Letter From Boston
Sunshine on my shoulders makes me happy
The last few days it has been overcast and cloudy in Boston, with the sun playing a game of "hide and seek" with massive patches of clouds, trying to break out of the cover of clouds, but losing the battle more often than not. Cloudy days are not my favorite ones, and during fall and winter, when days are short and nights are long, I am not eager to jump out of bed and start my daily routine if it's cloudy and dark outside. On any given morning, before I get out of bed, I make sure that the sun has made its appearance on the eastern horizon. Why? Because if the sun is not up yet, I feel very little urge to get up myself. During the winter months, when it is dark by 5 PM, and the night sometimes lasts almost 14 hours, I feel the sun gets more rest than we do. I hardly ever get more than seven hours of sleep, whereas the sun has at least twelvetherefore, I don't see why the sun can't be up in the morning before I do. Also, I need the sun to get me started. Nothing wakes me up and energizes me as much as the sight of the rising sun in the morning. I love the sun, its daily routine, the untiring regularity with which it travels from the east to the west, the light it gives us, and the millions of other images it creates everyday on its journey24x7x365 in today's parlance. When the sun shines brightly, every hour the space around me takes on a different and new look. In the morning, when the sun emerges from its long sleep and its rays break through the tall trees that border the eastern side of my house, it warms up my heart and gives me hope that the day is going to be good. When the rays fall on my eyes, or the light reaches the foot of the bed and tickles my feet, I am sometimes reminded of an old Manna Dey song "Ek jhak pakhider moto kichu rodder, badha bhengey janalar saat she shomuddur" (Like a flock of birds they came, the glow of the sun from across the seven seas). Then, around mid-morning, as the sun gathers more energy and rises above the tree line, painting my little yard with green and other colors and waking up the grass and plants, I follow the shadows cast by the trees and try to tell the time of the day by the length and angles of the shadows. The sun at mid-day, when it is at its full-strength and showering us with the most light and warmth, is not my favorite, though. I like it more when the sun is a little coy, playing a game of tag with the trees, the lamp posts, the moving cars and rickshaws, or the rooflines. As the sun moves in its orbit past the meridian, and gently makes it way down the western horizon, my mood also changes, becoming mellower and more reflective, since I know the light is not going to last long and give way to sunset, and, darkness will take over. But the last few hours when the sun is receding are also often my sweetest. One reason, the fading sun and the golden color it splashes all around often brings up some of my best memories. Many of them involve my grandmother, my Nanoo. When I was younger, and staying with her, we'd have our evening tea together on a regular basis. From the dining room, where we had our afternoon tea, I could see the sunlit backyard. Little did I anticipate then the treasure that the illuminated backyard holds in its midst. I might be hiding under the blanket taking an afternoon nap, or deeply immersed in some mystery novel by Nihar Ranjan, in the guest room of the house, when my Nanoo would softly walk towards my bed calling my name. I might have been content to be left alone but could not resist the invitation to join her for tea with 'jhal muri' and 'ruti panir', snacks prepared by Chan Mia, my uncle's trusted cook. The sun would still be shining, but the shadows from the surrounding buildings would paint the yard with dark patches of rectangular and other shapes. The sight of sun, its golden light on the grass, the little guava tree in one corner, the shed in another corner, the small flower and kitchen garden, and the boundary walls would always lift my spirits. I felt glad that I came to join Nanoo for tea, even if hesitantly. My reservations would soon melt away as I warmed up to the world awash in gold, staring at the still life panorama painted in the yard. Tagore captured that mood aptly when he said, "Emni korey jaey jodi din jaak na.." It didn't hurt that Nanoo was a gifted story teller and an endless source of literary jewels. She would tell me stories about Shanti Niketan heard from her brother, Syed Mujtaba Ali, the eminent writer, and recite long poems from Tagore which she had memorized by heart. Her favorite was Kacha o Devjani, but she also inspired me to explore Tagore and his music, a passion I still have as one of my life's greatest gifts. Well, how I digress! Let me come back to the theme I started with, the sun. One of the tunes I have hummed along since my youth is John Denver's "Sunshine on My Shoulders Makes Me Happy". Denver sings, "Sunshine on my shoulders makes me happy| Sunshine in my eyes can make me cry| Sunshine on the water looks so lovely| Sunshine almost always makes me high". Yes, sunshine does always make me high. And, it does so even if it is the setting sun! The western sun is actually a witness to some the most memorable moments in my life, and inspire the most romantic feelings in me. I am not a poet, but I feel like one when the sun unleashes its store of red, orange, pink, magenta, and others on the western sky. Only yesterday, I snuck out of my office in downtown Boston to get a glimpse of the montage that the sun painted on the western sky. When we were in high school my friends and I would sit on the banks of Dhanmandi Lake for hours watching the sun go down, and paint the water in orange and then flood it with deep shades of red. While sunset often marked "curfew time" in my house, soon we learned how to stretch that out a little longer. Our addas never ended even when the sun disappeared, and we kept jabbering in the dark until we could not see each other's face any longer! Oh, I curse, why couldn't the sun just stay a little longer?
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