Sunday Picnic

Finally, it was over. The 20th year celebrations of the NGO where I work. It was exhausting. Draining. And I wanted to spend Sunday in a way I never- ever have, except perhaps when I was down with fever - in bed. I did a good job of it too, till upto 10am. When I jumped up and rang a friend. He asked me to come over within an hour and we (he, his daughter and moi) could then go to a picnic at Mallickpur. His in-laws were having a picnic and his wife had gone on ahead to help with the cooking.

A picnic. Ah! That sounded nice. Haven't been to one in ... maybe... 15 years or is it more like 20. Atleast not those ones where we go with madurs to laze on and hata, khunti and big dekchis and people do the actual cooking there itself! How I love those (as long as I don't have to do the cooking or even the jogar). And I had heard about the home at Mallickpur. Might be physically tiring but mentally, it would be such a break. No more presentations, map litho paper, wiro binding, logos and font size and proof reading (I had to develop and print a bunch of stuff for the 20th year programme).

We inched slowly towards our destination through incredibly congested and narrow roads and not to mention bright hot sun. And to top it all, there was this huge blood donation camp organised by TMC and the entire proceedings were being announced over loudspeakers attached to lamp posts.

And then suddenly, KD took a left turn and turned into a narrow lane (too narrow it seemed to me, for his large car) and the dirty noisy road vanished. The single road snaked narrowly through lush green foliage, past huts and thatched roofs and kochuri pana filled ponds and then stopped at our destination. A rambling two storeyed house, looking very much like an ordinary old small-town home...not much thought given to architechture or spacing, just built in an incredibly haphazard space wasting way (well that was not a drawback since space was enormous). And then, we stepped through the kitchen and onto the back and viola! The huge space behind dotted by tall 'taal gaach', eucalyptus, banana, papaya and host of other trees I cant name, was filled with elderly men and women. Some on chairs, others on madurs by another large kochuri pana filled pond and a sudden jungle of bamboos leaning way over it! And the cooking? Well there were four young men cooking with large kadais, hatas, khuntis and a gigantic boti - obvioulsy there was going to be lots of fish on the menu.

My friend's father in law was the 1st batch of Narendrapur Ramkrishna Mission and he was having an old boys picnic. It was so nice to see them all together. We had missed breakfast: Peas - freshly shelled, slices of coconut and pakoras. But lunch time came quickly and the cooks laid out tables, spread table clothes and served us food. First the men (to be honest, they wanted the ladies to eat first...but most were lolling on the madur and didnt want to get up) sat at the tables and all of them in unison, said their daily prayer from some 45-50 years ago at RKM! It was so sweet.

And then came our turn with the ladies . The menu: Polao, thick finger chips, begun bhaja (fried brinjal) sliced vertically complete with tail, topshe fish fry, Rui fish kalia and a navratan korma, chutney & the obligatory fried papad and payesh (kheer) and although there was no paan, we were served paan masala in small packets. And we sat under the mild sun fitered through the trees, eating al fresco with the odd dried leaf falling on us, a twitter here, a cheep-cheep there, a dog barking in distance...so serene, so placid...

And did I mention, there was a man there with a 'da' ( large knife). He had come in early and climbed the various 'taal' trees and had got an enormous amount of daab. And so we drank daab water instead of water!

And then came the best part. Surrounded by those beautiful trees, no hint of the hot sun, a cool breeze blowing and best of all, no horns, no noisy city ruckus...under a tin roof, on a coir mattress on a hard wood khaat, a long undisturbed full-bellied siesta! I woke up so refreshed, so renewed that I swear I felt years younger...sprightly infact!

The old boys association in between all this eating and lolling around, conducted their association meeting and have fixed up their next meet and venue and I am sure, the menu. But it's three months away. I have time yet to find out about it and gate crash once again. Till then let me savour this unexpected treat as I bump along in autos, choking in the fumes of 'kaata tel' (Adulterated fuel) in city polluto.

[It's never too late to learn and I stand corrected: Taal grows on Taal gach and Daab and narkal grown on narkal gaach or Coconut trees].

Kolkata Book Fair 2009

After an 8 year gap, I made it to the Kolkata Boi Mela yesterday. Replete with old memories of multiple visits to this most wonderful mela, alone, with friends, browsing, buying, breathing books (and dust thown up by a million feet), long queues for tickets, little magazine sellers earnestly plying their books....Ah! [And the ISKON cake shop where being allergic to eggs, I asked if the cakes were eggy and scandalised the swamiji at the counter, who put his hand to his ears and said, what else, but "Krishna, Krishna"]!

I finally found the time to visit the fair yesterday, the penultimate day, and was dreading the last minute crush [I adviced an american visitor to our office to attend the mela not only for all things bookish but to experience real life what a crush is]. The venue was not the only thing which had changed, as I found out.

I went in, visited a few stalls, got lucky within half an hour .... in that I found a relatively smaller and emptier stall where I picked up 7 books and the 8th in another 5 minutes...a quick dekho and was out in maybe 45 minutes. And then I walked past the ITC Sonar Bangla via it's service road, to the car park guided politely by several volunteers, policemen, attendants....

Imagine the scale? Lakhs and lakhs of visitors per day...lakhs of cars, at the crossing of 2 rather busy roads and that too by Kolkata standards [and maddening by any other country standard], unruly Bengali crowd [me included...a policeman ticked me off for walking on the road and told me to hurry up to the entrance to the walkaway parallel to the road and bordered by a bamboo fence. As soon as I got a little away from him, I sneaked in through the fence and straight to the ticket counter in front of me, instead of queuing up the mile long walkaway and felt rather pleased with myself instead of feeling ashamed]. The point I am trying to make is that being an average Bengali, am sure there are several queue jumpers / cutters like me and yet a battalion of policemen and attendant, alert keeping things going smoothly and not sleeping on the job ... and yet another horde of attendant controlling the car park. Phew!

Somethings ofcourse don't change. The dust...bhaiya [our driver] at the wheel and me on the back seat, coughed in tandem all the way back home!

And now, the dilemma, as always: Which book to begin with? I have them spread out in front of me....while I savour the thought of reading them, after I solve the problem of order of reading, ofcourse.

And the image above is this year's theme: Scotland and apparently Alexander McCall Smith was there as chief guest. Did want to go meet him and perhaps have a small adda about Mma Precious Ramotswe of the No.1 Ladies Detective Agency....but the queue outside the Scottish Pavilion was a bit daunting even for a seasoned Kolkattan like me. Another time, Mr. Smith.