IF WINTER COMES, CAN LEP BE FAR BEHIND?

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'

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

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

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

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

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

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?