Past Continuous

JOYRIDE ON A TRAIN?

2011-12-19T17:16:00.001+05:30

Today, I have to travel daily in local trains to reach my workplace. Trains hold no thrills for me, only the dreary utility of getting from home to work in the shortest possible time.

Years ago, it was different. Trains were an occasional thrill, not an everyday chore. Trains were meant to take us to Calcutta for a picnic, or to exotic locations like the zoo/museum/New Market/P.C. Sorcar's magic shows, or, sometimes, to homes of interesting and far-away relations for some family occasion.

Train rides came on Sundays or holidays. Train rides meant getting up earlier than usual and putting on our smartest clothes. Train rides would mean looking with pleasure at the old red-brick colonial-era Barrackpore railway station, and listening with joy to the cacophonous birdcalls of all the thousands of pigeons that roosted under the high asbestos roofs of the paltforms. Train rides meant holding Baba or Ma's hand tightly and waiting breathlessly for the Barrackpore local train to pull in.

And then the rush to get seats. Usually, Baba would be able to bag window seats. Otherwise, Bhai and I would take turns in standing at the window (we were still too short for people to grumble about us blocking the breeze at the window.

Looking at the gradually crowding train compartment, I would check out the other travellers, and look yearningly at Ma everytime a vendor selling foodstuff would board the train. The most yearning silent pleas would be for sour amlaki, sweet Mysore Pak and salt-encrusted guavas.

Looking out of the windiw, we would see the stations flashing past, each with its own stereotyped image in our minds.

Titagarh was the unruly station crowded with immigrants from Bihar and Uttar Pradesh.

Khardah was somehow idyllic and village-like, perhaps because of the name ('khar' means hay in Bengali).

Sodepur and Agarpara were interchangeable middle-class Bengali small-towns in my mind, unaspirational and uninspiring.

Belgharia was too crowded, too uncosmopiltan, too RED.

Dumdum was where I would begin to get really excited, because we were now, OFFICIALLY in Calcutta, and also because of the exotic promise of the AIRPORT.

Ulta Danga was just an impatient comma before we landed at

SEALDAH.

The country bumpkin had arrived at the big city, and would be all wide-eyed and open-mouthed at the sights and sounds of Kolkata. But that's another story.

WHAT DID TRAIN RIDES MEAN TO YOU AS A CHILD?

BROTHERS DEAR

2011-11-24T17:53:00.003+05:30

While most Indian communities celebrate Rakshabandhan, Bengalis usually prefer to celebrate the brother-sister bond on Bhai-Phonta, which comes a day or two after Diwali.

There are certain disadvantages. Rakhis for Rakshabandan can be couriered, and there are even virtual Rakhis that can be e-mailed. But Bhai-Phonta is when the sister has to touch her brother's forehead to apply tika three times, and it cannot be done long-distance.

With brothers and cousins staying in different cities and countries now, the bhai-phonta is a more a memory than an occasion for many of us. This year, I did manage to have one at my Ma's home, where some of my cousin brothers were present. But not my Bhai (brother).

When we were young, Bhai-Phonta was a much-anticipated event, full of promise of exciting gifts and being the centre of attention.

Mornings would begin very early, to try and catch the shishir (autumn dew) that had fallen on the grass overnight. We would usually leave out thin squares of muslin cloth on the grass the night before, and would collect these before sunrise and wring them out to fill up a small brass bowl with dew.

Then we would be made to rub the sandalwood stick over stone to get chandan (sandalwood paste). And then put it in another brass bowl. After that we would make kajal, by rubbbing ghee (butter) on a leaf and blackening it over a 'pradiper shikha' (flame). We would also take dhaan (unhusked rice grains) and dubbo (trident-shaped grass stalks).

Arranged on a thali (platter), it all looked so good and festive. Proud of our handiwork, we would dress up in gaudy finery (from our recently-received Durga Pujo stock of new clothes). Ma and the aunts would be in charge of the food arrangements - which would be quite formidable but the end results would be totally mouth-watering and worth-the-wait.

Bhai (my brother) was the youngest of the cousins, he would be at home. But the other cousins would arrive, along with uncles (my mother's and my barama's brothers) and granduncles (my grandmother's brothers). Throughout the day, the house would be a-bustle with guests, and full of laughter and happy talk, and the smell of luchi-mangsho (puris and mutton-curry) would linger in the air along with the incense-stick fragrances.

The brother would sit, self-important and cross-legged, on the ason (carpet) laid on the floor. The sister would put dip her finger into the dew-then-sandalwood-then-kajal and each time she would put a mark on the brother's forehead, muttering rapidly the prayer which roughly translated into a wish for a long, long life for her dear brother. The elder sibling would then take the rice-and-grass and bless the younger one who would touch the other's feet.

And then came the nicest part. The brother, especially if he was employed, would put his hand in his pocket, take out his wallet and ruefully shell out some money as a gift to his sister. Of course, many sisters, like my mother would received elaborate gifts of crockery. Grandmother would usually receive saris from her brothers. Grown-up sisters would give gifts to their brothers as well, a shirt-piece, a watch...

But for us kids, it would be cash. And we would count out blessings, and our stash, at the end of the day, happy with love and flush with cash. Who said Money can't buy you Love???

HOW DID YOU MANAGE TO GET YOUR BROTHER/SISTER TO GIFT YOU SOME CASH?

SHAKES-POWER

2011-10-20T17:22:00.004+05:30

Pardon the cheesy title.

I was watching 36 Chowringhee Lane the other day. It's a movie anybody who is old, or is growing old, or is refusing to grow old, should watch.

But this is not about the movie. Its about Shakespeare. That's because, the central character, when she is at her loneliest, most betrayed, most hurt moment, quotes from King Lear. Understandable, she is a Shakepeare teacher after all.

Shakespeare has a way of getting in your veins, in your arteries, and then flowing over to your heart.

This post is not about Shakespeare either. That will take many, many books to write. And I am not erudite enough.

It is about Anjana Miss, in Class X, who taught us Julius Caesar. And who taught me not to fear Shakespeare. Who told me to grab the verbs to make sense of the blank-verse sentences. Who taught me the power of Antony's oratory and Brutus's honour.

It is about Kajaldi, at Presidency College, who taught us Twelfth Night. And who taught me about the rainbow-witted comic genius and the pathos-lined romance of Shakespeare.

It is about Sukantada, at Jadavpur University, who taught us King Lear. And who taught me about the poetry of pride and fidelity, and the tragedy of delusion and dementia.

King Lear was the Shakespeare play that made me spontaneously cry when I read it.

Thank you.

I will quote those lines from King Lear, which are spoken by the old and lonely Jennifer Kapoor to a stray dog, as they walk on a desolate Christmas evening:

"No, no, no, no! Come, let's away to prison:
We two alone will sing like birds i' the cage:
When thou dost ask me blessing, I'll kneel down,
And ask of thee forgiveness: so we'll live,
And pray, and sing, and tell old tales, and laugh
At gilded butterflies, and hear poor rogues
Talk of court news; and we'll talk with them too,
Who loses and who wins; ..."

It is a failed father's, a defeated king's, a mad monarch's, an old man's delusion.

But then, when we strip ourselves of our foolish possessions and comforting relations, aren't we all this lonely and wailing:

"And my poor fool is hang'd! No, no, no life!

Why should a dog, a horse, a rat, have life,
And thou no breath at all? Thou'lt come no more,
Never, never, never, never, never!"

WHAT'S YOUR FAVOURITE PLAY, SHAKESPEARE OR OTHERWISE?

STARRY-EYED DREAMS

2011-09-30T16:25:00.002+05:30

When I was a young girl, I had a lot of dreams. Big ones, little ones, recurring ones, once-in-a-while ones. Dreams of all sorts, shapes, and sizes.

One constant was that I would NOT, NOT, NOT, stay in Barrackpore all my life. I mean, I felt that while Barrackpore would be absolutely lovely to COME BACK TO, with its meandering Ganges river, and its crumbling colonial buildings, and its duck-ponds, and green shades, and the familiar comforts of home...I DREAMT OF LIVING ELSEWHERE.

THAT ELSEWHERE WOULD BE UNFIXED, VAGUE, CHANGING WITH WHATEVER BOOK I WOULD BE READING AT THE MOMENT.

It could be Kolkata...which in my childhood dreams had a buzz and bustle that was was belied in reality.

It could be Delhi or Mumbai ... cities that mattered, that were important in the media, that attracted dwellers from all over the country.

It could be London or New York or Los Angelos...places glamourised in the fiction I devoured vicariously.

It could be anywhere but the still centre that was Barrackpore.

WHEN YOU WERE YOUNG, WHERE DID YOU THINK OF LIVING WHEN YOU GREW UP.

COMFORT BOOKS

2011-08-18T18:14:00.002+05:30

There are some books that read better when re-visited. Like old wine, like good friends, like really close family, they get better with time.

Every time you decide to re-read them, you feel a thrill of familiar anticipation...like the tingle I felt every summer vacation when I would board the train or bus to go my cousin's home in Calcutta. I knew what joys and excitements lay ahead, but the familiarity did not diminish the excitement or the joyousness.

And when you open the first few pages, there is no uncertain negotiation of the opening chapters, no awkward introduction of new characters and settings, no stressful grappling-to-know details. It's all blissfully familiar and comforting. Even if you have forgotten a few names and more-than-a-few events, the rediscovery is a relaxing journey along a familiar, comforting route.

NOT THE ROLLERCOASTER EXCITEMENT AND THRILL OF DISCOVERY OF A NEW BOOK. SOMETIMES THE SOUL YEARNS FOR THE GENTLE, AMBLING, START-FROM-ANYWHERE-AND-QUIT-AT-ANY-POINT REDISCOVERY OF AN OLD FAVOURITE BOOK.

BOOKS THAT DON'T KEEP YOU AWAKE THROUGH NIGHTS, BUT LULL YOU TO SLUMBER IN STEAD.

I have a pretty long list of old, faithful, familiar books that have comforted me through thick and thin. And top of the heap is AGATHA CHRISTIE, of the cosy murder-mystery fame/infamy. And then, there are chic-lit stalwarts like SOPHIE KINSELLA and MARIAN KEYES.

But if you say BOOKS, then it will have to be BRIDGET JONES' DIARY.

Closely followed by ALICE IN WONDERLAND.

WHAT IS YOUR COMFORT BOOK?

THE FIRST SHIFT

2011-06-23T18:20:00.002+05:30

The first time I shifted house was a time I cannot even remember. I was all of one-and-a-half. My father had been posted in Santaldih, where he was working as an Electrical Engineer with the West Bengal State Electricity Board. So, after the mandatory hospital-stay and the two-month recuperating period at her mother's house, my Maa turned up with me in tow at my father's single-storey government bungalow in Santaldih.

There I stayed for around eighteen months, growing up in sunshine and running around in mica-encrusted fields that glittered in the dark. Our front garden had flower beds and the back garden had vegetable patches where Maa tended over seasonal delicacies. I have an old black-and-white photo of me wearing a smock and oiled, neatly combed hair, squinting at the sun and smiling, dragging my tricycle on the cobbled path leading to the main door.

Apparently, or so my Maa says, I was a very stubborn child who would scream and shout if she took me to any other bungalow, although all the bungalows looked the same, even before I was a year old. My ever-patient Maa interpreted this abominable ill temper as excessive attachment to my Santaldih home.

Santaldih was a peaceful outpost, with not much available in terms of shops or markets. Maa and Baba had to go to Jharia in Bihar by train/jeep to buy essential domestic supplies like milk powder and even sweet limes (the juice of which is regarded as good for young children), and this was a day long affair that recurred every fort-night.

I have no personal memories of Santaldih at all, only a store-house of tales told by Maa and Baba that I have, in turn, handed down to my daughters and spouse. And a few sepia photographs that evoke more with their borders than they do with their contents.

We did re-visit Santaldih once again when I was a young girl of about nine or ten. But, much to my mother's disappointment, I could not recognise our old bungalow, or any other thing. I only remember the strange scattered glitter of mica in the dark, as it is ingrained in and spread over the rocks and stones of Santaldih.

At the ripe age of one-and-a-half, I shifted en family to Barrackpore. As expected, I shouted the house down on arrival, clinging to my Maa and screaming to get back to my home in Santaldih. It was a temporary outburst, and I soon settled down for the next fifteen years, moving out only when I was sixteen to stay in Lady Brabourne College Hostel during my Higher Secondary years.

WHEN WAS THE FIRST TIME YOU SHIFTED RESIDENCE?

A BAG FULL OF MEMORIES

2011-04-14T16:53:00.002+05:30

As a young girl, rummaging through my Dida's (maternal grandmother) almari (cupboard) on a summer noon, I came across a stiff, boxy, bronze-coloured 'ladies' bag' with a short shoulder-strap, the kind carried by yesteryear heroines like Nanda and Asha Parekh, swinging it along with their hair and hips when the handsome hero serenaded them.

I was completely unable to visualize my rotund and grey-haired Dida looking even remotely like those buxom heroines. Why is it always so difficult for children to imagine old people to have ever been young? Now, at my age, it is so much easier!

Much later, I saw some faded sepia photographs of my Dida in fancy winged glasses and back-combed bun of hair, wearing a nice sari and posing beside my dashing Dadu (in a formal suit and tie) before some party. It was only then that I was able to connect that bag with my Dida, who otherwise had always seemed to be a cloth batua (hand-made bag) kind of a person.

To my great delight, the twist-to-open knob of the bag twisted open to reveal, apart from some old coins, a fancy hair pin (the kind you plunge into a really big bun or a really evil villain's heart) and a defunct gold-plated watch (Swiss made, with real gold) with a tiny rectangular dial and, sadly, one hand only.

The watch and the pin became useful accessories in all kinds of role-play, including espionage dramas.

And that bag became my faithful companion in countless hours of playing teacher-teacher, being boxy enough to hold all my old notebooks and ink-less pens, and also sturdy enough to last through the temper tantrums of a very ill-mannered teacher prone to throwing down her bag at the slightest provocation of her imaginary students.

It might have been a big comedown from the ball room to the class room, but the bag adjusted with the grace of a true lady.

WHAT WAS THE BAG YOU COVETED AS A CHILD?

BIRTHDAYS, BIRTHDAYS...

2011-03-08T10:56:00.002+05:30

When I was 8, I celebrated my birthday by going to school in a red-checked tunic and top stitched by my mother, carrying a bag of toffees for my classmates. Flushed and excited, I was even more thrilled to be allowed to wear the sleeveless tunic without the top later on in the evening. What mother thought would be a concession to the hot evening, was a step towards the joys of adulthood for me.

When I was 18, I celebrated my birthday rather sombrely. My father had died just over a month ago, my twelve-standard exams were looming within weeks. It was a time of change and expectation, of determination to prove myself and a great big lump of sadness that Baba would never again see my birthdays.

When I was 28, I celebrated my birthday with a lot of trepidation. I was pregnant with my first daughter, the delivery was due in May, and I realised that the next birthdays would never be the same again after the life-changing event of motherhood. There was a a kind of desperate gaiety, a clinging to the joys of the carefree pre-motherhood-dom.

Now that I have just celebrated my 38th birthday, I really feel thankful that I am so so busy. And that all I have lost over the last one year was a few kilos of weight. And what I have gained is a new confidence, a lot of work, and a lot of good friends. God keep me busy, happy - and slim - down the next few decades!

WINTER WISHLIST

2011-01-13T14:38:00.004+05:30

Fresh juicy oranges bursting in the mouth and dribbling down

The aroma of nalen gur through the swirls of mist at dawn

The sweet heat of the sun warming our backs at noon

Shelling peas and popping them on lazy afternoons

Dark gooey mysterious plum cakes at and after Christmas

Nahoums' crunchy walnut brownies stashed away in tiffin dabbas

Picnics with badminton racquets and tape-recorders and friends

Fortnight long winter vacations that never seemed to end

Discovering new books at the Kolkata Book Fair

Eating dust and buying books was a day-long affair

Surviving thorns to pick kul that tasted more sour, less sweet

Winter was a warm cuddle with plenty of good things to eat!

DO ADD YOUR WINTER WISH TO THIS LIST.

IF WINTER COMES, CAN LEP BE FAR BEHIND?

2010-12-14T15:53:00.003+05:30

Global Warming has perhaps affected us in strange ways.

One of them being the disappearance of the "lep" from Bengali lives and households.

The "lep" is a warm blanket made of thin red cotton (called ''shalu") with cotton stuffing inside. Which makes it the softest, cuddliest, cosy-est, snuggliest coverlet possible.

The North Indians had their 'kambals' (woollen blankets). Scratchy and dark, they were too heavy and too warm for Kolkata winters.

The Marwaris had their 'rajais' (soft cotton blankets with silk coverings). Light and pretty, they lacked the weighty gravitas of the lep.

The fashionable had their colourful pastel duvets. The lep was a red Plain Jane in comparison.

For us in winter, the lep was just right.

Every December, after Kalipujo, the leps would be dragged out from trunks and under beds (where they sometimes did double-duty as soft mattresses) and would be solemnly aired and sunned before they were deemed fit to be used.

And when they had absorbed all the warmth and affection of the bright winter sun, the leps would be folded and put at the foot of the bed and declared ready for use.

We had three leps. One small baby lep, which I outgrew pretty fast and handed-me-down to Bhai (my brother), who also outgrew it pretty fast. One ordinary single lep (fit for a single-size bed), which was rather worn out with faded red on both sides. My Maa, being a really good housewife, had stitched a white cotton cover for it to hide its shabbiness.

And one really B-I-G double lep with a coldish, slippery, gold-brown printed satin cover on one side and a warm red cotton cover on the other. Just the right kind of lep for some honeymoon fun (which is presumably why my parents had under it, although such matters were strictly taboo and never-ever discussed). Just the kind of lep that invited you to dive right in, right after dinner and the customary before-bed bathroom visit. This bathroom visit left our feet really cold and cuddling up inside the lep (alone) was the right remedy for cold feet. And little cold persons like us, with only our nose-tips and head-tops showing.

The best thing about leps was, that once you got in, you never, never, never wanted to come out from that warm cocoon.

WHAT DID YOU SNUGGLE INTO ON COLD NIGHTS AS A CHILD?

IN PRAISE OF THE 'SARBHAJA'

2010-11-25T15:43:00.002+05:30

Sarbhaja is my favourite sweet. If only because it is too sinfully calorific to be good for my - or anybody's - health.

'Sar' means 'malai' or 'the creamy part that congeals and floats on top of boiled milk as it cools'.

'Bhaja' or 'fry' refers to the process of making the sweet. Which is quite elaborate, actually. (Almost like a piling up of health horrors)

Lovingly skim the 'sar' off the boiled and cooled milk. Add layer upon layer of 'sar'. (Can you feel the inches bulging on your tummy?)

Deep-fry the whole thing in rich 'ghee'. (Shudder!!! Murder in the larder!)

Put it in sugar syrup and soak, soak, soak. (Calorie crime dripping with blood-sugar)

Bite into one of these caramel-coloured, usually-square-shaped, texturised/burnt/milky sweets, let the syrup ooze out, and swoon. (And then die of cholesterol/diabetes/obesity)

This year on our annual Diwali Holiday to Kolkata, the spouse and I discovered a shop near Dhakuria Station that sells the best Sarbhajas ever. Instead of the usual squares, their sarbhajas were like long rectangular ribbons folded over a big, oozy blob of 'khoa', which is 'sweetened, condensed, dried milk'. (Words fail to describe the magnitude of this most heinous horror)

This year, after three years of resisting the temptations of the Sarbhaja, I finally succumbed to its charm, and shamelessly gorged on a Sarbhaja a day, for four consecutive days. (How could you, you diet-deserter, you calorie-criminal, you health-hijacker?)

This happened just a week back. So, why am I writing about the Sarbhaja in PAST CONTINUOUS?

Because the Sarbhaja with its carefree piling of calories, its insouciant sweetness and its uninhibited invitation to indulgence, is a delight from my past. A past when I could co-habit with the Sarbhaja without any excess baggage around my waist.

Not like the present with the 'Sarbhajas-on-the-sly' and the undigested, lingering guilt (and unshed, persistent calories).

IS THERE ANY SWEET (APART FROM ICE CREAM) WHICH TAKES YOU BACK TO THE PAST?

SHORT AND SWEET

2010-10-15T16:19:00.003+05:30

The other day, travelling via Chembur, I saw an Amul ice-cream parlour and could not resist going in and trying out their orangey SANTRA MANTRA and LITCHI flavours. Just for the sake of nostalgia, you see, because I'm trying to stay off icecreams. TRYING...

Now, there are so many competitors for my ice-cream affections - so many flavours, so many colours, so many calories. I especially love Natural's Kaju Kismis, the Yogurt Wildberry gelatto, and Honey Nut Crunch by Baskins Robbins.

Just writing about it makes my mouth water. But...with a High Blood Sugar scare and the temptation to lose weight, there are so many restrictions.

When we were young, neither there were so many flavours nor so many restrictions. So we pigged out on vanilla, butterscotch, and chocolate (Bhai's fave, not mine) and that hybrid mish-mash, TWO-IN-ONE. I always, but always, finished off the too-sweet, fake-pink, supposedly-strawberry goop first before starting on the white vanilla portion.

And now, there are so many flavours, but I've fallen out-of-favour with the God of Icecreams. My cheat treat is the bittersweet fat-free jaundice-yellow Limoncello ICE gelatto. No substitute for creamy, sinful, luscious ice-CREAMS.

Sometimes, sadly, the past is not continuous.

WHAT WAS YOUR FAVOURITE FLAVOUR OF ICE-CREAM WHEN YOU WERE A CHILD?

SOUNDS OF HARMONY

2010-09-09T16:20:00.004+05:30

A very familiar sound of my childhood, especially in the evenings, when we would all return home after a few hours of brisk and boisterous play, was the equally brisk and boisterous sound of young voices confidently, if rather unmelodiously, belting out Rabindrasangeet, all the while briskly and boisterously fanning the bellows of their harmonium.

The rather whining and petulant bellowing sound of the harmonium was considered an essential support to train fresh young voices when they learnt their musical basics (Sa-re-ga-ma) and the harmonium would also be an inevitable accompaniment when the singer, having mastered the scales, graduated to Rabindrasangeet... the highest-possible pinnacle of melody (according to all Bengalis).

We had a heirloom harmonium, an ebony rectangular contraption that belonged to my Barama (aunt). After her exertions, the harmonium had been vigorously flapped by both my cousins (Didia and Didibhai). Both of them sang rather well, and the harmonium was happy in their hands.

Unfortunately, I was/am a very pathetic singer, and I can well-imagine the venerable harmonium being absolutely horrified when I would bawl out "Aakash-bhara shurjo tara" (A sky ful of stars and suns - one of the first - and few - Rabindrasangeet I was forced to learn), all the while torturing the harmonium (and the ears of Kanudi - my suffering singing-teacher).

It was a rather painful phase of my growing up, but I (and the harmonium) was forced to undergo the tuneless indignity because of the misguided notion that all good and cultured Bengali girls must learn at least a dozen Rabindrasangeet if they wanted to impress prospective in-laws and marry a rich and handsome husband.

Fortunately however, better sense prevailed. And both the harmonium and I were spared further torture when, after a bout of chicken-pox, nobody suggested I resume my interrupted music classes. I sighed with relief and returned to my books and my badminton. And the grand and indignant harmonium returned to its heavy wooden box and rested for a few years till my Didia took it away, and put it to better and more melodious use.

WHAT MUSICAL INSTRUMENT DID YOU PLAY / WERE FORCED TO PLAY WHILE GROWING UP?

IN THE WINK OF AN EYE

2010-08-20T15:21:00.003+05:30

I was eleven years old, and studying in Class VI, when I took a daring decision.

I decided that it was time I grew from a girl to a woman, with all the accompanying wiles and guiles that went with womanhood. And one of the indispensable weapons in a woman's formidable armoury, was her undisputed skill in attracting men with the mesmeric power of her eyes.

To cut a long story short, I decided to pick up the art of winking.

Because to wink successfully, delicately, without scrunching up your eyes, or squeezing your eyelids tortuously, or hamming up the whole thing like a lascivious Johnny Walker (the comedian, not the whiskey), seemed to my 11-year-old mind the epitome of the femme fatale.

But the mirror was not enough, I needed a guinea pig to practise upon.

Being essentially timid by nature, I chose a safe venue. The top deck of the red double-decker bus - L20 - that took us from safe, suburban Barrackpore to big-city Calcutta and all its dangerous fascinations. A window-seat gave me a good view of the people down below.

I chose a safe victim. I decided to bestow my virgin wink at any old man who would look up at my window, but would not be strong enough or fast enough to follow it up with any other action.

So, in one of the innumerable bus-stops on the way to Esplanade, I winked at a doddery old man who was gazing bemusedly up at the bus. Most probably he had cataract, or short-sight, but I fondly imagined him to be gazing straight at me when I WINKED - not a sly, barely-there wink, BUT A BOLD, LASTING-FOR-QUITE-SOME-TIME, EYE-PROPERLY-SHUT, MAKE-NO-MISTAKE-ABOUT-IT WINK.

The poor man hardly noticed a thing.

Now that was a wink gone with the wind.

TELL ME, WHEN DID YOU FIRST WINK A WINSOME WINK?

SUMMER OF '86

2010-07-15T14:32:00.005+05:30

So, the World Cup is finally over! The stylish Spaniards won deservedly over the obdurate Oranje team, and we got our share of thrills, spills and ills.

But being a true-blue-and-yellow fan of Samba soccer, my personal passions ended when Brazil lost in the quarterfinals. Never mind the fact that they were hardly playing the beautiful game, being a total and staunch Brazil fanatic, I just wanted them to win. And I love Dunga! He (and Romario, and Bebeto, and Roberto Carlos and Cafu and of course, Taffarel the goalie, and the rest of the 1994 team) gave me one of my best and most stomach-clenching, nail-chewing sporting memory, when Brazil lifted the coveted cup after a penalty shoot-out win over Italy.

My tryst with Brazil and football started in 1986. It was a long summer, and vacation-time, and my brother and I were staying at my Pishir Bari (aunt's house) in Kolkata. Pishimoshai (my aunt's husband) took us all along to the electronics shop to buy a new colour TV in honour of the World Cup.

And so I met the Brazilian team in all its blue and gold glory on the EC TV screen, playing the French Les Blues, who had the curly-haired Platinni. But it was the Brazilians who mesmerized my young teenage mind. With their sinuous moves and fluent passing and masterful dribbling Brazil easily scored a goal in my heart. I had never seen this kind of scintillating football before, so full of motion and flow and art and grace and joy. Pele was a hoary name in black-and-white record books whose wizardry I saw and learnt of later. The 1986 Brazil boys made me fall in love with their brand of football flair and made me a convert forever!

Never mind the fact that their defence and goalkeeping was so atrocious as to be non-existent. Never mind the sad, sad fact that the dashing Zico and the sagacious Socrates both missed penalties. Never mind the fact that Brazil lost, again in the quarterfinals. Never mind the fact that 1986 was the year of Maradona, his magic, miracles and mischievous Hand of God.

For me, my heart began to beat and will always beat for Brazil.

OVERHYPED UNDERARMS

2010-06-03T17:29:00.004+05:30

Blame this on the sun!

But switch on the T.V and you'll find a long long line of ads for deos. All of which will have in-your-face, cringe-inducing shots of pretty/hunky movie stars flashing their underams as they spray on the deodorant that'll apparently keep them smelling of roses 24 x 7.

There's the dishy John Abraham and his Garnier. There's the svelte Asin and the effervescent Genelia. And...you get the point?

I guess raising you arms above your head and flashing your underarms with abandonment is perfectly acceptable nowadays. I'm sure to be labelled old-fashioned if I crib too much about this.

But I grew up in a time when underarms were called armpits. Not without reason. They were meant to be hidden, like all pits. Or at least lowered. Of course we saw lots of men and women wearing sleeveless clothing, including almost all of my family members. But that did not mean they jumped about raising their arms all the time.

In fact, when my brother started going to school, he was so enamoured of his Kindergarten teacher, Miss Joshi, who always wore dainty sleeveless blouses (with saris, that is), that he cried and cried and finally persuaded my Maa to switch over to sleeveless blouses, just like "Aunty Joshi". And my Maa was converted for life.

So you see, I'm not ethically anti-underarms. In fact, I wear a fair amount of sleeveless stuff myself - although my fat upper-arms demoralise my endeavours quite often.

My objection is aesthtic. Male or female, sweaty or fragrant, toned or not, polished or not (beauty parlours often have a service called UNDERARM POLISHING that I'm rather curious about), depilated or not, I still believe underarms are best lowered if they are uncovered.

Of course, if they are covered, you can merrily go about raising them and doing your own thing - like shouting slogans and picketing. I'm a Bengali from the land of the Red Comrades and the Red-faced-because-she's-mostly-shouting Mamata Banerjee, so I've met millions of raised and angry and protesting underarms. But they are covered.

WHAT DO YOU THINK?

MY FIRST JEANS

2010-05-13T13:31:00.002+05:30

When we were kids, jeans were not the ubiquitous youth-gear they are now. The only jeans brand that I can recall was AVIS (a spin-off from LEVI'S???), which sold out of a glass-fronted shop in the centre of Kolkata's iconic New Market. On the rare occasions that we stepped into the hallowed portals of New Market, I would gaze awestruck at the Avis Shop-window, so engrossed that I would nearly bump into the old canon that stood in the middle of the market courtyard. My cousin brother, Dadabhai, then studying to become an engineer at Jadavpur University, had a couple of pairs of stylishly faded indigo Avis-es. But he was a rare creature, orbiting our ordinary existence from his distant hostel life; so jeans were also something like Halley's comet, rarely seen, but never worn.

My first jeans was a hand-me-down from my cousin Tinnididi (who thankfully grew at a faster pace than me for all of twelve years, so I got lots of coveted second-handstuff. Unfortunately, she resolutely stopped growing after twelve, and my chief source of clothes ended there and then.). It was indigo at its indigo-est, with brown cord piping around the pockets. My legs being considerably longer than Tinnididi's, it was never really a comfortable fit, but I mulishly insisted on getting as much mileage out of it as I could, although I could barely sit down in it.

My first very-own, true-blue, first hand pair of jeans was gifted to me when I was twelve or so, by another cousin, Didia (who was my fashion inspiration for a long long time). It was a 'foreign' jeans - Didia stayed abroad with her husband and returned home once a year laden with goodies for all of us - so its NRI-status upped its fashion-quotient considerably.

It was hideously stone-washed in the fashion of the day, and horribly baggy, also in the fashion of the day.But baggy had its advantages - I could sit/lie/run/stretch in it comfortably. However, it was too precious for me to treat it like a second skin. I wore it only on special occasions - like on visits to cosmopolitan Calcutta and to birthday parties and suchlike. T-shirts were not good enough for my only pair of jeans. I wore it with pintuck tops and lace-embellished shirts. I even remember wearing it to my Mama's wedding (mother's brother), with a shot-grey full-sleeved pearl-embellished favourite top.

I might have looked like an awkward fashion disaster, but I sure felt awesome in my jeans.

WHAT WAS YOUR FIRST PAIR OF JEANS LIKE?

WHEN SUN WAS FUN...

2010-04-29T15:33:00.003+05:30

...and we are young. Not afraid of sweat. Not bothered about tanning and wrinkles. Not aware of UVA and UVB and UVC and UVD (just kidding).

When we were young, the sun meant...

...squinting our eyes up at the blue-gold dazzle of the sky to test who could look at the sun without squinting.

...frolicking about the house and garden wearing only a thin white 'penny' or 'tepjama' (a white cotton camisole with - inevitably - birds and flowers shadow-embroidered around the hemline and torso).

...trying to catch and intensify the sun-rays through Baba's magnifying glass and make a piece of paper catch fire (just as the Enid Blyton kids seemed to do so easily do when they were lost in islands or mountains or valleys).

...watching impatiently as Ma and Barama (aunt) made circles of boiled and spice-added sabudana-dough (tapoica) on a large piece of cloth (usually an old saree) and put it out in the sun to dry. These would become Sabudana Papads in a few days, and we would crunch-munch them down after they were crisply fried in a kadai (wok) full of oil.

...endless rounds of splashing around and swimming about in our neighbour's pond, all in the name of 'cooling off'.

...waiting for Dida (grandmother) to doze off in the afternoon so that we could go up on the chhaad (roof-terrace) and steal our fill of mango, lemon and tamarind pickles left out to mature in the sunlight. The trick was to remove the thin white cloth covering the boyam (china jar), take out the pickles, eat, wash your hands and then to put back the cloth. If you tied the cloth back before washing your hands, it would leave tell-tale oil stains on the cloth. We even found out how to remove the oil-residue from our palms. Although there was no soap on the roof-terrace, we dug out soil from the flower pots and rubbed them all over our palms. That got rid of the oil pretty effectively.

Yes, sun was fun, once upon a time.

WHAT DID YOU DO, OUT IN THE SUN?

FREEZING MEMORIES

2010-04-12T17:31:00.003+05:30

With summer on at full blast, memories naturally seem to turn towards cooler things.

Like refrigerators. Now we have monstrous 300/400/God-only-knows-how-many-hundred litre refrigerators, but when we were young, we had a small 100 litre single-door 'fridge' which sufficed for all the needs of our family of six (plus my uncle's family of five - as they did not have any fridge of their own, they would often put their leftovers in 'our' fridge - a matter that sometimes led to frissions of domestic tension over S-P-A-C-E).

But for us, that small fridge was an Alibaba's cave of goodies which we were strictly prohibited to touch without permission. From the outside, it was like any other white (fridges in the 1970s seemed to come in only one colour) Allwyn (where is that company now???) fridge, rather yellowed with age and use, rather rusty at the edges.

But once the doors swung open and the chilly foggy blast hit our faces like a blizzard, we could see a lot of goodies that made our mouths water. [The leftover rice or dal or curry never interested us. Neither did the dekchi (pan) of milk.]

We lusted after the slab of Amul butter (100 gms, if you please, not the large 500 gms that I buy for the family nowadays). Red sugar-syrup-dipped cherries and crinkly kismis (raisins) reserved for cake-baking days. Slabs of aamsatto (sweetened mango preserves) for making chutneys. A screw-topped bottle of Kissan Mixed Fruit Jam, which went on bread-slices every day for our school-tiffin-boxes. Ripe mangoes lending their gorgeous smell to the cloistered cold air, red watermelons with a chunk scooped out and sugar put in. Bottles of Rasna (an orange drink) severely rationed to greet guests. Sometimes, exotic stuff like caramel puddings or sponge cake-mixes that Maa and Didia would painstakingly cook from recipes in Chic (a women's magazine that tried to make us more Anglified and, presumably, 'chic').

And, when we opened the small door of the deep-freezer and poked about the powdery ice and boxes full of slices of raw fish, we would be sure to find trays of home-made (Maa-made) ice-cream. Milky and mango-flavoured with real, squeezy mangoes for Bhai (brother). Full of peanut-crunch and thickened milk for me. Maa often had to serve us ice-cream slabs that had clear (and deep) finger-poking marks on them.

Going by the sheer amount of food that it could hold, that fridge was a magic box!

WHAT GOODIES DID YOUR CHILDHOOD FRIDGE/LARDER HOLD?

MALE VANITY

2010-03-22T13:12:00.003+05:30

I am working on some communication for a fairness cream for men. And the research team has just unpacked a huge carton full of various cosmetic products solely dedicated to men's skinare. Face-washes, scrubs, anti-tanning lotions, post-sun-exposure gels, face-packs and, of course, fairness creams, all dedicated to the male peacocks of the species. A fascinating and bewildering plethora of pseudo-scientific-sounding stuff!

Back in the old days, I remember that my Baba (father) and Jethun (uncle) used to feel that a shave by the naapit (barber) when he came to out house every Sunday was the very epitome of luxury. And when he used to wipe their faces with water in which a piece of fatkiri (alum) had been soaked (for its antiseptic/astringent qualities), my Father's generation used to regard that as 'intensive, personalised skincare for men'. Quite the equivalent to a male-facial at a spa, probably.

And then when my Dadabhai (cousin brother) and Mama (mother's brother, who's younger by a decade) grew up, got jobs and got married, the ultimate in male luxury was to splash/spray on some aftershave after their daily bout with the razor. And the in-vogue stuff was OLD SPICE, with its distinctive red or white bottle and its special woody smell. For my teenage romantic dreams, the knight on a white charger always had to smell of Old Spice. And he would usually come, not riding an antiquated horse, but riding the waves on a surfboard like the rough-n-tough guy in the Old Spice TV-commercial that tugged at our hearts and hormones for years!

And then came Old Spice Fresh Lime, and Old Spice Musk. Things began to get complicated. And then arrived Brut and Denim and Aramis and a whole lot of other names. And a whole lot of other stuff to put on male faces. And goop for hair. And manicures and pedicures. A whole deluge of products and services and websites and salons and even magazines dedicated to promoting and maintaining male vanity. The metrosexual man is sure spoilt for choice.

Maybe men got clear skin. But they lost clear-mindedness. And got completely mind-boggled. Cosmetic-confusion, which was once the prerogative of women bombarded by over-information about beauty products, became the man's lot also. That's what gender-equality is all about, right?

SO, WHAT BEAUTY PRODUCT DO YOU/THE MAN IN YOUR HOUSE USE/USES?

TEDDY BEAR TEDDY BEAR, OFF TO SCHOOL

2010-03-04T16:42:00.004+05:30

My two teddy-bear-cubs (my daughters) go to school in a big yellow school-bus. In fact, when the younger one went to play-school, which was just around the corner, she refused to accept that it was a PROPER SCHOOL. Because there was no sunny yellow school bus full of bright, chattering children to take her there.

Neither had we. We went to school in a rickety cycle-rickshaw. Our school-special rickshaw was value-added with a narrow wooden bench tied carefully to the back of the driver's seat. This way, it could carry many more children than it would have done unadorned! The rickshaw can carry two people in relative - if rather bumpy - comfort. With the added bench, it was made to carry 7-8 children. I've tried to re-create the engineering in my mind, but the mind BOGGLES (I'm currently immersed in the world of Jeeves, so I just had to put in that word) at the effort.

Our rickshaw-driver an affable gent called, for some unfathomable reason, Jamaibabu (son-in-law). Every morning, at around eight, the punctual Jamaibabu would come ponk-ponking the rickshaw horn at our gate. Rushing out, my brother and I would hop on to the coir-cushioned back-rest-ed seats. As our house was the first place Jamaibabu halted at, it was rather easy for us to get the best seats, which we ruthlessly refused to move away from, even if the others requested.

Jamaibabu pulled the rickshaw - with the familiar kaanch-konch sound of the three wheels turning - along the winding lanes, halting at other houses and picking up...Dipto and Rumni from their mansion with the flower-fragrant garden, Bapi from the dilapidated rented house, another very formal-looking child (whom we called Mr Gon, because he carried a tin suitcase with MR. S. GON printed on it; he was always late as his mother pleaded and pestered him to finish his glass of milk), and my cousin J and her brother.

The seats filled up fast and we sat face-to-face, three in the original rickshaw seat and five clinging like limpets to the narrow wooden bench. Knees knocked together and bags knocked over others' as Jamaibabu hit the pedal hard (we always blamed the tardy Mr Gon and his hapless mother for this). Fights sometimes erupted, but even without arguing, our decibel level was pretty high. The genial Jamaibabu would sometimes turn his head to admonish us, making the rickshaw wobble scarily. The kaanch-konch of the wheels increased as the rickshaw bumped and bounced its way to Modern School like an overloaded ark full of chattering, chirpy children. Although Jamaibabu had probably never heard of time-management, we were almost never late.

And in the afternoon, the rickshaw would return, bursting at the seams with rather exhausted but still noisy children. Bagging seats was a free-for-all, and getting a good seat (which somehow was more important on the return journey, maybe our tender bottoms were sore after all that sitting around) meant making a dash from the school-gate to the waiting rickshaw. As Jamaibabu shooed us on and hustle-pedalled his way home, the discomfort became negligible in the delight of chatter-boxing!

HOW DID YOU GO TO SCHOOL?

TRAIN TO THE HEARTLAND

2010-02-15T14:09:00.004+05:30

Staying in Barrackpore and having lots of relations in Calcutta meant that short train journeys (about an hour and a half) were a regular part of our holidays. Trains meant a mix of excitement and apprehension, clutching tightly to Baba's hands on the crowded platform, the pleasure of standing in front of the window with the wind whipping my hair into my eyes, seeing the fields and houses tush by, getting warned every now and then not to put our hands out of the window, buying candies or fruits from the hawkers on the trains. And getting the yellowish cardboard ticket as a keepsake after the journey.

But my first really l-o-o-o-n-g overnight journey on Indian Railways was when I was seven years old, and we (Maa, Bhai and I - Baba had to go to 'office') accompanied my Dadu (mother's father) to Bhopal to visit my Mashi (mother's sister). Bhopal is 1356 kilometers away from Kolkata and we went the distance in an ordinary (not air-conditioned) second-class compartment, in the summer vacation when the temperature outside was often more than 40 degree celsius, in a train that had a coal-engine (which multiplied the heat-factor considerably) and which took two nights (if I remember correctly) to reach Itarsi (the station where we alighted, 77 kilometers away from Bhopal city). But being children, being middle-class, and being part of the frugal-seventies-generation, we never felt the heat or the discomfort. We didn't know any better. Maybe that is a good thing.

Dadu was a meticulous planner, and Maa was his able ally. So we got up on the train accompanied by, among other things, one kunjo of water (earthenware pot) in a wooden stand (to get deliciously cool water - beats refrigerated water any day), unlimited home-made cakes (to last the entire journey and beyond), limited luchi-mangsho (unleavened bread and mutton-curry, for the first night's supper, in such enormous quantities that it could feed an entire coupe of people), and one bedding-roll.

Why bedding-roll? At night, Dadu slept on the lower berth, taking an air-pillow and a two bed-sheets (one to lie upon, one to cover up), Maa and Bhai (then a three-year old enfant docile) slept similarly on the middle berth, and I was put inside the bedding roll with a pillow under my head and the straps tied over my body and bundled up onto the top berth. Despite being strait-jacketed to sleep, I loved the novelty of my high vantage point and spent a large part of the daytime sitting up on the top berth, reaching up to touch the ceiling every now and then.

Only the lure of the window got me down. Travelling through the vastness of India, with its changing terrains, soils, vegetation, cultivated and barren fields, villages, crowds and miles upon miles of empty spaces was an eye-opener. Except when the coal-engine belched extra-vigorously and the sooty smoke wafted into our eyes.

Faces black with soot, tummies full of a constant supply of food, mind replete with a multi-sensory experience of a lifetime, we got down at Itarsi station past midnight, the darkness adding to the mystery of the new place. Maasi (aunt) was waiting for us, and we travelled through the dark and long 77 kilometers to Bhopal clip-clopping in a tonga (horse-drawn carriage). But that's another journey, and another story.

DO SHARE YOUR TRAIN OF MEMORIES WITH US.

GO FLY A KITE

2010-01-14T11:30:00.004+05:30

This is not my memory actually, because I can't fly kites at all. Even though I have gamely tried to, on several occasions, kites simply refuse to obey my cajolings to string them along, and they stubbornly nosedive to the ground with a thud.

It's about my Baba (father). He was a kite-enthusiast, having grown-up in the unimpeded spaces of his village Balubhara ('Sand-full') in innocent pre-partition Bangladesh, where the green of the open fields met the blue of the wide sky without too much of human interference in-between.

So, when he came over to Barrackpore in India, he carried in his heart that love for wide emptinesses that kite-flying symbolises and that expertise with strings and winds that kite-flying demands.

Yesterday was Makar-Sankranti, and the sky above Mumbai's million chawls (shanties) were potholed with quarelling and soaring kites. But in Bengal, kite-flying is a ritual associated with autumn and September's Vishwakarma Puja. So, around that time, Baba would eagerly go to the market and bring along a number of cheap and colourful thin paper kites. They had interesting names like petkatti (stomach-cut, which meant a half-and-half design in two colours). We (Bhai and I) would tag along, like two-tails twirling behind the kite.

Baba would tie the unravelled spool of un-treated, toothless string all around two supuri (betelnut) trees in our garden. Then he would make an edgy, dangerous manja (paste) which included powdered glass and apply this to the thread to give it the desired bite.

Because kite-flying on Vishwakarma puja was not just about feeling the wind in your upturned face and the pull of the string in your hands. It is a cut-throat competition where warring kites cross glass-sharp strings and the sharpest string wins. As the winning kite soars higher in ebullient victory, the defeated kite falls ignominously to earth. All the watchers of this sky-cast reality show cry 'Bhokkata' (It's cut) and rush out to catch the fallen kite as a prize, often climbing trees and bulidings when the kite gets stuck in branches or rooftop-antennas.

We would accompany Baba to our chhad (rooftop), or to the higher roof of our neighbour's house, along with a cheering group of friends. Baba, egged on by our admiring gang, would ask one of us to hold the
kite a little distance away and throw it up into the air (a job we would perform with wide-eyed reverence), while he expertly pulled the strings in the latai (string-holder). As Baba and the wind teamed up to raise the kite higher and higher, we would crane our necks to watch, squinting in the sunlight. At a sufficiently safe height, he would hand over the latai to us to hold. It was absolutely thrilling to feel the kite pulling away at the string as if it had a fierce life of its own, unchallenged master of the blue.

But when another kite came into our line of vision, we would hurriedly hand over the charge to Baba and go back to our cheer-leading roles.And the big fight for the sky would begin.

DO SHARE YOUR KITE-FLYING MEMORIES WITH US.

USHERING IN THE NEW YEAR

2009-12-31T12:29:00.003+05:30

When we were young, New Years were not ushered in with booze and babes, but in a more holistic, whole-family-glued-to-TVset kind of way. It really was a ushering IN, because we received

capsules of INformation in Prannoy Roy's intelligently-edited and interestingly-compered year-end international and national news round-up: THE WORLD THIS YEAR. The highlight was a hilarious goof-up section of the high and the mighty.
a seemingly endless programme of completely INane entertainment put together on DD 1 (shabbier version) and DD Metro (flashier version). A parade of minor non-stars in spangly dresses and loud voices, a completely-unfunny-comedian-compere who could not make anybody laugh at that late yawning-hour.

We INevitably dozed off in front of the blaring TV set, only to have our INterest revived at 23:59:59 Hrs when there were really big bangs from the TV set. Rubbing our bleary eyes, we goofily grinned at each other as crackers burst and smoke billowed on the screen (and off it, too, somewhere far away from our timid small-town neighbourhood) and everybody singing off-key at the top of their voices...

...HAPPY NEW YEAR!

STAMPED ON MY MEMORY

2009-12-13T00:02:00.005+05:30

My elder daughter has to do a class project on stamp-collection, and we were sadly unable to find any in the house. Finally, we had a kind friend who procured some stamps of foreign countries from the Post Office. At a cost, of course.

When we were young, we went through various 'collection-crazy' phases - from stamps to coins and even matchbox covers (where it helped that my Baba was a heavy smoker and enthusiastic contributer to the cause).

Stamp collection was a hobby much-lauded by grown-ups because it was supposed to be an educational pastime. Many kids were budding philatelists, including yours truly. One cousin, coming from a more affluent family, had a proper stamp-album with sections on different countries, ready-cut pieces of special adhesive to stick the stamps therein, and whole sets of stamps purchased at a price from post-offices.

My collection was more humble, in a used school-notebook. The stamps were painstakingly collected, one-at-a-time, off torn envelopes and air-mail covers, and stuck with ordinary gum but extra-ordinary care.

I had a lot of the usual brown 25 paise Gandhiji-stamps, and another lot of one-penny (or was it five?) pastel-Queen Elizabeth stamps of England. Indian stamps dominated the album (but of course), but there were quite a few interesting ones from foreign shores, taken from letters mailed by relations abroad, or from abandoned stamp-collections of uncles and older cousins. There were triangular, colourful stamps from Bhutan and Nepal, functional-looking stamps from the glamorous U.S.A, and stamps where the letters and numbers were in foreign languages.

The true erudite philatelist would rather have one rare stamp ( a Penny Black, say) than a hundred humdrum ones. But we were philistines rather than philatelists, and for us quantity mattered as much as, if not more than, quality. So, collections were fiercely guarded and frequently counted. Exchanging stamps was a serious and competitive business, much like the Stock Exchange today.

Bright, bold, silent but eloquent, the stamps united the world in my grubby little stamp-book. In the midst of shifting from house to house, and from city to city, somewhere I have lost it. But it is a loss that I deeply regret. Because I believe although I collected stamps with a zeal as a child, I would have learnt a lot more by studying them now as an adult. But those tiny messengers of diversity and variety - speaking of lands far away and peoples long ago - have been forever lost in transit.

WHAT DID YOU COLLECT WHEN YOU WERE A CHILD?

A SOAP OPERA

2009-11-30T14:51:00.002+05:30

The other day I was looking at some communication for Yardley Soaps, and I was struck by the irony of the quaint, ye-olde-English nineteeth-century Yardley brand being bought over by the tech-hep 21st century Wipro. But then, big-business reality is often stranger than soap-opera fiction.

I tried to recall the soaps which we used as children. Lux is still very much around, although, the stars endorsing it have changed from Hema Malini to Aishwarya, with even a Shahrukh Khan in a rose-filled bathtub (shudder!!) in between. But I prefer a gracefully-ageing Hema to a nauseously-simpering SRK any day.
Liril is a soap which has fared better, I feel, and its lemony zingy appeal is quite fresh, especially during the long, sweaty summer. Even Cinthol’s deo-range, despite the masculine magnetism of Hrithik Roshan, does not compare.

But Rexona has disappeared. While the standard pink Lux was the staple soap in our home, the green Rexona regularly graced the soapdish in my Mamabari’s (mother’s maternal home) bathroom. It was a very ordinary soap, leaving the skin woefully dry in winter, but I have fond memories of Rexona just because of the Mamabari-connect.

In summer, when sweat, itching and prickly heat attacked, Maa would sometimes get the green medicinal Margo neem soap. And though the bubbles would taste bitter if they somehow entered my mouth, Margo enjoyed a sanctified status as a "GOOD SOAP WHICH CLEANSED AND CURED", so we never complained.

My especial favourite were Lavender Dew and Mysore Sandal, because they were special-occasion soaps bought during festive-seasons and suchlike. And because they had such lovely lingering fragrances. Lavender Dew, delicately mauve-coloured, smelling of gentle lavender, is now only a faint memory, but Mysore Sandal, with the more aggressive, exotic sandal-scent is still available, enduring where the former has evaporated.

There was the big and spherical Moti, which looked like a monster-pearl and which always slipped out of my grasp when I was a small girl. But it was a costly affair and lasted a very long time, which is probably why my Chhotopishi (father’s sister) seemed to favour it.

Winters, of course, were for glycerine soaps – the pure and tranparent Pears for the more affluent homes, and the murkier Chasme Glycerin for modest homes like ours.

And now, although I love my Dove and my Nivea and other post-thirty necessities, sometimes I wish I could get back those lavender and sandal days when the skin was younger and the soap seemed gentler.

WHAT’S YOUR FAVOURITE CHILDHOOD SOAP?

THE MORNING WALK - PART I

2009-11-09T14:46:00.002+05:30

THEN :
During school vacations, sometimes my father would suddenly have the urge to go on morning walks with me and my brother. Ma (mother) would wake us all up at some unearthly hour, get us suitably attired (depending, of course, on the weather - it was sacrilege to step out in winter without being bundled up in sweaters and scarves), give us a Marie Biscuit each, and push us out of the house before, I suspect, going back to a blissfully peaceful snooze.

Half-reluctant, half-awake, rubbing sleep out of our eyes, we would stumble out, weaving through the nearly-empty roads in our neighbourhood, under the guidance of our enthusiastic leader, Baba (father).

As we left the crowd of houses behind, the gradually brightening sky showed us the way to greener fields and the banks of the Ganga. Baba always wanted to reach the riverbank - a good half-an-hour's walk from our house - to catch the sunrise over the placid Ganga's horizon. Our senses awakened to the chirruping Good Mornings of the birds and the fresh wetness of dew brushing against our legs. Masses of flowers bent over trees and hedges and tickled our noses with their scents - shiuli, rajanigandha, kamini, beli. It was, to understate, a nice way to way up all our senses.

And the high point was flopping down, all huffed-and-puffed, on the banks of the brown river, feeling the cool breeze wipe off the sweat from our faces, and lifting our eyes to watch the sun paint the eastern sky with an amazing palette of red-orange-gold-pink. The Ganga, a great imitator, would reflect whatever the sun drew on the sky, adding millions of tiny silver ripples for special effects. And a few early morning braveheart-bathers, sun-worshippers and Ganga-devotees, would step into this colour-play in the water to take their daily dip in the holy river.

While going back, we would stop at some riverside tea-stall for locally-made toast-biscuits and Baba would have a cup of tea - the first of his daily dozen-or-more.

NOW:
No birdsong. No sunrise. Maybe they happen, but morning-walkers hardly notice. They hear the latest tracks on their earphones, and see only a focussed vision of six-packs or size-zero.

And if I thought that the self was made of the mind, body and soul, then of course, I was wrong. Only the body matters, at least while morning-walking.

WHAT WALKS WITH YOU IN THE MORNING? YOUR BODY, MIND OR SOUL?

MY FIRST WEDDING MEMORIES

2009-10-15T02:27:00.004+05:30

No, I am not talking of my own wedding (first, and only) here.

I mean the first wedding I have any distinct memories of.

It was my Didibhai's (cousin-sister) wedding, and I was all of seven, innocent-child-on-the-brink-of-precocious-giggly-girlhood.

The marriage was an 'arranged' one, in the traditional Indian fashion, but my Jethun (uncle - the bride's father) was not too conservative, and so, the groom selected was not a Brahmin like us, but from a different (supposedly lower) caste. Caste has always been a complete non-issue with me, but many regarded Jethun's decision as a bold and unconventional.

But for us, the groom hardly mattered. We were more caught up in the preparations made for the bride and by the bride.

The daily ubtan (scrub-cleaner) of milk and turmeric, which magically gave her dark complexion an amazing caramel glow.

The endless rounds of trousseau shopping - the blue-silver tanchoi benarasi (heavily embroidered North Indian silk saree), the yellow-maroon kanjeevaram (heavy South Indian silk saree), the tangails (Bengal handloom cotton sarees), and the piece de resistance - the dazzling red-and-gold Benarasi that Didibhai would wear to the wedding.

The careful but lavish purchase of gold ornaments - the patterns chosen so that the necklaces and bangles would cover her entire neck and arms ("gaa jeno bhara bhara dekhaye").

The more reckless spending on cosmetics, after endless debates as to matching shades and such like. Lakme was the company of choice, there being no L'oreal on the horizon in the 1980s.

The painstaking paisley alpana (designs) that Didia (my other cousin, Didibhai's sister) did on the two piris (low wooden stools) where the bride and the groom would sit while the priest performed the marriage rituals. Gold and red paisleys for the bride, black and silver for the groom - those lowly piris were proof of the detailed preparations made for the wedding.

The excitement over the tatvo (the display of the gifts sent to members of the groom's family and gifts given to the bride). Each tray was lovingly and uniquely decorated. Sarees were tortured out of shape to construct fantastic flora and fauna. And it was quite a disappointment to see that the groom's family had made no such effort - they had only cellotaped their gifts for us on to the trays. But perhaps their tamper-free sarees were easier to wear than the ones we gave - all creased and crumpled from being forcefully shaped like a peacock's tail!

The debates and detailing of the guest list and the subsequent selection of the design for the wedding card. And when the invitation cards came, I did my first postive work for the wedding (till then, I had been a very passive if passionately-eager witness of the ongoing bustle). I was deputed to put the auspicious sindoor-halud (red and yellow) mark on the envelopes.

The planning of the menu, the hiring of the marriage hall (it was a huge three-storey school building which they rented out for weddings - in the mornings, we played on the grounds, there were swings and slides and a huge expanse of green grass), the arrival of many of our relations, the gradual countdown to the...

D-day.

I remember the self-absorbed excitement of wearing a saree for the first time on a social occasion - it was an old maroon heavy silk saree belonging to my aunt, and it was so sturdily wrapped around me that I could barely walk. And the unfamiliar lipstick on my mouth made me so self-conscious that I could barely talk.

But the lights and the food and the hoichoi (excitement) and the novelty of everybody getting all decked-up and happy and shiny-faced made me also bubble over.

I remember my Bhai, all of three, too young to get excited or to understand fully, falling asleep in the middle of the ceremonies. Maa took him to an empty room where he could sleep comfortably, but he woke up after some time and, seeing nobody around, got extremely annoyed and came running down the stairs in his chaddies (underpants) crying loudly for my mother and disrupting the priest's ritual intonation of the mantras.

I remember Didibhai fainting during the bidaai (bride's leave-taking of her maternal home) and how Kartickda (her husband) joked later that she pretended to faint because she was embarrassed at not being able to cry.

I remember realising then that weddings were salt as well as sweet.

WHAT ARE YOUR FIRST WEDDING MEMORIES?

THE WRATH OF THE GODDESS

2009-09-27T02:45:00.003+05:30

As a child, my most cherished and enduring Durga Pujo memory is of the face of the Goddess.

Oh, I liked wearing new dresses and rushing to the parar pandal (neighbourhood marquee where the festive celebration was organized). I liked the happy, excited crowds, and the Hindi songs blaring from the microphones, and the smell of dhoop (incense) and flowers, and the dhaak er bajna (drumbeats), and the finery of the ten-handed goddess and her brood of four children, and the sonorous Sanskrit mantras (hyms) and the busy evenings of pandal-hopping.

But most of all, I liked to sit quietly inside the pandal at Jagruti Sangha (our local neighbourhood Pujo) and gaze at the lovely, angry face of the Goddess. Because at Jagruti Sangha, the sculptor (I forget his name) would always create an idol whose eyes shone with divine wrath. Baba (my father) used to say that this was the face of the Goddess just before she killed the demon Mahishasura – that climax of fury which led to the triumph of good over evil.

All the other Durga idols I have seen (in my childhood and even now, so many many years later) depict a calm and serene Goddess. Baba would say that that is the face of Durga after she has destroyed Mahisasura – “calm of mind, all passion spent”.

And although I love to look at the calm and beautiful face of Durga almost as much, during every Pujo I feel a deep yearning for our childhood Jagruti Sangha Durga – that trinayani (three-eyed) face compellingly majestic with its blazing eyes and gaze of furious power. That terrible, mighty beauty absolutely fascinated me, and I would gaze for hours, imprinting that face on my memory-album (we did not have a camera) so that long after Bijoya Dashami and the immersion of the idol, that face would be stamped deep in my soul in all its anger and loveliness.

I just have to close my eyes to see that face of my childhood Maa Durga again. Although the contours have become elusive, the eyes are as burningly beautiful as ever.

DO SHARE A FESTIVAL MEMORY WITH US.

PREENING-PLANNING FOR THE PUJA

2009-09-20T04:31:00.003+05:30

Durga Puja was definitely THE MOST-ANTICIPATED TIME OF THE YEAR for us as far as new clothes were concerned. A new birthday dress or a new Poila Baisakh (New Year) dress notwithstanding, it was only before the Pujo that we received a bounty of new clothes to delight over.

One from Ma-Baba (parents), one from Mamabari (maternal grandparents), one from Chhotopishi (father’s sister), one from Jethun-Barama (father’s brother). Sometimes this list would be supplemented by sudden extras, as when an elder cousin or uncle would join a new job, or a newly married cousin would gift us a new dress. The more the merrier, for us.

The trend for ready-made garments not having set in during that time, we were usually given dress material (cut-pieces) which would have to be stitched into garments. This implied a double happiness and a prolonged period of excitement. The first joy would be on seeing the dress material itself. And then the elaborate planning of what the dress-design should be (the Planning Committee consisted of my mother and Didia, my cousin, with us being extremely-interested audience). And then the measurement-taking (either by Maa or by the neighbourhood tailor). And then the impatient waiting till delivery day. And then, of course, the excited tearing away of the plain brown-paper wrapping of the tailor and taking out and putting on the newly-stitched miracle. With a lot of preening and pirouetting before the mirror. Total indulgence in narcissistic self-love.

Those were busy days leading up to the Pujas. The dress schedule had to be meticulously planned – which outfit to wear on which day. The simpler cotton ones would be reserved for Sasthi and Saptami, and the fancier silk ones for the more glamorous occasions of Ashtami and Navami. If there was an excess of newness, then we would plan something different for the mornings and evenings, and maybe even for Dashami, the final day of the celebrations. The most-loved garment was always reserved for Ashtami evening. And that incomparable thrill and fever-pitch excitement of stepping out in a nice new outfit, proud and colourful as a peacock, and strutting to the local Puja pandal amidst the beats of the Dhaak (drums) and the smoke of the dhunuchi-naach (a dance performed with burning earthen pots) and the music blaring from the loudspeakers. With the assured confidence of childhood, we never doubted that we would be the cynosure of all eyes.

HOW DID YOU FEEL IN YOUR NEW FESTIVE DRESS?

THE DOCTOR IS IN

2009-09-10T20:09:00.002+05:30

As a child I loved going with my mother (and brother) to Dr Saha’s clinic. In case you are wondering whether I was mad, let me clarify that Dr Saha (we used to call him Kakumoni – an endearment for ‘uncle’) was a qualified and practising homeopath.

I just loved to visit his small, cool-calm chamber with the green lime-washed walls, the scrubbed brown wooden benches for the patients in the outer waiting chamber, and the inner sanctum sanctorum, where the quiet, thin, reassuring-smiling doctor would sit, surrounded by glass-fronted cupboards full of thick-fat medical books and vials and glass bottles of homeopathic medicine.

Before Maa (mother) embarked on her journey through the entire family’s ailments, Bhai (my brother) and I would demand our share of ‘michhimichhi osudh’ (placebo medicine), which was basically a few dozen sugar globules that form the base (and conceal the sharpness) of most homeopathic medicines. Kakumoni always kept a bottle of these sugar globules in his desk drawer (to pacify pesky kids), and he would patiently and solemnly drop a generous dose of the sweet-nothings on our eager tongues before turning his attention to Maa.

As Maa usually came with a long list of patients (our entire family, and even long-distance patients like my aunt who lived in another city altogether) who had an even longer list of illnesses and symptoms (a very important term in homeopathy – an accurate description of symptoms can allow the doctor to treat the patient without having ever met him/her). As she began her detailed litany (with the patient doctor inserting a perceptive question at appropriate intervals), Bhai and I would wander around.

Sometimes, we went to the watch-repairing shop next door, and watched the painstaking minute craftsmanship of the watch-repairer. More often, we would go to visit the potter who had his potter’s wheel in a shed behind the doctor’s chamber. I loved to see how he would coax the clay into beautiful jars and pots on the fast-spinning wheel with his deft-gentle and always-muddy hands. His wife would take the newly-created vessels and dry them, and later put them in the oven. Some of the vessels would come out all fiery red, and some would darken further into near-black. Once the kindly potter gave Bhai and me a set of coloured clay birds (green parrots, grey pigeons, brown magpies), delighting us no end.

But we always hurried back to Dr Saha’s chamber when it was time for him to make the medicines. We would watch fascinated as he measured out different medicines from their dark glass bottles into small clear-glass phials (with cork stoppers) filled with the aforesaid sugar globules. Sometimes he would make puriyas – individual doses of medicine put in a sweet white powder (called sugar of milk - what a lovely name) and packed inside small square white papers. Each set of puriyas or phials would be carefully labeled with the name of the patient, with instructions as to when and how much medicine to take – all written in Kakumoni’s neat-minute handwriting.

And, buoyed by a final parting dose of medicine-less sugar of milk, we would happily wave goodbye to the good doctor, always looking forward to the next visit with a sweet anticipation.

DO SHARE YOUR GOOD DOCTOR MEMORIES.

OUTSIDE THE SCHOOL GATES

2009-09-01T03:41:00.002+05:30

Nowadays our children have their school tiffins from healthy, sanitized lunch boxes, or from dietician-supervised school canteens. But in our unhygienic and un-health-conscious childhood, we would be allowed a once-a-week (or more, if we spent judiciously) indulgence of scandalously-unhealthy treats which tempted us just outside the school gates.

There was the phuckha-churmur-wallah and the alu-kabli-wallah (both selling sour-and-spicy snacks of chick-pea, potato, onion, tamarind, chilli powder and god-only-knows-what-else) with their fiery wares which drew us in droves as we slurped, gobbled, licked our fingers, wiped our eyes, hung out our burning tongues, and rubbed our runny noses. My older cousins often teased us and said that the dirtier the phuchka-wallah, the tastier would be his wares. The dirt of his hands (and elsewhere?) was the secret ingredient behind his mouth-watering (and eyes-and-nose-watering) recipes. But being gastronomic bravehearts, we were not deterred by such trifling rumours, and gulped down the gruesome grub to our heart's content.

There was the hajmi-churanwallah selling numerous dark and dangerous looking hajmis (supposedly-digestive-aids) and aachars (pickles) of ancient pedigree. He was such a great favourite of mine that for a long time I fantasised about marrying his son (he himself was nearing seventy), and living amidst a treasure trove of unending supplies of amshi (dried mango pickle) and kuler achar (berry pickle).

And then, there was the cake-wallah who would take down the black tin trunk which he carried atop his dirty turban, squat on the ground and open it in front of our eager eyes. Inside that plain black trunk (on which his initials would be painted in white block caps), would be a magical bonanza of colourful pastries (which we called 'cakes' in those pre-Monjinis days). The colours would be dubiously lurid, and the cakes themselves were suspiciously stale, but who cared? The crayon-pink and neon-green, and the rather more expensive brittle-brown (which cost more because it was claimed to be chocolate) coated confectionary was regarded as a coveted special treat by us, reserved for celebrations like birthdays or sports-days or result-and-promotion-days or you-are-my-best-friend-from-now-on-days.

After school, we would burst out of the confining school gates, a chattering-clattering-clamouring flock, with disheveled uniforms and inky faces, gathering in noisy, demanding groups around these treat-sellers, who dispensed dirt and deliciousness in equal degree.

WHO TEMPTED YOU WITH IRRESISTABLE TEMPTATIONS OUTSIDE YOUR SCHOOL GATE?

THE BATTLE OF THE SEXES

2009-08-26T11:23:00.000+05:30

I was initiated to the eternal battle of the sexes – the tug-of-war between MAN and WOMAN – very early in life, when as a child I witnessed the almost-daily frictions between my Dadu and Didu (grandfather and grandmother).

They were never direct all-out-in-the-open kind of lung-busting quarrels (the kind I have with the spouse, unfortunately). Dadu and Didu’s fights were more oblique, masked in poiteness, full of snide repartees and subterfuge, and guerilla-like. They would usually fight over absolutely trivial matters, usually if gregarious Didu got too caught up in talking to somebody and forgot to serve Dadu his food on the dot at the appointed hour/minute/second. And taciturn Dadu would invariably strongly protest if Didu abandoned him for a few hours and went off to see films, at the local cinema hall (the now-defunct Chitrabani).

But Dadu was so dependant on his wife that he never made frontal attacks. Instead he would make increasingly incensed snide remarks about the vagaries of the female sex, especially of women belonging to ‘sambhranto paribar’ (respectable families).

We children (my brother and I, and our cousins who would come over during the languid long summer vacations) were vociferous supporters of Didu. For one, she took us all along when she went to see films. She also told us long and exciting - and more importantly unending - stories about her own childhood and marriage (which actually coincided, as she got married when she was twelve). She often gave us pocket money to buy sweets and stuff. Above all, she allowed us to play with her thinning white hair and pluck off as many as we wanted to.

Although my peace-loving brother would sometimes plead with Didu to stop arguing (“Chup karo, chup karo”), I, being the more argumentative sort, would lustily egg Didu on (in the manner of rowdy football fanatics) with cries of “Narad, Narad” (Narad is the Hindu god who loves to incite debates and arguments).

Confident of our loyal support, she hardly ever deigned to reply to Dadu’s digs, smiling benignly and uncaringly going on with her work, which mostly consisted in looking after her cantankerous husband.

But it was not as if she did not take her revenge. Her way of retaliating was by making herself absent. In this, the TV set was her daily ally. Our television set occupied a place of honour in our upstairs drawing room. And every evening, without fail, Didu would wash and powder and her face and neck, wear a freshly washed and ironed white saree, tightly braid her more-salt-less-pepper hair (the evening beauty ritual of every lady of the aforementioned ‘sambhranto paribar’ – respectable families) and, politely-but-gleefully taking leave of Dadu, would go upstairs to watch whatever Doordarshan would dish out on the black-and-white TV set for over three hours. Meanwhile, Dadu got more and more restless and furious, sitting agitatedly on the bed which he refused to leave. In fact, so keen was she to punish him for his daily meanness, that she would watch incomprehensible programmes on farmers’ welfare and suchlike, just to spite him back.

And Didu had a brahmastra (the deadliest weapon of all). If Dadu became especially difficult to manage, she would pack her bags and, bidding a sweet and apparently-fond goodbye (which concealed a below-the-belt-punch), she would take off for a week or so, to visit her daughter (my Chhotopishi) in Calcutta. Dadu, quite knocked out by this sucker punch, would protest feebly, complaining of possible negligence in her absence (“Who will look after me now that you are gone?”), but Didu would go unworried and unperturbed, because she knew that my mother would take as good care of Dadu as she herself did.

Distance definitely seemed to make the cranky old man’s heart grow fonder. Because the only time we saw Dadu fussing over his wife was when she returned from her trip, rising from his bed (a very rare and miraculous happening) to welcome her at the door, taking her bag from her hand, and even switching on the fan for her to cool down after the journey (this was also a rare miracle, as Dadu belonged to the pre-electricity generation who was extremely frugal about electric consumption. In fact, he would spend a considerable time gazing in stupefied agony at the slowly ticking/rising electric meter outside his window).

The next day would be a different story though, or rather the same story, as Dadu and Didu, rested and refreshed by the break, would be at loggerheads all over again.

You know what? I think they actually relished being at each other’s throats the whole day. Some things never change!

SO, WHEN DID YOU FIRST LAND UP AT THE BATTLEFIELD OF THE SEXES?

THE CURMUDGEON AND HIS COMFORT FOOD

2009-08-20T10:20:00.000+05:30

My Dadu (father’s father) was a rather cranky old man. He would not budge from his position and from his habits. He and my Didu (grandmother) shared the downstairs room, which multi-tasked as their bedroom as well as the dining room (sounds strange? But then we had five rooms – apart from kitchens and bathrooms – and a dozen people, so we had to ‘kindly adjust’.)

For, as long as I can remember, he would spend his entire days (and nights) on the bed. He would sit on it during the day, peeping out of the half-opened bedside window, frowning from under bushy white brows at anybody who entered the house and making sundry disgruntled comments at the gone-to-the-dogs ways of the modern world and the 'faltu' (useless) frivolity of the modern generation. At night, of course, he slept on the bed – the only problem being that his ‘night’ began quite early. So it meant we all had to eat our supper by 9.30 pm and vacate the room so that Dadu could put off the lights and go to sleep.

In fact, the few times that he left the bed was also quite fixed – to take his bath once a day and to go to the bank and collect his pension (he was a retired school-teacher) once a month. And, of course, to eat his meals.

The times and contents of his meals were all pre-ordained and fixed – and he would not allow any alterations or adjustments – come hell or high water. He loved milk, and one invariable component of his supper was ghano doodh (condensed milk).

Now, this was not the tinned Milkmaid stuff that I loved and often stole from the fridge. Dadu’s ghano doodh was the product of almost an hour’s daily toiling over the coal unoon (stove). Didu/Maa/Sabitadi (grandmother/mother/our daily help) would put a saucepan of milk on the stove, add a lot of sugar in it and stir the boiling concoction continuously to get the desired thickness and sweetness. Sometimes, they would cheat a bit by adding a few spoons of milk-powder to make the doodh denser.

And then they would pour out the rich creamy sweetness into a big steel bowl to cool. Dadu would have it with some rice at the end of his meal, taking his time over this daily delicacy. Even when we had things like khichdi (a preparation of rice and lentils, tempered with CHILLIES and SALT) for supper, he would insist on his ghano doodh, adding the sweetened milk to the khichdi and eating with apparent relish. God only knows how horrible that hodge-podge of milk-sugar-rice-lentils-salt-chilly must have tasted; I suspect it was just his stubbornness that carried him through the taste-ordeal. He obtinately clung to his comfort-food even in the most uncomfortable of menu-situations.

And we? My brother and I would hungrily and eagerly wait for Sabitadi/Maa to finish the cooking and pouring of the ghano doodh, so that we could scrape the saucepan and have the crusty-sweet almost-solidified remnants of the thickened milk from the bottom and sides of the pan. Using spoons and, finally, fingers and tongues, we would lick the pan clean. The creamy-sweet taste was my idea of ambrosia!

DO SHARE A MEMORY ABOUT YOUR GRANDPARENTS.

HISTORY IN PICTURES

2009-08-15T12:31:00.000+05:30

A cursory channel-surf on the T.V showed that almost all the movie channels were telecasting patriotic films like GANDHI, BORDER, and such like. With celebrations for Independence Day round the corner, we are getting our annual audio-visual dose of patriotism – a heady mix of some-facts, some-jingoism, more-rhetoric and a lot of stirring sentiments.

When we were young, Doordarshan used to air such appropriately heart-swelling films to celebrate 15th August. A big favourite was Chetan Anand’s HAQUEEQAT, which never failed to bring a lump to the throat everytime it was shown on our grainy Black-and-White T.V set, especially everytime they telecast the song on the dying-freezing soldiers:

“Kar chale hum fida jaan o tan saathiyon,
Ab tumhare hawale waton saathiyon.”

(Sacrificing body and soul for the motherland,
Friends, now I leave the nation in your hand.) (incompetent translation by me).

But a far more potent and long-lasting source of nationalistic fervour were the Amar Chitra Katha (literally – Immortal Stories in Pictures) comics which I read and hoarded. Extremely affordable and easily available, these thin books retold history and legend in a colourful graphic form. And India, with its hoary action-packed and multi-layered past, supplied a vast storehouse of subjects.

Be it the Jallianwala Bag massacre, or the lives of Jawaharlal Nehru or the Rani of Jhansi, or the valiant deeds of pre-British-rule heroes like Shivaji or Rana Pratap, or the mythical romances of Amrapali and Nala-Damayanti, or the wit and wisdom of the Panchatantra, Jataka and the Birbal tales…the list is endless. Whenever I had accumulated the requisite sum of five rupees, I would run down to the para (neighbourhood) book shop, where a few Amar Chitra Kathas would be displayed by hanging them with clothes-pegs from a wire (in the manner of clothes drying). Flipping through a few, I would take my time choosing a new addition to my collection. And then the impatient rush home, and the losing myself in the colourful pictures, easy narration and crisp dialogues which made history come alive and which made myths appear believable.

I liked the Amar Chitra Kathas which retold the history of our freedom struggle, be it through biographies like that of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, or through incidents like the Sepoy Mutiny of 1857. The school history books gave us the bare facts; my Amar Chitra Kathas infused those facts with colour, vigour and voice. These books could make me gnash my teeth in rage against the evil colonial masters; they could make me cry at the courageous deeds and deaths of the freedom-fighters.

But my most-est favourites were two mythical stories – Surya [the legend of the Sun God and how the love of Sanjana and her alter-ego Chhaya (shadow) mellowed him] and Samudra Manthan [The Churning of the Ocean - how the devatas (gods) tricked the asuras (demons) by using their strength to churn the ocean (with the help of the Mandara mountain and the snake Vasuki) to get the amrita (nectar of immortality) for themselves, without giving any to them].

Thank you, Uncle Pai (Anant Pai, whose brain child the Amar Chitra Kathas were), for all the knowledge - culled from history, religion, folklore, mythology - which you fed us so pleasantly. Thankfully, these wonderful graphic stories are still available and flourishing in bookstores all over India, for generations of children (and adults) to read and cherish.

DO SHARE YOUR MEMORIES OF PATRIOTISM.

THE CASE OF THE MISSING EYEBROWS

2009-08-09T14:40:00.000+05:30

Growing up in the 1970s and early 80s meant that I regarded women with impossibly thin, plucked and arched eyebrows to be the epitome of style and glamour. I would often spend hours looking at myself in the mirror, turning this way and that, dissatisfied with the thick, dark pair of eyebrows nature had given me. I would frown fiercely at my reflection, and wish I could change myself here, or there, and this included my beetle-brows.

Being eleven years or thereabouts, a visit to the beauty parlour was absolutely out of the question. And if there were any tweezers in the house, I was not able to put my hands on them. But determination and ingenuity led me to a solution. Not really a happy one, though.

One day, I filched a jar of hair-removing cream (one of those foul-smelling Anne French depilatory-concoctions), carelessly left on the bathroom shelf by Didia (my elder cousin). I had seen enough ads on television to know how to use it. Or so I thought.

Taking a bit on the spatula, I carefully applied it in a line to the lower portion of my eyebrows. Then, after waiting impatiently for the requisite ten minutes (as stipulated on the label of the jar), I used a rather grubby hanky to wipe off the nasty-smelling goop.

Only thing was, the cream had spread somewhat from its intended destination, and I ended up wiping off a large part of my eyebrows. I stared in horror at the mirror, and a pair of uneven, thin-to-the-point-of-disappearing eyebrows reflected accusingly back at me.

But the damage was done. While no roving talent-scouting photographer spotted me (or ‘discovered’ me as the next super-model, much to my secret dispappointment), my cousins and friends mercilessly ragged and quizzed me about my emaciated eyebrows. But being stubborn (and miserably shell-shocked at my new alien-from-Star-Trek-look), I never revealed how exactly I managed to uproot my bountiful harvest of brows.

To her credit, my immensely wise and reasonable Ma (mother) did not force me to confess, merely raising her own (plentiful) brows and consoling me, “Don’t worry, they’ll soon grow back.”

And so they did, of course. But after I had to spend ten days looking like a perpetually-astonished plucked chicken. And enduring utter ‘alien’-ation and secret guilt. All of which gave me a lifelong determination not to tamper too much with nature.

DO YOU HAVE ANY SUCH COSMETIC MIS-ADVENTURES TO SHARE?

EXAM ECCENTRICITIES

2009-08-03T03:36:00.000+05:30

My daughters are having their first-term examinations, and I am all tired out with study-supervision, pencil-sharpening and all that. Thankfully, they are too young to be burdened by any sense of fear or nervousness about exams.

When I was in high school and college, exams always made me high-strung. Especially the big, career-deciding, life-changing ones like the tenth-standard (ICSE), twelfth-standard (Higher Secondary), graduation (B.A) and post-graduation (M.A) exams.

Like most of my friends, this fear and uncertainty made me a prey to all sorts of superstitions and strange practices, which I would follow obsessively.

I was always (and still am) a late sleeper, preferring to study during the night. Often, I would while away the day reading storybooks or newspapers, flipping cursorily through my books, dilly-dallying till after supper, even when the exam was on the next day. Then, when the tension would reach fever-pitch, and time would be running out at the speed of Usain Bolt (or Carl Lewis, the world champion runner of the 1980s-90s), and the rest of the family would be settling down to sleep, I would take out my books to study in earnest. My best and most concentrated study would be done in these final few hours before the exam, when it would be dark and quiet and undisturbed-except-the-ticking-of-the-clock, and I would barely sleep the night before, catching a few winks as the dawn-sun reddened the horizon.

I would sometimes meticulously prepare small chits with important notes minutely handwritten (no micro-xerox for me). I would stuff them into pockets and other hidden places, saying to myself that if I forgot something, I could always go to the washroom and take out the chit to aid my memory. But, funnily enough, the very act of writing the chits would aid my memory so much that I have never needed to take them out and cheat during any exam (as we used to say, God promise, that's the truth!).

Bolstering my confidence with these invisible chits, I would also take along a huge (and very visible) bottle of water mixed with Electral (a rehydrating salt) to the exam hall and sip from time to time, quite in the manner of tennis players who sip re-energising drinks during match-breaks.

Many of my schoolmates came to exams accompanied by their mothers/fathers/both/more. I remember one classmate particularly. During our twelfth-standard exams, she would come with an entourage of two. Her anxious father would be holding her books in front of her at eye-level, while she would hurriedly read aloud from them, swaying her body to-and-fro in rhythm with her sing-song chanting. Why couldn't she hold her books herself? Because her equally-anxious mother would alternately rub and massage her hands with a hot towel (preparing her for the marathon three-hour writing sessions), and would take some home-cooked food from a huge tiffin-box and push them into her mouth (during the pauses in her sing-song memorising). The rest of us would pause in the middle of our own last-minute frantic studying to watch this amazing spectacle. As we grappled alone with Economics, or History, it was fascinating to watch this two-parent-team preparing their daughter like a star-athlete, all three of them swinging like a trio of pendulums.

My poor mother, in an unusual outpouring of maternal concern, had decided to come during the break on the first day of my tenth-standard ICSE exams, lovingly carrying an apple and some hot home-cooked food. Unfortunately, I felt that I had not been able to write that day’s paper as well as I had hoped to (it was English, my favourite subject). And so, being touchy and extremely superstitious, I forthwith banned her from accompanying me to any other exam in future.

I always carried a huge number of surplus pens (fearing that the ink would run out sometime during those two/three/four hours of manic scribbling). But perhaps the oddest quirkiest thing I did was to make my watch go ‘fast’ during the exam. I would start the exam with my watch 10 minutes ahead of the actual time. As the exam progressed, I would randomly keep turning the hands of the watch five minutes ‘faster’ from time to time, till I lost track of how 'fast' it actually was. Often, by the end of the exam, my watch would be over 45 minutes ahead of the actual time (if my exam ended at 1 p.m, my watch would show 1.45 or even later). I don’t really know why I did this. Perhaps I wanted to cheat time, perhaps I wanted the false but reassuring security of feeling that there was still plenty of time left. Because for me, exams were always a race against time.

And another final quirk. After the exam, as we all left the hall exhausted but relieved, friends would inevitably ask, “How was the paper?” Some deep sense of uncertainty and insecurity would never let me say, “Good”. I always, for all my exams, said “So-so”. Because for me, the exam was not over till the results were declared, and I dared not boast about my performance till the proof was in my hands.

WHAT SUPERSTITIONS DID YOU FOLLOW BEFORE/DURING/AFTER EXAMS?

A STITCH IN TIME…

2009-07-24T21:01:00.000+05:30

In school, we had a subject called SUPW (Socially Useful Productive Work). It involved a lot of craft-related activities, and, later in senior school, some social project work. Being lazy and self-absorbed children, we dismissed the subject as Some Useful Periods Wasted.

I did not really mind wasting the period by making pencil-holders by wrapping colourful paper around old talcum powder tins, and other fanciful and useless things like making prints with cut slices of ladies’ fingers (the vegetable) and onion-halves.

What irked and bothered me was the compulsory sewing projects we girls had to undertake. I remember we had a lady teacher teaching us the subject for a few years, who would insist on all the girls sitting and learning various kinds of stitches. The boys, lucky idiots, were spirited away to some unspecified location, where they made unrecognizable clay models and wood-carvings.

We were stuck in the classroom with the needle often stuck in our fingers (especially in my hands, which seemed to be all thumbs). The simple run stitch seemed deceptively easy and my fingers would run away merrily with the needle, till the stern teacher would look over my shoulder and point out the unnecessary necessity of each stitch being of the same size and equidistant from one another.

The stem stitch and chain stitch were all right, I suppose, if you overlooked the variously sized links of the chain, or bits of the stem. The criss-cross herringbone always made me cross, although I enjoyed the neatly laid-out patterns of the cross stitch where I had only to follow the design laid out on the graph and where the stitches would automatically be of the same size, because the cloth itself was woven like a grid.

But I was completely flummoxed by the really intricate stuff like the neat hem stitches, buttonhole-stitches (my holes looked as if they had been forced by a particularly belligerent big button), French knots and the tiny satin stitches. I was really really bad at the fine art of needle craft, which was fairly surprising because both Maa (mother) and Didia (my cousin) spent long hours discussing patterns and colours and creating delicate gossamer embroidery on many of our dresses. Unfortunately, my admiration did not progress to emulation, and I remained handicapped at handicraft.

And so, I breathed a huge sigh of relief when the stern sewing mistress left our school and was replaced by the affable Maity Sir, who taught both Bengali and SUPW. I put away the handkerchiefs with the uneven half-finished hems, and the round wooden embroidery frame and VIBGYOR silk threads. And happily spent the rest of my SUPW periods making unproductive and silly stuff like soap-gardens (where you had to stick paper flowers and leaves on wires into the soap and make a fancy fence-border with pins and garish plastic ribbons). Horribly tacky stuff, but easier to tackle than sewing.

DO SEW A MEMORY TO THIS POST.

LADIES WITH THE LAMP(S)

2009-07-18T16:11:00.000+05:30

Power-cuts (load-shedding in local parlance) were a regular part of our daily routine when we were growing up (it still is, in most parts if India). Now we fight the darkness with generators and emergency power supplies provided by the housing societies. Then, our weapons were kerosene lamps wielded by the ‘ladies’ of the house. The men would usually sit still, or, at best, provide match-boxes or fumble for torches. It would usually be Maa (mother) or Barama (aunt) who would move sure-footedly to the window sills and light the lamps kept there, dispelling the darkness like Goddesses of Light.

There were three types of kerosene lamps used in our house.

There was the all-glass lampha (lamp), where the glass chimney was supported only at the base, which was also of thick glass. They gave a clear unhindered glow and were kept in the sitting-room, dining table and bedrooms (which doubled as study-rooms for us, with a wooden table placed in a corner next to the bed for that purpose). Being regarded as rather fragile and easily breakable they were generally not subjected to too much movement, but remained in their appointed place and shed a bright yellow light which allowed us to read or eat (and pick out tiny bones from fish-pieces, served with curry at supper) without taxing our eye-sight.

Then, there was the sturdier ‘hurricane’ or lanthan (lantern), where the glass chimney was encased in a supporting criss-cross metal wire, and which had a metal base. This wire formed shadow lines where the light fell and so it was not the preferred choice for light-intensive activities like reading or eating. It had a handle which could be held (and swung a bit, when the elders were not looking) and it was used in the kitchen and for going to the bathroom or toilets.

If the authorities did not deign to deliver us from darkness at bed-time, and the power-cut continued beyond that, then the lamphas would be extinguished or the lanthans left to burn very dim with the wicks lowered. Sometimes, Maa would light a small kupi, which had a tiny tin base and a small chimney and which gave a very faint light, which was regarded as a frugal compromise with the darkness at sleep-time (I could not find any suitable photo of this economical object which is still very popular in West Bengal villages).

The flames would inevitably lead to a gradual accumulation of soot which would darken the chimneys. A weekly job was the cleaning of the delicate glass chimneys with soapy water, gently patting them dry and fixing them back on the lamps. This ‘handle-with-extreme-care’ chore was performed only by Maa and Barama (or Sabitadi, the household help) and we would watch fascinatedly from a safe distance. We were allowed to move nearer when the lamp-bases were refilled with kerosene. As Maa unscrewed the base caps and poured the flammable liquid through a dingy green plastic funnel, I would bend low and inhale deeply. It might sound slightly crazy, but the sharp smell or virgin kerosene was (and is) one of my favourite smells (along with boot-polish, so now you know what an olfactory idiot I was).

One of my distant relations (the elder sister of my uncle’s elder daughter’s husband – if you want the Indian happy-extended-family exact definition) lived in a flat in Kolkata crammed with beautiful antique objects. On one of my several visits there (accompanying my cousin sister – in the approved Indian extended family tradition) I noticed, and immediately coveted, a blue Chinese porcelain lamp. But such delicate contraptions were for decorative display only. Because when the inevitable power-cut happened, it was the nondescript Indian-made sturdy lanthans that helped us to battle even the sophisticated South Calcutta darkness.

ANY MEMORIES OF HAND-HELD WEAPONS OF LIGHT? OR ARE YOU LUCKY ENOUGH NOT TO NEED THEM AT ALL?

MY MOST EMBARRASSING FAN-TASY

2009-07-13T03:24:00.000+05:30

(Almost) Everybody goes through a FAN-tastic phase in life. One, at least. Or several, as in my case. Over those awkward, gangly-gawky growing-up years, I have been a fan of several different people from several different professions. Actors, singers, authors, sportstars…you name them, and I have had them up on my walls or deep in my heart.

Sometimes the adulation-relation has been a lifelong one – I just can’t get enough of Mr Amitabh Bachchan, for example. Or Agatha Christie.

But sometimes, the passion has been short-lived. And the intensity has been completely inexplicable once the phase passed. (OH MY GOD, HOW COULD I HAVE BEEN SO-O-O CRAZY ABOUT SO AND SO?) I have done this from oooh-to-eeks deflating journey quite a few times, actually.

Take the eminently-nonentity Rahul Roy. When he first appeared in the movie AASHIQUI, strumming a guitar and lip-syncing to the nasal-but-memorable songs by Kumar Sanu, floppy hair hiding half his face (and covering up for his complete lack of expressions), it was fan-dom at first sight for me.

I was all of seventeen, living in a hostel with a gang of girls (all in their swoony-moony adolescence), and completely swept off my feet by this screen-hero who waited for his girl with a bunch of flowers outside her typing school, who came from a broken home and hated his dad, who cried like a child in his mum’s lap when love seemed to turn sour.

Teenage romantic filmy classics like BOBBY and JULIE were before my time. For me, and some of friends in Lady Brabourne College Hostel (Lopa, this is for you), it was this ordinary, sensitive and vulnerable hero of AASHIQUI, who believed in love, not violence, who ruled our hearts and raced our pulses. We bunked college several times to watch and re-watch the movie. In fact, I think we saw it seven times in all. Six times at the theatres. And one time in a riskily madcap adventure.

Around eight of us had slipped off from the hostel with no intention of attending classes, intent on catching the matinee show of AASHIQUI once again. But the show (at the now-defunct LOTUS cinema, I think) was, as the board proclaimed, HOUSEFULL. Then one of us said that we could go and ask the nearby video-cassette rental shop if we could hire the AASHIQUI cassette and watch it at their shop premises, since it was not possible to watch it at our hostel. But the shop-owner did not grant us our request.

Very dejected, we dragged our feet outside the college, unwilling to go in. We loitered outside the strangely-named stationery shop, DOLPHIN (located close to our hostel and much frequented by us) and poured out our woes to the sympathetic young (and nice-looking) owner.

The chivalrous fellow immediately offered to help us damsels in distress. He invited us to his house (a three storey mansion right behind his shop), sent someone to rent the cassette and showed us the movie on his drawing room television. He even treated us to colas, a luxury for us perpetually cash-strapped hostelites.

When we returned to the hostel, giddy with another dose of Rahul Roy’s maudlin heroics and the Dolphin-owner’s generosity, we were severely scolded by the rest of our friends for being foolish enough to enter a stranger’s house. “You could have been raped, or kidnapped! The cola could have been spiked, you idiots!" they scolded, and not without reason.

But, being fan-atics, we paid no attention. Head in the clouds, we wore our fan-dom badge proudly and loudly, defending Rahul Roy against charges of non-acting, silly-sissy hairstyle and suchlike.

Once, my friend Lopa and I, the giddiest-headed-ever fans of Rahul Roy, walked straight up to a BATA shoe-showroom glass door, kissed the life-size poster of Rahul Roy smack on the lips (he appeared in ads for North Star shoes and apparel) and walked off again, much to the open-mouthed incredulity of the security guard. But then, fans are supposed to be crazy.

Thankfully, though, the Rahul Roy phase soon wore off, although I valiantly tried to keep the flame alive by faithfully watching his next few quite-unwatchable movies, and I mourned (a little) his passing into obscurity. Imagine my embarrassment when he turned up decades later, chubbier-than-before but as wooden-as-ever, with the trademark floppy hair in place, in that terrible reality show for all kinds of has-beens and never-was-es – BIG BOSS. And he won it, too. Everybody teased me about my old and near-forgotten crush on the now-portly (non)actor. I almost died cringing.

DO YOU HAVE ANY FAN-MEMORIES WHICH NOW MAKE YOU CRINGE?

CASH OR CHEQUE? OR DIRECT CREDIT?

2009-07-04T03:09:00.000+05:30

Recently, the television channels have been beaming this nostalgic, retro-looking ad for Cadbury's Dairy Milk Chocolate, where a dhoti-clad man is given a wad of currency notes by his Boss, "Banke, tumhara pagar (Bankey, your salary)" and the chorus breaks into the happy-go-lucky jingle, "Kuch meetha ho jaaye, aaj pehli tarikh hai (Let's celebrate with something sweet, it's the first day of the month)" - the "meetha" obviously referring to the chocolate.

When we were young, my Baba (father), who was an engineer working with the West Bengal State Electricity Board, would come home all happy and flushed on the first (or second, or third) of every month, one hand joyfully holding up a celebratory cardboard box of mishti (Bengali-style sweets) and the other hand cautiously clutching his trousers-pocket, which contained his monthly salary in cash (less the amount spent on the aforesaid sweets).

Most of his trousers had a special inner pocket (hidden under the lining of the front pocket) sewn on to them specifically for the purpose of guarding the salary - it was always paid in cash those days. As he usually travelled by local train, he had to be aware of pickpockets, who did brisk business in the early days of each month. In the crowded trains from Sealdah to Barrackpore, you had to take every precaution to guard the amount in your secret pocket.And that four-figure amount (which now looks almost impossibly meagre) was sufficient to provide for a family of six (my grandparents, parents, brother and myself) - food, shelter, clothing, education, healthcare and the occasional indulgence like the box of sweets.

The box usually contained the lethally high-calorie and syrupy "atom-bomb mishti". Perhaps Baba felt it was appropriate to start each month with a big-bang splurge. Sometimes, especially towards the end of the financial year when tax-cuts truncated the take-home pay, he would be more prudent and come home flourishing an earthen pot (a BIG one, mind you) of rasogollas (the famous Bengali sweet made of cottage-cheese balls boiled in sugar syrup).

For us, however, the effect was same. The beginning of the month meant a worthwhile wait for Baba to come back from 'office'. Sometimes, he would come late, because he would refuse to board too-crowded rush-hour trains. He would let the crowded ones pass, before getting up on a train which had space to sit, which made it difficult for pickpockets to pilfer your salary. But, late or not, come home he would. Spreading happiness and sweets. While we carefree-ly chomped on the calories, Maa (mother) carefully counted the currency and put the notes in various envelopes (for various household expenses) in the money box in the almari (cupboard).

Today, our salaries have increased by a few more zeroes at the end, and they are conveniently credited to our bank accounts. But the tangible thrill of clutching a fistful of hard-earned, my-own money and the small but immediate pleasure of splurging on a treat for myself and my loved ones has perhaps decreased to zero.

ANY FIRST DAY, CASH-PAY MEMORIES?

SCRATCH AND WIN

2009-06-29T03:12:00.000+05:30

Although I have always felt that ‘scratch’ sounds rather offensive, I have felt that winning something for free was a splendidly fun thing to happen – a pure slice of luck, based not on any achievement of the receiver, but solely and wholly on the munificence of the giver.

When we were children, it was customary for us to visit our mamabari (mother’s brother’s house) once a week. Usually it would be a Friday or Saturday afternoon, and we would return home in the evening. Walking towards the bus-stop from mamabari, we would inevitably stop at a shop selling soft-drinks and cigarettes. Baba would buy his usual packet, and light up one cigarette from the smouldering coil of coconut-rope hanging beside the shop precisely for this purpose. And we would clamour for our weekly quota of empty calories – I would have my Goldspot which left my tongue all orange and my insides all bubbly and happy, Bhai (brother) would have a bottle of the more substantial Milkose (chilled milky drink) or some mango-flavoured syrup.

Once, the manufacturers of Goldspot announced that under every cap (of the bottles), there would be a picture of some character from Jungle Book (of the Rudyard Kipling-transformed-by-Walt-Disney-variety). If we managed to collect the requisite unhealthily-high number of such caps, we could exchange them for posters and caps and other unnecessary but tempting things.

It seemed a perfect case of scratch-and-win, or rather, poke-and-win. I would grab my Goldspot, ask the shop-keeper to hand over the cap, poke out the rubber lining from under it, and…become the proud possessor of a tiny, crinkly-edged picture of Mowgli, Baloo, Bagheera, Ra and their other jungle-pals.

But my once-weekly quota made for a very slowly growing collection. To add to my impatience, my brother flatly refused to switch over to Goldspot to aid the growth of my cap-collection. Finally, after quite a few weeks of solitary cap-collecting, the shop-keeper came to my rescue. On hearing about my plight, he reached down, and from the debris at his feet handed me a whole bagful of soft drink bottle caps, which included a very large number of Goldspot caps as well.

I was overjoyed at my sudden bounty and spent a blissful hour or so poking out an entire jungle-full of pictures from under the caps. In fact, so pleased was I with my dozens of Sher Khans and suchlike that I totally refused to part with them for the sake of a piddly poster or two. And so, the means themselves became an end for me, and I kept my plastic menagerie for a long long time, fingering their crinkly circular smoothness and smelling their faint orangey tang.

Alas, Goldspot has long breathed its last (being a victim of global business politics – its owner, Parle Agro, sold the brand to the cola-giant Coca Cola Company, whose orange brand Fanta gradually pushed Goldspot into obscurity and annihilation). But the scratch-and-win freebies are flourishing, the latest, in my case, being a blog-tag awarded to me by Double Dolphin.

I quote: ..."the rules:

1.link the person who tagged you.

2.copy the image above, the rules and the questionnaire in this post.

3.post this in one or all of your blogs.

4.answer the four questions following these rules.

5.recruit at least seven (7) friends on your blog roll by sharing this with them.

6.come back to BLoGGiSTa iNFo CoRNeR (please do not change this link) and leave the URL of your post in order for you/your blog to be added to the master list.

7.have fun!..."

The person who tagged me is Double-Dolphin (on 22June2009). THANKS! (AND I did not have to scratch, either!)

I BLOG, therefore I HAVE WON! And the seven people who get the award are:

Zillionbig, Aparna, Sujata, Jyothi, SGD, Swaram, Nona.

REMEMBER ANY SUCH INSTANCE WHEN YOU, ER, "SCRATCHED" AND WON?

MY FIRST 'PRIZE'

2009-06-22T00:46:00.000+05:30

The first ‘prize’ I won was actually a ‘Second Prize’ (prize given to somebody who stands second in the annual class examination).

I was in Class IV (fourth standard), and it was 1984. Nowadays, many schools do not award prizes because, apparently, such practices foster unhealthy competition, but back in the cheerfully elitist 1980s, nobody bothered about psychobabble.

At the end of every year, sometime after the annual exam (which ruthlessly tested our knowledge of whatever we had learnt during the entire year – which meant several whole books to mug/memorise/remember and a whole lot of trauma), we would all stand expectantly in the assembly (morning prayer time) and our Head Mistress, the redoubtable Mrs Enid Isaacs (called ‘Izac aunty’ by all Modern School-ers), would be present to hand over the prizes when the names of the students who had ranked Third, Second and First in the exams for each class would be called out. Third, Second and First – in that order.

And, invariably, the prize would be some storybook tied up in red satin ribbon with a label pasted inside stating that so-and-so had won the ---- prize in the Annual Examination for the year ----.

The storybooks themselves were not the attraction (in our school, nobody ever got an Enid Blyton, who was about the only author whose books we eagerly read at that age). It was the slow, careful untying of the satin ribbon, and the gleeful pleasure-pride of looking at your own name written in curly letters on the label pasted bang on the first page, signed and sealed by the school authority.

In my Fourth Standard Annual exams, I ranked second (the First Prize going to a girl called Nandini, who obligingly left school next year, so that I managed to win my first ever First Prize in the Fifth Standard – so my second prize was actually a First Prize, just to confuse things a bit more.). And so, in front of the whole crowd of politely-clapping students, I - flushed, proud, thrilled-to-the-core and expectant - walked up to receive a be-ribboned edition of Oliver Goldsmith’s The Vicar of Wakefield, ‘original and unabridged’.

Now, I had never before heard about the author (a famous-if-feckless eighteenth century dabbler in various literary forms, he was well before my time), I did not even know the meaning of the word ‘vicar’ (and when I did look it up in the dictionary, neither the concept of ‘priest’ nor ‘village’ interested me), the old-fashioned language and slow pace of action defeated my enthusiasm after the first few pages, and the lack of pictures did not help.

So, after a lot of smiling and sighing and smoothing my hands over the label and displaying the prize to all and sundry, my prize book gathered dust in it pride of place on my bookshelf, while I went back to my Enid Blytons.

P.S: Much later, as a college student, I have atoned somewhat for my early neglect of the affable Goldsmith (who lived imprudently and died in debt), by reading and enjoying his lively rom-com play She Stoops to Conquer. But I never did manage to make full acquaintance of the simple and pleasant Vicar of Wakefield.

P.P.S : Nowadays, winning virtual prizes do not need all-year studying, serious mugging ('by-hearting', as my students say). Only the graciousness of fellow-bloggers suffice, as proved recently by the mysteriously named Miss_Nobody, who has generously given this blog OneLovely Blog Award, prompting me to write this post. Thank you.

WHAT ARE YOUR FIRST ‘PRIZED’ MEMORIES?

FOUR-POINT SOMEONE

2009-06-13T03:16:00.000+05:30

No, the reference here is not to Chetan Bhagat’s IIT-reminiscing bestseller FIVE POINT SOMEONE. Peter Rozovsky, who writes a full-of-twist-and-turns crime-fiction blog, has forwarded an interesting four-cornered meme. Digging into multi-cornered memories and fancies, I came up with:

Four Places I’d Like to Go, or Things I’d Like to Do:

1. The British Isles. Of course, in the 1990s, most students of English Literature in India were fed on an almost-exclusive diet of British fiction (as opposed to writing in the other Englishes), and so I have grown up visualizing (and being forced to write long answers about) Shakespeare’s London (and Stratford-on-Avon), Wordsworth’s Lake District and James Joyce’s Dublin and the place near Westminster Abbey where all the famous poets are buried (to name just a few of the Eng Lit hotspots). Besides, when I was in school, my Pishi (father’s sister) got herself photographed standing beside the wax statue of Indira Gandhi at Madame Tussaud’s, and I’ve always had a yen for doing such deliciously desi touristy things myself.

2. Switzerland. The Hindi movies of our childhood might be set in Mumbai or Delhi or anywhere else in sweltering India, but most of them would zoom straight to the snowy Alpine slopes for a song. And the unskilled-in-skiing heroine would tumble straight into the hero’s arms, and the cold weather would be a nice excuse for a cuddle. So environment-friendly, na?

3. The United States. Which we called “Aay-mey-rica” in unsophisticated Bengali. Associated in my childish mind with Walt Disney and Disneyland. And a Bengali translation of Uncle Tom’s Cabin which wrung out a flood of my tears. And HOLLYWOOD highlighted against the hills. And then, in university, with the Great Gatsby and the “green light at the end of the dock”.

4. And Enid Blyton’s books (like The Caravan Family and Five Go Off in a Caravan) have made me yearn to have a holiday meandering through the countryside in a horse-drawn caravan (with bunk-beds and neat shelves and a cooking stove).

Four Places I Have Lived:

1.Barrackpore
2.Kolkata
3.Mumbai
4. ----- (my imagination may fly, but the body had been fairly rooted)

Four Places I Have Been on Vacation:

1. Digha. My first visit to the sea. Digha was empty and unspoiled then. And I collected so many tiny colourful shells.
2. Darjeeling. My first visit to the Himalayas. The sharp frosty cold. The warm delicious momos. The white-crowned majesty of the Kanchenjanga peak.
3. Benares. Crowded with people making a living out of religion. Not really my cup of tea.
4. Goa. Blue sea. White sands. Quaint churches. Lovely people. Heaven!

Four Food or Drinks I Have Liked:

1. Fish. Especially freshwater fish. Especially silvery Ilish bought during a boat-ride with our entire family (father, mother, grandmother, uncle, aunt, cousins) on the Ganga on a long-ago New Year’s morn.
2. Rezala (a yogurt-based mutton preparation perfected by the Muslim Nawabs) and Roomali rotis (handkerchief thin wheat flatbread) at Shabbir’s in Kolkata, a Durga Pujo treat given annually by Baba (father).
3. The kuler-aachar (sweet-sour berry pickle) and aamsi (sweet-sour dry mango pickle) bought from the vendor with the little wooden pushcart on the long walk back from school.
4. Natural’s Ice-cream. The sweetest, creamiest, fruitiest, yummiest thing in Mumbai.

Four Books or Movies I could Read or Watch Again:

1. All my dog-eared, much-thumbed, yellow-pages-falling-apart Agatha Christies.
2. The Harry Potter series for their intricate simplicity.
3. Sholay. The drama, the comedy, the romance, the banquet of emotions. And every time I do, I never fail to cry at Jai’s (played by Amitabh Bachchan) sacrifice and death.
4. Dr Spock’s book on Baby and Child Care. Endlessly fascinating for the last eight and half years. (Just kidding).

Four Works of Art Before Which I’ve Stood (or Sat):

Since I’ve never seen any really famous work of art up-close, I thought I’d mention four works which I’d love to stare at.
1. Michelangelo’s Pieta. How can marble express such pity and tenderness?
2. John Everett Millais’ Ophelia. How can such overloading of earthy details be so ethereal?
3. Claude Monet’s Waterlilies series. How can one subject produce so many variations?
4. Dali’s The Persistence of Memory. A perspective-puzzle or a new truth?

Four Figures From the Past Whom I’d Like to Watch at Work or Meet for Dinner:

1. Shakespeare at work on King Lear.
2. Cleopatra arming herself in glamour and guile.
3. Charles M Schulz at his studio, discussing the daily Peanuts-dose of innocent wisdom.
4. Rabindranath Tagore sitting under trees with his students at Shantiniketan.

Four People I Think Might Take it Upon Themselves to Take Up This Meme:

(Feel free to alter/add/adjust at will. Anybody else can also join in).
Suranga

Kavi

Santanuda

Pradipda.

TORCH-BEARER

2009-06-09T14:15:00.000+05:30

The multi-functional mobile phone has almost usurped the role of many a household gadget – like the alarm clock and the radio. And the torch (we never called it ‘flashlight’).

When we were children, the sturdy steel torch was inevitably present on every bedside table or drawing room cabinet. There was a fixed place for the torch in every household and it was VERY IMPORTANT always to keep it in THAT PLACE ONLY.

The torch was our first line of defence against the near-daily power-cuts (or load-shedding, as we call them here). Whenever the power went off, somebody would move stealthily but sure-footedly in the dark to the place where the torch would usually be. By the saviour-light of the torch the matchbox would be found and lanterns would be lit to keep the darkness at bay and allow normal evening activities (cooking/eating/homework-ing) to be resumed.

Whenever we went out after dark, the torch would be our faithful companion. Not only was it helpful in lighting up dark narrow gallis (alleyways), its heavy sturdiness was a reassuring weapon against probable (and imaginary) pesky ever-teasers/pick-pockets/chain-snatchers.

Especially to people like me, who suffered from chronic haywire-imagination-dysfunctionality. My frugal Dadu (grandfather) had instructed us that it was more economical to switch the light of the torch off-and-on (rather than keeping it on constantly), as that would apparently save on batteries. Though I never questioned the logic behind this theory, I was too scared of the darkness outside to obey it fully. Whenever I switched off the light, the darkness (and all its attending monsters) seemed to rush in and swamp my courage. My heart would dislodge from my mouth and return to its rightful place only when I switched the torch back on and the comforting triangle of light would flickeringly light up the path in front of me. So I usually kept the torch switched on when the road was dark and the going was heavy.

With my courage bolstered thus by the torch, it was easier to be disobedient. Sometimes it was fun to raise the torch up to the sky and watch the frailer light from my hand be engulfed by the brighter light of the full moon.

The puny white light from the light-weight mobile phone cannot really, to put it metaphorically, hold a torch to those torches of yore.

DO YOU WANT TO KINDLE A TORCH-MEMORY?

A FLOOD OF MEMORIES

2009-06-03T03:58:00.000+05:30

The recent super-cyclone Aila which devastated large swathes of Kolkata and neighbouring areas (including my hometown Barrackpore) was something I watched on TV and heard on the phone from afar, being in Mumbai and Bangalore when it happened.

But when I was a child, I had a real-time experience of the Great Flood which happened in the Nineteen-seventies (Google says 1978 – I was five years old) in Bengal. A mind-probe brought up a lot of scattered memories.

I remember heavy, seemingly-unending rainfall and perpetually-dark skies.

I remember water collecting and rising above the ground, rising to submerge the streets and the garden, rising to cover the stairs leading to the house, to the exact level of the ground floor balcony. I thought the pond beside our house had overflowed, but somebody told me that it was the river Ganga, about two miles away from our house, which had broken its banks and spread out so far. I thought what it might feel like to live underwater, if our house would be submerged like the lost city of Atlantis (story told to me by my father), and then many many centuries later, people would find us and we would wake up (I think I mixed up the Atlantis story with Sleeping Beauty...I was a confused child living in a secret dreamworld half the time).

I remember the people of the neighbouring slum areas, who lived in small one-storey brick-and-mud houses which were partially submerged, come over for shelter to larger two-storey houses like ours. I was bundled off to the upper floor, so I cannot recollect any specific faces. My Dadu (grandfather) refused to leave his bed (his bedroom was on the ground floor) and I remember him sullenly and defiantly glaring at the rain as if willing it to stop before the water flooded his room. Which it did, actually!

I remember my father and uncle and other grown-ups in the neighbourhood wading through the water with torches at night, patrolling the streets (we called it ‘nightguard duty’) because, apparently, the flood had brought about an influx of thieves braving the rains and water, looking for an opportunity to loot the deserted defenceless houses.

I remember sitting with my father on the staircase which led to the first floor and watching the water rise slowly but surely till it reached the level of the balcony at least three feet above the ground. A small jaldhora snake swam up and took shelter on the slippery-with-rain balcony. I was scared but my father reassured me. Anyway, the snake slithered busily away into the water soon.

I remember the rain lessening and then gradually stopping after what seemed like weeks-without-end. The roads were covered with poli-maati (the typical silt-clay found on the banks of the Ganga), the garden was a mess of dead and rotting plants, and there were some unrecognizable carcasses (cows or goats, or maybe street-dogs) on the streets and playing fields.

Strangely, I do not remember anything about the suffering and shortages of food/electricity/water that we must have undergone. My mother was calm and unruffled (at least in front of us), she gave us meals on time, and despite being school-less and outside-play-less for several days, I do not remember feeling bored or irritable. It was all new and different. I remember feeling rather Noah-like. It must have been frightening, but with all the grown-ups in the house (schools and offices being closed for days), the excitement won over the fear. Maybe children, unless they are directly affected by a calamity, have a different perspective of Nature’s excesses than adults.

DO YOU REMEMBER ANY NATURAL DISASTER WHICH YOU HAD WITNESSED AS A CHILD?

RED FEET, PAINTED FEET

2009-05-28T14:21:00.000+05:30

This summer vacation, my elder daughter and I have been reading a lot of Bengali poems (in our annual attempt to teach her to read her mother-tongue). Many of the poems mention alta (a red liquid used to paint the borders of the soles/feet):

“Elo chuley beney bou
Alta diye paye
Nolok naake, kolshi kanke
Jol aantey jaye”

(The gold-smith’s wife is open-tressed
Her feet have an alta-border
Gold nose-ring flashing, the pot at her waist,
She goes to get water).

Sukumar Ray, that inimitable genius of nonsense, of course turns everything familiar upside-down, and writes about Kumropotash (a fantastistical fierce pumpkin-shaped creature):

“Jadi Kumropotash chhotey –
Shabai jeno torboriye jaanla beye othey;
Hunkor jaley alta guley lagaye gaaley thontey,
Bhuleo jeno aakaash paaney takaye na keo motey.”

(If the Kumropotash runs fast –
Everybody must climb up their windows in a hurry
Mix alta with hookah-water and put it on the cheeks and lips
And never look up at the sky, or you’ll be sorry.)

The hilarity of these nonsensical instructions lie partly in their sheer implausibility – alta is never applied to the face, only to the feet. But my daughters, never having heard about alta, let alone seen it, did not know that.

When we were young, there was always a bottle of alta somewhere in the house. These glass-bottles full of deep blood-red liquid used to come with a tiny aluminium bowl and a long stiff wire ending in a small piece of sponge/cottonwool. The alta would be poured out in careful measure into the bowl, the wire would be dipped into it, and then a line would be drawn all around the foot, circling the heel and dipping in and out of the toes.

This was done during all religious ceremonies. And alta had a pride of place in Bengali marriage rituals – along with sindoor (the red vermilion powder applied in a dot on the forehead and in the parting of the hair), it symbolized the married-status of a woman.

My Dida (grandmother) used to say that alta would be regularly used when she was a young bride; apparently it helped to prevent/cure cracked heels. But during our childhood, my mother and aunts would use alta only on special days, although they used to put sindoor on their foreheads everyday after bathing. For cracked feet, they used Boroline.

Though we were not allowed to play with sindoor (being the exclusive preserve of married women), we were allowed to fiddle about with the alta bottle, maybe because it was no longer part of the daily routine of married women.

And all of us young cousins would sit down sometimes and inexpertly apply uneven alta-lines around our feet, painting all over our toes and leaving red footprints all over the place. Alta-paint would wash off after a few days, so the damage (to the floor and to the feet) was never too much.

When we entered our teens, we began to regard alta as terribly old-fashioned. With cheerful disregard for tradition, we neglected it totally in favour of the more permanent and more modern nail-polish to decorate our toes.

DO YOU HAVE A MEMORY OF ANY COSMETIC PRODUCT WHICH IS NO LONGER USED?

WHAT DO ‘BAD WORDS’ MEAN?

2009-05-21T16:43:00.000+05:30

Like every other child, I was irresistibly drawn to ‘bad words’ whenever I came across them. Unfortunately, these occasions were not plentiful, as my father and jethun (uncle) never really let rip. At the most they would use cuss-words like ‘shaala’ (‘saala’ in Hindi, meaning ‘wife’s brother’, presumably indicating that the swearer has enjoyed illicit relations with the sister of the sworn-at). Or, ‘shuorer bachcha’ (son of a pig). These relatively harmless convoluted-relational cuss-words were used only in heated discussions, usually about politicians and their ilk.

The ladies of the house, interestingly, never used swear-words at all. I wonder what channels they used to give vent to pent-up anger.

When I was in Class VIII, I celebrated my entry into teenage by asking my rent-a-book stall-owner to give me a ‘grown-up’ book to read. Being the precocious sort, I had already sampled a few tepid Mills-and-Boon romances, which are basically an eye-wash as far as the real birds-and-bees stuff is concerned. I was ready, or so I felt, for stronger stuff.

My friendly book-seller (unknowingly, perhaps, because I have never seen him reading any of his books) handed me a thick tome by the juicy Jackie Collins. It was called ‘LOVERS AND GAMBLERS’ and had a pair of luscious red lips pouting on the glossy cover. Very promising, indeed. My thirteen-year soul thrilled at the promise of exciting disclosures.

Carrying home my contraband treasure, I immediately covered it in an old inconspicuous sheet of newspaper. Then, at the first possible opportunity, in a quiet and undisturbed corner, I opened the book and dived into an unplumbed sea of naughty ‘adult’ adventures.

Only to be foxed by the first four (rather five)–letter word I met. Collins had succinctly introduced her gutsy heroine as a ‘lady with balls’. Flummoxed by this physiologically-impossible metaphor, I tried to figure out the meaning of this exciting new word. The staid dictionary did not help.

After a lot of deep thought and detailed re-reading, I decided that ‘balls’ meant the round knee-caps in the said lady’s legs (Collins had said something like, “The way she strode through the airport lounge, you knew straightaway that she was a lady with balls”.) I was rather disappointed with my inference, because everybody I knew, lady or not, had ‘patella’ (kneecap, or ‘balls’ as I felt). And there was nothing naughty or exciting or grown-up about it, really.

P.S: But Jackie Collins, when fully read and gradually correctly understood, proved to be a rather thrilling introduction to the bold and bawdy, glamorous and grown-up world of sex, drugs and rock-and-roll. And a very good treasury of explosive-sounding four-letter words. My horizons and vocabulary were considerably expanded.

ANY FOUR-LETTER WORD MEMORY YOU WOULD CARE TO EXPAND UPON?

SWITCH ON A MEMORY

2009-05-15T04:05:00.000+05:30

Nowadays, we take pains to camouflage electrical switches. Small and insignificant, they are usually set in a white plastic panel which blends right in with the pastel wall paint. And the wires and stuff are all hidden out of sight, under the plaster, as if they are something to be ashamed of.

Not so earlier. When we were children, our home in Barrackpore proudly displayed its electrical connections. The switches were round-bold-black-on-a-white-ceramic-base, and they were set in a wooden box-board which arrogantly jutted out of the whitewashed walls. There were eye-catching lines of wires from each and every light and fan and socket, proudly criss-crossing the walls to meet at the switch-board. Electrical wiring of yore was like networking of today – the mantra being “Flaunt your connections”.

These switches had a life of their own, and could give you nasty surprises and shocks if you touched them with wet hands. They demanded respectful treatment, and we were taught to be very very careful and dry our hands and wear rubber slippers before touching them. As an extra precaution, the switch-boards were usually positioned almost impossibly high on the wall to avoid pesky children from fiddling with their dignity.

And the queen of the switch-board was the fan regulator. Not the piddly little white knobs of today, thank you. We had big, bold rectangular beauties with prominent knobs marked very clearly ON-1-2-3-4-5-OFF. They had a don’t-mess-with-me attitude, and required a certain amount of force to be, for want of a better word, regulated. They were also extremely temperamental, in true diva-fashion. Sometimes they would coyly refuse to move beyond 2 or 3 in the midst of sweaty summer heatwaves. Or stubbornly remain stuck at 5 even though the autumn breeze had turned chilly.

The only force which could subdue the arrogant switch-board and make it redundant was the LOAD-SHEDDING (powercuts). These were frequent whimsical occurrences (then, as now, some things don’t change) lasting from anything between one to six hours. During their duration, the switch-board lay in a neglected shadow, with only one switch left on to inform us of the return of electricity.

When the electricity did return, we were usually informed by the lone left-on light-bulb as well as by a general HURRAH of joy that echoed through the neighbourhood. And the primacy of the switch-board would be restored, with all the adults rushing to it in supplication and relief to put on the lights and fans and the fridge.

DO SWITCH ON A MEMORY AND SHARE IT WITH US.

A MERE BAGATELLE…

2009-05-08T14:51:00.000+05:30

Actually, I learnt the proper pronunciation and meaning of the word ‘bagatelle’ much later in life, when I was studying literature.

When we were children, we used to call it ‘bagaduli’. Which was the ‘Bengalification’ of an old (going back to 1777) and regal (Louis XVI, if I am not wrong) indoor game.

Our ‘bagaduli’ was a small semi-oblong shaped flimsy board of wood with numerous pins stuck on it in intricate circular patterns. There were a few round metal globules which we had to push with sticks along these pinned alleyways in an attempt to get them trapped in the pinned circles, each of which had different points (10, 20, 25, 30, etc). Obviously, the player with the most points won.

I cannot remember ever getting the hang of this game, and cannot recall ever playing it competitively.

Oh, there were many indoor/board games which brought out our fiercest competitive instincts, with improvised tournaments and league-matches played during every vacation – summer, Puja or winter. We cousins would stay up half the night playing card games (hellbent on winning or cheating), and then challenge each other again in the morning across the carom board. Even ludo was competitive, before we graduated to Chinese chequers and then to chess (not for all of us, though).

But the ‘bagaduli’ usually languished in a corner of some be-curtained wooden shelf with the other outgrown stuff. Only to be taken out when I was alone and had nothing better to do. Only to be dusted, toyed with half-heartedly (I still remember the faint ‘ping’ sound of the metal balls hitting each other), and put back into shadowy obscurity.

Only to be remembered, in a half-forgotten way, when I came across the word ‘bagatelle’ in college, when I was struck by the irony of its meaning: ‘a trifle’. Of so many such trifles our past is made, and so many such trifles slip away forever through the memory-sieve. I felt so glad that I could retrieve and reconstruct this particular ‘bagatelle’…

ANY MEMORIES OF GAMES THAT YOU NEVER PLAYED?

‘THE MALE GAZE’

2009-05-02T04:20:00.000+05:30

Feminists might crib about the ‘male gaze’ and how it reduces women into commodities to be consumed, possessed or bartered.

When I was a just-turned-teen, we cared two hoots for all that feminist rant. We were all too busy being ‘feminine’. The ‘male gaze’ ruled our thoughts and dreams, in fact, the more males, the merrier.

‘How to attract the male (s) gaze (s)’ – was one of the most important problems of life. Elaborate strategies were planned and executed. We would spend hours hemming up our skirts to show more leg. My school-uniform-skirt had begun life as two-inches-below-the-knee, but when I passed out, it was an-inch-above, and all through strategic sewing. To achieve the same purpose, socks were compulsorily rolled down. Only the goody-two-shoes-type wore knee-length socks.

As visits to beauty parlours were supervised by strict mothers and were usually for haircuts only, we waxed our legs and tweezed our eyebrows at home, often with rather uneven results.

Resourcefulness was the key in our strategic preparation. One carefully purchased lipstick (after prudently saving on pocket money) would multifunction as eye-shadow and blusher. Shirts and T-shirts would be filched from fathers and brothers to give the fashionably appropriate ‘baggy’-effect on top of tight short skirts. Acrylic fabric paints were used to give old outfits a new zing. Hair-scrunchies would double-up as wrist-ornaments. And mismatched earrings (one dangler, one stud) were surefire eye-catchers.

Festivals would send us into flirting frenzies. The preparations were elaborate. Often, we would spend three hours dressing up for an half-hour jaunt. Much of the preliminary discussion would centre around who would be wearing what. Outfits were co-ordinated, but not duplicated. And it was all a friendly competition - we would help each other with the ‘getting ready’ businesss.

Armed to the teeth in an 'array of loveliness' (our natural loveliness considerably enhanced by the careful applocation of a whole lot of artificial aids), we would descend into the warzone of the battle-of-the-sexes. And then, the swagger in our strut and the covert, swift look back to see who noticed whom. The flutter of the eyelashes and the disdainful look away (if you wanted somebody to notice you, you ALWAYS looked AT and then AWAY).

Boys, hapless under the carefully-planned onslaught, would fall for our constructed charms like ninepins. We would sometimes do a tally on the number of scalps in our belts. Reverse feminism, in a way: we just regarded the poor fellows as so many notches on our victory registers.

It was all great fun, and completely frivolous. Serious relationships were few and far-between and would usually come much later in the day. For the rest of us, the ‘male gaze’ was enough.

WHAT ABOUT YOU? ANY ‘GAZER’ OR ‘GAZEE’ MEMORIES?

HEARTBREAK HOUSE

2009-04-24T13:30:00.000+05:30

It began life as a piece of land sold to my grandparents. It was the 1940s, that turbulent decade when India was pulling free from the British yoke. Bengal had already been ripped into two. Many Hindu families, originally from East Bengal (later East Pakistan; now Bangladesh), were fleeing to the West (West Bengal, which remained part of Indian territory). [The opposite – Muslim families moving to East Bengal – was also happening.]

Dadu and Dida (my father’s father and mother) were part of the thousands of families that came, looking to build a new life. They came to Barrackpore, a small town near Kolkata, because my Dida’s father lived here (he was a District Magistrate). They bought middling plot of land by selling off some of Dida’s gold ornaments. [The ornaments would stand our family in good stead through hard times – right down to paying for my father’s engineering college fees.].

Some more sold-off-gold helped to build a small two-bedroom house with a red cement balcony. There was a haphazard garden with a well at one end. My grandparents moved in with their four children – my Jethun (uncle), Pishis (aunts) and Baba (my father, the youngest).

Over the decades, the house changed shape many a time, swelling to suit the needs of its inhabitants. When my father got married a room was added on top, and the house officially became a do-tala baari (two-storey house), enhancing its status in the para (neighbourhood). One of Baba’s promotions resulted in the creation of a proper drawing room and an attic.

Dadabhai’s marriage meant another bedroom. The red-tiled kitchen at the back got a change of roof; new bathrooms were added, as were balconies. Gradually, brick by brick, the house metamorphosed into a sprawling seven-roomed house. What it continued to be, for over six decades, was a HOME to all of us living there. My home.

But, the residents also changed. Some grew old and died – my grandparents – some died before their time – my aunt, father, uncle. Some grew up and left – my cousins. Finally, my mother, brother and I, too, shifted to a new apartment, near the railway station, for convenience and easy conveyance to the city. The lure of the city won over our loyalty to the home.

The house, lonely and left behind, brooded into decrepitude. A family of distant relations stayed for some years while we followed our destinies elsewhere. The termites had an uninterrupted banquet. The memory- heavy rooms, once witness to our evolving histories, remained dark and shut. Cracks grew in the walls and weeds grew in the cracks. Creepers, intertwined with echoes of our laughter and quarrels, grew over the vacant balconies. The trees in the garden cast longer and longer shadows and began to hide the house like Sleeping Beauty’s castle.

My grandfather had left behind a lot of memories, but no legal will. So, the amicable and consensual transfer of the rights of the house to Dadabhai, my cousin, took a long time – more than a decade – and endless visits to the court.

Now the knots of legalese have been unraveled. Dadabhai, who stays in Bangalore, told us last week that the house has been handed over to some promoters, who will break down the old structure and build a multi-storeyed apartment (what else?) in its place. My daughters will never be able to visit it and see for themselves the rooms and garden that shaded and shaped me.

Ironically, each flat in the new building will have two bedrooms - which are what the house originally had, to begin with.

Maybe the happiness I felt there will be transferred to the new owners, multiplying as the rooms have multiplied in the flats, making the residents cherish their homes, just as I did, so long ago.

ANY MEMORIES OF LOSING A HOME?

MEMORIES OF FORGETTING

2009-04-17T13:30:00.000+05:30

The first time I forgot something was a long time ago. When I was five years old, to be specific. When I was sitting in a classroom, writing a Mathematics class test, to be even more specific. Mathematics, in those uncomplicated childish times, meant a simple progression from number 1 to number 100. No arduous additions, stupefying subtractions, maddening multiplications, devious divisions or other complicated calculations that continue to haunt us in later life.

But even then, as now, I was numerically challenged. The very shapes of the numbers challenged me, especially that of number 3. I was confused: were the pointy bits on the left and the rounded bits on the right, or vice versa? Frowning and chewing my pencil (most of my pencils looked like they had been attacked by woodpeckers), I tried to visualize the shape of 3. But like a missing piece of a jigsaw puzzle, the shape of the mystic number eluded me.

Not willing to give up without a fight (Maths was, and continues to be, Academic Enemy No. 1), I came up with a solution. I had to write from 1 to 50, so I had to write the number 3 a total of 15 times ( I just checked it out twice, counting on my fingers). Each time, I meticulously alternated the sides of the pointy and the rounded parts, so that 33 ended up looking like an 8 broken down the middle.

Needless to say, my score in the test was unmemorable, and I have duly forgotten it.

Though I remember my first instance of forgetting in photographic detail, the subsequent instances and too many and too frequent to remember.

DO YOU REMEMBER WHEN YOU FIRST FORGOT SOMETHING?

COLLEGE-COLLAGE OF MEMORIES

2009-04-11T02:35:00.000+05:30

College is such an important part of growing up that it is sure to leave behind deep imprints in the road to self-discovery.

Some lucky ones, like Chetan Bhagat, write books on their college days (Five-Point Someone) and become rich and famous.

Not being Chetan Bhagat, however, I hope to write about my college memories in this blog. In bits and pieces, fragments and filaments, as is my wont.

Pritam, the very resourceful editor of the e-magazine Pentasect, very kindly allowed me to indulge in an all-expenses-paid nostalgia trip back to my college days in Presidency College of what-was-then-Calcutta. If you want to come along for the ride, do click here.

DO SHARE SOME OF YOUR COLLEGE MEMORIES WITH US.

SUMMER RAIN

2009-04-04T19:13:00.000+05:30

In Mumbai, the sun and the rain are like a quarelling Page 3 couple, they never appear together. It is always an either-or situation, either it is swelteringly hot (as it is now), with summer stretching for endless weeks; or it is raining, in drip-drops or deluges, for months without any sun in sight. I know that I am exaggerating, but that is what it feels like.

When I was child in Bengal, the sun and the rain had a different relationship, especially in summer, more especially in April. They were like an amorous couple, chasing each other throughout the month. The daytime would see the sun, all melting-concrete-hot and blinding-eyes-yellow. Coming back from school would mean a long walk in the sapping afternoon heat, when the sweat would seem to drip from our eyelids into our eyes and the schoolbag would leave a wet patch where it stuck to our backs.

But in the late afternoon, the white wispy effeminate clouds floating in the sky would be replaced by black billowing clouds which meant serious business. Even as the sun would hurry to the western horizon, the clouds would hustle the winds to sway the trees and rustle the leaves. In relief and gladness, we would come out into the balconies and courtyards, feeling the wind lift our hair and dry the sweat on our brows.

And then, riding on the back of the wind, would come the rain. Blessed, beautiful rain would pour down in huge drops on the parched soil and the hot rooftops, cooling us all. This was the Kalboishakhi, the summerstorm which was Nature’s own relief-measure and heat-control mechanism.

Sometimes, we would be allowed to get wet in the rain, especially if we had prickly heat rashes (as the first rain was supposed to be a miracle-cure for itchy heat-rash). Sometimes there would be hailstorms, and the roofs and gardens would be white with hailstones. Some would be tiny, melting in our hands as we tried to gather them. Some would be as big as golf-balls, which we would reverentially gather in bowls. Their cold crunchiness was a delight to taste.

Another epicurean delight of the Kalboishakhi were the green unripe mangoes which would fall off the madly swinging branches of our neighbour’s mango tree (which overhung our garden wall). We would rush out with laal gamchhas (thin red towels), unmindful of the fruits pelting down on our heads, eager only to collect as many fallen mangoes as possible before the rain became too heavy.

After discarding the tiny inedible ones, we would then peel the rest of our booty, and sit with outstretched legs in the balcony, eating our stolen goods with salt and red-chilli powder, watching the rain pour down. The next morning the sun would be back, in all his fierce glory.

The word Kal in Kalboishakhi probably refers to the 'black clouds which bring the rain', but as a child I always thought that Kal referred to 'tomorrow', and that Kalboishakhi meant that there would be another summerstorm tomorrow, to take away the heat in the evening and give us some more green mangoes.

ANY MEMORIES OF STORMS IN SUMMER?

THAT MYSTERIOUS SPACE UNDER THE BED…

2009-03-27T19:26:00.000+05:30

…has all but disappreared in this age of box-beds, where all the beds in my space-cramped flat have inbuilt boxes under them to store blankets and bed-sheets and other prosaic stuff.

Not so when we were young. Under the bed was a magical space accessible only to us children, out of bounds to most adults at most times. It would provide a cosy hiding place, especially if the bedcover was pulled down over the side. We would hide expectantly during lukochuri (hide-and-seek), emerging at the right moment all flushed and with the tops of our heads covered with cobwebs, to cry, “Dhappa” (Caught you!). My parents’ bed, with its low cramped space where you had to bend double or lie flat on your tummy to wriggle in or out, was a good hidey-hole.

My grandparents’ old-fashioned bed, which was raised high by placing a couple of bricks under each foot, offered another kind of sanctum. It was high enough for us to crouch comfortably, and many a secret meeting of us cousins was held on long summer-vacation afternoons with dadu (granddad) snoring blissfully above us. These meetings, chaired (rather, crouched over) by me and including my Bhai (brother) and Antu (my aunt’s son), would usually centre around some idea for tricks to be played on the aforesaid unsuspecting granddad. But, to keep him unsuspecting, we had to conduct the entire meeting in phish-phish (whispers), which added immensely to the mysterious attraction of the place.

Sometimes, we had to share the space under the bed with dozens of coconuts or betelnuts or mangoes plucked from the trees in the garden and laid out on the cool green cemented floor under the bed before they were either eaten or distributed among relations and neighours.

And in moments of deep distress, the best place to cry my heart out (an activity which I did frequently and fervently) was under the bed. I would lie on my tummy, put my head on my arms and bawl and sniffle away to glory, emerging red-eyed but refreshed (and completely de-stressed).

WHAT DID YOU DO UNDER THE BED WHEN YOU WERE A CHILD?

HAPPY BIRTHDAYS OF LONG AGO: PART II (AT HOME)

2009-03-21T12:41:00.000+05:30

Sorry for the diversion into dark and sweet (and forbidden) chocolate territory.

When I was young, birthdays were celebrated at home in the evenings. The pampered ones had balloons and streamers put up on the walls (with a glittery golden cutout HAPPY BIRTHDAY in the background) and specially baked cakes with frosted icing (shaped like Mickey Mouse or a house in the woods or a cricket pitch - this was before the invasion of Cartoon Network), which would arrive in a white box from some shop (strictly untouchable with an invisble handle-with-care sign).

Being a more frugal sort, we neglected the wall decoration bit and concentrated on the food - not 'ordered from out' but home-made. Maa and Didia (my intrepid cousin) would bake two round cakes with holes at the centre in the trusty Murphy oven. They (the cakes, not the oven) would be full of bits of cherries, petha (a white candied bottlegourd), and kismis (raisins). One cake would remain plain and plump brown (this was held in reserve for second servings) but the other one, meant to be displayed and cut, would be decorated with white icing sugar, mixed and poured through a paper cone. My Didia's painstaking effort in writing my name on the cake would usually result in illegible semi-transparent squiggles on top of the cake. She moped, but we were happy because we got to break off the stiff pieces of icing sugar and suck them even before the cake was cut.

A few of my close friends in the neighbourhood (Mampi and Soma, Sujata and Sonali, with their plaits and pigtails neatly combed and oiled for the occasion) would come, as would my cousin J and her family. I would go ooh and aah over the gifts [faking my surprise, because they had all told and 'consulted' me before buying the gifts - pens and pencil boxes, a jhola/shoulder-slung-bag, crayons and water-colour sets, Amar Chitra Katha-s (comics about Indian history and mythology), inexpensive Bengali storybooks]. One grand present (costing the princely amount of Rs. 40) was a Tintin comic-book given by my Dida (mother's mother) on my tenth birthday - it occupied the pride of place in my bookcase for a long, long time.

The cake-cutting would be a swift and perfunctory affair, with some half-hearted attempts at singing the birthday song (I suspect many of my friends and family were uncomfortable with all that singing in English). The gusto would be reserved for the food.

There would be hot just-fried luchis (puris/ fried hand-made flour pancakes), alurdom (potato-curry) and chicken-curry, followed by the cake ( a nod to our colonial heritage) and payesh (rice cooked in sweetened condensed milk - a traditional Bengali birthday treat).

I remember a certain birthday when the payesh was replaced by a complicated caramel custard (from a recipe in Chic - a popular 'women's' magazine which was diligently devoured by Ma and Didia). My grandparents were slightly dismayed at this deviation from tradition, but everyone else enjoyed the novelty. Later on, in the nineteen-eighties, when Chinese cooking was making incursions into Bengali cuisine and long blue packets of egg-noodles were showing up on grocers' shelves, the luchis were replaced by chicken-chowmein-Bengali-style. But it was all still cooked at home. And after eating (surely the focal point of all Bengali celebrations), the grown-ups would settle down to a round of adda (conversation, often extremely animated) while we kids would be left to play (and sometimes fight) on our own. Unsupervised by any DJs or event-managers or hired men in grotesque Mickey-Mouse-looking-like-Gorilla costumes.

In these hard times, maybe it would make a lot of sense to revert to those simpler celebrations of yore.

WHAT IS YOUR TAKE ON BIRTHDAY CELEBRATIONS? SELF-SUFFICIENT OR DJ-DEPENDENT?

THE GREAT CHOCOLATE DIVIDE

2009-03-11T04:08:00.000+05:30

When we were young, many many moons ago, chocolates were not as plenty on the ground as they seem to be now. Now, every passing guest will bring a gift of chocolates to my two daughters; the fridge is full of yet-to-be-unwrapped Dairy Milk Chocolate bars and other goodies.

The overabundance of chocolates have made them mundane and deprived them of the luscious magic of the past. For us, chocolates were magical stuff to covet and lust for. When they came into our possession, we relished the joy of ownership and the pleasure of anticipation for a long while (almost till the chocolate itself was in danger of melting because of being clutched in our grubby hands for a considerable time). And then the unwrapping of the shiny silvery foil and gazing into the sweet delights of the best brown colour in the whole wide world. And the love affair continued at the first bite …and the next…down to the last licking of the gooey mess in the folds of the foil or the tips of the fingers.

It was understandable when we learnt in college that the word chocolate had its roots in the Mexican ‘xococatl’ – a fittingly exotic origin for an out-of-the-world flavour.

The appeal of chocolates was all the more because we got to eat them on rare occasions, and then usually it was a small Cadbury’s éclairs or a 5-Star bar that had to be divided with great care and eaten with great relish.

So, you can understand our (my brother and mine) round-eyed, open-mouthed delight when my maasi (aunt) once gifted us a whole set of chocolate bars. The Amul company had then recently launched chocolate bars in different flavours, and maasi had generously given us the entire range!

We felt like monarchs who had been given the entire earth to rule over. There were orange-flavoured and coffee-flavoured chocolate, bars with nuts-and-raisins, rice-crispies, butter-scotch, peanuts, a dark chocolate one and a regular milk chocolate one.
Just the weight of the carry-bag and the feel of the rectangular bars (worth more to us than gold bars, at that moment) transported us to a kind of ecstasy.

And then came the difficult part. Like most monarchs who have to divide and rule, we too had to divide the booty to eat our share. Easy-peasy – eight bars, each neatly sectioned into sixteen cuboids. So what was the problem?

The problem was me. I was the glutton, gobbling my share in a matter of an hour or so, OD-ing on this unexpected bonanza, blissed out, but not satisfied. My prudent brother had a bite here and a bite there, and had kept the rest of his stash in the fridge, planning to enjoy his bonus a little at a time.

If only I would let him (Boy proposes, greedy sister disposes - this was the rule in our house). I remember coaxing him and cajoling him, then threatening him so loudly that my mother had to settle the sweet-dispute. Finally I used the pacifist-but-extremely-discomfiting ploy of sitting right in front of him when he would take out a bit of his hoarded treasure, and staring at him with starving-eyes, till he would be forced to shell out a cube or two (being a soft-hearted little fellow).

Ah, bliss all over again. Chocolate enjoyed through ill-gotten means tasted even better than the legally-devoured stuff.

DO SHARE A CHOCOLATE MEMORY.

P.S: THANK YOU, SCRIBBIT, FOR THIS MEMORY CALORIE-TRIP. (This post was written for Michelle’s Write Away contest).

HAPPY BIRTHDAYS OF LONG AGO: PART I (AT SCHOOL)

2009-03-05T14:49:00.000+05:30

When we were young, birthday celebrations had a pre-determined pattern that was much anticipated long before the day itself. For instance, if you were born in February (as I was), you could officially start counting the days and salivating in anticipation from 1st February itself (like I did).

First of all, there was the BIRTHDAY DRESS to be decided upon. No going out and buying from the shops for me. Maa (my mother) and Didia (my cousin) would decide upon a suitable pattern from a sewing book, I would be taken along to buy the dress material and then Maa would make it at home. I was too thrilled and tongue-tied at the entire exercise to offer any choice of my own.

Then, unless one was extremely unfortunate and the birthday fell on a holiday, Maa would purchase a big plastic bag full of toffees to take to school to share with my classmates. (Anything more than simple toffees was disallowed in my school, unlike in today’s schools where students often gift their classmates anything from CD-ROMs to expensive stationery sets). We usually got sugar-boiled candies or sticky toffees, even the 50 paise worth Cadbury’s Eclairs were given only by the affluent-elite nose-turned-up few.

Other preparations would be on in full swing, setting off an agony of expectations in me, which would increase so much that it would almost impossible to go to sleep the night before my birthday.

The great day would dawn and I would jump out of bed, vibrating with excitement. The ritual was to touch the feet of all the elders in the house (and there were plenty of them in my joint-family). I would dip down and bounce up several times, collecting blessings for the coming year.

A rushed-through-bath and a gobbled-breakfast later, I would be ready for school, not in my usual uniform, but in my brand new ‘colour dress’ which would make me the cynosure of all eyes at school. In the assembly during morning prayers, everybody would go nudge-nudge, whispering about the lucky one whose birthday it was. Oh, the thrill to be noticed and talked about. The trick, though, was not to be too obvious about it all; you had to pretend to be matter-of-fact while secretly walking on Cloud 9. But you could have your eyes saucer-shining and have a spill-any-moment-smile on your face.

Almost bursting with self-importance, I would give sweets (Parle’s orange boiled-sugar candies, my inexpensive favourites) to my classmates (trying to cheat a bit by giving more to my best friends) and then go to the other classrooms and staffroom to give the teachers and Principal (no wonder most of the teachers were overweight – the combined offerings of all the students all year round must have been huge). I would return, the victorious queen, to my class where everybody would stand up and sing loud-and-lustily, though sometimes indistinctly-through-toffee-sucking-mouths, “Happy Birthday to You”.

When we were in Class V (Fifth Standard), our class-teacher hit upon the idea of making a list of all our birthdays, collecting one rupee from each student (apart from the birthday boy/girl, of course), and gifting the birthday child something. I got a plain-jane stainless steel dish with my name inscribed under it. This might seem to be a paltry gift in this age of Conspicuous Spending, but in that simpler age the yet-to-be-devalued one rupee purchased a lot of joys for us.

HOW DID YOU CELEBRATE YOUR BIRTHDAY AT SCHOOL?

MEETING A MAESTRO

2009-02-27T02:12:00.000+05:30

Now it can be told….Last year, I was lucky enough to meet India’s two-time Oscar-winner, the toast of tinsel-town, the pride of the nation – A R Rahman. Not just meet, as in gawping at a crowded party, but meet, as in working for him (for a small copywriting project, which I am under obligation not to name).

In my near-four years in Mumbai, the only two other celebrities I have seen are the cute-but-past-her-prime Juhi Chawla (at the airport) and the disheveled-but-energetic music director Monty Sharma (at a Crossword bookstore). Friends and relations outside Mumbai constantly tease me about the lack of stardust in my life, even though I stay in a city choc-a-bloc with celestial bodies.

But I am so very happy (and, ahem, proud) that I had a bona-fide encounter with a genuine celebrity – a celebrity who is a superstar not because he has money, or is somebody’s son…but because of his trailblazing, undeniable, 1000-watt talent. His star-power is something you simply cannot argue about, like Amitabh Bachchan, another man whose stardom is beyond debate. Interestingly, Rahman mentioned this very fact; when he was explaining to me the effect a particular character would have on the audience, he said, “You know, like Amitabh Bachchan’s entry…everybody automatically will become silent.” (The spouse, as bigtime an AB-fan as I, was thrilled when I recounted this.)

Rahman’s music is ground-breakingly innovative, yet the man himself is completely rooted to the ground. My friend (who is a very creative and successful concept artist, and who was the person who introduced me to ARR and recommended me for the project) and I met Rahman past midnight in his hotel suite after what must surely have been a very hectic day, yet he was fresh and alert and brimming with ideas. Very soft-spoken, very unassuming and a good listener, he soon put me (I was at my nervous, strung-up, sweaty-palmed worst) at ease. As we discussed the project and came up with the inevitable idea-blocks, he simply flowed like a river over the rocky parts. As we left, he went back, not to sleep, but to his laptop, where he creates and stores his stupendous music.

Rahman is one of the very few stars who seem to generate only goodwill, and that is as much because of his humility as his humongous talent. I might not have met too many stars or moons or asteroids, but I will forever remember my encounter with the SUN.

P.S : Rahman approved of my contribution to the project. That chapter is closed, but the memories remain.

DO SHARE YOUR MEMORIES OF ENCOUNTERS WITH CELEBRITIES.

WHEN I GROW UP, I WANT TO BE…

2009-02-22T02:51:00.000+05:30

...a teacher. That’s what I always said when I was very young (I don’t remember saying so, but have to believe hearsay evidence from the family).

A lot of time was spent on rehearsing for the future profession. I would come back from school, take an ancient handbag belonging to my dida (granny), wrap a black orna (veil) around my head to simulate long black hair tied up in a bun and persuade my mother to drape a saree on me.

Then, frequently tripping over the voluminous folds of the saree (which would have to be double-folded to fit my childhood height), I would start taking lessons with various imaginary children. Sometimes I would scribble comments on last year’s used notebooks (Good, V.Good, Fair, V. Fair, Poor, V.Poor; the difficult-to-spell Satisfactory was avoided, and the equally-complicated Excellent rarely awarded) with a red pen kept for this very purpose.

I would teach lessons loudly and earnestly with a lot of imitative gestures like tossing of the head and raising of the eyebrows in the approved teacher-like manner (learning the syllabus myself in the process), praise a few students (whose names were those of my real life class-friends) and vigorously scold a few non-existent poor chaps (with names of classmates I did not like). A boy called Rajeev regularly received severe beatings from a wooden scale – my mother says that the patch of mattress which was supposedly Rajeev was quite worn out because of my strict disciplinarian nature.

I did not tire of playing “teacher-teacher-khela” (teacher role-playing) even when I was nine or ten. Sometimes, my cousin J, who visited frequently, would join in and then we could jointly and gleefully make life miserable for the make-believe students by imitating the classroom-manner of the most fearsome of our teachers. Not all the time, though, because we would also take turns in pretending to be our favourite teacher of the moment.

My Barama (aunt), who was a real-life school-teacher, would sometimes give me stubs of white chalk and I would scribble profusely all over the grey-painted door (which served as a blackboard – scribbling on the walls was forbidden). Once my mother bought a whole box of coloured chalks, and I was over the moon for months. Just as our real school-teachers did, I would draw complicated scientific and geographical diagrams, happily explaining related concepts to my invisible brood of students. In fact, in hindsight I feel it was a brilliant idea of my mother to encourage this role-playing, because it definitely made learning lessons a very attractive game.

Later on, I switched loyalties and wanted to become a journalist. Still later, I compromised by becoming a teacher in a college myself, and getting married to a journalist.

WHO DID YOU WANT TO BE WHEN YOU GREW UP?

TUITION INITIATION

2009-02-18T03:00:00.000+05:30

The backbone of the Indian Education system is not the official network of schools and colleges, but the parallel unofficial network of private tuitions. Children get initiated into the tuition racket pretty early on in life, sometimes even before they enter school. There are many tutors who ostensibly coach little kids on the essentials needed for admission to Montessori sections of ‘good’ schools. Catch them young, preferably as soon as they are born!

Coming from a family which prefers to swim against the tuition-tide, we were left to fend for ourselves as long as we could, surviving with a little help from our parents (to twist the Beatles song).

So when I remember my initiation into the tuition-racket, it is actually in the role of the tutor rather than that of the tutored.

I was a ripe 7-year old, newly promoted to the second standard (Class II). It was the carefree summer holidays before term started. I had a younger friend called Sonali, who would start her first standard that year. Now, Sonali’s mother (who I called Kakima – a generic term for all my friends’ mothers), was suddenly inspired to appoint me her daughter's tutor for one month to teach her the basics of the First Standard syllabi.

So, after playing and sweating it out in the playing ground every evening, I would accompany Sonali back to her house and guide her through the intricacies of Addition/Subtraction and Radiant Reader.

My charges? An evening snack every day – an omelette, or muri makha (spicy puffed rice) or chirey bhaja (fried crushed rice), and a bar of chocolate as a grand farewell present.

WHAT ARE YOUR FIRST TUITION MEMORIES?

MY MOTHER’S FAVOURITE PUJO

2009-02-13T02:27:00.000+05:30

Of the millions of gods crowding the Hindu pantheon, my mother’s personal favourite is Saraswati, the Goddess of learning. In true Bengali tradition, she reveres knowledge above all other virtues, not just as an end in itself, but also as the means to other ends, like money, career, and – if wishes could be horses – fame.

Which is why, Saraswati Pujo was always celebrated very sincerely in our home when we were young. Some days before the auspicious date, we would all troop to the market and select a suitable Saraswati to grace our home from the idols on display at the market place. Some years she would be a traditional doe-eyed white-skinned beauty with flowing fake jet black hair and a bright saree made of real fabric; on other years it would be a more artistic rendition completely made from clay, with her earthen locks coiled in a knot sideways on the top of her head. Whatever her attire and hairstyle, Saraswati was recognizable by the veena (sonorous musical string instrument) she carried and by her pet white swan nestling near her feet.

A portion of our bedroom would be cleared to place the deity, and baba (father) and Didia (my cousin) would brainstorm to give Saraswati a suitably artistic abode. The backdrop would usually be a saree from Ma’s or Barama’s (my aunt) collection, sometimes decorated beyond recognition. Once, I remember, my over-enthusiastic Baba swirled an entire saree in a tub of mud, let it dry and then made a backdrop of brown mountain peaks for the Goddess. Ma would stoically bear the brunt of all such creative experimentation, no doubt a small sacrifice for the greater cause of erudition.

Didia would enlist our help for the menial tasks, while the grand scheme of decoration would emerge from her brain. We would sit up late, cutting strips of thin coloured paper to make endless paper chains (the adhesive would be a homemade concoction of water and flour) which would hung all over the walls and ceiling. The floor would be decorated with elaborate intricate patterns of white alpana (a traditional method of decoration). The various brass and stone utensils ritually used in pujos (idol worship) would be brought out, washed arranged in front of the deity. Fresh flowers would be piled on a brass thali (platter) and incense sticks and diyas would be lit. As a finishing touch, we would all keep some of our books near the deity’s feet. My pile always contained, apart from other things, my Mathematics book, because I felt I needed divine help most in that particular subject.

Ma would be in charge of the prasad (food offered to the deity). Various fruits would be washed and cut, sweet narkol-narus (coconut-jaggery sweets) prepared and other uniquely prasad offerings would be prepared, like chal-kala (moist uncooked rice with sugar and banana) and moong-narkol (grated coconut and soaked yellow pulses). There would be khichuri (rice-lentil mash), cauliflower-curry and topakul-er chutney (a sweet-sour concoction of a type of plum).

Saraswati is worshipped in Basanta (spring) and so mostly, we would wear Basanti coloured (yellow) clothes. We would wait patiently with folded hands as the Purohit (priest) completed his rounds of chanting mantras (hymns), interspersed with all of sprinkling flower-petals at the Goddess and the tinny ringing of the small brass bell. Maybe the elders prayed for abstract ideals like wisdom and insight, but my fiercely muttered prayers (with my eyes squeezed shut) were directly related to the coming class examinations.

The next morning, we would take the patkathi (jute straw) which served as a pen out of the clay doyat (inkpot) and use the milk within (in lieu of ink) to write the name of the Goddess three times on the small belpata (leaves of the bael-tree, used in religious rituals). A truly tricky test of spelling and calligraphy, befitting the Goddess of Academics and Fine Arts. Needless to say, we could never do it neatly enough, though we were allowed to eat the narkoli kul (sweet plum-like fruit) placed atop the inkpot as a reward anyway.

WHAT RITUALS DID YOU CELEBRATE IN YOUR HOME?

FREEDOM DASHED

2009-02-04T11:55:00.001+05:30

"Cycling and swimming are things that, once learnt, can never be forgotten." - or so they said. My parents were keen bikers, and they gifted me my first BI-cycle (as opposed to TRI-cycle - that safe, sturdy, secure, sweet little mode of childhood transport), when I was about eight or nine.

The bicycle fascinated my dad, because its colourful contours were so different from the plain outlines of his own boyhood bike. It fascinated my brother, because it promised reckless speed and wind-in-the-hair freedom. It scared me for that very same reasons. The colourful contours appeared wobbly and shaky (there were no supporting training-wheels). The promise of speed was more a threat of an ignominious fall-flat-on-my-face-as-I-crashed.

But in a family of enthusiastic bikers, when even my saree-clad mother got up on the bike to demonstrate see-how-easy-it-is, I couldn't voice my misgivings. And so, the lessons began, in the not-so-smooth grass meadow near our house. At first, my father would push us from behind, then as we learnt to gather speed and the balance automatically came, he would let us go on our own, free and flying on two wheels (a lesson in how to take one's steps in life's journey as well).

My brother picked up the rudiments early on. As for me, I was too conscious of the surroundings to enjoy the wind-in-my-hair and the whirl-under-my-feet. The stones and bumps in the meadow rattled me, the children playing at the side rattled me, people behind me rattled me, and I was so distracted by all of these that I banged smack into the brick wall at the end of the meadow. The front wheel was damaged, but not as much as my pride.

Till today, I cannot get up and get down properly from a bicycle. Only if I get an unlimited unhindered expanse of space will I attempt to ride a bike into the dizzy unknown. Otherwise, I prefer my own two legs, thank you very much.

P.S : Needless to say, MY FIRST BIKE very soon became MY BROTHER'S FIRST BIKE, to my chagrin and my parents' disappointment.

P.P.S : It was Michelle's monthly Write-Away contest at Scribbit which made me write this post of ignominy.

DO YOU HAVE ANY BIKE MEMORIES TO SHARE?

EGGS - FUNNY SIDE UP - II

2009-01-29T12:29:00.000+05:30

Here's another egg memory, served with a slice of hostel-life as I lived it.

For two years (1989-1991) I lived in the Lady Brabourne College Hostel with a group of hip, hot (that's what we thought we were) and hungry (that's what others thought we were) friends. The meagre portions of indifferently-cooked hostel food barely sufficed. But we were allowed to supplement it with, among other things, eggs which we would have to buy ourselves and hand over to the kitchen staff to boil.

Now, eggs came at a fixed price (this was way before organic/free-range eggs made their debut) but in different sizes (depending, I presume, on the size and stamina of the hen concerned). The kitchen staff took all the eggs, boiled them in one huge saucepan, and left them on a large tray for us to collect. If we were lucky enough to get a large egg, we were loath to let other people eat our bounty simply because they had come down before us while we were stuck with a tiny, pebble-sized egg. The early bird would get the worm (or, in this case, the largest egg).

So, we devised a fool-proof system for establishing our ownership of any egg rightfully belonging to us. We would write our names on the shells with a ball-point pen (gel or ink pens would wash away), and then pick up our exclusive, personalised eggs, smoking hot and delicious, from the delivery-tray.

Some of us (including myself) would merely scrawl our names carefully - a utilitarian assertion of abdominal property rights.

Some creative souls would decorate their eggs with elaborate borders and patterns, taking a leaf out of the tradition of Easter eggs. These designer-eggs would be doomed, like sand sculptures which wash away in the tide, to crumble away in a bite.

A few athletic-types would crack the delicate shell while forcing their imprint on it. A similar fate could befall those who autographed their eggs with a careless flourish. (They could use the raw egg for a face/hair pack, I guess).

Whatever their size or sign, these marked-eggs were all destined, like Humpty Dumpty, to 'have a great fall' and end up in the pit (of our stomachs).

DO YOU HAVE AN EGG-CITING RITUAL TO SHARE WITH US?

EGGS – FUNNY SIDE UP - I

2009-01-24T03:27:00.000+05:30

Some like their eggs scrambled, some poached and some swear by their omelettes or French-toasts, but I’ve always loved eggs boiled and unspoiled (no salt, no pepper).

When I was a child, I preferred the whites and choked on the yolks (much as my daughters do now), but with the contrariness that is typical of me, now I prefer the fatty, cholesterol-y yellow to the bland white part.

Here’s an egg memory, served with the salt-smile of nostalgia.

Once, when we were around twelve years old, some of us para (neighbourhood) friends decided to have a picnic in a garden which was adjacent to our neighbour’s house. The grand menu was rice, dal, fried cauliflowers (picked fresh from that very garden) and dim-er jhol (egg-curry).

Everyone contributed their share of the money, and we went to the market in a big group shepherded by my mother. Our shoe-string budget allowed us to buy only one egg for each. My brother and his friend tried to augment our resources by filching two eggs on the sly, but my strict-and-honest mother made them go back immediately and return the eggs, which they red-facedly did with a garbled explanation about there being some mistake in counting the eggs, which the sceptical old egg-seller refused to believe.

On the day of the picnic, one of my school-friends turned up at the last moment, when the food had almost been cooked (under the winter sun and stirred by a pleasant breeze). An invitation had to be extended, and was graciously accepted. Some of the picnickers were worried – dal and gravy and veggies could easily be shared, but what about the only-one-apiece-eggs? All misgivings changed to smiles when my dainty and lady-like friend accompanied me to the picnic-spot, stepping cautiously over stones and tufts of grass, her two hands extended in front of her, carefully holding her entry-fee: a boiled egg.

We gave her an extra-generous helping of the curry to make up for our ungenerous thoughts.

DO SHARE AN EGG-CITING MEMORY WITH US.

BARBER - NAMA

2009-01-17T02:30:00.000+05:30

When I was very young, my father’s barber used to cut my hair. He, or rather they, were local barbers who made housecalls. They were a pair of brothers, one short and slight, called Shanti, and the other burlier and taller, whom Baba (my father) called Ashanti (the opposite of Shanti/ peace) for the sake of rhyme and rhetoric. Shanti, true to his name, was more timid and patient, and I preferred him.

He would usually come on Sundays, carrying his small wooden box with a top handle, and one of the straight-backed dining chairs would be brought out in the open cemented courtyard, ready for all the family members (men or children) who wanted a shave or a haircut or theirs nails trimmed (for the stubborn male-nails, not for our tender-tips-and-toes, which were cut by Maa)

My Dadu (granddad) would sit first, and Shanti would carefully trim his scanty white hairs (on head, ears and nostrils – which fascinated us) and shave his wrinkled-wobbling cheeks tenderly and reverentially. Then Baba and Jethun (father and uncle) would come, and Shanti (or Ashanti) would be more robust and talkative, swiftly stroking the sharp blade down their cheeks and chin and briskly wiping the lather on a flat piece of leather, neatly paring their stubborn nails and giving them a joint-hand, chop-chop-chop head-banging massage.

Bhai and I would be the last, and we would sit under the sun, with the sparrows and magpies watching us warily from the trees in the garden surrounding the open courtyard. We would be wrapped in a huge white cloth tucked around our scrawny necks and Shanti (but never his brother) would chop away merrily with his scissors, giving us a brain-rattling massage at the end, and we would look down ruefully at the shiny black locks of hair fallen on the ground, and then up at our reflections in Shanti’s small spotted mirror.

These reflections would be unvarying – Bhai was always getting a crew-cut (which meant that merely a millimeter of his curly hair would remain on his head) and I would get a “boy’s cut” (inch-long curls all over my head).

I had to wait till almost my teens to enter a proper parlour, but that’s another story.

DO YOU REMEMBER YOUR HAIRCUT-EXPERIENCES AS A CHILD?

STATIONERY TALES - I

2009-01-10T02:59:00.000+05:30

My elder daughter is busy with her term exams and I am busy sharpening her pencils into pointy tips and arranging her erasers and rulers in her Mickey Mouse pencil box every evening.

She has an array of colourful pencils in shades ranging from frosted silver to warm yellow-orange.

We were less fortunate. I can remember only two varieties – the red-and-black-striped Natraj pencils, and the white-with-pink-flowers-and-green-leaves-patterned Camlin Flora ones. My cousin, Dadabhai, who was an engineering student, used some dull yellow pencils for his drawings, but they were forbidden stationery, and all we got were soon-to-become-unusable butts and ends.

Interestingly, though, we had a wider range of erasers, which we called “rubbers”. There were the plain Janes, white, rectangular and unscented (the type I now buy in bulk, because my daughter loses them at an astonishing rate of one a week). They did their work well, and quietly disappeared, unloved and overused. And then, there were the coveted ones, in various shapes and colours – from strawberries to shoes and other 3-D shapes – which we collected and cherished, hardly ever using them. Not that they were particularly efficient at their work, being more of lilies-of-the-field, “who toil not, neither do they rub” (to twist The Bible a bit). Their attraction was their shapes and scent – a uniform, synthetic-sweet smell which we inhaled deeply before turning them round and round lovingly and putting them back in our pencil boxes. And then we took out the plain white ones when we needed to rub out something, which was pretty often.

There’s a morality tale here, isn’t there?

DO SHARE A PENCIL/ERASER MEMORY WITH ME.

OLD NEW YEARS

2009-01-01T14:30:00.000+05:30

When we were in school, new years were ushered in sedately, at least in our home. No wild night out, no cheering boozily, no getting-your-bottom-pinched by unruly revelers in Kolkata’s Park Street.

New Year Eves were spent in front of the television set, along with family members, munching on leftover Christmas cakes and savouries, curling our toes under comfortably-wrapped shawls.

There were two must-watch programmes on TV – both provided by the one-and-only Doordarshan.

One was the much-awaited annual news round-up, THE WORLD THIS YEAR, ably anchored by the iconic suave and smiling Prannoy Roy. This was a special extension of his weekly news programme, The World This Week, and was a very good cut-and-paste rehash of important national and international news and newsmakers, with a section on hilarious snippets of global and local bloopers (tailormade for a certain President when he was probably a babe in the bush).

The other programme was a long and meandering countdown to midnight, comprising songs and dances by various established celebrities (few and far-between) and wannabe non-celebs (too many by far), along with stand-up comics and put-you-to-sleep comperes.

We never did go to sleep, though. We forced ourselves to sit through the countdown, dozing off now and then, and waited till the magic midnight strokes to jerk us fully awake. The noise on TV met the bang of crackers exploding outside, and we would then go to bed wide-awake with excitement, happy to sleep late the next day, which was a holiday; happy to greet a new year which seemed to be so full of promise, full of exciting offerings which would let us be a little more grown-up.

HOW DID YOU SPEND YOUR NEW YEAR EVES AS A CHILD?

SIBLING RIVALRY

2008-12-27T02:23:00.001+05:30

Since my brother is visiting us along with his family for our annual bout of sibling revelry, here's a reminiscence about the daily bouts of sibling rivalry that occured when we were young and together.

Anything and everything edible given to us had to be shared equally. I was the more pugnacious of the two, and would set out complicated rules and regulations dictating the terms and conditions of the partition of every single morsel that came our way.

If there were two separate but similar things, like say, two toffees, then, obviously there were no problems. Each one eat one - was the rule.

If it was one piece of something which had to be divided equally, like say, a piece of cake, then the rulebook (authored by me) said - one of us would divide the cake (or cutlet, or...) and the other would choose his portion first. The rule was scrupulously fair in its nitpicking - the person cutting the piece would be very careful to cut it equally, because otherwise the other would get to choose the bigger piece.

The even more complicated rule for things that came in uneven sizes and in larger numbers (a bunch of grapes, or a bowl full of berries, maybe) was : the first person would take only one, the second would take two, and then the first would take another. Then this cycle would be repeated again and again till the entire loot was evenly distributed. WHY this particularly complex process, you may wonder. This was because the first person would usually end up getting the biggest piece (chosen first) and the fourth-largest piece, and the other one would get the second and third-largest piece. Now 1+4 equals 2+3, and although we never had weighing scales, we never had any complaints about unfairness either.

Ah, the deviousness of dharma (justice/righteousness)! Later on, when I read/saw the Mahabharata, I was amazed at the complicated routes taken by the righteous to achieve the victory of virtue. And, of course, I felt completely vindicated in my rule-setting, although everybody else felt otherwise, including my brother.

DID YOU HAVE ANY SUCH CONSTITUTIONAL RULES LAID DOWN FOR YOUR SIBLING?

THEY ALSO SERVE…

2008-12-22T03:55:00.000+05:30

West Bengal, the state in India where I come from, has a long and unfortunate history of de-industrialization. Of mills and factories closing down, of sole breadwinners suddenly becoming jobless. Of the small dreams and security that a regular salary brings changing suddenly to a bleak-black-uncertain future. Of people trying desperately to cling to ‘respectability’ and not topple over into utter ‘poverty’.

We met such men on local trains, hawking plastic hairclips and handkerchiefs. We met the women behind these men going from door to door, selling small articles of daily use, depending as much on the buyer’s sympathy as on their own selling skills.

They were not the smartly dressed marketing professionals we see today. They were women who had never thought they would have to ‘step out of their house to work’. They had been content to toil within the bounds of domesticity and always blamed their “kapal” (forehead – where the inscrutable lines of destiny are supposedly etched) for pushing them out of doors.

When we were young, I remember three such women who were regulars at our house (and at the houses of all our neighbours, friends and relations – all part of a large network of ‘references’). With the intrinsic callousness of children, we regarded them more with curiosity than with sympathy, wondering why their eyes watered ever-so-often, wondering why our mothers ended up buying more than we needed (or more often than we needed).

I am sorry to confess that I have forgotten the names of two of these brave and gutsy ladies.

One lady sold ghee (‘clarified butter’, as they say), coming to our home once a month to fill up a jar of golden, rich-smelling ghee made from creamy cow milk. She was plump and smiling, with smooth dark skin that looked as if she had polished it with ghee. She would put down her heavy jars and sit in bedroom (all these women would come straight to our bedroom where they would chat with ma and barama over tea and biscuits; the drawing room was for strangers and male visitors), pour out ladlefuls of ghee into the ghee-er-shishi (bottle demarcated for ghee) and deliberately spill a little on the plate beneath so that we could lick the yummy ghee. When she left, the gheewali (as we called her) left behind the warm aroma of pure ghee.

Another lady sold us dhoopkathi (incense sticks) – indispensable in every household and used for the daily morning and evening puja of the household gods and goddesses arranged carefully on the thakurer aashon (altar). Maybe the close association with religious objects made her blame the Gods for her cruel fate. And blame she would, in a loud and continuous lament, pausing only to sip from her tea-cup or to count the change. She was usually disheveled and distraught, with faded sarees and straggly hair, and we (rather cruelly, I feel in retrospect) called her ‘Ghargheri’ (Hoarse-voiced).

In complete contrast was Rashmonidi. Thin, dark, neat as a pin, not a fold of her inexpensive saree out of place, she was more interested in hushed gossip than loud lament. She was an amazing job-hopper – she began by selling cotton chhapa (printed) sarees, then temporarily trespassed into Ghargheri’s territory by selling dhoop-kathis on the side. She could give new-born babies their daily maalish (oil-massage) and bath (a daunting task), she could help out when large numbers of guests came for weddings or pujas in the family. She was dynamic – doing whatever she could to earn enough money to put her son through college. And when this son’s wife and she did not get along, she opted out, willing even to accompany families moving out of Kolkata as their cook/maid/governess. I met her some years ago, still as thin, but with her hair cut short in a ‘boy’s cut’ for convenience, as gossipy and gregarious as ever. Fate has dealt her plenty of blows, but has not managed to blow out her spirit.

DO YOU REMEMBER ANY SUCH BRAVE AND GRITTY PERSON FROM YOUR CHILDHOOD?

HELLO?

2008-12-15T02:08:00.000+05:30

We did not have a telephone in our house when we were children. Perhaps this childhood deprivation scarred my psyche somehow, because till today I’m not really a phone-person, being rather abrupt and let’s-get-it-over-quickly on the phone, even on my soul/cell-mate mobile.

But when we were children, phones were immobile, kept majestically on their special pedestals (usually the top of some bureau/showcase covered in flowery-embroidered cloth, out of reach of pesky toddlers) and attached to wall with a special curly wire. I always wondered where it came out after going inside the wall. The phones just SAT, menacing in their big black boxiness, emitting a shrill loud unmistakable tring-tring to beckon the entire household if there was a call.

The neighbours across our house had one such big black phone (far more solemn than the colourful light cellphones we carry nowadays). My mamabari (maternal grandparents’ house) had another such. Having a phone in the house raised the status of the family in the social pecking order. It also meant having an enormous social responsibility. Because all the neighbours would troop to your house to make calls from your phone if the need arose (as it inevitably did). Also, inevitably, it meant taking calls on behalf of your neighbours and shouting from the balcony to them to come and speak to whoever was calling them. Because of these, er, network (social, not telecom) problems, telephone calls were restricted to necessities, not frivolities. Which is not a bad thing at all.

I was very scared of speaking on the telephone. Because, in those days, you never got directly connected to any familiar, friendly voice of the person to whom you wanted to make the call. The calls had to be made via the local telephone exchange, where there would be some gruff-voiced disembodied telephone operator who would listen impatiently to your request to connect you to the required number, BARKING at every hesitation you made, and, with an almost audible sigh of irritable exasperation at being disturbed, he/she would condescend to do so in a voice dripping with unfriendly sarcasm. I am SURE it was NOT like that at all, only that it SEEMED so to my shaky-scared ears and trembling-stuttering voice.

Even when the call was put through and some familiar person was on the line, the crackle and distance would somehow de-familiarise the voice and make it cold and distant (pun intended now but not felt then). And because I was nervous about not being able to hear clearly, I always spoke very quickly in a very loud voice, trying desperately to end the conversation ASAP and putting down the receiver with relief, my hands clammy with gripping too hard and ears burning with effort.

WHAT ARE YOUR EARLIEST TELEPHONE MEMORIES?

AN INNOCENT ENTRY INTO POLITICS

2008-12-09T03:33:00.000+05:30

The current disenchantment with, and ire and fire against, politicians makes me remember my first brush (or should that be scrape?) with politics.

I forget the exact time, but it was before the general elections after Indira Gandhi’s assassination. There was a huge sympathy wave for the Congress-I, led by Rajiv Gandhi, the son of the assassinated Prime Minister. But, West Bengal, as usual, was a red bastion, a Communist (CPI-M) stronghold, or should that be strangle-hold?

Hectic campaigning was going on, with regular evening marches by the contesting party-members and their supporters (mornings were presumably too hot for slogan-shouting). Almost every available inch of wall-space was partitioned between the Congress-I and the CPI-M for wall-painting and poster-pasting, with, expectedly, the red-party hogging the major share.

My friend Mampi and I deeply felt the injustice of this unequal distribution. Why should CPI-M’s Tarit Topdar have his name written all over the place and why should Congress-I’s Debi Ghosal languish in (comparatively) lesser space? All our adolescent sympathy gushed over for the underdog (who was also the perennial loser in a chain of previous elections, and, like all losers, reputed to be a ‘good man’).

There was a dilapidated wall encircling an empty field opposite our houses, ignored by the political paintbrushes for its unprepossessing appearance. To redress the imbalance of political justice, Mampi and I took some white chalk and some broken pieces of red clay-tiles (we could not find the green favoured by the Congress-I, so we had fall back on the red colour of the 'enemy'), and, with painstaking effort, we etched the legend “VOTE FOR DEBI GHOSAL” in somewhat uneven handwriting all over the discoloured wall. We scripted the letters as big and as bold as we could make them, scraping over and over again to make the letters legible from a distance (feeling decidedly ‘un-bold’ at our own daring – we would drop the chalk and run away as soon as we saw someone coming, returning to our task only when the lane was clear). We also drew a large and rather misshapen HAND – the election symbol of the Congress-I.

And so, this was my first idealistic, if anonymous and unsung, contribution to the political circus of the elections. The Congress-I won on a landslide of sympathy, but Debi Ghosal, as usual, lost with good grace. Mampi and I, however, felt that our efforts had been vindicated because the margin of loss had reduced considerably.

DO YOU REMEMBER YOUR FIRST BRUSH WITH POLITICS?

MEMORIES OF TERRORISM

2008-12-01T07:30:00.000+05:30

My first awareness of terrorism was in 1984, in October– when Sikhs demanding Khalistan assassinated our Prime Minister, Indira Gandhi. I remember a sense of unreality and disbelief, a sensation of being out of my ten-year old body. There was no continuous cacophony of television channels swooping in on newsworthy tragedies, like they do today. Only an eerie, tense silence, a suspension of activity for a long, stretched out moment.

In retrospect, it surely did not happen that way. The grainy black-and-white pictures on the state-owned Doordarshan repeated over and over again, the slow stumble and fall, the rumours spreading like a forest on fire.

The vehicles spontaneously stopped plying, the shops willingly downed shutters. Our school was declared closed, and we walked back home, saucer-eyed-apprehensive. A cousin who went by train to a school in Kolkata trudged back 25 kilometers on foot. She remembers the blisters on her feet. Our minds were blistered, too. The known, familiar social order had been overturned (we had grown up learning in our schoolbooks and from the newspapers – which we were just getting into the habit of reading daily – that the iron-willed Indira Gandhi the leader of our country, it felt that she had been so for ever) not by the ballot, but by a bullet.

What shocked my childish self most was the betrayal – the bullet which killed Indira Gandhi was shot by one of her own body-guards. As a ten-year old, loyalty came very very high on my priority list of values.

And then began the tearing apart of order and sanity. The anti-Sikh riots left us shaken. It was one thing to feel angry with the Khalistanis for trying to rip apart India, to feel enraged at the assassin’s betrayal in killing the hand that fed him. It was a totally different thing to see innocent Sikhs being pulled out of their homes and killed.

We had a Sikh family living in our para (locality); the husband was a strapping, jovial Sikh married to a Bengali Hindu wife. Of course, it was a love marriage, and of course, it seemed a very romantic and daring thing to elope with and marry a person from a different culture, defying your parents. Our young hearts were captivated by this love story. What fascinated me was the apparent ease with which this Bengali lady had adapted to her husband’s culture. She wore the salwar-kameez (not the then-ubiquitous Bengali saree), tied her hair in plaits instead of a bun and spoke in robust Punjabi to her family (switching to Bengali if she was talking to one). I remember peeping many times into their walled house which had a friendly, always-open narrow door, giving a view of the open courtyard which seemed full of bustle and people.

During the riots we were not allowed to go out-of-doors. After the bloodbath, when school re-opened, I remember gazing in grief at the disconsolate open door of their hastily-abandoned house, half-torn from its hinges. The empty courtyard, to which they never returned, spoke of another kind of betrayal – the betrayal of neighbours who had long pretended to be friends but who had nursed xenophobia in their hearts.

WHAT WAS YOUR FIRST AWARENESS OF TERRORISM?

MAMPI

2008-11-28T00:15:00.000+05:30

Mampi was my first friend, my fast-est friend, and is my firm friend still. She lived next door to my old Barrackpore home, and was a frequent visitor to my home, as I was to her’s. A few months younger than me, she and I met when I was two-years and she was a year-and-half. None of us, of course, remember that meeting, but we do remember hundreds of others, spread over three decades of playing and secrets-sharing, voluble speech and comfortable silence, growing up and growing apart, and then reconnecting through the Internet.

I don’t remember quarrelling with her at all. Which is quite strange, because being a hot-tempered, opinionated little person, I usually flared up at the slightest provocation. But she never provoked me, and her dainty, fair and docile presence (in complete contrast to my fierier nature) always had a calming effect.

We would play harmoniously for hours on end. On weekend mornings and rainy afternoons, we would invariably be with each other, either at my home or hers. None of us were too fond of dolls, but we loved make-believe games, and would often play out our versions of Rama-Laxman (from the epic Ramayana) and Krishna-Sudama (mythical exemplary frinedship between a divine and a mortal being), or cook elaborate meals with shredded leaves and vegetable peels in our little clay and aluminium pots and pans.

Out of doors, in the green field and cemented courtyards, we would gang up with our other pals, Soma and Sujata (and a whole pack of others), and play gully-cricket and net-less-badminton in winter, skipping and kitkit (hopscotch) in summer. We would run amok in the winding bylanes, playing chhoa-chhui (tag) and luko-churi (hide-and-seek) – simple games full of speed and sweat which we would sometimes complicate by accusations and counter-accusations of cheating and unfair practice.

But never against each other.

We went to separate schools. She studied in a Bengali school, I went to an English-medium school (the language of instruction was English). Maybe the seeds of divergence were sown there.

When I grew up, I moved to Kolkata to stay in hostels and guesthouses and study in colleges and universities in the metropolis. Mampi remained rooted to our small town, studying in the local college, and even getting married to a local guy (whose house could be seen across the pond bordering our – and her – backyard). She quickly became the stay-at-home mother of two boisterous boys, reveling in her domesticity. I got married much later, shifted out of Kolkata, and till date am playing the balancing game between work and home.

Our interests and destinies may have diverged, but when we did meet this year (after a gap of over seven years, courtesy e-mails and cellphones), I was hurtled back into my childhood for an hour of giddy, catching-up, packing-years-into-minutes conversation. Sharing similar memories, I realised how different we had become from each other.

DO YOU REMEMBER ANY SUCH SPECIAL CHILDHOOD FRIEND?

THE SOW-ING MACHINE

2008-11-22T10:54:00.000+05:30

No, that wasn't a typing error. I'm thinking of the sewing machines of yore which would occupy pride of place in many households, including ours. They would be symbols of thrift and creativity, and my grandmother and mother would spend hours with them, lovingly sowing hand-sewn labours which we would reap.

My dida (father's mother) had an antiquated black hand-turned sewing machine, which, I think, travelled across the border during the Partition of Bengal, but arriving none the worse for wear. It was a sturdy little thing, not too fancy but it did its job well. Since dida had the usual eyesight-handicaps of the elderly, I would be called upon to thread the needle. I also loved to turn the wheel-handle which would make the needle race in and out of the cloth, leaving behing a trail of thread. I was allowed to do this only because the most menial of stitching jobs would be done at dida's machine, like stitching together old saris to make the softest and most comfortable blankets, or hemming the borders of bedsheets or dhotis (a rectangular piece of cloth worn by men around their waists - the cloth is simple enough, though it is tied in intricate ways).

The more fancy sewing jobs were done at my ma's more advanced sewing machine. It was a Singer sewing machine, with a foot pedal as well as the hand-turned wheel, and I would watch my maa pedalling away furiously during the long afternoons, stopping now and then to turn the under-construction garment this way and that, or to change the colour of the thread. Then she would add finishing touches to her creations by hand, stitching on buttons and appliquing patches, or embroidering little patterns on the garments. She always loved creating things, and the house was filled both with pattern-books and garments made according to these patterns, embellished with original touches.

And of course, we were the happy receivers of her creations. Thr process began with us importantly posturing as she took measurements with a threadbare measuring tape (which we often used as a multipurpose toy - skipping rope/prisoner's chain, etc on the sly)and wrote them down (I remember only that my waist was 18" once upon a time - those were the days).

Then she would go about her work with pursed lips and furrowed brows, and we were shooed away if we bothered her too much. The agonies and ecstacies of CREATION were shared only with my cousin, Didia, who was the resident fashion designer and consultant.

And then, finally, on D-day, we would be called upon for the fitting ceremony. The garment would be pinned to our shoulders at the back, to check the variuos esoteric aspects. There would be a lot of tch-tch-ing, and mumbled conversations between ma and didia (because of assorted pins and needles and tapes in their mouths). A few nips and tucks later, the product would be declared finished.

And then the preening and twirling in front of the mirrors and the happy uplift and thrill of wearing a new dress.

DO YOU HAVE ANY MEMORIES SEWN ON TO YOU?

THE CHAMBER OF SECRETS

2008-11-14T03:03:00.000+05:30

In our old higgledy-piggledy house in Barrackpore, there was a chileykotha (attic), built atop the bathroom on the first-floor landing. Unlike today’s lofts, which are prosaic tiny spaces atop bathrooms/kitchens where every manner of rubbish is hidden behind closed doors, our chileykotha was a full-fledged room (in length and breadth, if not in height) of wonderful secrets accessible only to us children (because adults had to crane their heads very uncomfortably to stand in that low-ceilinged chamber).

And there were no doors barring our entry, either. We had to climb on to the huge black bookcase-bureau in the drawing room and lift ourselves behind rose-patterned curtains to enter the attic (the unplanned rooms of our house would horrify any architect).

And what an attic it was! Full of stuff that spelt history, wove magic to us as we poked and pried, discovering treasures abandoned by matter-of-fact adults.

There was an old sofa with its cover torn and springs broken, a perfect place for a secret meeting (of us cousins pretending to be detectives, referencing Enid Blyton – that stirrer of fantasies) or a solitary cry-my-heart-out (emerging with tell-tale eyes as red as the roses on the attic-curtain).

There was a stack of framed pictures with broken glasses, each a testimonial to the artistic talents of my father, uncles, grand-uncles and other cousins, each relegated to the attic as better (and newer) pictures were painted and framed and hung up on more-viewed walls.

There were many many rusted iron trunks, full of dusty delights. Moth-eaten velvet bags holding mystery-histories, tattered silk clothes to dress up our fancies, bent-and-chipped utensils for our make-believe kitchen…

…and, most excitingly, there was a whole trunk-full of handwritten family-magazines. These magazines had been written in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century by members of my father’s huge joint-family in Naogaon in what-was-then East Bengal (now Bangladesh); each poem, essay, witticism neatly calligraphed (is that the right verb?) between bound covers. There were contributions by my uncles, granduncles and other hoary ancestors who I never knew except by our common surname. This treasure-trove of family history and familiar literature had travelled all the way to Barrackpore, surviving the toss-and-turn-and-trauma of the Partition and had found its way into our chileykotha. Not all the editions were there, of course, some must have travelled with other members of the family when they parted ways after the Partition of Bengal.

I spent hours and hours poring over the fading ink on the sepia pages, not caring about the uneven literary merit of the writings, thrilled only to be able to literally touch my family’s past.

DO YOU REMEMBER ANY SUCH ROOM ESPECIALLY FULL OF WONDERFUL SECRETS?

THE CINDERELLA DRESS

2008-10-25T03:14:00.000+05:30

Every little girl has a Cinderella dress. Something which transforms her into the prettiest princess that ever lived, at least in her own mirror.

The other day, the copy-kitten (my younger daughter) went to a Diwali party at her playschool wearing a white satin-and-chiffon full-skirted dress with silver-and-yellow flowers scattered all over the bodice and skirt. She twirled and pirouetted, as enchanting a little Cinderella as her elder sister, the Lil Cat, to whom the dress had originally belonged (It is actually a gift from a favourite cousin, Didia, who picks up the most delicious dresses from Dubai each time she visits us).

I remembered my own infinitely-humbler-but-equally-cherished Cinderella dress. The material was a coarse khadi (handspun) silk from the local Khadi Gramudyog Bhavan, patterned in beige with maroon roses. There were no thorns, as befitted a princess’s party-attire. It was stitched with a plain round neck, a skirt which swirled a little when I spun around, and a sash which needed Ma to tie it behind my back. And when I wore it, I left all the thorns of awkwardness and shyness behind and could hold my head high and match steps confidently with my other friends and cousins, clad as they were in their soft-and-satiny boutique-bought expensive dresses.

I had only one, my precious Cinderella-dress, but that dress transformed me whenever I wore it. That’s the magic of a Cinderella-dress.

DO YOU REMEMBER ANY SUCH MAGICAL DRESS OR OUTFIT?

THE FRAMED GHOST

2008-10-15T01:45:00.001+05:30

My daughters have grown up with three grandparents. They have their dadu and thamma (my husband’s father and mother) in Kolkata. And then they have their dida (my mother) in Bangalore. If they’ve ever wondered at the lopsidedness of the grand-parental-equation, they’ve never let me know about it. But then, children seem to have their own logic of working out these things.

Some time back, I was cleaning my clothes-cupboard when the two nosey-parkers poked their way in. Fiddling and flopping about on the clothes lying scattered all over the room, the lil cat (my elder daughter) dug out a framed photograph of my father from under a pile of sarees.

It was a twinkly-eyed photo of my father, taken during my uncle’s wedding, a huge happy celebration on a hot and happy day. Somehow, the photo always made me cry in remembrance.

“Who’s this, ma?”

“That’s my father, your chhobi-dadu (picture-grandfather)”.

“Where’s he now?”

“He died long back, long before you were born.”

“Is he a ghost then?” asked my elder one. “Is this a photo of a bhoot (ghost)?” echoed the copy-kitten, my younger daughter.

Bhoot in Bengali means both a ghost and the past. So I explained how my father was an inextricable part of my past, how I had grown up with him, all the little-big things we had done together, and how he was no more a part of our present lives, how he had gone away to a far, far place, away from all of us.

“But, ma, look, he has not gone away,” said my elder daughter, perhaps to console me because the happy-sad tears were flowing unchecked, “he’s there in the picture.”

“Yes, ma,” added the copy-kitten, “he’s the ghost caught in the picture.”

P.S: Thank you Scribbit, for your wonderful write-away contest which unlocked this ghost from the cupboard.

FAREWELL TO ARMS – BIJOYA DASHAMI

2008-10-10T04:19:00.000+05:30

Bijoya Dashami is the tenth day of the auspicious fortnight, the day when the ten-armed Goddess bids goodbye to her earthly paternal home and returns to her husband in the Himalayas.

After spending four mornings and evenings giddy with Pujo-excitement, Bijoya Dashami made us very, very sad. In the mornings we would pretend as if this was just another Puja day, donning yet another new dress and rushing to the parar pandal (festival tent in the neighbourhood). I would spend hours just gazing at the face of the Durga idol in our pandal (Jagruti Sangha), at her divinely angry face as she pierced the demon Mahishasura with the trishul (trident).

Most Durga idols had a calm face full of grace and mercy; our pujo had an angry Durga. My father explained that our neighbourhood Durga was depicted at the moment of killing the demon, full of righteous rage and power, whereas the other Durgas were frozen in time after the demon was slayed, whereupon the goddess calmed down and blessed the rest of the world.

But when we returned to the pandal in the afternoon, the sad fact of Durga’s imminent departure could no longer be avoided. The idols, of Durga and her children, had already been taken down from the dais and were standing on the open ground. They looked so forlorn and powerless, especially because we could go behind them and see the backs of the idols. Whereas the fronts were bedecked in silk costumes and shiny tinsel jewellery, at the back the clay and straw under-structure could be clearly seen.

Then Maa, Barama and all the other married women would arrive with trays full of dhaan (rice-with-the-husk), dubbo (grass tridents), paan-supari (betel-leaf and betelnut), sindur (vermilion – the must-wear-on-the-hair-parting symbol of married women) and mishti (sweets). They would climb on ladders to put sindur on the gods’ and goddesses’ foreheads and feet, and would put some paan and sweet in their mouth - bidding farewell and asking for blessings at the same time. Then there would be the sindurkhela ritual, where the married ladies would put sindur on each other’s foreheads and faces. We would also take some of our books (I always took my Mathematics book – it was the demon I wanted to slay in every examination) and touch the idols’ feet with these, hoping for divine help in studies.

There would be a red haze of sindur blowing about as the idols were lifted and put into two big trucks. Huge yellow lights would fight the gathering darkness, as the crowds thronged for a last look at Maa Durga. Many would follow the trucks in a brightly-lit and noisy procession (my father among them) to the Ganga-ghaat (riverside), where the idols would be immersed in the water to the shouts of Durga Maa Ki Joy (Victory to Mother Durga) and Aschhe Bochhor Aabaar Habey (Come Back Next Year).

But we (my mother-brother-aunt-cousins) would always go to Dahlia Aunty’s house to gorge on Dashami delicacies, after a token pranam (touching of all elders’ feet). She would invariably make mutton-ghugni (mutton with chickpeas) and jam-cake (unusual anglicized choice). Then, we would troop over to my Barapishi’s house (my father’s elder sister) to gorge on more traditional Bijoya Dashami fare like narkol-naaru (coconut-jaggery balls) and nimki (savoury made of flour). We would stand on their roof-terrace and watch all the pujo processions on the way to the Ganga (river) – their house was advantageously located along the procession-route – munching on naaru and nimki, thinking ahead of all the other houses (including our own) we would visit in the coming week and all the lovely food waiting for us in return for the customary pranam.

A heavy stomach was the best cure for a heavy heart.

DO SHARE YOUR MEMORIES ON FESTIVAL-ENDINGS AND FESTIVAL-FEASTING.

MAHALAYA – AN EAR FULL OF MEMORIES

2008-10-05T02:00:00.000+05:30

Mahalaya marks the beginning of the festive-fortnight leading to Durga Puja. If I remember correctly, it is also the day when the Goddess Durga, accompanied by her four children – Lakshmi, Saraswati, Kartik and Ganesh – leaves her mountain-home (alaya) to begin her journey down to her parents’ place on earth. If the rains have ebbed, she comes by elephant, if the monsoon spills over into autumn, she prefers the boat. Whatever the route, it’s a week-long journey, and she always manages to reach her baaper baari (father’s home) by Shasthi (the sixth day of the new moon). She’s a brave lady, making this long journey unaccompanied by her spouse (Lord Shiva – presumably glad to be rid of his militant wife and squabbling brood of children for a while, and enjoying his annual break spaced out on ganja and bhang, his usual intoxicants). Apart from her children, she is accompanied by her faithful vahana (pet), the lion and by her children’s vahanas, the owl, the swan, the peacock and the mouse. She is pestered by the evil demon Mahishasura (Buffalo-headed-demon), but the ten-armed and ten-weapon-ed Goddess is more than a match for him, and, at Shasthi we always see the demon lying vanquished at her feet.

For us Mahalaya was the official beginning of the festive season. Unofficially speaking, it was the sweet smell of the white-petalled-orange-stemmed shiuli which would remind us every morning that Pujo was round-the-corner and we would drink in the happy fragrance with uplifted noses and hearts.

The night-before-Mahalaya was one of anticipation and preparation. The alarm clocks would be set at four o’ clock or some such unearthly pre-dawn hour, and the radios and transistor sets would be set at the precise stations. Autumn chill made us curl tight under our bedclothes(I somehow remember blankets, but everybody else has laughed at the idea of blankets in September/October).

We would wake up to the sonorous, legendary voice of Birendra Krishna Bhadra emanating full blast from the radio, retelling the heard-so-many-times tale of Durga and Mahishasura, dramatically taking us to the eternal battlefield of good-vs-evil. He recited in Sanskrit and in Bengali, and as Baba and Jethun (father and uncle), Maa and Barama (mother and aunt), Dadu and Didu (my grandparents), and my older cousins all sipped tea and listened and commented, Bhai and I drifted in and out of sleep on the rise and fall of the narrator’s voice, munching on Britannia Thin Arrowroot biscuits as the dawn broke over the pond-bank.

As the sun rose, Birendra Krishna Bhadra neared the end of his pre-recorded tale. With Durga slaying the demon, his stormy, martial voice calmed down to offer lyrical prayers to the peace-restoring deity. And as we opened our windows to let the sun in, the voice on our radio would mingle with the echoes of a hundred similar voices from other homes, and we would get up at this unaccustomedly early hour with a sense of newness, enjoying Mahalaya for what it was and what it heralded. Maa Durga was on her way and all was right with the world.

P.S: It is customary for all Bengali families to listen to Birendra Krishna Bhadra on Mahalaya – then on radio, thereafter on cassette, now on CDs, or is it I-pods?

DO YOU HAVE AN EAR FULL OF FESTIVE MEMORIES, TOO?

A POCKET-FULL OF MEMORIES – II

2008-10-01T03:37:00.000+05:30

As I said in the previous post, a little money sure went a long way those days.

I remember (and I know my brother does, too) one special occasion, when my magnanimous barama (aunt) had given both of us a princely sum of one rupee each, I forget for what reason. As 1 rupee really equaled 100 paise in those days (unlike nowadays, when it languishes at the bottom of the monetary scale), we were both overjoyed and decided to spend our king’s ransom at the local sweet shop.

There the unanimity and amity ended. My brother, eager and reckless, splurged his sum on a huge sweet, appropriately called Atom-bomb, and gobbled it down, OD-ing on the sugary-syrupy-monstrosity.

I, being way more bearish (in stock-market terms), decided (after a lot of observation and consideration – and to the irritation of the man at the sweet-shop counter) to put my eggs in many baskets. I bought a 1001 thingies – 20 paise worth of angti-sondesh (a ring-shaped milk-made sweet, 5 paise each), a danadar for 20 paise (full of yummy crunchy sugar granules), a soft-milky kalakand (30 paise) and a hard-milky barfi (25 paise). A headcount of 7 sweets, with 5 paise still in my pocket.

Bhai (my beloved and bickering brother), with his tummy full and pocket empty at one go, glared and pleaded alternately as I cruelly sat in front of him, tasting and taking my own sweet time to finish my hoard, refusing to share the tiniest grain of sugar with him. He had had his 1-rupee-worth-of-sweet, so he should not ask for more, that was my unshakeable argument.

Bhai often quotes this incident to rib me about my heartlessness and stinginess and miserliness as a child, I prefer to call myself a thrifty and careful spender, even though I am a little shamefaced about the ‘heartless’ jibe.

DO DIG A MONEY-MEMORY OUT OF YOUR POCKET AND SHARE IT HERE.