A jeans and t-shirt kind of girl

I was home for Pujo this year, after six long years. Leaving the pandal after Anandamela, I saw a young girl entering with her family. She must have been 6 or 7 years old, and was wearing one of those really shiny frocks that continue to popular with girls that age. And I couldn't help but exclaim at her:

Such a lovely dress! I always wanted one of those, but was never given one.

She grinned shyly, and the mother just rolled her eyes.

It's true, I did always want one of those dresses. I don't know why I did - they're nothing like me, or what I usually like (or liked!) to wear. As an adult, I didn't start wearing skirts and dresses regularly till just a couple of years ago. I've always been a jeans and t-shirt kind of girl - except for when I was in a salwar kameez and a fabulous dupatta.

A large part of it was I very much dislike the idea of giving up comfort for looking good, but some of it was I think because of how the mother dressed me. She tended to dress me in jeans most of the time when I was a kid, because she thought I looked smart, and I had no problem with this state of affairs because it meant I could run around and play Crystal Maze and G.I. Joe to my heart's content.

This article came my way this afternoon, and broke my heart a little. A nine-year-old girl was denied Communion by her school because her fashion-loving sense said she should wear a snazzy suit for the occasion, and the powers that be at the school wanted her to wear a skirt or a dress.

There are two incidents from my childhood that are seared into my memory. The first, from when I was 7 or 8 years old, was a little more innocent, I think. I was playing with a friend, and I think it was Ghar-Ghar, and we were deciding who would be the wife and who would be the husband. She insisted I should be the husband, because "you always dress in pants anyway." I remember feeling startled and wondering why that mattered.

The other occasion has bothered me for far longer. I was four or five years old, and it was our school's annual Song Day, or whatever it was called, where we all lined up in rows and made to sing some song. My mother had bought me this lovely woolen jumpsuit for the occasion, which was white with a colourful pattern, and was the most comfortable thing ever. I reached school, and went to the area where my classmates were collecting. The teacher's help for our class looked at me and exclaimed irritatedly, "Uff, why are you wearing this? Couldn't you have worn a dress like a normal girl?"

I don't think I had even noticed till that moment that I was the only girl who wasn't wearing a dress that day. I do know I hate every single photo of myself in that outfit.

It's possible that incident is why I always wanted a nice and pretty flowery dress to wear. I do know I hated wearing frocks, so it's entirely possible that if I had been given one of those, I would have worn it exactly once. Kind of like what I do with saris today.

That incident didn't change how I dressed. It didn't make me care more about clothes, or worry about whether I'm dressed up enough. I continue to be the person who dresses a lot more simply than most people around me - to the point where my outfits for weddings and other social events are almost always criticized for being too simple.

But that incident did stay with me for far longer than it should have. And I hope that doesn't happen to this girl.

We may have to prepone that

I can't remember how old I was when this happened, but at some point in my childhood, the father came home and asked me, "Did you know prepone isn't a real word?!" Shock and awe was felt.


Turns out, he was interacting with a Japanese company at the time, and in the pre-Google days, they would take to the Oxford dictionary to make sure they understand every word of English written by the Indians. The word prepone, as it happens, was not listed in the dictionary. It was a perfectly appropriate word Indians had invented, which, in the decades since that conversation with my father has in fact been added to the Oxford Dictionary. Mirriam-Webster, on the other hand, still considers it a word they're "watching." And Blogger's spellcheck clearly doesn't recognise it.

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I have an American coworker who has worked in and with too many countries for his own good. He speaks Spanish fluently, and has huge German and Portuguese dictionaries sitting on his desk. He once spent several months in India on a project, and has opinions on several things about India as a result.


He sits close to my desk, and is able to hear a lot of my conversations at work, and observations about them frequently ensue (a favour I equally frequently return). He'll comment on how my voice automatically sounds more Indian if I'm talking to someone from the subcontinent, he'll chuckle at the first hint of a turn of phrase I might use that may not be native to the US (did y'all know "cribbing" is not a word Americans use?! They say grumbling, it seems), he finds it hilarious that Indian Standard Time has "that whole 30 minute thing going on" (so what if his country has half a dozen time zones, and an incomprehensible Daylight Savings thing that some states don't even follow), and he loves to talk about the words Indians have invented. Like prepone.


So this morning, I was on a conference call. I stayed on mute for the most part, but had a 30 second update to provide in the middle. As I finished my update, and went back on mute, he suddenly piped up.

You had the perfect opportunity to use the word prepone and you squandered it!

What? What did I say?

Didn't you just say you may have to move up something?

Yes, but...

Why would you not say prepone? This was the perfect time to use it and spread the use of the word!

I didn't think of...

You're becoming too American in the way you speak, that's what the problem is.

*gasp* I am not!

Maybe I am, y'all. This is very sad.
 

Of ants, souls, and stories that stick

When I was a kid, we lived across from a park, and often walked through when returning home from friends' houses, or the market. There were a lot of ant hills in this park, and I don't quite remember what prompted this, but my mother once told me that these ant hills are the homes of ants, and if you knock any of them over, even by mistake, those ants will hunt you down, and destroy your house. I don't think my mother was quite as graphic as this, and I have never bothered to find out if this is a true fact, but even today, some 20+ years later, I choose not to step on any ant hills should I see one, thank you very much.

When my brother was a kid (and I therefore a somewhat older and wiser kid), we visited the Kali Mandir in C R Park (and while looking up its exact name, I discovered it has a Wikipedia page all of its own). The brother and I were bored while the parents did their chatting-with-God thing, so I told the brother that the stones which have names written on them (dedicated by families of people who have died) have the souls of said deceased individuals trapped inside them. And therefore, while we need to walk all around the temple while waiting for the parents, we need to make sure we don't step on any stone that has a name on it. And so we did.

Some ten-odd years later, with the brother now a teenager, we visited Kali Mandir again. A lot more stones had been dedicated by now, resulting in hardly any blank stones left. I watched my brother stand in one spot and try to figure out how to go anywhere in the temple complex without stepping on the souls of some poor departed-from-this-world individual.

Whenever I go home next, I want to drag him there and see what he does at the age of 23.

What, man?

The mother and her younger brother have an age difference of about 7 years between them. One afternoon, when she was in college, the two of them were at the bus stop, waiting for a bus to take them home and away from the rain. A guy, standing nearby, kept staring at my mother. My uncle, at age 11 or 12, took offense and walked up to the guy and said, "What, man? Can't you see it's raining?"

Decades later, I was in my early teens when the brother and I were making our monthly visit to B.C. Roy's Children's Library in the car. I was sitting in front, giving a last read to the book I was about to return, and didn't really notice when we stopped at a traffic light. When the car started again, my 8-year-old brother piped up from the back seat, "Why were those men in the bus staring at you, Didi?" I shrugged and said I didn't know. "Well, I glared at them and then they stopped."

Protectiveness clearly runs in this family.

I can never say or hear the words "what, man" without bursting into giggles.

Memory lane

We were in high school together, the five of us. Some of us knew each other from Class 7 or 8, some came in when sections were reshuffled in Class 9. We became friends then, at any rate.

The group splintered again in Class 11, with some taking up Science, some Commerce. Some members of the "group" left the school and the city altogether, while some found new friends and moved away. The six of us remained friends however; new friends came, but didn't impinge on the six of us.

Plenty of high school drama happened in those last two years, some of which made me aloof enough to drop almost all ties once school ended. The one person who mattered the most disappeared, too shattered at not getting the course of her choice to want to continue old friendships. The others went down their own paths in life, as did I.

I made new friends in college, friends who got me a little better than they had, who tolerated me a bit more, who loved me, and who I loved a bit more than I had loved them.

We kept in touch, at least five of us did - one had never been too important to me, and disappeared from my life altogether once school ended. We kept in touch, the five of us, but not on a regular basis. We were in the same city, most of us, but would speak maybe twice or thrice a year. Meet even less frequently.

Life went on.

Two of them got married last year. On the same day. Not to each other though. I couldn't attend either wedding, because I couldn't travel to either city. Attended the reception in Delhi though.

We met today, the five of us. Plus his wife. Her husband wasn't there; he hadn't accompanied her to Delhi this trip.

For a while, for four hours on a Sunday afternoon, it was like nothing had changed. The guys teased me endlessly like they always did; I reacted like I always would. One girl was teased about the crush she used to have on him; another about the guy who used to like her. Countless anecdotes were recounted; several laughed over. The two married ones compared notes on adjusting to married life - she, about the compromises she had had to make; he, about the compromises he expected his wife to make. His wife listened, protested a bit, but mainly listened. The soon-to-be-married girl listened, wondering what adjustments she would have to make once she gets married later this year. I chose not to speak, no matter how much the feminist in me was outraged.

Not all battles need to be fought.

We don't really stay in touch, the five of us. Individual pairs, sure. But as a group? Not so much. We've all come a long way in the last eight years. We've all gone down very different paths. If I never met them again, my life would not be so very different.

But for a while, today, I met my 17-year-old self again. And I felt glad my life's taken the path it has.

We made it here

I started following cricket during the 1996 World Cup. The first match I ever watched was the quarter-final between India and Pakistan. We used to live just behind M-block market in G.K.-I those days, and I remember walking down to the market after the match with the father to buy paan. A Maruti 800 zoomed in out of nowhere, a guy stuck his head out of the window and yelled, "jeetega bhai jeetega," and the crowd which was loitering screamed back, "India jeetega." At 11, that scene made a permanent impression in my mind.

I don't know the technicalities of the game too well, even today. I have only recently really understood what LBW actually means. If you ask me to identify various fielding positions, I will stare blankly at you. I don't have a host of cricket-related trivia at my fingertips the way half my Twitter timeline does.

What I do have are a host of memories. Emotions. Images. Sounds.

Sachin and Saurav beating Pakistan in their opening partnership itself, Sachin outshadowing Saurav with his century. No idea which year this was - is it the Sharjah one people keep going #youremember over?

The 1999 World Cup, where Sachin had to go back home midway and then returned to hit a century in his first match back. And Ganguly, my beloved, hitting 183 in Taunton.

Yuvraj and Kaif bursting out of nowhere at Lords. You remember Saurav for taking off his shirt, I remember the sheer jubilation on his face. For a team that had been shattered by all the match-fixing drama, wasn't this the beginning of the era when we started expecting our team to win? It was for me.

The despair of 23rd March, 2003. The boundary off the first ball of Zaheer's first over, and the carnage that followed. The faint ray of hope we got when the rain started - would we get another day to salvage this game? But no, we didn't. A billion hearts broke that day. Thoughts of the Economics board exam that was four days away took a flying leap from the window.

Pakistan's tour of India in 2005. Mahendra Singh Dhoni announcing his arrival, and how. The commentary I would listen to on the car radio, as I took Kyra to Jeevashram every day to be treated for renal failure. I'd pass the Rajokri village and see crowds gathered outside the mithai ka dukaan, all watching the tiny television in the shop.

The anger we felt in 2008 in that test against Australia. Anil Kumble's dignified press conference at the end of that horrid day. And the vindication when we won.

Is there any team we've disliked more than Australia? No one likes someone who has it all. Particularly when they display the kind of arrogance Australia has. So the match against South Africa, where they scored 434, and South Africa, bless them, responded with 438, was sheer joy to watch. I remember watching the highlights of that match. I knew what the outcome was going to be, but I still had goosebumps all through.

Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar. The first man to score a 200 in an ODI. I was in office that day, not really working, but refusing to leave till he got there. I cursed Cricinfo with all the plagues in the world, but forgave them two days later when Sambit Bal wrote that refreshingly honest apology.

The 2007 T20 World Cup, six months after the first-round exit from the main World Cup. I would stay up till 2 AM every night to watch those matches, pacing up and down in our basement. The shoot out style "Super Over" that took place when we tied with Pakistan, and how we rocked it. The final, oh sweet Lord, the final.

Despair, anger, jubilation, vindication, grief. I've felt it all the 15 years I've been following cricket. Heck, I've felt them all in the last month of following this World Cup. But we've made it this far. After a rocky start, we beat Australia in the quarter-finals, and Pakistan in the semi-finals. Both matches that had me with my heart in my mouth almost all through. And on Saturday, for the second time in my life, I'll see India play a World Cup final.

I don't like our captain; I think he's survived on luck more than anything else all these years. I'm not too fond of several of the players in this team, but they've redeemed themselves on several occasions, I'll grant them that. Some of the players I do like haven't been given the chance to play too much in the tournament. But none of this will matter on Saturday.

If you win on Saturday, dear Team India, this team will get immortalized by us forever. The despair we felt of 23rd March 2003 will get erased forever. I won't say win it for Sachin, like many others are saying. I won't say win it for the billion people in this country; we're too fickle in our affections to deserve that. We decide you've lost much before you lose, and occasionally also decide you've won before you actually win. We blame you, we victimize you, and then we forget we ever said anything to you when you win a match. And when I say we, I mean I.

Just... win it, okay? Please?

School days

My rides to office have become very reminiscent of my school days. In school, it was a well-known fact that I never reached the bus stop on time. My poor kid brother would have to tell the bus driver every morning "meri Didi aa rahi hai", as I would come running round the corner (unless the father had agreed to drop me) and board the bus with everyone glaring at me.

My colleague and I share a cab to work these days, since neither of us drives. The cab we've hired drops us to work and goes to pick up kids from a summer camp, and since the driver can't be late for them, we have to leave much earlier than what we're used to as well.

I suspect he's soon going to lose his temper with me. My house is the first stop, and three out of five mornings, I exit from the house, he sees me and starts the engine, and then stops it again because I've had a facepalm moment and gone back in to get something I've forgotten.

Every morning, while I wait to pick up my colleague outside her apartment building, I see this group of security guards looking thoroughly bored while they're briefed for the day by their supervisor. Briefing over, a whole lot of backslapping and waving to each other happens, and then they disperse to take up their positions for the day in the various apartment buildings along that road.

Very, very reminiscent of school days.

Confessions Part 1: Subodh, tumhe time yaad nahi hai?

Quick, have you seen Dil Chahta Hai? Of course you have, you weren't born yesterday.

D'you remember Subodh's character? You know, Sonali Kulkarni's boyfriend till Saif and she got together in what was the weakest part of the movie?

There was a brilliant scene in the movie where Subodh's tendency to remember exact dates and times of event was brought to light, like so:

The family literally howled with laughter the first time we saw this scene because, quite frankly, this is exactly how ze father is. Ever since, the brother and I have taken to interrupting some of his more boring stories with the line "Subodh, tumhe time yaad nahi hai?"

What has struck me recently, however, is the fact that I am in fact as bad as, if not worse than, him (the comma usage in this line needs checking). Case in point: this post. I mean, who remembers such stuff? Me, apparently.

Chances are therefore, that if I've known you for a really long time, and if you're kinda important to me, I not only know your birthday and phone number by heart, but also remember exactly how and where we met/became friends, and have at least one weird memory which you would have totally forgotten about.

I also totally have a memory ready to relate as an example about ze father but a, he may not approve, and b, it is really long and boring.

I see potential in entering the blackmail business though.

When wishes come true

Thamma used to repeatedly ask my parents to do two things: build a house, and gift my brother a dog. She wanted her son to have a roof of his own over his head, and her grandson to have a dog of his own.

I was in my final year of school when my parents decided to go ahead and build a house. On 10th February, 2002, the chhat-dhalai of the house took place - the structure was complete, now only the interiors remained to get started. My parents' dream was close to coming true.

My father reached the site by early morning, and spent the whole day there. My mother, brother and I reached slightly later in the morning, bringing with us mithai for the construction crew etc. Halfway through the morning, Mamma got a call from a vet we occasionally used to ask about getting a pet - he knew someone who just brought home a golden retriever, and was bringing the pup to his clinic. We promptly went down to his clinic to see the tiny one, and immediately fell in love. Turned out the little one had sisters who were also looking for homes. The three of us looked at each other - a female golden retriever? For the past so many years, we had had our hearts set on getting another cocker spaniel, one who would take the place Ruff had left behind him. For some reason, which I have never understood till today, we decided to go for it.

On the way to the house the pups were staying in, we discussed possible names. I won; Lion King was my favourite movie, our dog would be named after Simba's daughter (with a cooler spelling though). On reaching there, my mother looked at the 3 tiny ones, and turned to my brother and me saying she knew which one she wanted, we had to choose. The brother and I looked at each other; he pointed to one and said "that one?", I nodded. We turned to Mamma, who had a grin on her face. For some reason, the princess was ours the second we all saw her.

We brought her home to meet Baba, and so began a love affair that hasn't ended till today - the father remains Kyra's favourite no matter what.

We came home that evening, tired but exhilarated. A house and a dog, what more could one want? Mamma refused to cook, I was asked to order Chinese for dinner. Just as I got through to the restaurant, I heard my dad calling my mum urgently. The news had just come in; on the day her two wishes came true, but before she could even find out, Thamma had passed away.

I never know how to feel on 10th February every year.

On a far more cheerful note, 10th February is also the heppy burday of the fantabulous Puneet, who blogs here and here, and tweets here. If you haven't been following these, I really don't know what you've been doing. Go wish her! And then follow her!

Oh Calcutta!

When friends, particularly non-Bengali ones, visit Calcutta, I'm usually filled with feelings of jealousy. But when they come back with tales of Park Street, the best continental or Italian restaurants in the city, partying nights, or having luchi-aloo at Oh Calcutta (!!), I invariably feel like they're talking of a city I've never been to.

In all the years I've been to Calcutta, I've visited Park Street exactly twice, and the promised visit to Flurry's has never yet happened. Calcutta for me has always been about relatives and my mother's college haunts. Visits there tend to get restricted to the same beloved places.

It's about the pavements of Gariahat and the maze that is New Market. The Sardarji at the purse shop who always smiles in recognition when he sees the mother, remembering vociferous arguments and long-drawn negotiations in the years gone by. The rolls at Bedouins, the jhal-muri at Nandan. Convincing my Mam, my grandmother, to skip cooking a heavy Bengali meal for one day at least so we can take her to the Chinese shop at the corner - which we enjoy far more than any 5-star restaurant my uncle wants to take us to; I get that from her. Strolls down College Street, and cutlets at Coffee House. The tram rides where my uncle insists I sit in the Ladies section of the compartment, away from him and the brother - even though we three are the only passengers in the compartment. Riding the metro to Esplanade simply to ride up the escalator and come down again - it was the only station with an escalator in those days. Stopping to pick up Ujjaler chanachur on the way to the airport or the station, with the father looking grimly at his watch.

Visiting my mother's numerous relatives, all of whom exclaim how much I look like their niece - even though my mirror tells me I take after my father. Speaking on the phone with the numerous relatives I haven't been able to meet - and hearing in great detail every ailment they and their spouses have had in the past year. Hearing my grandmother's neighbours yell at each other from corner of their house to another - all of which can be heard through the open walls between the two houses. Going to her neighbour's house to visit Doctor Dadu and Didu - the elderly couple who've been in that house for as long as I can remember and who always manage to make me feel so loved, even though there is no blood connection between us.

I love Calcutta, I do. But more than four days there, and I'm yearning to get away from all the questions. But those four days are usually a little piece of heaven.

Mam moved last year from the tiny little house she's lived in for nearly three decades to a high-rise building. I haven't visited her there yet, and in some ways I'm dreading it. Calcutta with no music coming in from the neighbour's houses in the morning and the evening? What is that like?

[PS: This post has also been posted over at Desicritics.]

The first time

More than a decade ago, the family and I were at a coffee shop in some hotel in Chandigarh fairly late in the night - why we were there of all places I have no idea; it wasn't a very frequent haunt for us.

When the bill came, my dad looked at me, grinned, and asked, "Do you want to see it take really long for the bill to get cleared?" Intrigued, I nodded, and he whipped out his credit card, and gave it to the waiter. And he was right; they took nearly half an hour to swipe that card and bring back the bill for him to sign.

I went shopping earlier today and took out my card to pay for the one shirt I ended up buying; I was at the counter for less than a minute.

I have never yet been able to use my card without remembering the first time I ever heard of this thing called a credit card.

I'm a sucker for nostalgia.

As time goes by

All our lives, my father has always made sure that he's not traveling on our birthdays. If it was unavoidable, he would always try and either get back on the D-day or leave the next morning, or something. But he would be there.

Tomorrow's my mother's birthday, and I'll be catching the night flight out to Mumbai for work. For the first time ever, I won't be there for the family birthday dinner in a restaurant. For the first time in many years, my mother won't have either of her kids with her for dinner on her birthday.

Feels weird.

The fulfillment of a childhood dream...

When I was a kid, we had a wedding hall near our house. Every time a wedding was held there, or during Diwali and other festival, it would be lit up with those simple non-flashy rows of yellow lights, which look so very pretty. You know the type, don't you?

And I used to love looking at those lights, and always wanted us to put up similar lights, but does anyone ever listen to a six-year-old? Besides, Diwali's not really our festival, so we never bothered putting up lights anyway.

Anyway, when we finally moved into this house nearly five years ago, and it was decided that we should buy lights for Diwali, I figured we'd finally get those nice yellow lights I'd always wanted. But no, instead my mother and brother went and got these colourful lights which, granted, looked nice, but they weren't the yellow lights I'd always wanted.

So anyway, last year those lights finally gasped their last breath, and this year I got to choose the lights. Which means our house has been lit with rows of yellow lights, and is looking extremely cool. Thank you.

Blue moon!

Quick, look out of the window! It's a blue moon tonight! Isn't it gorgeous?!?
A blue moon apparently occurs when the same calendar month gets two full moons, the second being called the blue moon.
One of my favourite memories is from when I was a little kid and we'd gone to visit my grandparents. Their house used to overlook a lake. We'd just got back home from town, and the full moon was huge and golden and just hanging low over across the lake. I've never forgotten that scene.
*sigh* I do love full moons.

Beautiful in my eyes...

Some memories never go away. No matter how many years pass, something will happen and make you realize that the memory of those incidents are as fresh as ever.

Yesterday, while using a projector for a presentation, I noticed the dust particles flying about in the stream of light which was coming out of the projector. They're tiny insignificant things, often quite annoying, but they always remind me of one particular incident. And that memory makes them beautiful to me.

My mother used to be a teacher. No matter where she taught, which level she taught, or even which subject she taught - everyone loved her classes. Her students from more than a decade back still keep in touch with her - she meant that much to them.

I must have been 8 or so when she came to teach one of the senior classes as a substitute teacher for a few days. She came home and told me she had taught them about dust particles. The very next day, during the morning assembly, I happened to glance towards the class she had taught the previous day, and the entire class was looking upwards towards the sunlight and exclaiming, "Look, dust particles!"

Yes, dust particles can be beautiful.

Good ole' inflation

So back in the Dark Ages when I was a little kid, losing a tooth was a very big deal because it meant the Tooth Fairy would be visiting me to leave a five-rupee coin under my pillow. I've always loved those coins for some reason.

A friend told me some time back about how she always buys a gift for her 7-year-old son when he loses his tooth. Recently, however, when he lost a tooth rather late in the evening, giving her no time to go buy a gift, she simply left 200 rupees under his pillow.

Well whaddaya know. Inflation hit the Tooth Fairy too.