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).

Oh Calcutta!

Kolkata has to be my most favourite arrival in the whole wide world. Not the clammy weather, neither the crowd, the terrible civic amenities nor pollution can change that. The legend 'Kolkata', 'Kolikata' in English and Bengali atop the airport building has never failed to thrill me. But this time I was in for a surprise as well, when I landed in Kolkata one night couple of weeks ago. Everything was quiet and the rain had washed everything down and the air was deliciously cool. And the ride home was the usual catching up on family gossip with Ma and R. and so rapt we were that it was only when the interiors filled in with steam and I thought we were all going to die of exhaust fumes, that I noticed that our old rickety Amby was now fitted with an AC! Ah possibly that is why Calcutta felt so cool and comfortable! (Turned out the AC was too much for the old radiator and heat up frequently).

In the clear of day I realized it was not a dream after all. Calcutta looked and felt cleaner, neater, spruced up. In the past two weeks, I have been noting with pride the enormous improvements in places. To a visitor it would still look dingy and crowded. But a seasoned Calcuttan like me can appreciate the finer nuances of an entire footpath or one pothole less. The roads under the newly constructed highways are all clean and functional; most roads have large and prominent signboards as do houses of famous people. In case you are wondering what is so great about all this, well I’d have to say you have never been to Calcutta ever or lived here for any stretch of time. If you had, then you would have understood! The New Hooghly Bridge and the maze of roads which led up to and ran down from it all have large boards showing the different directions. It had led many a motorist, a merry dance up and down those roads before they found themselves half way down the GT road and down to Bangladesh! Because when the spanking new bridge was inaugurated, the signs were not up!

I am both delighted as well as apprehensive about all these improvements: What if the person responsible for all this be replaced or retired.

There are other changes too. New shopping arcades, multiplexes, restaurants and popular hangouts. Wonder if anyone goes to the century old 'New Market' anymore. Cal is studded with some beautiful old houses, a hodge podge of colonial and Bengali style. Most are coming down to be replaced with more practical but ugly modern apartment blocks. Some however manage to resist the temptation to modernify.

And that's not all. Apart from the new architecture, the city seems to have been taken over by young, smart things strutting about, hanging about in new sprung up places discussing new stars, new idols and in the process making me feel outdated. Afterall I was strutting about myself out here a few years ago. Was it really 4 years ago? Feels like 40.

A few things however remain the same. The wonderful feeling of waking up in my old room, swapping ghost stories (ma and R are big fans) with them, solving Bengali crossword of the The Statesman with baba.

Being away has made me appreciate my family and home much more than I ever did. I always took the whole comfort factor for granted. I am relishing in it, relaxing, savouring and lapping it all up. What? Just being around them doing the mundane things that families do. Get on with their daily lives. But with one difference. My parents and R alongside. Of course they are constantly surprised that I am actually around and not running off to some adda session with my friends or somewhere else.

I am home. Kolkata. I still think of it as my home and not my parents! Its still feels great to be back home...even if for a short while.

Not quite objets des arts

I am terribly envious of people who manage to, during their stays abroad, pick up souvenirs that they later display in their salons. I have seen many collections – African, Egyptian, Indonesian, Indian …and had mentally resolved to, god willing, one day, have a collection of my own.

Well, three years and umpteen trips later, I too have a collection of my own but not quite the one I had envisaged.

A print of an old map of France with the various nobilities marked out, so creased and dented from being in a suitcase that I suspect it quite looks like the real thing instead of a mere print!

A lamb wool carpet from Crete (or so the lady selling it said and I have to take her word for it since I cant distinguish between goat or lamb wool), which I have rarely used for fear of it becoming dirty. Once I took it out when a friend came for lunch and promptly stepped on it and left black shoe polish streaks. A was highly amused since I didn’t let him step on it making him tiptoe on the edges (the big carpet swallowed up our tiny floor space leaving very little room around to tiptoe on).

Wrapped up in the carpet is a terracotta plaque of a fresco from the Palace of King Minos at Knossos, too delicate, I am paranoid it will break before I find some place to hang it...which doesn’t seem to be a possibility in the near future. Then there is the coin box shaped like the house of Claude Monet but frankly I could pass it off as the house of anyone - Marie Antoinette or Napolean and no one will be wiser out here. 2 paintings - the first a large old advertisement of Chocolat meunier with a bright eyed young girl staring...very chic and tres french but no place to hang it up, as yet. Same problem with a Chinese painting on a some sort of a leaf with a very heavy frame, which I very happily bought but now, am not so sure about it. Whoever heard of anyone buying a mass-produced Chinese painting bought in France?

And to finish, the coup de grace! An umbrella but not just any old umbrella! A bright yellow, hundred percent original tour de France umbrella which I picked up not at any store selling tour de France memorabilia but at the tour itself last year when it came to my town for the first (and I suspect the last) time. A in one of his expansive moods, nearly gifted it away to a relative and I had to summon up all my guts to intervene. No, no, not that please. Take anything else...but not that umbrella. It’s very precious to me. But having said all that (and felt very bad for being possessive about an umbrella for heavens sake), I am like the dog in the manger. I haven’t been able to use it yet although I never forget to carry an umbrella every time I step out of the house. It’s a very large umbrella (a tad smaller than a golf umbrella). I have these horrific visions of me striding down the road with it with little kids yelling and trailing after me (like when a circus comes to town) followed by stray dogs nipping at my heels and barking their heads off!


And if the past trend is a sign of things to come, then it foretells more shifting and living out of suitcases for us.

After my French sejour, I don’t own a single "Chat Noir" poster or the Jane Avril posters by Toulous Lautrec, although my gifts grace the homes of a few friends and relatives. I don’t even have the Claude Monet / Van Gogh coasters, not a single Eiffel tower key chain or I love Paris T-shirt. But I do have my umbrella, the old print and the French advertisement which I occasionally take out of my suitcase and stare and put it back like some art collectors who keep their art works in vaults and stare at them in secret?

I live in the hope that perhaps one day in the future, some one will discover these 'relics' of a bygone age from a dusty suitcase and marvel and fight over great grandma's wonderful, if a bit strange collection!

Living Mindfully

I am a great fan of all those books which tell us to slow down, live mindfully, how to live life the zen way etc. How many times have I chanced upon such a book convinced that within its pages was the answer to all the problems in my life. "Open your eyes to the wonder all around you", "101 ways to eat a mangoes" (not in the culinary sense), "illuminate your corner of the world", :highway to heaven" to name a few!

But I have been too busy to actually apply any of it to my life. And infact am not very sure it is applicable. Things always turn out nice and neat in books don't they?! Not in my life. For example, I read somewhere that while cooking, I should pay deep attention to what I was doing; I should notice the shape, the texture, the colour of the food, draw pleasure from their variety, their aroma. I tried to, while cooking bhindi (okra). I was convinced that it would be delicious. It turned out as usual...with A complaining at the blandness of it. Yet another book instructed me to rub grains of rice in my palm and feel their texture and think about the goodness of it while washing it before cooking. All it did was to increase the time I spent in cooking it. Can't say it tasted any different! And yet another book told me to repeat a word of thanks while cooking! I did (felt a bit silly to mutter over my pots and pans). But perhaps in my case the thanks was not so much for the food we received as much for my cooking skills! Then there have been other instructions on how to get up in the morning (slowly, and not jumping out at the last minute and three page full of other stuff to do), how to sweep and clean, how to take a walk.....The message I guess was 'There is magic in everything, slow down to see it, experience it". I somehow got too much caught up in the 'how to' of it to see the end result.

And now out here, without even intending to, I have slowed down. The lack of options, the daily domestic routine, reduced mobility are responsible. I find myself doing all sorts of 'zen' things. My life revolves around the comings and goings of the water supply, the maid, meal times and of course the power. I am not free to move around as I would do if I were in France or in dear old Kolkata.

So I have taken to plucking yellowed leaves, watching the wax and wane of the flora, the antics of the fauna, the children flying kites, the women walkers.

The pink blossoms curl into tight buds every evening and unfurl in the morning. The orange blossoms were coming along very nicely when all of a sudden, a hoard of black beetle or is it a variety of wasps, with red wings striped in black, desecnded on them and literally are sucking the life out of them. And when these wasps fly, their wings whirr around making them look like tiny helicopters.

There is a crow with a very long upper beak which curls down under the lower beak. The monkey chief is lame. There are thick brown slugs inching across the narrow path in the park looking curiously like brown leaves, so slow is their movement and more often than not, end up in a pulp.

So am I not taking life each moment by moment? I am living life mindfully and slowing down to really notice my surroundings, ...as compared to my earlier lifestyle when I didnt have time to breathe. But instead of overflowing with bliss and contentment, all this slowing down is making me feel sorry for myself! Living unmindfully was better. It was so much fun being out of breath!!