30 TEENAGE STORIES

Tara's Diary Debashish Majumdar

Only yesterday, I stumbled upon the teens. My birthday celebrations did not touch me once again. The date, the time, the year did not matter anymore.

 I have no friends. I stand alone upon empty shores, filling in vacant moments with a painter's brush. I am a painter.

 I am a painter of feelings. I am a sad painter. I am Tara Sen. My brother, Tapash, is sixteenplus. He is a Science bug. He lives, breathes, even sleeps computers. Dad feels he is a whiz-kid. Mum is proud of his achievements. I somehow think he is a robot.. .he's got a mechanical heart. He has no emotions. He did not even shed a tear when our dear Alsatian, Pixie, died last year.

 'Tara,' I tell myself, Took into your mother's eyes. She is so sad. Unhappy. Her happiness died in that fateful spring of 1988. And you were the cause of it. You are a girl today. You will be a woman tomorrow. You are a living dead.'

 Painting is such a waste of time, Tapash feels. I want to share my art with him. He never has time to understand. He will never understand.

 I hide my paintings from Mum and Dad. Tapash donates a small sum of money to me every month. I buy my paint brushes and pastels with it. With the money I buy canvas too. Tapash brings them home for me.

 I use the finished, painted canvas to dust my bedroom. Sometimes even to dry my silent tears... And...I sell my paintings to Bikash. He pays me five rupees for each canvas. I never question what he does with my paintings. It is a secret that Bikash and I share.

 Sometimes I stand before the oval mirror of my dressing-table and like the queen in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs I whisper, "Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the unluckiest of us all?"

 The mirror does not speak. So I return to my writing-desk. I scribble uselessly upon my diary. Today Dad announced that Tapash is leaving for Florida. Higher education. Something rings within me. He will not come back to India again. Another talent wasted. Who cares...

 I am sad. Sad because there will be no one to buy me canvas. No more money for me. Tapash, you are going away breaking my heart...

 I have sketched a fresh canvas. I have drawn Tapash...reaching out for the stars, his arms outstretched. The Sen family, proud of his achievements, cheering him on. I show it to no one. I wait for Bikash to take it away... I open my box containing the canvas. There is only one canvas to go...

 Unlike so many girls of my age I read about in magazines, make-up and dandy dresses does not impress me. After all, nothing will ever add to my happiness and I know it...

 Tapash left for the United States. Bikash came around to pick up my canvas. I handed him the one which featured Tapash. Bikash is my only art critic in the whole, wide world. He inspects my painting. He laughed and wondered. He told me how silly my painting was—Tapash reaching out for the stars. I wish I could touch the realms of his fantasy. I wanted to explain to him that even Superman can fly. Superwoman too...if given the opportunity.

 He scrutinized the canvas cloth. He did not like the quality. He handed me ten rupees. I thanked him and laughed. Yet, within me, I felt hurt. May be Tapash was right. Maybe my paintings are worthless....

 I wake up in the night. I contemplate on the theme for my last canvas. A sudden surge of emotion overcomes me. I rush with my paint brush. My palette protests. My pastels are drying up. I have painted a lie. I am possessed by this painting. This drawing is fiction. I wish it would come true...

 Bikash ambles to my villa. I hand him my last canvas. He carefully folds it and tucks it away beneath his arm. I tell Bikash that he can sell no more canvas again. He has to look for a new kind of job for his living. Bikash is sad. He hangs his head in sorrow. Then he slowly walks away... 

He does not even pay me for my last work. Probably because he knows it is a lie. And liars do not deserve any money.

 A month has passed. Bikash does not come. I am sad. I am disappointed. I sit upon the balcony and watch the heavy rains lash the window-panes. 

The rains finally cease. The sun smiles as I sit and chew the end of a paint-brush.

 Bikash! I have not seen him so excited. I wanted to paint Bikash... He scrambled into his torn trouser pocket and hurriedly pulled out a bundle of notes which he handed over to me. I counted them with glee. Five thousand rupees! I could not believe it. Bikash explained how he had met a foreigner buying curios outside a plush hotel. He had shown him my painting and...

I eyed Bikash with suspicion. Did he sell it for more? Did he sell my other paintings too?

 I confronted him.

 He looked shaken. Very upset. His smile died upon his honest face. He shook his head. He had, like a responsible weaver-bird, stitched all my canvas over his hut to protect his little sisters and brother from the monsoons. 

Suddenly Bikash turned and left. I called out his name. I wanted to tell him how sorry I was...but he never came back again...

 Chasing a lonely winter away arrived the spring of 1999. Something within told me that the painter in me was dying. Tapash had found himself a super job. He had now moved to San Francisco. And I, Tara, who has never attended school since the age of eight continued to disappoint my parents, my brother, my relatives and friends. I do not paint my feelings anymore...I write my diary (call it Tara's Diary if you wish). 

Tapash rang us up one night and gave Mum and Dad the most startling news. He claimed that San Francisco had it written all over that I, Tara had won the Gold Award in the painting exhibition. Tapash was sure it was my painting. I had indeed scrawled my name and address on the reverse. The painting depicted a happy, young girl in a wheel-chair surrounded by caring parents and a loving brother. It was my last painting! 

It was too unreal to be true. Tapash, the mechanical heart specialist, my non-appreciating brother, weeping with emotion. This is by far the best day of my life...so far...

 I notice my mum's sparkling face. Dad said I had done the Sen family proud. He would provide me with the airfare to San Francisco...my first freedom in bondage...

 I have carried Tara's Diary to San Franciso. It is so much a part of me. 

Tapash pushed my wheel-chair to the podium. I strangely forgot to tell the cheering audience about my paralysed legs, a result of polio which had incapacitated me when I was only eight. 

Instead, I told the world about a poor rag-picker who lives in a slum near my Calcutta home. Each day he faced a new battle for his survival. Bikash was his name.

 Tonight as San Francisco showers applauds, I have decided to end my diary and keep it away, forever. At nineteen I, Tara, am a celebrity... I have found a new beginning. I will be on an Arts Scholarship in San Francisco. Maybe even work someday as an Art teacher. I have re-discovered my lost happiness. But believe me...fame and money does not touch me anymore...

 God! You have been cruel... Why is Bikash struggling against life while I am enjoying the happiness he richly deserves? Honestly, it was Bikash who had transformed me from Tara the Miserable to Tara the Joyful. 

That is why I, Tara Sen, will never write a diary again. For, life is a diary. A diary where I meant to write one thing but ended up writing another...