This, That and Some More

A few years back, a lady named China worked for me in the capacity of domestic help. When she joined I asked her why she was named after a country. Her answer was that when she was born, nobody wanted her so the name China (meaning "not wanted" in Bengali) stuck. She told me her real name as well but I can’t seem to remember it now. China had this immense need in her to feel wanted and that showed up in her sphere of work as well. She used to pamper us with all kinds of good food and later she sought out the attention of my neighbors by preparing all sorts of delicacies for them - without my approval. Soon my monthly grocery supplies started to diminish at the speed of light. So I decided it was time for her to leave. She was politely given a one way ticket to Calcutta and asked not to return. The lure of money is too hard to resist and apparently cooks are in short supply in Mumbai. She came back and has been living and working in the area I live for quite some time. My curr...

Life and its polarities have always been topics of debates and discussions. What is good and what is bad dominates almost every aspect of our existence. Man is always attracted or curious about the "bad" while the "good" is just normal and boring. Prostitution has always been considered one of the evils of society, the ladies or girls are labeled as "bad" along with a wide vocabulary of phrases to describe their "fallen state". I was as curious as the normal average human being about these ladies who wear garish make up and gaudy clothes and stand on some bridges of Kolkata in daylight as well as early dark. I used to see them while going to Alipore and there used to be a queer silence in the car with some odd whispers saying "Look at them" while others turned their heads in the opposite direction in an attempt to shut out the seamier sides of the society from their lives. I was told that Kolkata has these "pick up points" in ...

I am a Hindu by birth, a Brahmo by marriage, I feel close to Islam and connected to Christianity yet I have never been religious, I believe in God and that for me is enough. I have lit a candle at a church, offered a chaddar at a mosque, I tied threads in a dargah and I have rung a bell at a temple, most of my experiences have been due circumstances or my curiosity to see the place. My first experience was when I went to Jharkhand with a group of friends; the trip in itself will need another long post which I will write later. We decided to do some trekking and found the hill on which a famous Jain Pareshnath temple was situated to be an ideal location. Right below the hill was a Digambar Jain monastery where we had to stop to attend to nature calls. We turned beetroot red with embarrassment at the sight of near total nudity of the senior male residents. We kept our eyes strictly focused on the way to the wash rooms which were incredibly dirty) and once done marched out with our eye...

India, a country with an ancient heritage and culture which is thousands of years old, a country which has many thousands of languages, in some way or another derived from Sanskrit and yet ironically we don’t have a language to unite our country. Hindi has been announced as the language that will unite India. It is mandatory to learn Hindi in schools but we often come across instances where people from other the eastern or southern parts of India can barely understand it. If the region has a high infiltration of Bollywood films then there may be some hope but down south where the influences of Bollywood have been firmly kept away due to a strong south Indian film industry, chances of people knowing Hindi is almost remote. In most schools down south, children are allowed to carry books and consult each other during the Hindi exam while the person 'on watch' kindly looks the other way, which of course is not the case for other subject exams. If you are a tourist in Tamil Nadu the...

Bidding farewell to tooth fairies in my thirties is probably a little late in the day as I should have done that when I was 10 or eleven as that is the time by when one looses all one's milk teeth. My one particular canine was rather reluctant to part with me so it stayed on refusing to budge as the years went by. In the process the suppressed canine protested and violently pushed up my fourth incisor on the right hand side, leaving me with one crooked tooth, a flawed smile and a general bad feeling about my appearance. The dentist gave me a wire brace in my teens which suppressed the crooked tooth for a while but it reared its ugly head (or is it face?) once my mouth outgrew the brace. The dentist maintained a stoic silence in front of a desperate teen, who had to flash pretty smiles at men but could not. He asked me to accept my crooked smile and said that it adds character to my smile! D'uh. The guys definitely didn't think so - no one said I have a pretty smile so far a...

I guess it’s a strange way to refer to my Kaka (Uncle) but it describes it the best. Jotu as he was known in the family, parts of the family also called him Lal Mama, because he was fair skinned and had pink cheeks, lived in Germany for almost his entire life. Some of his initial years were spent in Lucknow scraping through educational institutions after which he went to Germany to pursue further studies - at that time many Bengalis opted for the erstwhile West Germany to pursue further studies. From whatever family conversations I had heard about Jotu Kaka, studies were the last thing on his mind in Germany, blessed with good looks and oodles of charm, he was probably busier pursuing ladies rather than higher education. One particular lady - a very pretty lady named Uta managed to stop his wild ways and domesticated him. As the family lore goes, Jotu Kaka lied to Uta Kakima about his age, wooed her and finally married her. He was about 12 years older than Uta but claimed he was just 2...

I was checking with a colleague who has just moved from Mumbai to Kolkata and this is what he had to say about Mumbai and Kolkata brokers. I hope you all find this entertaining and in the meanwhile let me rack my brains how to rid myself of this darned writers block. I seem to be having rather long continous spells these days or was my 'writing' phase just a passing phase I wonder... " Just an example of the difference I am finding between the two places – “I met my broker for house hunting today. He is a 70 year young man with big black spectacles, dressed in dhoti and a kurta and greets me as “Kaimon ache babu?” and takes me around tree lined lanes of lake garden in a cycle rickshaw humming a old Bengali tune. He shows me 6 houses within 1 hour and manages to sit for tea with one of the landlord, a ‘bhadralok’, who forces me to have a cup too even if I am not keen to rent his house and discusses about the working culture in banks nowadays and whether Obama or Clinton wil...

Winter is the season for parties, family get togethers and picnics and so we even joined the hordes who set out of Kolkata to the outskirts in search of some open spaces, good times and of course good food. Lorries and buses full of screaming or singing adults and children are quite a common sight. The caterers follow with food to feed a small army for the rest of the day. One boiled egg, two slices of buttered bread and one banana is breakfast which is usually distributed to all in whatever mode of transport the revelers travel in. Inspired by this age old custom, even we packed neat boxes with the above. Lunch was purchased and packed in individual packets the previous night which comprised of luchi, alu'r dom, nolen gurer mishti, macher chop, one plastic spoon and one napkin (English translations would be pointless!). We set off to a place near Diamond Harbor - Radisson Fort was conveniently located there in case we feel the need for amenities and ambience. The Tata sumo was equ...