film, another of Ray's immersive cinematic masterpieces. Raju would yell out "HUNDI... SHUNDI…" during our beloved cricket matches, which lasted from mid-afternoon till sundown, much like the two movie characters would scream when they were about to disappear. Seeing Raju's antics would make us all laugh out loud.

**

Global migrations, xenophobia, terrorism, and climate warming are only a handful of issues that humanity will forever be troubled with for the rest of its time on the planet. Yes, we are all numbered, marked for removal as a species from this beleaguered planet. The "oversaturated" world will never be at peace with itself because there is no peace.

People's lives have become interwoven with data, security, and surveillance capitalism — all by-products of the globalization, if you will, of the economies around the world. Throw the words "cutting-edge," "leading-edge," and "path-breaking," and now the word so universally ringing "digital" into the frenetic mix, and what we get is an agile, tech-savvy, and fast-paced environment where we must embrace change and disruption continuously. Human existence has become replete with such disconcerting latitudes nowadays that it's OK not to get worried about anything because it's considered old-fashioned at the risk of sounding like a down-and-out elderly who is on his way out of this world anyway, so why pay heed to such a waste of time. It's an AI-defined credo everyone should live by in the twenty-first century and beyond, lest you experience defeat or be labelled a loser. Given our shared future, you have no choice but to "automate" yourself: Subsume to the domination (or admonition?) of technology and machines.

People used to go out to gather berries, ferns, and wildflowers or to catch a glimpse of birds like sparrows, crows, or even the rare pigeon, which was an infrequent sight in those days. Today, however, the pigeon population has increased so much that the entire town of Alwal (and the whole city) has become completely overrun with these tubby, menacing birds, which pose a threat to human health and endanger the local ecosystem of other birds. 

Decades of defacing—humankind's relentless march forward to carry out 'all-round development' in cities and villages, not to mention the clear and present danger of global climate change, all those beautiful old-fashioned moments of love and leisure are lost forever.

Memories endure eternally

At the moment, I am bouncing around, so to speak, like the last pea in an oversized tin can. That's life, I suppose. Tangled undergrowth almost as high as my head surrounds the charming paths of my earlier life in our beautiful, unforgettable Trishul Park, our lost childhood Eden that was still there when I last saw it: now amidst the pale ruins of its pristine former glory. But everything has changed there since then. The old charming past has given way to the new high-octane present. That golden era is not going to come back, ever.

Nothing remains the same indefinitely. Everything has changed, gone. My childhood friends have all moved on long ago. Time is running out fast. Let it. Time doesn't concern me anymore. I'll have nothing else to do but quietly reminisce about our childhood salad days when we were younger and live out my lonely days until the end, whenever that may come. All that is left are the memories. I hold close to my heart those treasured memories.

// Naam Gum Jayega, Chehra Yeh Badal Jayega
Meri Awaaz Hi Pehchaan Hain, Gar Yaad Rahe //

(The End.)

By Arindam Moulick

Tears of Melancholy

Anecdotes from The Past - IX

Trishul Park is the song of my heart.

After Raju left Trishul Park, during those long and lonely afternoons, I'd often find myself searching for memories of our childhood: The roads we used to cycle on and the cricket grounds where we used to play under an enormous bowl of blue sky hung overhead, the songs we'd listen to that came drifting upon the wonderful cosmos of our neighbourhood from across the main road, would flood my heart with a feeling of the unexpected surge of nostalgia.

Wave after wave of memories would overwhelm me and sometimes even lift me off my feet in deep feeling, my heart achy for a bygone time I knew would never come again, but go on yearning. Tears of melancholy would blur my eyes as I silently longed to relive those lost days, longing to relive the memories again, remembering all the times of the golden age of our childhood. Dil dhoonta hai fir wahi fursat ke raat din…

**

Meena's beauty was truly remarkable, and my pre-teen self couldn't believe that such great beauty is not something anyone can possess; perhaps only someone exceptional in destiny, time, and place could, and Meena had all of those fine God-gifted elements in full measure. That someone could be that mesmerizingly attractive and draw attention to herself astounds me, and you can't look away from her. It amazes me even today to think about Raju's cousin, a radiant beauty from the majestic mountains of Jammu. Her breathtakingly beautiful looks with fair complexion and liquid black eyes, crowned with perfect lines of her eyebrows and finely aquiline roman nose, left a lasting impression on everyone who saw her, and her bottle-green Kashmiri gown only heightened her undeniable charisma as a young girl of extraordinary beauty. Meena was a sight to behold. When we played cricket outside, she'd come to the window of her first-floor dormitory, framing it like a perfect work of art with her elegance and grace; her spellbinding beauty lent a touch of magic to every moment that came into existence at No. 6 Trishul Park. Her looks were truly beyond words.

**

Great friendships enrich your life forever. Meena returned to her native sometime in the mid-'80s after graduating from St. John's school—if memory serves—in the seventh grade. Around that time, Murari and his sister Anita came into our midst. However, with Meena's departure, which we didn't expect she would until at least in the year she finished her school final examination, which was still three years away, an old chapter was abruptly closed.

Certain friendships last a lifetime. Growing up, Meena, Sunita (also called Choti), Raju, Mintu, and I (along with my sibling) shaped our relationship into a foster brother-sister dynamic. Since we all grew up in comparable environments of similar experiences and shared history, developing that relationship was subconsciously more valuable than everything else. Even after they went away, Meena and Choti continued to send us exquisite Rakhis by mail for many years, and we'd be delighted to wear them on Rakhi Day without fail. But alas, that heartfelt tradition had stopped in the mid-'90s before giving us great memories of our formative years of the unforgettable No. 6 Trishul Park. Meena, Choti, Raju, and Mintu were a blessing — friends for life.

Murari, a teenager with an adventurous spirit, knew how to spend his papa's money to live life to the fullest, often going AWOL by taking off on his father's bicycle to Sagar Hotel situated at Loth Lake, a good kilometre away from Alwal, for a sumptuous lunch of steamed rice and chicken curry. After satiating his craving for dining alfresco, he'd play some enjoyable cricket matches with us waiting for him on the ample playground facing our dormitories, using a yellow Tennis ball which he already would have bought on his own from Nagender Stores, and a free-size, makeshift wooden bat, used originally for traditional hand-washing clothes on the floor of his slippery bathroom or in the much-bleached white courtyard of his ground-floor dormitory where he famously lived with his gentle sister, polite mother, and virtuous father, who was a very decent Army man.

Murari, a fun-loving person, loved to have a good time. As a team, he, Raju, and I would play cricket nonstop on Sundays and holidays, stopping only for lunch. He once hid in the “slippery bathroom” where none of us could dare to approach to call him out when we played hide and seek in his spacious ground floor dormitory. You are supposed to have a required amount of balancing skill to tread on the floor and look-see in the bathroom if anyone went there to hide. The floor leading to it was so slippery that anyone would surely fall with a thud if not stepped on it slowly and carefully. Murari used to scrub the grease off with an avidity that has to be seen to be believed, but funnily, the slipperiness came back quickly on the toilet floor like it never really went off in the first place. Our hide-and-seek game that we routinely played within Murari's home with the lights switched off was such a spectacular frivolity that it is hard to believe the things we used to do to hide from one another when the game was in full swing. Our sense of contest was delightfully amusing as we laughed and hooted and cat-called to one another while safely hidden away in the bedrooms, drawing room, bathrooms, behind the doors, curtains, in the kitchen, and behind the bicycle covered with a canvas in the veranda: One of us even went so far as to hide within the dark recesses of the wardrobe in the family bedroom! I, on the other hand, almost always hid under one of their long charpoy beds—(where, surprisingly, I’d run into Raju chuckling loudly on seeing me joining him there, pushing ourselves deeper and deeper against the side wall so that no one could see us and call us out!)—that we fearfully assumed was teeming with a ravenous army of reddish-brown bed bugs (khatmal), ever ready to bite, roving around the rectangular shape of the longish cot tightly webbed with scruffy jute cords, under which we hid like frightened bunnies. Yet, it was only a temporary inconvenience... haha... to get unduly worried about while we were in the thick of the game, trying to deflect undue attention.

**

1988 marked a turning point in my life, a watershed year. I lost a dear friend and his good friendship. Now and then, ever since Raju's family moved out of Trishul Park, memories of our years together as friends would come haunting back. Before another family used his dorm on the first floor for their stay, it had been vacant for a long time, and it brought tears to my eyes when I saw that they weren't Raju; they were some other people.

Trishul Park no longer felt the same; it became bereft of liveliness and seemed anguished. Since those days, heaven knows, the surge of tears has emptied my days, tears of melancholy.

(To be continued…)

By Arindam Moulick

Trishul Park: A Lost Childhood Eden

Anecdotes from The Past - VIII

Sitting by myself, a strong feeling of nostalgia overwhelms my senses.

Often without my even realizing it, nostalgia wraps around me like a warm auric embrace, bringing back mystical memories—of my early years spent living in one of Trishul Park's residential dormitories that, in those days, were nestled in pure and untouched greenery you won't find anywhere today, of songs I recognize irresistibly, of cap pistols, kite flying, and water guns, of long-forgotten melodies returning to my mind like a spellbinding revelation, of heart-melting smiles, of laughing that was met with laughter in return, binding us together as we clutched our tummies and heaved for breath, and of all childhood friends I've been close with for a long time.

Though it may seem strange, I while away long hours picturing the familiar faces of my earlier friends and enduring loves—as well as places, experiences, and events, especially Army ‘Court Day’, Parade Day, Bada Khana (Big feast), Parachute Jump, or watching countless movies at the Open Air Theatre—beholding it all in my mind like a string of words of a poem I haven't penned yet, rendering me unable to work or allow anything for me to do, leaving me feeling empty and heart-achingly lonely at times when the realization hits that we cannot meet ever. The fragrant memories of that wondrous place, Trishul Park, remain an integral part of who I am today, deeply rooted as the gravitational centre of all my vivid remembrances of those innocent days of the early '80s.

Despite their melancholy undertone—as sometimes stories and memories are wont to have—I cherish them dearly. I hold them in the highest regard and admire them to bits, often finding myself quietly easing into expressing words of longing for the past, those innocent times that will perhaps never come again. Having fond memories of boyhood and youth, and as you grow older, I've realized that you'll have even more to reflect on, and that's why this aching piece of nostalgia. Memories tumble down on you as you grow a little older, year after year.

[One of the most significant experiences in my life was my friendship with Rajveer, aka Raju, from Jammu in the 1980s. Raju wasn't just an ordinary friend; he was more of a kindred spirit who left a profound impression on all my childhood memories. After the early 1980s, he became my precious soulmate and close friend, without whom none of my boyhood days would have been bright or pleasant, and there'd be no memories at all. If it weren't for his company, I wouldn't have known the value of friendship: I don't know where I'd be without him in my daily life. I will forever cherish the times we spent together at Trishul Park; those were unforgettable times, precious memories fading to a golden tinge with age.]

The core of my nostalgia for the long-gone Edenic childhood at Trishul Park, where Raju and I grew up, is our profound friendship of many years. Those days, life was a force of nature, old world charm, heaven on earth, heartfelt, home-cooked meals, and uncluttered by things people fill their lives with these days, sacrificing space and mental peace. Life in the earlier eras played the tune of our lives like a lovely song, and there were lots to feast on that wafted from the music stall, kite shop, and grocery store to where we rushed to buy cork balls on the Alwal main road.

[I never stopped thinking about Raju, his siblings, their cousin Meena, my former early 1980s pals Poonam, Ruby, Susheela, and Sugna, and of the mid-'80s Murari and his sister Anita. They were always on my mind. Throughout the '90s, I was hot on the trail of early memories in my mind, and I still am, even today, cannot make room for anything other than nostalgic wonderings of the distant past.]

Both happiness and a little sadness would come flooding back to me as I thought about them, if not more so. I loved them more than life itself and cherished our warm friendship just as much as they did mine. We were the children of Trishul Park.

Poonam, Ruby, and the others had moved on to postings their fathers had proceeded to: Poonam went to Aligarh, Ruby probably to Bareilly, and Meena returned to her native Jammu. With Raju, however, the continuity of friendship turned out differently because he and I stayed at Trishul Park the longest from the mid to late 1980s, and, therefore, we became close pals on account of staying in the same dormitory: I stayed on the ground floor diagonally beneath to his first-floor dorm. Raju stayed till 1988, and I a little longer till 1995, often remembering about our old-time friends who had gone away a long time ago: sadly, never seen or heard from again.

And then, it was time for my dear Raju to move on. How can I forget the day when the sun shone brightly when Raju and his family came down the stairs to bid us farewell? He said goodbye in the summer of 1988 after finishing his school year: the year marked a turning point in our lives that left us both feeling helpless and a sense of loss for each other's altered lives brought on by circumstances beyond our control. With his parents, his brother Mintu, and his sister Sunita, aka Choti, Raju boarded the canvassed-topped 3-ton Army truck that came to pick them up and drop them off at the train station. Everybody came to see them off. Just as their pickup made its way out of Trishul Park through the main gate, Raju raised his hand and waved at me, and I waved back almost simultaneously, a downcast smile on my face, feeling uncertain if we'd ever see one other again in this lifetime. He left a void that just could not be filled or replaced. Trishul Park was never the same again.

With his going, simply an era had come to an end. It was an era that was the most wonderful of all eras that came later.

(To be continued…)

By Arindam Moulick

Among the Ruins

Anecdotes from The Past - VII

Having gone from the idyllic pastoral rhythm of the surroundings to a bustling, overcrowded, cramped, over-populated, stench-filled, and brazen modern concrete townlet, Alwal is beyond imagining ruined.

We—the nostalgic old romantics—have much to say about our beloved town, but we merely confess good things and shrug at others while offering platitudes and dismissing criticism. Two of us from our friends' group of four have experienced a childhood filled with everlasting love and unutterable longing in Trishul Park during the 1990s. While the other two members moved here from other states and settled down in the gentle curves, breezy spaces, spectral expanses, and enchanting undulations of the land around the suburban country in the romantic north, at least a good seven kilometres away in the once-leafy cool cantonment from the laid-back twin-cities of Hyderabad and Secunderabad, which, regrettably, has lost its reputation as a laidback city of pearls, glittering bazaars, and quiet neighbourhoods, but instead has turned into an incredibly bland metropolis, a starkly indifferent urban sprawl of IT—Information Technology—soaring to the skies in ominous-looking spires of steel, concrete, and glass.

(I've my poetic cap on today. Software developers of the so-called forward-thinking, contemporary IT industry have—believe it or not—sunk into endless standup meetings, wherein talented Agile engineers and undeniable Scrum masters discuss bugs, codes, hotfixes, deployment, etc., chasing years of agonizing struggle and sneaking around with their sleek LinkedIn profiles in tow while also downing Java coffee, have produced decade after decade full stack nothingburgers that you can neither see nor feel crap.

A del key is all it takes to erase your digital-binary output, so chill. That's how working in IT is done, which—according to my memetic chicken thoughts—is not nearly as glamorous as it once was. I wish my competency (or lack thereof) lay elsewhere. If only I were an Explorer or Author or at least wiser at whatever I am not. (Access denied!) So, do you wonder, then, why people leave? Hey, chuck this if you can because we need a meme break, don't we? "I want this task done by EOD." I'm like...ROFL (rolling on the floor laughing!))

**

We still manage to live among the ruins of the nostalgic yesteryears: our lovely past, but all we have left to perceive about this ruined, cheek-by-jowl town are great memories that live on in our hearts. In the past, this small town had an abundance of sky and vegetation, like serene greenery beneath bright sunlight and beautiful twilight pools of sparkling starlight and night blackness under the silvery moonlight: Sky, clouds, trees, open spaces, Trishul Park, Alwal, that kind of thing. But, I'm sad to say, it's hell out here today. Life is no good in Alwal.

**

I remember those days when Raju and I used to jog around Trishul Park or the Sub Area. We loved jogging or running, but once Raju left, I never felt the same desire to go for a run. We used to sprint through rain-soaked meadows and desolate open landscapes in the Sub Area during our sporadic jogging days in the 1980s. Then, afterwards, too tired to continue running, Raju and I would sit on the grass, luxuriating in the subtle curves of the lonely roads on which we jogged early mornings. There was scarcely anybody on the road back then and no vehicles. The environment everywhere was fresh, breezy, and serene. We had no idea or felt any need to know what air or sound pollution was like because those things didn't exist and didn't matter to anyone as there was nothing the matter to be concerned about because there was no pollution back then, zero pollution. Life was so good back then. "Life was sounder when technology was more spartan." So true.

Angular old trees are still in evidence but are passing a slow death. Some of these magnificent trees, which have stood for decades, have been chopped down to create room for additional asphalt and concrete roads in Alwal, where traffic is increasing by the day, population growth is exponential, and air, water, and plastic pollution is a disaster which even destroys human life. Everyone wants to construct their houses and apartments and will have no shame or remorse to chop down anything that comes in the way of their unrepentant aspirations. The age-old peepul, neem, and banyan trees that were once so comforting, soothing, tender, and affecting and dreamt a gentle pastoral dream decided they no longer wanted to live. They did not want to be in these once lovely wooded landscapes of tall grasses, bushes, meadows, and country lanes where birds cooed and flowers blossomed in abundance; instead, they wanted to wither away and die. They just wanted to be permeated with the Alwal countryside forever and ever.

Those tall, swaying trees are gone; the relentless march of people toward pointless affluence and meaningless wealth was too great for them to survive. My great friend Raju would have been devastated to see this, as I'm heartbroken by this slaughter. History doesn't repeat itself; those who say it does must be demeaning themselves. Where are the night jars, the skylarks, the shalik birds that talked noisily, and an occasional sighting of a kingfisher or a parrot or two?

This quiet little town had a charm of its own that, sadly, had waned over the years of its relentless development that brought all kinds of numbing traffic, cement dust, population explosion, and mindless pigeon-infested apartment buildings, hot tar roads expanded to the limits, filling every inch of all available spaces with hardened cement roads. All kinds of refreshment kiosks (encroachment kiosks?), stands, booths, stalls, vendors, and open-hawking counters have illegally encroached on the sidewalks as if they have been developed exclusively for their wares. Haphazardly parked two-, three-, and four-wheelers—often, the rudest and the rowdiest, devil-may-care drivers or riders hanging out, with flagrant chutzpah and bouts of insecurity high on their “yo-yo-bro” cult agendas, who only know how to be guilty of misconduct, roughhouse badly, like the veritable king of the road—are the ultimate transgressors violating the purpose of sidewalks. Give it to these hominid skunks: They own the damn roads! Road rage is all the rage these days. In a world of amorality and shamelessness, they reign supreme.

Unfortunately, this lonesome town is no longer lonesome. Alwal town has declined into ludicrous affluence. The old way of life has unhappily met a lamentably heart-breaking end, and its old-timers, like me, no longer dream their pleasant pastoral dreams of self-sufficiency and belonging. Gone is the easy familiarity, that old-time sense of place, time, space. Suburban Alwal, like its twin-city counterpart, was formerly well-known for flaunting its easy, laidback way of life, blissfully free of all the accoutrements of city living. Today, the town has given way to a hectic, noisy, and worrying life no old timers like. But one must learn to get accustomed to and continue to act as though nothing drastic is happening around you or that one can do anything about. So, we unmindfully dismiss all the conspicuous failings and the obvious flaws that the twenty-first century is bringing out, including the failures of our human society, while completely disregarding all the aggression that accompanies attitude annoyances in some people. Nothing else can exist between the two extremes we see today in our so-called modern world: you either live or become extinct (or, as the saying goes, become irrelevant or "pension eaters"). The choice is yours. There's no love. Nobody is true. Nobody cares.

For those who cherish nostalgia, the past—with all its familiar history—is never meant to be forgotten. The good old days have found a sanctuary in our hearts and minds forever. I've now realized that history never ends and that the past, despite the future, will always ache in our hearts. No matter what you say about anything in life, you will always cherish your nostalgic memories, which you will never forget or omit from the present or even stop thinking about in the future. Memories are everywhere in our lives.

Alwal, once a tranquil and peaceful place, has now transformed into a well-known neighbourhood, but it is difficult for me to recognize or connect with it any more than I do with its distant past. Despite the changes, I hold onto my memories of growing up in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s in Alwal, and I know that it can never return to what it once was. Nevertheless, by some good fortune, I have all my memories safely in my heart, where they will remain forever—for eternity.

(To be continued…)

By Arindam Moulick

The Ruins of Time

Anecdotes from The Past - VI

1990s, Alwal
On most Sunday evenings, when we were in our late teens and early twenties, Armstrong, Sunil, Sateesh, and I used to cross the main thoroughfare of Alwal to this new bakery store on the corner of S. Talkies to sample the puffs, cream rolls, fluffy bread buns, onion samosas, and sweet-smelling bakery biscuits and pastries.

Consequently, I developed a strong fancy for cream rolls, Sateesh for puffs, Armstrong for bakery biscuits and onion samosas, and Sunil for pastries. I sometimes overindulged in cream buns, often taking money from my mom to buy them from the new bakery. (If Raju had been with me in the 1990s, I'd have introduced him to my new friends Armstrong, Sunil, and Sateesh, and we'd have been lifelong friends.)

Then things changed, albeit a little slowly, in the mid-90s. Thanks to the economic liberalization of our country and unrestricted capital flowing, the corner bakery shop we frequented not very often had to close down — it, however, reopened in the inside lane and seemed to have flourished as one of the famous bakery shops in the locality and soon other clones were selling similar bakery stuff, but not as good as the first-ever bakery store of Alwal. But in the last three decades, with unrestricted capital flowing, a lot has changed in Alwal unrecognizably. There used to be garden-like spaces around the town—all that has disappeared completely. Cycling around is a strict no-no, and walking on the roads is like propagating a death wish, driving a vehicle is a hellish experience, and so on and so on. The old world charm that we loved, valued, and related to has disappeared, and in its place has come this new-age techno-digital life—about which the less said, the better it is—that has given rise to this phantasmagorical fear and anxiety that everything will ultimately collapse, nothing will be the same. Nothing remained the same except a handful of long-standing friendships, and everything else had become beyond reach or understanding.

Every year, an increasing number of Alwal's open spaces, vacant lots, and open lands are disappearing to feed the voracious appetite for housing development and ever-expanding new sections of roads, which has led to habitat loss and habitat destruction in the local ecosystem of the area. The few remaining plants and birds in our town and countryside are either dying or have vanished entirely, or whatever little is left exists in withered condition or dying. It breaks my heart to say that Alwal's breezy open spaces and landscapes have all vanished. Sparrows and crows are gone.

God, there is not a single sparrow in sight these days. Common crows have disappeared. Pigeons, who at once are coy-looking but quite aggressive, have taken over Alwal's landscape, leaving their excrement all over the buildings, parapets, patios, balconies, and railings! They have become a menace everywhere; you can hear them constantly cooing in a guttural manner on balcony parapets and in the nooks and crannies of buildings, eyeing everything that moves. The pigeon population has increased so much that it feels like we live in a jungle overrun by feral pigeons. Pigeons have taken over; they are in charge. Likewise, not to speak of the high-rise private, residential, and commercial buildings that have sprung up everywhere in every possible direction. The ever-growing human population and its materialistic consumerism have taken over everything, leaving no space for people to breathe in, move around freely, or play ball. Friends are parting, and friendships are dying because people have become excessively busy abusing Tabs, iPhones, and other high-tech digital devices to spend quality time together; personal relationships are also gradually deteriorating at a rate that is nothing but shocking to comprehend. People used to talk a lot more in the past generations, but not anymore in this hypersensitive era of techno kerfuffle—foolishly reckoning with the “mental inside” motto, moving over “intel inside.” As the 2000s went on, we became, I think, less argumentative as a society, becoming less aware of the benefits of having some time to spend in good conversations or engaging in meaningful debates. The question, however, did not change; it remained the same ever since the advent of free market capitalism in the early 1990s: Is this the kind of life we aspired to?

Ostentatious concrete houses, multi-storey apartments, and other towering constructions have unfairly occupied the lung spaces, permanently blocking the sunlight from coming. No one can salvage what little (or nothing) is left now. Human life, which is already miserable, is vanishing into infinite nothingness. Every vacant, unoccupied, available area, not to mention the open countryside, has been taken to turn them into elaborate plots for reckless housing developments. Tall stacks of towers that defy common sense and gravity, including all manner of ‘affordable housing' are built stratospherically upon them—a monotonous concrete ecosystem that constitutes Alwal town’s commercial and residential properties with the promise of high amenities! Not just a one- or two-floor plan for a private residence, but a minimum built-up area of three to four floors with a scandalous penthouse on top has become a compulsory need these days! What can anyone do to stem this rampant ‘development’ rot from spreading so widely in towns and the countryside? Nothing! The world will 'move on' with all its resident peccadilloes intact in people's minds. No one can stop anything from happening. Indeed, some stay sane, others become insane. Go nuts.

Children cannot play outside, and elderly senior citizens cannot go out for fear of being struck by a car or a speeding ass-hauling motorbike. (Sorry to use an expletive). Adults look around askance with contempt, unable to stop this humiliating ride of our human civilization, shameful inhumanity that hits them where it hurts every day, but helpless to change or do anything about it, they keep compromising their way of living or the way their life is going. The stress or tension of life is palpable everywhere, as it is throughout this rampantly being developed city; in Alwal, there is even a hint of viral phobia in the air when local goon-lords, who have been gymming up to flaunt their body heft, show up to hang out with their fellow brethren in the town square and create a mafia-like nuisance on Alwal's many roads leading to the inside colonies. 

Like everywhere else in this increasingly urbanized concrete jungle of a town that has gone from sleepy to frantically agitated, it's tough as hell out here. Only the ungrateful, bloody-minded, and ungraceful are allowed to live here; others must suffer the nightmare, one way or the other. The price you have to pay for being foolishly candid.

(To be continued…)

By Arindam Moulick

Everything Has Changed

Anecdotes from The Past - V

Today, life has changed not only because of the COVID-19 pandemic but also other inhuman challenges that go on unabated and unresolved, no matter how fair our intentions are. Consequently, this is a no-holds-barred description of the town it ultimately had become and in which I live and still love.

Living in Alwal, which was once a true paradise for me and my unforgettable childhood friend Rajveer (Raju), these days feels like being in a high-stress war zone. Raju moved out a long time ago, and fortunately, he didn't have to witness the drastic change in our childhood cantonment town where we grew up in the 1980s. Alwal had transformed beyond recognition.

Alwal is hardly the same as the once-spacious suburban town where we grew up; it has changed so much in the last few years. These days, it typically feels like we are subjecting ourselves to the daily wrangling of one Shakespearean tragedy after another. These are the same catastrophes that, in Raju's dorm, we used to read about in comic books years ago.

Traffic signals every few meters, bureaucratic obstacles, and detours abound on the main road that this town has only but one. Police checkpoints are frequent, which makes your drives even more challenging. To add to the infernal chaos, the variety of vehicles on the road, including new cars, SUVs, cabs, bike taxis, itinerant scooters, and motorbikes that move unpredictably, erratically, zigzagging, scampering, and manoeuvrings like helter-skelter making it terrifyingly gruelling for other drivers to navigate - all contribute to the PANDEMONIUM. Auto-rickshaws (like their infamous state government bus drivers), who are the de-facto abusers of the already cranky transport system and a continual source of aggravation for those who put up with their nonsensical hero-giri, add to the humungous transportation woes of the once quiet and peaceful town.

Furthermore, it is a common occurrence that overloaded trucks and tipper lorries are almost always driven recklessly by unkempt lunatics, traveling bullies, and vagrant harassers. The scruffy crackpots show off their inflated egos by dressing silly in oversized and goofy-looking sunglasses and flaunting their false sense of importance and heft to make people uncomfortable or to cause distress and agony (even when not provoked) to others, causing distress and endanger other drivers. Despite what you and I would like to believe, things are not improving in our world.

**

Mean-spirited and ever-ready to erupt into violent road rages at any moment have become the norm on any given day, not just in this once-beautiful, hallowed, far-off town but everywhere. In our constantly chaotic days and nights of this century, the ever-present problem is ubiquitously and universally tedious and has come, unfortunately, to represent all our troubled lives.

Our days are thrown into permanent disarray.

Alwal town looks starkly different than it did 20 to 30 years ago.

Our small commuter town was long ago known for lush greenery and some of the scenic expansive spaces one might ordinarily expect in a spacious suburb like the one behind the now demolished cinema theatre called S. Talkies, which does not exist anymore, as well as the Sub Area, which has preferred a more spruced-up look of late. The Army-controlled Sub Area had raised several gates around its extended domain to prevent civilian movement, trespassing, or undue interference with the Army's legitimate right to protected property and operational security. Our old Trishul Park campus is also an out-of-bounds Army-protected area, rightly designated as off-limits to unapproved public access.

S. Talkies was a decent single-screen "family" theatre. In addition to Hollywood blockbusters like First Blood and Rambo, we saw films such as Naseeb, Namak Halaal, Tarzan, Souten, Laawaris, Nagina, Mard, Andhaa Kaanoon, Ilzaam, Teri Meherbaniyan. However, it, too, fell prey to the voyeuristic patronization of all things 'Adult' and the sleaze-biz of lousy exotic foreign flicks, which we never saw, not even one.

In the late 1980s, the S. Talkies had degenerated into a venue that showed B-grade English and Hindi films. It ran for two more decades, screening all kinds of movies. Probably, in the early 2000s, the proprietor, who owned the old-fashioned theatre in partnership with others, preferred post haste to sell the entire land to a private real estate contractor who promptly demolished the old theatre and built in its place a jumbo-sized ugly-looking residential cum commercial complex that defied common sense but perhaps excellent business sense! Washing his hands off the property, the proprietor, a very decent man though, opened up a bakery shop soon after and got his young and only son to keep the new enterprise up and running. With its organized biscuits platter, onion samosas, dairy milk chocolates, spongy brown cakes, cream rolls, and pastries displays, it was the only bakery shop in the whole of Alwal town; back in the early 1990s, there was no other bakery shop barring this. The current owner and proprietor of the bakery is the original proprietor of the S. Theatre's son, who took over from the late owner: his father, who, sadly, passed away a few years ago.

**

Raju had already gone into the distant past in the summer of '88 after writing his ninth-grade final exams. As I write this today, I am grateful to God that he was not present to witness these weird and dreadful changes in our old home of Alwal or Trishul Park; he would not have approved of any of it. On the other hand, however, as staying here would have undoubtedly resulted in my having to stoically endure the continual pain of observing these drastic (unlikable) changes first-hand, I regretfully bore the brunt of all that came later, had to. I genuinely wanted to escape it all forever but was unable to. And as time passed, I continued passionately to long for the good times I had with him. Having a nostalgic bent, I forget nothing.

Alwal has changed forever.

(To be continued...)

By Arindam Moulick