Pune

I am reminded of the breakfast we had at Vohuman Café three weekends ago. Some of us had taken an early morning flight to Pune. We got really excited about the chicken sandwich they offered in Spice Jet, which is way better than the Chicken Junglee Sandwich in Indigo. Once we landed, we learnt that the hotel was full and could not accommodate an early check-in (wedding season and all). It was 8 am and we had about four hours to kill!

 

So my colleague and I went to Vohuman Café. The maska bun was laden with butter, the cheesy omelette was out of the world, and so was the Irani tea. After waking up at 3 am and catching a flight at 6 am, I needed this. I wish I had not been so impressed with my Spice Jet sandwich earlier.

After that, we walked the length and breadth and climbing the heights of Shaniwar Wada. We also went to Shreemant Dagdusheth Halwai Ganpati Mandir. The driver said that a first timer in Pune should not miss this, and it was not too far from my hotel in Koregaon Park either.

 

I did end up meeting a friend as well. I had last met her in 2006, at her wedding. Back in the day, getting parental permission to go to events post dusk used to be as difficult as getting a US visa. There would be thorough background checks, you had to answer hundreds of questions like kothaye jaabi? Keno jaabi? Na gele ki hobe? Koto bhalo bondhu? Kokhon firbi? Aar ke ke jaabe? Ki guarantee je timely firbi? There is no telling you what would happen if you were late. I think the curfew time for me was 10pm, which was more generous than what other friends had. Another friend and I had miraculously managed to get permission, so we slapped some makeup, borrowed a sari, took the afternoon metro with full makeup and people staring at us, and travelled all the way to Behala. We never got to meet the groom because we had strict parents who set stricter curfew times, and we were dependent on public transport which could take forever.

 

We never met after that. Fast forward life to 2022. Parental permissions are a thing of the past. I don’t even attend weddings anymore, all my friends who wanted to be married are married. I am in Pune and I am looking up the map for some odd-sounding place called Pimpri. I have no idea what it means, but I see that it will take a good hour to get there from my hotel. I must be there by 7:30 am. So, I message my friend, letting her know that I am in town and apologizing that I will not be able to meet. By some divine intervention, she tells me that she lives in Pimpri too, not too far from my work location.

 

So off I went there, literally gate crashing on a Sunday morning, finally meeting the groom from 2006 and the entire family. It was a gorgeous morning. I had my fill of adda, ginger tea, koraishuti'r kochuri aar alu'r dum, and we talked about good old times. We called up the other friend and gossiped some more! I even made her pack me some kochuri and alu’r dum for the rest of the day, so shameless I am. It turned out to be the best two hours I had spent in Pune!

 

And just like that, life continues to surprise. I love that my work takes me to different places, and I have reconnected with many school and college friends over the years. I loved Pune as a city too for many reasons and cannot wait for a re-reunion (or tri-union), hopefully with other friends as well!

 

sunshine

Te(e)thering onto old memories

I have been in bed for the last 30 minutes, reading, and too lazy to get up and brush my teeth. I know I will at some point. But inertia afflicts me right now, big time. And while I try to build enough momentum to break this inertia, a memory from Nebraska resurfaces. I do not have too many remarkable memories of Nebraska, but this one, for the weirdest of reasons, I remember.

Who is the first person you see in the morning on a daily basis? I am not talking about your reflection in the mirror, but a real person. A partner? Parents? A pet? A colleague perhaps? For me, it used to be the man whose name I never got to know. He had white, back-brushed hair and he used to man the parking garage where I parked my car before heading to work. He used to smile and wave at me religiously as I scanned my parking permit to enter the garage Monday through Friday. And while he smiled his gummy smile, his dentures used to sit in a bowl by the table on the side. Every month, I stopped by to pay for parking, and he put on his dentures before writing me a receipt. Sometimes, he forgot, and those dentures sat there on the table, giggling at me as he wrote my receipt. It used to freak me out. This memory alone is enough to yank me off my bed and make me go brush my teeth.

sunshine

Whitemares

When I was little, my grandma and I had a deal. Summer afternoons, she would lie down to rest, and I would earn 10 paise for every white hair I plucked off her head. It was a sweet deal, and I am sure many children growing up in India had such deals with their grandparents. I would play with her long hair, comb it, oil it, and braid it, and she loved the comfort of me touching her head with my little hands.

Fast forward life 25 years. I am glad that I had that practice. I am now using those fine motor skills on myself. I am living my nightmares! Those are called the whitemares!

sunshine

Grand(father) memories

Dadu, my paternal grandfather, has been gone for more than 23 years now. What I have is mostly fragmented memories of him being annoyed with me most of the time and complaining to my ma, since I used to be naughty. As I write this, some random memories surface.

Dadu was a Hindustani classical singer. Every evening, he would religiously do riyaaz at home. He would practice using his harmonium, and dad would play the tabla whenever he was around. I would be expected to sit with him and do riyaaz as well which used to bore me to death. Often, to annoy him, I would mimic him singing aa-aa-aa-aaa-aa in a funny way. Once, I even told him, “Dadu, stop teaching me boring songs. Teach me some Bollywood songs.”

I once threw away his dentures on the garage roof. Just like that. He could not eat solids for days after that. 

8:40 pm news on Doordarshan, and he used to be glued to the TV. Which meant I had to start dancing right in front of the TV to annoy him.

He used to tell me stories. Action stories about ghosts and rajputro (prince). No romantic prince meets princess mush. There were many kinds of ghosts. Rakhhosh. Khokkosh. Petni. Shankchunni. Konnokaata bhoot. Bemmodityo bhoot. Once the story was over, I would always ask for the lyaj (tail). This meant that a few extra minutes had to be added to the story, since I was not done yet. So the ghost would be revived, and killed once again. Every afternoon I returned from school, I would cartwheel on the bed and wake him up from his afternoon nap for my story time. And his stories never put me to sleep. They were like action movies. If anything, I would be wide awake and listening.

He used to wear a blue and white vertical striped shirt that is so firmly etched in my memory that once I was dining out with a guy friend and I said, “Goodness, you are wearing a grandfather shirt.”

So that I am not scared of ghosts, he had taught me the mantra “Bhoot amar poot, petni amar jhi, Ram Lokkhon bukey aachey, korbe amar ki” (The ghosts are my sons and daughters. God is in my heart, so nothing can happen to me). I am all grown up now and live alone, but sometimes when I hear a sound and get startled, I involuntarily start chanting this mantra in my head really fast.

After his cerebral stroke, his hands used to shake while writing. So once, I deliberately wrote a letter to dad with shaky hands, and gave it to him, saying that dadu had a note for him.

He would not let us say the word snake in Bangla after sunset. Some superstition. So every now and then, I’d go really close to his ears and say, “Snake!” And all hell would break loose. 

Okay, last one. Dadu used to walk very slowly, with a stick, and was a nervous and panicky person. His favorite afternoon job was to go around the house and count the number of people, to make sure everyone except dad was home. So he would go count Dida, Ma, and my sister. But where am I? Well, I was really tiny and short then. So as he walked slowly, I used to tippy toe right behind him. He would be walking the entire house looking for me, without realizing that I am walking right behind him (remember those Tom & Jerry cartoons?). Even if he realized, he walked so slowly that by the time he turned around, I would have turned around with him too.

I wonder where he is now. If there is life after death, I realize that he would be a twenty-something young man now, in some corner of the world. Maybe still in college. Maybe trying to impress young chicks with his music. And hopefully with a lot of hair. Ever since I remember him, he was bald. Actually my dad says the same thing. He has always remembered dadu bald.

sunshine

Train, no, bus of thoughts

It gets me a while to start my engines in the morning. I wake up early and all, but I have never understood how so many people work out in the morning. Between my home and the bus stop is some stretch of water, a bridge (like the foot bridge between Lake Town and Salt Lake), and a garden. When I am still walking (and waking) to catch the bus, I see so many people running and always wonder how they manage to have so much energy in the morning. 

I was thinking the same today, rubbing my eyes on my way to work. I had just started going up the bridge when I saw my bus at a distance. Being at a height gave me a vantage point to see the bus stopped at a red light. I thought no more. I sprinted at electrifying speed, running the length of the bridge and the garden, and not stopping until the driver had seen me and I was inside the bus. I got on the bus to see the entire bus staring at me. People involuntarily do that when they see someone run to catch the bus. At least I do, thinking in my head, "Will they make it? Will they make it?" So I did, and the bus started. I had no reason to run all the distance like a crazy woman. I could have taken the next one. But when you see a bus, you instinctively run. I think something is wrong if you are fit but do not feel the urge to run. My probability of getting my bus was 1/2 (since two out of four buses go to my workplace and I could not see the number from a distance). But it would have sucked to not take that chance.

I do not remember the last time I had chased a bus. The last few years in the US, I always drove to work, and never looked at bus timings or waited at bus stops. Now I do. Now, I know that buses run only once every thirty minutes after peak hours, so I organize my time accordingly. Newer habits have replaced old habits. I haven't driven in 20 months. I haven't useda cell phone in 19 months. I don’t get to eat at Chipotle unless I am in the US. A few years ago, I couldn't have imagined a life without car and cell phone, or not looking for wifi networks frantically wherever I went. Now, I am doing just fine. I am not making a judgment about "that" life versus "this" life. That life was great, and this life is great too. All I am saying is it is perfectly possible to break old habits, and transition from "that" life to "this" life without missing it much. 

sunshine

Happy Teachers’ Day

Good old nostalgic times. On teachers’ day, I was reminded of all the good time I had when I used to teach in Calcutta. It was my first job, I was 24, fresh out of college, and thought I would change the world. Lot of people were surprised, even disappointed, and I somewhat understand why. A measly pay was one thing, and social perception was another. Bright students were supposed to be doctors, engineers, and lawyers, and I can see why such is the perception. Even a professor had a far more social recognition compared to a school teacher. People who had the ability to become something in life did not become school teachers. They designed chips, developed languages, and signed million dollar deals.

Surely I worked with colleagues who were bright, energetic, and had a similar philosophy as mine, where they wanted to change the perception of teachers. But they were only a handful. Most teachers were tired, lethargic, and opposed to change. It seemed a certain degree of boredom had seeped into their bones over the years. Ironically, they did not want to learn anything new. I was faced with some degree of resistance when I tried changing the pattern of questions to incorporate more multiple choice questions to help students prepare for the all India entrance exams they were to take later. My colleagues were used to doing things a certain way, and they did not see why a freshly out of college teacher should bring in reforms. I used to be euphemistically reprimanded for finishing my corrections and setting question papers early, and this might create a certain expectation for them from the school principal. I used to finish work early so that I could go home and enjoy, and do a hundred different things outside my work.

Soon, I realized what people had meant when they had shown surprise about my decision to teach in a school. I started to feel stagnation. I realized I could only do so much, and become so much as a teacher. I did not even have a masters in education, and this meant despite my quality of work, my pay scale would always be in the lowest rung, even less than others who had a bachelors with an M.Ed. Surely I could motivate children to go on to become rocket scientists and mathematicians, but that is where I would stay. I enjoyed every bit of my work during the present, but the future looked bleak. I loved my students, and they loved me back. I would wake up at 5 every morning and get ready with much enthusiasm, eager to go to school. Imagine how many of us get to work where they are all eager and cannot wait to reach office. Ironically, as much as I loved my job, I moved past it.

A friend once told me that although she loved her then boy friend, she had to move on because she did not see a progressive future with him. I was surprised, wondering how you could leave someone you loved just because you were ambitious. But this is exactly what I did too. I applied to a bunch of schools in the US and moved to Seattle the first opportunity I got.

Although I look back at my first job as a teacher with much fondness, I realize now that the decision I made was for my own good. I did not see myself as a teacher with that measly pay 10 years down the line. I needed intellectual development. I needed to feel and experience the world. I needed greater challenges. I moved on.

However, that experience of teaching left a long term impact on me. Years later when I was done with my US masters and working in the industry, I decided to come back to school to finish a PhD. The reason? I am training myself to become a professor. And it has been one hell of a challenging experience, doing research and training myself long term to be able to teach in a university. But I realized this is what I eventually wanted to do, be associated with school in some capacity, teach, and motivate others to follow their dreams. This might sounds very clichéd and dreamy, but I could not see myself working in the industry any longer. So I am back to what I have always loved doing- being in school. And for this, I thank my job as a school teacher in Calcutta. It made me realize how much I love to teach and be in academia. It also made me realize how I needed to move past it, dream bigger, create bigger challenges for myself, and push myself harder. No matter what I go on to become in life, a part of my identity will always be that 24-year old, starry-eyed math and science teacher whose job and occupation meant the world to her.

Happy Teachers’ Day everyone – We are what we are because of our teachers, for all the little experiences life was made of, and for that internal compass that guides us and eventually leads us to do what we are the best and hopefully the happiest doing.

sunshine

The C’s and the V’s: A peek into the hilarious past

Sometimes you have a chance encounter with a picture of yours from a different era, and it is like being introduced to your Neanderthal twin from a different world. An emaciated look, sallow eyes, with the only thing worse than your sense of makeup is your sense of dressing, when wearing oversized tee shirts or yellow skirts were in vogue. You look at yourself from the past and wonder, who is this obnoxious creature? I guess it is okay to make fun of oneself publicly. I had one such chance encounter, but not with a picture of mine from the past. Well, it was a picture sort of, but more of my academic achievements, or the lack of it. I happened to bump into my first ever written Curriculum Vitae (CV), and it was like having a glimpse of the outdated, backdated, anything but the glamorous past.

The first time I had ever made a CV for myself was maybe 7 years ago, when I had suddenly had the desperate realization that I will be out of college soon and will need to fend for myself. The dreams for America had just started to take shape, and an impressive resume seemed like a good idea to make initial contact with the aliens. Yeah, the feeling was something akin to that. The only trouble was, there was nothing much impressive for me to show off. No summer internship, no fellowship, no real research experience. However, something had to be written, and that was what I did. Over the next few months, the resume was forwarded to a hundred different professors across American universities, of course after some serious feedback from the seniors. Then, my life witnessed a series of disastrous phenomenon of computers crashing, email ids getting hacked, and various other cyber wreckages, and I lost my first ever written CV. After years, a fortuitous phenomenon happened and I got back a copy of my CV from the hinterlands of don’t-ask-me-where. For the next few hours of my life, I sat there wide eyed, looking at the wreckage from a disaster movie my CV looked like.

It started with a very confused-looking (also known as boka boka in Bengali) picture of mine (who gives their pictures in CVs?) with that desperate look on my face, begging to come to the US. What was I thinking, they would take one look at my beautiful face and let me in? Then came the information no one cared about. Address. Telephone number. Father’s name. Ancestral property’s location. Name of the first pet. Some of these are exaggerated of course, but I will leave it to you to figure it out. What, were they going to write me letters? The next “ahem” part was, well, “Sex: Female”. It seems I did not have the distinction between sex and gender back then, but more importantly, who cared? I am impressed I did not mention caste, mother tongue native language, and the name of ancestral village.

Then came the “Biographical Information”, which was fine I guess, but for the parenthesis that said, “In reverse chronological order”. Yeah, as if the order mattered, and more importantly, as if it was rocket science to figure out what order things were in. Of course, every institution I attended had to be listed with the “marks obtained”, because how can one trust the transcripts of my great university, assuming the transcripts reached them on time? Then started the actual meat of the CV thankfully, institutions attended, random projects undertaken, with the mention of everything, from killing a mosquito in the lab to growing bacteria on abandoned lunch from last week. Even things like “had 95% attendance in class”, “recited nursery rhymes 28 years ago”, “sung a song on Teachers’ Day”, or “could eat during class without getting caught” found an apt place in the CV. Then there were awards and accolades. “Stood 10^th out of 20 innumerable students in ICSE”, “won awards in debates and calligraphy” (who cares?), or “sat through boring seminars” would find a place as well. If only the keyboard had not taken over pen and paper, my calligraphy skills would have found me a great job in the industry. If this was not insult enough to my academic achievements (or the lack of it), there would be a separate section dedicated to extracurricular activities, because being a house caption, an indispensible member of the sewing club, writing rhyming poems, singing songs on Tagore’s birth day, or anchoring soporific events should also count. Not to mention learning 10,000 words from Barron’s, or writing research reports that would never see the light of the publisher’s shop.

Whether I like it or not, this will be an indelible part of what I was. It took years of grooming, feedback, and doing some actual research to build my credentials in the field, and to evolve as a professional. To put it differently, the present me is because that was the past me. I looked at my old CV with a mixture of both love and hatred. Is this who I used to be? Desperate to get recognition even for a seminar I attended and slept through? Or collecting chunks of tiger poop in the name of a scat encounter survey study? Was I hoping my experience with being a part of the nature club, or having a good handwriting was about to get me admitted into a good school?

Yeah, I know we all have to start somewhere, and build from there. Just that early men did not have that polish doesn’t mean they were any less successful in their environment. However, call me smug, arrogant, thankless, whatever, but it doesn’t hurt to make fun of thy own once in a while. Except that 10 years down the line, I would be reading my current CV and laughing again. “Went to Vancouver B.C. to attend a talk on the mating habits of the Hominidae family”. Who cares?

sunshine

“First Hand” writings

I finally received the official invitation letter from my friend in Germany for the Schengen visa. Not that I needed an invitation to visit Germany, but the consulate surely did, and that too a letter in original. No scanned or emailed letters would do. Ordinarily, I would frown upon anyone reading letters personally addressed to me. But in this case, I let it go. Friends told me I should focus on more important things like dreaming about the Eiffel Tower and fantasizing about Italian men. So that’s precisely what I am doing as a part of the pre-trip warm up.

Anyway the envelope seemed a few grams heavier, and as I emptied the contents of the envelope, I found a nice picture postcard of Germany with a few lines scribbled for me.

I smiled to myself, because I wasn’t really used to people, especially men, doing such nice things. A simple, yet a wonderful gesture. I held the postcard for a while, feeling great that it had travelled all the way from Germany to reach me. I was tempted to do a DDLJ style Amrish Puri stunt, smelling the letter and all, “Dekh, Germany se chitthi aayi hai” !!! But Bollywood has overdone this stunt, with Amrish Puri in DDLJ smelling the cow dung-infested mitti (soil) of vatan (motherland), Pankaj Udhas bellowing the harmonium to “chithhi aayi hai aayi hai” and Bhagyasree in Maine Pyar Kiya smelling the white pigeon-poop letter from the “Kabootar ja ja ja”.

I was reminded of those nice moments when I opened an envelope to see something nicely scribbled. My friend sent me a copy of my TOEFL scores last month with a nicely written “All the best for the visa” note. Sometime back, a friend from New Mexico had invited me to the balloon festival with a small note scribbled at the back of a New Mexico picture postcard. Things have mellowed down a lot ever since emails happened, else back in school and college, we wrote dozens of pages to our best friends, pouring our hearts and writing about everything- crazy physics teachers, flames and crushes, gossip, breakup woes, just about anything. There was a time I could easily recognize the handwriting of each of my friend. The same happened when I taught and graded papers and copies in school. But now that I write this, I realize with a sadness that I will not be able to recognize the handwritings of most of my close friends, thanks to the age of emails.

The most nightmarish of times were when I was expected to scribble something in Bengali, usually while writing to my grand mother. Mother would write letters and leave me a small space for me to say a hi. It would eventually be the “tumi kemon aacho, ami bhalo aachi, amar pronam niyo” drill (how are you, I am fine, regards). You should see my Bengali writing. The alphabets are as huge as rocks. I would start in Bengali and eventually shift to English after a few lines. This happens till date. My occasional letters in Bengali go like, “Kemon aacho? Ami bhalo. Achcha now I will shift to English….”

Anyway, every once in a while, it’s nice to come across a nice handwriting, a nicely scribbled thought or even a few words. Emails don’t really have the flavor that hand written notes do. And as I write this, I realize it’s been years since I’ve held a pen to write on something that was not a visa/immigration form or a check book, thought of a few lines instantly and put it down on paper. We are not writers anymore, we have become typists. I try writing a few lines using the pen and my fingernails hurt. I need to use that key board and that printer less. The next time opportunity comes, I think I’d like to go back to doing things the old way- scribble a note, write the address, make a smiley, or if time and the strength of friendship permits, go back to writing those long letters ranting, bitching nagging, and pouring my heart out. And if nothing works out, I’ll just pick up a pen and write a few lines in the diary, or reciprocate with a reply picture postcard.

sunshine

Of unexpected meetings and unforgettable friendships

I met this friend for lunch today after a long time. How long has it been, umm …. roughly 7 years, 2 months, and 1 week. It was a little unnerving frankly, meeting someone after so long. Thanks to emails and the social networking sites, we were in touch on and off. But a meeting after 7 long years was something. I subconsciously kept tidying my hair and fiddling with my finger ring while waiting, wondering if the first expression after meeting would be that of shock or something more shocking.

So I waited at the bookstore nervously, the bookstore being a prominent location. I finally met him, and what a great meeting it was. Great food, good conversation flowing, but every now and then, I found myself drifting off to the past, wondering what a great amount of time had passed. Last I had seen him, he (and I) were students. He wore faded jeans, carried a guitar on his back, and had this easy going demeanor of a college going kid. I don’t know how he remembers me though, but I hope it’s not significantly different. Now he looked older and more mature. The guitar was gone, and so were the pair of jeans. Instead, there were formal office going clothes of a person who has been working for more than 5 years.

Over lunch, my friend asked me how life has been ever since we saw each other last. As I started to summarize and highlight the main events, I realized how much time has elapsed. I had finished college, spent 2 more years doing a masters, taught in a school for a year, moved to the US, got another degree, worked for another year, learnt to drive, learnt to live, got laid off, got into graduate school again, and come back to visit Kolkata. The world was round indeed. Everything had come back full circle. He too had finished school, taken flying lessons, flown planes, worked for 5 odd years, and had undergone some major changes.

It was a funny conversation, when he asked me what all I had done and seen in life. He asked me of a few remarkable experiences ever since I left Kolkata, and I could think of two. The first was my first flying experience when I spent an hour or so in the cockpit, the world flowing beneath my feet as we flew over Turkey. It was an unforgettable experience, more so because I did not see it coming. The second was my convocation day. I told him how I always envied the engineering or management graduates in India because they had convocations and I didn’t. So I was happiest during the convocation, not because I was done and was getting a degree, but because I could wear a gown and cap, saunter in a stadium full of people applauding, and pose for dozens of pictures.

Another interesting conversation ensued when he claimed he has used this time trying to figure out things in life, the philosophical questions people seek answers to but seldom get. He said he has looked for answers about life, happiness, and his purpose in life. When he asked me the same question, I wondered what I could say. Philosophical questions make me nervous. So I confidently claimed I have had it all figured out in life. He looked amused, wondering if I was serious. I reiterated that I have all the answers I needed from life, about life, happiness, and purpose. Now for a person who is usually confused choosing between a Lufthansa flight or an Air India flight, anyone who knows me would know it was a white lie. But honestly, I have never looked for answers that are not there in text books, Wikipedia, or Google. I’d rather figure out how much salt to put to make that omelet taste just right than wonder what’s the purpose of my creation and what I am doing stuck in planet Earth.

Trivial conversation about this and that ensued and time flew before I realized. It was time to say goodbye, since the lunch break was already extended. My parting thoughts were a little disconcerting. When you meet someone after every few months, or even a few years, you don’t realize how much time has elapsed in between. But when you meet someone after 7 years, you realize with alarming intensity how much you’ve grown old since the last time. The great thing is I didn’t think I’ll get to meet my friend after the last time, since we went our separate cities and ways in life. So a meeting even after 7 years felt good. The bad thing is I now don’t know when I will meet him again.

This trip to Kolkata has been remarkable in a way because I got to meet so many friends after years. Most of them, I wasn’t sure if I’ll ever meet (again).

sunshine

Things you notice when you visit India: Part 2

The list is endless, but I will try to list a few every now and then.

Old doesn’t seem gold anymore. Your old clothes that mommy had so nicely preserved for you, neatly washed and starched, fit you no more. There are dozens of expensive clothes you wore years ago and could not take along with you to the US due to weight restrictions that just refuse to contain you with all your substance. Your ex-wardrobe (as I call it) that you took so much pride in becomes a living mockery for you. Those colorful bandhni print clothes you wore, those skimpy tops you hid in between decent Indian clothes and wore them only after dad left for office, those hip hugging skirts that accentuated your curves have a lot more to hug these days. You try to hold on to the clothes (in vain) resolving that someday you’ll make yourself fit into them. But soon you realize that’s not happening and you have only eaten more and put on more weight out of frustration. Imagine how depressing it was donating an entire wardrobe of carefully chosen and loved clothes to others just because you don’t fit into them anymore.

The other self-mocking situation arises when you see your old pictures around you. Your mother, out of love or whatever she felt while she missed you, has hung dozens of your pics on the walls, by the bed frames, and in every conceivable corner of the house. The family albums are full of your pictures. You sift through them and realize you no longer look the same you once used to. Yes those were the days when you had less money and almost zilch sense of style or makeup, but you were thin and young and vivacious and had more voluminous hair crowning your head. You looked happy and zealous, full of energy and vitality. The hairline has receded since, the waistline has exceeded, and other lines have appeared on your face. You realize with shock that you have grown older and out of shape. I don’t say this happens to everyone, but this has been my story so far. I look at all the old pics with fondness and nostalgia, even the ones less than 5 years old when I was still in college, and realize how much I have changed for the worse. Of course the realization hits you harder when you bump into old pals while walking on the streets. They would surely make it a point to remind you, though not in as many words, how old and fat and unkempt and haggard you look since they last saw you.

Ever since I’ve been back to Kolkata, I’ve started to realize all the more how I have changed more than things have changed around me. I never thought dealing with the notion of getting older would be so hard when you visit home after so many years.

To be continued …

sunshine

Sunshine Is Sadness Today

My aunt in India passed away last night. Somewhere in her late fifties, in an advanced stage of cancer. Bereft of life support system. Mom sounded very upset, particularly since she happened to be one of her closer cousins. And I lay on my bed in the darkness and listened to her on the phone, so many happy memories from a different era drifting in front of me.

k

The trip we had to Orissa together. The way she always praised me saying what a good student I was. The onion pakoras and the goat meat curry she always made for me. The way she always chewed on betel leaves, leaving a distinct odor I always associated with her. My first badminton racket that she had gifted me in the seventh grade.

In the last few years that I have been here, so many members of my extended family have passed away. A couple of aunts and uncles, my grandfather’s brother and his wife, and a couple more. It is weird how mom would tell me on the phone, and I would lie on bed for an eternity, thinking of all those childhood memories, of the fun things we did together as family, of the trips we went to, of the family weddings we met at despite living far away, of those various pujas and religious festivals when we saw each other. The past, thankfully immutable, leaves me with these treasured memories while I realize that I will never see them in person again.

People like me who live thousands of miles away from the family will know what I am talking about. When we choose to be away from our families, we do so with the implicit understanding that there are people in our close and extended family whom we may never see again. We all know that death is coming, eventually. Yet we never seem to be prepared enough for it. 

My maternal grandparents, my only grandparents alive, are getting old. When I talk to them, I feel the helplessness in their voice, knowing well that they think they may never see me again. Even when my cool grandma updates me on the new bollywood movies (she is a big fan of bollywood), I cannot help but feel the uncertainty in her voice. I wish that they could visit me in the US someday. I wish I could go back and spend weeks with them, just like the good old days. Yet practicality expects us to move on with our lives, no matter how much we wish to change things.

It doesn’t matter how much I love my family, I know that they will not be there with me forever, and it is just a matter of time. What I absolutely hate is being informed on the phone, and then spending hours remembering the good old days, knowing that the dead will never come back. I know it is something I cannot change, but the pain of living away from family shall never leave me.

You will be missed, very dearly.

sunshine

Calendars.

I was skimming through the newspapers while waiting for the food to warm up in the office microwave when my eyes fell on a bunch of calendars with the departmental name and logo neatly imprinted. And while my food warmed, I was transformed back to my childhood days for the next couple of minutes, to be interrupted only by the beep of the microwave.

Calendars. Diaries. Every January saw our homes piled up with these two things. In fact, I am still fond of collecting diaries, and it broke my heart to leave dozens of them never written on back at home when I moved here. But calendars are a different thing altogether. It used to be great watching the old ones from the walls vanish, to be replaced by new pictures. The worship room had that single paged huge Dey’s medical calendar every Bengali home wall must have had. The holiday dates would be marked in red, with the huge cross logo right in the middle of the page. And then every neighborhood mistanna bhandar (sweet shop) used to gift the usual smaller calendars with the photo of Ma Kali. The designs, photos, and the fonts changed every year, but the subject always remained the same- either Ma Kali, Thakur Ramkrishna Paramhansa, or Baba Loknath.

But then, dad used to get a totally different kind of calendar from his workplace. Scenery. Birds and flowers and bees. Great photography. Pics of sea coasts and sunsets and the ripples on the water. The picture of a bee on a flower with every yellow and black stripe on the bee’s abdomen distinct. Then there were snow mountains and forests. Those were the kinds where at the end of the year, I took a pair of scissors and went snip snip, cutting all the pictures I liked and collecting them neatly. Not Ma Kali or Baba Loknath, but pictures of the Eiffel Tower and the Florida beaches and the jungles of Africa. What more, they made excellent paper to cover books. So while I hated history in school, I made sure that the best pic of my favorite flower was used to cover the history text book. I guess that kind of made me less averse to touching my book every day.

The one I was holding in the office kitchen had every message written all over it- about conserving forests and protecting nature and aiming for a cleaner environment. Who uses calendars these days by the way? With the advent of mobile phones and Google calendars, who even needs to flip through the pages of a calendar to see what day was it the 15th of the last month?

But then, even now when I see a stack of free calendars somewhere, the heart somersaults in joy and the hand feels like picking up a copy for myself. They never really make their way to the walls, they just get lost somewhere in between the pile of books and newspapers. But somehow, someway, it brings back all the childhood excitement of flipping through the pages, to find one new picture every month. The only difference is, I no longer collect or hold on to the pictures at the end of the year. I just go get myself a new calendar.

sunshine.