Total Recall Among Bengalis, it is considered
bad form to call a person back (for whatever reason) after she has left. Is it superstition, or a racial memory of Princess Kiranmala of the fairytale? She who never deigned to turn and look as birds and beasts, demons and ogres called after her in the enchanted kingdom as she went forward, sword in hand, for the golden mynah on a tree of diamonds. To turn back, she knew, would turn her into stone, as had been the fate of her two brothers before her. At the magic mountain, hundreds of princes had turned to stone for ever, having turned around, seduced by the anklets on the dancing feet of nymphs. That is why, perhaps, something in me turns around at every cry and birdcall, every whisper of forgetting and every footfall of memory, turns back and turns to stone on the way to the magic kingdom. By Srinjay Chakravarti QLRS Vol. 2 No. 4 Jul 2003_____
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