Identity

There is a Durga Puja pandal right below my parents' fourth floor apartment in Kolkata. During the days of Puja, it is near impossible to hear what my parents are saying if I call them in the evening. The sound of the dhak drowns everything out. Thankfully, it also brings conversation to the minimum because these days the moment I hear it, there is a catch in my voice that my parents would find hard to miss and harder to forget.

It's quite strange actually. I haven't grown up around Durga Puja and don't start sighing about the 'chill in the wind and nip in the air' like most people who have grown up in Calcutta are likely to do, come end September/early October. I have rarely ever 'gone home' for the Pujas.

But these days I do miss it. I miss the fact that I don't go out rushing to buy new clothes the moment Puja arrives, because mostly I don't remember. My mom reminds me and though this year I bought clothes for the monkey, usually I lie to her and say yes because it will make her feel good. It helps that there's always something in my wardrobe that's not been worn. Not a case of too many clothes, just too many bad buys.

I don't have too many Durga Puja memories. At least not many in Kolkata. There was one when all cousins and uncles got together, piled into a van and visited all the famous Pujas. Then there was one that took place in my aunt's almost-crumbling ancestral house. And several years back, my homesick parents turning on the radio for the early morning Mahalaya.

The later day memories are all outside Calcutta. In Orissa, where I met the school crush (not sadly on Orkut, ha ha); in a very Bollywood style Andheri Puja that I'd visit with my friend mainly to eat Bhog; similar one in Vasant Kunj, again with friend, again for Bhog. It was something you did not only to assert your Bongness, please your parents, etc but also because it was there and it was part of your culture. For me, it didn't get bigger than that.

So I really don't know where the catch in the throat comes from these days. It probably has to do with the fact that I am sometimes a bit lost when it comes to the identity part. I come from a very Bengali family but I grew up all over the place and was encouraged to make friends with everyone, never forced to learn Rabindra Sangeet (Thanks God and Mother) or memorize Abol Tabol though I loved it, as I love Feluda, every self respecting Bong girl's literary crush in youth. When I decided to get married to a non-Bong, my dad's biggest worry was that his family doesn't eat non-veg, not that they were another very different community. Honest :)

It probably has to do with the fact that I have a child now (Aqua, sounds familiar?). And this is his heritage too, even if partially. So I try to chip in bits and parts, may be a song here and there, speaking to him in Bengali when we are alone and taking him for the obligatory visit to the Puja Pandal (We'll see the famous Ulsoor Durga Puja this year, I have announced to P), even though he is too small to remember anything. And then I realize: Help, this is my mom all over again!

PS: Now that I am reading through it, there are too many alien words in the post for someone not familiar with the strange world of Bongdom. Too lazy to link them all up to explanations now. Bherry Sorry.

I always find it funny that my bookshelf in the living room gets such diverse comments. A very close friend who lives next door and drops in every other day notices only the chick lit variety and makes disparaging noises. He pointedly ignores the slightly more serious stuff kept right next to it. Then again, maybe pointedly is the wrong word because we only see what we want to see. A very classy and well-travelled colleague of my husband was very surprised at the collection of Bill Brysons and sportingly admitted that he didn't think I would enjoy that kind of humour.
Anyway, I find the comments and comparisons both funny and surprising because I don't have a big bookshelf or anything. Compared to some people I know my collection is a tiny one. I keep most of my books in a spare cupboard. The one in the living room is a small shelf that the man designed when he was 16 and refuses to give up. I've been wondering whether I should shift it to another room but it looks best there. I often do mean things like put in a lot of Georgette Heyers and the Shopaholic series just before some serious types come home and wait for the reaction. Yes, I may not have time for updating posts but I do have time for absurd stuff. So the bookshelf stays on because more than anything, I love the comments and reactions that it gets out of visitors. If not all, at least from some of them.

Why waste words when a picture will do

The holiday was amazing. Not just for the place but also for the complete lack of any communication with the world. No TV, no phones (unless you have a BSNL connection) and no newspapers. Just a lot of crystal clear aqua-blue-green sea, white sands unlittered by crushed bisleri bottles and ice-cream sticks and a lot of silence. :)

Where Shall We Go This October?

Way back in 2004, four people took forever to plan a holiday to Jaipur/Udaipur/Uttranchal and ended up anywhere but there.

History repeats itself this year as our little family takes forever to decide on where to go. The only thing we agree upon is a beach that's not Goa. Because we love that place and can go there anytime, something we've been doing religiously every year.

So extensive research is on. Husband and wife are constantly at loggerheads and the toddler is putting in his own two bits by tearing up brochures or switching off the computer just when we have found a beautiful homestay in Kerala.

The search is on. Hopefully shall end in a holiday worth remembering like it did in 2004.

Jai Orkut

Long lost (and much regretted) schoolfriends have finally found moi. Thought I was the only one to have escaped that phenomenon.

Anyway, great feeling. Especially to realize that:

* Certified hot babe in class thought I was one too (erm...she is 32 now. That explains the memory)

* Weirdest guy in class had crush on me

* Cannot for the life of me remember one classmate who has got back in touch.
(I'm 32. So the memory bit applies here as well)

But one of them is a girl I was great friends with and after a flurry of mails and phone calls over two days, it feels like we had never been out of touch. Some friendships do stay on, I guess.

So just for that, Orkut ka shukriya.

The Bloggers' Club

I started blogging on a July afternoon in 2003. Not here. We hadn't heard of blogspot then. Ok I hadn't.

I probably had a free afternoon at the women's mag I worked for with nobody around to gossip with. I'd been reading blogs on and off and thought it would be fun to start.

What started off as a 15 minute activity became an obsession in the days of the bloggers' club and gradually tapered down to something that became a habit, a welcome one if I could get over the laziness of posting :)

Over the years, I have been reading bloggers who almost felt like friends despite the fact that we'd never met. The funny bit is, I go on discovering new blogs and checking bloggers whose existence I didn't know two months back quite regularly. Some of them are wonderfully addictive. At least for now. But I need a dose of the old favourites from time to time...alpha, Gabby, Lee, Inky, Shub, Parmanu, Colors, Anumita, Aqua

So what if some of them haven't posted in ages or have deleted their blogs. The much missed and read Anita Rodricks being one of them. Or Pallavi for that matter. And Subs. Where are you girls?

It's hard not to feel like you're running into an old friend when you've shared pregnancy stories with someone , watched (er...read) a 25-year-old journey into 28 and been introduced to authors you thought you never could understand by some.

Well, at least that's the way it is with me.

So I go through phases where I stop posting, stop checking other blogs simply because I'm either too sleepy (like right now) or have taken on more work than I can manage (like right now and this tells you why I can't manage) but going back and discovering a post (or several posts as I'm very irregular and people often prolific)never fails to make my day. Like Lee's did today.

The reason we subscribe to newspapers...

...is the reader in the family. He also likes to shred them to bits once he's through but that's another story :)

Take a dollop of good intentions, what MM calls neeyat in poetic urdu; throw in a dash of vodka/whiskey/old monk or whatever rocks your world for good measure, add a bit of conversation and get it over with quick and fast. Because Murphy's Law rules in this house and the monkey is sure to get up even if he sleeps 9 to 9 all the other time. That's why I was tempted to say, post baby passion, what's that?

How many of you can sing the National Anthem correctly?

All of you I hope.

But there are children in my building who can't. Because as one of them told my friend, who along with few other people, is organizing an Independence Day function tomorrow, he kind of 'muttered it in school and his mom didn't know the entire lyrics either.'

The kid is probably nine or ten. Out of which he's lived abroad for about five six years. It's the mother I'm wondering about.

She'd be what, 33? 34? Maybe younger? In any case that's not an age when you usually start forgetting. And how do you forget the words of a song that you sung every morning in school, unless of course school was in some part of Manhattan? And for that matter, I know several people who've grown up very far away from India, who can sing the Anthem perfectly.

In this case, the mother grew up in Mumbai.

Leave aside patriotism. Just think simply. Isn't Jana Gana Mana embedded in her mind, like so many nursery rhymes, ABCD, multiplication tables, old ad jingles, basically things we grew up hearing and often singing along?

My friend, a very curious (and mischievous) person, couldn't contain herself and told the kids to tell their parents to write down the words of the National Anthem for them so that they could practice at home. One dad was honest enough to call her up and check whether it was Punjab, Hindu, Gujarat, Maratha? No, it's Sindh or Sindhu, she corrected him.

Thanks a lot he said. The wi-fi isn't working properly and the internet connection is pretty dicey these days.

Plea

Dear Over Zealous New Age Dad,
I'm so glad that you're here, finally. Frankly it was getting too much for us, both moms in-the-making and ready ones, to handle everything, from selecting the right gynaec to dealing with being a 24-hour milk production unit. But now that you are here, it's much easier. You call friends and random strangers for info on the best docs in town, register at babycentre.co.uk even before we've checked the lines on the preggie test and know more about baby burping techniques than Dr Spock. But sweetheart, will you do me a favour? Will you please, please, please spare me the 'her cervix didn't dilate beyond three centimeters' conversation?
You see, it's alright if I'm discussing her extremely tricky and (to you) toughest- in-the-world-labour with your wife. She is after all a WOMAN and it is absolutely okay for two women who have once been pregnant and poked to discuss their very private parts. But you, my dear, are a MAN. Even if you hand held your wife through the 20 hour labour, breathed lamaze techniques into her ear as she tried to murder you with one hand and looked on lovingly as a small, wriggly, muck-covered thing emerged out of her. Yes, even if you did all those things, it still doesn't qualify you to discuss cervix openings and feeding techniques with me, a woman.
Oh yeah, I know times have changed and we are all liberal, open minded people and yes, we appreciate your efforts, more than you can imagine. But could you please limit the 'how my wife emerged victorious after the world's longest labour' story to the soft, glossy, mushy parts (There are some. Ask your wife. She's forgotten everything by now) and not go into details about the exact position where she got the epidural? Don't edit the breathing-in-ear-murder-attempt-bit. It's good comic relief. In fact, it's my only relief. And excuse me if I'm laughing so hard at it that you are left wondering when I will shut up and you'll finish your story. Please don't.
As I said, some things are still best left to be discussed between women.

Roots to branches...

Parlour Spotting

I spent an unusually long time at the beauty parlour (salon sounds too posh) yesterday and realised that mothers still accompany their daughters to 'supervise' the haircut. I saw at least four moms with their daughters. One pair was actually having fun getting head massages and manicures together and finally made me realise that Cosmo, Femina, Good Housekeeping and Elle weren't lying in all those perdicure bonding stories.

It's the other three I'm talking about. They stood behind the hairstylist watching how the work was being done. One had a deep, long discussion with the stylist before the process began, insisted that her daughter's hair was not be washed and then proceeded to park herself on the stylist's toe. Well, almost. I was getting a great head massage by now but could hear her instructions: Not so short, it's not equal there, etc. Wonder how the girl doing the job kept a cool head.

Most of the daughters looked at least 18. Made me wonder why did they need to come to the parlour under mom's watchful eye. Was mom scared that dotty dearest would go in for spiked, jagged edges and colour her hair purple? Or go the bald route?
Well, there's nothing in it probably but it did strike me as strange.

Also spotted in the parlour loo: flush used only for flushing

The Mental Judge

Before Poppin thinks I'm the rudest person on earth, let me do this tag because I'm very lazy about these things usually :)

First I'm wondering if I'm judgemental. I'd like to believe I'm not but hey...it's a vice that's difficult to escape. That said and done, who knows, at times I may be guilty of the things I say here :)

1. I'm judgemental about people who don't give you a choice or don't respect yours. That holds true for terribly religious people who expect you to fast on Tuesdays and visit the temple every week just because they do; vegetarians who shudder when you mouth the word 'fish,' non-vegetarians who wonder how people survive eating 'just sabji'; married friends who loudly wonder why a certain friend is choosing not to get hitched...the list can go on..but anyway you get the drift.

2. These days I'm a bit judgemental about supermoms. There are so many of them around that it's pretty scary to know that I am the average type and use absolutely un-earth motherly things like diapers and baby wipes (in the past as ha ha at home we are on the training route). I'm actually a complete gone case as I used to feed the Monkey Gerber babyfood (comes in bottles, pureed and is bahar ka packaged khana for the uninitiated) in his first year whenever we travelled. I'm also not averse to chocolates and chips and not a fanatic follower of homeopathy.

3. I judge people who show off, although it's the subtler variety I'm talking about. The kind who immediately tell you they prefer to drive the zen because of Bangalore's traffic though the Honda Civic is such a smooth drive. They aren't talking about traffic or driving here baby of course. Trust me, I know the kind.

4. I judge people who don't read. Yes I know I shouldn't and by that logic I shouldn't have married the husband but he did read newspapers and India Today and that's at least something, isn't it? I'm talking of people who consider books a waste of money. I once overheard a mom at Khan Market's Bahrisons telling her teenage daughter: Ab itne hi paise kharchne hai to koi dress ya shoe le le.

5. I judge people who constantly give advice. About everything from going to a particular shop to visiting their gyanec who's the best in the world to making the gravy in a particular way because that's how they do it and of course it's the done thing in the world.

6. And last one. I judge people who don't like doing something on their own. Whether it's shopping or sitting in a Barista for a cup of coffee or having a meal in a restaurant, travelling alone with a baby...several things. I agree having company is an exciting prospect but when someone says they are uncomfortable sitting and having a meal on their own in a restaurant I tend to think they are either uncomfortable with themselves or too worried about who'll think what or too timid. As for the travelling alone with baby, I'm sorry to say this but I've met a lot of shrinking violets (excooz the phrase) who cannot stomach the thought of going from Bombay to Delhi or Bangalore to Kolkata or even Bangalore to Chennai with a small child unless accompanied by husband. Why sweetie? Is the husband an on-road child sedative?

Ok can't think anymore. And I sound absolutely fanatic in that list above. But who cares. It's a license to judge, after all.

Temple Trip

Like good children we took the parents on a temple trip over the weekend. They went for the darshan, we went for the art, the monkey went for the usual, i.e., climbing up and down stairs, which were in abundance everywhere and muttering 'Habelidd' and 'mangola', Halebid and Sravanbelgola in adultspeak.

Channakeshava temple in Belur was amazing. Everything from its vast courtyard, to the unbelievably detailed carvings was breathtaking.




We stayed back for the evening arati and it was quite a performance with music, bells and chants. The monkey did an impromptu balle balle much to the amusement of some and irritation of others.

We stayed for a long time, sitting in the courtyard, watching devotees pour in and out, families enjoying the evening breeze, an old priest walking back to his quarter.

It was like a beautiful park, a place to come, relax and take in the atmosphere. With an aura of history, reverence and unparalleled art.

...and this is the view after huffing and gasping halfway up Sravanbelagola. Trust me, unless you are the devoted kind, the view is the only thing worth the climb :)

Pottering around...

Sounding off

These days my home is alive with the sounds of teevee. It starts at 8 in the morning with Tiny TV on Pogo. Usually Kipper the Dog, followed at times by Noddy. Being the horrid mom that I am, I'd be thankful if the monkey sat through these wobbly wonders for a whole hour but as it turns out, he watches anything for barely 15 minutes before trooping off to do his thing.
The TV however stays on, as the monkey's dadu -- my husband's dad and self confessed TV addict is here. As it turns out, he's becoming quite an expert on Noddy and gang.
There is an hour or two's respite around 10ish, when 'dadu' gets busy with Sudoku, Crossword and suchlike but he's been blessed with a quick thinking brain and these things get solved too fast. Soon enough I can hear the unmistakable strains of Anil Kapoor hamming, Dharmendra shouting or Rakhi repeating one dialogue three times.*
At some point my mother-in-law finally wins the battle of the remote and sits down for some soapy stuff, thankfully at a lower volume. But such joys are short lived (and sudokus not complex enough) and the TV goes back to Rakhi and gang, at a volume to beat Aerosmith live.
Some Pogo comes on in snatches and sometimes I do laugh at Jaaved Jafri's commentary for Takeshi's Castle but usually by this time I'm too zonked out to care. Which is a good thing because in the evening all our television manages to do is stay stuck on the face of some CNBC/NDTV Profit presenter while the suspiciously named sensex plunges up and down.

* After sitting through (in an earlier life) and hearing through (in this life) several sessions of Rakhi's trials and tribulations as a mother, I cannot but sympathise with the woman. The woman is just given one role to play! Dead husband, white sari, vacant-eyed look, slightly slurring Bong accented Hindi, constant visits to Shiv temple and having to repeat the same dialogues, not once, but thrice...Tujhe tyag karna hoga...tyaag, tyaag, tyaag/Mere Karan Arjun Ayenge...Karan Arjun Ayenge...Ayenge....

Pure Hearted Mush

There are several things I love about the husband but there is one that both infuriates me and makes me look at him with extra doses of lurrve. The man sleeps like a baby. In fact, better than most babies if his sister, who's seen more babies than I have, is to be believed. He certainly sleeps longer than ours does. And takes almost as many about turns in his sleep as his son.
His sleeping habit irritates me when we have to go out somewhere and the man sleeps much beyond the scheduled time but also makes me think of something my wise aunt used to say: People who have the ability to sleep soundly are people with free minds and pure hearts. She would say this looking at my brother whose sleep can survive earthquakes, babies bawling their throats out, loud jagrans, screaming sister, everything. That sort of takes the truth away from it a bit, but at any rate I seem to be surrounded by men of pure hearts.

The Monkey loves buckets....

Dear God, why?

Bliss is...

...a Cadbury Dairy Milk melting slowly in your mouth

But this post isn't about that. This post is about the joy of journalism. I'm no longer part of it in the truest sense of the term as I don't do stories that regularly, so perhaps I should edit that.

It's about the joy of meeting people and writing about them. Call it reporting, feature writing, jotting down hurriedly scribbled interview notes into a coherent form or what you will...the truth is, how many jobs let you meet a herpetologist one afternoon and two grannies who sell pizza the next morning?

Thank God I didn't change my mind in college when a pack of friends joined Sujata Khanna's MBA coaching classes and gave me long, hard stares when I refused to and mentioned the J word.

And Thank God I didn't change my mind when I discovered that rent was considerably more that the salary I got paid in my first job. (Well...should thank dad, actually)

It isn't a job that changes the world, requires unbridled imagination or extraordinary brainpower. Well at some level it does to a great extent, but hey, I'm just talking of my simple stuff, so let's not get there.

I love this for the people. A techie who gave up a lucrative career to start an e-library, an academic who's behind the best school in town, a woman who's given up shopping...

Where else do you get to meet such a varied lot?

* The Pizza Grannies, as many of you in Bangalore may have read, are raising funds for an old age home. The techie runs www.easylib.com. If you live in Bangalore and want a library with a truly eclectic collection of books, this is the place to log on.

Grrrr....again....

Why is it that most people assume that just because I'm working from home, I:

a) Have all the time in the world to jabber on phone about Sarita from B2 whose maid ran away with the presswala

b) Can look up the price of Fisher-Price toys on ebay as I'm "online anyway" and have nothing better to do

c) Will cheerfully take on work and finish even if it's sent late in the evening because I don't work in an office where I shut the computer and leave at 6

d) Will keep house looking immaculate, turn out a good meal and not look like something the cat brought in when there's a suddenly put-together dinner for hubby's office pals

e) Don't do anything much and probably sleep through/spend the day getting my nails done in the parlour, as for a couple of hours, the son is at the daycare centre.