Ma...

She was looking at us. Smiling. From the wall. Her black and white portrait, framed, was finally hung. Only a few months back, she lay amidst a huge pile of flowers. Smoke swirling upwards like hundred snakes looking for an escape route, had filled the room. Vermillion smeared on forehead, my mother slept the sleep, which knew no breaking. And then, after a few moment, her body was pushed into the fire raging inside the metal frame. Within minutes, Ma turned into a bowl of ashes.

Only a few years back, I clung to her fingers, walking beside her. Only a few years back, she was making those balls of rice mixed with daal and running after me. "Eita ekta matha, ei tor mukher modhyo porlo (This is a head, which is now going to fall inside your mouth)," she put that ball of rice into my mouth. A few years back, she refused to play, when I cheated in that game of ludo, only a few years back she was screaming at me, when I failed my maths exams. It was a few years back, when I learnt to walk, holding her fingers and as I walked on and on...she slowly learnt to walk without my support...

Everything was still there in the room. Her comb, that tiny little box of vermillion, her glasses and that ludo. Everything was still there. Her songs, her writings, her grief, her pain, her tears were scattered all over the room. I often tugged at her saree, to wipe my tears. She learnt to use her wrinkled hands to dry her eyes. I screamed and cried for my toys, she waited silently for me to send money home...

"Rintu eshe gechhe (Rintu has come)," she would announce, waiting in the verandah, whenever I came home from Delhi. That day there was no announcement. My father was sitting beside her. "Ma chole gecche (ma has gone)," he announced.

September 2008, I don't remember the date. It does not matter anymore. Three of them, (my father, my brother and ma) staggered out of my house in Delhi. Three trembling skelentons. A few drops of tears fell on the floor. Later the maid wiped them off the marbles. One by one, they left. The hissing metal serpent carried them away to nowhere. She was trying to smile and scolded my father for "crying like a child". "Abar to ashbo, kandcho keno (we'll come again, why are you crying ?)," she was trying to tell my father, as the train signal turned green. I stood and watched. Later my father had called from Kolkata. Told me, Delhi suited her health and if I could make some arrangments for her to stay there permanently...

Whenever they fought, ma would tell baba, "bujhle rambabu tomar aage ami chole jabo (rambabu I will leave before you)." Ma kept her word.

I remember, when I went to see "Aakhri Khat" with Ma at Menoka Cinema (A Movie hall). The film was about a child, who had lost his mother and kept looking for her. I had started crying loudly. I wanted to get out of the hall. I couldn't bear to sit through the film. Ma took me on her lap and kept telling, "ei to ashbe, ma ekhuni chole ashbe.(She will come, his ma will come just now)"...

This is one of Ma's favourite number, she would keep humming..Till she could...http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=873Jy1MZZag..