July 25, 2021: A day without transport

July 25, 2021: A day without transport. I did not have a car today. It was Devdas to the rescue. Even though it was a day of inactivity, the notion of not having a ready transport was disconcerting. Yet, I really had no reason to go out, to go any place that a camera and a computer could not take me; even then I felt the need for the absent transport. The leftovers of the yester months. The night lockdown has placed a strong sense of anxiety on the city. You can never be sure if the police will stop you or not. It is a benign form of Russian roulette. But it has changed the way of life. My cousin and my nephew stopped by in the evening. As we sat and reminisced, right around 8:45 in the evening, a restlessness begins. Is it time to leave, or is it worth the risk? Should we complete the story about the ancestors. Of the people who came before, whose stories will be lost unless the oral history is scribed. I did not know that my father was once a fugitive from the British police, having once been a part of the Independence movement of 1942. He was young, and he was the President of the student council in his college. He was a good speaker, and he once delivered a fiery speech for independence. A few days later the library of the college was burnt down. Violent protest. Although he was not involved, he and his brother became the object of suspicion and had to flee from the city where the incident occurred. Other circumstances made it “clear” to the British police that he was a revolutionary who needed to be arrested and they issued a warrant against him and launched a legal process against him, although they could not find him. A few years passed, and India was free of the British yolk, but the case continued in the court system of independent India to the extent that his visit to do research at MIT in Boston was almost cancelled because it was getting difficult for him to obtain a passport from Independent India. Eventually, the intervention of an uncle of mine, who later rose to be the Inspector General of Police in my city, cleared up the matter. Pre- and post-pandemic. The pandemic of colonial exploitation. Times change, circumstances change, but the vestiges for the old days hang on until someone intervenes. Someone who sees the sheer stupidity of the old days, comes in and says we shall do it in a different way. A new beginning for my father. As two post-scripts to the story: My father went on to spend time in MIT, and the uncle of mine, as a young detective of the Indian police, was given the assignment of surveilling a young European woman who was seen in the city, visiting the oppressed areas of the city and working with the destitute and the ill; he reported that the woman was harmless and could be left alone. In perhaps a small way, that report led to a Nobel prize in 1979. Such is life, independence offers opportunities only if we are willing to realize that we are independent of the past ways. Only if we recognize it as independence and not mistake it to be a call to return to the old ways. In my holes there is that independence. As the room darkened and on this Sunday evening, I went to LA with Robert De Niro and Eddie Murphy (don’t remember the name of the movies) just as I have often been to the heritage homes of North Calcutta with Raima Sen (Hello on Hoichoi) from another hole. There is a pleasure in this, at least for me, where not having transportation for a day eventually becomes a small annoyance, because I can go anywhere the digits would take me. The end of the day conversations over WhatsApp reminded me of Daniel Boone’s “Oh my my my its a beautiful day.” And so will it be tomorrow if we allow it to be.

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