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?).
Thursday, September 30, 2004
Tuesday, September 28, 2004
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).
"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).
Monday, September 27, 2004
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!
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!
Thursday, September 16, 2004
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?).
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?).
Monday, September 06, 2004
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!
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!
Wednesday, September 01, 2004
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).
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).
Tuesday, August 24, 2004
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.
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.
Tuesday, August 10, 2004
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!
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!
Sunday, August 01, 2004
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!!
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!!
Wednesday, July 21, 2004
For whom the bell rang
The bell rang in mid-morning. Everyone was so busy in the usual hurrying and scurrying to take a bath / meditate /cook /get out of the maid's way and a hundred other things that one does out here, so I went to answer the door bell ouside the main gates. It turned out to be a stranger and so I gave my normal 'Nahi chahiye' (I dont want whatever that you are selling). Only this guy didnt look like a hawker. He was wearing white dhoti and kurta and had a red tilak on his forehead marking him out to be a member of some religious sect or the other.
'I am not selling anything. I just want to inform you that there will be a 'prabachan' on Shirdi Sai baba (Guru of Sai baba of the afro hairdo fame) at saket tomorrow. Please come with your family members'. I should have ended the conversation then and there since we wont be going to any prabachan, not today and definitely not tomorrow and even if we did, Saket was on the other end of the world. But somehow I didn't. And he continued, outside the iron gates and me inside the main doors with only my head sticking out.
- Have you heard of Shirdi Sai baba?
- Yes. ( I drove down to Shirdi with some friends from aurangabad in 1997, I think...not so much because I wanted to, but because my friends, incidentally my hosts, wanted to. It was the usual thing. Buying some sweets, flowers, incense sticks to be given as prasad, queuing up for a darshan...but not being able to manage more than couple of seconds in front of Shirdi Sai baba, because of the rush. The only interesting thing that happened was when a hushed sort of buzz went around: It seems Dawood Ibrahim's henchman was there for a darshan as well. A stout, middle aged gentleman with green eyes, wifey and daughter. Dont quite know why or how it went around, but all of us were trying our best to look at them without seeming to! Who knows if he was or wasnt...but it was sort of interesting to think he was).
- OK. There is some good news coming your way by the 16th of August. So if you are planning a trip to Shirdi, dont go before the 16th.
(Interesting....)
- And Behena (sister in hindi), I see saturn's shadow over you. (So a hundred odd pandits and astro have told my ma), so dont wear any black clothing (I dont....or atleast rarely). And behena, your parents havent raised you like a daughter (they havent? Sob, sob). They have raised you like a son. (I wonder why?). And are you married? Yes? So your wedding must have taken place suddenly. You must have....
And just as he was (I am sure) about to tell me about me finding my personal pot of gold at the end of a rainbow, our fascinating conversation, sorry monologue was cut short since my bro-in-law came up behind me and said rather loudly 'what is all this bakwas (nonsense)?'. I gave a hasty nod cum namaskar to the chap and shut the door.
I wonder would he have said the same thing to my m-i-l / f-i-l/ b-i-l /maid had they opened the doors? or am I being cynical and should have more faith in miracles?! Hehe...time will tell.
August 16th isn't so far away is it?...I might even blog about it.....
Monday, July 12, 2004
A curious hobby
I have a new hobby, interest, pastime; call it what you may...it is a bit unusual and infact I feel a trifle silly writing about it. But it is really most addictive and I find myself indulging in it often, despite the horrible weather when, most who have the option, stay indoors. Yes its an outdoor hobby. My in-laws have a small garden in the front with a assorted bunch of shrubs, ivies and plants and three trees all growing in a kind of wild tangled profusion. Orange blossoms, pink and white flowers of the madhabi lata, white 'bel', white nayantara, red hibiscus and a few more. And ofcourse the varied green of the leaves of each of these. These interest me. In between the green foliage, there are a few leaves that have turned yellow. Touch them and they come away from their branch. You don't even have to pluck them out. I have spent many a hot and clammy hour collecting the yellow leaves and then throwing them away. I have to be careful ofcourse not to over do it otherwise I will have to wait for quite some time till more leaves yellow!
Most evenings, I go for a walk to a park across the road. I usually take a brisk 8 rounds (2 kms) in about 15 minutes or so. But now it takes me longer because on each round, I stop in mid-stride to pluck out a leaf from a shrub. At first, I would choose the shrubs at the corners and when there was no one passing by, but now I stop whenever I choose and ignore the curious on-lookers! Its kind of like bursting the bubles in a bubble wrap!
If hobbies reflect the persona...then I shudder to think what mine must be telling you all about me...the heat, the domesticity, my joblessness must be taking its toll, what?!
Most evenings, I go for a walk to a park across the road. I usually take a brisk 8 rounds (2 kms) in about 15 minutes or so. But now it takes me longer because on each round, I stop in mid-stride to pluck out a leaf from a shrub. At first, I would choose the shrubs at the corners and when there was no one passing by, but now I stop whenever I choose and ignore the curious on-lookers! Its kind of like bursting the bubles in a bubble wrap!
If hobbies reflect the persona...then I shudder to think what mine must be telling you all about me...the heat, the domesticity, my joblessness must be taking its toll, what?!
Friday, July 09, 2004
Our Menagerie
When we say India is the 2nd most populous country in the world after China, we are not referring to people alone...but to domestic lizards and cockroaches too! Infact we would come out on top beating all other nations hollow! Looks like our tropical weather is high fertility inducing in more than one species!!
Normally, cockroaches would make a tasty snack for lizards, but in our house, they seem to have struck a deal and stick to their well defined territories and ignore each other,
the cockroaches concentrating their energy and efforts to the kitchen and around food stuff and even inside the refridgerator while the lizards are content to creep around the light fixtures.
One more point on this fascinating topic - the lizards are quite plump and largish as compared to those in kolkata(perhaps the pollution out there, stunts their growth) but I would say smaller than their brethren in Mumbai. Now how do I know this? Well I do. My Uncle (dad's bro) on each of his visits to Kolkata would spend some quality time in comparing Kolkata with Mumbai and ofcourse Kolkata would come out very badly in all respects...civic amenities, work culture, pollution etc etc. But not content with that, our dear uncle would even come up with special points:- You (meaning us poor kolkatans) have petty thieves; We (the lucky mumbaikars) have Mafia. You call these lizars?! Ha! Ha! Should see ours...They are dinosaurs!!
Hmmph!
Normally, cockroaches would make a tasty snack for lizards, but in our house, they seem to have struck a deal and stick to their well defined territories and ignore each other,
the cockroaches concentrating their energy and efforts to the kitchen and around food stuff and even inside the refridgerator while the lizards are content to creep around the light fixtures.
One more point on this fascinating topic - the lizards are quite plump and largish as compared to those in kolkata(perhaps the pollution out there, stunts their growth) but I would say smaller than their brethren in Mumbai. Now how do I know this? Well I do. My Uncle (dad's bro) on each of his visits to Kolkata would spend some quality time in comparing Kolkata with Mumbai and ofcourse Kolkata would come out very badly in all respects...civic amenities, work culture, pollution etc etc. But not content with that, our dear uncle would even come up with special points:- You (meaning us poor kolkatans) have petty thieves; We (the lucky mumbaikars) have Mafia. You call these lizars?! Ha! Ha! Should see ours...They are dinosaurs!!
Hmmph!
Tuesday, June 29, 2004
The Mango Festival
There was a mango festival this weekend at the stadium, a 10 minute walk from home. There were yellow green boards all over the town announcing the 4th mango festival.
We in this part of the world, I dare say, know about mangoes more than others. I used to make such a show of being a connoisseur of mangoes while in France! I would pick one up, peer at it, sniff it and then put it back with a shake of my head. No sir, this isn't a good 'Mangue'!! And there was no one out there to tell me otherwise. But this festival put in my place and proper! I realized that I knew only three of four varieties and that too, only their names - Alfonso, langra, chausa, himsagar and a few more. I cannot identify them for the life of me! The wide variety had me jaw dropped! There were 348 varieties spread out on 6 long tables.
There were the ones which looked amazing :-
Nazuk pasand (delicate choice, roughly translated) a regular mango but with an ear like flap sticking out at one end.
Chitla - banana yellow smallish mangoes with green specks.
Kalmi Bela - same banana yellow but with green stripes.
Tota pari asli - (Tota is hindi for parrot) - each mango ends in the most astonishing pointed beak.
Gola (Cannon ball) - is large and heavy.
Laila ki Unglian (Laila's fingers) - really slender tiny mangoes some one and a half inch in size!
Then the variety
Papita - large heavy mango looking exactly like Papayas.
Button - tiny plum sized perfectly formed mangoes
Malika - Long sensuous ones
Husn Ara - A lovely delicate golden colour
Maharani - about the size of a lime.
Then there were the ones with the odd names. I would have liked to ask the organisers about their origin but for the mad rush.
Mishti Sona (roughly translated, sweet darling, in bengali)
Padriwala - The Priest
Bhutto - After Ex-Pak PM Butto?
Mr Ford - (Mind boggles at the name)
Then there were the Bhog, rasgolas, amrit kalash all named after Indian deserts. And lastly there was 'Laila Majnu' a pair of medium mangoes in a dish!
We have been to so many food exhibitions in our little town back in France...all serving their specialites - pate, sausages, breads, biscuits in bite sized portions. So, we were expecting some sort of samples here as well. Alas, these were only for viewing and not for tasting. There were stalls selling mangoes by the crate (roughly 4 kilos per crate) which one had to buy using one's mango buying prowess or like in our case, a wild hunch.
I consoled myself by saying that if they started to give out samples out here, the would a) go bankrupt b) there'd be a wild stampede c) or both!!
Later on I found out that there indeed is a much larger festival in Talkotra in delhi where there they give out mangoes to sample. Well anyhow, this wasn't too bad and the mangoes we bought were quite sweet!
We in this part of the world, I dare say, know about mangoes more than others. I used to make such a show of being a connoisseur of mangoes while in France! I would pick one up, peer at it, sniff it and then put it back with a shake of my head. No sir, this isn't a good 'Mangue'!! And there was no one out there to tell me otherwise. But this festival put in my place and proper! I realized that I knew only three of four varieties and that too, only their names - Alfonso, langra, chausa, himsagar and a few more. I cannot identify them for the life of me! The wide variety had me jaw dropped! There were 348 varieties spread out on 6 long tables.
There were the ones which looked amazing :-
Nazuk pasand (delicate choice, roughly translated) a regular mango but with an ear like flap sticking out at one end.
Chitla - banana yellow smallish mangoes with green specks.
Kalmi Bela - same banana yellow but with green stripes.
Tota pari asli - (Tota is hindi for parrot) - each mango ends in the most astonishing pointed beak.
Gola (Cannon ball) - is large and heavy.
Laila ki Unglian (Laila's fingers) - really slender tiny mangoes some one and a half inch in size!
Then the variety
Papita - large heavy mango looking exactly like Papayas.
Button - tiny plum sized perfectly formed mangoes
Malika - Long sensuous ones
Husn Ara - A lovely delicate golden colour
Maharani - about the size of a lime.
Then there were the ones with the odd names. I would have liked to ask the organisers about their origin but for the mad rush.
Mishti Sona (roughly translated, sweet darling, in bengali)
Padriwala - The Priest
Bhutto - After Ex-Pak PM Butto?
Mr Ford - (Mind boggles at the name)
Then there were the Bhog, rasgolas, amrit kalash all named after Indian deserts. And lastly there was 'Laila Majnu' a pair of medium mangoes in a dish!
We have been to so many food exhibitions in our little town back in France...all serving their specialites - pate, sausages, breads, biscuits in bite sized portions. So, we were expecting some sort of samples here as well. Alas, these were only for viewing and not for tasting. There were stalls selling mangoes by the crate (roughly 4 kilos per crate) which one had to buy using one's mango buying prowess or like in our case, a wild hunch.
I consoled myself by saying that if they started to give out samples out here, the would a) go bankrupt b) there'd be a wild stampede c) or both!!
Later on I found out that there indeed is a much larger festival in Talkotra in delhi where there they give out mangoes to sample. Well anyhow, this wasn't too bad and the mangoes we bought were quite sweet!
Thursday, June 24, 2004
The Ambassador
I spied an Ambassador today and was really surprised. A private one at that. The car, and not the embassy head. Imagine!
Time was when the mighty Ambassador ruled the Indian roadways. There were a few others cars. Fiat was one. But Ambassador was The car for many a decade when a tiny car - Maruti -appeared on the Indian car scene and changed its face for ever. Now we have a huge range of Indian cars as well as foreign ones to choose from. Ambassadors are still being manufactured but mostly for ministers, IAS officers, other governmnet officials and taxi cabs. I have not heard of anyone and I mean anyone going and buying one!
How simpler life was back then. I should know. We are in the process of buying a car and the decision making is taking forever. Everyone has his or her own favourite. Zen, Santro, Honda City, Maruti etc etc. Which one looks better, which one gives better mileage and so on and so forth. But no one mentions the Ambassador. I wonder what will happen should I suggest it as my choice? Everyone will surely keel over.
And yet, this sturdy Indian car cannot be dissmissed so easily. It has something in common with - Rolls Royce no less! Till very recently, these two were entirely hand assembled and not rolled off some assembly line! But for entirely different reasons:- Rolls Royce...well because its a Rolls silly and not just another car; and the Ambassador, because thats just how they did it in the begining and never bothered to change! Maybe they haven't changed and are being hand assembled even as I write!
Time was when the mighty Ambassador ruled the Indian roadways. There were a few others cars. Fiat was one. But Ambassador was The car for many a decade when a tiny car - Maruti -appeared on the Indian car scene and changed its face for ever. Now we have a huge range of Indian cars as well as foreign ones to choose from. Ambassadors are still being manufactured but mostly for ministers, IAS officers, other governmnet officials and taxi cabs. I have not heard of anyone and I mean anyone going and buying one!
How simpler life was back then. I should know. We are in the process of buying a car and the decision making is taking forever. Everyone has his or her own favourite. Zen, Santro, Honda City, Maruti etc etc. Which one looks better, which one gives better mileage and so on and so forth. But no one mentions the Ambassador. I wonder what will happen should I suggest it as my choice? Everyone will surely keel over.
And yet, this sturdy Indian car cannot be dissmissed so easily. It has something in common with - Rolls Royce no less! Till very recently, these two were entirely hand assembled and not rolled off some assembly line! But for entirely different reasons:- Rolls Royce...well because its a Rolls silly and not just another car; and the Ambassador, because thats just how they did it in the begining and never bothered to change! Maybe they haven't changed and are being hand assembled even as I write!
Sunday, June 20, 2004
Pressing Business
Unlike in France where one does everything, hired help is the norm in India. In India, almost everyone has hired help. Atleast one for most, to many, for the affluent. M-i-l does most of the cooking, there is a woman to do the washing and another who does the floors and dishes. So what was it that I could do? The answer was :- 'Ironing'! I could iron mine and A's clothes. Yes.
M-i-l thought it would be easier if I just gave it to the 'press-walla'. I ignored her advice and struggled bravely with my ironing, in between the power cuts. Without an ironing board, I had to squat by the bed side to iron and the ceiling fan has to be switched off to keep the clothes from flapping. So by the time I finished, I was drenched, hot and bothered and my clothes half creased, no better than before ironing. In the meanwhile, our press walla worked wonders on my in-laws' clothes. Every neighbourhood has one. His shop is just a shack with a back wall formed by stacking bricks in between pillars of the park railings. Bamboo sticks covered with tarpaulin forms the roof, an oven to heat his iron which has a small tray on which glowing embers are put.
No fancy laundry starch, no latest iron with multi faceted options. His ironing board is a rickety wooden table- no doubt a cast off. And yet with these bare infrastructure…he presses and folds our clothes with the precision that would have you swear it was from the best laundry in town. What sharp creases, perfect folds, wrinkle free collars.
After pooh-poohing the need of the press walla, I couldn’t stop ironing all of a sudden and so I began sneaking off one or two of our clothes along with the in-laws’ bundles and yesterday, I boldly marched off with a whole bunch of my own. No more sweating, no more creased clothes, no more getting hot and bothered, wielding a heavy iron and what’s more his rates are really cheap - Re 1/- per clothing and Rs 3/- for a sari. Much less than my electricity bill…if the power happens to be there that is!
Now, I am a frequent visitor. I dont even have to mention my address. He knows it although he never greets me. He merely gives the briefest of nods or if he is in an unusually good mood, he grunts. His tiny bird like wife accompanies him as do his 2 kids – a tiny, solemn little girl. I have tried to speak to her and smile at her, in vain. Perhaps she gets it from her taciturn father. She usually brings the ironed clothes folded across her tiny arms and yells out ‘Press’and waits till someone comes and takes the clothes…she being too tiny to open the main gates let alone ring the bell. She is usually followed by her toddler brother who in contrast is very friendly as he toddles unsteadily up and down the road. He smiles at everyone and stretches out his tiny arms if he sees someone approaching with clothes in their arms!
The press-walla is very important and I suspect he knows it. He is there everyday ironing clothes with that heavy iron from 9.30am till sundown and a normal fixture of the neighbourhood normally that one gets used to. People take little notice of his presence but if he were to be absent even for a day, practically the whole of the neighbourhood would sit up and take collective notice!
M-i-l thought it would be easier if I just gave it to the 'press-walla'. I ignored her advice and struggled bravely with my ironing, in between the power cuts. Without an ironing board, I had to squat by the bed side to iron and the ceiling fan has to be switched off to keep the clothes from flapping. So by the time I finished, I was drenched, hot and bothered and my clothes half creased, no better than before ironing. In the meanwhile, our press walla worked wonders on my in-laws' clothes. Every neighbourhood has one. His shop is just a shack with a back wall formed by stacking bricks in between pillars of the park railings. Bamboo sticks covered with tarpaulin forms the roof, an oven to heat his iron which has a small tray on which glowing embers are put.
No fancy laundry starch, no latest iron with multi faceted options. His ironing board is a rickety wooden table- no doubt a cast off. And yet with these bare infrastructure…he presses and folds our clothes with the precision that would have you swear it was from the best laundry in town. What sharp creases, perfect folds, wrinkle free collars.
After pooh-poohing the need of the press walla, I couldn’t stop ironing all of a sudden and so I began sneaking off one or two of our clothes along with the in-laws’ bundles and yesterday, I boldly marched off with a whole bunch of my own. No more sweating, no more creased clothes, no more getting hot and bothered, wielding a heavy iron and what’s more his rates are really cheap - Re 1/- per clothing and Rs 3/- for a sari. Much less than my electricity bill…if the power happens to be there that is!
Now, I am a frequent visitor. I dont even have to mention my address. He knows it although he never greets me. He merely gives the briefest of nods or if he is in an unusually good mood, he grunts. His tiny bird like wife accompanies him as do his 2 kids – a tiny, solemn little girl. I have tried to speak to her and smile at her, in vain. Perhaps she gets it from her taciturn father. She usually brings the ironed clothes folded across her tiny arms and yells out ‘Press’and waits till someone comes and takes the clothes…she being too tiny to open the main gates let alone ring the bell. She is usually followed by her toddler brother who in contrast is very friendly as he toddles unsteadily up and down the road. He smiles at everyone and stretches out his tiny arms if he sees someone approaching with clothes in their arms!
The press-walla is very important and I suspect he knows it. He is there everyday ironing clothes with that heavy iron from 9.30am till sundown and a normal fixture of the neighbourhood normally that one gets used to. People take little notice of his presence but if he were to be absent even for a day, practically the whole of the neighbourhood would sit up and take collective notice!
Thursday, June 17, 2004
Local Fauna
The monkey menace continues. They don’t visit us everyday - what a relief. They come and check out the fruits on the guava and pomegranate trees and return only when the fruits are just right for plucking and eating. They eat some, throw some, while we sit behind the safety of the screen doors and gnash our teeth. The other day a whole herd descended. Mothers with babies clinging to their underbelly, skippy young adults, old ones along with the alpha male leader who sat on a low branch and surveyed all around him placidly while the rest made a mess of our backyard. They threw all our laundry from where they were hung to dry, tore some of them and bizarrely, left my father-in-law's shirt intact on the line. Perhaps a sense of respect from one head of a house to another?! We made threatening noises, brandished a stick but they paid little attention. They came and left at their own will and for a while, and in a neat reversal of roles ...it was us humans behind bars and they out in the open!
Today, I read in a newsletter that our sector's Resident Welfare association publishes that the monkey menace has increased with some kid being mauled by them and yet we haven’t done anything about it while some of the other sectors have found a suitable solution:- they have hired the services of a langur walla (for those of you who aren’t familiar...these are larger simians with a long tail and black faces) and all he has to do is walk around the monkey infested areas with his langur and all the monkeys simply run away.
And as if this weren’t enough, the newsletter also announces that stampeding cattle in a nearby sector has caused considerable damage to cars parked on the road! Phew what exciting times...
As I am slowing getting acquainted with my neighbourhood...my blogs will now be full of details about it and like this post...you will come to know just how exciting and fun a time I am having!
Today, I read in a newsletter that our sector's Resident Welfare association publishes that the monkey menace has increased with some kid being mauled by them and yet we haven’t done anything about it while some of the other sectors have found a suitable solution:- they have hired the services of a langur walla (for those of you who aren’t familiar...these are larger simians with a long tail and black faces) and all he has to do is walk around the monkey infested areas with his langur and all the monkeys simply run away.
And as if this weren’t enough, the newsletter also announces that stampeding cattle in a nearby sector has caused considerable damage to cars parked on the road! Phew what exciting times...
As I am slowing getting acquainted with my neighbourhood...my blogs will now be full of details about it and like this post...you will come to know just how exciting and fun a time I am having!
Monday, June 14, 2004
SHAME
The olympic torch came and left. We sure have a unique way to show our interest in the Olympic games. Filmstars and big brand sponsorship. I was in the vicinity on that day and the place was awash with posters of a cola giant and an electronic brand some sort of sponsors of the event. And the line-up of celebrities who would carry the torch were filmstars and couple of sports persons bizzarely from cricket which is not one of the sports in the Olympics. At the end of it all, one would have been forgiven for thinking that it was a film world event sponsored by a popular cola.
A lot of people have protested against this mainly in the letters to editors of various news papers and one of them even suggested that there was a brighter side of using filmstars to carry the torch. Atleast it got people interested in the what, where and why of the Olympics! The Union minister for sports said it was not the centre's fault that we had film stars and not sports men and women carrying the torch after it arrived back in India after 4 decades. Where were PT Usha, Leslie Claudius, Milkha Singh.....Instead we had Rani Mukherje, Aishwariya, Vivek Oberoi....
Well the state of affairs is well represented in our showing at the Olympics....
What a shame. Maybe our sports persons should all emigrate to some other country where they value their sportspersons and do not reduce one of the most hallowed sporting events into a cheap tamasha. I feel tremendously ashamed for this and I as an Indian apologise to each and every Indian sports person.
A lot of people have protested against this mainly in the letters to editors of various news papers and one of them even suggested that there was a brighter side of using filmstars to carry the torch. Atleast it got people interested in the what, where and why of the Olympics! The Union minister for sports said it was not the centre's fault that we had film stars and not sports men and women carrying the torch after it arrived back in India after 4 decades. Where were PT Usha, Leslie Claudius, Milkha Singh.....Instead we had Rani Mukherje, Aishwariya, Vivek Oberoi....
Well the state of affairs is well represented in our showing at the Olympics....
What a shame. Maybe our sports persons should all emigrate to some other country where they value their sportspersons and do not reduce one of the most hallowed sporting events into a cheap tamasha. I feel tremendously ashamed for this and I as an Indian apologise to each and every Indian sports person.
Friday, June 11, 2004
A suitable job
Last couple of weeks have been really hectic. Apart from a quick heat stroke and stomach upset, I had some good news – job interviews! One after the other. Imagine. I spend the better part of my stay in France applying to jobs and getting rejected. Infact I received so many reject letters that I could have honestly stuffed a mattress with them! And out here, within a month, I get three!
The first of these were with a to be launched magazine. They are looking for free lancers and liked some of my posts from this blog and asked me to submit some articles and take it from there. Alas…the minute I walked out of the interview, writer’ (or not yet writer but soon to be) block struck. I haven’t been able to pen a single word of the article I am to submit to them!
Next came an offer from a famous publisher’s. This is one job I’d like. Imagine someone paying me to read! I was duly asked for an editorial test. And it wasn’t as easy as I thought it would be! How is an omlette spelt? Omelette or ommelette? Ocassion or occasion? And so on and so forth. There were 8 progressively tougher excercises in all and I felt terribly drained at the end of it which I blamed on the heat stroke ofcourse. I am still keeping my fingers and toes crossed!
And just this week, I appeared for and got a job (albeit a short lived one) with a famous artist who wanted some research assistant. I spent two dreary days doing really boring administrative tasks…waiting for things to settle so that things could be explained to me better…and it was, yesterday, in a way. It got really late last night and instead of explaining my role and responsibilities, the artist kept asking me If I shared his concerns (about what may I ask?), did I feel connected with him (what ever does it mean?) and how was I feeling about it all? ‘Chaotic’ was my answer which I guess left him a wee bit disappointed. He wanted to discuss it over dinner…just the two of us which I declined (putting it mildly) and didn’t report to work this morning and wont be in future! Phew!
Wish me luck that I do get the publishing job or something nice…
The first of these were with a to be launched magazine. They are looking for free lancers and liked some of my posts from this blog and asked me to submit some articles and take it from there. Alas…the minute I walked out of the interview, writer’ (or not yet writer but soon to be) block struck. I haven’t been able to pen a single word of the article I am to submit to them!
Next came an offer from a famous publisher’s. This is one job I’d like. Imagine someone paying me to read! I was duly asked for an editorial test. And it wasn’t as easy as I thought it would be! How is an omlette spelt? Omelette or ommelette? Ocassion or occasion? And so on and so forth. There were 8 progressively tougher excercises in all and I felt terribly drained at the end of it which I blamed on the heat stroke ofcourse. I am still keeping my fingers and toes crossed!
And just this week, I appeared for and got a job (albeit a short lived one) with a famous artist who wanted some research assistant. I spent two dreary days doing really boring administrative tasks…waiting for things to settle so that things could be explained to me better…and it was, yesterday, in a way. It got really late last night and instead of explaining my role and responsibilities, the artist kept asking me If I shared his concerns (about what may I ask?), did I feel connected with him (what ever does it mean?) and how was I feeling about it all? ‘Chaotic’ was my answer which I guess left him a wee bit disappointed. He wanted to discuss it over dinner…just the two of us which I declined (putting it mildly) and didn’t report to work this morning and wont be in future! Phew!
Wish me luck that I do get the publishing job or something nice…
Monday, May 31, 2004
The Great Change
One of the first things that I did on my arrival in India was to have my palms read by a famous astrologer. My m-i-l is very keen on astrology and I am not too unkeen myself! It's like visiting a cheap shrink: Instant dose of courage and optimism!
This astrologer is an elderly lady with a piercing gaze and a very blunt manner of speaking. Unlike others, her charges are very low and she is quite accessible despite the fact that her clientele is mostly the rich and famous including our ex-PM and at the time I visited her, the general elections had just ended and a new government was being formed. She was beset with urgent visits by wives of politicians!
Anyway, she told me that a great change was headed my way and soon. It's been nearly two weeks since then and while we wait for the big change, we find that all the appliances in our house seem to have chosen this moment to collapse. The inverter (the batteries and the machine), the air conditioner, the television, the old car which was recently sold. And just this morning, m-i-l’s glasses broke as did the handle to our bedroom door. Things are breaking down almost as fast as we are replacing the old ones! Things around us at home are changing bit by bit. This then must be the ‘Great Change’ in my life, that she was talking about?!
This astrologer is an elderly lady with a piercing gaze and a very blunt manner of speaking. Unlike others, her charges are very low and she is quite accessible despite the fact that her clientele is mostly the rich and famous including our ex-PM and at the time I visited her, the general elections had just ended and a new government was being formed. She was beset with urgent visits by wives of politicians!
Anyway, she told me that a great change was headed my way and soon. It's been nearly two weeks since then and while we wait for the big change, we find that all the appliances in our house seem to have chosen this moment to collapse. The inverter (the batteries and the machine), the air conditioner, the television, the old car which was recently sold. And just this morning, m-i-l’s glasses broke as did the handle to our bedroom door. Things are breaking down almost as fast as we are replacing the old ones! Things around us at home are changing bit by bit. This then must be the ‘Great Change’ in my life, that she was talking about?!
Friday, May 28, 2004
Dust Rules
Dust Rules. Dust is king; at least it is, here. Not the oily soot of Kolkata, but a fine dust which silently creeps in and covers everything and everyone. Look into the deepest corner of your wardrobe farthest from a door or a window…sure enough…you will find some. Where does it all come from? Neighbouring Rajasthan? Or perhaps from the endless construction work all around. There are plenty of trees and plants all around, lining the roads, in gardens, but all dulled by dust.
Dust the furniture and it will be back not by evening, but within couple of hours! So the only recourse is to keep the windows and doors shut and boil inside. Atleast you are dust free. Somwhat that is. That helps to keep the bulk of the mosquitoes out too. Only a few 100 make their way in. So mosquito nets are de rigueur! Thankgod for air conditioners.
But no, wait. Once, and only once you are neatly tucked in your beds under the mosquito nets and the room has cooled down and the drone of the air con is lulling you to sleep, off goes the power. Creep out of the bed (stealthily so that the mosquitoes don’t get in) and switch off the air con, switch on the overhead ceiling fan and creep back in (hopefully the inverter is working otherwise the fan won't work) and try to sleep while the room gets progressively stuffy, hot and clammy. Somedays, the powers goes off and comes back 2 or 3 times and so the whole process is repeated as many times…till one finds it time to get up! Luckily, I can catch up on my sleep in the afternoons!
On some days, the skies darken and I feel so thrilled that I am going to experience a good and proper Indian thunderstorm. Not really. Its more likely to be a dust storm. Two days back, there was this really big dust storm all night long which played havoc with the buckets, brooms and other paraphernalia in the backyard creating quite a racket, while we sweated sleeplessly inside and did I mention the power went off!
The premonsoons are here (I hope I haven’t spoken too soon)…things are much cooler now.
Our maid has gone on leave and mother in law (mil) and I have tackled the cleaning, dusting, wiping, sweeping of our large bungalow and were congratulating ourselves on a job well done and before we could even put our brooms and buckets and dusters aside, WHOOOOSH there arose another dust storm and covered up everyone and everything in sight.
Did I mention? Dust rules?
Dust the furniture and it will be back not by evening, but within couple of hours! So the only recourse is to keep the windows and doors shut and boil inside. Atleast you are dust free. Somwhat that is. That helps to keep the bulk of the mosquitoes out too. Only a few 100 make their way in. So mosquito nets are de rigueur! Thankgod for air conditioners.
But no, wait. Once, and only once you are neatly tucked in your beds under the mosquito nets and the room has cooled down and the drone of the air con is lulling you to sleep, off goes the power. Creep out of the bed (stealthily so that the mosquitoes don’t get in) and switch off the air con, switch on the overhead ceiling fan and creep back in (hopefully the inverter is working otherwise the fan won't work) and try to sleep while the room gets progressively stuffy, hot and clammy. Somedays, the powers goes off and comes back 2 or 3 times and so the whole process is repeated as many times…till one finds it time to get up! Luckily, I can catch up on my sleep in the afternoons!
On some days, the skies darken and I feel so thrilled that I am going to experience a good and proper Indian thunderstorm. Not really. Its more likely to be a dust storm. Two days back, there was this really big dust storm all night long which played havoc with the buckets, brooms and other paraphernalia in the backyard creating quite a racket, while we sweated sleeplessly inside and did I mention the power went off!
The premonsoons are here (I hope I haven’t spoken too soon)…things are much cooler now.
Our maid has gone on leave and mother in law (mil) and I have tackled the cleaning, dusting, wiping, sweeping of our large bungalow and were congratulating ourselves on a job well done and before we could even put our brooms and buckets and dusters aside, WHOOOOSH there arose another dust storm and covered up everyone and everything in sight.
Did I mention? Dust rules?
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