Stay tuned to our new posts and updates! Click to join us on WhatsApp 
& Telegram 
Channel
& Telegram Channel 
The L&C-Silhouette Basket
A hand-picked basket of cherries from the world of most talked about books and popular posts on creative literature, reviews and interviews, movies and music, critiques and retrospectives ...
to enjoy, ponder, wonder & relish!
to enjoy, ponder, wonder & relish!
There are thousands of obsessions. Santosh Bakaya discovers two – one of Kanchan’s and one of her own as the amused Bulbuls chirp and sing in merriment.
Enjoy Morning Meanderings with a hot cup of tea or coffee and some cookies to munch on the food for thought. 😊 ☕️
The bulbuls were at it again.
Again, and yet again.
I don’t remember anyone ever upending a glass of water on my face, or jerking me out of my somnolence, by raucous yells or vigorous shakings, trying to make me get up.
But yes, many a time, I have clamped a heavy hand on that stodgy and ugly looking table clock which would burst into a rude sound to wake me up during school days, or later the cell phone which would beep away, admonishing me for my slothful ways, sometimes.
Once there was a bachelor, a temporary resident, in the next house, whose snores had the potential of disturbing not only the cobwebs hanging from the ceiling of his house, the crockery in his kitchen, making the fat cockroaches under the kitchen sink, scuttle for cover, but rattling the doors of our house too, with the result, I would judder out of my slumber, mumbling under my breath.
Well, these days, it is the mellifluous trilling of the bulbuls that wakes me up, and let me tell you, there is a profusion of them in my neighborhood, sometimes at their bellicose worst and sometimes at their mellifluous best.
Dharmendra’s forlorn looking sigri
As I stepped out of the house, I was greeted by a horde of bulbuls, and as I walked on, I was enchanted by a red-whiskered bulbul hopping in and out of Dharmendra’s forlorn looking sigri, a fluffy, feathery ball of spunk, lending it some colour and sound. Again Vincent Van Gogh appeared before me, with brush and paints, eyes fixed on the sigri, with keen interest in his eyes. What would he call the painting? The deserted hearth and the bulbul? I wondered.
Suddenly, there was the sound of the trilling of another bulbul, as the Red-whiskered bulbul flew away. It was Kanchan, the most talkative of the bulbuls of the vicinity.
“Namastey madam, can I walk with you a little bit?” she chirped, falling in step with me. Her eyes fell on a pregnant woman coming from the opposite direction, and she smiled at her, the woman smiled back, a trifle self-consciously.
“You know, madam, I was just an eighteen year old and pregnant with my first child, and would have these cravings, you know, to have ice-cream, golgapa and what not. Once I wanted to have moongfali and knew there was a packet in my mother-in-law’s room, so I merrily opened her cabinet and had a handful of moongfali. The next day, I found it locked.”
“Oh!”
“Yes, she is that mean. Do you think I would ever criticise my saas (mother-in–law) if she really were not so bad? You don’t think that I am lying?”
Morning Meanderings by Dr Santosh Bakaya
The red-whiskered bulbul had come back and was looking at her quizzically, as she talked away breathlessly, with scant regard for punctuation.
“No, no, I don’t think so,” I said, with great emphasis. Then, in no time, she started playing songs on her cell phone.
“Yeh Akshay Kumar ki saas hai,” she said, excitedly pointing towards Reena Roy in a glittering costume, philosophically singing, Sheesha ho ya dil ho, aakhir toot jaata hai, with a stylish wave of her hand.
“Tumko saas ka obsession hai.”(You are obsessed with mothers-in-law.)
“Obse…?” She lifted a perplexed eyebrow towards me.
“Obsession.”
“Oh! Matlab?” (Meaning?)
“Oh…junoon …”
“Junoon? Matlab?”
“Kissi bhi baat main zyaada interest hona, (to be excessively interested in something). And she is Reena Roy, not Dimple Kapadia, who is his saas…”
“Oh, woh jhoot boley kawa kaatey vaali?” she trilled.
“Yes.”
“Waisey aapko bhi filmon ka bahut obsession hai,” (Actually, you are also obsessed with films) she flung a naughty retort in my direction and raced towards the neighbour’s house, while I gaped behind her, furtively looking here and there to find out whether anyone had witnessed this scene .
There was no one, except a bulbul.
This time a black bulbul.
(Illustration: Bulbul pictures courtesy Pixabay, Sigri courtesy Santosh Bakaya)
Watch this space for more Morning Meanderings every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday.😊
Click to read all Morning Meanderings here.
Dr Santosh Bakaya is the author of three mystery novels for young adults, and a book of essays titled Flights From My Terrace, which was recently published as an e-book on Smashwords. Her poetic biography of Mahatma Gandhi, Ballad Of Bapu has been published by Vitasta Publishers, Delhi, India in May 2015 and has been receiving rave reviews from everywhere. Although a Political theorist, with a doctorate in political theory, it is literature which has been her first love. She was awarded the Reuel international award for language and literature 2014 for her long poem Oh Hark!, which forms part of the Significant Anthology. Many of her poems have figured in the highly commended category in Destiny Poets, a UK based website and many are part of international anthologies. Right now, she is giving the final touches to her satirical novel, tentatively titled Sanakpur Shenanigans.
All Posts of Santosh Bakaya
All Posts of Santosh Bakaya
Hope you enjoyed reading...
... we have a small favour to ask. More people are reading and supporting our creative, informative and analytical posts than ever before. And yes, we are firmly set on the path we chose when we started... our twin magazines Learning and Creativity and Silhouette Magazine (LnC-Silhouette) will be accessible to all, across the world.
We are editorially independent, not funded, supported or influenced by investors or agencies. We try to keep our content easily readable in an undisturbed interface, not swamped by advertisements and pop-ups. Our mission is to provide a platform you can call your own creative outlet and everyone from renowned authors and critics to budding bloggers, artists, teen writers and kids love to build their own space here and share with the world.
When readers like you contribute, big or small, it goes directly into funding our initiative. Your support helps us to keep striving towards making our content better. And yes, we need to build on this year after year. Support LnC-Silhouette with a little amount - and it only takes a minute. Thank you
Got a poem, story, musing or painting you would like to share with the world? Send your creative writings and expressions to editor@learningandcreativity.com
Learning and Creativity publishes articles, stories, poems, reviews, and other literary works, artworks, photographs and other publishable material contributed by writers, artists and photographers as a friendly gesture. The opinions shared by the writers, artists and photographers are their personal opinion and does not reflect the opinion of Learning and Creativity- emagazine. Images used in the posts (not including those from Learning and Creativity's own photo archives) have been procured from the contributors themselves, public forums, social networking sites, publicity releases, free photo sites such as Pixabay, Pexels, Morguefile, etc and Wikimedia Creative Commons. Please inform us if any of the images used here are copyrighted, we will pull those images down.
One thought on “Junoon (The Obsession)”
Leave a Reply
Today’s Motivation
Positive parenting tips from Ramendra Kumar, the author of Effective Parenting Book which suggests a fresh avatar for the new age parent, with stories and lively, useful parenting advice.
That was a interesting reading Santosh ma’am. Your compositions are so lively n real life that one can visualize the episode.