Across the Atlanta(ic)

I am in Atlanta, GA right now. I have a MARTA metro card and take the metro to the conference every morning. I am really enjoying the perks of temporarily living in a big city where the metro runs well past midnight. I can hear the metro from where I am staying, and sometimes when I am up and working past midnight, I feel like I have company. In some ways, the little metro card that I purchased for some $20 and carry in my wallet everyday is my temporary connection to this city. 

When I am not busy at the conference, I have taken it upon myself to visit every Bangladeshi restaurant in town. It has something to do with food, but it has a lot more to do with the language. It feels comforting to be chatting with the restaurant people in Bangla while eating rui maach and telapia maach. It is comforting to read the menu card, with the names of the dishes printed in English font in Bangla. I did not even know that there is a dessert called Laal Mohon. And there is something about Poneer Tondoori that Paneer Tandoori does not have.

At Panahar today, there was Robindro Shongeet playing in the background. And at Purnima the other day, the television was playing Bangladeshi news channels showing Sheikh Haseena, looking graceful in a shaari. I am so used to seeing either Trump or Modi on television that this feels like novelty. The hegemonic influence of Bollywood is not lost on me. I have met so many people who think that Bollywood is Indian cinema. Bollywood is only a small subset of Indian cinema.

When I declined bottled water at Purnima and asked for a glass of tap water instead, the owner told me, “নীতিগত ভাবে আপনার সাথে আছি।” (I support you in principle). People here do not say “Goodbye,” “See ya,” or “Take it easy”- they say, “Bhalo thakben.” And it thrills me. People from Bangladesh are way more aware and proud of their linguistic heritage than the yuppie, cosmopolitan crowd of Indian Bengalis (including those living in the US) whom I meet. And I am/was among one of them. I know what Feb 14 is, but I did not know for a long time what Feb 21 is, and the contribution of Bengal to Feb 21. I only came to know of it when I met a few Bengalis in Virginia, originally from Bangladesh, who were celebrating Bhasha Dibosh or International Mother Language Day. One would think that Feb 21 is more significant in my life than Christmas, Thanksgiving or Halloween.

I continue to think of these things on my three-stop metro ride every day. I know that I am tipping way more generously than I do, justifying, “বাঙালি করে খাচ্ছে, খেটে খাচ্ছে, গর্বের ব্যাপার।” I keep meeting people from Dhaka and Sylhet in a different, far corner of the world. And I think of my need to belong to a city, albeit temporarily. Yes, I gave a few research talks in fluent English. But nothing makes me happier than a stranger making small, inconsequential talk, telling me a few lines in my mother tongue, Bangla.

On an unrelated note, I absolutely loved the Parsi food at Botiwaala too. I love food, and since there are only so many breakfasts, lunches and dinners one can eat in a lifetime, I want to eat all that I can eat from my land. This includes the filter coffee and the coconut rava dosai I had yesterday at Madras Mantra.

Life should be all about eating well, giving research talks, and building new experiences in new cities and countries.

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Power-less

I wake up with a start to a strange, sticky feeling on my skin. It is semi-dark, and I am not sure where I am. Instinctively, I grope for my phone and squint at the time. 4:15 am. The birds outside know no Sundays, they are chirping loud enough to wake the entire community up. Something feels very wrong within my body, but I am not quite sure what. Still lying on the bed that is soaking wet now, I stare blankly at the ceiling. The blades of the fan are still. They are not moving. Suddenly, it dawns on me. I am in the throes of a power outage on a hot, Sunday morning.

Nostalgia soaks me some more. I haven't felt the discomfort of a power outage for years now. It's amazing how the body remembers every little detail of how the discomfort felt all those years ago. Before inverters or emergency lights were in vogue, I studied using lanterns (we used to call them hurricane lamps) during long power outages. The planned power outages used to last an hour everyday during the summer months, but the unplanned ones due to faulty wires or storms lasted hours. In between, homework and exam preparations happened. I never got a note to school saying that assignments were not done on time due to a power outage.

As if on cue, a mosquito buzzes somewhere close to my right ear, lightly fanning the skin there. Out of sheer instinct, I slap myself hard enough to kill the arthropod in one go. Looks like that's a skill I did not forget either. Studying by the fire used to happen 20-30 years ago, and it was nowhere as romantic as candlelit dinners. I continue to stare at the ceiling fan, wondering how this indefinite power outage will affect me. Without power, there is no internet. Stored water will soon run out, and so will drinking water. Should I take a shower now, or assume that electricity will be restored in a few hours? Should I hurry up and finish breakfast at 5 am? Should I finish doing the dishes and other household chores that require water? How can I prioritize the things that require water? Almost everything requires water. Thanks to jet lag and the time difference with the US, I was working till well past 3 am, hoping to wake up late on Sunday. Yet, an hour's worth of sleep is all I get. It's so still outside, not a tree branch moves. Remembering the bamboo fans we used to have handy, I reach for an unbound textbook to fan myself, praying that I eventually fall asleep in the process. But sleep eludes me.

Suddenly, I decide to put my physical discomforts past me. Yes, it is summer and there will be surprise power outages, lack of water and internet, attack of the mosquitoes, and many such things. Yet, I see a ray of hope. Rather, I smell a ray of hope. It is perhaps not in my imagination and even amid all this discomfort, I can detect the faint but familiar smell of a fruit. I stop staring at the ceiling fan, get out of the bed, walk to the kitchen, and grab a big bowl. I wash two of the ripest fruits and head towards the balcony. There, I sit on the floor and enjoy the sweetest, freshest and ripest mangoes. No frozen mango, not from Mexico with preservatives galore, but plucked right from a tree probably within a ten-mile radius of where I was sitting. While summers sometimes bring power outages, may summers continue to bring me these mangoes.

Hello from Kolkata!

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Remembering last week

A few days ago, I wrote about the stark differences between Kolkata and the western world that hit me whenever I visit my family. Within no time, I not only got used to those changes, but also immensely enjoyed my time there. It’s been a little more than 24 hours since I came back to Germany, and those differences are popping up again. Yes, there were these entire ranges of differences I immediately noticed. It was raining and much chillier. I was no longer sweating like I used to. I was suddenly surrounded by entirely different kind of people around me, all White, sharp-featured and much taller than I am. I almost scalded myself after having forgotten that even a slight left in the faucet ejects extremely hot water in the bathroom. My dilemma for dirty bathrooms outside and wet bathroom floors at home in Kolkata is gone. Every little change that had happened in my life a few weeks ago was reset. It’s as if, these differences did not even matter. However, there are two things that hit me hard. Really hard.

1. Being surrounded by silence and the utter lack of sounds.

Sure, I heard the cars zoom by on the Autobahn through whatever I could hear from the thick window panes of the bus, but I am talking about human noise. Hours went by, and I heard not a word I could understand. The immigration officer and the cab driver are the only two people I spoke to very briefly, mostly thanking them. As I put the key in my door and stepped in at midnight, the utter lack of any kind of sound started to get deafening. I involuntarily opened my jaws, thinking that my ears must have popped and I could not hear well. Still, nothing. Not too long ago, I was surrounded by people who came to mostly talk to me- my family, friends, neighbors, even strangers. I had recently befriended a young fruit seller who often fed me kalojaams for free as I talked to her. The few times I took a cab, I chatted up with the driver. I even chatted up with one of the crew members in Emirates, in Bangla. We briefly spoke about traveling trends and why the flight was running empty. And suddenly, all these people in my life are gone. They will only exist henceforth in my memory, or on blog posts.

I woke up jetlagged and really early the next morning. It was little past 4 am, and the sky was just beginning to lighten up. Hundreds of sea gulls filled my head with their rather shrill and cacophonic voices. I drew the curtains to see the beautiful view of the sea. There was no one to ask me what I want to eat. Grudgingly, I dragged my feet to the kitchen. It wasn’t until I reached work that I had a real conversation in a mix of broken German and English. I realized I was dying to hear Bangla.

2. Being surrounded by foreignness.

It didn’t take long for me to get back to the zone where I understood absolutely nothing of whatever little people spoke around me. I don’t know why the immigration officer asked me to remove my glasses in German. When the airline agent in Dubai wished me “Guten Flug”, I was momentarily surprised after all these weeks of hearing Bangla. So I mustered a weak “Danke” with a smile. My flight, and later the bus were filled with people who spoke German. Naturally, I was transformed to a distant foreign spectator from someone who actively conversed with strangers with no difficulty. Even if I understood an occasional word or two, there is no way I was going to be a part of that conversation. The same happened at work. Colleagues spoke animatedly with each other in German, but stumbled and slowed down as they struggled to speak English with me. Naturally, I did what I always do, shut myself in office and work.

When I checked my mail after getting home, I was not surprised to see a bunch of letters waiting for me, all in German. Trust the German efficiency, the Ausländerbehörde (Aliens Office) sent me a 5-page letter (in German), scheduling my next appointment with them in August where we will discuss about extending or not extending my visa. They have no clue that I will hopefully not be here in August. My bank continues to send me credit card statements in German, totally oblivious to the fact that I have specifically asked to send me emails and mails in English. Although these are routine struggles for me now, I am still not used to them. At work, I got three wrong number calls. Even before I could ask them to switch to English, all three of them spoke volumes about something, someone they wanted. On asking them to switch to English and that this is a wrong number, all of them politely, but curtly apologized and hung up. I was tempted to ask one of them, “Do you speak Bangla? I am rather homesick. I could talk to you for hours.”

I have a core group of friends from different parts of the world we speak to regularly. Technology came to rescue as we chatted up on Skype. I am doing things I haven’t done in weeks, like listening to my own music as I go to work or Skype with friends. There was no time for all this in Kolkata. Last time this week, my life was very different. I was walking random streets near Chandni Market or Southern Avenue, sampling street-side food. I was chatting up for hours with my mom’s professor, having met her for the first time. I was on the terrace every evening, watching sunset with grandma and asking ma and kakima to join us. I was being fed like a royal, not just by family but by the neighbors. Ma has packed me food for a week. Only last week, I was taking the metro and buying kalojaam and custard apples in kilos. I was having tea every morning and chatting up with our domestic help who spoke of a life I had no idea about. And now, instead of these people, I am surrounded by a whole lot of work, data I am supposed to analyze and papers I am supposed to write.

I never cry while saying goodbye. While ma and grandma cried buckets at the airport, not a drop came out of my eyes. I am always alert and cautious, trying to remember if I have taken my passport and travel documents. It was much later, suspended at 36,000 feet in a cramped airplane bathroom that the first tears came. And I let them. I cried like a baby, but not just for leaving family and close friends behind. I cried for leaving a whole way of life behind, a way that is familiar, and my own, and a place where I will never need to justify my visits through visas and travel documents. I usually read myself to sleep every night. As I shut my book, switched off the bedside light and closed my eyes, another tiny drop of tear involuntarily came out before vanishing in the pillow. For work or for vacation or for whatever it is worth, I cannot wait to go back to Kolkata.

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Self-assembled machinery

In Kolkata, I do not need to look far for inspiration to write. Most things around the house are things I grew up with but never noticed as an insider. But now, I do. For example, we use a piece of self-assembled, unique machinery. A really long frayed rope is tied to a 500 ml plastic bottle at one end, and to a jute bag at the other. We live on the fifth floor and do not have an elevator (which thankfully keeps many unwanted people away). So we use this bag-rope-bottle thingy multiple times every day. When the domestic help arrives and needs the keys to the outside door, we lean from the balcony and get it to her. When the mailman arrives with the mail, we use this. Limited amounts of grocery, clothes, books, and other assorted paraphernalia get exchanged between the different floors using this. When I ordered two books online, this thing came to my rescue and prevented me from climbing up and down 160 steps in the summer heat. Of course it needs a little skill to not create knots in the rope while using it, something that I had forgotten. So now there were a couple of tight knots, and the bag would not go beyond the third floor no matter how much I leaned in and out. For me, running data requires less patience than untying these knots, especially when under time pressure. It's also a wonderful workout for the biceps, not to mention an interesting F=mg kind of school physics problem. The bottle cannot be too large, the bag cannot be too heavy, and the rope cannot be too thin, given the mass of the stuff we normally transport. Sometimes, the bag gets caught in a jutting television antenna or a lowly hanging clothes drying rope from another balcony on another floor. Barring that, it is quite a handy tool around the house. Who needs IKEA after this?

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Knowing a city

Today, I spent a few hours by the banks of river Hooghly, and then took the local train from Princep Ghat. In those few hours, I saw more of life and everyday living than I have seen in the air-conditioned floors of City Center, South City Mall, Mani Square, or any other mall. People buying and selling. Lovers holding hands. Buyers and sellers negotiating. People playing cards in groups. Devotees offering prayers in the temples by the banks. Families enjoying the sunset on a boat. Friends taking selfies in groups. Commuters waiting for the train. Life in tiny shacks under the Howrah Bridge. I also saw so many photographers with their expensive cameras and gears taking shots of life around the river. Life continued to happen for people as it does everyday while the smell of jhaal muri and phuchka wafted in the air. If you really want to understand even a little bit of a city, and this is true for every city, you need to move out of the usual places and find your own lanes and bylanes where everyday stories happen. And you need to take the train. And walk till you are ready to drop dead.

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Viewing the world differently

We are very close with a certain family. Whenever I ring their doorbell, auntie shouts from inside, asking who it is. It leaves me a little confused, since she could look through the eye hole.

"It's me!," I shout back, instantly realizing how useless my answer is. Who exactly is this me? My parents have given me such a weird pet name that I am reluctant to shout out my name and let the entire community know. So I keep mum until auntie opens the door and tells me the story.

A petty thief got in the building, and on not being able to find anything better, stole their eye hole. So now, their door was left without anything to peep from. Uncle bought a new eye hole. Their daughter decided to take matters in her hand, and ended up gluing the new eye hole, but in the opposite direction. Auntie is still unable to see anything through it. So now, their son mocks his sister and decides to take things in his hand. He gets even stronger glue, takes the eye hole out, looks at it this way and that way with one eye closed like a detective would, and ends up gluing the eye hole exactly the same way again- the correct side reversed. Now the glue is so strong that it will not even come out. I actually saw it for myself. When I ring the door bell now, I can peep from outside and clearly see their living room while auntie comes up to the door to open it from inside. Auntie still has no idea who is standing outside.

The irony of this situation is not lost on me. For this could have only happened in a household with two engineer-siblings.

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The art of doing nothing

Grandma goes up the terrace twice a day for her walks. I do not accompany her at 6 am, but I try to accompany her at 6 pm. And while she walks and rotates her hands and her neck this way and that way, I do absolutely nothing. This time with grandma has taught me the art of doing nothing. Sometimes, I bring a book with me, but barely read it. Sometimes, I bring my camera to take a few pictures of the coconut trees, the sunset, or the high-rise buildings under construction. But most of the time, I do nothing. I lie down on my back and take a short nap or look at the sky and the airplanes. Sometimes, I bring a bowl full of kalojaam or black berries with me. And while I munch on them, I deliberately try spitting out the seeds from the terrace in a projectile motion to see how far each one can go. I look at what's in other people's rooftops. Someone is growing bitter gourds or pumpkin flowers while the others have hung clothes to dry. I try to spot the different landmarks of the city- The Howrah Bridge, the Salt Lake Stadium. I try to identify the different kinds of birds, although my knowledge about birds is restricted to the crows, sparrows, and pigeons alone. I hum a tune or two, or think of some research ideas that I could pursue. But mostly, as grandma is working out and sweating it out, I take great pleasure in sitting with her and doing absolutely nothing. Because doing nothing for an hour everyday actually frees up my mind later on to do much more.

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Fruits of labor

Imagine a life where the only responsibility you have, even if for a few weeks, is to buy seasonal fruits from the market while returning home. This started when I got my first job in 2005. Although earning, I was not expected to contribute anything at home. So I started buying fruits on my way back, as much as I desired for the entire family (although I always ate the lion's share). Kalojaam (blackberry), jaamrul (Java apple), lichu, safeda, you name it. I would happily come home, two large bags of fruits in hand. With my meager salary, I had never felt richer.

The trend continues. No matter whether I am in a bus or taxi, I always get off at the local market to buy fruits while returning home. I get on my haunches and hand-pick fruits. This time, I spotted a particular woman seller in between a bunch of men. Being appreciative of this, I started chatting up with her.

"Kalojaam koto kore?" How much? I asked.

"Ten rupees for 100 grams." she said.

Fruit sellers always quote prices for 100 grams here possibly because it tricks the buyer into believing that they do not have to spend much. Kaalojaam, or black berries are a close favorite after mangoes and litchis, and I have never found these in the US/Germany. So when I ask for 2 kilos, her jaws drop, and she gives me a 10% discount. I never haggle for prices, something that Ma and I always keep arguing about. Ma's point is, sellers always inflate the prices because people are going to haggle. My point is, if the price sounds reasonable enough (most things do now, since my euros give me even more buying power), I do not want to haggle with a poor man who is sitting in the sun and trying hard to make a living. If one does not haggle at Pantaloons and Westside, why haggle with fruit sellers? Those 10 rupees I save is not worth the kicks one gets.

So I continue to buy fruits from her whenever I go out, and we chat up. Now, she starts to watch out for me as well. One day, she gave me good quality plastic bags for things I had bought from another place because I was not carrying a grocery bag. The other day, she gave me a handful of kalojaams for free to chew on as we continued to chat. Every time I put a few in my mouth, she would choose a few good ones and place them in my hand. Who would have imagined making a new friend at the local market over buying kalojaams?

She was thrilled when I asked her name. She was even more thrilled and blushed profusely when I asked if I could take a picture of her. So she posed nicely and gave me her best smile.

Grandma and I have forgotten to eat other things, and have been happily overdosing on kalojaams ever since, our teeth and tongues perennially violet in color now. 

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T(r)oothfully

Every time I landed in Kolkata, he was among the first few people I would meet. Sometimes, we set up a meeting date even before I had reached Kolkata. With a thumping heart and sweat trickling down my face due to my nervousness, I would go meet him. And then, he would usher me inside, close the door behind him, ask me to lie down, grab my hand, and without wasting much time, go straight for my mouth. A quick summer romance, not really. For in the aftermath of all this action, we would often be left in tears, mine shed due to all the pain, and my father's, not shed, for the deep holes it made in his pocket.

This is the first time in many years that I have not had to see the dentist in Kolkata. Touchwood. Needless to say, my life is so much better for it and my smiles, so much brighter!

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A sweet gesture

I am always drawn to places and societies where one can have real interactions with real people. Going out in Kolkata makes that happen everyday. I am headed home and get off the bus to walk some 10-15 minutes before I reach our apartment. It is extremely humid, and I am drenched in sweat, about to die of thirst. So I stop by the local sweets shop, and ask for the water jug for a sip (it is free). I don't know the owner personally. The owner not only forwards me the water jug, but also hands me a gujiya, a kind of sweet, for free. He smiles and says, "এটা খান, ভালো লাগবে।" (Have this, you will feel better).

I don't think he goes around distributing free sweets, but it is that moment, a moment when someone is dying of thirst and a kind man not only offers that, but offers something to eat as well. Your Big Bazaar and other chain stores with uniformed people working there and talking to the local customers in English will never do this for you, even if they wanted to, because there are cameras watching them and they are accountable for every rupee. My ma does not understand why I try to boycott buying from or going to malls and chain stores. I do not care to choose from ten different varieties of rice and wheat, or get that 10% discount when I purchase goods for a thousand rupees or more. I do not care about fattening the pockets of the already rich. I want human interaction. And I want my money to go to the local people. I don't just care about the product I am getting. I also care about where my money is going.

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Water we waiting for?

A disaster of the somewhat innocuous kind brought all the 12-15 odd families in our building together. Usually, we do not keep track of the ongoing of our neighbors. We nod curtly and smile if we bump into someone in the stairway. But last afternoon, the water pump malfunctioned and we lost running water. We waited until evening, but nothing. The supply of stored water was slowly running out. Late evening, ma started making a few phone calls, asking when it would be fixed. We were supposed to visit a family friend nearby, so we showed up at their place with 6-8 empty bottles to stock up on drinking water. While coming home, we saw that all the men of the building were assembled together discussing what needs to be done.

Early morning, people were ready with buckets to fill up on municipality water that stops after 8 am. This actually gave people a chance to say hi and make small talk, since everyone was queued up with a common goal. As the line was getting longer, ma went to the neighbor from the adjacent building to stock up on buckets of water (which I dutifully carried upstairs). The neighbor also invited us to come back and take a shower if the water problem was not solved. This water crises forced me to meet at everyone from the building I usually do not go out of my way to meet.

9 am. The problem is fixed. Water is back. We are back to living our normal, isolated lives, watching TV with family and getting back on the internet. No more communal gatherings with buckets in hands, chatting up with real people. We are back to chatting virtually.

Water crises is bad. But thank god we did not lose electricity or internet. I also got a good workout first thing in the morning. I always look at the brighter side.

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Old place, new things

I am not stranger to Kolkata. It annoys me every time I land at the airport and stand in line for immigration, always surrounded by a bunch of NRIs who cannot stop complaining about how slow the line is moving or how Kolkata is never going to change or flash their foreign passports to get ahead in line. Yes, the first thing I step out of the plane, I smell the warm, humid air mixed with phenyl/floor-cleaning chemicals. And that is the smell I associate with the airport, my gateway to my home. When in the US, I used to visit annually. Now from Germany, I visit almost twice a year. But every time I visit, there are certain things I relearn or unlearn. Day 1 is always the hardest, reorienting myself to a different, if not new way of doing things. It's like a switch in the brain that turns on and off. Here are some of the things that always surprise me anew in Kolkata.

1. Sweating. Every time I step out of the airport, my glasses fog. And I slowly start sweating. It's an alien feeling, since I do not sweat in Germany. Not even for a minute, unless I am working out seriously. The seasons are differentiated by the number of blankets and comforters I heap on myself, and summer means using only one instead of three. So suddenly when I am standing outside the airport, not lifting anything or working out and I start sweating, my clothes clinging to me, the feeling is very disconcerting. 

2. Roads. It takes my brain a little bit of re-programming to remember that we now drive on the left hand side of the road. It always surprises me how much smaller, bumpier, and un-geometrical the roads look. The first few times of crossing the roads without signal are scary, and I involuntarily look for the traffic lights with the red hand or the green man walking. It doesn't take long to unlearn the western ways and relearn the Indian way though. On our way from the airport this time, dad asks me if I see something different about the roads. Unmindful and still thinking about why I am sweating, I reply, "Yes, it's so much smaller and we are on the left, which is freaking me out." Dad was pointing out to how much cleaner and organized the roads now look, with road signs and all, thanks to our chief minister. His message was completely lost on me. 

3. Mosquitoes. Two days after I arrived, I woke up one morning, my right arm completely riddled with mosquito bites. In a strange way, it felt very nostalgic. Sensing a mosquito that’s sitting on my leg and killing it without seeing it is a skill that has taken me years to master. I don’t even know why we switch on the electronic mosquito repellant. I don’t think it works.

4. Lizards. I am used to staying up late. I am also used to raiding the fridge at night. Often, when I switch on the kitchen light, I see a lizard or two quickly crawl by on the floor. We have learnt to accept each other's existence. It feels assuring to know that someone else is up and scouring for food as well this late.

5. The ceiling fan. Eventually, when I am done working, I switch off the laptop and the tube light before hitting the bed. In bed, I lie on my back, looking at the silhouette of the ceiling fan moving. And I always wonder what if it falls on me? I wonder when they last serviced the fan and how well they checked the screws suspending it. Sometimes, I am afraid that my thoughts alone will change an unlikely event into a likely one. So I try to think of something else until I fall asleep. However, every time I lie down, I always wonder if I should switch it off.

6. The door bell. It’s amazing how many times the door bell rings here. In Germany, I don’t think I even have a door bell. If I am expecting someone, they just call beforehand.  There is no domestic help or newspaper person or mailman or the plumber or electrician to ring the bell.

7. Food. I am always thrilled by how much stronger fruits and vegetables smell here- garlic, ginger, onions, mangoes. My hand smells of food all day long. Back there, fruits and vegetables are four times the size, but hardly have any smell.

8. Wet bathroom floors. This is one more thing that takes me some time to get used to. The fact that there is always water on the floors. And buckets, yes. I don’t have any buckets or mugs back in Germany.

9. The domestic help. In Germany, I am the cook and I am the cleaner. I do the dishes and clean the floors. I wash my own clothes. I make my tea. Not here.

10. The clothes line. I do not have one back there. The dryer dries my clothes, although I feel so much better drying my clothes in the sunlight.

There are so many more, including experiencing extended periods of time when there could be no water or no electricity or no internet or all of the above. Electricity-wise, it is so much better than it used to be when we were children. I actually miss those one hour in the evening summer power outages when I would do nothing but lie on the terrace, looking up and admiring the night sky and the blinking airplanes while riddled with mosquito bites.

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A random day of my life in Kolkata

Somewhere between pre- and post-2014, my perception of Kolkata changed. Pre-2014, I would visit Kolkata from the USA where I drove a car and was used to a certain individualistic lifestyle. Naturally, ma and I used to spend most of our time arguing over what mode of transportation to take, sullying the joys of going out together. I refused to take the slow-moving rickety buses, the dangerously-driven autos, or even the metro. My ma does not believe in taking cabs, classifying all cab-drivers as kidnappers, and we would often stand at the bus stop arguing about this. She later grew wiser, so instead of arguing, she would suspiciously nod and agree that we should indeed take the cab, admitting that buses these days are not reliable anymore. However, as soon as we reached the main road, she would hop on a slowly oncoming bus, shrugging and telling me that no cabs were in sight. She would be standing on the footrest motioning to me by vigorously flailing her hands, "Chole aaye, chole aaye, taxi paabi na." or "Hop on, you won't find a cab." The thing is, she didn't even wait for 5 minutes for a cab to show up. I see her innocent face and I know that I have been tricked. So now I can either stand my ground in which case ma leaves in a bus and I stay where I am, or give in and take the bus. At this point, the conductor joins her too in screaming and asking me to board the bus, "Chole asun didi chole asun." I give up, take the bus, and see a broad grin of victory on ma's face. "Shona meye amar, ma'er katha shunte hoy." "Good girl, you must listen to mommy." I promise never to travel with her again.

Post-2014, I am older and wiser, somewhat. I now live in Germany and do not drive anymore. I haven't even renewed my driver's license. I take the public transportation all the time. I know that it is convenient, environmentally friendly, inexpensive, and the right thing to do. So as I board my flight to Kolkata, I tell myself that I am only taking the public transportation. No more cabs for me. If I want to see interesting people, I must take the metro. My ma has never been prouder.

So one evening, I decide to meet a friend in the opposite end of the city. Kolkata metro is fast, convenient, and connects the city north to south. But taking the metro involves walking for ten minutes to the main road, taking an auto to the station, walking under the bridge and hope that no flying missiles from moving trains of the nature of used cloth diapers or flying excreta land on me, and then taking the metro. The humidity is killing me, my clothes uncomfortably sticking to me. I haven't even bothered to put on makeup. I was wearing a light rain jacket in June even last week when I was in Germany. And now, my sluggish sweat glands are working overtime. I take the metro and luckily find a seat in the reserved "Ladies" seat. I get busy trying to read a third-grade bestseller highly vouched for by my sister that was written by a celebrity-wife who clearly did not know what to do with her time. I am trying to focus on page 2, giving it a fair shot before judging my sister. I have a long way to go. The train stops at the next station, and I see a woman walking fast out of the corner of my eye. "Chepe bosun, chepe bosun," she instructs everyone sternly. I am hearing this phrase after such a long time. It means please squeeze in a bit to make space for me, and is said twice for added emphasis.

The thing is, obesity has significantly risen in the last decade or so with the Americanization of Kolkata. The booming "shopping mall culture" is a long rant for another day. While I am old-school and more used to being invited home and fed home-cooked food, people these days prefer hanging out at malls, walking aimlessly and looking at overpriced stores, taking selfies and partaking in Subways and McDonald's. Imagine flying all the way to Kolkata to watch people overdose on American junk food with gusto while I crave for two tiny shingaras, kochuris, and some jilipis. And I continue to embarrass myself in more ways than one. Recently, when someone asked, “Acropilos jaabi? Have you been to Acropolis?" (a recently opened mall in the southern fringes of the city that I had no idea about), I proudly beamed, "Gechi to. I was there last month, that is where I lost my passport." Before this Kolkata trip, I only knew of one Acropolis, the original one in Greece.

Back to my metro rant. While eight voluptuous women easily fit in a ladies seat 10 years ago, wriggling babies and hanging bags and all, the same space can now seat seven women, and a mosquito or two. The others look at each other clueless, feigning an act of wiggling themselves to fake an act of making space for the lady. But there is hardly any space left to make. Our warrior lady is getting impatient. So she screams louder, not even bothering to mask the underlying threat in her voice with courtesy. The other women feel perturbed now. However, I decide to play cool, and instead of looking up, continue pretending to read this horrible book where the writer talks about some first-world problem of her driver not showing up on time and she having to take an auto rickshaw. There is some action going on right next to me with some elbowing, rubbing sweaty arms, and muttering expletives. The warrior lady has made some space for herself finally, all of 2 inches that can barely have her touching her bum to the seat. As if on cue, the driver slams the brakes, breaking her inertia and making her real angry. So she walks over to me, and in that little space we had for 2 mosquitoes, she seats herself. What it means is that she is half-sitting on my left thigh now. And if that is not enough, her right hand, all bare and damp in her sleeveless blouse, comes and rubs mine. I immediately forget my book and with electrifying speed, try to shrink myself to half my width, almost wincing at my physical proximity with another sweating individual (with a fiery temper). As if traveling in a stuffy, sweaty metro was not enough, I now have a woman on my lap threatening me with her "Chepe boshun bolchi kintu!" while the metro sways at speed and makes me conjure traumatic images of getting a lap dance. I am repulsed beyond imagination. I try to think of my choices, or whatever remains of them. My book is long forgotten. I look at the woman on my lap, half-sitting on me and refusing to budge. I contemplate telling her, “Chepe boshte parbo na” (I cannot squeeze in, sorry and thank you). However, I don't think I have the courage to do this. Meekly, I obey her and jiggle myself some more, and when that does not work, go stand and offer her my seat. 

After 30 minutes of standing in the crowd, my nose precariously pointed at several armpits jutting from sleeveless blouses women love to wear, I get off the train in one piece, my lap still bearing the traumatic memory of the pseudo lap-dance it had recently received. Thanks to learning yoga for one semester in grad school, I had managed to stop breathing for most of my ride. I still have an auto rickshaw to take before I can reach my destination. I am smelling of 50 shades of sweat, and I do not even know which shade is mine. I try to squeeze myself in the right extreme of the backseat of an auto. However, my ordeal is far from over. A family of man, woman, and child come running, push me aside, and grab the entire last seat of the auto before I realize what is happening. The mustachioed man with a baby face is the first one to get in. Wow! There was a time when chivalrous men used to offer the back seat to women while flanking the driver. People have taken gender equity really seriously these days. So carefully arranging my half-flowing clothes, I seat myself by the auto driver, confident about smelling something new now- perhaps hair oil. In the next twenty minutes, the auto driver becomes a reincarnation of Keanu Reeves from Matrix, squeezing his vehicle in the lanes in between speeding buses and cars, zooming through approaching traffic in T-sections, making me sit even tighter to him, much to my dismay. Given a choice between falling of an auto rickshaw on the road or sitting uncomfortably close to stranger and smelling his hair oil, I prefer the hair oil.

I get off at my destination and try to enter the mall. However, I am stopped by two female security guards who deem it proper to pat my boobs with the metal detector before letting me in. From getting a lap dance to giving one to the auto driver to having my assets patted, my friends will never know the huge price I have just paid to commute from point A to point B. Ever since, I feign a heart attack whenever someone asks me to meet them at a mall during peak traffic. If that does not work, I just tell myself that 5 Euros (my bus fare in Germany everyday) is close to 377.87 Indian rupees. So once in a while, when I am not craving for any sort of adventures on the road, I just take the cab.

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Rules from a different era

As I rode the cab back home a little after 11 pm, I was reminded of so many late nights from a different era.

In my family, dad has always been the stricter one, laying out rules that we were supposed to obey and not break. I am sure every middle-class, conservative Indian family has those. Mom was more chilled out and malleable, and gave us more freedom, as long as dad did not come to know of it. For example, sleepover parties were a strict no-no, even if it was my best friend who lived a few blocks down the lane and our families knew one another well. I could spend as much time as I wanted to with my best friend, but I was supposed to come home to sleep. Being the rebellious one, I had tried to coax and cajole, and ultimately rebel, but no good had come out of it.

Dad had a strict rule, that the children should be back home early, preferably by evening. Now the good thing is, dad himself used to work somewhere faraway, and usually took the last metro home. So mom had made this amendment, that as long as I was safe and arrived home before dad did, and this socialization did not affect my grades, it was fine. She is pretty cool that way. But when dad made rules, there was not much room for negotiation.

I have gone through different phases of introversion and extroversion in life, and college was a phase when I had suddenly turned into a gregarious kind. I used to attend biology classes in southern Calcutta, and instead of immediately taking the bus or metro, I used to hang out with friends and walk to the metro station before taking a later train home. Some days, I used to spend some time walking with my best friend, having fuchkas, exploring the shops, and chatting up before coming home. That was also the time when I was taking an active interest in knowing the city, so I used to accompany my friends to Howrah, Maidan, College Street, Gariahat, and where not. The expectation was always the same- Be home before dad is home.

Now those were the days of a struggling, penuriousness student. I could not afford a cab, so I had to take the bus or metro back. While taking a late metro, I used to dread bumping into dad. Instead of walking, I often used to run, hop, and scramble my way home during the homestretch from the Mode (the home bus stop) to the apartment, a good 10-15 minute walk (I did not have much money for taking a rickshaw either). My heart racing and adrenaline rushing, I would pray that I reach home before dad did. I was rebellious enough to not follow his rules, but wanted to be respectful of mom too, since she let us have a lot of leeway. Sometimes, when he took an earlier metro, mom would text me, and make up a story like I was just 15 minutes away, fetching groceries for home. I do not know if being an overprotective dad was a gender thing, but I am not going to judge or analyze, especially after all these years. If nothing, it taught me that wherever you are, whatever you do, there will be rules, and it is best to play by the rules to avoid conflict.

Anyway, I graduated, moved out, and forgot all about rules. In the US, I no longer needed to come home at a particular time. I partied late night, stayed over at friends', went to Bollywood dance nights, traveled for work and fun, took late night flights, rented and drove cars at night, took off to other cities or national parks Friday nights, without being answerable to anyone. 

So that day, after a decade, I was coming home late (late by our family standards), and it felt like reliving my twenties. The only difference is that this time, I could afford a cab, and I was visiting temporarily. I usually do not stay out late at night in Calcutta now, I am just too lazy or jet lagged to beat the heat and traffic and go anywhere. As the cab stopped at the traffic light, I could feel my heart racing, me impatiently looking at my watch and wondering if dad is home. My own present response to memories more than a decade old made me uncomfortable. I don't know why I was worrying, it was probably old programming. I'm older, just as wise as in my twenties, and totally independent. But I hopped off the cab and scrambled upstairs, wondering if dad would be mad at me after all these years.

As expected, dad was home early from work. However, he never said a word about me being late, leaving me a lot relieved, and somewhat confused. Some old habits die hard. His did. Mine clearly did not.

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The Bus Lover

My mom has taken her love for riding the city buses to a whole new level. She is crazy-obsessed about the bus, to the point that we often wonder if she had some feelings for a bus driver or a conductor at some point. Whenever we need to visit the other corner of the city, my knee-jerk response is, "Abar bari theke berote hobe?" (Do I have to step out of home again?), while hers is, "Yaay! Amra bus a kore jaabo!" (Yaay! We get to take the bus!)

Needless to say, mom and I are always fighting and arguing. I don't necessarily mind taking the bus, but a cab is faster, although mom questions what I will do with the extra time since I am on vacation. Then again, I do not fancy standing in a crowded bus, tucked between the armpits of people, smelling their sweat and perfume and whatever they ate for lunch, and occasionally getting a squeeze in the bum. She takes language classes three times a week, and loves commuting to the other end of the city (easily 2 hours one way) in a bus. For me, it is simple. I spend roughly €3-5 in Germany on bus fares every day. I can easily take a cab in Calcutta with that money. 

Earlier, mom and I used to waste a lot of time standing at the bus stop and arguing about this. She would say things like, "Chol na, raasta dekhte dekhte jaabo, koto hawa debe, koto lok dekhbo, poisha noshto korishna, taxi waala bodmaash lok hobe, onno kothao niye chole jaabe”, etc. (We will see so many people, it is breezy, the cab driver might abduct us, etc.). Then, she got smarter. She would say, "Yes, let’s take a cab.", and while we waited for the cab, me happy that mom has finally grown wiser and wondering why not a single cab is in sight, an extremely slow and rickety bus will crawl up at a snail's pace, the conductor inviting everyone with open arms to board it. Mom would get super excited seeing the bus, and like Chachi in the movie Chachi 420, she would run and hop on the bus and wave to me, "Aaye aaye shiggiri aaye, bus chhere debe" (Come quickly, the bus will leave). Talk about deception. Once she is on the bus, I cannot keep standing on the roadside, flagging cabs. I am forced to take the bus, fuming, and she looks at me innocently and says, "Look, it's so empty. There was no cab anyway." She has tricked me so many times now.

When she cannot argue anymore, she will say something like, "We are humble people. We have to travel like this." Once on the bus, she will nicely plug in her iPod and listen to music. Now, I find it hard to believe that someone with her collection of electronic gadgets comes from a humble background. Once, the family went for a wedding, and when I asked how was the wedding, she said something like- “It was great. We had a lot of fun, being decked up. And that bus ride was amazing.”

So mom goes to Sikkim and injures her spine. She is in a lot of pain, and cannot move an inch. We somehow manage to bring her to Kolkata, and get the doctor's appointment in the other extreme fringe of the city. I mean, this place is so far that I have never even been there or do not even know how to get there (I pride myself in knowing most areas of the city). We book a cab that picks us up from the doorstep. It being her birthday too, I try to pep her up and tell her how this will be a fun birthday ride, traveling in all this comfort. We suspect a slipped disc, a dislocated spine, and she is really nervous. When I tell her what a slipped disc is (having suffered that myself a few years ago), she is petrified and breaks down. She fears that she will never walk normally again. 

We go to the doctor's, who says that although it is not a slipped disc, her condition is bad. He recommends physiotherapy for a month, and gives her pills (10-15/day) that is expensive enough to blow big holes in the pocket. We have waited at the doctor's for almost 2 hours now, and in that time, I have managed to see what pain and suffering looks like. There is an evident stench of sickness in the air, and I have controlled my gag reflexes a few times now. We are finally done, and dad and I have managed to buy all the pills and understand how many she needs to take at what times of the day. Mom is limping a little less now, although the limp and the pain are very much there. 

"Did you hear, no slipped disc", she says.

"Yes, that's a relief!", dad says.

"So now, can we please take the bus home? Pllllease!"

She looked so heartbroken that evening, taking another cab back home.

sunshine

A foreigner in my own land

Two random people. Two occasions. Same question.

I lay under the glaring lights in the dentist's office, looking my most uncomplimentary self. My mouth pried wide open, I shivered on hearing the drill and the suction pump inside my mouth. I wrenched my hands together, paralyzed with fear. The seconds tick by, painfully slowly. My mouth felt dry and salty. When I was asked to wash my mouth, I smelt dental cement. I spat blood. 

I was asked to lie this way, my mouth agape like a crocodile's. The dentist has seen me in a way no one else has- vulnerable, afraid, open-mouthed. He got up to wash his hands, instructing me to stay still, my mouth wide open. Knowing full well that I will not be able to reply, he asked his final question-

“Aage to US e chhilen. Okhankar passport hoye gechey?”

(You were in the US before this, right? Do you have a US passport?)

What was I supposed to say? And why him?

And then, a guy showed up one fine morning to do my blood work. I think Calcutta is the only place where I can afford such luxury. You pay someone a very reasonable price, and they show up with their paraphernalia to draw blood. I am mortally afraid of seeing blood, already reeling from a 12-hour fast. So I held on to dad's hands tight, looking away. The man took hold of my right hand, pricked a needle, and drew four vials of blood. 

"Didi, hoye gechey. I am done. I'll be on my way"- I soon heard, much to my relief. And while he was putting on his shoes, the final question. 

“Green card hoye gechey?” Are you done with your green card?

I am too confused to make sense of his question. How is a green card related to blood work? They don't even offer Green Cards in Germany, even if I wanted one.

Paraphrasing Jane Austen's opening line in Pride and Prejudice, "It is a truth universally acknowledged that a person living outside the country must be in possession of a US passport or Green Card, even if they do not live in the US, and even if that piece of document has nothing to do with their health, dental or otherwise."

Go ahead. Delegitimize me, because I do not live in the country country. Although you are the one who swears by McDonald's and Subways, celebrates Halloween parties, replies in accented English to my Bangla queries, and shows up in western wear whereas I hardly wear anything other than sarees, I am the outsider. I am the foreigner. I should be the one trying to fit in.

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Dental-Mental

Sometimes, it feels like I visit Calcutta to visit family, and a man. This man makes me wait for him with nervous energy, and the first thing we meet, he wastes no time but goes directly for my mouth. But not to kiss me.

I am talking about the dentist. 

Weeks before I land, my sister meticulously makes an appointment. There is no time wasted. I meet him even before I meet my greater family, cousins, recent crushes, or ex-flames. This is because every time I visit Calcutta, I have no idea how long these dental sessions would last. Sometimes, a few days. Sometimes, weeks. This pretty smile comes at a huge maintenance cost. 

This time, I thought it was not too bad. I was here less than a year ago (sobbing and having meltdowns and tantrums in this same seat), and what could go wrong in ten months? Just that the cap he had put on after my root canal last year had come off. Seemed pretty innocuous. My brother-in-law had the same problem, and was done in less than ten minutes. He had even smiled and waved at the dentist saying, "Dekha hobe abar", or "See you soon!". I think that the irony of that statement was lost on him.

So as usual, I was there at the dentist's. His two assistants instantly recognized and smiled at me, very used to seeing me now. Chiranjeevi was making some hip thrusting moves on the television with a chick less than half his age and weight, making me christen him Pelvis Presley in my mind. At least, it took my mind off the impending ten minutes. 

Only this time, I was not going to get away in ten minutes. The dentist looked at the chipped cap, and tried thrusting it in my mouth with all his strength. Just that it wouldn't fit well anymore. So I had to come back for a few more sessions, when they cut me open once again, and reset my tooth for that perfectly infectious smile one could swoon over. It was little relief that he did it for free, since he was the one who did not set things right the last time. When my grandma had to replace all her dentition, she actually opted for a teeth setting that resembles Madhuri Dixit's (I am not kidding). I think I am still a few decades away from the luxury of that choice.

Anyway, knowing how I make the best use of the situation, I decided to go in the opposite direction from home, so forlorn I was. There was only one thing that could cheer me up at that hour. A pair of fleshy green coconuts. I visited the square close to home, where my mom usually encourages me to bargain a little. But I do not. Anything good that comes for less than €1 is not worth bargaining for. Just that the green coconut guy was really concerned, not knowing how I would have two coconuts in one go.

"Bari niye jaaben? Nijei khaben? Pack kore debo?", he kept asking me. (Will you take it home? Will you share? Should I pack it for you?). Thank God he did not enlighten me about the calories two coconuts contain.

At least I walked back home feeling content, temporarily happy, and thankful for having teeth. According to me, tooth problems are better than toothless problems, and graying hair is better than a receding hairline. Tomorrow, we shall see tomorrow.

sunshine

Landing in style

Landing in Calcutta for me is landing in style. I live dual lives, and with time, I have learnt to switch between the two. My life in the west can best be described as calm, methodical, and predictable. I know exactly what I am supposed to do every day. In my free time, I read, write, and ruminate. Sometimes, I work on my own and do not talk to anyone for days. If I want space and privacy, there is ample of it.

Then, I take that flight to Calcutta, and my entire way of being changes. I step out of the air-conditioned airport lobby, trying to identify my parents in the crowd. However, my glasses fog momentarily due to the humidity, and I am unable to see anything. While I am still trying to recover, a pair of hands grab my luggage, and wet, sloppy kisses start raining on my cheeks from nowhere. As I regain my composure, I realize that dad has taken charge of my bags, and mom, my cheeks. The first time, I was extremely disoriented, but this is routine now. Glasses fog. Baggage is gone. People grab me. I know I am home.

As we make our way to the car parking, the first thing I notice is that I have started to sweat. The feeling, although not quite alien, is uncomfortable. Back there, I only sweat under controlled environs, when I am working out. I am still wearing sweaters and coats because it was freezing cold when I had started. I might have parked my car at the airport parking and taken that flight singly, but the rambunctious crowd that awaits me at the other end of the world always consists of mom, dad, siblings, siblings-in-law, and an assortment of neighbors or close friends. All of them have stopped whatever they were doing in life and have showed up to come pick me up. I suspect that if dad owned a bus, more people would show up at the airport. Kakima and her family always send their car to pick me. As I am finally settled in the car, my hands involuntarily looking for the seat belt although knowing that there is none, the fun ride starts. Dad is more restrained in showing his joy, so he sits in front and instructs the driver in his baritone voice what roads to avoid. But the rest of the family goes wild, laughing, joking, pulling my cheeks, and saying inappropriate things. My mom had rechristened me "bachcha" (kiddo) at some point, and although I made her promise that she would never call me that outside home, she forgets her promises and shouts my name from the opposite street, making a dozen heads turn and my head shake in embarrassment. The car moves through the bumps and the potholes, shaking me as I squint outside and try to recognize the streets. I do not, because every time, there are new flyovers, new streets, new malls, and more people. For a change, people who look like me. 

"Chul koto jhaakra jhaakra hoye bere gechey. Eto mota hoye gechish. Kaanchkolar jhol khaabi aaj theke. E ma chul peke gechey. Hagu hochhey to theek kore? Jaanish paraaye ei cholchey. Eder breakup hoye gechey. Ei cinema cholchey. Ranbir er cinema dekhechish? Ebaare ekhane ekhaane khete jaabo, bujhli?"

("Your hair is so grown now, we need to get it cut. How did you manage to put on so much weight? We need to feed you green banana curry. My God, look at the graying hair. Are you still suffering from constipation? Do you know so and so in the neighborhood eloped with so and so? Do you know so and so broke up with so and so? Such and such movies are in now. Have you checked out the latest Ranbir movies? We should try out these restaurants this time.")

If you have seen the movie My Big Fat Greek Wedding, you will exactly know what this crazy family of mine is like.

As I get off the car and make my way upstairs, all the close neighbors are waiting to greet me. Suddenly, there are so many people, and so much commotion. Hordes of people show up to meet me, and the commotion continues until I go back to the other home, a home where there is no one to pick me up from the airport, carry my bags, or shower sloppy kisses. I am blessed that even at my age, this is the celebrity treatment I get. I can literally get away with anything here. I can ask for anything I want to eat or drink, travel anywhere in the country, and my wishes will be fulfilled. Even as I am walking towards my apartment in Germany, my head buzzes from all the commotion. It feels like I just woke up from a dream where I showed up at a party and thousands of people were merry-making. And then, I insert the key in the lock and open my apartment door in Germany. Absolute silence. Everything just the way I had left it, orderly, in place. The calm and the silence is back. The only mementos I have brought back with me from the trip are memories, hundreds of pictures, and home cooked food that will last me the next month or so. 

Old age is going to be very hard for me to get used to. I am well aware of that.

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