Kaleidoscope

It was a gorgeous summer on the Toronto waterfront on a balmy Saturday afternoon. Dev strolled into the Amsterdam BrewHouse on Queen's Quay. He was looking forward to spending a lazy afternoon with Lisa. As he slowly sank into the ambiance, the enormity of the space, rows of TVs, and gleaming fermenters in the brewery, he felt he was home, secure and comfortable. Dev glanced through the wide selection of draft, cask offerings and seasonal beers on offer and ordered a delicious Pale Ale.

He loved sitting on the patio overlooking the waters of the Lake Ontario and watch the planes land and take off over the water. He sipped from the tall glass and thought about Lisa and how they had met during an impromptu outdoor dancing session at the Nathan Phillips Square where a group of dancers were rehearsing. Dev was drawn to the movement and action of the dancers. Living in such a culturally and artistically rich city, Dev felt a sense of inclusion into a creative and non-discriminatory community. He stopped to watch and to enjoy the energy of the young dancers.

Lisa was on her way home when she was drawn to the small crowd that had gathered around the group of dancers. Lisa tapped her foot and began swaying with the music.

"Would you like to dance?" The man standing next to her, asked her with a wide grin. He looked respectable, dressed well and his tie was still loosely tied with the knot a few inches down from his collar. He gave off an impression of being casually chic. They moved well together. He held her lightly by the waist and guided her into a light spin. She turned and looked into his dark eyes and found herself drawn to him. The music, the dancing under open skies, the gentle summer sunset over Toronto was an intoxicating brew. Lisa and Dev, two souls from different worlds didn't quite stand a chance.

"I'm Dev," he said with a smile, "and you dance beautifully."

Lisa raised her eyebrows, winked and made a funny face. "I'm Lisa and I don't know what to make of you."

While he sipped his beer, he went back to his high school years in Calcutta, India, where he had grown up with his close band of friends and his girlfriend Lipi. He remembered how, every year during the Diwali festival they would make firework for the competition.

"The charcoal has dried out," Lipi said as she put the charcoal powder through a sieve. They followed the old tradition of homemade fireworks, specifically, the Tubri. Around the neighborhood, everyone knew everyone else. And, during Diwali, the festival of lights, youngsters would indulge in a bit of chemistry at home. Each family had their own secret formulas and the chemicals were openly available in the market.

A Tubri is made from a spherical hollow terracotta shell with a flat base and a hole at the top. The shell is stuffed with layers of a mixture of Potassium-nitrate, Charcoal, Sulfur and Iron dust with some clay tightly stuffed at the bottom. The Tubri is made to sit on the ground on its base with the hole at the top. A spark is lit at the top which ignites the mixture inside the pot and a massive chemical reaction shoots the burning iron dust into the night sky like a fire fountain of red sparkles that rise to great heights.

Dev fondly remembered those days. There were no smart phones, no laptops, not even black and white TV. There was street cricket, football and hockey at school, badminton on the lawns. Kids were outdoors most of the time outside the classroom. They were playing real games not virtual ones.


Dev's cellphone buzzed and lit up bringing him out of his reverie. "I've arrived," Lisa said over the phone. Dev's spirits lifted as soon as he saw Lisa. She was wearing black leggings and a white and brown Chloe floral paisley print silk shirt which made her look soft, fluid and feminine. She took off her sunglasses and kissed Dev on the lips.

They were different but she knew somehow, that they were meant to be together. There was an easy familiarity and a flow of gentle energy between them that was inexplicable. Lisa was a third generation Canadian. Her family had come over from Croatia and she loved wearing the white and red squared football jersey of Croatia. Dev was from Bengal India. Initially, the only thing she thought was common was the English language.

"Where did you learn your English?" she had asked Dev in surprise. Perhaps he had come to Canada as a kid and done his schooling here.

"Nah. I learned my English in Calcutta," Dev explained and went on to give Lisa a lesson in history. My city was founded by a British officer, Job Charnock in 1690."

"That is how I know three languages. We are all trilingual," Dev laughed. "We switch in and out of languages."{/

"Now it's your turn, what's it with the red and white Croatian football jersey?" Dev made an impish face that made Lisa smile.

Okay, it's my turn and it's a story I love to tell".

"Toronto had a soccer team called Toronto Metros that used to play in the NASL. They were normally in the bottom of the league. They approached the Croatians for help. Our guys were willing but wanted the name Croatia added to the club name. This was refused. The Toronto Metros went back to their losing ways."

"Finally, the Toronto Metros capitulated. Toronto Metros-Croatia was created with a cross-cultural team filled with new energy from Croatian football. Under Portuguese captain Eusebio Toronto won the American Soccer Bowl 1976," Lisa paused. "When cultures and people come together and get rid of their prejudices and bigotry about color, race and religion, then what evolves is great," Lisa concluded.

Dev smiled and reached out for her. Lisa felt a warm current pass through her. She felt a very strong attraction. She let herself be carried into the flow, willingly, gently. Back at Dev's apartment, they made languid love. Blue eyes looked deep into brown eyes, pupils dilated with pleasure. Lisa softly whispered the words, "John Donne." And, Dev knew she was referring to Donne's poem. "For God's sake hold your tongue, and let me love."

Lisa caressed his body and then stopped at the deep scar on his left. "How did you get this," she asked. "I find it sexy."

"Got this many years ago in India," Dev said.

"Tell me," Lisa said as she kissed him on the scar.

Bishu sat under the banyan tree and summoned two of his sidekicks. "Find out the shell they'll use in the competition." His resentment at the 'privileged lot' was so high that he wanted to scuttle their effort and he'd found a way. He would fill up a Tubri shell with 'flash powder' a deadly variation of potassium perchlorate, fine aluminum powder and Sulphur. It was totally illegal but something inside him goaded him on.

On the evening of the festival as the sky went dark, the Uron Tubri teams came forward. The Uron Tubri is the flying version of the bigger ground Tubri and is beautiful to see in flight when they have color added to their tails.. Strontium salts are for red hues, Boron salts for green, Copper salts for blue and Sodium salts for yellow. The sky crisscrossed with brilliant colors. Everyone looked up to the dark sky with wonder. The sky was painted with abstract lines of brilliant colors. As everyone marveled at the sight Bishu's sidekicks quietly moved into Dev's team. They replaced two Tubris with the explosive from Bishu. Then they mingled with the crowd.

Dev's team lit their first floor Tubri. A fountain of light rose and fell like a waterfall. The audience clapped.Then, it was the turn of Dev and Indrajit to light theirs. But, this time nothing happened. It seemed dead. Indrajit lit another sparkler. The shell exploded. Dev was struck by a brute force. Indrajit's hand was severed from his body. Dev would escape with a deep scar and Indrajit would become a physical vegetable. The police would never find out who was behind the explosion and it would be recorded as an accident.

"I told you about the Croats. Tell me about your old country. I know very little" Lisa encouraged him.

"The British East India Company came to India to trade around 1608 and stayed on till WWII. Dev narrated the history of Bengal, the good years and the decline after the communists came to power and stayed for 34 years; business and capital fleeing because of political uncertainty. The younger people left. The city became an old people's home with parents waiting for the annual visit of their children."

" I'm beginning to understand why you came to Canada," Lisa said.

"I had qualified in engineering and got my Canadian Residency, moved to Montreal and joined Bombardier; didn't realize that Quebec would face a similar impact because their referendums. I had seen business move out of Bengal because of politics. Here it was, all over again, in a different country.Bombardier transferred me to Toronto, and here I am."

"Thank God for that," Lisa said and smiled. "I wouldn't have met you otherwise." She got up from bed and dressed herself.

Dev opened his arms and rung his hands in mock indignation. "Why don't you just move in with me? Bay Street is a stone's throw away." Lisa picked up her bag, blew him an air-kiss and left.

He thought about his last visit to Calcutta. Things looked different. The house across the road looked bombed out. "What happened there?" Dev asked his mother.

"Their joint family broke up," his mother related the story. "That goon Bishu, bought up everyone's share except Babu, Ashok's kid brother. Babu wouldn't sell. So Bishu set up explosives and destroyed one side of the house. It was war."

The neighborhood had changed. Lipi had gone too, forced into an arranged marriage, protests ignored. Lipi had kept in touch with Dev. She divorced and moved to USA to do her PhD. Like the diaspora, she too was scattered as a grain of dust in a land far away doing things that she had never dreamed of.

They keep in touch long distance. They find themselves coming back again and again; each time its more chaotic. Calcutta is like an old relative, eccentric, infuriating with a blend of happy memories from its prime and a nagging sense of duty towards it, now that it had fallen on hard times. To Dev, everything looked smaller and dingy. The city couldn't have got smaller. Dev had simply grown up. You don't have a home till you leave it; and when you do, you find you can't go home again.

It was a Friday evening in Toronto. Dev was to meet Lisa at Jack Astor's. He found a WhatsApp message from Lisa. She wouldn't be able to meet him for a drink because a client had shown up. Could he be at home at nine? Dev headed straight home. Dev took off his shirt and sat bare bodied in front of his laptop. The doorbell rang breaking the silence of the night. He opened the door to find Lisa, standing there with two big travel bags.

"Now what?" Dev was confused. "Are you visiting another client in Calgary?"

Lisa reached up and kissed him on the lips. "I'm moving in with you. How about that? Happy?"

Dev was dumbstruck.He wanted to shout. He wanted to scream and dance.He held Lisa by the arms, spun her like a ballerina and threw her up in the air. He felt an overpowering sense of joy; it was beyond happiness. He had suddenly been released from a force he did not fully understand. He was free. He had finally come home.