Country Rap

Have you noticed how Bengali expats who congregate with other Bengali expats at the airport and bond while bitching about how India will never improve usually share certain common attributes?

One, they usually wear GAP or Nike clothing.

Two, the farther they get from the US (or the closer they get to India), the louder their rants get. They might not be as vocal in Houston or Seattle but will be very loud in Dubai. Perhaps the humid Dubai air makes them realize that shit is about to get real in a few hours.

Three, the rants are always, always in English. Ninde korar belaye accent diye Ingriji.

Based on what people say, it is easy to predict who is who.

"Ayi saala suorer bachcha plane ta deri koralo" -- A Bengali from India.

"Can't believe nothing runs on time. It's always sooo hard to get things done in India. This country will never improve" -- naak oonchoo expat whose patriotism is confined to missing and discussing aam jaam lichu tyangra lyangra on Facebook but dreads every moment of their trip to India. 

A curious spectator (sunshine).

Love is color blind

A grandma was fondly showing me pictures of her newborn grandson.

A professor grandma. A researcher grandma. A grandma who has spent many years working on feminism. Black history. Black feminism. 

I don't even know half the names of Black writers and activists she talks about. Excited, I scribble down the names. I am going to look them all up.

Between such conversations, grandma fondly shows me more pictures of her newborn grandson.

I am willing to overlook the fact that she just reiterated, rather unnecessarily, that her grandson is a US citizen. Others do it too, the ones who need constant validation that they fit in, but she is different. She is a professor grandma. She has somehow earned my respect. No human is without biases. I have mine too. 

And then, the unthinkable happens.

She says, "Look at my grandson. He has different colored hair than all of us. Since he was born in the US, he has brown hair. Isn't that amazing?"

My make-believe world of role modeling professor grandma comes crashing down. I look closer at the picture. Not a wisp of brown hair. I also happen to know the parents. Not a wisp of brown hair from there either. Is it my ageing eyesight? I wonder what other strange ideas brew in grandma's imagination. Grandma does not live in the US by the way. Grandma lives in Kolkata. Is love that "color blind"?

Genetics died a mocking death that day.

sunshine

Some food (and clothes) for thought

I have never been a more curious spectator of the sartorial idiosyncrasies of mommies of a certain demography living in the west, a self-appointed, judgmental vigilante in no way though. Now if you are a mommy whose dressing doesn't stand out when you go to drop your kids to school or the school bus, good for you! Please don't go protesting and shouting, "I don't! I don't! How could you write about me?" here. Really, you are not who I am thinking about. I am merely sharing my observations about mothers of the other kind. 

A month well-spent dropping and picking up the little ones to and from school every day, G's kids actually, and I consistently watched so many come to drop their kids off in their nightclothes. Mostly nightclothes of the desi kind, with a hint of innovation thrown around. Like, a nightie with a dupatta around the neck. Or a pajama I would never wear outside home. As if a dupatta makes the nightie and the pajama more official, almost as if it was never a nightie or a pajama in the first place, but something more formal like a business suit. 

At first, I discarded it as a figment of my imagination. I am sure that the nightie-wearers I see everyday are no lesser mortals; they are entrepreneurs and networkers. They are independent women who drive their Hondas and Toyotas to drop their kids. They might even be frequenting pubs and shaking a leg at night clubs. Yet early in the morning, in the freezing cold, the nightie or the pajama is omnipresent, peeking from the coats and jackets. With the dupatta of course.

Perhaps this is a strange form of liberation for the immigrant woman trying to fit in a western country, or a self-proclaimed liberation from the bondage of being forced to wear something in order to blend in. Perhaps the desire to be the 5% located around the two tails of that "Normal Distribution Curve". Perhaps a sartorial compromise between the past homeland and the current homeland, a thin thread of nostalgia connecting the two. I imagine a dozen floral-printed nighties bought from Calcutta or some place in Chennai (two randomly picked cities) making their way across the Pacific Ocean as a part of a wedding trousseau. As a curious spectator trying to read people's minds, I wonder if it is sheer nostalgia, old habits, laziness, or rebellion to stand out.

sunshine