Termites: All about Nothing and Meaninglessness

Termites: All about Nothing and Meaninglessness

 Samudra Kajal Saikia 

Now I realize that I really forgot the last object in my everyday life, that I cared. I touched with love, I cared or caressed. There was a time when I wept when a refill is over. In the process of writing I used to fall in love with the pen and the refill, and one day it gets over. One day she gave me a painted piece of stone, I could not figure out what did it mean. But it is still there at some corner of my unorganized house. I cannot throw it out. But I’m not keeping it properly also. I used to be very possessive on things. I used to cry in void if I missed a single sentence. A single piece of paper from my notebook.

But now when I lost 500 plus 500 data from my two hard discs, that were containing hundreds of my poems, I felt almost nothing. I felt nothing when I lost my laptop that contained all my works. I felt absolutely nothing when I lost her who knew everything of min, literally speaking my top to bottom. When she scratched out all the pictures and scribbles she herself once put on my wall, I felt actually nothing.  When I could not find my most favorite jacket that I bought from Nepal this winter, I felt nothing. When she put all her stuffs, 4/6 feet divan, ac, heater, bookshelf, study-table, coffee maker to my house and filled my every empty spaces, I felt nothing. And one day when she sold out or gave away all the things to somebody else I felt nothing.

I don’t know what I am saying and why I am saying. But it is clear that it is all about nothingness and meaningless. Rather also about meaninglessness.

I’ve seen how my mother used to make a house, to make the walls. She was digging the earth 5-7 feet to find the best soil and used to mix cow dung to it. Then she smeared the composition upon a screen made up of bamboo sticks. I could feel the textures as I could smell the smell of mud and cow dung. The feeling of texture on wall taught me my geography. The smell? Now it became unbearably painful. Till now I cannot stay inside a concrete house when it rains outside. I just run out to have the smell of the drenched soil.

I used to water the field where my father used to put his seeds. I liked smelling the watered soil on his farming land. But unfortunately I couldn't learn  to put seeds on soil, or taking care of it across its life span. The problem remained. I cannot nurture a poetry till its proper growth. I could not nurture any relationship, any involvement. Sometimes I put a word on your eyelid but forget to water it. Sometimes I water at some wronged place where no possibility is there for sprouts.   

For last two days I’m not opening my balcony. I fear the chilly plant that Manmeet gave me on the new year eve might be dead by now. But somehow I’m fine with that. If the plant is dead, a dead plat mean nothing to me.

Unfortunately, when I remember my mother and father, I also remember i got very least chance to smear the mud. Rather I spent most of my life blue and black inks. Inks does not smell good. Still I smeared inks across my childhood. Let the ink smell bad, but the words I form should smell good. I try to form bodies out of ink. But I know human bodies are made up of mud. I remember some story where Parvati makes out a figure out of Mud and puts life into it....

I guess I have the disorder called pica, the disease that most children and old people usually have: the tendency of eating soil...

I loved soil. But soil also mean shit. In love of soil, I produce shit.

As i wanted to be a body of soil and water, I turned a body of paper and ink.

There was two Satiyana trees at my backyard jungle. I guessed there only, a nightingale used to sing the entire night. I used to listen her at my teenage nights and I was disrupted by the cracking sounds of the mouse and rats. I was willing to listen to the distant drums, and I was listening to the rats running over the wooden roof. One day I discovered half my library is vanished by the mercy of the rats. Some of my precious books, that u collected stealing from many important public libraries, and I borrowed from people with a promise of returning soon but never intended to return.

I came to Santiniketan. Again I built up a library around me with millions of written letters. One morning I had some hallucinations. I woke up. Opened my eyes. Wanted to take a yawn or a turn around. But could not. I was so weak. I wanted to lift my left hand, but my left hand became soil. Uie Poke (a creature that makes everything into soil), also known as Termites or white ants, made my left hand soil. I wanted to remove the soil with right hand. I could not, since my right hand also turned to soil. Then I gradually got my conscience that my legs too became soil. My lower parts became soil. My upper body became soil. The head remain. Suddenly some Cartesian bump made me realize that I was just dreaming. But by co-incidence I discovered that, most of my important books and paintings and other stuffs were actually turned to soil by the mercy of Uie Pok, termites, white ants. Santiniketan had a damp weather, uie pok/ termite is very familiar there. And uie pok/ termite/ white ants can destroy anything, just anything, and can turn anything to soil.

I think that was the day I realized,   how things are disposable...  

Now I really do not recall the day I kissed you first. Can remember the very first sinister evening I touched you under the Shala tree (Shorea robusta). But feel nothing remembering it. Memories make no sense to me, as no object mean anything to me. But without memories, I’m also not there. Not there, I’m simply not there. It’s all the matter of nothing. Please pardon me for nothing.