Reality Check

I was looking through my agency's archives of creative work when I came accross an anthem for something about an universal education effort or something like that. It was a short video where bright eyed, healthy, happy children poured out of their clean homes and ran across verdant fields, past crystal clear streamsbags on their shoulders, going to school. Our ex-PM made an appearance in it as well, at the end. 60 short second of a glorious vision of India.

Just then I got an email. It was from R about her recent trip to Jharkhand. It was about children and schools but a different sort. From a different world. Not one that was dreamed up in a plush ad agency but thought of by some enterprising, courageous people without the backing of any PM and in the real world where the everything was not shining and in technicolour.

R had gone to some villages in Raniswar block of Dumka district in Jharkhand with some friends who had been invited by an NGO called Santhal Pargana Samabay Vikas Samity to ask for some guidelines and assessment of their work.

Four months ago, a local businessman has set up this NGO that has been running coaching classes for the villages of the block.

There are no schoolrooms. Classes are conducted under a tree or in the open fields or a patch of green. How idyllic it sounds doesn’t it? Children studying in the open, under the clear blue skies. Well yes, except when it rains. The village is inundated and all the dirt roads turn into a sea of mud and slush.

The teachers are volunteers, mostly students who give 2 hours from their daily routine (7 to 9 am), totally free. There are a few government run schools where teachers rarely turn up and yet collect their monthly pay. Ironic isn’t it when real work is being done for free while others are paid to sit idle!

The secretary of the NGO said that there are countless other hamlets like these atop the surrounding hills who are even more distant from development, facilities and outside intervention.

There are no investigative centres or pharmacies and the adivasis have to trudge miles to the nearest doctors who hoard free medicines and sell it to them. The majority no wonder, are resigned to their fate and ofcourse, the will of god. These adivasis understandably, have no clue about their basic rights as citizen of this country. It’s a wonder that a brave few have decided to take things in their hands and find solutions. A small start but a brave one, surely. It heartening to note that there is no political opposition, yet.

I wonder, will any of these kids ever know that there is a campaign afoot somewhere education for everyone...probably not. The film is no doubt gathering dust in some archive in some office, somewhere...in India.

If one were to believe in destiny...

Everything moves along to some little understood cosmic reason...an easy explanation. Yet some things are just too coincedental.

Like our moving into our own place in Yes! We moved in last week to Gurgaon, close to my office.

A had first heard about this place in October when I had not even thought that one dy I'd be working here, let alone staying. Once I joined work, house hunting (when I found the time), became a top priority. The 80km up and down communte was killing me and naturally, this was the first place I saw. A was away in France then. I really liked it at first glance. But the in-laws pointed out that it was simply too large for just the two of us and would be terribly hot in summer and cold in winter being on the second and top floor. Not to mention the water and power problems which appartments in building usually don't have.

I mentally wrote this place off and tried to check out a few other smaller appartments but each had a serious drawback. The landlords rang up frequently, negotiated and renogotiated the lease, all the while when we were actually looking for other places! And all the whiile, this house waited patiently, empty, beckoning us! As if it knew that we'd land up there eventually. And so we did! One fine day in Jan (last week actually), after having commuted what seemed a million miles, I signed the lease, couriered it off to the landlords, hired a van, piled in our worldly belongings and viola! Here we are.

2 of us, 3 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, 3 balconies, a lobby, a kitchen, a drawing room and a terrace...all are, our stuff neatly unpacked and put away in the numerous built in wardrobes.

The landlady's siter lives nearby and is our contact for most things about the house and Gurgaon. On our first meet (back in november when I had come to see this place for the first time), she told me in passing that her sister, the landlady was to work in the very same agency but had been called when it was too late. By that time they had decided to shift out of the city. Last week, I casually mentioned this to my boss. What? her? God! We really liked her but and wanted her to join but we were too late in getting in touch with her.

If she had got the offer in time, she wouldn't have moved. But it was too late. I moved in to her job and her house!!

PS- one of the first things I did after moving in was to hang up my two painting and a terracotta fresco that I had picked up in Crete. It is in a greenish antique colour (fake ofcourse). And rummaging through the stuff the landlord had left behind, I found another terracotta plaque (not cretan, very Indian) but in the same greenish antique tinge! I hung it up too..

Hmmm....do you hear the hmmm, hhmmm, hmmm, hmmm theme of the twilight zone playing in the background or is it simply work pressure thats making me see things when there aren't any??!!

Alls well that smells well?

I have just returned from my first official trip. I had gone to Gandhidham in Gujarat for some research work on salt. My first such trip in years. It was hectic but great. This trip led me to a new 'acquisition' - my own cell phone. Yup. So late, in 2005. I have never used one, never felt the need to and was amazed at how much people talked and talked into their cells. And I felt irritated that they carried it around everywhere and stopped conversations and meetings to take calls. They carried it in their pockets, in thier palms, hung it around their necks and most often stuck between their shoulder and ears. I started using A's ancient one (he is very attached to it) when I started work, confusing our friends no end. 'Oh you have got the cell today', A's friends would say, on finding me taking their calls and vice versa. Not to mention the amount of comments it drew - what is it? A murder weapon? Where did you get it? You got it in 2000? Don't you mean 2000 years ago and so on and so forth, remarked my colleagues who like people in France, spoke constantly on their colourful, slim, glitzy cells which did everything including, I suspect, cook their dinners!I got mine on the penultimate day before my trip and was bewildered with the many user-friendly options. And I must admit, I felt sheepish and guilty when for no reason whatso ever, I had this terrible urge to call A up and give him a blow by blow account of my progress through the airport!

My flight reached Ahmedabad around 9pm feeling incredibly foolish at the amount of warm clothes I had worn and carried with me. It was a pleasant 27 degrees! I took a car to Gandhidham where the biggest salt producers in India are located. The roads were simply fantastic and we covered the distance of 480km in 6 hours flat and despite couple of halts. A member of the reseach team travelled along with and this lessened my apprehension about travelling alone in the night in the company of an unknown driver. But I couldn't relax because thed driver played some really horrible music at ear splitting levels and I couldn't even complain sicne we didn't want him falling asleep at the wheels. I was really thankful about one thing though - my choice of a non-AC car despite having a budgetfor one. With an AC car, we would have had to keep the windows rolled up and boy did the driver have a B.O problem. Had me gagging in the backseat. I sort of solved the problem by pulling down my cap right down to my nose (Well I did say I had gone prepared for the cold...and having got my cap along, it was easier to simply wear it)!

We reached Gandhidham in the wee hours of the morning and by 10am, was out with the research team meeting the salt producers - big, medium and small. At each place, we were offered some godawful tea, terribly sweet and smelly (buffalo's milk) and refusing it would be bad manners. I was really dehydrated since all I could do was take small sips of the tea. (Water was ofcourse a strict no-no. Couldn't afford the loosies while on the road). At our fourth stop, our host, contrary to the custom, didn't offer us anything at all till we were nearly at the end of our discussions when he suddenly shouted to someone 'Where is the juice?'. Aah. Juice...never was a more wonderful word spoken. But it took its time coming. The minutes ticked by. The conversation flagged. We racked our brains to think up things to ask. Not finding any, went through our old questions. Every now and then, someone would rush by with something in his hand and we would all look expectantly at him. But no it was not the juice. At one point we even got up to leave but the host pleaded with us to wait. Finally, finally, some one came in with three glasses and set it down in front of us. I shot out an arm and downed the entire juice in one gulp only to realise that my colleagues hadn't touched theirs. They were picked up their glasses only when the host too was served. oops. But I was past caring. Orange juice never tasted so delicious.

At the end of the day, I was pooped beyond exhaustion and although I had the whole night to catch up on my sleep, was prevented from doing so by a fly that had got in god knows how in the clean and beautiful hotel room. Every once in a while it would alight on my forehead, nose or face and wake me up. I spent the better part of the night swatting it away.

I left for Ahmedabad at 6am which on hind sight was a mistake since we reached the airport at A'bad by 1.30pm and had to cool my heels till 8pm. The driver was a very polite young chap and shyly told me about his future plans - he had just gotten engaged to his sweetheart back in his village in Punjab, saving up to buy a truck, like his father. He told me about the tourist attractions in Gujarat. He insisted that I should visit the Akshardham Temple right next to the airport. I realised I had been unnecessarily apprehensive about travelling alone with at the begining, as I drew in the airport. Just as I had finished signing the bill and handed him the money, he asked me what perfume was I wearing. Something I picked up in France. Nothing expensive, just some deo. Why? Madame, you had left your sweater on the front seat yesterday and I smelt it. It was so nice!

Eeeeps. The idea of this young man (howsoever nice and polite, sitting there sniffing away at my sweater gave me heebie-jeebies) and I was so glad that he mentioned it to me (if at all) at the end of our journey!

As the year draws to a close

Wishing everybody a Happy and safe 2005.

Death by CNG

The legend 'Je roule en gaz naturale' (I run on natural gas)is a common sight on buses in France. I now see it often here on the Delhi buses. Propelled by Clean Fuel. Or nearly the same thing. With slight variations. Proppelled / Propeled / Propelled etc...
Clean/kleen/clin/klin; feul... U get the picture.

Some however solve the problem by using the hindi version. So long as they are using CNG or clean fuel which helps to reduce pollutions, I dont mind. Occasionally someone gets it right but I always prefer the desi versions. They have me laughing away heartily. Whatever!

This wrong or rather innovative spelling of common english words are a common sight. And this was one of the first things I 'noticed' on my return from France, in May. How good it felt to read this hodge-podge english. One I remember in particular, when I went to an area filled with car repair shops. There were signs all over for 'Dainter and Painter'. Perfectly comprehensible to someone who knows hindi. It means one who repairs dents and does paint jobs. (A desi version of the americanisation of certain words...why write colour when color will do)?!!

Back to CNG - I get a cab to drop me home from the office on late nights (which has become a permanent fixture in my life).

One night, on my long ride back home with only my thoughts for company, the driver busy navigating through the crowded roads (even at that hour), I found the back seat falling on me everytime I shifted or leant forward. I turned around and found an enormous CNG cylinder filling the entire space just behind the seat. The driver confirmed that the car was indeed running on CNG from that cylinder.

Eeeeeps! And I was sitting with my back to it. Suddenly, I could hear all sorts of ticking and clicking noises coming from the till then silent cylinder.

I kept imagining it exploding. Images of me sitting with my hair and clothes burnt popped up. Don't be silly. It it were to explode, me, the car, the driver and the cars alongside on the road would be history. I wouldn't feel a thing. Instant Nirvana. Stop it. STOP. Get a grip on yourself girl. And so on, it went till I reached home, which it seemed would never come.

I somehow managed to sign the car slip and put in the closing meter and a very shaky signature and I dashed out with indecent haste. CNG, clean or not, is funny, from a distance only! Death by pollution (from non-CNG cars and buses) now seem an infinitely preferrable process.

My family and other animals

(Warning - this post is full of typos...am typing at great speed, post work)!


As far as family is concerned, here in Delhi, it is just the in-laws and me (A is away in far away France). But we have plenty of animals to keep us company, none our though!

Foremost comes the monkeys. They come and go as they please and usually wreak havoc in our garden, breaking stuff, uprooting plants and plucking and throwing away half eaten guavas. Once they climbed over the neighbours newly painted grills and got paint all over their paws. They sat, started at their palms and tried to very human like, get rid of it by rubbing it on walls and tree barks but in vain. It remains, another, sign of the human encroachment into what was once, their domain. I used to watch their antics from the safety of our screen door. But now the novelty has worn off. Especially since their newest trick is to leave a bit of excreta in our backyard. This has upset f-i-l's afternoon snooze on the terrace. Face to face, these monkey are vicious. Our 65 year old neighbour Mr D, in bed with steel shafts to mend his broken leg, is witness to their calculated savagery.

Squirrels bound up and down the trees by the roadside and on to our terrace, busy in whatever that squirrels do...squirreling away something or the other in some nook or cranny and once, with disastrous consequence, inside our meter box which is fitted onto one of outer walls, in the garden. One hot summer night, at the end of a particularly taxing day, when the heat had all of us in frayed tempers, the power went off with a loud bang. Luckily for us, m-i-l had just stepped out of the bedroom where we couldn't hear a thing because of the hum of the air conditioner. We ran out and found the meter box in flames and neighbour crowded around it. The electricians were summoned (at exorbitant rates, it being past midnight), found a nest of squirrels inside the box, burnt to cinders. They had been squirreling away nesting tufts in anticipation of possible a baby?). Luckily for us, we found out in time. Otherwise we would have no escape route since the wall was next to the main gate which is also the only way out of the house. The squirrels had apparently learnt to open the meter box with their tiny paws. We have, since then, put a squirrel proof lock on the box.

A is petrified of cats, having been attacked by a cornered cat in his childhood. He usually keeps away from neighbourhood cats who pick and choose various houses, lawns, cars for reposing at various times of the day and year. One cat has chosen our home to have her litter - 2 adorable balls of fluff. She gets them to the security of our enclosed backyard for the night. Often we hear pitiful mewing of a kitten stranded half way up a treeor a parapet when ma arrives and leads it down with a firm shove by its nose.

I get up very early to get ready for office when it is still dark. I open the door and find (A, beware), the curious kittens sitting poised outside the screen door, head at an angle watching me moving around inside! They are so adorable, especially when they chase their little tails but mama is so protective. She bares her fangs (or canines?) and sets up such a hissing if I so much a turn to look at her little ones.

A wont be thrilled to read this but we are hoping to put the cat family to good use. Of late, m-i-l's tiny lawn is being dug up nightly by large sewer rats - bandicoots. Where do they come from? Why do they dig up the lawn is such a mystery to us. M-i-l asked a gardener for help. He sent one of his minions to clear up and block any entry points and spray the lawn liberally with gamaxene powder. Add to it the fact that we found the kittens playing with a large dead rat had us all complacent that we had tackled the rat problem! Alas, no. Next morning, the lawn was as dug up as ever, the rats clevery digging up the non-gamaxened patches so that it was a merry check board of holes and white powder. These rats are obviously too large even for the mama cat, since the holes continue to merrily appear.

Then there are the indoor pets - the cockroaches, who are a bit subdued thanks to the magic chalk marker. One has to just run this chalk across counters and other places and viola! Every morning, I walk into the kitchen and dead cockroaches crunch underfoot. Yukh..but its a solution. Lizards are in hibernation, I guess.

Neighbourhood dogs choose the front of our gate for their nature's call.
There are little sparrows and finches twittering about in among the tress at home, too clever to be caught by the ever patient cat and its frisky kittens. The ugly pi-dog has given birth to the most adorable set of pups and she has chosen the dry partially covered drain just outside our gate to keep them in. She takes them out one by one occasionally and during feed times and then she puts them back! All in all, very animal friendly, we.

Agra Revisited

I went to Agra with the in-laws, last Saturday. I was looking forward to a break (after only one week of office) and happily gave up catching up on precious sleep to re-visit Agra.

When one thinks of India, Taj comes to the forefront among all the other imagery associated with India, much as Eiffel Tower is to France and the Statue of Liberty is to New York or the Colosseum, to Rome. And yet, Agra itself is such a pathetic, crowded, squalid city and the traffic, Oh god. It has to be the worst in the world. The only traffic rule is that there is none. All sorts of vehicles, small, medium, big, driven or pulled by various animals, rickshaws, cycles go as they please, turn right or left, make a U-turn any where and at anytime as they please. Sort of like a reverse Caucus Race (Like in Alice in Wonderland where all the animals started running whenever the felt and stopped whenever they felt and some one, eventually, won). One would never know that within its chaos is some of the most beautiful monuments in the world.

Our guide, kindly lent to us by our host, knew all the routes to the scenic spots but he had never actually been inside any of them!! This would be his first time. The Taj in your backyard, it seems, is no big a deal!

First stop was the tomb of Itmad-Ud-Daulah, Nur Jehan's father, Jehangir's father in law and Shah Jehan's grandfather. Fore runner to the Taj, it is built in red stone with inlaid marble work. The gates, lawns, porticos, water tanks all were very stately and yet graceful in the inherent geometry in their architecture. Read in a plaque there, that ultimately, it reflected the poetic refined soul of the powerful iranian who lay entombed.

Sikandra, Akbar's mausoleum, was even more beautiful. Similar to Itmad-Ud-Daulah, it was grander in size, as indeed befits the mighty Akbar. Herds of deer were grazing nonchalantly among the trees, peacocks paraded disdainfully, their magnificent fan tail hidden from view.

The arched domes had vestiges of the splendour that it had once been. What vibrant shades of blue, green, with intricate gold patterns, no two alike. And half eaten away, corroded, defaced. What a pity. In sharp contrast was the hall in which lay Akbar's tomb - bare walls, a plain marble slab for a tomb of the mighty Akbar, who, centuries after Ashoka was the most powerful ruler, India ever had.

The sun was setting and there was hardly anyone around. As I was walking, a deer startled by something, ran across the portico, its hooves clattering noisily. It gave these graceful leaps and bounded away. It was so beautiful, it was as if I was transported back in time.

People can now, for some 600 odd rupees, view the 'Taj by moonlight' for five days in November and December, 2 days before full moon to 2 days after in each month. We were lucky to have reached just after purnima or full moon but we couldn't stay in Agra till 9pm since we'd have to drive back to Delhi. We did the next best thing. That is to have a 'dekho', anyway.

We reached around 6.30pm. The sun had set, there were no stars in the sky, the moon not yet fully risen and all lights switched off.

The Taj was a haunting, ghostly white, all its intricate jali work a play of shadows. It was ethereal.

And although it was still very crowded, no one was immediately visible in the darkness. An occasional flash of a camera would light it up and then it would subside into shadows. It was so poetic. I guess everyone felt it too, because for once, there was near pin drop silence from the usually noisy Indian.

It was as it was meant to be - an epic of sadness, a tomb in the memory of a beloved; viewed by a desolate, brooding Shah Jehan from his prison cell in the Agra Fort accross the Jamuna, pining for his Mumtaz Mahal.

Faced with so much beauty and the sheer brilliance of the artistry, one felt very humble. Felt very silly with our usual preoccupations of our mundane little lives to which we attach so much importance.

"Pichey murkey nahin dekhtey, Taj ko" (We don't turn to look back at the Taj), said our guide, citing a popular / local custom (?)...but I simply had to. Everything else I have seen, pales in comparison.

I couldn't help rue that little did they know - Itmad-Ud-Daulah, Akbar, that just a few decades later, a kindly invitation to an english trader to the court of Shah Jehan, would signal the begining of the end of this once mighty and glorious empire.

Anniversary Blog!

Slowly, it crept in. On last sunday, my blog turned one!

What began as an update on my life in france for R, on A's insistent became a blog. And somehow, I have managed to keep it up through various moves and upheavels and illness, through unemployment and employment!

Many thanks to all of you who took time to visit my blog, leave a comment or email me. Can't tell you what it meant for me.

Special thanks goes to Debashish of Null Pointer, who held my blogging hands through all things tech on my blog through email and chat and when all failed, took my user id and password and did the changes himself! Inspired by him, I hesitantly began a bengali blog but it proved to be a still born. Debashish still hopes that I might restart it soon.

I left a moderately successful job, a very full social life to go to France and found myself in isolation. Even when I picked up the lingo, I still couldnt find a job. I wasnt too great as a house wife either. So blogging came to my rescue. A having set me in the blogging way, must have rued his decision when the dirty dishes piled up in the sink and laundry in the basket and I cooked abbreviated meals, all my concentration focussed on Blogging.

For very long time I was extremely shy about my blog posts and quaked everytime I hit the 'publish' button (I still am a bit shaky about it). There seem to be so many wonderful blogs around with so many intelligent matter. Not just a bored-housewife-blog. But each time some one wrote something to me, I felt better. So imagine my surprise when I was got quite a few emails from readers of my blog when I left france for India. Well, thanks!

Some of my favourite blogs -
Daniel Brett because once he wrote about Kolkata and because of Sabuj Neer;
Rezwan - read his blog and you will know why I like it.
Instant kaapi - for being nice to me in my early blogging days!! haha.
Null Pointer - See above for explanation
Bongo Vongo, Solilokey, Infinitelimits.....

Like all good things, this too will come to an end, someday...but not just yet. I am not through with it. No way!

Barriers to entry

I arrive on Tuesday, my first day, well ahead of 9.30am, get a 'visitor' tag and fill in the visitors' roster, at the entrance, guarded fiercely by efficient security staff. I wait at the reception for the bosses who usually smartly march in a bit late, in their crisp shirts, reeking of expensive aftershave. My boss is the first to arrive and he beckons me to follow him into the work area. I have not taken two steps when I am stopped by the security at the door to the work area. 'Madam, you can't go in with a visitor tag'. Back to the reception, I sit and study the wonderful photos on the wall, eye the visitors and refuse numerous offers of coffee. Then arrives the Secretary to the CEO, a very smart lady whom I had mistaken earlier for the creative head. She says she had no idea that I was joining. More apologies and hemming and hawing. I read the papers - ET, TOI, HT from cover to cover.

Then boss-ka-boss arrives and speakes to secy to CEO. Then i am finally allowed to enter, two hours later.

In the afternoon, secy calls me, no, sends regal summons. I am handed a voluminous form to fill up along with a couple of papers to sign - I won't do this...I won't do that etc. I duly fill up the form, hesitating at have you suffered from any of the following and lists out a huge number of serious illnesses. Not yet, but all things are possible.

I go downstairs to return the cv to the secy who incidentally has the nicest and largest office. 'No. Please put in a photo and return', she says. 'But that will take time', I say, since I am all out of photos. 'That's OK. You can have it clicked at our digital studio'.

Come Wednesday, I have my photo clicked in a studio with all sorts of strange lights and many adjustments and nodding of head and posture changes. All this for a passport sized photo of my face. The photos are uploaded to a PC, the owner of which didn't have time to breathe, let alone print my photos. So, the day passed.

Next morning, the usual suspicion at the entry when I once again sign the visitor's roster. But hey, I found some passport photos of mine, in which, like always, I look like an escaped convict. So the appointment letter is not far away.

I begin the day, wondering where could I place the lovely frame (a diwali gift) with our (A's and mine) photo. Where would it look best? What else could I keep. I cut short my reverie to plunge into the bewildering world of pitches and presentations and a 1000 abbreviations. The day is nearly over when I ring up (meekly), the royal seccy, all a tremble and dare to, like, Oliver Twist, ask for more - my appointment letter that is. What??? (I can well hear her scream in her mind),

- You have been given a desk, a phone (but no STD connection),
- an email id (but no PC).
- Didn't some one come and take the exact spelling of your name for your OWN visiting card and you want more????

She doesn't ofcourse say all this. 'Not today', comes the reply. That doesn't surprise me in the least. Somehow, I knew that was how it would be.

Friday is holiday and so I will hopefully get it on Monday.

Jinx Broken

If you have been following my periodic whines about my enforced domesticity in my blog, then you will be relieved and share (hopefully) my elation. I have found myself a job in a top advertising agency in Delhi, as an account supervisor for their development sector projects! I began today, after exactly four years (24 November 2000 to 23 November 2004).

Am rusty...but loving it!

A belated sad, lonely diwali post

One more diwali post. But not that joyous, noisy occasion where we willing burnt money, added to the already dangerous levels of pollution burst our ear drums god knows why sort of a diwalil post. A sad, wallowing in self pity, lonely, only lit by thin candles, quiet sort of a post.

I always enjoyed diwali. First as a kid (a scaredy-cat), watching Ma lighting and bursting from a distance. Later on, with enormous energy and enthusiasm I'd get everyone togther, bully the residents of our building to cough up for our diwali funds, buy the crackers and general have a great time (but always the scaredy cat, I and my co-organiser, would be the first to leave the crowded terrace and hide under the water tank as soon as the first cracker was burst).

This year, however, diwali was a very low-key affair for me. Alone with the in-laws. They were happy and content with each other's company. I was somehow all lost, all by myself (A is away in France). We lit some diyas and candles, m-i-l handling the downstairs and f-i-l and I the upstairs terrace bit. We found half a string of tiny bulbs. We got a very sleepy kid (2 boys have rented the mezzanine floor - but at any given time, there are usually 6 to 7 boys and usually all new faces!) to hoist it up on their terrace. Then we went back to our regular pattern of T.V, T.V-dinner, more T.V and then bed sandwiched between our neighbours, Nowlakhas on the left and Guptas on the right kept bursting all through the night, and chose to burst them in front of our gate. And there were the others behind our house. I wallowed in self pity ....then slowly the smell of barud (gunpowder???) or whaterver it is they use to make crackers permeated indoors from all sides and we set up a nice concert coughing. And always one after the other, never all together. I buried myself deep in my razai and yet I thought, the pillow, the mosquito net, the bedsheets smelt of barud. My eyes hurt, I thought I was gasping for breath. Will we all be found dead tomorrow in our beds?

Funny, I never noticed the noise, the barud, the pollution, the smog and not to mention the sheer waste of money going up literally in smoke while so many starve, before. Sigh!

A Comparitive Study of the public transport of a few metro cities in India!

(Despite the ambititious title, this post is a very narrow comparison based on a few interesting experiences of the blogger)!


Kolkata first, but ofcourse: I once shared a cab with a punjabi colleague of mine, a recent import to the city of joy. His directions to the driver, in bengali, had me in splits! I had to explain to him rule No. 1: Most cabbies in Kolkata are bihari and speak hindi. Rest of them are mostly sardarjis who are at ease in either hindi or bengali and then there are a handful of bengali drivers. These last ones are ofcourse the ones who are never going you way. Hail a cab and when he slows down, tell him your destination and he will say that he is going in the exact opposite direction.* Without fail. If he is, then why slow down? But slow down they do. Once a cabbie slowed down and when I told him where I wanted to go, he said 'Seat-i nei, aabar jaabey' - No seats and yet she wants to go! Thats when I noticed the seats had been taken out leaving a small bit for the driver and obviously was on its way to a repair shop.

* I don't mean to be sexist when I refer to the cabbie as 'he'. In my 12 years in Kolkata, I have seen only one lady taxi driver - Sharan Kaur who took to driving to support her family after her cabbie husband's untimely death. Incidentally she also runs a flourishing driving school.

Mumbai next: Last month, when I was in Mumbai for a week, I had to extensively travel by cabs. The first thing I noticed was like everything else in Mumbai (at least when compared to Kolkata), how gung-ho the cabbies were. They never tried to cheat me or take me on a long convulated route despite their knowing that I didnt know a thing about the Mumbai roads. They charged the exact fare, one even hailed an auto for me which would be an easier and more economical mode of transport for me given the fact that Ganesh Chaturthi was in full swing with crowds making their way to the sea front for immersion of the various Ganesha idols. I had to take a train from VT which was quite a distance from Juhu, where I had put up, especially given the Ganesh festival. Everyone I asked had a different and equally complicated route for me. A taxi driver solved the problem. He suggested the easiest and shortest route and I reached VT with loads of time to spare. And yet he could have made a packet had he suggested he'd drive me there himself. I would have certainly agreed and would'nt have been any wiser.

But the best part undoubtedly was the way they spoke. 'Sister, tum yer karo, woh karo...', always using the informal 'tum' and never the formal and more correct 'aap' used elsewhere!

At a crossing near Mahim Church, a woman approached me saying she needed money for a kafan (shroud) for someone one recently departed. I ignored her as best as I could since the lowest denomination I had was a Rs. 50/- note. She whined away as I guiltily looked the other way. As our cab pulled away, the driver informed me that this woman runs a racket and only last week she angrily returned a Rs. 50/- note back to a sethani (rich lady) saying it was too little. Phew! And here I was wondering what the cabbie must have been thinking about my easily blowing up money on cabs and none to spare for the needy!!

And now Delhi: The auto drivers here are cheating me left, right and center. And yet I have little option because I am unfamiliar with the roads. Funnily, here in Delhi, where hindi is the preferred language, try saying 'Dahina/Dayan' (right) or Bayan (left) and they get confused.

'Right Kahiye naa' (Say 'Right'), scolded my auto driver when did'nt follow my 'dahina' and we missed a turning and got stuck in a godawful jam.

And lastly, Bangalore: Some years back, when I had gone there, I was cheated by every single auto and cab driver who refused to take me on the normal fare (as told to me by the locals). Exasperated, I let it out on one auto driver who replied in accented english 'Sorry madam, but we gotto make a living, no?! He said it so simply and so charmingly, that I glady paid up!

The joys of going to a 'camp'

(I am currently staying with a friend T, in Delhi.)


Dia, T's 6 year old was driving everyone crazy with incessant chatter about her forthcoming 'Camp'. The minute she saw me (after nearly a year), she screamed "Su aunty, I am going to a camp", and proceeded to name a string of places she possibly couldn't see in a day's time and be back home by 8pm! The 'camp' incidentally was a day trip to a farm and a bird sanctuary.

She went on and on about things she had to take to the camp. "Mamma, when are you going to buy my things for the camp?", she asked a zillion times before T read the camp notice and told her that children were not supposed to bring any food. (This is really funny coming from Dia who seems to be on a perpetual hunger strike!).

Soon she was back with "Mamma, when are you going to buy me snacks to take to the camp? I can take snacks, can't I?" and without waiting for an answer, came up with a big list of things to buy - chips, chocolates, cola, toffees and not only for her but for her 4 year old brother as well. His camp was a day later. Finally, someone took her to buy her 'snacks' which she proudly carried around in a plastic bag. This brought T some respite.

Next morning, she came up with a new one. "Mamma which bag shall I take to the camp?" She went on and on. Poor T. Sunday was her only day off from work and she was loathe to rise early. She held Dia off as long as she could with pleas of "in 10 minutes" while Dia danced around alternately shouting 'camp' and 'bag'!

Some one stood on a stool and brought down a variety of bags kept in an cupboard. She rejected each one saying "this one is too small" or "this one is too big" or "not this one, its a suitcase" or "this one's not mine" etc. Finally, she selected the usual back pack she took to school each day and put her precious snacks into it and carried it around.

"Are you excited about the camp", I asked her. (Such stupid questions adults ask). She shrugged her shoulders as if to say its no big deal. And then added sagely "If I don't go, then the 400/- will be wasted and so I must, don't you think?"!!!

Dia had to report at 6am at her school, monday morning. She got up, dressed and drank her milk (a real ordeal for her ma on normal days) in no time and left for the camp.

Tiku, whose camp was on the following day, too was excited about his, but not very vocal about it. He was content to occasionally go through his 'snacks' and try to eat some of it and had to be told that he would have nothing left for the camp.

The house seemed so silent and empty that morning, after Dia had gone to camp, Tiku to school and T, to work. But that silence ended when a tearful Tiku returned from school with tears in his eyes. "Su aunty, (he said in his adorable raspy voice), "Camp cancelled. Teacher said so" and without waiting for my reaction ran to his grandmother and then to the bathroom where his grandfather was taking a bath. He beat his little fists on the door till his grandfather stuck his head out to receive the tragic news.

In his distress, he bacame what he rarely is: extremely quiet. There was little we could do to console him. It was grandfather who finally saved the day by reading the second notice. "It says postponed and not cancelled. It means it will happen later". Tiku smiled, wiped his tears and cycled away madly in celebration, round and round the flat. He would not eat his snacks and agreed only when his grandparents promised to buy him more for his camp!

Dia was picked up at 8pm from her school by T. She was very chirpy but strangely silent about her camp. In between eating and complaining about the itching on her waist, she fell asleep. The tight band of her track suit which she wore all day made her mid riff all itchy. She had blisters on her heels as T discovered when she took off Dia's shoes who was fast asleep by then.

This morning, Dia had a day off. I asked her how the camp went.
"Not good. We went to a farm where we had to sit quietly. Then we went to a bird sanctuary where there were no bird. Then back to school and ma came to take me home", she dissmissed the 72 hours of pre-camp excitement and 14 hours of camp in a couple of sentences!!

To Rename or Not, that is the question.

An old quote begins what's in a name? A lot I should say. It gives me pangs and twinges, has me flinching, wincing and has me experiencing other assorted emotions. I am referring to the name of my blog. When I began nearly a year ago, little did I know that I'd be soon zipping around with no fixed address and living out of my suitcase. Earlier all my zipping around was within France. Then I found myself in Delhi, in Noida, in Gurgaon, Kolkata, Bhubaneswar, Mumbai and a week in France thrown in for good measure, all in the span of 6 months. And today, I depart for Delhi, again, where I will be, until further notice.

So, obvious choices for blog names are :
1. No fixed address. But Kaizad Gustaad (of that unsavory incident of the death of a production person on the mumbai train tracks fame) has already written a book of short stories by that name.

2. Variations of the Notes theme:
- Notes from everywhere (baaaaad)
- Notes from allover (not quite right that one)
- Sukanya's Notes (boring)
- Notes from my suitcase (??)

I do so envy people with clever blog names. I can't think of one. Didnot when I began, cannot even now. Notes from France. How boring, how obvious. Once I did a google search and apart from my blog, I got a million other results including Nuclear Notes from France.

I am not exactly techno-phobic, just a bit slow on all things techno and so even linking to a meta blog takes a lot out of me. And if I should rename my blog, would I have to go to all those places and make changes? Err...on the other hand, "Notes from France is now from India" is not such a bad name is it? Kind of (hopefully) grows on you, with time. And I can always add another country to it, wherever I should happen to be going next: is now from Africa, Australia etc. etc.

Doll's House

Pipi Longstockings sits with her long legs stretched out with fat sagging Garfield (too many spin cycles in the washing machines) by her side, staring happily at the world. These two are the only toys I have had in my entire life and naturally, am possessive about them. But unlike R, whose love affair with dolls and toys started as is normal, in childhood, I got my first toy, a Garfield on my 17th birthday given to me by a class mate. The idea of owning a soft toy till then was a silly one, to me. Not to say I didn't admire them and rushed to cuddle them when I could lay my hands on any. But to actually possess one. Whatever does one do after you have cuddled it a few times?

Pipi, my other acquisition, was a present from A, my newly wedded husband. He got it from Stockholm on one of his frequent business trips. (Incidentally, the French version is called Fifi since Pipi in french means "piss")!

As a kid, I rarely ever played with dolls. I don't think I owned one or if I did, those were given to me by people who thought it was the easiest gift to give to a 'girl'-child, much as we settle for an aftershave or ties for male cousins or friends. R on the other hand, had so many dolls and assorted paraphernalia...dolls tea sets, dolls clothes and what not. But I had none. Why? Did I opt for non-doll toys? As far as I can remember, whenever Baba and ma went out for the evening, they'd return with a doll for R and a book for me, always a book, a gift I very happily waited for and spent many a happy evening with my nanny, knowing that though ma was going out, there'd be a book for me at the end of it. But we are not talking about books here. Dolls it is. Why didn't I even one? I played with R and her dolls but always as a sidekick! I was the doctor who suggested painting spots using nail polish on her dolls - duli, cookie and Mimi! They were suffering from chicken pox after all. I was the one who made a whole in the head of the boy doll (these were the ones made of thin molded plastic without detachable heads and limbs) and put in some marbles (he had accidentally swallowed them) and cured him by simply turning him over so that the marbles fell out.

R was so attached to her dolls that her baby cot would be cramped with all of them. And she kept them, lovingly tending to them even when they had lost limbs and only the body and head remained. Once while travelling with a grouchy Uncle, I and R had a mini-tiff (often vicious whacks and pinches), and I coolly threw out limbless Mimi out of the window and felt very smug but as we sped farther and farther away, my guilt increased and so I told Uncle in a very small voice that a doll had fallen out. Imagine his disgust when he had to stop, go way back and retrieve a limbless, cheap plastic doll and what's more not being able to say a word about it since we were, after all, children of a colleague.

During Christmas in the small oil town where we lived, a Santa would come riding on a fire engine clanging the bell and dole out gifts to all kids who would assemble in a large hall inside the club house. The gifts would have been suggested by and paid for by the respective parents. I went to this only once and was very disappointed when both R and I received dolls. R, later in a fit of rage threw mine out of the window where it landed in the gutter and lay forgotten till baba brought it in one day holding it at arms length by its pony tail!

Apart from these, I can't seem to remember anything else about dolls. Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that my parents decided that dolls were not for me? Its true I loved reading and didn't make any fuss about not having any dolls. But then I wasn't given any dolls to play with. Those were for R. I got books and more books. By the time we left Assam to go to Bhubaneswar, baba had to make a large wooden crate to fit my books. And I was only 10.

After my doll-less childhood, in this ripe old age, okay, middle age, I have two and even though I don't keep them with me or tend to them (R bathes them periodically, dries them, puts them to sleep at night and covers them with tiny blankets, yes she does and sits them up in the morning), they are very precious possessions of mine. I make sure no kid gets his/her adorable grubby paws on them and Garfield at least, is such a magnet for one and all. Whenever a kid visits us, I rush and put them both on top of a wardrobe and warn my mother not to give it them, even if only to play!

Psychiatrists and psychologists, you have a new angle. Now you can add the absence of a doll figure in childhood to your list of possibile causes to a host of ills, imaginary or otherwise!

Durga Puja

How quiet and final a Sunday it is today. The Durga pujas (my first in 4 years) are finally over. The preparations which began well in advance, a few months ago, finally reached their crescendo yesterday with the immersion of the pratimas in the Hooghly.

The pujas officially begin on Mahalaya or the arrival of Durga but the actual celebrations take place a week later and are usually a 5 day affair, shosti to dashami (the from the 6th day to the 10th).

But for me, Durga Puja begins much earlier, perhaps when the paper man rings the bell to deliver the annual (or puja) issues of all the major bengali literary publications. These are too thick to be slipped under the door with the morning paper. The smell of fresh print and the luxury of lying on the sofa, riffling through the book checking out the various stories, knowing the pujas are just around the corner. Heavenly! (At the moment, 6 or 7 such annual issues are lying around and are driving me nuts. Can't figure out which one to start with)!

Then the pandals come up bit by bit. Overnight one finds a bamboo structure up, often on a road, or a field or park (giving little indication of what the final shape will be). Somehow, no one minds the detour these cause.

The crowds swell at the shops to buy new clothes for themselves as well as for giving. Having been away, I have sort of gotten out of that habit (not to say I didn't feel a small pang thinking I'd be going out on the puja days in my old clothes and was thrilled to find couple of sarees from my wedding, still new)*.

Bamboo barriers appear on roadsides to keep the absolutely crazy Kolkata pedestrians off the road. They cross wherever and whenever they want to and don't care a fig about traffic. In fact it’s the driver's onus to keep an eye on the pedestrian making sure he is not run over.

I can't quite explain it but there is this special 'durga puja' air all around, a wonderful relaxed holiday sort of feeling. It is reflected in little, little things. The golden sunlight of sharad, the tuning on to Radio Kolkata at 4am to listen to a special programme 'Mahishasur Mardini', on the arrival of Durga (something began in the 1930s by the legendary Pankaj Kr Mullick and now a must for Bengalis), the orange lights splayed across the frosted window of my bedroom, of the Maddox square puja, the beating of dhak, the clanging of cymbals mingled with the usual sounds of buses and cars honking, the chanting of mantras at the anjalis (morning prayer) and the smell of incense in the arati (the evening prayer).

Being away makes one appreciate old things better. But that apart, the pujas themselves have undergone a sea change. What variety of pratimas and pandals**. No more of those tarp and bamboo structures. The pandals are now old forts complete with turrets, abandoned house, fabulous south Indian temples with intricate carvings, a space ship (where the asur is an ET), cane chariot drawn by cane horses, pagodas, Egyptian pyramids and one was modeled on the huge globe of the EPCOT center at the Disney world in Florida! And they are made of terracotta tiles, jute, cane, coconut shells, sea shells, crushed coal, saw dust and gunny bags, dried cow dung pats and one, decorated completely with toffees. I marvelled at it all and savoured every bit of it even took a spin around the city from midnight till dawn (to beat the traffic jams of the evenings) and it was worth every second of it.

By this evening, all the pratimas will be immersed in the Hooghly, all the pandals dismantled and the lighting taken down by the very same artisans who built it up painstakingly and wait for next year to spin some more magic. It is sad but somehow fitting. It after all reflects the eternal cycle of creation and destruction and all important impermanence of things.

* I went out wearing a sari and promptly spilt some water onto my lap, which trickled downwards through the sari pleats and soon I was sitting in a neat puddle and I had not even seen a single puja yet! Luckily, the pallu was not wet and I pulled it behind me and spent the entire night pandal hopping!

** I had a small point and click camera. I don’t quite know how the photos will look. So instead, here are some Links those who want to check out the pratimas and pandals!

Bhubaneswar diary

A sudden invitation I have very happy memories of the one and a half years that I spent as a kid, in Orissa. So when an old colleague from an NGO I once worked in (in fact my first job some 10 years back) rang me up on Tuesday evening to say that they were organising a seminar with women artisans in Bhubaneswar, I immediately agreed to attend it...to kill two birds with a stone, so to speak.

Déjà vu In Bhubaneswar I kept looking all around trying to locate places once familiar to me, landmarks now completely lost in the maze of roads and houses built in the last couple of decades. How often have I felt bored, irritated by people when they talk about places visited in the past with great fondness, which mean nothing to me. I am afraid I must have sounded like that. All excited I'd point out 'you know I went to school this way', with the happy rush of memories of me and R as young school kids (me in class IV and R in II) and a host of other memories. But it must have been terribly boring for my hosts. (Yawn, mm...so you went to school. Aacha). Luckily they were too polite to do anything but feign extreme interest! I couldn’t even identify that wonderful house we spent two summers in, as kids. It turned out to be the one just around the corner from the NGO’s office!

Other things hadn't changed much. When I started working in the NGO, I found that there was no schedule for anything although there was an enormous amount of energy for everything. Our train reached Bhubaneswar at 11pm, nearly two hours behind schedule. An entire troop was there to receive us at the station including my ex-boss and director on bikes, cycles and one car. He insisted on us dropping in at his office before checking in at our hotels. And once there, we had to talk the usual what is happening with the whole sordid affair of life kind of a talk and then tea, which took its time in arriving. I felt tired and hungry and a tad irritated at this disorganized state of affair. But then I thought that I was here for two days and I had come with the express purpose of meeting these people, most of whom I hadn't met for 9 years and my boss whom I had last seen 4 years ago when he attended my marriage. Here was my chance to catch up with these wonderful people. So I swallowed my irritation (which was partly aimed at myself for getting irritated in the first place) and the god awful tea (another standard fixture) and asked many questions. As is normal, nothing that was scheduled happened. The field trip was cancelled. A lot of things remained to be arranged for Buyer seller meet.

A Women’s World or is it? There was to be a buyer seller meet for products of rural women from Orissa – a governmental project, organized by the NGO. As happens with most affairs, lack of coordination is the main problem. Especially since the idea, the invitation and accommodation etc was done by government agencies. Each woman received 5 invitations, from 5 different agencies, to the very same meet. Most could barely figure it out. In fact some came empty handed without any of their handicrafts. Some came to the hostels they were to be put up in, some were found bewildered outside the five star hotel where the seminar was to be held, clutching their precious handiwork in odd bags and bundles. They turned up (much more than were expected) with very little idea as to what it was but so full of hope. And then they were told that nothing was to be sold here. It was to be only a product evaluation.

The NGO staff were up nearly till 2 arranging things for the inauguration by the minister who came accompanied by IAS officers and other officials. Then came ribbon cutting. Immediately, all the women started ululating in unison...the sound of which brought tears to my eyes. I had to blink hard to get rid of them. This was not just a tradition. But it was a sound of so much hope from these women who had so little, that they would find a buyer, a market, a way to earn a livelihood, a way to live life with some dignity, certainly more dignity than the seminar was giving them, I thought. Couple of hours later after endless cliched speeches, the women had to re-wrap all their stuff in pitiful little bundles...homeward bound, waiting till the next such meet?

The whole way in which it was conducted was very disappointing. But the post exhibition feedback session with the energetic and seemingly competent IAS officer in charge brought some hope to me that this lady means business.

A Rare breedI had got a ticket in the ordinary sleeper class for my return journey. Everyone else agreed that with some money, the TT would be more than happy to oblige especially since it was the puja season where most people ask for some sort of a baksheesh or the other. There were sure to be empty berths in the AC coaches. My boss had a big ideological problem with it. If there are seats, then it is within one's legal rights to ask for and get a better seat by paying the difference and it should be available without palm greasing. Anyhow, I was told to stand near my coach (at the end of the train) while they spoke to the TT, to try and do something for a lady.

The whole little scene no doubt repeated countless times, replayed it self slowly in front of me. Us officious, bending and talking with unusual docility, surrendering ourselves to the all mighty TT of the Indian Railways (the largest employer in the world). The TT, standing tall (this is his brief moment of glory), list in hand, looking us over, doing difficult calculations in his head and then saying uthey porun, dekchi (get in, I’ll see what I can do).The TT looked me up and down and then said, will a middle berth do? You are tall.

The TT came in a short while and upgraded the two of us who had ordinary sleeper class tickets, took the difference and left. Was it because a woman (my colleague) did all the talking, he couldn't he ask for some extra rupees or was he one of the rare breeds just doing his duty? If he was the latter, then here's to you Sir.

Last but not the leastDespite the obvious growth of Bhubanewsar, it still has this peacefulness about it. I guess its because its hardly populated compared to West Bengal and Calcutta. Rent is quite affordable; most houses have a bit of a plot attached to it, and full of foliage (unthinkable here in Calcutta). The sky I remember is still very clear and the stars are so bright...like big lamps shining in the sky. I felt happy, relaxed, lying in the hammock sort of an air. It would be nice to retire here, the land of 99,999 temples.

Rules for Watching Cricket

Bengalis take their cricket very ,very seriously. Try watching a match at Eden; a capacity crowd of 120,000, not counting those hanging from trees and atop all the tall buildings around Eden Gardens, for each and even when India is not playing**. (But perhaps I should not generalise like this for the 60 million Bengalis, in West Bengal). At least we do. And our ex-neighbour. We have invented all sorts of rules for ensuring an Indian victory. Never mind the fact that our success rate has been very bad. Nevertheless the set of rules continues to grow and grow.

I don't think I missed a single match at Eden Gardens between 1991 and 1996. And the few matches I missed, I had R tape it for me. For matches abroad, the match timings would take precedence over our lives. Ma would set the alarm to catch the 4am match between India and New Zealand! She'd get up a bit before, make tea and then settle down before the TV to watch Sachin beat the hell out of the kiwis in the first 15 overs. Yes. those certainly were the days.

I remember our neighbour dropping in early one morning to ask if she could watch the match on our TV.

'Of course. Any problem with your TV?' ma enquired politely.
'No, no. We are waiting for Bonu (their daughter) to come home and switch on the set. India always wins when she does', she said in all sincerity.

Ha. Ha. Imagine that. But lately I find that we have our sets of incredibly complicated rules as well.

The other day, as I was lighting an incense stick at the family puja altar, ma came bustling and replaced the match box, the incense stick and other stuff in a certain way.

'Ma, what are you doing?'
'India has a match today' came the all explanatory reply.

I immediately understood that these were Baba's rules. Earlier, he would wear his lucky lungi to watch the match and so ma had quite a job of ensuring that the same lungi was washed, dried and pressed for the next day's session.

Things have gotten a bit complicated since then. Most of the time, we are not allowed to watch the match. Baba sits like an ageing Royal Bengal tiger, remote in hand, in front of the set occasionally tuning in to check the score. And that's it.

'Baba, you cant be serious'. I shout in desperation.
'But I am. It works,' says Baba.
'Well if you have so much power, why don't you find out a way whereby you could get me a nice job by perhaps rearranging the furniture or something,' I say.
'Don't be ridiculous,' says Baba, in a very final tone .

This morning I was helping ma to change the bed linen in our room. The pillow cases and bed sheets done, we, we picked up a fresh bed cover when ma stopped and said

'Oh, Oh'.
'What' ?
'Can't change the bed cover. Not before the next test series (India has lost the first one and how). Baba's instructions'.

And she put the old cover back and briskly moved leaving me standing jaw dropped. (Its easier to agree to Baba rather than discussing it).

Normally Baba is a very rational man not given to any sort of fanciful flights. In fact he is boringly practical except cricket. But then India's performance of late has been so dismal. Desperate situations call for desperate measures. Perhaps it does work. Perhaps our rules for a win are getting cancelled by others non action or contra-actions.

Who knows? The truth after all is somewhere out 'there'. That could include a host of things...ETs, ESP, time travel, the truth about life and death and winning in cricket.

**(Except for that one shameful incidents in the 1996 World Cup against Sri Lanka);

A Rainy Day

Rain means different things at different times. At times welcome, at time destructive, at times a pleasure and a nuisance at others. Monsoons this year in West Bengal seem to have continued into august, september and now October. Inquire why and more often than not, the answer will be: Ma durga's* agomon(arrival) this year, is on a boat. This means rains. And how. In fact, it has been raining incessantly since yesterday and continues even as I write. Large parts of Calcutta is waterlogged.

* The goddess durga's festival is in a few days time. This 9 day pageant (with fantastic lighting, exotic pandals and enormous crowds thronging to see them) is the chief festival of the bengalis.

Most of us are stuck indoors, an unofficial rainy day, making the most of it, ringing up relatives and friends to gleefully discuss how much of which road is under water. Its lapping at our door step; the pond has over flown onto the road etc.

Mama(ma's older brother) is the first to ring up and gives a gleeful account of the state of waterlogging, which roads to avoid etc, all from the safe confines of his first floor apartment.

Next rings Dinesh, our driver. Waist-deep water. Ashbo? (shall I come).

2 of my friends were to drop in this afternoon. The first cant risk it the pond have overflown onto the road. The second stays far away and can't obviously make it.

- 'Ok, We'll eat up all the kebab R was going to grill this afternoon'.

- 'Kebabs? Isn't there a metro station close to your place? I shall give it a try!'

A rainy day automatically means 'Khichudi' for most Bengalis: Khichdi accompanied by a host of fries (fish fry, fried brinjal, vegetables fritters).
So we have a very cozy, happy-family cooking session - Ma, R and me. Baba will chip in with his critical comments during lunch (my parents have been married for 36 years and yet during each lunch, without fail, baba will have some direction or the other to give about the cooking).

I am lucky enough to savour it all. No plodding through ankle/knee/waist deep water running errands or rushing to work. I look out of the window, the palm tree now grown to a giant size, its frond nodding just under our 5th floor window. Calcutta looks so fresh, nice and washed and I can see the Hooghly Bridge and its cables clearly, the dome of the Victoria Memorial, the lightening exaggerated by our windows of frosted glass.

Normally the tap-tap of raindrops on shutters, against panes, the rushing sound of the palm fronds, lulls me to sleep when an ominous plop wakes me up. Our roof is leaking at places where there is a ceiling fan or a light fixture.

I look up and see the yellow pail hung from a 'S' from the ceiling next to the ceiling fan. This simple but effective idea which collects all the water and prevents a short circuit is a brainwave of my engineer dad who is happiest tinkering around the apartment and I suspect when things break down, as they frequently do, so that he can fix them.

But it keeps me wide wide awake for fear of the pail getting to heavy and flying off the 'S' and crashing into the rotating blades and onto our heads (the bed is just underneath).

Ma Nuit Blanche!

I left Paris on Sunday after 3 days with an artist friend of mine (yes the same one of the pan masala fame). (A had earlier left for India on Friday). She lives in an artist's colony in the 20th arrondissement. Her apartment is a very crazy hodge podge of all sorts of absurd things, which had it been mine, would have surely looked like a 'kabarikhana' (junk shop) but over there, it was undeniably artistic.

She shares her flat with her daughter P (who once taught me French at AF) and have their own schedules and lives and communicate with each other via notes propped on the kitchen table!

The 3rd Nuit Blanche (an all whole night cultural event organised by the Mayor of Paris) coincided with 3 painting exhibitions where her work was showing (including one at a gallery in Mont Marte where there would be a jazz concert afterwards)! P invited me to go around Paris on Nuit Blanche. It was going to be an interesting 3 days. I had dashed of a joyous email to A About my plans He wrote a very cautious ' enjoy yourself...but not too much'!

To avoid the tedium of hopping onto a metro to go to Mont marte which is ALWAYS packed, I thought I’d attend the one on Rue de la Marre (the one closest to her’s and there I would meet P and then check out nuit blanche)! But fate had entirely something else in store for me. A ‘nuit blanche’ all right for I was up for most of the night.

She had told me several times to take a right at the crossing between Rue du Bagnolet and Rue des Pyrenees. I could take a bus or enjoy the walk. I set out at 7pm to enjoy the walk and promptly forgot all about it. I asked an old Arab who (surprisingly) said he didnt know any French! A chirpy lady very confidently pointed to the left and I took it with every step walking unknown to me further away from my destination. I kept trying to 'enjoy' the walk like she had told me to, stopping to ask people frequently. 2 people told me I was on the right track and a third didn’t help with the directions but asked if I was an Indian and then said I had a nice smile. He was from Guadeloupe and do I know where that is. When I said yes I do, he said he hoped that I didn’t think that they are all savages. No I don’t. Of course I don’t.

When I passed what looked like 15 bus stops, realization dawned that perhaps I had taken a wrong turning?. A passerby kindly set me right. Retrace your step all the way to the crossing and then walk a similar distance on the other side (all uphill). Irritation, exasperation, anger, not to forget perspiration...I was feeling all sorts of things, apart from feeling very foolish and hot. I was wearing a goose feather jacket (despite the mild weather. Quite a few passersby stared curiously at me, perspiring and walking unsteadily). All my resolutions about not caring two hoots about who thought what about my clothing went up in perspiration.

My joy at finally finding the elusive Rue de l'ermitage, was tinged with dismay. I had to take the steep stairways half way down it to Rue de la cascade and then down a very steep gradient to Rue de la Marre. This whole area was very old, with quaint narrow paved streets and very arty. But I was had little time to admire it all especially my knees and soles of my feet were not enjoying the paved steep road. (I had a mild attack of vertigo, standing at the top of the steep alley!).

At the gallery, there was a small bunch of people...mostly artists. I went panting upto her and P, took a cursory look at the art work and left for the 3eme Nuit Blanche with P and her friend Y. He took us through 4 rounds of that place (uphill and downhill, never a flat road) till he located the Japanese joint, where everyone elegantly picked at their food (raw fish) with chopsticks while I made a mess of the elegant japanese portions with a fork and knife. Then we went through the same place and passed it twice before we located our first halt. A bar overflowing with people talking, drinking, staring and all sorts of things while a chorus was going full scale doing all sorts of choral stuff with lots of bam-bam-ba sort of singing. The wore all sorts of black and white, cow patterned stuff, ears and tails and what not. P spent the entire time talking to friends to find out what was happening and where to go. I tried to look inconspicuous and failed badly.

Y tried very hard to keep me in good spirits. C'est ta derniere nuit, ici a paris? oui. T'emu? Non. (what I meant to say was I don't know where we will be next and might just be back and soon and am therefore not 'emu' , instead the non crept out).

Tu a fait quoi, ici, pendant 4 ans? lire. Juste lire? Ah bon. Even he gave up after that. Argh. Here was my chance at some scintillating conversation. France gave me the chance to faire un pause, to rest, to reflechir un peu....to find out the meaning of life, to get in touch with my inner self.....but I didnt say all that. Just a plain, boring, 'non'. I could have said I took up an old hobby like painting...but I didnt and in hindsight, thank god I didnt, what if Y started talking litho and woodcut and etching and acrylic and huile sur toile like everyone else at the gallery?

I said goodbye and retraced the long long distance home. Spent the night tossing and turning. Its three flights and the wooden stairs up and down kept creaking, (the walls were so thin) that the each time a neighbour flushed his loo, it seemed some one was in ours. P rang up once at 1am to say she would be late and then again at 3am to ask me to let her in! Needless to say, I was wide awake. Like when she says after an age, one simply cant do Nuit Blanches. But that certain age seems to have come really early, for me.

Re-orienting (an updated version)

Its been four days out here. And I have been re-orienting myself. No that's not the word I am looking for. Not re-orienting, but re-'soaking' myself in things that I love about this place.

1. Travelling by locals trains to Gare de l'est, Paris. This 30 minute ride is one of my favourites. The big glass windows look out at the the most wonderful pastoral scenes. What I call 'Tin-tin country'. Scenes that I had, growing up as a child in India saw in Tintin comics. Its exactly like that.

A pointed out how fast the local trains go.
"Tomar India tey erom jorey jai"? Do they go so fast in your India? (He knows that anything said about my India, gets my goat).
"Jai, Rajdhani". (referring tot the rajdhani express between major metros and the capital).
"Can't compare that with local trains. You should compare it with TGV. OK"?
"Hmpf".
Nevertheless, its beautiful. Beautiful shades of green, brown and yellow, placid water bodies, clumps of red tiled houses, a solitary barn. Oof.

Incidentally, I was amazed, as I grew up, to learn that Tintin was not English! But Belge. And is actually Tan-tan and not tin tin as we pronounce his name in English. Snowy is Milou, Cuthbert Calculus is Professor Tournesol (sunflower), the priceless twins are Dupont and Dumont. Only Capitaine Haddock remains unchanged. Incidentally, Herge based Marlinspike on a chateau in France called Cheverny (Not to be confused with Giverny, home of Impressionist Claude Monet). I visited it some years back and was simply amazed! It was EXACTLY as in the comic book. The current owners live on the top most floor (lucky lucky). I expected a dazed Calculus to come tripping down the staircase at any moment! (If you have time to spare, do check it out. Its in the suburbs of Paris and can be seen within half a day).

2. The undeniable style! Everyone, but everyone, I am sure is aware of how stylish the French are. But I am constantly surprised by it! I saw an old lady, bent with age, walking slowly with the help of a cane....She had the most fantastic hairstyle. The kind one sees on pouting young models in glossies...One that looks so good when the coiffeur messes about with your hair, but collapses the moment you are home and looks like a mop. Needless to say, her hair didn't look like a mop! (I once saw an really old couple in an expensive lingerie shop, checking out various gorgeous, flimsy and expensive lingerie)!!!!!!

(The parisienne from my flight, remarked quite a few times on the Italian men at the airport in Rome. "Mmmmm", I said dreamily. "Actually I was referring about their great style", she added. For me, style had nothing to do with it. Oof the Italian men, I could wander around for hours in Rome and not be bothered about my next flight. No wonder I always manage the grunge look no matter how much I try otherwise)!

3. Vegetarians, please skip this one! Navarin d'agneau (a lamb curry with herbs), Sausisson fumé à l'ail (garlic flavoured smoked sausages), chorizo (spicy sausages), pâté de campagne brettone (country pate), sauté de veau avec champignons (veal sauteed with mushrooms) avec gratin (a crusty brick of potatoes and cheese baked in layers)...We are having a ball each day, living from meal to meal and spending the time in between wondering and planning on our next meal!!

4. Endless cups of strong black coffee. One does so get used to it. I remember, visiting my friend in Delhi and asking for some black sugar less coffee. The office peon listened in disbelief and asked "Kis khushi mein?" literally "in what happiness" meaning - why in the world? My friend had to firmly tell him not to put heaps of sugar and loads of milk!!

5. Paperwork. We had heaps of beaureaucratic things to do...one simply drowns in paperwork out here. Believe me, its a regular chore. But despite it all, how fast and efficiently we could wrap it all up...3 different offices visited in the same day! That I sorely miss, in India.

I could go on and on...but alas, my stomach grumbles...lunch beckons!

**********

Back from lunch to note two more points.

6.Flowers everywhere. Our town is a "ville fleurie" or a city of flowers, so to speak. Flowers everywhere. Over flowing from pots suspended from lamp posts, careful arrangements on road dividers, at various intersections, planted mind you and not growing there by themselves. These arrangements are replaced at frequent intervals to suit the season or ocassion. Very nice. Imagine a bunch of people who has to simply go around planting, potting and replanting and repotting flora!

7. Conversations with locals. Funnily enough, mostly they are with immigrants to France. The first one is ofcourse with the french-algerian owners of our favourite restaurant "La Moulin". The owner has been here for 45 years but still speaks with a slight accent. He and his progeny serve really nice homecooked french fare but the chief attraction is the algerian "Couscous Royale" - served with no less than 5 different cuts of meat!

Then we met the really nice Thai who has been since quite sometime, struggling to learn written French. She was at one time, A's classmate. She continues in the same class though A has graduated long back. "I am 46", she says; "difficult to learn anything new, let alone french"! "Even aide-menagere(household domestics) requires a diplome, nowadays". There are many like her. No chance of their ever returning to their homes and yet stuck here ever in search of a better life. Well best of luck.

The other has been with the owner of our hotel. A Parsee. Not from India, but directly from Iran. We spent an ejoyable evening with him and another Irani friend of his talking about various things including our shared past. Both of them spoke really apologetically about Nadir Shah and the peacock throne and the diamond Dariya-e-noor (the sibling of Koh-i-noor). Interestingly, the other Irani, whom I met in Paris couple of years back too seemed really apologetic about Nadir Shah! Brits are you listening?! Perhaps its natural for them to ignore it all otherwise they would have to spend most of their lives apologising and to many. (Oops did I make a politically incorrect statement, there?).

In transit

This is a long one....


"Biman Bangladesh? You poor thing", said a fat classmate at Alliance Française, Kolkata, on my choice of airlines to Paris, couple of years back (she was flying on a hideously expensive direct flight to somewhere and had loads of sympathy to spare for me); It indeed was for pecuniary reasons that I had first chosen to fly Biman. But now, I find myself opting for Biman for more than one reason. Most importantly, Dhaka is just just half an hour from dear Kolkata and chez parents!) I quite enjoy it, as much as one can enjoy a long haul flight while travelling cattle class (economy). Never a dull moment on this flight.

The flight from Kolkata to Dhaka is shorter than it takes me to go Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose International Airport (previously DumDum airport). Ma and R came to see me off. In fact they were dressed and waiting impatiently for me to finish packing to set off for the airport. They travel considerably less than me and never miss a chance to drop/receive me from airports and train stations, like this time, even though they hung around only for the short duration it took me to check in and then waved goodbye as I walked into immigrations.

The half an hour flight to Dhaka was completely full. I had a 5 hour wait in Dhaka along with 4 others from my flight. We got pally during the dinner. Actually, the officials announced dinner for passengers to London and Rome. Nothing about passengers to France although Rome and Paris was the same flight! There was a geologist who now does something entirely different and mundane in Canada. She and her husband, some years back took (she rued) the decision to live somewhere abroad.

There was a young lady from Milan who spent two months with "Mother Teresa" (and not Missionaries of Charity) as a volunteer. Perhaps her English wasn't too good or she really meant it when she told me with a wide-eyed kind of innocence, "Sister Nirmala is very kind: She always wished us goodnight"! After dinner, the geologist left for her flight and I was left with the skinny chap from kolkata. When I cautioned him about not leaving his hand baggage around, he confessed this was his first flight ever and he was clueless about the proceedings. He was a folk artist and was invited to play with an Italian fusion group in Milan. The chief sponsor, an Italian lady had asked him for some nilgiri tea and he had spent an enormous amount of time in between getting his visa, looking for this elusive tea.Finally a small shop sold him some, which it claimed, was authentic Nilgiri tea. The two other ladies - one Milanese and the other parisienne dozed their heads off and woke only when I shook them awake to board their flight!

Aboard, I sat next to the dozing parisienne while Ms. Milan slept all the way next to the folk artist in the row just ahead of us. I sleep badly while travelling. For one my knees start hurting in the tiny leg space (I am tall) and I have to shift pretty often and secondly, my eye lids don't meet all the way when I close my eyes, the whites of my eyes show even when I am in deep sleep causing alarm in others who take me to be dead or dying or having some epileptic fit! And the usually chirpy bangladeshi passengers keep me awake with their constant problem with their seats, babies or general chatting up with co-passengers. Everyone seems to know everyone else. Cries of 'Bhabi', 'apa' or 'bhai' rend the air. The stewardess are always pleasantly plump and rather taciturn with the endless seating problems. Only once did I encounter two really svelte beauties aboard a Biman flight and I remarked so to A and was overheard by one of the two. Boy did we get some real good service that time! They even offered A second helpings of meals, who had to alas, decline since Biman keeps feeding the passengers! This time too, we were fed 3 meals, all different from the other and not the salad and hard bun meals as on most European flights, in the 6 hours between Dhaka and Riyadh. The steward even woke us up to make sure we were properly fed. When I picked up the coffee cup and returned the entire tray back to the steward, he clucked like a mother hen and returned couple of buns and jam and butter back to me!

The terminal in Riyadh is wonderful. It looks like some futuristic building from afar and an artists idea of abstract palm trees from near, beautiful either way. , Here, we halted for an hour and watched dawn break. The parisienne started stirring and making conversation. I was amazed to find her speaking English not only fluently, more importantly, willingly! Just try to find a French person willingly speaking English. (A lady who accidentally stepped on my foot in Dhaka, turned around and said "Excuse-moi" instead of a sorry)!

In between our 4th meal enroute to Rome, she told me about her two month trip to India and about places I had never been to (but I was not going to tell her that, was I and nodded very knowledgeably to everything she said) - Benares, Jodhpur, Udaipur and even Darjeeling (no I haven't been there yet)! She bought a perfume from the inflight duty free shop but ran short of 7E which I lent her. She said she'd take it out of an ATM at Fumicino, Rome. She didn't find a single ATM at Fumicino and while she rushed about looking for one, I found the folk artist walking around dazedly. The minute he saw me, he said "No one speaks any English out here", he said accusingly, "you said they did." (He had to catch a domestic flight to Milan and didn't know how to go about it). To appease him, I helped him make a phone call to his sponsors in Milan, and to my amazement, found the dial tone exactly like a busy tone elsewhere. He got through to his contact and I left him pouring his heart out to them. I do hope he is not still wandering around Fumicino with his bag full of folk instruments.

While waiting, I made another acquaintance, a bangladeshi gentleman also enroute to Paris, who politely pointed out plump Italian rats running amok in the transit lounge, oblivious to the 100's of feet. We became quite pally and he told me (in between our mutual moanings about visa problems) about his recent trip with his newly wedded bride to Darjeeling (not again) and his sighting of the snow clad Kanchenjunga. (Like the tigers of Ranthambore, only the very lucky get a proper glimpse of Kanchenjunga, which is mostly shrouded in mist). Two passengers on the same flight - one from Bangladesh and the other from France and both have been to Darjeeling and I, despite living in West Bengal for 12 years, have made it up to New Jalpaiguri (a night from Darj). Our 1 hour transit was stretched to 3 hours because of some passenger with some visa problems. Finally after an 18 hour flight and 5 meals (6 if you count the one in the transit lounge in Dhaka) and 2 crew changes later, at Orly!

I had planned a "joyous, leaping into each other's arm, riotous" sort of reunion with A, but that was alas, not to be. The girl ran at an incredible speed despite her tiny frame and motioned me to follow, searching for her father in the crowd, to give me the money. All I could manage was a cheery wave at A. And after she had left it was too late because an artist friend of ours had come for her suitcase that I had got from Kolkata.

Her brother had rung me up the night before to ask if I could carry a suitcase. When I got the suitcase next morning, I felt embarrassed at all the brouhaha about such a tiny, light, battered suitcase. I had hemmed and hawed about excess baggage, telling him repeatedly to keep it to about 5 or 6 kilos. He called me quite a few times first about its weight and then about it's missing keys .

I made baba weigh the suitcase before letting the gentleman who brought the suitcase go. I tried the key and opened the suitcase but not without difficulty. I suspect it was some other key and the suitcase was so old that the rusty locks had a mind of their own. Inside, I was very embarrassed to find a bunch of extremely odd stuff - a pair of slippers, a doll's china tea-set, a child's exercise book, some bed linen, old correspondence, a set of Gujarati horses strung in a row, a small jar of pan masala wrapped in silver foil.

Baba who was surveying the proceedings from behind, pounced on the jar. "What is this? WHAT IS THIS? No name, no brandmarks? You might not heed my advice but you might find yourself behind bars in France. And then don't say I didn't warn you".

Next, he turned to a table cloth. "What is this?"
Looks like a table cloth, said R.

"Hmpff", said baba (disappointed no doubt at so mundane and above suspicion a thing).

He picked up a row of tiny cloth horses, "What are these stuffed with, hmm"?

"Cocaine", said R.

"DON'T JOKE. You might not heed my advice but you might find yourself behind bars in France...."

"Shut the suitcase", ma mimed at us from behind baba and R snapped it shut, the pan masala being the only casualty of this inspection, as I left it behind on our dining table. (I do hope our artist friend wont be reading this). Anyhow, there she was clad in a madcap artistic way in a salwar kameez, a naga coat, a bandhni duppatta wound around her neck like a scarf, sneakers, socks and a purple bindi.

"Oh, my brother gave you a key? I never ever lock any of my suitcases and this one was lying with him for some years now. Wonder where he got the keys from?"

Phewww! That means, hopefully she wont miss the pan masala from 2 years back or did her brother put it in just now? Maybe, she'd come to know the minute she rang him or wont she?

My mind was awhirl with musings on pan masalas while my eyes took in, sort of unbelievingly, the spic, span and empty roads in our bus, wondering at the eerie silence after the cacophony back home.

I remember the geologist who after dinner, exchanged her neatly pleated saree for a more practical trouser and t-shirt. "So many people (elderly) come to see me off at kolkata, its easier wearing a saree". Yes I understand. Its not just a change of clothing. I find myself putting on my other persona, adjusting, fine tuning to suit the spic and span, quiet and efficient, sterile beauty of life in France.

(Actually, it was only momentary...this "stunned at the silence" thing. I have readjusted very well and in only 2 days managed to stuff myself with a lot of goodies that I missed back home...and its nice to be in a private world of one's own; This is just not possible back home, not only because of the population but also the culture...but about that I will elaborate in another blog).

Last Tango in Paris

Well hello Paris, once again.

I arrived yesterday after a 18 hour flight across half the world with stops at Dhaka, Riyadh, Rome and then Paris and 6 meals (5 inflight and 1 in transit) and emerged into a still and hushed France. The whole place seemed like a nature mort painting or something similar; Such a shock it was especially after 3 months in India and the last week aboard a train to and returning from Mumbai.

How did I ever manage to survive here for three years? Its beautiful, functional and living standards are high and all that....but where's the life?

Anyhow, this is just to say that my blogging will be a bit patchy till I return to Kolkata...and I have heaps to blog about, which I will, maybe in a week's time or two!

à Bientôt!

The wonderful world of local trains

Read an article in the newspaper that bhajan singers are to be banned form Mumbai local trains because of 'nuisance value'. I personally, can't vouch for their value - nuisance or otherwise, my experience of local trains being restricted to West Bengal.
As a trainee, in my first job with an NGO working with disabled children, I had to commute extensively by local trains and that was my first exposure to the incredible world that is local trains in West Bengal and infact, in India.

There was the daily rush of commuters who knew each other, had specific seats (squatter's right), the players (cards), the knitters (in gaudy colours for the mild winter), the gossipers (at top of their voices), the sleepers, the buyers and the eaters. The last two were very active and were helped the by the incredible array of merchandise being hawked by an endless stream of vendors. Perhaps because of the novelty of it all, I found it all very interesting, despite the incredible crush and the ear splitting din.

Suddenly the crowded compartment would be filled by the smell of oranges, a temporary respite from the rank odour of a thousand sweaty passengers. Men would sell beads and baubles, safety bins and bobby clips, roasted peanuts and what not, each screaming his wares in such a way so as to be heard over the tremendous din. I still remember a kid selling peanuts. He had a well practiced, low voice, that was so powerful that his words rang inside my ears and I was really taken aback to find it issuing from a kid not 10 years of age. Like the airwaves, these vendors chose different pitches to shout. The acoustics at play, was simply incredible.

There are beggars and singers as well. These range from the off-key beggars singing to eke out a living to the really melodious ones that one hears as one enters Baul country (in and around bankura). I had the pleasure of listening to one baul after another on a trip to Santiniketan. Most were quite well known to the passengers and even did requests. I think that they alone are worth the effort of going up and down the Santiniketan express even if one doesn't actually go to Santiniketan!

And then there are so many other little experiences good, bad and downright bizzare that make Indian railways quite an experience.

On Satna express, we were frightened out of our wits by a snake charmer who wanted to do his snake trick right in our bogey! It took our collective persuasive skills (and my uncle’s frightful hindi) to dissuade him!

Another time on our way to Ghatshila, very early on a wintry morning, a hijra dressed in a ghagra-choli and hair done up in a big bun came around singing a popular hindi film song 'Mera Naam hai chameli' in a hoarse, nasal voice. The hijra accompanied his singing by stomping his ghungroo tied feet and then stopping at each seat for some money. Instantly, we feigned deep comatose sleep although all of us were shaking with silent laughter. (Don't think me heartless to laugh at a enuch singing his way to a living. His nasal voice was really really funny and combined with his bejewelled self everyone in the compartment was in spilts). I had covered my head with a shawl, and just when the hijra reached our row, the chap seated next to me, reached quietly from behind and pulled off my shawl with a jerk, so that I was staring at the hijra with a horrified expression while my body was convulsed with laughter. Oof...

And in another incident, a friend and I took a local train to Icchapur where we stood out, dressed in our fashionable city clothes. A hawker was selling bengali to english vocabulary books and was having a tough time finding buyers and as a result, his frustration was showing. His voice rose higher and higher and he kept getting sarcastic about people spending money on clothes and frivolous stuff while his book could be life saver. "It’s not enough to send your children to english medium schools if your basics are not correct. Do you know the different words to describe a tiger's anatomy” and he kept circling us, growling menacingly like a hungry tiger, having zeroed in on us being obviously fluent in english or pretending to be. P and I stood back to back, the cynosure of all eyes (passengers and the Hawker), feeling terribly sorry and guilty (for being able to speak in English and thereby depriving the hawker of Rs 4/- , the price of the book he was selling) and kept imagining that at any moment, the locals would turn up as one and say Kill them...they know the names of tiger's body part in english!!

I am not sure of how good or bad these bhajan singers are, perhaps they are really bad. But if this were to set an example then Indian railways would be poorer. It’s just so much a part and parcel of Indian Railways. (Unlike abroad where everything is so quietly efficient. Three of my friends had the same reactions while travelling by the public transport abroad - where's the funeral?).

You can fool some people all the time...

I had gone to drop A off at the Sealdah Station. After his train left, I made my way to the taxi stand through a long snaking line of taxis. Usually there is a sizeable crowd in the taxi stand but yesterday evening Sealdah itself was curiously un crowded. A young chap sat on a stool at the begining of the line, next to the first taxi. There was just one more passenger who was haggling about something.

The chap on the stool asked me where I wanted to go and I told him.
He handed me two slips and said Four Rupees please and pointed me to the next taxi. Something didn't quite seem right. I have never seen a taxi stand where one had to buy slips of paper except the Pre-paid stand where one had to pay the entire fare ahead.

What is this for? Some sort of a taxi stand fee or something?

No. No. (with a loud laugh which had everyone turning to look at us). We are collecting money for the Vishwakarma puja.

What? You never told me. I thought it was some sort of a pre-paid taxi fee.

Well you can take back your four rupees if you don't want to give it.

I felt like such a fool. I had actually gone to him and asked him "how much", after all he was just sitting there. And four rupees is not all that much to make a hoo-haa about. (It was just the principle of it but somehow making one's point is easier if the sum involved is larger). Oof the embarrassment. I gnashed my teeth silently (not vocally) since the cab driver had been witness to the entire thing!

Now that I think about it, I can't help admiring the smooth cool way they had devised to collect funds for the puja - perhaps for the taxi stand. And he was not asking for a lot, just 4 paltry rupees!

Lessons learnt at the Railway Reservation Counter

I went to the Eastern Railway booking office this morning and learnt the following:

West Bengal is ahead in women's liberation stakes. There were four counters with a sizeable crowd in each but unlike elsewhere including capital Delhi, no "women-only" counter! Women are obviously considered at par with men, and up to standing for long hours in hot stuffy reservation queues, shoulder to shoulder with the men. Don't know if this is quite what we wanted.

Road to Salvation is through the queues at the Eastern Railway reservation counter. An elderly vaishnavite monk in saffron robes and chandan marks on his forehead and down his nose was taking an inordinately long time at the ticket counter. He finished and then we had just moved a place forward when he returned to the window once more. The others were obviously not very happy about it but let him through where he exchanged angry words with the clerk who kept telling to go to another counter. Turned out they kept giving him a side berth which he did not want because of "disturbances" due to a constant stream of passengers going to and fro from the toilets as well as attendants and vendors. Quite lost his cool. Looked quite odd for the swamiji to lose his cool so. But perhaps the Indian Railways are enough to rile even the wisest sage. And who knows maybe his order sent him here as some sort of a final test!!

The third one pertains to Murphys law (I think) - the slowest line is always the one you are in. A and I stood in different lines (one of us was bound to reach the window before the other). Two old ladies took their time at the counter fumbling over their reservation form. The clerk kept returning their half filled form and pointing out errors or something they had missed. And they kept clucking and smiling. The clerk took his time counting and recounting the money. The sighs and occasional grunts of impatience had by now grown to a loud murmur. A young chap was quite vocal. One of the two old biddies asked him to pipe down because they couldn't hear what the clerk was saying. The young chap asked them to use an hearing aid. The biddies then indulged in 'today's youngsters, how rude, what is this country coming to' for another 5 minutes with much clucking and seeking support from other old people in the line.

But this (Being in the slowest line) is not necessarily a bad one, as I (nearly) found out. We were making very slow progress when some one realized that the 2nd counter was closing for an half hour for lunch at 11am. Counter no. 3 was closing at 11.30 and the counter no 4 at 12.30. So people in line 2 got really mad; those in line 3 got panicky and those in line 4 looked smug for having made a wise decision! (Counter 1 simply gave out train forms). By this time, I was making pretty good progress and kept wondering if the people would get wild if I called A from his line. This was after all, a sort of cheating. Most people came by themselves and had to wait out in a single line.

We had quite forgotten about the monk in this discovery about lunch hours when some one spied him inside, behind the counter. An officer was listening to his problem and then walked up to our clerk and told him to attend to the monk first and solve the problem. Any sympathy for the monk evaporated instantly.

I felt thunderclouds gathering and not all of it in the skies. Thankfully, both A and I reached our respective windows at the same time and I was saved the hassle of calling him out from his line to mine and surely having to face the Bengali public's wrath (which can be quite amusing if you are just a bystander...the Bengali vocabulary is wonderful and so is their wit in any given situation; but obviously its not quite the same if you are in the receiving line).