All for an email

Every morning I open my email with the hope of receiving  nice, gossipy, full of missives, loooooong emails. Instead, I am flooded with FB notifications, forwards, bank emails, junk, and missed pings.

Wasn’t it just a few months back that I wrote about the dying art of writing letters? And now look how, even emailing is replaced by social networking. It takes what, a few months (?) to make meaningful things redundant these days?

Mommies replaced by nannies, nannies replaced by day cares.

Husbands replaced by lovers, lovers replaced by one night stands.

Children replaced by pets, pets replaced by e-aquariums, e-pets and e-farms.

Real socialising replaced by e-socialising, e-socialising replaced by a strange sense of depression. (I so wanna elaborate on this one, but just can’t seem to catch the pulse of this feeling. Its a strange sense of existential crisis. I just can’t seem to explain. If you can feel the nerve, care to speak up ).

Breakfasts replaced by on the go muesli bars, they in turn replaced by sugar free chewing gum.

Visits to parents replaced by telephone calls, and in a few days time am so sure these phone calls will vanish too and SMSes will rule the roost.

Sex taken over by sleep, sleep taken over by last minute customer presentations.

Work taken over by ambition, ambition replaced by money.

 

UGH…..the way we live these days! There is something so surreal about it. I’ve begun to start believing in the Matrix theory. Maybe everything is after all simulated?

:D. Ok ok. All for an email??? I am dying for a soppy loong girlie email. Doesn't mean men can’t churn those. They are perfectly capable of mush. They just think its against their religion to express anything that remotely resembles mush.

May be all that I  really am craving for is some romance. In that case its going to take a while. For the man I live with has temporarily abandoned me and is dwelling in his fairly tale land of presentations, customer reviews and clients. How exciting, he keeps saying, from time to time.

 

How dismal,  is what I say.

Pati, Patni aur Groceries

Talking about groceries during Pujo itself shows how detached I am from all festivities in this region. But I shall crib no more, lest you stop paying visits to my virtual space. So then, groceries.  Lets talk about how grocery shopping can completely ruin a perfectly happy evening. We know that its an inevitable part of every normal married life. Just like making breakfast, polishing one’s shoes and paying bills are. But why does it disturb (some) men SO much? I mean, don’t these help us get by through the week? So why does my husband behave like he has been asked to clean poop? I ain’t kidding. His face really distorts and I see anxiety lines and and expressions one witnesses during extremely stressful situations, at the mention of ‘weekly groceries’.

Some conversation samples:

 

Him: Shall we do it the day after tomorrow?

Me: No eggs, no bread, no veggies.

Him: Fish?

Me: Nope.

Him: fine. today then. *making goo face*

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Him: You go to the veggie section, i’ll go to the meat section. We’ll be done in 15 minutes flat.

Me: Is this some sort of a race? I’d like to check out some stuff.

Him: uff. Fine.

Me: Ufffffffffffffffffffff. Theek ache. Ato ghyan ghyan korte hobe na (why u getting irked?)

Him: Aami ghyan ghyan korchi na (I am not)

me: You get mishmish. I am going home.

Him: Oho. Chill na.

Mishmash: I want tooooooooooooooooooy. waaaaan!

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Him: I thought we got 5 kilos of rice just a few weeks back? Need more already?

Me: I don’t have rice, Meeshu has half a bowl every day, we don’t exactly have a lot of guests home. You do the math.

Him: Fine. You don’t have to blame me for everything.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Him: Are  you sure we need baked beans? I thought I saw a tin the other day.

Me: *Putting it back and heading straight to the cash counter*

Him: What the hell happened?

Me: Nothing. we are done.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Me: Ran out of onions

Him: mid week shopping sucks . arrrrrgh!

me: I’ll get them tomorrow. Don’t start now.

Him: Fine.

*after sometime*

Him: do you need only onions?

Me: you are going?

Him: might as well.

me: sweet. Have cha and go.

Him: Nope will come back and have. Have run out of cigarettes.

me: Aha.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Him: You know babe, u must learn driving.

Me: Oh yeah? Just so this one thing that u help me with, will also be done by me?

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Some of his expressions:

Outside supermarket: *Feeling Zen about life*

Inside supermarket: *Life is a bitch*

Inside Supermarket mid way: *I wish I was a bachelor again*

Inside supermarket when wife is at the plastic dabba section* : *Goo face*

Cash counter: *Acute Trauma*

Outside with the shopping cart: *ready to cry*

While dumping groceries in the boot: * dead beat*

In the elevator: *I need a chilled beer*

^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Him: I’ll help u with the groceries ok?

*disappears*

*reappears again checking his Blackberry*.

*Disappears*

*reappears again after groceries are stocked up*

Hey, want a glass o wine?

And mmmm what’s for dinner?

^^^^^^^^^^^^^

The one time I let him go shop alone, he came back with shocking pink, Raspberry flavored garbage bags. Apparently the garbage won’t stink even if i don’t throw it away for a week!!! And yes, chucking garbage falls under his to-do list.

 

(You know why this upsets me so much? Because exactly 6 years back, grocery shopping was the most romantic thing to do, together. Look how perspectives change).

Asche Pujo

Every other person I know is in a Pujo mood. Ma is getting her blouses stitched, Baba busy collecting Fab India kurtas. Pujo committee meetings in random bong homes  are taking place every evening and luchis are being fried already in anticipation of Pujo. And to make things worse I have at least 5 people sporting Pujo related status messages. I am gonna cry, right here, right now.

I want to smell the smell Scribbler talked of in her post.

I want to buy new clothes for every day of Pujo,

I want to eat double dim and chicken er roll, kobiraji and Moghlai porota.

I want Mishmash to run about with Ishaan around the ‘pandel’ and beg me for ice creams.

I want Raj to stand amongst his old friends and their wives and talk of old times and slip out for a smoke.

I want to do PNPC with kakimas, mashis,  mad Tracer and her not all that mad, but mad nevertheless, sister, and my dearest Mooooon.

I want to bum free cha and fruit juices off kakus.

I want to stay up late night listening to local bands crooning tunelessly.

I want to check out new courting couples, quick exchange of glances, and the signs of this generation’s first courtship.

I want to wait endlessly for Bhog, and rush to get chairs for the entire friend, family and extended family group waiting to be seated.

I want to simply sit under the tree near the stalls, and listen to bachcha antakshari, and their fights.

I want to sit behind a row of kakimas and listen to them gossiping about whoever.

I want to have Radha ballabi for breakfast.

I want to rush to give pushpanjali on Ashtami.

I want to sway along with the dhaaker awaaj.

I want to see ladies in crisp fluffy new Taant er shaari.

I want to feel bad on Navami that its all ending.

I want to go hug everyone in my sight on Bijoya.

I just want to be pujo-happy.

I want to be able to see Ma, Baba on Pujo. Nothing can be worse than spending a Pujo without them. Nothing.

Jaaa…Kende Phellam. :((

Childhood revisited

Just when I was wallowing in my 4 lb weight loss, my slip disc gloated back. I should have stuck to walking. Anyway. Now that I am bed ridden for a few more days, there’s time to blog and look around the virtual world. 

Its funny how every little thing that your kid does takes you back to your childhood. Today it was Mishmash’s make shift house, made with throw.s and stoles. I remember doing that as a kid and insisting ma fed me inside the ‘house’. There were times when I’d play house-house with friends and we’d have an elaborate family. Someone became the father, someone the mother – who btw, always stayed home and cooked. And there’d be a crying baby, a doctor, a maid, a neighbour, even a dog! The game extended with robbery, so police had to intervene, and so on. here was no end to imagination :).

So today when I saw Mishmash playing the age old Role Play game,  it caught my fancy. She pulled in her dad to be part of the family. She liked entertaining guests, who had to constantly knock at her door, and she’d pass on a cuppa coffee or some such. She cooked and went to office in her ‘car’ . In between she called home too. She made me tea, strawberry milkshake and chocolate pudding. I wanted to stop her and say, sweety, why don’t you relax while papa made you some hot soup instead. :D. But it was heart warming to see her driving to work :))). She even held a little purse (imaginary one, again) and looked at her watch as she left for work, saying see you later alligator and blowing a kiss.

 

And in all this I pondered, how happy she seemed with the make shift home, make belief family life, unreal plastic food. She embraced it all like it was real. We did it too in our early days, thinking adulthood was bliss. Little did we know of the challenges, fear, grief and the sheer humdrum of being ‘big’. I hope she lives up to be as happy and contend as she looks in these pictures. And hope she makes the most of her childhood. For one, I so wanna go back to being 3 again.

Neighbourly love

All things bright and beautiful,

all creatures great and Bong.

Its time you changed your attitude,

haven’t we been neighbours, all along?

 

You mistake our humility and quiet, 

mock and call us lame,

so lovingly christen us as ‘Oodey’

and think, Oodey and cooks, are just the same!

 

My dad’s family hail originally from Orissa and the initial years of my dad’s life was spent gallivanting on the banks of river Kharasrata that ran through their village, Kanachchanda. Dadu relocated to Kolkata to give his children better education, and a taste of city life. They schooled at Rama Krishna Mission and dadu secured a job in LIC. Having lived all their lives in Kolkata, dad and other uncles of mine had strong influences of the Bengali culture (but obviously), but never once forgetting their roots.  When we as a family relocated from Kolkata and moved down south, to Karnataka, where I was brought up, we encountered many Bengalis. We were the only Oriya family apart from another family in the colony of Shahabad. We got drawn to most of the Bengali family gatherings, mostly by virtue of my father’s extensive knowledge of the Bengali culture and literature. He writes beautiful Bangla poetry does the most enchanting kobita abriti (mejo kaku is better at the latter though). We socialised so much with Bengalis in my childhood that I learnt Bangla by default. Rabindra Sangeet was a part and parcel of my growing up years as much as Sukumar Ray and shopping for stringy frocks from Gariahat market. But then we were equally exposed to Oriya culture. So I hummed and enjoyed the Oriya –Aahe daya Maya Biswa Bihari, to Pannalal Bhattacharya’s Shyama sangeet renditions with equal enthusiasm. Alongside,  dad also introduced us to music from down south too. While still in class 2 or 3 dad regularly played Shakarabharanam, and over the years I’ve grown to enjoy Hindustani and Carnatic vocals.

And I grew up like that. Respecting, loving and enjoying all aspects of different cultures I was exposed to. Without bias. Without any kind of preconceived notions. Making racist comments are part and parcel of any Indian’s life. And I did that too. But only injest. I have dated south indians, north indians, east indians, west indians- sadly no one from central India (grinning, are you? Or do I see shock?). But have never really broken a relationship over cultural differences.

But when it came to Bengalis, as I grew, I held a strange love-hate stance. Love for everything Bengali- I will not elaborate. You know what sweeps me off my feet. I have written about it often. But what puts me off about them, often results in extreme prejudice towards the bong fraternity. I know of some families who grew up entirely in the south of India (Hyd, Blr) and who  literally owe their lives to the people and the place the live in. Ask them if the wished to ever go back to West Bengal, and they' refuse single mindedly. But will criticize the ‘Madrasi’ (what an unjust, annoying term) until their last breath. And everything is in comparison to ‘amader culture’ (kaalchaar). Like the provincial minded they behave as if culture of any sort originates and terminates in Kolkata, the culture capital. To them Amartya Sen is a Bong first and an economist next.

Oh and their attitude towards my fraternity- the Odiya folks. We are called Oodeys who cook in their houses. Kelucharan Mahapatra, Pratibha Ray, Nandita Das,  were cooks too in their houses?  To them Orissa means a visit to Puri, a quick darshan of lord Jagannath, pujo shopping of Bomkai and Sambhalpuri Sarees and a dip in the sea. All this, besides haggling the life out of the conch seller on the beach.

And while the busy Bengali intelligentsia debate over Didi’s politics and the rising fish prices, let me tell you, they have little regard for anyone or anything non-bong.  

What makes me sit up at 6.30 am on a Saturday morning to narrate my life’s cultural influences?  A sense of raging anger. I am seething. And the reason will not be disclosed, of course.

You might want to argue- not ALL like that. I’ll agree, gladly.

You might also want to argue and disagree to all that I have said. Be my guest.

And while I swore to resist racism, you people compel  me to become one.

 

(My bong blog friends, none of this was to insult you.  I love you way too much for this kind of outrage. You are my evolved, lovely, beautiful bong bondhus :-))

On Talent

Can anything, anything at all be more touching, beautiful and astounding as this?

Kseniya Simonova, a Ukranian sand artist, who won the Ukraine’s Got Talent show (2009) by depicting the life of Ukranians during World War II. This one had me in tears.

 

 

Original link found here

 

And while we are at Talent shows, I had to put up this one. Orissa’s time had come. It meant so much to me to see The Prince Dance Group, winning the show. I loved their other acts as well- the Krishna and Dushavataar acts. But this one really filled me up with rare emotions .

 

 

What of all those cribbers who endlessly complain of a lack of facilities and training in our country. Some of these guys are labourers…and just about all from extremely modest backgrounds. Enough thoughts to ponder on, no?

Ciao.

Where art thou?

Where art thou, my beloved?

I miss the ardor with which

you sank into me;

miss your contours filling me,

and the invigorating smell of your Darjeeling.

But more than anything else,

I miss the calm,

and a certain tranquil that composed you.

 

Where art thou, dearest?

Your books  call out to you,

cheerlessly.

Pray, why do you dust them,

when you don’t intend to hold them in your arms?

Come baby, sink into me,

pause a while.

 

Get off the ugly notebook,

please.

Come into my arms,

and I’ll tell you a story.

Your virtual life is boring and bland,

let me take you to another fantasy land.

 

Oh where art thou?

 

(There were days I spent endless time on that rattan easy chair and read into oblivion. I seemed to have lost touch with so many things that really made me happy, the small little pleasures of life. Time to wake up and deeply smell my Darjeeling)

Honest, so they say

So well, thank you Swapna. This ones the first badge adorning my template :). Thank you for also loving and passing on the Honest badge to the ‘pink’ space dedicated to my Pink Princess.

The badge requires me to say 10 honest things about myself. Ok, if you insist on the honest part. :).

1. I like my toilet seat down, please.

2. I can’t do without my pot of Darjeeling.

3. I suffer from severe OCD and Paranoia.

4. I hate living away from my country, but also love living in Sydney. :D

5. I think bongs have inflated egos :D :D

6. I worry, I’ll never own a dog.

7. I worry about Meeshu falling in love with a loser.

8. I am quite the drama queen.

9. I used to be an athlete in school. One look at me now and you’ll think this is the most dishonest answer on this list.

10. I am head-over-heels in love with my family.

 

Now for tagging 7 other honest blogs:

Pat’s Colours Dekor

Rose’s: From My corner

Joe Pinto’s

Lil More than Mommy’s Blog

Gargi’s

Discovering M’s

Pleasant One’s

Chai Garam’s

Ayn Zoya’s

 

From Swapna’s blog I understand one needs to pass this badge on to 7 more blogs and write 10 honest things about yourselves. Do that if u feel like it.

For people who have been blogging for a while and understand the blogsphere, here’s a question: who makes these badges? How and when did this passing around of badges start? I was a trifle confused when i first got this from Swapna. May be someone can care to throw some light?

 

See you later, Alligator.

Pat and Arnab (Part 4)

Patrali: Wish I was in India, at least these two months.

Arnab: Awww…missing home? 

Pat: mmm. Food. All this craving isn’t helping. And Pujo. Can’t feel a thing here. Ma must be busy getting blouses stitched for her new sharis. *Sigh*  Jhuma am sure has bought 20 salwar Kurtas this time. B****.

Arnab: True true. Aww craving is she? What does she want?

Pat: Mitu wants Puchka, Mutton roll, Kobi raji, Moghlai porota, chicken cutlet, uffff. *Wistful sigh*

Arnab: Poor little thing, you’ll give her acidity with all your talk. Erm, who decided on ‘Mitu’? You?

Pat: Yep.  I can’t leave such an important decision to you or your family. What if you guys name her ‘Tultuli’, like your cousin? Imagine being stuck with a name like that all your life!

Arnab: Arrre, its a sweet name. ‘Daak- naam’ should always be sweet. Let’s call her Pommy.

Pat: Listen lets drop this. We’ll pursue when its time. And Arnab, Pommy? Wouldn’t u rather name your Pomeranian that? *scoffs*

Oh how i wish I could have just one teeenyweeny bite of a Malpua. This is such a torture. Oh Maaaaa!

Arnab: Oh poor you. Let’s then go to Shipra’s house? Rajat called.  Said Gopa di is coming too. She will feed you well.

Pat: Na baba. I’d rather stay home. You call Gopa mashi, didi? She is your mum’s age, you know.  But I remember last time she took such an offence because I called her Gopa mashi..No  wonder she adores you, and literally glares at me.

Arnab: Hahahahha. You went wrong with a  fundamental rule, babe. Refer to all ladies who are older to you by 10 years or less by their name.If they are 10 plus whatever, simply call them didi. No mashima business what so ever.

Pat: Jaaa Taaa complex women have. Forget it. Listen, lets go on a holiday, na? At least I won’t feel so forlorn.

Arnab: Mmmmm… we can. But I really don’t enjoy  going on holidays these days with just you.

Pat: I’ll let that pass.

Arnab: Ufff. Don’t get mad at everything I say. You know how much I miss adda. Just that it gets boring with just you and me..I wish we could go on a holiday with a nice group of…

Pat: lemme complete that for you…a nice group of Bangalis. Really Arnab, for the first time, your so called bongness has let me down. You are probably the only bong who is not as romantic as his fellow bongs. One thing always struck me about you fellas, back then u know. Your amazing appetite for love. Die hard romantics. And age has nothing to do with it. I know adda means much, but saying something that is so outright unromantic is not so bong after all. Wasn’t it your idea to hit Victoria memorial, and sit underneath an umbrella, have jhal muri and talk of times that were yet to come? Whatever happened to that? The only reason I married one of you, maane, a bong, is because of this crazy streak. Do you even remember the day you bagged that job and you came to propose? You came with a stick of Rojonigondha (lily), because you couldn’t afford a Dutch rose. But you seemed the happiest. We ate at Kanai’s- Jilipi and Shingara. And you sang that ridiculous song for me….

Arnab: babaaaaa. You look like Suchitra, when you are angry.

Pat: Baje kotha bolo na to.

Arnab: *Animatedly sings* 

Ar kichudin tarpor bela mukti,
Kashba’r oi neel dewal-er ghar
Shada-kalo ei jonjal-e-bhora mitthe-kothar shohore,
tomar amar lal-neel shangshar

Pat, I’ll love you always with the same passion of a romantic fool.  Pack your bags. Its a road trip, baby!

 

Pat: *Hides an evil grin and thinks* – It ALWAYS works….just provoke the ‘Bangali hero’ in him.   Hero!!! thinks he is Uttam Kumar *sniggers*.