GUITAR, GRASS & GIRLS - A MUSICAL THRILLER NOVEL

Mark Loffler looked at his watch and it was almost 1 pm. 

He had to start immediately else he would be missing the meeting. Mark quickly went to the last page of the diary. The decaying page looked yellowish-brown with a small hole burnt in it. It could be from an absent minded blazing cigarette tip, he pondered.  He brought the diary close to his eyes as the crumbling letters were tough to read. Gradually, the words entered his mind and soul sending a frosty mystic chill down his spine.

                                               ‘How long had I waited for this day. The flashing lights on the stage, the maddening noise of the crowd! Jerose on drums, Akhil on keypad, Gora on electric Guitar...and I, with my last song! Wish Jeniffer was here to see me for the last time. I know my fate and I am the reason for it. But never in my whole life had I thought it will happen! It’s so strange that two souls alive and breathing at totally different geographies can think, act and do alike....and I, I had to stop it! As the soft breeze coming from my broken old window tries to pacify my fervent soul at this hour of night, I remember Gurudev’s song of parting

Death, thy servant, is at my door. He

has crossed the unknown sea and brought

thy call to my home.

  The night is dark and my heart is

Fearful-yet I will take up the lamp, open

my gates and bow to him my welcome

Goodbye- Rabindranath ‘Jim’ Bose ’

He stopped at the slanted autograph of Mokhsa’s lead singer for a moment. A strange pain crept inside his although puzzled heart. He knew that the journey to know the unknown has begun. Suddenly, Mark looked at the date. 

It was written on 3^rd July, 1971 –the same day Jim Morrison died!

SYNOPSIS :

Paris. July 2, 1971, early evening. 

Jim Morrison and his girlfriend Pamela Courson went to the cinema to see Pursued, a western starring Robert Mitchum. At another theater, Jim Morrison sat alone, watching a documentary called Death Valley. Across town, at the Rock ’n’ Roll Circus nightclub, Jim Morrison scored some heroin and OD’d in the bathroom. At the same time, Jim Morrison walked the streets of Paris and shot up with some junkies on skid row. Meanwhile, at Orly Airport, Jim Morrison boarded a plane for an unknown destination.

No one knows for sure where…The very next day, Morrison’s lifeless body was found…was it accident, drug overdose..or was it Occult?       

        

                                    Mark Loffler, a German student studying literature at the University of Tübingen is highly influenced by Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore and his works. He takes up his post doctorate research on Tagore’s music .Luckily, he gets a sponsored fellowship Program from Rabindra Bharati University ,Kolkata  after submitting one of his research papers .Mark comes to Kolkata and takes up a room in a small hotel in Park Street.

                               As he starts investigating about Bengali music and Tagore’s influence in it, he comes to know about Mokhsa, the first English rock band set up in Kolkata in the 70’s but it died an unnatural death, having done only 1 major show. 

The founder of this band was called Jimmy by his band members; his actually name was Rabindranath Bose, a converted Christian. 

Kolkata is slowly gripped with the Naxal movement and the socio-economic conditions get very affected.Some of Moksha’s members gets highly influenced by naxalite philosophies and it also influences Jimmy’s songs.

Jimmy died a very suspicious death on the very stage while performing for the first and last time.

It was on 3^rd July, 1971 –the same day Jim Morrison died!

MY NAME IS UNKNOWN

MY NAME IS UNKNOWN

-        Saptarshi Basu

My name is unknown,

My City lives within me.

My colour changes with time,

At times it’s red, at times it’s green.

My name is unknown,

My City lives within me.

The Sunday’s last Metro is melancholic,

Like going away from someone,

The drone, the humming, the automatic voice

Unclear in the noise,

Like mother calling at a distance,

Like lover saying goodbye.

My name is unknown,

My city lives within me.

I smell of fish in the morning,

I smell of sweat at night.

My name is unknown,

My City lives within me.

My hands get raised to forehead,

Distractedly sitting in a bus,

To an unknown God.

The man sleeping on my shoulder,

Reminds me of my grandfather,

Or a long lost friend.

My name is unknown,

My city lives within me.

I am not someone,

I am unknown,

Like other unknowns in my city,

We smile at each other,

We had hardly known.

I hear Tagore’s songs,

Mixed with dust and mist.

My name is unknown,

My City lives within me.

About the Poet:

His second Novel , AUTUMN IN MY HEART published by Vitasta Publishing with Times group (Times of India) launched in november'11 has already created a lot of stir due on causes of broken heart and homosexuality.

 Saptarshi Basu does motivational speaking and was invited from Jaipur Engineering College and Research Centre (JECRC) to address their Annual National Tech-Fest Renaissance -March, 2012.He was also invited as a guest poet to international Poetry festival at Guntur, India.

 He had subsequently travelled and lived in London, Toronto, San Francisco, Dubai till he came back to Kolkata, his hometown.

Saptarshi Basu also does screenplay writing for movies and writes columns for some online magazines like Asiacha- an international journal, museindia and others .

His children’s fiction ‘ The Zoo-break Adventures’ has been taken up by a renowned international animation company to be made into an animated series.

FEATURED in Creative Non-fiction section of CHA : An Asian Literary Journal

On Rabindranath Tagore-The Man Inside My Head: Of Love, Longing, Loathing and Hating the Bearded Man in the Month of May

by Saptarshi Basu - FEATURED in Creative Non-fiction section of CHA : An Asian Literary Journal

READ THE ARTICLE HERE :
http://www.asiancha.com/content/view/1327/386/

THE SENSE OF AN ENDING & OTHER LOVE SONGS

SELECTED POEMS OF SAPTARSHI BASU :



AMAZON KINDLE LINK : http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0099QGZPK

GLIMPSES FROM THE COLLECTION 

DEAD MAN TALKING

Haven’t you ever heard the dead man talking inside your head?

I do, at times...

THE SENSE OF AN ENDING

Evening shadows, polluted hearts
Drenching together in that ugly rain, wilderness
Floating clouds, meandering paths
Once I was there, with you.

Rains....

I could speak to her on a day like this,
on a day when it rains as heavily.
You can open your heart on a day like this -

Pebbles of Memory

The songs of the river,

made me think of you, sitting by its side

when moonlight caught in dewdrops

struggled to break free in that crystal dream.

I WONDER....

I wonder...

if I had written a poem for you...

The poem will give structure to the

Words to immortalize

AND OTHER POEMS.............

AMAZON KINDLE LINK : http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0099QGZPK

GUITAR,GRASS,GIRLS - FIRST PAGE OF THE NOVEL

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About the author:

Saptarshi Basu, a Gold Medalist in Mechanical Engineering, has been in IT industry for last 8 years and has worked for the top 3 IT companies of India (INFOSYS,TCS & WIPRO). However, writing has always been first love, his passion. His Debut novel- LOVE {LOGIC} AND THE GOD'S ALGORITHM is now a national best-seller in Infibeam, a premier online store.

His second Novel , AUTUMN IN MY HEART published by Vitasta Publishing with Times group launched in november'11 has already created a lot of stir due on causes of broken heart and homosexuality.

Blogging and travelling are the biggest pursuit of him. He maintains a blog called http://saptak-firsttry.blogspot.in/ which had huge following with visits from all over the world. He had subsequently travelled and lived in London, Toronto, San Francisco, Dubai till he came back to Kolkata, his hometown.

                Saptarshi Basu also does screenplay writing for movies and columns for some online magazines

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GUITAR, GRASS, GIRLS

-          

                     It was about that goddamn letter!  It silently smiled towards him as if it was happy to be discovered at last. For these last six months, Mark Loffler had undyingly devoted his heart and soul to unearth the mystery. And now, frightened and trembling he knew he was very close to it.

It was tough to gather the courage to open the letter. At last Mark did it. Even in the darkness of the eerie night, he felt that it was a bit dilapidated although still unopened. No doubt it was aged and stored in the metallic chest for a long, long time. Drawing a cross over his heart, his hand trembled as he tore open the bluish mail from the US post. A bucolic stench blotched his nose. The letter dated 20^th August, 1971 was addressed to Rabindranath and send from a person called Jennifer Houston. Mark’s heartbeat skipped a second .The gushing wind tried to carry the long hidden secret from his hand. Holding it securely, Mark looked deep into the letter. God knows why no one had bothered to open it earlier .More since it was addressed to Rabindranath, one of the most creative musician of his times.

                                                                          Mark Loffler had no doubt about his creativity as this was the person who had given a new direction to his post doctorate research on Tagore’s music for which he had travelled miles from his hometown in Berlin. Reasons of all kind clamped his mind. It might be due to fear, Mark thought. Rabindranath was a psychedelic person having mysterious connection to the world of witchcraft .The room was dark but the periodic lightning enabled him to read it slowly. The secret was about to be unearthed and he felt he might be cursed along with it. But then, his curiosity has reached to his climax to uncover the truth. Slowly he started mumbling the slanted lexis written by an unknown American lady to an extraordinary Bengali intellectual.

‘My Dearest, I had not received any letter from you for long. I am really worried about your health. How was your concert, still waiting to hear about it? As for me, I too am having an incredibly miserable time. With profound grief, I have to tell you that, our beloved Jim, who had always reminded me of you, is no more….’

                                          Somewhere nearby a loud lightning struck the Banyan tree. Mark rubbed the droplets of sweat from his forehead. Slowly the secrecy was getting unraveled. He could clearly understand that he was pretty close to solving one of the greatest mysteries which clouded the world of music for centuries. And now, standing on the creepy rumbled house in Bonbihari Dutta Street overlooking the holy Ganges, Mark felt his heartbeat had gone wild.

                                                And then, he wickedly smiled. ‘So…’ he said to himself reading the same lines once more, ‘The greatest Jim Morrison is no more’.

N.B : -   The above work is completely fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living, dead or yet to be born is purely coincidental.

THE BEARDED MAN IN MY HEAD

That day, as I watched those raindrops sliding on our window, I remembered him again. ‘Pagla Hawa, Badol Dine…’ echoed inside my heart. Looking  through the window, I imagined my nephew’s paper- boat trembling and stirring in the monsoon. Somewhere deep inside, in the heart of my heart, an unsung pain kept craving for something. The moth-eaten meaninglessness tore me apart as suddenly the outside became discoloured with irrelevant marks, smudges and gaps. The man as I told you, was always there . Inside my now, grown up head.





READ MORE @  http://unboxedwriters.com/2012/06/the-bearded-man-in-my-head/

TAGORE IN MY THOUGHTS

Of Love, Longing and loathing

 – Hating the Bearded man in the month of May

                   I remember I wrote my first poem at the age of seven. It was ‘ Ek je chilo Bador, Se kheto sudhu Gajor (Once there was a monkey, who ate only carrots)’. My parents had a hearty laugh on it. My father, then had told me that Gurudev’s first poem was ‘Jol Pore, Pata Nore (It rains, the leaves tremble)’. Perhaps, the most powerful line I had heard till then. Time passed and I left my futile chase after poetry and concentrated more on the F-letter word, don’t take it otherwise, its football. Perhaps every Bengali has a sleeping Maradona or Pele inside him. But Gurudev remained with me. Inside my little head. He was everywhere. In the faded morning hours, the tiring afternoons and the restless evenings. He was everywhere. As in my love, longing and loathing. I remember my lazy mornings were mostly occupied by the resonating voice of Debabrata biswas. Our old gramophone would be playing, my father sitting beside, his eyes closed. I must admit, that I couldn’t decipher the meaning of all those songs at that age, but the tune struck a chord. It hummed inside my soul, vibrating on its hollowness.

                                                                          As days passed by, and I ripened, the man inside my head took a more firm grip. I listened to his unsaid words. His poems helped me sail through my sufferings. But all these remained a secret affair. Since I was neither educated at Shantiniketan, nor at Visva- Bharati .I always kept a low profile, when it came about Gurudev. I must admit my failure in keeping a long beard, an unkept hair, roaming in Nandan, attending theatres at the academy or applying for a course in Art College. I open-heartedly admit my ineligibility for the above creative and fertile grounds. My friends with their prized collection of girlfriends from Shantiniketan also openly warned me. I was cautioned not to try experimenting with Gurudev’s works as it was a highly sensitive issue.

               Some more days passed .I was struggling with my mind into the barrel field of mechanical engineering. Our world famous ‘Bangla’ at time soothened my soul. I was amazed to know that geniuses of the stature of Ritwik Ghatak, Sakti chattopadhyay and even our very own Sunil Ganguly maintained such ‘high’ habits. I was extremely proud that at least my ‘Bangla’ love somewhat matched with them. It really gives you a wonderful feeling, you know that your habits matched with legends.It swept me of my feet and I devoted my entire evenings and nights to the attention of precious ‘Bangla’. On one such lovely crimson evening, while I was happily gulping my beloved liquor at Anup Da’s Thek( or Adda you can say) I met Gurudev again. I was sitting on the mud floor with a farmer, a Rickshaw-puller and a local matador driver. The topics were taking interesting turn. I, being the most educated of the lot, was made to judge who was the richest among them. It was tough choice you see. And being inhibited already by few glasses, I was having a tough time to decide. It was all going on smoothly, till the farmer suddenly started crying. He gulped two quick pegs and stated that he had a son near about my age who was no more. Painfully, it all turned sombre. The old man kept on crying with the pain that he couldn’t save his son. And then the man inside my head appeared again. I ,with the ‘Bangla’ reserve inside my belly, was amazed to hear the old man singing with his harsh voice. ‘Je raate mor duwar guli bhanglo jhore......’. And then the pain melted in those cheap glass containers. I closed my eyes and felt united with the old man’s song.

                               A few more years passed. I was in London working for an Insurance company .It was perhaps raining that day. You know, the Queen’s land is always cloudy and raining. That day, as I watched those raindrops sliding on our window, I remembered him again. ‘Pagla Hawa, Badol Dine...’ echoed inside my heart. Looking down through the window, I imagined my nephew’s paper- boat trembling and stirring in the monsoon.Somwhere deep inside, in the hearts of my heart, an unsung pain kept craving. The moth-eaten meaninglessness torn me apart as suddenly the outside became discoloured with irrelevant marks, smudges and gaps. The man as I told you, was always there .Inside my now-grown head.

                    Such was the pain that I tried to pour it down on a crumbled piece of paper. As the words started flowing, I felt relieved. And relaxing. I thanked him and continued. But then all went futile. Few days later, as I was flipping through the pages of Macmillan pocket Tagore edition of Gitanjali, I saw the same sense. The same feelings. Thousand times better than mine. It made me loath. I kept on writing a few more lines and then I surrendered. For I could find nothing new in my words. All had been previously said by that bearded man, in much better and splendid way. I hated him for it. For having known all my feeling. I hated him more. For turning me into a puzzled half-creative human being and then mocking me again and again. It was perhaps in the month of May. When Hyde Park still waited to be lush green.

                           Autumn was there. While I was still fighting. The decision to come back to Kolkata permanently was unsettling me. Then on one such gloomy night when the great Bay area happened to look not so great, I heard that man inside my heard again. I was then looking at the Golden Bridge and comparing it to our Howrah Bridge. My friends who were still in United States of America, termed my decision as ‘ Utter Foolishness’ .Those who were in Queen’s land said ‘ Preposterous’ .And those who never had set foot abroad asked ‘ So you want to do something here?’ . I asked the true meaning and they said ‘like opening up an NGO, helping people ...bla...bla....and bla....’. They were surprised since I said ‘No...I am back for myself...for my love, for my city’. And again I heard the term ‘utter foolish’ in hush whispers.

                            I must admit, I struggled initially. It was hard. My bank balance decreased exponentially. I pondered if my friends in both US and UK were right. I pondered more .And then, flushing out all such thoughts in the KMC drain, I switched on the old gramophone. Still it’s alive. It still brings back those old memories. I smiled. I was relieved. And the man inside my head was again back. I walked along my favourite road in Kolkata .Beside the race course. I hummed Gurudev. The crimson evening was slowly getting dark. I looked up and saw birds returning home. I closed my eyes and said to the man inside my head, ‘ I simply love you for it’ .

                        So still I am fighting here. In my beloved city. The City of Joy. Kolkata. Morning sweats, abnormal humidity, endless traffic, increasing pollution, ‘Manchi na...Manbo na’ marches. I am loving it. For even the polluted air is still pregnant with the magical words of that bearded man. It will be, forever. Amen!