Butter

 Now I am orphaned. And all because of some butter. 

Baba always had breakfast with me before I went to school. Toast, boiled eggs and his tea. The egg had to be perfectly boiled, eight minutes only, if it was more the yolk would get hardened and if it was less than eight minutes then it would be runny and almost raw. The toast had to be hard, not the soggy nonsense you get after cooling, not blackened either. The butter would be laid on the table, soft to the cut of the knife. He likes things in order, he would always tell me "Biju if there is no discipline, things would fall apart, there would be no sun every morning and no fruits on the tree". And he is right, that's what my mother would say. At least just tell him he is right, she would add. 

When someone doesn't listen to him, things get ugly and I have seen it first hand. If I mess up something, I am sent to the dark room. It is not a special room, our house is not so big. It is just a room but the lights are put out. I can't see anything and everything seems to be closing in on me. I can hear Aai, my mother, pleading with him to let me go. But Baba is relentless when it comes to disciplining. Like the other day when Aai made his eggs to soft so he dropped the hot yolk on her palm. I was sure it was painful, but she said it is fine. She is very brave. When I came back from school, I saw the blister on her palm, but she said she should have been more careful. Those times were good, when Baba was not home. She would be happy and laughing, listening to radio and even dancing if her favorite song came on. 

Last month during Ganpati festival Aai danced the lavni for the function downstairs. She looked so beautiful, everyone praised her. Baba came home late that night. Aai had put me to sleep early hoping he would also give her come words of compliment, but he took her to the dark room. I don't know what was her mistake but next morning I saw her lip was swollen and her right eye was black. She was shakily putting some powder to cover it when I woke up. When Chandru's mother asked her what happened she lied "I fell down in the bathroom"

Aai did not want to trouble anyone. She did not tell my grandparents when they asked. They did not tell my aunt. She would tell me nothing happened, and all the time I think she was just lying to herself. She loved Baba so much, she was sure he would be better one day. And some days he was. Some days he would take us out to movies, buy her flowers and we would go to the beach. 

But then Aai would miss something like today morning. I think she had forgotten to put the butter in the fridge and it had stayed out the entire night. When Baba cut into it with the knife, it was dripping and when he tried to maneuver it to his toast a giant blob fell on the table. Baba grimaced, as if in actual physical pain. I was sitting across from him and I looked at his face and knew this was not good. Aai came running from the kitchen "What happened??"

He looked at her and pushed away his plate of food with so much force that a little bit of the tea spilled on the table. He got up and got hold of her braid. Aai always braided her hair before going to sleep. She gave a little yelp and apologized for a crime she was not aware of yet. Generally a profuse apology would get her out of such sticky situations, but today he was in a one of his moods. There was some pushing and shoving. She tried to get away a couple of times as well. But then he started shouting abuses that Aai would generally tell me were very bad words and never to be used. Baba was abusing her and even my grandfather. Last week, my grandparents had paid a visit and when they visit they subtly mention that Baba should treat Aai better, but they don't know that it always has a very opposite effect to what they expect. Instead of putting a balm on a bruise they are actually inadvertently adding fuel to fire. 

The abuses continued. When such situations occur, I just silently take my bag and go to school. I did the same. I picked up my bag and opened the main door and stepped out to the corridor outside the house. As I gently closed the door behind me I remembered I had not taken the keys. I was hesitant to enter the house again to fetch them considering the tumult in progress, so I stopped there for a moment to think what I should do. In the chawl there are no secrets, our homes are adjacent to each other and the walls hardly contain any sound. Chandru from the adjoining house had stepped out and was wearing his shoes, tying his shoelaces very slowly. It appeared he was listening to what was going on in my house and lapping up each word with utmost relish. Baba was a guidebook for cuss words and Chandru was a diligent student in that department. Chandru's mother stepped out handing him his tiffin box and giving me a look of pity. I decided I will go ahead without the keys, when suddenly the door to my house opened and Baba came out in a huff, pulling Aai by her hair, she was not her composed self either, she was disheveled and crying. Chandru's mother tried to intervene as Baba continued the beating in public. I stood there, my face turning hotter by the minute as I saw Chandru enjoying the show from the corner of my eye. This had never happened before, no matter what, Baba kept it in the confines of the home. Chandru's mother went inside to call her husband, people from the other houses were also peeking out. Baba pulled her along as she sat down on the floor, resisting him, he reached the stairs and that's when he slipped and fell. 

Chandru's father called the doctor, they said he broke his neck. Chandru's father bought me an ice cream, he is not angry like Baba. He was telling Chandru's mother in whispers that now I am orphaned. 

Phone Call

 "Hello"

 No response. This is what  bothered Aniket the most. He was on the way to work, in fact he had just left home and immediately there's a phone call. To top it all, there is no response. As if he did not have enough headaches to manage already.

Aniket was a very busy person holding a very serious position in one of the many multi-national companies that mushroomed in the city in the late nineties. This once sleepy town had been nudged from its slumber and forced to grow. Needless to say there were more cars than roads, unending serpentine lines of traffic. Every day he had to traverse through hours of traffic to reach work. He had little time to do anything else. His daughter had gone to college just this year. He was not returning home to anything really, his wife was equally busy and there was a mother in some part of the house who barely recognized him on her best days. 

Aniket was a man of discipline, waking up at 6 AM, going for his morning walk, meditating, eating his cereal breakfast and taking his diabetes medicines without fail for the past many years. He did not have time for inefficiencies in his life. When he received a phone call while driving from the home's landline phone he was far from pleased. A landline phone! Who uses it any more? But his house has one, a legacy of a bygone era that they were holding on to just for his mother's sanity. Last time, he had brought up the topic of surrendering the account, she had thrown such a fit, holding the paper bill that was generated every month and gets piled up in their post box that no one checked anymore. Something to do with it being an utility bill bearing his father's name, as if that's how you can hold on to some one who is long gone. He was truly baffled and frustrated with this kind of sentimentality, but indulged his mother this one idiosyncrasy. 

Who would have called? His wife Mitali had travelled to Mumbai for a conference. It must be the nurse. he just hoped everything was alright at home, because he did not have the strength to navigate through the traffic back home again. He knew he should be thinking about his mother's wellbeing, but his mind was occupied with the quarterly report he needed to turn in today. Soon a rogue motorist cut him off in the traffic and Aniket stuck his head out and gave him a piece of his mind, completely forgetting about the phone call. As he was reaching work, his phone buzzed again. It was Mitali. 

"Hi Mitu"

"Hi Ani, good morning. Listen is everything ok at home?"

"Ya I am just reaching office, what happened?"

"I got a call from home number, but when I called back no one picked up."

This both worried and irritated Aniket. He had also received the phone call, but unlike Mitali he had not bothered to check in. But as usual, with a man who recognized his failings, he did not admit it. 

"So call Jasmine and find out Mitu. How do you expect me to know? Look I have a really busy day, can you just sort this out and text me?"

There was a terse "Sure" from the other end of the line before disconnecting.  Aniket went ahead with his day with the diligence of an ox. Around lunch time, he had a moment to look up from his work and noticed a one-word text from Mitali: "Sorted"

The kind of message where he could cut through the clutter and hear her annoyed voice, but he was in no mood to indulge these petty feelings now. We can speak now when she is back from Mumbai, he surmised. The day's rigmarole continued surely and quickly as any other day, there was nothing extraordinary to write home about. 

As he started back for home, he had a moment to himself in the parking lot. He was relieved to have been able to ship out the report on time. The team had worked well, he would probably need to take the kids out for a few drinks this Friday. As the car trudged back, he dialled Mitali, but she did not pick up. This is what happened with them, like two large ships crossing each other in the ocean, they feel each other's waves, living highly successful parallel lives together. 

He reached home and turned the key on the door he was met with a familiar scent of white lilies - or rajanigandha as his mother called them. Aniket knew that these were prohibitively expensive here and was surprised at their presence in the house today. As he took offf his shoes, he could hear the sound of laughter  from the living room. He peaked in to see Mitali and his mother were sitting on the couch watching some TV and talking like two old friends, but that is not what arrested his attention. He noticed a bunch of rajanigandha neatly arranged in front of his father's photograph, along with two almost extinguished incense sticks. 

It was fourteenth June, it was his father's birthday, Ma must have been calling about this. The woman who forgets her dentures had remembered the date, yet he who had the company's financials at his fingertip had forgotten this number.

We Grow Old

 She was quite unhappy. She stood in front of the mirror today and suddenly realized that she had become an old woman. It shocked her how sudden the transformation had been. It was only yesterday that she would stand in front of this very mirror combing her long, black hair. The person who looked back at her seemed to be the reflection of a different person altogether, someone who looked like her mother, or her mother-in-law. Something deep within her stirred in dismay and she shook her head, turning away from that image. 

Anyway, she did not have the time to stand around looking at herself in the mirror. Someone had called her from the other end of the house. It was time for breakfast. She hurriedly headed to the kitchen and concentrated on kneading the dough. It was a busy morning and she needed to see everyone off to office and school. She went through the motions absent-mindedly. She forgot the sugar in her husband's tea, which he jovially pointed out, "Anu, age is catching up."

On other days she would have dismissed this as him being funny, but today these same words cut deep. She unconsciously wiped a stray tear from the corner of her eye as he packed his lunch and handed it over to him. As he smilingly accepted the bag and proceeded to his car, she paused there at the doorstep for a while looking at him as his figure slowly became smaller. She remembered how she would lovingly look up different recipes and make food for him in the early days of the marriage. Everyday would be a surprise. She would stand like this at the doorway bidding him goodbye and he would say a few sweet words, promises would be made about returning early or catching an evening show at the cinema. Slowly the routine broke, she did not have the time to pause, she had to quickly get back to the kitchen to prepare lunch boxes for the children. There was no novelty in the recipes even, they plateaued at some sort of variation of potatoes. He would still smilingly accept the bag, but no more cinema rendezvous took place. 

She paced back inside the house, which was now empty. The children did not need to be dropped to school anymore, the house needed a thorough cleaning up though. As she picked up after everyone, she felt caged. She felt like a cage herself, a cage whose birds had all flown. 

As she was picking up the wet towel from her son's room, she again absent-mindedly looked at the mirror in the room and again that old woman looked back at her. This time, she did not look away but went closer to have a better look, her face had opened up like strawberry skin, her hair had thinned and was mostly white, the laugh lines which her father would jokingly say made her cute looked like ravines on a deserted planet - what has she become! She stood at a little distance to take her entire figure in. Gradually, more shameful facts came to light. The muscles on her arm were loose, her breasts were sagging, beneath her long and loose kurti, she knew she was hiding a paunch. Everyday, during her very quick shower, she would see it, momentarily sigh and think about starting yoga the next day and forget all about it later.  Today, however, something had changed. 

Earlier in the day, she had gone downstairs to buy some vegetables from the vendor across the street. The mornings are always a hurry and she did not have time to dress up. Her focus was to prepare the food for everyone and she was missing a few carrot and lemon, so she quickly put a dupatta across her worn out kurti and the slippers she had worn during Holi. These slippers are always kept outside the house because they know no one will steal them. They are the rubber slippers that can not tear even if used to thrash a thief! Her hair was not combed and was frizzing all across, tied in an untidy bun. The lift stopped at the third floor, and the new tenant walked in, Smita or Sweta, something was her name. This Smita or Sweta, who Mrs. Saxena from across the corridor said was working in some big company, just like Anu's husband. She entered the lift, looking engrossed on her phone screen. As she entered, she saw Anu and flashed a well-practiced wide smile. 

"Good morning, going somewhere?"

She surveyed Any from head to toe, a quick judgement, holding on to that smile all the while. Anu suddenly felt very conscious of herself. Last week they had done a house warming and gone to everyone's house to distribute sweets. When they came to Anu's house she had naturally invited them in for a cup of tea. During the conversation, she discovered Smita or Sweta was her senior from college. they had chatted a bit about the reunion last year. How Smita or Sweta had chaired it and how Anu had missed it as she was busy. This lady standing in front of her, not a hair out of place, perfectly manicured nails, high heels, pencil skirt, her name brand purse was older than her, yet she looked so young. Her skin was powered perfectly, her lips luscious and perfectly colored, her earrings tastefully selected. Anu balled her hands into fists beghind her back, feeling a smalls nails smeared with turmeric. She only briefly smiled at Smita or Sweta as they parted ways. 

As she picked a few things at the shop and asked the boy to add it to the family's tab, she wondered where all the years had sped her by, how did she lose everything. 

Now, the empty house seemed to be coming at her. The looked at everything which he had poured her heart and soul into and hated it. the curtains that she has meticulously chosen, matching with the color of the wall, the paintings she had made, the showpieces that she curated from her different travels and spent hours dusting and cleaning - they all seemed to be looking her and mocking her. This is where all your time went Anu, you were buying curtains and cushion covers, buying duvets and wall hangings, instead of taking care of your skin and hair. Look where it has brought you now, you look like an old hag and behave like one too. 

She moved around the entire house, traversing one room to the other, nothing seemed to give her any respite. She brought out photo albums to cherish moments with the family, she looked at the medals and certificates of the children, she tried to divert her mind by watching some TV - nothing seemed to bring her peace. She felt like a fever was coming on, she tentatively touched her forehead with her fingers to check the temperature, like she did with her children. She drank some water. She made some tea. She took the cup outside to the terrace and forgot it there on the parapet. She looked at her small garden and busied herself in clearing some weed. 

After having spent around three quarters of an hour like this, she realized that the larger part of the day was still left. She went inside and took a long bath, showering in hot water. She used all the exfoliating creams her daughter had lined up the bathroom window with. She even used some of the expensive cream her sister had got for her from Paris last month. She wore the pretty pastel dress she had bought when she went to the mall last month and put on some lipstick. The face looking back at her was a little more presentable, but she could still see the dark shadows beneath the eyes. 

She picked up her purse. Let me go and surprise Ashok at work, she thought to herself. As she hailed a cab and settled in she remembered how she would often do this in the earlier days, drop the kids over at school and meet Ashok for lunch. She knew things had changed. He was not just a clerk who would not be missed, he was an important person and could not just walk away. As the cab meandered through the traffic, she fiddled with her phone, wondering if she should call once. He might not like her making an appearance out of nowhere. It would not have bothered him earlier, but now, things were different. How did it become so difficult, when did it become so difficult?

She had reached the building where Ashok's office was, it was a gigantic building with glass walls. Just looking at it was daunting enough. She paced outside and fought a thousand battles within before entering the lobby, she would make up her mind and try to enter and then she would again debate in her mind. Is this appropriate, will he be angry, would he again say age is catching up?

"Anu!"

Suddenly she heard him call her name. The voice was not coming from within the building, but outside. She turned around to see him and a few others walking back at a leisurely pace. The others nodded a courtesy at her and entered the building while Ashok came towards her, concerned, "Is everything alright?"

Suddenly she stood there lost for words. The simple request of having a lunch was stuck at her throat, she was unable to say this to the man with whom she had shared the most intimate moments of life, two children, three houses, two cities, innumerable cups of tea, heartbreaks and laughter, yet this simple thing she was unable to share. 

Ashok stood there impatiently for a while waiting for an answer, then took her by the hand to the sidewalk and said, "Are you here to meet someone?" After what seemed the most interminable few minutes of her life, she said she wanted to check if he would be free for lunch. The words tumbled out of her like collapsing Jenga blocks. Ashok laughed a laugh she had not heard in a while, "Wait here, let me get my wallet from my office", he said sheepishly like a child slipping out of school. 

As he ran back inside, she stood there watching him. He had aged too, there was the bald patch you could not miss anymore, the paunch was there too, she was not alone. 

Red

 I wish I was born in another time

When there was no war, 

no clashes among people, 

each baying for the other's blood, 

Or lying, without shame, 

without batting an eyelid. 

No blood, no death, no bomb shells, 

Where people were not afraid to return 

to their own homes, 

lest a bomb be lying, 

undetonated, undetected. 

But I can't think of such a time, 

every century, every great Age, 

marked by some bloodshed

As if we can't progress as a race without some red.

Always red, but believing in different Gods. 

So, logically, 

I wish I were never born.

Have Not

 It is the same story every morning, with a fresh realisation about a lack of some kind. Today it was not his mother saying that the rice is over so she will not be able to pack lunch, or his sister furtively asking if he could spare a few bucks, or even his father embarrassingly pointing at his empty shirt pocket indicating he was out of cigarettes. These demands he could indulge, they were placed with the right amount of platitude and guilt that would make him feel that without his generosity this household would simply fall apart. 

Today it was his brother. There was something really vile about a fifteen year old boy creating a scene. It could not be neglected due to his gruff and still forming voice that would alternatively be high pitched and heavy. It could not be ignored as a tantrum of a child either. His brother Munna was an otherwise quiet child. He remembered how they used to play catch with a tattered tennis ball in the lane in front of their house just a few years ago. But this was not child, this was a man, sitting on the plastic red stool that stood beside the door and putting on his shoe. He held up his left shoe and waved it towards their father

"Look at this, do you expect me to go out wearing this?"

The pasting of the shoe's body and the sole had come apart. A twenty buck job at the roadside cobbler should do the job, thought Bablu, still sprawled across his bed. He tried to draw the sheet over his head to block out the morning sun and Munna's voice. He agreed that the shoe was in bad shape, but there was no sense in shouting about it now. Bablu had returned late last night as he always does and he needed his sleep before the delivery rush of the lunch time starts. 

As he lay in the bed thinking if he could squeeze in a couple of more hours to get some overtime, he could hear voices being raised in the other part of the room, not that it was a large room that he could not hear them clear as crystal. Mother got up from the other end of the room which doubled up as the kitchen and entreated father and son to keep their voices low. 

"Munna, we will do something about this. Wear your father's sandal and go today."

Munna happily left his shoes, and took off wearing father's sandals. Father was just going to mumble something in between sipping his chai, when mother glowered, "it's not like you are going anywhere"

As Bablu sat up, he could see his father shrink away just like an insect cowers when someone prods at it with a twig. Still groggy, he squinted to see his mother again settling on the floor with her knife and vegetables. His father used to drive an auto, but his license had been suspended by the police, when he was caught drunk for the third time. Mother was not pleased with this. It is not like father used to be a really busy driver, he would hardly have a few rides in a day, but at least he was out of her sight. Now he used to sit in the corner and order unlimited cups of chai through the day. It is not like Bablu was mighty pleased with his father either. He knew the state of the house, he knew about the expenses, still he has to be unreasonable. When does this end?

Maybe he should get ready and start his deliveries since morning? Asif was telling him a lot of people order food for breakfast as well and that's a busy time. Bablu had been working as a food delivery boy for the past year and he had been doing pretty well. He was more than happy to fill in during the graveyard shift and that allowed him to make a few extra bucks. If he had not started in this line of work, he would never know about all these different kinds of food that people eat. Dosa, Falafel, Momo, Sushi - the list was endless. Since Bablu had a two wheeler that he could drive really fast even in peak traffic, he was a popular guy. His manager Swami said if he continued this way, he could go to the top, and he knew he would. He was not meant to spend his life in this one room with his parents and two siblings forever. 

His sister was already working in a hospital in the reception since the last two months. She had already left for work and would be back by evening. She was a diligent girl and he knew she would do well. Even Munna for all his whining was turning out to be a dependable chap. He was in college and would finish up in another year. the pressures were different for him and Bablu understood that. Kids that age can be cruel and walking into a place of study with a torn shoe might have been embarrassing for him. 

Mother gave him some breakfast that he thankfully polished off and got ready to go for work. 

"Are you leaving already?" she enquired. 

"Yes Ma, I think I will do some overtime today. I will get a pair of sandals for Munna on the way back."

She went to the other side of the room and picked up the shoes that Munna had mercilessly discarded. 

"These still have some life left, I will take this to the cobbler. Don't waste money."

Bablu smiled as he put on the uniform, his bright red t-shirt which his mother had cleaned and ironed for him. No matter how late he would come back at night, every morning he would find his clothes laundered to perfection. This is what he loved about this small rickety existence of his, it was small but never shabby. 

He hopped on his two-wheeler and sped away. The usual orders of breakfast time started trickling in. He picked deliveries and zoomed through traffic to reach his destinations. After the breakfast rush subsided a little, he drove to the regular tea stall where he and his buddies caught up through the day. Chandru was already there, in some deep discussion with two other fellows. Bablu collected his ten rupee paper cup filled with steaming hot sugary tea and joined them. 

He was happy with the work he put in this morning, this was sure to earn him a few extra bucks today. While the others discussed about the latest movie or some such nonsense, Bablu was busy preparing for the rest of the day. There was new shop near the railway station, they have a very good collection of shoes. Last weekend when Munna and he had gone out, he recalled standing at the window and admiring one. While Bablu was an avid fan of shoes with laces, Munna loved those slip on kind of shoes. there was one particularly nice pari that appeared to be made of plastic, but Munna told him they are called Crocs and apparently they were all the rage these days. Bablu did not understand the appeal of these but if Munna liked them he would try and get them for him. 

He was brought back to his senses as his phone buzzed. Delivery order for a pizza. Two boxes and some garlic bread and Coke. Someone is having a party on a Wednesday afternoon. Good for him. He whizzed to the pizza shop and waited to collect the order. He quickly loaded it on his bike and informed his customer that he was on the way. As he was driving to the destination, he got a call from the customer. 

"Hello!"

"Hello madam" he said with the most polite tone he could conjure as he dodged being hit by an SUV. 

"Bhaiya, Pizza delivery?"

This is what got his goat, he knew that when a customer got his number, they got his name as well. Why can't they ever call him and say "hello, is this Bablu?"

When he shared this with Chandru sometime back, he almost doubled up laughing. 

"We are all the same to them, you, me and few days later even Munna - Pizza, Dosa or Momo - that's all that we are."

As he thought about this again and the pain and shame of his existence washed over him as clear and real as the ashen smoke emanating from the school bus in front of him, the madam on the other end asked him to leave the pizza at the door and not ring the bell. Sure thing, he was happy to comply. In a few minutes, he reached the gate. This was the large apartment complex at the end of the road. He comes here very often, sometimes with multiple orders. He wonders if these people ever cook at home, but does not waste too much time thinking about it as this makes him his money. The security guards know him too. He opens his helmet and smiles at Suren who is sitting under an umbrella trying to protect himself from the scorching sun and catching a nap. He flashes the code which will allow him entry, but Suren seems to be in a lazy mood today and simply nods his head to let him know he can pass. Bablu parks his bike and takes the lift to the sixth floor and gets the door immediately. 

It is a party indeed! He needs to wade through a sea of footwear to get to the door. He stops looking around, wondering where he should place the pizza box. There is a shoe box by the door and he finally places the boxes on top. The Coke bottle rolls over and falls on the floor. 

"Shit!"

He mutters inadvertently. He can see the fizz forming inside the bottle. He carefully picks it up and places it on the shoe box again. It was somewhere in this entire time that Bablu first sees it and then no matter what, he cannot unsee it. There it was right beside the shoebox, a shiny, blue pair of Crocs. They were so pristine it seemed like they had been never worn. In those flashy corridor lights they looked even more stunning than they looked in the window of the shop near the railway station. He was not aware how or when it happened, but he extended his arm to touch them. His fingers quivered as he first touched them. They might have looked like hard plastic, but they were actually quite soft to touch. Oh how wonderfully comfortable would they be to wear he wondered. He looked around, no one was there, it would not hurt to just see how it feels. He opened his dusty pair of shoes and tried them on. How ugly his earthy, bare feet looked in those shoes. He was suddenly overcome with a deep disgust for himself. He took them off as quickly as he had worn them. It was as if the entire gathering of footwear - the Crocs, the sneakers, the ten other pairs whose names he had never heard were all looking at him and laughing. He pressed the button to summon the elevator but kept looking at the spread of shoes. 

How casually they were strewn around, he wondered, would they even notice if one goes missing. Clearly Munna needed this more than anyone of those pasty faced Pizza eating little babies beyond this door. As if an invisible hand pulled him, the elevator came and the doors opened. It was vacant. He did not take it, he went back and picked the blue Crocs. He held it close to his chest as if caressing a child. He took the stairs, roughly shoving the pair inside his jacket. How happy would Munna be to see this tonight! Hell with the rest of the day, he would go back home immediately. He wanted to see the look on Munna's face when he walks in and sees this shining near the door. After two flights of stairs, something happened and Bablu could not breathe anymore. What would he tell him when he asks me where I got it from? What would he tell mother? With father, she was just annoyed, to find out he stole would break her heart. He had made it to the ground floor and past the security fellow, but could not go further. He could not leave with this, but there was no excuse for him to go back either. Suddenly the import of the moment dawned upon him. He sat on his bike and went towards the exit gate. Suren was still dreaming under his umbrella. Bablu thrust the pair in his hands and left without a word.

Later, when they saw the CCTV footage, they saw this delivery guy walking to and from the corridor, trying out the shoe. The security in-charge told the madam of the sixth floor, you can complain with the company. 

In the other part of town, Bablu sighed and went to the shop near the railway station.

Have you read the newspaper?

 Have you read the newspaper off late?

What have we become?

Lesser than we used to be. 

Sitting in your larger, 

Air-conditioned living rooms, 

Having cereal, with milk from a carton,

And California almonds,

With frozen berries, of every kind; 

As you chomp down your breakfast,

‘Cause you need to catch the 10 AM meeting,

Have you read the newspaper?

The poor become poorer,

But that’s old news.

We are more severe on the weaker,

War looms large, knocks at our door,

So what? It’s not our children who are bullet ridden.

Somewhere a delivery boy kills someone

Over a parking spot, for he was getting late 

For a 30-minute or free delivery. 

Uneducated brutes, we smirk, as we sip our gourmet coffee.

Children are killed by mothers in hotel rooms

And packed in suitcases like dirty laundry

Young boys getting catfished by old men, 

Or vice versa,

Bullies everywhere.

We turn the page, big match tonight!

We turn the page, there’s some great offer on pizza, 

Delivered in 30 minutes, else free!

Festival

It was the ninth day of the festival,

A little too much sequin on people

And everyone seems to have taken a day off!

It was exceptionally hot,

The pitch on the roads were undone

Heaps of that horrid asphalt

Seems to have been scraped off

Like unwanted pizza toppings

And discarded on the sides

Electric wires streaming out

Like a fountain.

On such a sultry day,

We found our lost pooch,

Licking at the scabs on his haunches

Lest the flies fester again.

Not a spot of shade to bury his head in.

The fellow who sells coconut,

Tirelessly hacking

At those tender green fruits,

Was not here today.

The solitary shade from the flying plastic missing.

What is the mongrel to do,

But hide his muzzle

In the mound of garbage.

After all, the cleaner took the day off too. 

Summer

Summer reminds me of home

Of glorious Calcutta summers

of mangoes, of holidays

and sweaty afternoon siestas.

When Shakespeare was comparing 

someone to a summer's day, 

my teacher in school joked about him

not knowing the wrath of a Calcutta summer

Maybe not, more poor he for it.

Nothing goes past the summer,

She watches with her endearing grandmother smile,

as children graduate to new classes

make new friends, and foes. 

Mothers find a patch of shade

and sit and enjoy a cup of tea

while cutting thin slices of gooseberries 

to be neatly arranged out to dry in the sun.

The sun is a raging rebel

taming everyone with his iron will

but evening brings the kalboishakhi,

and no rebel stands a chance before a storm.

All rage washed down with

some cucumber water with mint

Couldn't be much more from the heart

A very very long time ago, when I was graduating school and Internet was in its infancy, results of our board examinations were published online. there were queues of students and their tense parents outside these little cyber cafes waiting to know their fate. For the uninitiated cyber cafes were establishments with a number of computers which had internet connection. The results would be announced at midnight or some such ungodly hour and a little before that time, people would start milling in and around these cyber cafes, in expectation, hope and trepidation. None of these people knew what the future holds. Will the internet allow so many connections at a time? will the server crash? When i put in my roll number would I be able to view my results? These and many more questions hung around like little clouds in the air. You could cut the tension with a knife. As the heart rates went up, the conversations grew sparse. I also remember these ancient websites had a countdown which was invariably in a red font on grey background. First they would count down days, then hours, then when it was down to the seconds there was absolute silence. This is it, this is the moment. 

The wonder and excitement of that moment was so pure, one built up with such genuine anticipation and subsequent joy, that I was pretty sure that it was something I would never feel again. Everything is so easily accessible now. Everything is at our fingertips quite literally, hence there is no real sense of achievement when you finally get it. 

But I was wrong. Yesterday I felt that - that unadulterated sugar-rush inducing all-encompassing exhilaration. 

So 28 February 2024, 10 AM CET is when the 2024 French Open premium tickets were to go on sale. We had planned this way ahead and we had thought we will be doing it together. But Joy had to go to Kolkata for his mother's surgery so we would be doing this from different cities. We were logged in from our different systems. I did not send Koko to school so that he can also sit with the iPad. We were counting down the hours, to minutes and then to those heart attack inducing last few seconds. With modern tech, the queues cannot be seen. But there was a cute tennis racquet holding icon who would go up and down an orange line indicating your position in the queue. 

As the seconds were over and the page said that you will be auto assigned a queue number, we waited to know what would be our allotted position. My nails are barely there anymore. No one cares about them. 

Finally the number appeared. We were frantically toggling between tabs, between systems, between individuals and between cities. Who would have the most probability to get it. On one of my log ins the number was 15,000 and something. The other one was 6000, I said. From the other end of the line you said you are at 40,000.  Sigh! this will be a long and torturous wait. 

But hold on you say, on one other system you are at one hundred and seventy. 170! Wow, that is luck. Someone said (someone being the hundreds of blogs which i had read to mug up all possible best practices for this venture) all you need is patience, luck and a steady internet. Alright, we have the most unpredictable element on our side. 

While my orange guys with their racquet were moving at a glacial pace, you were in within like 5 mins. We now had 45 mins to browse and select our seats. we got perfect seats, all together, straight viewing, the inclusive French food and wine sounds great - this is it! Buy it, Koko says. Buy it, I say. Let's do this, you say. This is all too good to be true. And you know what happens when things get that way right? They are!

Strangely, your credit card does not go through. No problem, try mine. It does not work. OMG, our time is running out, you try two other merchants, they fail. It's ok, we will figure something out. Yes, let's get money from fixed deposits to our main account and pay from there. That gets declined too, on both our cards. 

At this point in time I feel like i shall spontaneously combust - I have the damn money, I have the credit line, I am ready to pay - but it just does not work. What is this? The timer is running out. Wait, my orange guy at 6000 is almost in. we will still get some seats. But the issue with premium seats are that they are less in number - about 10-25 in each section and they get sold out within minutes. 

I call up my bank, they have an AI lady who thinks she is smart but she is stupid. She keeps repeating the same thing, so I have to get around her and get to an actual person. Gurpreet tries her best to solve my problem but she is none the wiser about why this got declined. In the mean time Joy and i are talking to each other on Facetime. Koko has given up, he gives me a hug and says - I know this was important for you, sorry. I have said my sorrys to myself already. Thinking in my head, this will be a good story to reminisce later. The time when we almost went to Roland Garros. 

You hang up, you're getting a call. You are talking to your friend Prapti who is also trying to get tickets. She says why don't you use my card, but those beautiful perfect seats are gone by now. You get a phone from your bank in the meantime - they declined the transaction because they thought it was a fraud. No, no, not a fraud - I am trying to buy stuff, I am trying to spend my money you tell them. 

But what's the point now, no tickets are left. We absent mindedly talk about how we were close, yet so far. I'm singing Nothing Else Matters in my head. Koko is reading Harry Potter. I don't know what is Joy's coping mechanism. Suddenly he says, wait, what if we are not sitting together. Two tickets just got free. At this point it just seems like empty rumination, so I go along. But Joy is not one to give up - so what if we are not sitting together - it's just three people in a row anyway. 

And he gets it, these are not absolutely in the front, but these are still premium tickets. OMG, are we really actually for real and in flesh and blood going to the clay courts or Philippe Chartrier? Yes yes and yes! 

Remember that absolute, pure, unadulterated all-sugar high? This is even better. IT's been 24 hours and I'm still processing it, this is to process it - to make it real. 

Chicken Sweet Corn Soup

 Kaveri was in her quarterly sales meeting when she got a call from her brother. The phone kept blinking on the table as she scrutinized the Excel her team had been working on. It was a long day and when she finally wrapped up, she checked her phone to see he had called two more times. Now, that was very much unlike Dadabhai, she thought to herself. 

She decided to call him back on the drive back home. Calling three times had to be something important, what could it be she wondered. If it was even a year ago she would have immediately assumed the worst about her mother's health. But she had already received the worst news last year around this time. Yes, it was September and she was again in the middle of something important. He called her a couple of times and something inside her just knew. Their father had passed away a couple of years back. Considering this she wondered what could be the reason. They hardly speak these days, except on mandatory days like birthdays and wedding anniversaries. There used to be a time when they were thick as thieves but those days are long gone. Even now, Kaveri speaks to Dadabhai's wife Neera much more than with him. 

As she pulled out of the parking, she called him. It was unreachable so she tried a couple of more times. They had not spoken in a long time and she just hoped everything was alright at home. The car swam along in the sea of traffic and she suddenly grew restless. She put through a call to Neera to check in on what was the matter. Even now, Neera had more information than Dadabhai. He was travelling for work and would be spending a day in her city. He was calling her to ask if it would be possible for her to meet. But right now he was on the flight so she could not reach him. She felt a little guilty for not receiving his call earlier, what was so important she wondered. 

The emotions moved quickly from guilt to anger. Can't he drop a text? Is it right to leave her in the lurch wondering what was wrong? Could he not have tried calling her one more time? Why is it always her responsibility to call and check on him? Did he check once with her on how she was doing after their mother passed away?

Instead of taking the right to go home, she continued straight heading to the airport. Bikash was not at home, he is also travelling this week. She would anyway have to go to an empty house, take out some leftovers from the fridge and microwave it. Instead she could go and meet Dadabhai at the airport and see if he would want to spend the night at her humble abode. Every time he travels he stays in some five-star accommodation that his office provides. Her small apartment would not be comfortable for him. He never asked to stay and she never offered. When did they become so formal with each other?

Today she was feeling a little different, she didn't know why. She remembered last September when both of them had rushed home after they received the news. Their childhood house suddenly seemed vacant. Now with their mother gone, they suddenly felt like the last anchor was lost. 

Dadabhai and Neera came in with their suitcases and their children. Neera quickly started putting the children away in a room and attending to the relatives. Kaveri was sitting by the living room window, she had not even bothered talking to the relatives, she hardly registered what they were saying. Bikash had been doing most of the talking till now. Dadabhai came and put a hand on her shoulder. 

"That's where we would burst crackers, remember?"

"Yes, every year"

"Then we would go out for Chinese"

"Oh yes, Ma loved Chinese"

"And you loved the Chicken Sweet Corn soup, but could never finish it."

They looked at each other and said "one by two"

The server at their local Chinese restaurant knew the children well. Whenever they went there he would come to the table and start reciting the order and always look at the kids and say "So Chicken Sweet Corn Soup, one by two, right?" with a wink. Then he would get two steaming bowls of soup. The vegetables and chicken swirling in a synchronized dance as the strings of eggy delight moved effortlessly in between them. The steam itself would fill their appetite. It was sickly sweet, just the way Kaveri liked it and Dadabhai would keep complaining the whole time, while adding all the available sauces into it, till it was a brown mushy liquid. 

They laughed a little and then hugged for one infinite moment, it was just a second. This was perhaps the last time they really spoke. She could not remember. 

Fifteen minutes till she reaches the airport, she quickly checked on Maps. While she was swelling with emotions right now, she also wondered if Dadabhai would be surprised, Annoyed or happy to see her there. The last time she had done something like this was when Dadabhai was returning after completing college. Gosh! that seemed like ages ago now. It was his cap phase, were he would wear extremely baggy jeans, oversized t-shirts and a cap. Her parents were accompanying her then. She had made a "Welcome Home" sign. He got out of the departure gates and flashed a boyish grin at them. He hugged her and told her he missed her. Why does it become so difficult to tell your closest people that we love them as we grow older?

She had reached the airport and was waiting at the gate. Looking around she saw so many faces of family and friends waiting for their loved ones - smiling, expectant faces. Some coming home, some just passing through - but for everyone - an island of home, right here between the comings and goings. The flight had landed as per the display but Dadabhai as usual was not answering calls. He must be hovering around the conveyor belt like a hawk, as if someone else would pick up his luggage. He is so much like their father, she smiled to herself. 

Suddenly, he saw him in the ocean of faces, he looked older than she remembered. When did his hair become so pronouncedly salt and pepper? The boyish grin was intact though. The moment he saw her at the gate, as if he was expecting her there all the time. 

"Why did you come all the way?" he said, busily handing her his bag. 

"I don't know about you, but I am famished"

"Let's grab a bite, Chinese?" he said, putting an arm around her shoulder. 

"Chinese, like old times?"

"Yes yes, one by two forever", he said. 

Maybe they don't need to say they love each other, maybe they say love each other like this. Suddenly, she was not tired anymore. The salt and pepper and backaches were forgotten, the outlines of the grown up people they had become were forgotten, they were just a brother and sister, talking and laughing about nothing and everything in a small booth at a restaurant having two steaming bowls of sickly sweet soup. 

Nowhere and Somewhere

 

Chapter 1

Chapter 2 - Nowhere and Somewhere

Arindam and Sharbari lived in a beautiful house. It was a quaint two-storey one. Her social media feed was filled with photographs of perfect table settings and garden seating. Whoever saw these, would always admire the picket fence, the lawn and the perfectly kept house. It was not easy, Ira would think, taking the compliments with a smile. Every morning when the husband would leave and she would have the rooms to herself she would proceed from one room to the other with the precision of a diligent maid. She would arm herself with her small box of supplies, brushes, brooms, gloves, soaps and sprays of every kind. She would be at it till every shiny surface would be spotless and every fabric would neat. She was never known to care much for house work, but she would absorb herself into this world to fill her empty hours.

No one who followed her flawless Instagram page could tell that though. Over there she was the cynosure of her generation, she had made it. She was young, beautiful, settled in a first world country, wife to successful man, what else could a woman want? Happiness was at her beck and call. She wore diamonds and gold. Her wardrobe was full of brands whose names half od her friends never knew or could pronounce. At her school reunion, they would talk about her in hushed tones.

“Remember Sharbari?”

“She is doing really well I ‘ve heard”

“Did you see her latest photos from Thanksgiving, she looks so happy”

If only they knew the difference of looking and being.

While she did preoccupy herself with photographing every shoe she bought or every coffee she drank, soon her interest waned and she wanted to occupy herself with something else, something more. So she would take up new projects.

At first she worked on a herb garden. There on her kitchen window she had carefully grown oregano and cilantro, right beside curry leaves. Now when she would make pasta, the basil would be within her reach. The herb garden bloomed, but her smile did not. She grew a vegetable patch. There were homegrown cabbages and tomatoes. There were an equal measure of photographs. Friends she had never spoken to would say “beautiful” and “wow” on each of her updates. Her family was happy that she was in such a good place.

Next fixated on decorating the walls of the house. She procured stencils and paint. She prepared pages and pages of design ideas. The walls on the kitchen would have cool greens and teal, with some affirmative messages written with her perfect calligraphy. But even as the project progressed, she did not feel very settled. So she moved to other parts of the house. There was a cozy nook in the study which had a reading chair. She intended to make a Warli design on that wall in yellow and maroon. For the small room beside the bedroom which had her small temple, she wanted to make a Tanjore painting for the empty wall. Arindam was happy that she was occupied with something. “Happy wife makes a happy life”, he would chuckle once at dinner to his friends as Ira went to the kitchen to fetch the dessert. In a bid to be at home, she was suddenly left nowhere.

As she slowly wore her mittens and opened the oven, a lesson from childhood came to her mind. She was sitting in the humid classroom and the fan was making an enormous creak every time it made a languid rotation. The geography teacher was talking about earthquakes. The tectonic plates are always moving. Ira was always fascinated by this concept that this land that we are walking on, which seems so solid and steady is in fact always in some sort of motion. So while these tectonic plates were moving, they sometimes just get stuck at the edges. Sometimes, they just don’t fit in like a piece from a jigsaw. But in fact, they rub against each other and cause friction. Over time this friction builds into something greater, and when this stress overcomes the friction there is an earthquake. So fascinating that sometimes, even one event is enough to set off a series of small apparently indistinguishable but significant events in motion to unsettle everything. Something akin to this was happening in her own life right now. The veil of love, or whatever cheap imitation of it covered her eyes, was long gone. Now every little thing irritated her. Every idiosyncrasy she earlier found cute, boiled her blood.

That was not the most unbearable part though. The moments when he would hold her close or when he would dismiss her in front of his friends as not understanding sports were the times she wanted to heave a sigh and with that blow away everything, including this life she had chosen for herself. So that day after his friends had gone and she was cleaning up everything, she decided that she needed to speak with Arindam. She called out from the kitchen while cleaning the oven, but did not hear a reply. After completing her chores, when she went up, he was blissfully snoring.

She went out to the backyard and sat down. Is this how you feel right before an earthquake hits you, she wondered? Everything seemed surprisingly calm. She looked at the millions of tiny stars which had illuminated the sky that night, it was beautiful. But it was also time for her to leave and see the sky from somewhere outside this prison.

Pumpkin Pie

The morning light was bright outside. She knew it, but could not see it. The warmth of the sun crept through the walls, she could feel it. From the corner of the room where she had been sitting crouched for the last hours, all she could see was a small patch of the floor.

No, no, do not get ahead of yourself. She is not hurt, at least there are no marks of injury on her body. Sharbari was not one to take any blows lying down. Just now as she was sitting in the corner of this dark room, she remembered the time in school when a much older boy had pushed her off the swing. It was another summer day, far away from here. She was in the school park, in Kolkata. She was playing with her friends, taking turns to get on the swing. Suddenly this boy came and asked her to get off. She refused, telling him he needed to wait in line like the rest of the children. This did not go down well with him and he pushed her off. What would typically ensue would be the small six-year-old girl crying with sand on her face, while the ten-year-old smirked away. However, the six-year-old Sharbari threw sand into his face and jumped at him, flinging her tiny wrists at his face. While most of the efforts were in vain, a few punches landed and the boy was left quite sorry faced. More than the blows, what hurt him was the little girl hitting him. The child’s parents complained, Sharbari’s parents were called to school and rebuked for “lack of able guidance”. No one listened to little Sharbari when she tried explaining what happened. No one believed her, including her parents. She had to write an apology letter in scrawny handwriting, confessing that it was completely her wrongdoing. The boy who had pushed her off, emerged from the Principal’s office unscathed. She was branded as a problem child. But she was happy, no matter what anyone said, she had got in a punch when she wanted and no one could take that away from her. Her friends who had been at the playground that day applauded her daring act and she knew it was not all useless.

So she would frequently get into trouble. Sometimes just to see if her parents would ever take her side, but they never did. Now as she sat in the dark room on a summer morning, she remembered that day and wondered if she was braver as a child. She wondered if anything had changed. This day was different, so much different from that. Last night Arindam and she had a fight, again. Off late, their arguments had increased. He recently got tenure at University and would be teaching Mathematics full time. This would mean longer hours away from home, or at least away from Sharbari for sure. Even when he was at home, it did not feel like he was there. He was holed up in his study. Not that she was complaining.

Arindam and she were married a year ago. Much against her parent’s wishes.

Will you be happy so far away from home, they said. When did I ever spend time at home, she thought.

Arindam and she met at an art exhibition, where he had visited with his ex-girlfriend. She was an amateur artist whose work was displayed and received quite a few accolades. While she was there front and center, he stood in a corner sulking over his wine. At that time Sharbari found him brooding and mysterious, when he was in fact just being petty and jealous. She should have known then. But love is a heady intoxication which brings you temporary bliss. In two months, the artist was forgotten and Sharbari was the muse for the young Mathematics genius. In little less than a year she was so swept off her feet that she married him and moved to the US. Here in a suburban University town, she was the better half of Professor Dutta, the lady who makes amazing mutton korma and kheer.

She knows the few people her Professor husband introduced her to.

The neighbours are not too friendly. Take today morning for instance! After breakfast, she was working in the garden. She waved to the lady across the picket fence, who scowled back, her red hair flying across her freckled face. As if she was annoyed that Sharbari was breathing the same air as her. But to Sharbari it felt like just beyond the fence was a person she could befriend. So later in the day when her husband was off at the University brightening young minds, she decided to go up to her future friend bearing gifts. She put herself dedicatedly to making a pumpkin pie. She was always good at baking and had made a cookies and brownies in her oven back at home. But here things were different. The temperatures would always be called out in Fahrenheit for example. The first few attempts at baking ended up in burnt dough. She took some time getting used to it. While she was a master at making kheer and halwa, pies were not her strong suit. But then again, when in Rome, she thought and went about looking at the recipe to make the pie. She went out armed with a list, neatly written out on a piece of paper. She walked to the nearest grocery store which was a couple of miles away from home. On weekends Arindam would take her there for the weekly supplies. But if she would try to explore the baking section, he would frown at the unnecessary expenditure she was always indulging in. So she took out the few notes from her pocket money which he would allot her every month. But since she never really went anywhere they had gotten collected to be a bunch of notes which lied unused in the closet.

As she walked to the store, the roads were empty, even in the shop there were hardly any people. It was a working day after all, everyone would be busy at work. She fondly recalled when she would also be rushing to work every morning and catching coffee breaks with her work friends around this time. This lonely walk was so different from back home. For starters, there would be at least a few people stopping her on the way to exchange pleasantries. At that time, Sharbari disliked them, now she missed them. If she would tell Arindam, he would laugh.

“Isn’t this what you escaped, the over-social people, the crowds?”, he would say stroking her arm, as if he was talking to a pet.

As she walked through the well-stocked aisles and picked up whatever she wanted, she felt free. No one was breathing down her neck remarking about whether this was really needed, and whether that could be replaced from something at home. She picked up the ingredients she needed and headed back home. This was a recipe she was trying out for the first time, so she wanted to be meticulous. Alone at home, she put on some music and followed the pumpkin pie recipe to the T. While she was not a master of this dish yet, she was confident that as long as she diligently followed the recipe, the outcome would be good. Afterall, she was preparing this for the neighbors and they would surely appreciate the pains she was taking. She could already imagine her and the red haired woman laughing about the mistakes she had made. She would probably get some helpful tips as well. She could already imagine them enjoying a relaxed cup of tea in the backyard in the twilight. Just like magic, a couple of hours later the entire house was filled with the aroma of freshly baked pie. Armed with her gift, she headed over to the neighbour’s house. The red-haired lady opened the door cautiously. Sharbari could only see one green eye from the slim crack of the door which she had opened. Sharbari could also see her thickset husband in the background and she was pretty sure he was carrying a gun.

Understanding that her presence was not welcome, she left the pie at the doorway and got back home. She kept ruminating over what just happened. It did not sit well with her and she waited for Arindam to get back. Did she intrude upon an ongoing quarrel? Or are they just generally unpleasant people? She was restless through the day. Once Arindam is back she would tell him all about it, how rude the people next door were, how she was perfectly capable of going to the grocery store herself, and how she has mastered yet another recipe. To her delight, he returned earlier than usual.

As she heard him park in the driveway, she rushed downstairs to greet him at the door. But before she could get there he has already entered and threw his keys on the table. Without looking up he said, “Have you completely lost it Ira?”

She was taken aback at this and walked towards him with the same enthusiasm she had and put her arms around his neck. He pushed her away and looked directly into her eye. He was livid.

“What happened?” she started in a small voice.

“What happened? Are you seriously asking me that after trespassing into our neighbour’s?”

Sharbari, or Ira as everyone called her, did not know what to make of this. She was surely not trespassing and even Arindam knew that.

But she again felt like that six year old girl in the Principal’s office. Just like that day, she was barely listening. She was aghast that her loved ones would not even check once on her side of the story. She came to her senses when she felt someone physically shaking her.

“Stop dreaming Ira, this is not India that you can just walk up to people’s home uninvited to chitchat”

There was more. The pocket money had to be stopped, she needed to understand and learn the way of living in civilized society, she was just stupid, maybe some CCTV cameras need to be installed at home, what a headache she is, this marriage was a mistake.

After a while, he stormed off from the house, the door slammed on her face. That was last night, now she sat looking at the slant of a sun ray falling on a small patch of the floor which was the only thing in her vision. She looked intently at the dust dancing in that thin strip of light. Should she stay in the dark  and cool corner just looking at the dust or go out into the sun, burning bright into her eyes. She thought and thought.

 

Ginger Tea

 You bring a cup of water to a boil and put in some sliced ginger. The aroma fills the air and you add a dash of sugar and let the flavors incorporate. Then you add the milk and eventually the tea leaves. That’s how Mr. Bagchi liked his tea, and through his twelve years of marriage there have been various ways in which he has tried to bring his wife up to speed. 

But his wife had other more pressing matters to attend to always. There were the children’s breakfast and school lunch boxes to prepare, his father’s pills to administer, the milk to be boiled, his office clothes to be pressed, or some such, so she never really had the time to dilly dally over a cup of tea. Also, the little time that her husband took each morning when she handed him her version of the tea was her time. The cup she handed him was sickly sweetened with too much milk, always too much milk. He would take the cup and put down the shield of the newspaper he had been hiding behind and would proceed to enumerate where she had gone wrong. This ritual had started in their first week of marriage and had remained unchanged. Through the years Gauri had transformed from a timid girl who hardly knew how to make tea into a formidable cook who could dish out complex menus like it was child’s play. If she wanted, the recipe which he had repeated time and again was not so difficult to follow. In fact, sometimes when she was alone, she would brew herself a cup at her own pace and enjoy it while listening to some radio. 

But that small window of time that she had with him, away from the scruples of the daily domesticity reminded her of a time long gone, when they could talk without one of the children coming in asking for help in Geography, or asking for a test paper to be signed or asking to go to some friend’s house, or when their conversations didn’t comprise the father’s next doctor visit or the plumbing to be fixed. There was a time when he would bring white lilies for her, wrapped in newspaper, on his way back from work every Friday. He knew she liked a single rose, yet he would bring her the white lilies and she would grudgingly accept each time indulging it as his little rebellion. Now she would get gold jewellery on anniversaries and birthdays, which she would dutifully show off to her mother and the neighbours, but she secretly desired the flowers. This was her time and she was not ready to part with it, like she had parted with the morning walks, the occasional theater visit or the lilies.

And so it went, until Mr. Bagchi stopped complaining one day. It happened quite instantaneously, like a band-aid being ripped off. Gauri wondered and wondered what would have happened. No matter how much to his distaste the tea was, he would always finish the entire cup. It is not as if the sweet milky tea was inedible, it was just not his variant of the light ginger tea. For all these years, she had led herself to believe that he had come to like this version, he just did not like to admit it. She told herself that the little banter they exchanged each morning was just a tease, a secret dance only they knew the music to. But things changed overnight. Nowadays, he would take a few sips and just leave it at the table. At first she did not think much of it but it bothered her more than she would like to confess. One day, after he left for work and she was relatively free, she took the cup and sipped. It was not terrible, it was exactly how she had been preparing it for years. So what had happened now?

Mr. Bagchi had not really thought too much of giving up that sweet milky sherbet that his wife passed off as tea. He had always been a connoisseur of tea. A couple of weeks before him dropping off the morning tea ritual, he was lecturing the office boy on the way of making the perfect cup. Neetu, the new girl who occupied the adjacent desk was mildly amused and told him that is exactly how she prepared her tea. Mr. Bagchi was ecstatic to meet someone who shared a passion for the perfect cup of tea and would remonstrate how he missed this dying art. One thing led to the other and Neetu invited him for a cup of tea at her place. She lived right next to the office after all, so it was convenient. The tea she made in her small apartment was so delectable that he got instantly hooked and one morning as he sipped the cup Gauri handed him, he closed his eyes and decided enough is enough. He had tried it all, coached her, rebuked her, coaxed her and cajoled her - nothing seemed to get through. Why did she have to be stubborn about everything? Had he not provided everything for her and all he wanted was a little peace in the morning before he started his day. But she would not give that to him. Yes, very early on in the marriage he had once joked about her father calling this juice tea. Yes, he had said that tea is for the classy and not the commoners. Why did she have to be held up with that, could she not let it go? She has time for everyone in the house but him. Anyway, this was perhaps the only time that they actually spoke with each other and while they could sit and talk peacefully she would rather have him tell her the same thing again and again and again. Mr. Bagchi decided to pay Neetu a visit before going to work and at the cost of sounding inappropriate asked for a cup of tea. The lady was obliging and even if she felt this was an imposition she did not show it. He sat and drank the tea in peace and even made some small talk while he was at it, all the while wondering what was stopping Gauri from enjoying this time with him. 

Somehow he made mistakes at work, sent mails to the wrong people, and was easily irritable. As the week progressed, he refused to touch Gauri’s tea and visited Neetu each morning. Gauri on the other hand was perturbed by her husband’s rebellion. She started smelling his shirts before putting them in for a wash and one day, he found a strand of hair which was unfamiliar. Her worst fears were confirmed. She stopped listening to radio, her curries were salty that day and she forgot to water the flower pots adorning their little verandah. 

After a week, she decided to give in. She had to eventually part with the last semblance of a bygone time. As she diligently sliced the ginger, she told herself that she had had her time and all must move on. The flavor of the ginger and sugar was so heady that she prepared another cup for herself as well. She arranged them on a tray and went and sat across from him, picking up her cup and holding it up to her lips. He put down the newspaper. Another person sipping tea beside him at this hour in the morning is something he had forgotten. This happened only in the beginning, this was the time when he would have called her tea something akin to juice and somewhere down the line she had become too busy for this time. He could smell the ginger and the light and perfectly brewed tea. He picked his cup, took a sip and closed his eyes. This had to be the most perfect cup of tea he had had in his entire life, each element coming together so beautifully. This was bliss. They spoke of something in the newspaper, something about the neighbour and something about their day. 

After finishing, as Gauri was taking the tray away, he said, “Now can you make two cups of your tea?” She smiled and went to the kitchen. That day, Mr. Bagchi went straight to office and came back with a red rose. Gauri held on to the single stem and said, “Get your lilies next Friday.”

Ammu Sona

 Hi Koko, 

I have not written in a looong time. Not because I had dearth of subjects, but because I definitely was caught up in a lot of things. You started going to school - physically going to school. In fact this week you have your exams. Between adjusting back to normalcy of having a person routinely go outside of home, packing lunch boxes and managing the newly increased amount of work at office I was honestly left with no time. 

However, I have been planning to start this series for a long time and I think today is a good day to start. So I have been thinking that you know your relatives and cousins, but there are so many of your family you will never meet or people who are not really in their element anymore. What about their stories? Do we just forget those lives? I want to you to know them, like they were in their beautiful and meaningful lives. Like with you and me - all of them have had bright and awful days. I will try and collect some memory you can hold on to. 

There are some of these people who I myself have not met. But for some, I have partly faint and fond memories. Like Ammu, your Dadan's mother.

 

If I asked Ammu when her birthday was, she would say she was born the day they heard the ship's horn blaring near their home. The concept of not knowing one's birthday was so alien to me that I would keep asking her this question again and again and she would always patiently give me the same answer. She seemed to be from some other world as she would sit in the balcony's winter sun, arranging a paan for herself or meticulously applying coconut oil on almost each strand of her hair and talking of her young life. 

She would talk about the time when my father was young, how he broke his collarbone (thrice), or about the beautiful and dangerous river Icchamati by whose side her home was. I would imagine her as a young mother to a tribe of untamed brats, shouting after them, or cooking or cleaning, or somewhere on the banks of the river as a kalboishakhi approached. Like Durga from Pather Panchali. We should watch that movie sometime. 

She was a woman of grit - she had her fair share of storms that she weathered when she was in her prime. But I have not seen her then, I only saw her in the sunset years of her life and I will tell you about how I remember her. Once I misplaced a brand new crayon set at school and my mother was absolutely livid. After listening to the scolding for a bit, Ammu took my hand and walked with me to the closest stationery store and bought me a 24-set crayon box. I still remember that day clearly. She was wearing her white saree with a narrow blue border, her hair tightly braided with the trademark black ribbon and tied into a bun, tightly holding my arm lest she lose her way. 

By this time her eyesight had deteriorated a lot. She suffered from this disease called Glaucoma, which led to her vision depleting to almost negligible by the time she left us. I remember accompanying my mother and aunt to many a visit to the doctor - the eye specialist, the heart specialist et al. I think I also vaguely remember the medicines she had - Sorbitrate, Zolam etc. It is not easy living your life in darkness, especially if you have lived your entire life with vision. Learning how to find your way, or go through the simple motions of life without the key sense - I cannot imagine it!

So Ammu would come and stay with us for a few months each year and that was the time when I was on medicine duty. She loved having a peaceful night's sleep so almost everyday, she tried smuggling an extra Zolam tablet. Every night she pretended that she had somehow misplaced the first tablet I gave her so that I would open and give her another one. I got fooled a couple of times as she would have deftly tied it to the end of her saree. But I quickly caught on and she would implore,"দে না সোনা"

No one calls me by that name anymore. That was nice between us, the names we had for each other - No one else called her Ammu, and no one else called me Sona. 

Love,

Ma

Gentle Reminder

Ma can be found (if she gets the chance)

On a swing in a park

Dancing in the rain

Enjoying an ice cream by the road

I wish my inner child is alive

When I reach her age.

Ma can also be found (mostly)

In the kitchen

Cooking for a dozen people effortlessly

Being there for people silently

Facing bad manners gracefully

I will probably

Make different choices.

Ma can love with all her heart

She wears her white hair like a crown

I wish I was as comfortable in my skin

Ma’s garden is always blooming

I wish I was as nurturing.

But in all this taking care

And showing love

She forgets herself

I wish she’d learn something from me

And put herself first

Every now and then.

He said, She said

 Let's go to the end already

For we are all racing to the end anyway

Why go through the daily troubles

If the goal is to have a peaceful sleep

Said he.

Yes, and in so doing

Miss out on all the sights, and love and music

Why close your eyes and ears

If the road is so full of amusements

She said.

Two Years

I complete two years at Accenture today. They say your job is not your life, it's not what defines you. But I can safely say I was never happier at a job. 

Spending two years at a job is a milestone for sure, but somehow it does not feel like it. 

While the world has undergone a sea of change, I feel like my life has never been more tranquil. Right about now, I LOVE my life. 

Some days are better than others for sure, but then again isn't that how life is supposed to be. 

I think this is a very good place and today is a very good day to reflect on my journey. When I first joined I was not very sure if I was a good fit for this role, and I was just about learning the ropes when the entire scheme of domestic life changed. 

Earlier, my day started with getting up and getting my son ready for school and then rushing back, having a quick breakfast and heading towards our individual offices. The nest one or two hours would be spent in our cars, cursing the traffic and listening to mindless radio. The day would rush past and then the evening would see me scrambling to pick Koko up from daycare, getting home and preparing for dinner. So went the days. In a flash a week had gone by. 

But then things changed and I paused. Koko does school in the corner of the room now. There is no traffic and no rush as such. But is it really so?

My learning curve has been amazing, I have learnt so much and really honed the art. I can safely say I have created a space for myself and people know me for what I am and what I do. I am not afraid to say I love my job, because I really do. I am so lucky to be able to be in a position where my decisions can really make a difference in someone's life and at the end of the day, even if I am stretching - if I am able to see that I have made a difference for the better, it makes me a happy person. 

Does it not have it's low days - of course not! Some days I feel like shit, but I have learnt to take it in my stride, and most importantly, today is not that day :)

Aquamarine

 A long time ago when we lived in Ranigunj, we had a neighbour, Pishima. We never really knew her name. Only that she lived alone in the mansion at the end of the road. She was some sort of an invalid, and we had never seen her step out of the house. But she was very kind to us children. Not like the batty old people who would bark at us if our ball entered their yard. She would enjoy our company, often encouraging us to come play in her garden. We liked sitting with her in the soft winter sun. She would sometimes have sherbet made for us. 

She also let us play with her cat. It was more like a stray cat, but she liked Pishima’s house much like the rest of us urchins. The cat had the most alert and mischievous eyes I had ever seen, they were green and blue, something Pishima described as aquamarine. It was a color I had never heard of, much like the many other things she spoke of. It was from her that we first heard of Marie Curie and Shakespeare, we heard about what Niel Armstrong had done, we first saw a globe. She spoke about museums and sculptures. She introduced us to Da Vinci and Michelangelo. We enjoyed our summer vacations sitting and getting regaled by tales of such faraway lands, stories which our families wouldn’t tell us and our schools would never teach. 

Every evening after an afternoon of laborious playing, we would flock around her table as she sat for her tea. She would have her dutiful servant always bring some sort of sweet or savory snack for us. The cat would also sit among us, comfortably curled up on someone’s lap. One of us, I can’t remember who, had named her Neeli. 

That summer break, just when the mangoes had started ripening my aunt came to spend the vacation with my cousin, that bratty Raju. He was always up to something or the other. Either tearing my books, or putting salt in father’s tea or some other mischief. My father who is a very genial man, would never scold anyone, but with Raju he would always lose his cool. But he was the apple of my mother’s eye. My father even gave him his prized silver paper knife with his name engraved because Raju like it so much. 

Since I was the closest to him in age, it came upon me to keep him entertained in those months. He would accompany me and my friends to Pishima’s house too. Her house was full of curios and one day Raju took something from her house, but just as he was putting it in his pocket Neeli had jumped on him and scratched his hand. He pushed her away and started shouting, “What a wild animal!” 

Pishima quickly came and put some mercurochrome on his injury. But she also knew Neeli would not attack someone just like that. So when she saw a missing miniature canon on her shelf, she quickly took Raju to task. Within a few minutes, he was on the brink of tears and ran back home after replacing the item that he had stolen. 

Needless to say I was very embarrassed and avoided going out to play for the next few days. What would my friends say? My brother is a thief, they must be thinking the same of me. I was surprised how Raju, who was the culprit, strutted around the house like a prized peacock, as if nothing had happened. I knew what a bully he was and was honestly scared to confront him or tell the truth to the parents. I later learnt that he had convinced his mother that Pishima was in fact a strange old crone. Her house full of strangeness was surely not normal, and the mercurochrome she rubbed on him was surely some menacing potion. I eavesdropped my aunt telling the ladies of the neighbourhood about her conviction that Pishima was into black magic. I was furious to know this and went straight to my mother who laughed and took me in her embrace, rubbing my eyes with her saree. She asked me not to worry so much as my aunt would be gone in a few days. She was terribly blind when it came to her son. Also, my mother assured me that everyone knew Pishima all too well to buy into such  tall tales. Who would believe the notion that Pishima was dabbling in occult? I went to Pishima’s the next day and apologized. She and my friends laughed and we played around like nothing had happened. 

With no one believing in his cock and bull story, Raju kept aloof from us and ventured about alone. I was relieved he had found something to do on his own and wasn’t tagging along with me or my friends. He would be roaming all around and return late into the evening. 

I just wished for Raju and my aunt to go away. One day my friends came to call me to go kite flying. I quietly sneaked out of the house before Raju found out. He would surely have come and showed off his skills, which none of us were interested in. As we were out on the streets rushing after our kites, we came upon Pishima’s house. Reeti was the first one who spotted Neeli, or whatever remained of her. There by the gate lay the mangled body, beheaded with a cruelty we could not imagine. We gasped, some of us started crying. We were after all just a group of eight or nine year olds, still untouched by the viciousness of life. A few of us ventured closer, just to check if there was any chance to revive her. Suddenly I noticed a gleaming silver paper knife, with my father’s name engraved on it. I picked it up and ran back to my father, sobbing. Raju and his mother left the very same evening. 

Our parents did not stop us from visiting Pishima anymore. As if a spell had been cast upon them and with them gone, they had snapped back to reality. Next morning as we went into Pishima’s yard and sat beside her, she did not look at us or speak to us, her gaze glassy and transfixed on something far away, we were not sure what exactly. In the morning sun, her eyes shone a tricky shade in between green and blue, almost aquamarine, just like Neeli’s.

Defining “hujug”

 Us Bengalis are a curious and brave race. Me included. Our one extraordinary and defining feature is so extraordinary indeed that it does not even have an equivalent word in English. The Bangla word for it is “hujug”.

Let me try to explain it. We love our people, our friends, our adda, and so many other things which are distinctly ours. Pujo is just one of those things. We are very touchy about the subject and extremely possessive about the details. It really does not matter if you have never been to Calcutta, we assume you would know the difference between Ashtami and Dashami. And hell hath no fury as a Bengali declined a leave request the week of Pujo. 

Once said leave is secured, we begin with our shenanigans which include pandal hopping, egg roll eating, balloon bursting, bhenpu blowing amidst other unmentionables like Tangra sojourns eat al.

But I digress, for I was defining hujug. Digression is also a key tenet of this precious feature. Hujug is the excitable and adventurous part of our collective psyche, which makes us as a people do tremendously stupid things like go out in hordes during an ongoing pandemic, without masks, flouting social distancing  to catch a glimpse of a goddess who we will pray to later on, once we get sick. 

Example Gracias of just some things which instigate, nay nurture our latent hujug:

There is a pandal like Burj Khalifa, certain celebrity will be at certain pandal for the grand opening, this pandal has the grandest chandelier, that pandal has an idol with two lions etc. etc.

Wise men say about Bengalis - The hujug is strong with this one.

Face In the Crowd

It was quite late. As she gathered her purse, her backpack and her tote bag containing the empty lunch boxes, she wondered how long it would take to reach home. It’s not like she enjoyed working late. She did not like her work or her co-workers, but no one really does a day job to enjoy themselves. Sometimes you had to work late, else they would take her to be too casual or worse still, insincere. Tara was anything but insincere. In fact she was quite diligent, so much so, that she would finish all her tasks within the stipulated office hours. But alas, such is the way of the world, the real work in any office only begins after the evening tea and smoke break. That’s the time when the networking happens, key projects are allocated and decisions are made as to who would really make it. Tara did not want to fall back, that’s all. She was young and she had dreams of making it big. If staying back for a few extra hours hobnobbing with her self-important superiors was going to get her that, she was ready to do so.

As she stood waiting for the elevator to come, she flicked through her phone doing a reconnaissance of her social media profile. Her cousin was vacationing in Greece. Her best friend just got engaged. Everyone she knew seemed to be having a blast. Such happy faces, and such perfect make up. The ding from the waiting elevator echoed through the empty lobby. When do these people have the time Tara wondered. She could hardly get herself breakfast in the morning before rushing to work. The rest of the day is a blur. She comes back to herself only now when she is heading back to her studio flat where a sitcom and reheated food await her.

The traffic is relatively sparse today. The rains have something to do with it of course. She tried to hail a cab but wouldn’t get any. A dimly lit bus floated towards the kerb and she decided to take it. At this hour, she often took this bus, it was familiar and it was the only option. There was no point waiting any longer. She could take this bus and get off at the Post Office. From there her house was a ten minute walk. The weather was beautiful, with the rain washed winds bringing quite the chill. She wondered if she could take a pretty selfie of herself with the moon and caption it something clever, declaring to the world that she too had a life. The bus was relatively empty, but she didn’t have much choice of seating from the half damaged and half musty seats. She selected one by the window near the exit door, which overlooked the rest of the bus. Sitting in a seat which was against the motion made her a little dizzy, but she didn’t want to walk further down the dark aisle. There were a couple of figures silhouetted in the black and white insides of this moving metal vehicle. She looked out at the moon which was peeping out of the clouds just now. How pretty it looked tonight!

All she wanted to do was get back home and get some sleep. Tomorrow promised to be a long day. The month end days were always like this, the crazy hours, the stress, the coffee, the missed emails, the last minute reports - the rush, and then inevitably the crash. Such is life for Tara, and she enjoyed it. As she looked across the several figures hunched here and there, she recognised a few regulars. There was the old lady who always occupied the seat reserved for the conductor. Tara has watch her do it time and again. She always imagined the lady to be some sour librarian. There was of course the man who loved his crossword. No matter when Tara saw him, he would always have the day’s newspaper folded to the size of the crossword as of that’s the only reason he purchased the newspaper. He was always intent, his pen poised on the edge of an important breakthrough. There was also the man with his headphones. Tara was very amused by his affection for music. She couldn’t remember ever seeing him without his headphones, lost in his own world, drumming his fingers on the seat in front of him. Then there was the man in the pinstripes. He was a slight man, with an intelligent nose and a veritable frown always affixed upon his forehead, as if he was bearing the burden of many. Not to forget the cap, the lone one who sat on the last seat. She had never seen him get up or get off the bus. He was always just a presence at the back, brooding and looking intently, from u der the frayed white cap. Her eyes had met his gaze once or twice before and she had been baffled at how unabashedly he stared at her. So when she saw him there today, Tara avoided looking into his face. But she could feel his eyes on her, studying her very move. 

The bus meandered lazily and Tara almost dozed off to sleep when suddenly her phone rang. Her mother had been calling her incessantly to check whether she had reached home. The spate of assault news had set her colorful imagination in motion. Tara called her back and let her know she will be back home in a couple of minutes. Her mother had just started on how she had read something ugly about a single girl returning home late just in the morning news, when her phone’s battery died. These newspapers will be her death! She silently sighed a sigh of relief when her eyes suddenly caught Mr. White Capstaring at her. She immediately looked down, following years of subconscious training to avoid eye contact with any stranger. But just as suddenly as she had diverted her gaze, something in her pulled her back and looked back at him. He was still looking at her. Or was he looking into nothing? She didn’t think much of it and waited for her stop to come. 

The rains had hit this part of the town quite harshly. Some of the bylanes were waterlogged and the drizzling continued. The pace at which the bus was going, she made a rough calculation in her head about how long it would take her to get home and the answer didn’t please her. She fished inside her purse to search for her umbrella. She always kept a small one in there just in case. Tara’s brother often teased her about the amount of things she had in that purse of hers which she actually used and the amount of them under the ‘just in case’ label. There were snack bars, if she got hungry. A small bottle of water, which she always forgot to refill. Once when she was very thirsty and she took a swig, she could swear she saw some algae floating about it. Then there were pens whose caps would invariably come off and poke her like harpoons when she put her unsuspecting hand in, and bills, hundreds of bills and receipts from shopping. Presently she found her small white umbrella with a pink floral motif. She really liked the print and purchased it from an urchin on the pavement outside her office. She held the umbrella with both her hands as a weapon and waited for the bus ride to end.

About half an hour later, her stop arrived and she hurriedly got off without looking back. She clutched her purse and wore the backpack cautiously. She did not want her laptop to soaked in this rain. As the bus rolled away a wave of water splashed on to the pavement ahead of her. The monsoons were particularly harsh to the pedestrians. She started walking, cautiously stepping over bricks which some Good Samaritan had placed so that one doesn’t spoil their shoes. While navigating the treacherous terrain with full concentration, she suddenly saw the bus screech to a halt just a little farther on and a figure leap out of it. Tara had almost reached the fork on the road where she would have to enter her lane, when she unconsciously looked at the figure up ahead on the road approaching her rapidly. The silhouette was wearing a cap. Suddenly Tara felt a knot in her stomach. Why was White Cap here and why was he racing to her? This was not his usual stop. Was he one of those perverted types who chase you down a lonely road and slit your throat? These quiet people can be quite the sociopaths. While her brain wracked with these questions, her body had taken flight. She had forgotten about her laptop getting wet or her shoes getting spoilt. She just had to run to the end of the lane, unlock the gate and enter. The lane was empty like it always was. Even the chai shop was closed because of the rains. On other days there are at least a couple of people there, smoking and making jokes. Even those lewd uncles were welcome today. As she splashed across the street, the muddy water rising up to her shirt, she suddenly realised she would have to stop and hunt for the keys in her massive purse again. If she survived this, Tara promised to switch to a smaller purse and smaller heels.

‘Ma’m’ she could hear a voice behind her steadily gaining on the distance. 

‘Ma’m, please wait’
 
She pretended not to hear and sprinted in full force. Her heel got stuck in a muddy puddle and she fell face first on the concrete road. This is it, she thought. She could have moved to Australia, but she didn’t, she wanted to stay at home. She could have gone bungee jumping with her friends next weekend but she didn’t, because she had to finish a report at work. She could have gone out on a date when Vikrant asked, but she didn’t because there is so much to achieve before getting entangled in romance. She didn’t even speak to her mother properly when she called. She will never speak to her again. May be her mother will just read about her in the papers.

White Cap was here. He looked down at Tara and said, ‘are you alright?’

 Tara pushed herself up and could feel the bruises on her knees and hands.  

“Here let me help yo” he said extending his hand. In his other hand dangled Tara’s tote bag with the empty lunch boxes.