On the fear of loss

If I think about my favourite Bollywood movies from the last several years, there are two that stand out - Piku and Kapoor & Sons.

I've only watched Kapoor & Sons once, in the theatre, with friends. And I'm fairly certain I sobbed through a good chunk of the second half. I've never gone back to watch it a second time, for some reason, despite loving it so much. I've watched clips a few times, and it's on my watchlist on Amazon, but I've never gone back to it.

Piku, on the other hand, I watch at least twice a year, if not more. Once, when I need something playing on Netflix as I potter around the apartment, at least once when my parents come to visit and we can't agree on anything else to watch together, and potentially again, a day or two later so my mother can see the second half because she fell asleep halfway through the previous time.

There's a scene in Kapoor and Sons where one of the protagonists sulkily tells his brother that their parents have always loved him more, seen him as perfect, while he himself can do ever do anything right in their eyes. His brother tells him not to be silly, all parents love their children equally. This line is followed by a beat of silence where the two look at each other, and both burst out laughing, because you know that's just not true.

There's a scene in Piku where a get together of family and friends is taking place, to honour a woman who dies before the movie begins. The protagonist places a bottle of ghee on the table, Jharna ghee to be precise. The first time I saw this movie, the week after it released, in a theatre full of Bengalis who had all flocked to take advantage of the 50% discount offered by that theatre for Indian movies on Wednesdays, the lady in front of me and I simultaneously exclaimed out loud during this scene, "Jharna ghee!"

There's another scene in Kapoor & Sons that is described far more eloquently by Raja Sen in his review of the movie - the family drama that goes on while in the backdrop a plumber works diligently to try and fix the pipes. [UPDATE: Shakun Batra, the director of the movie, did this delightful video that was shared with me after I published this post, on how this scene was constructed.]

Years ago, when my parents were building their first home, they would... disagree on how certain things should look. It took them a while to realize that when the contractor would excuse himself for a cigarette break every few minutes he would time it just when he could sense a storm brewing, and would step out so my parents could come to a decision before he returned.

The protagonist of Piku spends half the movie yelling at her father, out of sheer concern and exasperation at his behaviour. But minutes after squabbling with him, she laughs and starts singing a Bengali song with him.

A while ago, when my parents were visiting, we were driving home one evening, and my mother was munching on the snacks I keep in the car for my evening commute. I found myself turning to her at one point, and saying exasperatedly, "Will you stop eating so much? You won't be able to eat dinner if you snack so much now."

After watching Piku, as we walked out of the theatre, I was commenting that almost every character in the movie reminded me of someone I know. There are pieces of people I know and love in almost every character in the movie. A friend, who at the time was months away from his wedding, to a Bengali girl, sheepishly admitted his future father-in-law was quite similar to the father in the movie.

Both Kapoor & Sons and Piku struck chords with me, more than any other movies in recent years that I can think of. There are daily lives and tiny anecdotes that shine through these movies and remind me of episodes from my family in the past. There are moments that make you smile, then sniffle, and then potentially start sobbing your heart out, but only because you know someone who's gone through something similar.

And both movies showcase the fear, and the reality, of losing a parent.

This is one of those posts that has been sitting in my Drafts for a few years now. Every few months, I pull it open, reread it, tweak it a bit, save it, and then close it again.

When I first started writing this, a couple of articles had gone viral on my timeline. Rohit Brijnath had written a heart wrenching piece on parents' mortality, and the constant fear those of us who live a world away from our parents learn to live with. And then Jai Arjun Singh had responded with a piece that reminded me it's not that much easier to watch it happen in front of you, either.

A few weeks ago, someone shared a website called See Your Folks, that asks you to enter your parents' ages, and how often you see them a year. It then throws up a stark number on just how many times you have left in this lifetime to see them. I may or may not reacted somewhat... emotionally to this site, and ended up doing a bit of a twitter rant about it.

https://t.co/sb0Y8eWU3e

This has got to be the most absurd and depressing site I've come across in a long time.

— a traveller (@a_traveller) October 30, 2019

The last tweet in that rant was posted almost four hours later, after a two hour marathon call with the parents. They weren't told about this site, but given at least one of them stalks me on Twitter and follows this blog, it's possible she knew, or will know when she wakes up in a few hours.

(Chill, Ma, I'm not stressing. I'm just rambling. And trying to distract myself from these impeachment hearings I've been watching for the past week (and mayyyybe from some of the daughterly stress I've felt after the last couple of This is Us episodes).)

But to end this post on a sufficiently emotional note, here are two songs I had on loop after I spiraled about that stoopid site, for your listening pleasure.

Movie watching thoughts: Crazy Rich Asians

I'm trying to figure out if I'm just being small-minded and inward looking with my mixed feelings about Crazy Rich Asians, or if the fact that I went to see it with some very "woke" people who loved the movie meant I couldn't really articulate my feelings about it at the time.


I liked the movie. It was fun, the performances were brilliant, and Nick's single minded approach to trying all the food possible on his first night back in Singapore was completely understandable. Also, it was very Bollywood. The basic difference between Crazy Rich Asians and every ridiculous rich people movie I saw growing up in the 90s and early 2000s, was that, unlike Karan Johan and Sooraj Barjatya, Jon Chu made a really good movie. Also the prospective bahu stood up to her prospective mother-in-law a lot more than anyone in K3G ever did.


Here's what bothered me. Before the movie started, they were doing clips showcasing the actors for the movie, and then did a slidereel of the history of Asian actors in Hollywood. And somewhere in the mix Indian American actors like Kal Penn were shown, as well as clips from The Namesake. And then, at the end of the slide reel, they put up a caption remind us that this is the first movie since 1993 to have movie with a majority Asian cast in a contemporary setting. To which I say, then what was The Namesake?


And I get it. I get how important this movie is to the Asian American community, and why this matters. But I've always struggled with the fact that India, and the South Asian subcontinent, gets called Asian when it's convenient, and gets tossed to the side when it's not. If we're making the point that this is the first movie in 25 years with an Asian cast, and we're excluding The Namesake from that narrative, then don't toss it into the slide reel either, right?


And granted, I have only visited Singapore for three days, almost 15 years ago, but I'm very sure there were more South Asians there at the time then movie showed. Which, again, is fine, because maybe they weren't part of the setting this movie showcased. But. BUT. How is it that every guard of a fancy hotel or mansion that the movie showed somehow managed to be a Sardar?


Look, I loved the movie. There's so much even I could identify with. The guilt tripping laid on kids by their parents. The love for family and food back home. How good it is to go back home every time you do, the catching up with old friends and families. The little throwaway lines that showed that people really are the same, everywhere.


And a lot of the movie brought back the feelings I've also always had, of being a probashi Bangali, growing up in Delhi, only visiting Kolkata occasionally for a few days during school vacations. My cousins made fun of how terrible my Bengali is, how my accent is "so Delhi". I felt out of place with my Delhi friends at times, but even more out of place with most Bengalis I knew. Those feelings span cultures - anyone who has grown up in a place that is different from the place their parents belong to struggle with that a bit, I think. And watching Rachel's character navigate Singapore, and reading the reactions of Asian Americans to watching that, brought a lot of those feelings back.


But, let's just decide if Indians count as Asians or not, 'kay?

Thoughts on Neerja, and a gazillion other things

I've liked Sonam Kapoor since her first appearance on Koffee with Karan; that episode, incidentally, is also when I started warming up to Deepika Padukone. I've continued liking what Sonam Kapoor has been up to in the years since. Don't get me wrong - I don't think she can act. I was horrified when I heard she might be playing the lead role in the movie adaptation of one of Anuja Chauhan's books, although on further thinking about, she'll probably do justice to the sheer silliness Chauhan's heroines tend to display.

But I like her because, among other things, she refuses to let her inability to act well limit her options. She continues to do the kind of movies I want to go and see. It's a different matter that I don't see most of them, because I'm very lame when it comes to movie watching, but that's not the point. She does movies that, on the whole, have female characters and story lines I feel I can approve of. Most of the time. Prem Ratan Dhan Payo notwithstanding.

I read an article a year or so ago comparing her with Sonakshi Sinha. The latter did Lootera early in her career, and was lauded for her acting ability, but seems to be quite content being the eye candy in Akshay Kumar or Ajay Devgan movies ever since. And then there's Sonam, who insists on playing characters with agency, even if she can't play them that well. And even if she has to produce them herself to get them made.

What's not to admire about that?

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Which brings me to her latest movie - Neerja. As is happening with most Hindi movies and me these days, I had no clue this movie had released, what it was about, or who was in it, till a friend asked if I wanted to go. I couldn't, that day, but I looked up the music, and fell in love with two songs. Then I looked up reviews, and decided I wanted to see it, even though I usually avoid movies with dismal endings or really anything requiring thought.

But I wound up going to see it anyway. And sat on the edge of my seat throughout. For someone who usually covers her eyes at the slightest scary or gory scene (yes, shoo), I don't think I blinked even once while watching the movie. And of course, towards the end, when Neerja's mother places the birthday gift, I started crying and didn't stop till the end credits started rolling.

The movie was extraordinarily well made, and Sonam Kapoor was surprisingly good in it. As were every other actor and actress in the movie.

On a more personal note, the movie was also utterly terrifying for someone who travels as much as I do, and for the reasons I do. And I'm not at all surprised the mother didn't like the movie - her imagination must be going crazy ever since she saw it.

It also struck me as interesting that having watched the movie in Amreeka, I got subtitles. So when the hijackers spoke among themselves in Arabic (at least, I assume it was Arabic, since they were supposed to be Palestinian?), I knew what they were saying. Folks I've spoken to who watched the movie back in India did not get subtitles, and so had no clue what those conversations were about.

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Since I mentioned Deepika Padukone, I have to say, her movie choices are no less approval worthy - at least the ones I've watched. I've watched Piku and Finding Fanny in the past year or two, and not only were those movies excellent, but she was excellent in them.

Also in both movies she says "mad or what?!" exactly how I say it and it makes me very sad I can't find a gif of her saying this phrase.

The day we went to watch Piku, my friends and I had an intense discussion just before the movie on why she was playing a Bengali woman, and not an actual Bengali woman. (I will point out I did not have a problem with this; my non-Bengali friends were the ones questioning this.) And it struck us that the current generation of actresses in Bollywood has no Bengali women left. I mean, yes, Rani Mukherjee and Konona Sen Sharma are kinda still around, but you know what I mean.

This makes me a bit sad.

I will however say Deepika Padukone made an excellent Bengali woman.

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This post was supposed to be about just Neerja, but as usual, it got me thinking about other things.

Who are the other actresses in Bollywood doing relatively sensible movies? Kangana Ranaut, obvs. Anushka Sharma and Parineeti Chopra to a large extent I think. Alia Bhatt manages to do fairly decent roles too, and is a really good actress. Huma Qureshi, I think, is a name I keep hearing, but I haven't seen enough of her movies. Is that it? Priyanka Chopra seems to have been appearing in fewer movies, and in any case is being lauded by NRIs on Whatsapp for Quantico.

I feel like I don't even know who else are in the current crop of actresses in Bollywood. When did this happen to me?

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When I say characters with agency, I don't necessarily mean serious movies, y'know. One of Sonam's other movies that I quite enjoyed was Khoobsurat. Not as much as the original Khoobsurat, because obviously no one compares to Hrishikesh Mukherjee, but enjoyable nonetheless. But how unabashedly unapologetic was Sonam's character in the movie? Right till the end. I totes approve.

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Switching gears just a little, if the Marvel Cinematic Universe could just get it into its head that we don't need to constantly see a story arc where a woman finds out she can never have babies, I would be totally approving of Agent Carter's second season.  Because it gave me the almost all the things I've been wanting from a show - it had kickass women, it had men who didn't have a problem with kickass women, it even had one man who starts out being a chauvinistic idiot, and then grows as a character. It had women being friends, and it had one of the most beautiful platonic friendships between a man and a woman I can remember seeing portrayed. Also it helps that the pair I was shipping seems to have ended up together. Bring it back for a third season, I say to TPTB.

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This post has been in the works for a week or so, so it really wasn't planned as a Women's Day thing - especially since the construct of Women's Day does nothing more than infuriate me these days, because all it does is remind me how things just don't change. So the timing of this post finally being ready is purely coincidental. But as I glanced through other posts in the labels applied to this one, apparently I have been prone to writing in a similar vein around this time of year. What is there.

Pieces of me

I have these nights, occasionally, when I don't get sleep all night. They used to happen only when I went home to India and was jetlagged - I always had that one night of staying up. But over the last year or so, they've happened a few times for no discernible reason.

It happened again last Sunday. I'd been lazy all weekend, and done close to nothing productive. I needed to get up early on Monday because I had folks coming to look at something in the apartment before I left for work, and I had an event to go to Monday evening that I knew I'd be coming back from fairly late. And there I was Sunday night, trying to sleep, but more alert and awake than I had been all weekend.

Someone asked me, when I told them about this, if it was because I was stressed about something. I don't think so, was my response. There's nothing I can think of that's stressing me out at the moment, and if there was something in my subconscious, chances are my should would have informed me by beginning to ache. So, I don't think so.

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I don't know when I turned into this movies-based-on-comic books fangirl. I've never read a comic book in my life, but I now watch every single Marvel or DC based TV show that is currently on air (except Gotham, because that show bored the heck out of me). And I just read the first review of the Avengers movie that is releasing next week, and it's got me so ridiculously excited that I need to tell the world about it. When did this happen to me?

(On thinking about it a little more, I think we can all agree to blame the brother for this. Pretty sure it all started when he dragged to watch The Dark Knight.)

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I have a Bangladeshi coworker who sits one cube over. A mutual friend introduced us soon after we both moved into our current department, with the words "just wanted to you both to know of each other, in case you were planning to say things in Bengali hoping no one else would understand." Very kind of him, I have to say.

So, this coworker. Conversations with her are quite straightforward and fun, and she has a fairly matter of fact way of talking. So it entertains me no end that occasionally, I'll hear her on the phone, talking in Bengali, either to her husband or parents or some other relatives, and the sheer whininess that creeps into her tone is simply amazing. It's in our blood, you guys.

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Along with priority and my own name at the end of an email, I think we can add occasionally to the list of words I can never spell correctly on the first go. I've spelt it incorrectly every single time in this post (which also tells me I use it fairly often).

Halka Aunty style

One of the nicest things about the company I work for is that, for the most part, they really don't care how you dress. We moved to a casual dress code a while back, and so as long as you're not meeting customers or external partners (or y'know, working in Finance), it's jeans and a sweatshirt every single day if you want.

And since it's a company with a very internationally diverse employee base, which includes a large number of Indians - especially, and this is fact, on the floors IT sits on - I could honestly wear a salwar kameez every day if I wanted to. I've done it occasionally over the past year or so, especially on festivals and such, and it's nice to be able to do that.

So this morning, after getting dressed and ready to leave for work fairly early for a change, I started running over the things I need to do, and realized I need to call the grandmother for nobo borsho - the Bengali New Year - as well as the parents, and probably send the brother a text that he should call them as well (which, now that I think of it, I didn't end up doing). And in all that mental processing, I decided what the heck, let's wear Indian today. And so I pulled out the new white kurta and orange dupatta I had bought a few weeks ago (along with green leggings, in the hope of wearing this outfit for one of the World Cup matches), and wore them with my black jeans. And it struck me, all over again, how much I miss wearing salwar kameezes and dupattas. My fabulous dupattas, mostly.

And since this blog seems to be big on random memories and anecdotes lately, here's one that came to me today. The dupatta I chose to wear today is one of those silky ones that keep slipping off. However, the kurta has embroidery similar to Lucknow-i chikankari, so I decided to wear the dupatta long, over just one shoulder, because that was keeping it in place. And it reminded me of a friend my mother had, back when I was a kid. This lady - Alka Aunty - always wore her dupattas over one shoulder. She was the only lady I knew who wore them that way, and it fascinated me, probably because she was the only one who wore them that way in Chandigarh as far as I could tell. And so when I pretended to dress up, I would wear them the same way, and say I was wearing them "Halka Aunty style" - because apparently at the age of 5, I couldn't say her name properly.

She moved away years ago, and I have no idea where she is today. But it was fun today, wearing a dupatta "Halka Aunty style".

If I tell you...

1. ...that I'm an HR consultant, it doesn't mean I can find you a job. There's more to HR consulting than recruitments.
2. ...that I studied psychology for five years, it doesn't mean I can tell you what you're thinking by reading your face. Idjit.
3. ...that I'm in HR, it doesn't mean you get to gasp in surprise on seeing that I am reasonably intelligent and competent with respect to technology, math, etc.
4. ...that I'm Bengali, it doesn't mean my diet consists of roshogolla and machher-jhol-bhaat. And no, my name doesn't automatically get pronounced with the "aw" syllable. And please, please don't say the words "aami tomake bhalo bashi" to me.
5. ...that I'm a romantic and/or read chick lit, it does not disqualify me from being a feminist. Or vice versa, for that matter.
   
6. ...that I'm a feminist, it doesn't mean I believe in bra burning. I simply think gender equality is important. Get over yourselves.
7. ...that I'm 26 and going for my MBA, it doesn't mean my hopes of landing a nice boy for marriage are over. Hopefully. Even if it does, so what? Why does marriage and kids have to be my ultimate goal in life?
8. ...that I like kids only at a distance, and I'm not sure if I ever want to have kids of my own (even though I've sorta decided what I'll be naming them), why does this make me less of a woman?
   

The bus ride

In Zirakpur, just outside Chandigarh, is a place called Chhatbir Zoo. Chhatbir was a frequent weekend destination for the family in my childhood during our Chandigarh days. It's really like any other zoo, except for the area where the pride of lions lives. The lions roam freely in a cordoned off sanctuary-like area, so the only way to visit that area is either in your own car, or in the cage-like bus they take tourists in. There's a hilarious (for others) story in the family which relates how I once got on the bus, and realised only after we'd entered the sanctuary that the parents had got left behind. I was reunited with my frantic parents a good half hour later, and then was allowed by the zoo officials to come on the bus ride again with them. Two-two bus rides I got. Great fun.

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I was in Nasik a few days back for my cousin's wedding. We flew in from Bombay, on the one daily flight that goes there. We got off the tiny plane at the Nasik airfield, got into a bus, and rode to get to the tiny matchbox of an airport terminal. The bus ride lasts eight minutes, and goes through a lovely, forest-y route, lined with trees.

Reminded me of the Chhatbir bus ride, is all.

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So, after a two-year long engagement, the cousin got married. Great fun, was lovely meeting the clan after ages, and only one or two "you're next" remarks, to which I very categorically responded that only clones of Aditya Kashyap or Arjun Burman will do. What was probably most amusing was the absolute bewilderment some of our Bengali relatives and friends expressed at seeing the hash of Bengali and Punjabi rituals.

"They've been standing in that one spot and dancing for the past ten minutes. Why don't they just come in?!?"

Hee.

An apology

Dear Bengalis of the world,

Today, I want to apologise to each and every one of you. Sincerely.

I have always cribbed that in Calcutta, when you ask someone how they are, they not only promptly relate every single ailment they have had in the past year, but also those suffered by their spouse, children, and grandchildren, if any. Being the naak-uchu probashi I am, I tend to make fun of the fact that only in Calcutta will people actually tell you how they are when asked.

I was wrong. Completely and utterly wrong. Bengalis are nothing compared to the people I interact with on a daily basis.

For the past week, I have been surrounded by obangalis (is that the right word for non-Bengalis? anyone?) who have been talking about nothing but their health. Every single ailment they currently have (and for some reason, all of them have a heck of a lot of symptoms) is discussed and analysed in great detail, possible causes and consequences have been debated with great animation (with most of these debates ending on the conviction that every single one of them is in the last stages of a terminal disease), and doctor visits have been analysed with as much intensity as a group of giggling high school girls would discuss a first date. To cut a long story short, I have been spending a lot of time reminding myself why it is wrong to murder a fellow human being.

Forgive me, dear Calcuttans. I am now suitably chastened. And now totally ready to deal with you when I visit in July.

Me Me Me!

Ten days ago, I completed a quarter of a century as a living being. In this lifetime, that is. I have no idea how long I've spent as a living being with all my lifetimes put together. Or even if I have had other lifetimes. Which really isn't the point of this post.

What is the point of this post, you ask? I'm not entirely sure myself. I got a new laptop you see (and before you start, that is PURPLE, not pink - the lighting was poor). And I wanted to put up a post from it simply because I can.

Anyway, so as I was saying, I turned 25. Now as a rule, I love birthdays. This year, for some reason, I was totally depressed about my birthday, to the point that I didn't even make my usual very detailed wishlist handed over to the family two months before the day arrives for them to treat as a shopping list.

I mean, 25. Isn't there something just so... milestone-y about it? Shouldn't I have done far more than I have by now? Or at least figured out what the hell my life is about? A bit?

Well, whatever it was that I was supposed to have done by now, I clearly haven't. I am therefore going to instead write this post. 25 facts about myself. Which you didn't know. Or did. Depends on who you are.

You may leave now, you know. If you're still here that is.

*drumroll*

1. I love Hrishikesh Mukherjee's movies. There is no other film-maker in the world about whom I can say that I have loved each and every movie made by him/her. My life's ambition is to get hold of the DVDs of every single movie he ever made.
2. My one regret in life is giving up singing classes as a kid.
3. Gmail's Label feature is the best thing that ever happened to me. I label everything. I have two Gmail accounts - one official, one personal. The official ID has just short of 250 labels, and the personal one has 450-odd labels. Seriously.
4. My favourite colours are blue and purple. Hence the laptop. Dell's blue option was too electric for my liking.
5. I know nothing about English music. Or any music actually. Unless... Does Bollywood music count as a genre?
6. I perpetually feel cold. The family hates having meals with me in the summer because I whine about the fan being on.
7. I have had a godawful allergy since childhood as a result of which I get these awful marks on my arms and legs. The dermatologist once described it as "hypersensitivity to mosquito bites". I call it a curse.
8. I love numbers. And Excel sheets with numbers in particular. Playing with them gives me a joy like no other. Back in school I used to get this joy when I would solve a particularly tricky math or accounts problem.
9. I wanted to be a teacher as a kid. Nursery teacher. Mainly because I thought Rani Ma'am, my Nursery teacher was the greatest thing since sliced bread.
10. As a teenager, this ambition changed to being a librarian. I thought it would be awesome because I could sit and read all day long.
11. I am not a people person. By which I mean the company of others annoys me no end. Spending more than a few hours with even my closest friends exhausts me. Which makes my choice of career a mystery to pretty much everyone who knows me. In my defense, I hadn't realised how much of a non-people person I am till I took it up.
12. If it wasn't for the fact that I love my near and dear ones, I wouldn't like them much.
13. No one, but no one, is allowed to criticise my family. Other than me. Even if you are my best friend, and I have spent two hours cribbing about them, you do not say anything against them. Ever.
14. As a kid, it was instinct for me to look at every single vehicle passing by on the roads, add up its license number, and check if it's divisible by 3. I still do it sometimes.
15. Sanjeev Kumar is the greatest actor to have ever lived. In my very humble opinion. Exhibit A: Koshish. Exhibit B: Angoor.
16. I'm a sucker for spoilers. The only two things I have always refused to look up spoilers for are the Harry Potter books before they released, and Lost. Yes, I'm a huge fan of both.
17. I hate yellow gold.
18. Equality of the sexes is a huge deal for me. Not just in terms of women getting the freedom to do what they want, but also in terms of men contributing more when it comes to household matters. I think it's important, and I have been known to get onto a soapbox about this issue fairly often.
19. The moon, butterflies, and rain are the themes figuring in most desktop wallpapers or site templates I choose. Which I'm guessing you know if you've been following my blog for a while now - you may remember the trauma I went through when I had to give up my rain template when "New Blogger" came into existence. I had to choose between keeping the labels option or the template - toughest decision in my blogging life so far.
20. Rounded off numbers are the most awesome thing ever. My obsession with rounded off numbers was at one point so intense that I would SMS friends last thing at night just so my pre-paid balance would be a rounded off number. Even today, the radio and TV volume has to be a rounded off number, and I refuse to stop the microwave till it's showing a multiple of 5. In fact, the only blessing I see about turning 25 is that not only is it a rounded number itself, but it's the square of a rounded off number. How cool is that?!
21. I have never quite got used to the whole concept of telling the whole world who you are, where you are, and what you do via your blogs and your tweets. It's something I'm still uncomfortable with, and most of my friends know that I'd prefer they didn't use my real name in the blogosphere.
22. I have a thing for tall and fair guys. And lawyers. I think it comes from watching way too much of The Practice growing up.
23. Imtiaz Ali's movies, in some ways, remind me of Hrishikesh Mukherjee. I have no idea why.
24. I can't read or write Bengali. In fact, when I visit Calcutta, my cousins make fun of my accent when I speak in Bengali. I am, in some ways, to Bengal what an ABCD would be to India. A born and brought up probashi, forsooth.
25. I have gorgeous hair.

You're still here? Wow. And you're not one of the two people I force into reading my blog everytime I put up a post? Double wow. And I thought I didn't have a life.

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.]

This is home.

I swear to you, Bengalis are the only community I know of who, on being asked how they are, actually tell you how they are. Seriously.

Mamma and I spent a week in Kolkata last month, and it is just incredible how asking a person how he/she is will get you very comprehensive details of each illness/ailment suffered in the past week by not only the person you're speaking to, but by every member of his/her family as well. The trip was incredible though. This was the first time I actually went around the city on my own, and the first time we did more than just visiting various relatives. Most importantly, after years of looking for it, my mother and I finally found the shop in New Market she used to frequent in her college days for the purpose of buying silver jewelry. Apparently, I forgot the meaning of the word stinginess while there, because by the time I exited that shop, all the gift money I had saved for the past two years had been spent.

We also discovered, for the first time perhaps, just how exasperating and unprofessional doctors in Kolkata are. Doctors in the NCR may be mad and annoying, but at least they're in their chambers during their scheduled hours and at least they pick up the damn phone when there's an emergency! I still love Kolkata, but if I had to live there, I think I'd go quite mad.

The family also spent a week or so in Mumbai and it's nearby hill stations recently. Quite a lovely trip; the father took us around to his college, hostel, and haunts from college days. I also found the perfect bag while shopping in Linking Road; it is huge and everything I ever need to carry with me (which, as some of you may know, is quite a bit) and still have space left over. And those are just a few of the highlights of the trip.

We're now back home. Things are happening at home. Life is back to normal, or as normal as it ever gets with my clan. I'm back to disliking shopping with a fervour (although I do need to visit Fab India fairly soon). The princess of the house is getting used to having the whole family with her most of the time, and is throughly enjoying being taken for walks by the brother every morning (as much as I am enjoying the extra half an hour of sleep since that particular morning duty is taken care of for the next four months at any rate).

I have also come to realize the truth of something I have been trying to deny for the past nearly fourteen years - this city is my home. The NCR is where I feel most comfortable. Oh, I love traveling and visiting other cities. The people here are ridiculous, the weather is crazy, and the transport system is capable of driving me to suicide. I've got my whole life ahead of me and there's no saying where I'll end up eventually. But for now, this is home.