Poila Boishakh 1417

April 15th was Poila Boishakh. Bengali New Year.

The night-before, I was feeling depressed. The next day, I was going to go through another one of the dubious first's...my first Poila Boishakh without my DaddyDearest.

But I do wish everyone a Shubho Naboborsho. Forgive the delay. May you and yours have a year full of love, laughter, good health and make precious memories.

I made one on that day itself...

Both my boys are huge Krishna bhakts. I think all little boys are. They identify with his naughtiness and impish escapades.

Now, as is the trend in these parts, whenever the boys in this house watch a movie or hear a story that they like, they argue amongst themselve as to who is going to 'be' the hero of the piece. The most brutal fight my two sons have going between them most days is who gets to be Krishna. The fights involve a lot of kicking and screaming and the end result is someone often ends up in a bundle of tears...not me, I'm usually reduced to a mass of electrocuted, frazzled nerves by the end of their matches. This is one fight that The Nephew stays far away from. He has wisely chosen to 'be' Balaram, or rather, the EO 'suggested' that he be so since he is after all the eldest, and he sweetly complied.

Anyway, on Thursday, I was lazily moping around the house. After I finally got my butt into the shower, I wore my bright, new bandhni, skirt from Jaipur; sky blue and sunny yellow with big silver chumkis all around. When I opened my bedroom door, my little YO came rushing in excitedly. Why? Because he had (or rather his ayah had) tied a tuft hair on the top of his head. He loves doing this whenever he gets the chance. Why? Because he is Krishna of course!

So, he rushes in excitedly to show me his Krishna-style and stops in his tracks, totally thunderstruck. He looks me up and down...totally in awe. He then asks me, "Tumi ki poyeychho?" (What are you wearing?) And of course he answers it himself, "Shkaartsh?" (Shirt?) He can't take his eyes off my and gives me his shy, imp grin.

What he does next, stuns me. He shyly takes my hand and says "Esho, esho" (Come, come) and leads me out into the sitting room, to show me off to his brothers, who are engrossed in TV. Then he tells them excitedly, "Dekho, dekho! Amaar mumma ki pohechhey, dekho!!" The EO and The Nephew give me a cursory once-over, smile and zne out again.

The YO, still with a goofy, shy, adorable expression on his face; still holding on to my hand; softly says something which I can't catch. I ask him to repeat it and he says just a little bit louder, for my ears only, "Tumi maiyaa aar aami Kanha." (You are {Yashoda} maiyaa and I am {Krishna} Kanha).

Tears sprang to my eyes at my little boy's sweetness and innocence. No wonder he was so dumbstruck when he saw me in a skirt that he immediately identified as typical of what Yashoda maiyaa would wear. And the coincidence that I should choose to wear exactly that, while he chose that precise moment to channel his inner Natkhat Kanha, was too overwhelming for him.

His joy and innocence just bubbled over that day and made me warm and tingly all over.

May the year bring on many such moments for us all.

And with that, I wish you a Shubho Naboborsho once again.

Aar Ek Cup

We've all heard the story about the devout man whose faith in God was so strong that when his village was flooded, he turned down a raft, a boat and a helicopter by saying, "God will say me." When he drowned and went to heaven, he wailed, "God, I had dedicated my whole life to You, and yet, in my hour of need, why did You not save me?" God smiled sadly and said, "My dear child, I tried to save you three times, but you turned me away each time."

Just remember this tale when you get to the end of this little narrative of mine.

I you had ever spent a night in my parents' homes in Bangalore or Kolkata, and if you had ever slept in the bedrooms near the kitchen, then chances are, you would have been woken up in the morning by a rather terrible clanging and clashing. Not even a pillow over one's head was enough to drown out the quite-deafening sounds of the pestle and mortar being made to work by my father, a couple of hours after sunup. Every morning, without fail, my father would crush a combination of herbs, spices and ginger to brew with a spoonful of tea leaves for his early morning cuppa. This trusty concoction, he claimed, was his health tonic, and in my twenties, I got hooked on it too.

Tea. My father's absolute favouritest beverage in the world. And I don't use the term 'favouritest' lightly. Any time was tea time for my father and he could happily have ten or twelve cups of the brew throughout the day. Even though my silent, introvert of a father didn't say much when friends and family were over, he looked forward to them coming with great delight and an air of anticipation. We'd tease him saying that it was because he was guaranteed another cup of tea on their arrival.

My mother would often get exasperated with my father's frequent demands for "aar ek cup" through the day; not that her irritation bothered him...if it was tea he wanted, it was tea he would get. My father credited tea with many things. He claimed that tea was the reason behind his fair complexion and that drinking tea in the summertime kept the body cool. My mother would snort in disbelief, but maybe the man had something? After all, he was incredibly fair and also the most even-tempered man that I've ever known in my life; uncomplaining, humble and never, ever given to fits of rage. My mother? Well, beautiful, wheatish and passionate about everything and everyone in her life. Also, not a tea lover. So...

I love my aadaa-chaa, elaichi-chaa and flavoured teas as much as I love my cafe latte and hazelnut-flavoured cappuccino. But often I would ask for a cup of tea in my parents' home whenever I went to visit, just so that my father could have another cup. I wonder if he knew that?

I made my father his last ever cup of tea while he was still in the hospital; in the ICU. I had said my goodbyes for the day and visiting hours were almost over. A friend of my father-in-law's was with Baba while I waited in the lobby. He came down and said that my father was calling me. With just a few minutes to spare before the guards came around asking visitors to leave, I ran upstairs as fast as I could. My father was sitting propped up in bed, a flask of hot water, an empty cup and a tea bag kept on a tray in front of him. I asked him if he was feeling alright and whether he needed anything. He shook his head and just asked me to make him a cup of tea. Relieved and happy, I not only made him his tea, but I fed it to him as well, spoon by spoon; the security guard even gave me ten extra minutes to do so. Baba relished each and every drop and let out a sigh of contentment after we were done.

That night he was put on the ventilator. Three days later, he died.

I swore off tea forever. I couldn't even look at a cup without feeling the twin emotions of absolute anguish and irrational rage.

Well-meaning family and friends tried to get me to change my mind. I was stubborn in my refusal. My mother, however, understood.

The fourth day after a parent dies, according to Bengali-Hindu customs, a married daughter as well as her children, perform a puja for the departed parent in the daughter's marital home.

In accordance with these traditions, I woke up, had a bath, shampooed my hair, wore a new sari and fasted until the puja. Certain things are supposed to be given to the departed soul for his journey to the after-life...such as rice, fruits, vegetables and other things, like a bit of bhoomi (earth), an umbrella, some loose change, and five items that the person was fond of eating, amongst other things. Of course it may vary from one household to the next.

I saw all these items placed in front of my father's garlanded photograph. Yes, there was a packet of tea leaves there as well.

After the puja, whilst I was mingling with my family and friends who had gathered round me in my time of grief, I was given something to eat and drink. Famished, I wolfed down the food on my plate and drained the contents of my cup within minutes.

It was only after everyone was gone, while I was sitting with my sons, playing back the mornings' events in my mind that I realised what had been in the cup...tea!

I burst into tears. Not tears of grief at my father's memory or tears of remorse for a broken promise, but tears of awe and wonder.

It was my dad.

It was my dad's doing. He made me have that cup of tea. It had to be. No other explanation will do. How could he bear his beloved daughter giving up something that he loved so much? And that too, for him?

When I told my mother what happened, tears streamed down her face and she softly said, "He's fine. Your Baba is fine."

I am sure he is. And I am sure he is having "aar ek cup" while watching over us from wherever he is now.

It's three months today, Baba, since you've left. And even though I know you're fine, I'm not. But with you watching over me, I kow I will be. Eventually.

Raising a cup of tea, brimful with my tears, to you.

Your Attention Please...book-review coming up

Let me go on record saying that I do not worship the Great Bong with daily visits to his blog and leave behind offerings of salubrious, sycophantic, witty or engaging comments.

No. I'm not a groupie.

But I am a fan. And an earnest, honest one at that.

And so, when I heard that The Bongness was writing a book, I was full of eagerness and anticipation. And then, when I heard that The Bongness himself was going to be in town for the book launch, I did what any earnest, honest fan would do...I took my ample butt over there...an hour early.

So yes, this earnest, honest fan was sitting in row two, demurely waiting for an autograph -- not gushingly, cause that's what a groupie would do -- and waiting for His Bongness to address his sea of devotees, fans and family (lots of family, I might add; very sweet!)

The man is funny. And great. We all know that. That's why he's won so many Indiblogs, which, as we all know, is the Booker of Blogdom.

He's funny. Witty. And very genial. He's the guy you want to invite over to a home adda and make the centre of attraction; not that he needs anyone to make him the centre of attraction, he just is. He's a natural and comfortably, amiably so. You want him to regale you with all his stories, witticisms and hilarities. You want to bombard him with questions, but you don't for fear of interrupting his flow of talk and thereby, inadvertently missing out on any nuggets of humour and astute observations of this human condition called life -- and Bollywood, and politics and teenage, sexual awakenings in middle-class India.

After that most lively session at Crosswords, I came back and eagerly attacked his book, "May I Hebb Your Attention Pliss?" And my one-line review of it would be...hehehe-hahaha-hohoho-meh.

Ok, ok, now that all the stones and rotten eggs have been disposed of, may I come out from behind my laptop?

Look, I'm still a big fan and I always will be. He's a keen observer of randomness and a fantastic raconteur. I'm not saying I didn't like the book; I did, I did. Very much! Heck, I even loved it in parts and chortled out loud while in wide, open, unempty, public spaces.

Here's the thing; it was way too similar to his blog. In fact, it was kind of like a well-compiled, well-edited "Best of..." paper-back version of his blog. Not that he promised anything else, and not that I didn't know that, which is why I wasn't bitterly disappointed.

But here is where I would give more points to a Parul Sharma, author of "Bringing Up Vasu" and Sidin Vadukut, author of "Dork: The Incredible Adventures of Robin 'Einstein' Verghese". Yes, even Meenakshi Reddy Madhavan for her "You Are Here". All these authors are also writers of immensely popular and funny blogs. Yet, when it came to writing a book, that's exactly what they did. They didn't dip into their old faithfuls to rehash any of their published content. They stepped out of their comfort zones and rose to the challenge of telling a story, with a beginning, a middle and an end; complete with plot, drama, conflict and trademark styles of humour. Did traces of their blog surface every now and then? But of course! That would be impossible to steer clear of. But at the end of the day, the final product was entirely different from what their hoards of readers are used to.

So am I saying I am disappointed with Arnab? Not at all. Did I expect different? That would again be a 'no', simply because he didn't promise anything different. Do I still think he's great? Oh absolutely! He is the undisputed Great Bong. And finally, would I recommend his book to others? Highly.

It definitely "deserves your attention, pliss."

All Growed-up Now

Today the EO starts Class 2. Tomorrow, the YO starts Jr. KG.


SIGH!!!!!!! Where did my babies go?!?!?!?!?

While I'm busy shaking my fists at Father Time, I leave you with some EO and YO-speak.

1) The EO sees a bullock and very excitedly (having just gone for a bullock-cart ride the previous evening) points it out to the MIM and me. "Look, look! That's a bhrosh!" The MIM and I are thoroughly confused. We try to figure out what it is that he's saying and keep asking him in vaious ways to explain. Finally, the MIM asks him, "Do you mean 'mosh'?" (bangla for buffalo, but we figured maybe the EO had got his cud-chewing quadrupeds mixed up.) The EO violently shakes his head and for some reason is most irritated with his Mamma for not understanding. He then bursts out, "Ooofff! I think so you don't know Bangla!!" The MIM bursts into laughter and a truculent Mamma does the only thing she can think of to soothe her bruised ego; she pouts and says, "Hmpf! I'll ask MY mamma!"

2) We went for a short trip to Jaipur (the bullock-cart ride mentioned above was one of the momentous events that took place there, for reasons that will be detailed in another post). After coming back home, the four of us are lounging about on our bed. It's bed-time. In other words, it's time for them to shift their cute lil butts into their room and zoom off to la-la-land. Suddenly, the EO proclaims, "I wish we were back in Jaipur only. There it is so nice."
The MIM seems to understand where this is coming from, "Why? Because all four of us could sleep on the same bed?"
The EO nods his head vigourously and I grudgingly give the MIM marks for being so astute. The EO continues, "Why can't we all sleep together here in your bed?"
The MIM laughs and says, "You're right, we need to get a bigger bed."
Suddenly, the EO loudly exclaims, "OOOHHH! I know why we all can't sleep in this bed together..." And before I can put forth my theory, he carries on with his Eureka! moment by proclaiming, "it's because Mamma you've become fat!"
I was actually going for, "It's because you've both become so big my babies!", but the MIM seemed to love our elder son's explanation much better and started guffawing really loudly! Too loudly, I felt. And so did the EO, for he turned to his father and said, "Don't laugh so much Baba! You also have become even fat!"
Guess who couldn't stop guffawing after that!
MIM, darling, I say this because I love you, "Nyah-nyah-na-nyah-nyah!!"

3) So I'm taking a nice, leisurely bath. Suddenly there's violent banging on the door and a loud, "MAMMA!!!"
Said Mamma nearly chokes on shower water and slips on dropped soap. "Ki?!?!?!" (What?!?!?!) she shouts back, hands tremblingly reaching for the towel as she envisions all kinds of ghastly terrors waiting to meet her eyes.
The EO continues, "Mom, can you please call me Tom from now on?"
Mamma chokes again. "What?!? WHY?!?"
The EO: "Please Mamma, I want you to!"
Mamma, not at all pleased with the idea: "You want the same name as a cat?"
The EO: "Oh Mamma! It's not just for a cat, it's such a nice name! Any boy can also have it! Please Mamma, call me Tom!"
Mamma: "What if I call you 'xyz'? (his original pet-name, chosen so that it would match The Nephew's name, but it never really caught on).
The EO: "No. I like only Tom!"
Finally I got to the bottom of it; he was playing the video games that come with Tata Sky Plus and he wanted to type his name into a box and he couldn't figure out how to from a remote control. After all, the remote buttons ain't laptop keys!
Oooff! Logic, I tell you!

4) The YO looks to the EO for wisdom and knowledge in various subjects, especially music. Whatever songs happen to be the EO's current choice are by default the YO's faves too. So it's no wonder that my house is always reverbrating with high-pitched version of the "Three Idiots" soundtrack. However, I couldn't stop laughing when I heard my three-year-old YO singing, in all earnestness and seriousness, "...Gibb me anudder chence, I wanna gilow (grow) up onesh agen!"

Yup, they're growing up, my boys. Way toooooo fast, if you ask me!

Butt-bitten

So I write my last post and immediately the Universe conspires to bite me in the butt. Or perchance my DaddyDearest sets out to prove me wrong...oh so terribly, terribly wrong I am.

1) My MaaJanoni teaches my EO Bangla. It just makes absolute sense. Now thanks to term break, the EO has happily forgotten all the knowledge he has painfully gained over the past one year. So, I sent him over to Maa's yesterday, for a refresher course. This morning when I went over, she told me how my precious son had picked up a hand-fan and started fanning the photograph of DaddyDearest's that we keep on his desk...it's very hot here after all, hain na.

2) I recently put up a photograph of DaddyDearest as my profile pic on FB. While I was checking the site today, my YO comes and plops himself down next to me. "Ki kochho tumi?" he sweetly asks. And then he sees my DaddyDearest's photograph and his eyes nearly pop out of his head. "Daduku!" he screams, smiling broadly. And then he turns to me, eyes full of sadness and says, "Daduku kobey aashbey? Aami okey miss korchhi!" (When is Daduku coming back? I'm missing him!)

3) This evening, while I'm working on the comp, the EO suddenly, while in the midst of play, bursts into my room and asks me, "Mamma, what kind of a prayer I can say so that Daduku will be able to hear me nicely?" Taken aback, I told him that all he needed to do was talk to him, the same way he would have talked to him had he still been sitting in his favourite chair. He understood and then stood up on my bed to open the latch to the balcony. "What are you doing?", I exclaimed, "It's night now."
"Oh" says my blessed son and goes instead to the windows and opens a pane. "I want to talk to Daduku." And then he looks heavenwards and starts talking to his Grandfather in earnest. "Daduku, tumi kobey aashbey? Aar koto deri? Aar tumi jokhon aashbey aami tomaakey jorey dhorbo aar chhaarbo na, chhaarbo naa, kono dino aar chhahrbo naa. Tumi aar jetey paarbey naa!" (When are you coming, Daduku? How much longer? And when you come back I will hold on tightly to you and never, never, EVER let you go. You will not be able to leave again.)

Now here's where it gets freaky...I was too shocked and touched to cry. But as my little boy was talking to his Grandfather, I got the most amazing fragrance of agarbattis (incense sticks) wafting into my room. I knew immediately that my beloved Baba had heard his little grandson's prayer and was hugging him tightly in return.

Remembering Their Grandfather

The MIM was six years old when he lost his maternal grandmother. The same age as my EO when DaddyDearest passed away. The EO is even younger; just three.

The MIM's memories of his Dida are very hazy; BIL-ly Boy's, who was four, even more so. That's why, I often worry how much my boys will remember their Daduku (what they call my DaddyDearest) as the years go by. It hurts me greatly to think, "Not much."

We've told the boys that their grandfather has become a star and that the sky is his new home now. They took it surprisingly well, but then they never really got the concept of forever. Once, the EO asked me if Daduku would come back when he was older. On the day of the 'Chautha', when I did a puja for my DaddyDearest, I asked the EO whether he would also like to participate. He immediately agreed and asked me what he should do and I said he had to say a little prayer and whatever he wanted to his grandfather. So he asks me very seriously, "I'll ask him to come back fast?" But how beautifully he played his part...repeating the purohit's mantras verbatim and precisely. He prayed for his grandfather with sincere devotion and took everyone's breath away. On the day of the 'Shraddh', the EO seriously sat through the beginning of the puja and made offerings to the fire. At one point in time, when he saw his beloved Mamu sobbing, it broke his little heart and my SIL had to quickly take him away from there.

But that was then...two weeks after Baba's passing. And now it's been a little over two months and they hardly refer to him at all. I sometimes wonder if he's already begun to fade a little bit from their memories. For me, not a day goes by when I don't think of him and my eyes well up. I cry every, single day and each time there's this horrible tightening in my chest that almost threatens to suffocate me when I sit up at night thinking about him.

Now, obviously, that kind of pain is mine. My MaaJanoni and the Bro are perhaps the only other two who feel this way. But yes, sometimes it amazed me when my two little boys stopped mentioning this man who was so much a part of their lives, altogether.

But I was wrong.

Little instances over the past few weeks have shown me that my DaddyDearest lives on in their memories yet. For how long, I don't know, but the fact that he does so for now, is good enough.

1) I remember sitting in my bed, crying one day, not too long ago. The boys were playing with their cousins and I thought I was alone so I could give in freely to my grief. Suddenly, the YO rushed in and jumped onto bed. I quickly brushed away my tears, because he hates to see me cry. But they're smart, these little ones and he caught me. He asked me why I was crying, and I told him I was missing my father. He immediately reassured me and told me to wait until nightfall and once the stars came out, I could see him there.

2) Normally, the EO absolutely love, love, LOVES going to MaaJanoni's house. In fact, he asks to be taken there and allowed to spend the night...or at least he used to. The other day, I told him to pack some of his favourite books because we'd be staying at his Manuku's place (what he calls my mum). Normally, this piece of news would have been greeted with a big whoop of delight. This time, he just buried his face deeper into the book he was reading. I gently asked him what was wrong and whether he didn't like going there anymore. He replied, "It was more better when Daduku was there." Aaah! So he missed him too! And we had a little chat about what he missed and it was mostly my dad cooking for them...his special omelets, french toast, sausages and of course, pizza! That little chat filled me with lots of warm memories and made me feel so much better.

3) The EO and YO were watching "Grandpa in my Pocket" on Ceebeebies and thanks to storyline, the EO was prompted to ask me, "Why was Jason worried about his Grandpa?", and as the EO is wont to do, he answered his question himself before I could, "Oh. Because he loves his Grandpa?" and then he looks at my DaddyDearest's photograph nearby and says, "Just like I love my Grandpa."

Always know this my sweethearts, your Grandpa loved you both too. Very, very much.

For the Love of Language

(This post was written for the Tulika blogathon.)

Let me first start by saying that I consider Bengali, or Bangla, to be my mother-tongue. Even though I think in English.

But the above is totally a result of my environment. Born in the States, I was exposed to two languages; English outside the house and Bangla, inside. My mother, so that I would be in touch with my mother-tongue and also so that I could write letters to my grandparents in Bangla, began to teach me the script at home...during weekends and holidays.

And then, during my pre-teen years, we moved to India. And not to West Bengal, but down south. Bangalore, to be exact. And I was exposed to two new languages...French and Hindi. Funnily enough, I never needed to learn Kannada. And so, Ma stopped teaching me how to read and write in Bangla. But, now I wanted to desperately learn...so that I could write letters to my Baba who was still working abroad.

Here's the thing, I can't help but wonder if my personality is a huge part of why I love Bangla so much... Can that have anything to do with your love for a language? Your willingness to learn it? After all, lookit my brother and me...

We were brough up in the same environment, but I am the totally arty type, whereas my brother is the sporty type. I love Bangla culture, music and movies. I feel bereft that my literate Bangla isn't so fluent, because a vast and rich source of literature is closed to me...and for a book-worm like moi, that's a huge loss. My conversational Bangla is pretty darned good, if I do say so myself; my brother's is passable, at best. But having said that, I can't exactly enter into a political debate in my mother-tongue either. Why? Because, as I said right in the beginning, I think in English.

English has been my primary language throughout my growing up years. I read books round the clock in it. I sang songs in it. I conversed in it, dreamed in it, fought in it, wrote poetry in it.

And yet, at home, the environment was typically Bengali and I enbraced that too. So much so, that I knew I wanted to marry a Bengali boy...and I did.

And look at me now. An American-Bangalorean-Bengali living in Kolkata and bring up two boys, aged six and three.

My Elder One has been learning Bangla for two years now. He is fluent in his mother-tongue, as well as English, because I spoke to him in both right from the moment we met, and Hindi, as a result of his environment. Now the younger one, well, up until a year ago, it was primarily Bangla for him since he was with an ayah a lot. And it used to worry me, whether he would ever be up to speed in English...and I balmed myself. But I needn't have worried. The English and Hindi have kicked in and he's as fluent in both as any three-year-old can possibly be.

Despite knowing how to read and write Bangla, I prefer my mother teaching the EO Bangla and helping him with his homework. After all, she knows the rules of grammer; she can answer the why's and the why-not's; demonstrate the how-to's and correct the how-not-to's with confidence and without thinking twice. Trying to teach my son Bangla only brought my turmoil and confusion to my mind about the why's and the how-come's.

For example, do we really need three letters to denote 'sh' in our language? We don't have a 's' sound, which is why most Bengalis wear "shoks on their feet". We don't have a 'z', and therefore we watch the 'newjj' and read 'newjjpapers', sometimes while sitting in the 'joo'. Many letters are redundant, and grammer is turning into a joke.

However, I really want my boys to learn the language. Just in case one of them turns out to be a book-lover like me, I would love for him to be able to pick up a Tagorean classic or a Sunil Gangopadhyay masterpiece or a Satyajit Ray "Feluda" mystery or an anthology of Jibanananda Das poetry or even a "Handa-Bhonda" comic.

The list is endless. And it's there. And I want my sons to know that and take advantage of it.