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".

Kiddo

A long, long time ago, he used to be scared of snakes. 

One morning, the four of us went out for brunch. It was a holiday, and just an hour back, I had tied a Rakhi on his wrist, despite the mother's annual grumbling that it wasn't really a Bengali festival. We were crossing the road to the restaurant when a snake charmer approached us. My kid brother, who was already itching to take the rakhi off, grabbed my arm and whispered, "Didi, can you just protect me today from that snake? I'll take care of you after this."

He's the complete opposite of me, the brother. He's reserved, practical, and inexpressive. I'm... none of the above. But then out of the blue, there'll be an email or a gift that will make me all emoshunal, just like that.

I used to bully him when we were kids. We played our own version of the Crystal Maze, he was my unwilling student in countless sessions of Teacher-Teacher, half his birthday gifts were automatically declared to be mine, and numerous other things I would rather not tell you. Then one day, he grew up, and wisened up. And now I go to him for advice, and he acts all wisdomous and all.

He left for the US for his undergrad studies on 24th August 2007. Rakhi that year was on 28th August. I broke down that day, because I had never spent Rakhi away from my kid brother. I sent him a rakhi and a card that year. Five months later, he came home for winter break. Suddenly, in the midst of all the animated catching up, he looked at me and said, "oh, wait." He pulled out his wallet, handed me the rakhi I had sent him, and asked me to put it for him. By the time we woke up the next morning, of course, it was hanging from his cassette rack on the wall, where most of his rakhis over the years landed up.

Last year, we exchanged countries. He went back to India after graduation, and I came to the US. I spoke to him an hour back. I told him we were discussing siblings at dinner tonight, and I had told them about Rakhi, and of this incident. He responded, "oh? I did that?"

*eye roll*

He thinks my blog is quite silly, so it's unlikely he'll read this post. But I just wanted to say, again, I love you kiddo. Despite the fact that you save my number under Duddo rather than Didi on your phone.