On my best friend’s wedding.

http://www.pringoo.com/custom-designs/Friends-friends/did-11306/mid-1/ppid-24

When I say my best friend of twenty five years got married, one would imagine that this other best friend of the best friendship in question, looked gorgeous in the wedding. Perfectly draped silk walkalam, perfect nails, pretty make up, sexy heels, charming, smiling and greeting everyone with perfect grace.

And I so did not live up to that pretty image.

Throughout the wedding I was running around like the mad hatter. Tucking her saree, looking for a pin, holding her veil, wiping her kajal, wiping her sweat (in January!!!), picking up flowers that fell from her pretty bun (she had about eight carnations and three roses in her hair on her wedding day!), snatching gifts from her hands as soon as they were given to her, shooing off unnecessary relatives and friends, checking for safety pins poking in unusual places (hers not mine), wiping her sweat (did I tell you she had a winter wedding!!), frowning furiously at the Pandit who kept on pouring ghee in a roaring fire, making her wear a saree, folding her clothes, counting and tucking away her jewellery, packing the gifts, getting her water, feeding her, taking her phone calls, doing the screaming for her, covering her in a blanket, putting her to sleep, sneaking her a drink when she needed it and occasionally reminding myself to breathe.

When she left there were too many people who were too eager to hug her and bless her. I saw her later, with her helpless eyes puffed up and all I could do was to pat her back, wipe off the kajal which ran along with her tears and let her walk into a mass of unknown people waiting to welcome her. I couldn’t see her at all when she walked into her in laws place. There were new people who tried to make her smile. I walked in last with two other friends with her bags stuffed with comfort clothes and the comfort night suit and the strawberry flavored lip balm and the tattered sweater that she needed at night and her good luck charms that the new people did not know about. I waited in the corner of the room and bit my nails off looking at the ones who were trying very hard to make her comfortable. I just saw her once when I had to leave and say goodbye. I left her crying and a small packet of soft tissues to help her wipe all that eye make up when needed.

A day later at her reception, I saw someone else helping her throughout. Tucking in her saree with safety pins, making sure her hair was alright and wiping her sweat when she got too nervous. Someone else sat beside her receiving gifts and getting her water to drink. I mingled with others, did my share of catching up with acquaintances and wondered if she was alright. I didn’t see her the whole night. Just before I left, I went looking for her and saw her standing lost in an empty room. I hugged her and let her cry.

It was hard to watch her getting married, you know. It was like a part of me had to let go of her. In what way and why I cannot explain. I don’t know why I died every time I saw her crying her eyes out over those four days. I don’t know why I looked upon her in laws, whom she had already known for eight whole years, as complete strangers. I guess I wanted to protect her, cry with her, sit beside her, hug her and smile with her all at once. When I look back I don’t remember much about my chipped nail paint, my mismatched make up, my clumsily draped saree and my spectacular absence in photo ops. But. I do remember being there when she needed to be held, I remember watching her smile, I remember what she hurriedly whispered into my ear right before she got married, I remember how she looked sitting in the make up studio restlessly twitching her fingers.

And being the very best of friends for twenty five years now, I don’t think I could have asked for anything more.

Edited to add later: This post was written on Feb 22, 2010. Was lying in my drafts folder. I was hunting some snaps of her wedding to put up to realize that I had not taken even one picture during her wedding. *Sigh*

My entry for Blogadaa’s Friends Forever Contest.

On Calcutta.

Mild winter breeze. Grey skies.

Overbearing crowds.

Traffic snarls. The eight minute wait at a traffic light.

The bells of cycle rickshaws. And the horns.

The CNG autos. The low floored buses.

The mouth watering rasogolla at the neighbourhood sweet shop.

The familiar smell of warm toast in the morning. The tinkle of a spoon against a tea cup. “You still prefer black?”

The endless fish curries. The waiting for biriyani.  The mutton rolls.

The plans changed. Times not kept.

The doorbell ringing in the morning. “Didi, aajkey oi baari tey ki hoyechhey jano? ” (“Do you know what happened in the other house this morning?”)

The news bulletins on Jyoti Basu. The heated discussions on politics, ideals and beliefs.

The new literature festival. The book fair missed.

Smiles, laughters.

The walks around a park. The life that seems a little troubled. A friend’s shoulder. A patient hearing.

Evenings spent with relatives. Neighbor’s lives. Gossip. Smirks. Laughters again.

Shawls and sarees. Kashmir emporium. New Market.

Sitting by the side of a mighty river. Staring out into the open.

Dreams had. Deams lost.

Peace. Home. Hope.

Heartache. Soulmate. Best friend.

Calcutta.

On October so far.

It’s a very lonely Friday afternoon.

I am at work. I am staring at a blank document with a blank mind. All I can hear are the sounds of the relentless typing on the keyboard, my colleagues speaking in low voices, phones ringing and the fans rotating furiously as if trying to defeat the cool air of the air conditioners. I have papers on my desk, a blue pen without a cap, a half eaten bar of chocolate and the cold bottle of water. I lean back on my red chair and wonder what makes me so melancholic today.

Maybe it is because autumn has finally arrived in Delhi. That the sun has mellowed down and breeze is more soothing. That the trees are looking livelier and basking in their gorgeousness one last time before winter comes. Or maybe because I miss the fall in New York City. Where nature turns a shade of fierce orange and red and the chill in the air brings in endless mugs of hot coffee. Where people sit out longer and have dinner to savor the last few days of fall weather. Or maybe because I miss October in Calcutta. I miss the feeling of Durga Puja being over, the familiar feeling of approaching Kali Pujo and Bhaiphnota, the trips to Vivekananda Park for fuchkas. October used to bring the sunlight in my small balcony back home where Ma used to put the blankets out for sunning one last time before winter arrived.

Or maybe I am missing some romance. I am missing holding hands with R and walking around in the park and having dinner at an open air restaurant.

Whatever it is, it is a subtle and joyful but melancholic feeling. I miss the vibrant colors of New York City, I miss the soulfulness of Calcutta, but here in my comfortable New Delhi apartment, I can sit quietly in the balcony and stare at the vast October sky.

It’s a gorgeous month, October is. Isn’t it?

PS- If you want to read a better post on a happy October, do visit this blog. This is one of my favorite posts ever!

Edited to add later- I read Suchismita’s post after writing this and then I was wondering whether I should post something so similar. On second thoughts, I did.

Dear Readers,

At the outset, my apologies. I have not been writing and I am sorry about that. My blog has many regular readers and for that I am grateful. Such long absence without any explanation is unfair. And thank you, for checking on my blog. It feels good not to be deserted in trying times.

After much thinking as to how I should go about writing this post, I decided to design a tag for myself. This tag, I have concluded, would allow me to organize my thoughts into neat little paragraphs in a question answer fashion which would also make it reader friendly. Because, there is quite a bit I want to write.

So here goes-

Where have you been?

Here. Right here. Shuttling between Delhi and Gurgaon. I haven’t taken any break, haven’t gone on a vacation. And this is really not a “come back” post because I never really “went away”.

Have you missed the blog?

Terribly. I have thought about writing every single day every hour of every day.

If you were not blogging what were you upto?

I have recently switched jobs. The travel time is a killer, work is stressful and deadlines now rule my life. But I love it, I love every moment of it. This is what I have been wanting to do for so long. And it is so worth the wait, the insane daily commute and the over bearing deadlines!

Did you forget it was Pujo in between? No nostalgia this time?

I did not forget it was Pujo. Definitely, definitely did not. I whined in plenty about not being in Calcutta, about missing my friends, about missing pandal addas, about not being able to see my city decked up and happy.

But, but. My mother arrived as Saptami evening as did R. And with them around my first Pujo in Gurgaon went much better that I had expected it to be. We did the Shondhi Pujo anjali, the Nabami anjali and went pandal hopping on Ashtami night. We also gorged on biriyani, fish fry, fish and mutton chops. I wore my crisp new sarees and felt a tiny part of the Pujo madness that takes over Calcutta this time of the year.

This was my sixth Pujo away from you. For the last five years I hadn’t heard the dhaak and I hadn’t offered anjali. This year my yearning soul found solace. I heard the dhaak on Ashtami night during Shandhi Pujo. As I offered  pushpanjali that night and on Nabami morning, I stood in the familiar smell of incense sticks, amidst the organized chaos, passed around the baskets of flowers, accepted shantir jol and prosaad and murmured the Sanskrit slokas with everyone around. I cried out of sheer joy and happiness.

Alright. Then?

Then. Nothing much happened. Ma is here for a while and I have given up on getting any chinta of any sort. I have left everything to her. I still do some regular things but just her presence makes everything so much easier!

R is away. In another country. He will be back on Sunday but will be leaving right the next day for another city. But that’s alright. I have sent him a list of things I want and as long as he is getting those for me, he will be spared.

Is anything bothering you?

Yes. A couple of things.

Issue 1-

This morning I notice on the first page of TOI that Karan Johar has had to apologise to Raj Thackrey for referring to “Mumbai” as “Bombay” in his new movie Wake up Sid. Apparently the sentiments of Marathi people (Marathi manoos, as they are referred to now) have been gravely hurt.

Gravely hurt, my foot.

I have been in Maharashtra for five years of my life. I have called Pune my second home. I yearn to go back to that city and get a little bit of my college life back. I have also spent a lot of time in Bombay. And I love that city for everything it is and everything it is not. Maharashtra is as dear to me as it is to anyone else in this country.

But no. Raj Thackrey in a national interview the other day proclaimed that it is fine for people from other states to “visit” Maharashtra but why should they stay on in HIS Maharashtra. Also note that he was giving the interview on national television (CNN IBN, with Rajdeep Sardesai) in Marathi. It is fine if you want to give an interview in Marathi if you have difficulty with other languages. But, Raj Thackrey, the revered one, said that even though Hindi IS the national language (and Sardesai was speaking in Hindi and he is a Maharshtrian) it is not HIS language and he would communicate only in Marathi because it is HIS language. And other people of the nation (his own nation which I think he forgot) should make an attempt to understand what he is saying. He did not hesitate in using English though, in the interview.

Tell me, how does it matter? When terror struck Bombay (and yes, I love saying Bombay as opposed to Mumbai) every single Indian all over the world stood united. Every single person prayed, everyone stayed glued to the television and I’ll be damned if anyone said “Oh! That’s a problem with Maharashtra”.

Just when you think, that emancipation is coming, the all emancipated Raj Thackrey takes a one eighty degree turn and takes you back to the time when kings and emperors were  busy aggressively defending their kingdoms.

Issue 2-

The other day I read an interview of Chitrangada Singh in the front page of Delhi Times, wherein she said that she just does not understand how her good friend Shiney Ahuja and other people who have not been convicted of a crime are being kept in jail when they have not been proven to be guilty of their crimes.

I am hoping that Chitrangada Singh, who did Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi, is more intelligent than that.

Going by her logic, Kasab (I don’t need to explain who he is) should also be freed. Nothing has been proved against him. He is an accused. That’s all.

Sigh! I am going to pass this as a blonde moment of Chitrangada Singh. I am sure she will do better.

Issue 3-

The Delhi heat is killing me. It is the end of September and the sun still rages in sky with no hint of mellowing down. So dear Lord, I am ready for the winters now. I want to sip a cup of hot chocolate with pakoras and wrap myself up in a quilt from head to toe and watch a good movie.

So you haven’t written at all?

I did manage to write a story for Sa at the last moment. I missed the deadline but they have been very generous for publishing it. You can read it here.

I also have some reports of some seminars and conferences, which I am sure none of you are interested in. May God bless your souls.

Now what?

Right now, I am in the car feeling feverish and going back home from work. On reaching home, I will throw my bag on the sofa and collapse  right next to it. Mom is going to get me some tea and biscuits. She will then do lakshmi pujo at home. After which we will eat luchi, alu fulkopi and begun bhaja. Thereafter I shall take the hot water bag, stuff it under my lower back and catch up on some much needed sleep. That’s all.

One last question. Would you be disappearing often like this?

I don’t want to. And now that I have learnt to utilize my travel time effectively for reading and writing, I am hoping that there won’t be such a long absence again.

Anything else you want to say?

Yes. It feels good to be back. Thank you all for reading and asking me to write soon. It worked!

I think this tag has very efficiently summarized my activities over the last few weeks.

Having said that, I would like to tag M to do this since she hasn’t been writing and I have not been nagging enough. So M, take this as an official nag and get this done. It’s not too difficult.

Also, anyone who has been absent from the blogosphere for too long and is having difficulty in putting down everything, please feel free to take this up and change it as per your requirements.

Of a bad dinner and terrible cravings

I have had an awful dinner. But that’s not the worst part. That bad dinner has left me craving for the following, none of which I can have for sometime now.

Luchi

Kosha Mangsho

Alur Chop

And yes, I am the self confessed quintessential hungry hippo. I am the one who lives to eat. And I cannot take my eyes off that Kosha Mangsho.

Anyone in the mood for offering some comfort to a hungry soul?

Snippets from a CCU-DEL flight

First scenario- Smiling KF air hostess distributing Times of India and Indian Express

“Sir, paper for you?”

“Yes.”

“Which one would you prefer? Times of India or the Indian Express?”

“Aajkal*”

“Sorry Sir?”

“No Bengali paper?” accompanied by arched eyebrows.

“No Sir. We have Times of India and Indian Express.”

“But flight is from Calcutta. No Telegraph also?”. Arched eyebrows prevailing large.

“Sorry Sir, but we have only these two.”

“You must at least keep The Telegraph.” Arched eyebrows replaced by a teacher-student tone.

“Yes, Sir. In the meanwhile would you like Times…”

“No, no.”

Followed by a “Tssst” and a rather deep sigh.

Second scenario- Same smiling airhostess offering breakfast

“Sir, some vegetable upma for you?”

“No. Non veg”

“Sorry Sir. We are offering only vegetarian today.”

“Why?” (Look of utter surprise) “I have given non-veg option while booking the flight.”

“Sorry Sir. There is only vegetarian food for breakfast today.”

At this point the wife tugs at the gentleman’s sleeves. “Shunchho niye nao. Eta chhara aar kicchu debey na. (Listen please take it. They will not give us anything else.)”

Scenario three- Above mentioned wife opens the fruit cup

“E ma! Aam dey ni! Iiissh! Baaje flight ekta. Porer baar ticket ta dekhey keto. “(Oh no! They haven’t given any mangoes! Terrible flight this is. Next time, be careful before you book tickets.)”

This co-passenger, in the meanwhile, had to bite her hand to keep herself from laughing.

But, ahem, here is the deal.

You have a flight full of Bongs. From Calcutta. You have Calcutta Bongs on board. This is one species that thrives on fish. And chicken. And kochi pnatha (tender lamb). On very bad days the Bongs make egg curry to compensate the lack of proper non-veg in their diet. Langda** appears during dinner every night throughout summer. And every other family in Calcutta reads The Telegraph. In fact, I am quite sure that had my dad been on this flight, he would have grabbed both TOI and Indian Express and then asked for The Telegraph.

And by the way, I did cast that “No non-veg?” look when they offered the upma. I personally would have preferred The Telegraph for its crossword. And I would have definitely been happier with mangoes in my fruit cup. The pineapple was gooey anyways.

So, if you will excuse me now, I will go and get my dinner of fish curry and rice. And then R is going to slice the lovely langda we got from Calcutta. Which shall be followed by the  gur-*** er sandesh****.

Sigh! Talk about living to eat.

*A popular Bengali daily.

**A type of mango.

***Jaggery

****Typical Bengali sweet.

Of Pujo and missing Kolkata

I sit here in my New York apartment nursing a steaming mug of brewed coffee and looking wistfully at the low clouds outside. My slightly opened window tells me that the wind outside is gushing. And its cold. The kind of cold that stings your eyes. And makes your nose run.

My city, the city of Kolkata doesn’t have that kind of cold. Especially not this time of the year. Now is the time for blue skies and the soft white clouds, notwithstanding the occasional showers. And a faint smell of sandalwood incense sticks throughout the air. The sound of drums, “dhaak”, as I would say in a very Bengali way. The mouth watering “khichudi”. The crisp new clothes laid out on someone’s bed. Crowded streets, happy faces and those silly looking balloons. Traffic jams and constant honking. Food from the street, coffee from Barista. Some feet inpretty sandals and some in worn rubber slippers. Tired feet. Drunk feet, happy feet, strong feet. Crowds jostling, screaming and some children in bright orange shirts playing that annoying cheap trumpets sold by the road side. Doesn’t matter.

Its Pujo.

Its just a matter of five days. Five days in my city. The most joyous five days in my city. The five days when my city dresses up, puts on some make up and spreads her arms a little wider to take in the maddening crowd. Five days of energy bubble that bursts only after rueful “Dashami”. Five hardest days to spend away from home. And somehow the five happiest.

For someone like me who shivers in the NY chill and spends her “Ashtami” evening staring in a coffee mug, there will always be a lump in the throat with every thought of the Pujo. The idol, the flowers, the lights, the scent, the chaos and the silly smiles.

It will be over tomorrow. I would have spent yet another Pujo away from home. And I would pray, yet again, the nest time around I be with my family. At home. If not, well, there would the coffee mug, some tears and the strange feeling of peacefulness looking at “Durga Thakur” in one of the weekend Pujos.