c r a b b y c o o l

The homoeopathic medicine shop is situated off the main road, in a narrow street behind the railway station. It is a little shop on the ground floor of a two-storey house, and is flanked on the right by a tailor’s and on the left by an electronics repair shop. Opposite the medicine shop stands a big block of grim looking flats with the determined name of Working Womens' Cooperative Quarters. One almost expects to look up and see a furiously working woman at each of the forty dirty windows that can be seen from the road, but this is usually not the case.

The noise from the road and the railway station does not reach the medicine shop. Instead, the primary sound is that of great, gray, masses of crows that return to their nest in a big Banyan tree at sundown.

The shop itself is small and narrow, and divided into a front reception area and a back vestibule, where the medicines are measured and shaken and packaged. The ceiling is high. Three walls of the shop are lined with shelves till this high ceiling and fronted with brown glass. Through the glass you can see vials and bottles and packets and assorted packages of globules, tinctures, pills, and powders. A tall wooden ladder, smooth and oily with use, stands leaning against one wall. The glass doors on the upper shelves are coated thickly with dust. 

Inside the shop it is dark, it smells of alcohol and sugar and exotic poisons; it is manned by an old gentleman and another nearly old gentleman. It has a touch of an apothecary on Diagon Alley. The names of the medicines as you read them are exotic, like little wisps of pink magic smoke coming out of your mouth. Bryonia, Rhus Tox, Cimicifuga, Allium cepa, Belladona, Nux Vomica, Phytolacca, Thuja, Kaliphos. They are measured out in ounces and promise to cure strange diseases. Some can dissolve warts. Some help little children increase their memory. Some cure cancer (if detected in early stages). Some change the position of the baby in the womb. Some cure depression.

The shop is never crowded, but it has a steady stream of visitors throughout the day. The loyalists bring their own list of medicines. The newcomers consult the old man. The old gentleman asks tens of impossible questions (does the patient like sleeping on the side or the back? does the patient get angry easily or gradually? does the patient have a scientific or an artistic inclination? etc), and depending on each answer, tweaks the medicine to suit the need. Sometimes he abandons the formula midway, and starts afresh.

Homoeopathy is not for the modern scientific mind. Do not wikipedia homoeopathy. Do not wikipedia Phytolacca and Belladona, especially Phytolacca. It will not help to know that your mother is feeding you twelve drops of a Red Indian poison every morning on empty stomach. Who wants to lose faith with mothers, empty stomachs, Red Indians, poison, and homoeopathy? Not me.

The name of the old gentleman is Mr. Mukherjee. The name of the nearly old gentleman, funnily, is Jimmy. Every evening you will see them sitting outside their shop, peacefully smoking cigarette after cigarette. Sometimes you will see them snacking on oily samosas, masala dosas, and mutton rolls. Their dietary habits (I am sure) inspire many to turn to homeopathy. Even though (again I’m sure), I have never seen the old gentlemen take any form of medicine. But vestibules in the back can be used in so many ways.

Going through Father's papers recently, we discovered a bank passbook. My mother did not know of the existence of this account. And it was created very recently, a few months before Father passed away. 

On contacting the bank, we found out that the account contained the astonishing sum of a thousand and forty four rupees. Neither Mother, nor I, could fathom why Father had created the account. Maybe it was the shame of depending so heavily on his children for his treatment. Maybe it was Mother's constant nagging to manage his finances better.

Anyways, we sat in stunned silence for a while, Mother and I. What we really wanted to do was cry. In the end, Mother sighed and said, "You must tomorrow go and close the account. And then, you must take the money and go buy something for yourself. Something that will keep, and something your Father would have liked you to have."

So the next day I went and closed the account, and bought myself a copy of the Communist Manifesto with the money. It is a good read- so far.


*every day in may*

On a recent trip to India, I was party to the following conversation between my taxi driver and his helper.
..................................................................

Helper: Gopal is looking very miserable these days, have you noticed?
Driver: What? You didn't know? His wife has run away.
Helper: Why! Whatever happened! Did Gopal do anything terrible?
Driver: Not at all. Ok, so he was a bit lazy, didn't earn as much as he could. Lived in that awful shack in the lane. One, two, nights a month... you know... didn't come home. Stayed... er... elsewhere. Nothing extraordinary.
Helper: That's it?
Driver: Ok, so he slapped her around a bit the nights he did come home. I mean, understand, woman! He's not in his senses- he's drunk!
Helper: A sad state of affairs.
Driver: Don't get me wrong. I love my wife and my little daughter- take care of their every need, open bank accounts. But women- I don't trust them.
Helper: True, brother. I don't think I'll get married, ever.
Driver: Good. Good.

The shabby old restaurant called Peter Cat in Calcutta is salvaged (a little) by its signature dish, the Chelow Kebab.

The confusion regarding its name and origin aside, the Chelow Kebab is a simple dish. It comes with two pieces of koobideh (or something like it), and a small skewer of the normal chicken reshmi kebab. On the lower edge of the plate are placed roasted tomatoes and capsicum, while the upper edge is lined with slices of cucumber. In the middle of this circle of meat and vegetables rests a thin bed of saffron rice. On top of the rice is placed a perfectly poached egg and on top of that, luxuriously smoking, are two tiny cubes of melting butter.

It is a wholesome dish, and strikes a chord of familiarity with a populace whose staple lunch is a combination of cereal, animal proteins, and vegetables. Its appeal also lies in its clever proportions- there are only about three tablespoons of rice, the veggies are aplenty, and the kebabs don’t feel oily or spicy. At Rs 149, the Chelow Kebab is also much cheaper than a similarly fulfilling lunch at any of the newer, fancy restaurants. Unless, that is, you lunch off eight gargantuan steamed momos and soup for Rs 80 at Hatari. But Hatari is not a new restaurant.

The Chelow Kebab, therefore, is one of Calcutta’s favorite dishes; indeed, it is a part of the city's culinary identity. And before I forget, it goes sublimely with a drink that is billed to you by Peter Cat as the “Varzaan Marry”.

Renunciation as a virtue ranks very highly in my family. As children, we were told stories illustrating how the greatness of men (and women) lay not in how many things they possessed, but rather in how many things they could do without. Accordingly, we have always aspired to 'lead a simple life'. Or so we like to believe.

And yet, try as hard as we might, none of us has managed to be as great a renouncer as Mother, who has taken the virtue to a new level, and who has, since the early ’70s (if not earlier), renounced Nouns. Yes, Nouns, as in the names of things. I don’t know her thought process around this exactly, but I think it might be something like: “Ooookay. So. Nouns. Defining everything in black and white. Making everything crystal clear. No subtlety. And more importantly, something that has already been replaced by Pronouns. The world has such a silly habit of holding on to what is old and unwieldy. But I- I am from a higher civilization. I march to the call of time. The time on Neptune. I will therefore renounce Nouns and upgrade to using only Pronouns. Also, to further confusify, I will throw in a lot of Adverbs of time, frequency, and degree. Rad.”

This is not a recent phenomenon. Ever since she first became part of the family by marriage, Mother has been a known renouncer of Nouns, achieving cult status in 1973, when she requested two of my (then) 11 year old cousins to “push this to that side and pull that to this side”. Now, this instruction would have posed no problem had it been accompanied by Mother pointing out the objects that needed to be moved, giving an approximate sense of direction and distance, or using a few more words to make her meaning clear. But despite the many questions my cousins asked, Mother allegedly stuck to her original instruction, saying gravely at last, “Boys, if you do not want to do this chore, you just have to say so. Let your views on this point be known clearly.”

Now every time one of my cousins calls me on the phone, he asks, “And how is old ‘Push-this-to-that-side’ doing?” I cannot blame them.

We have tried hard to make Mother understand why this exclusive use of Pronouns and Adverbs without some Nouns is difficult to understand for most people, and how it leads to miscommunication, and why it sometimes leads to people misunderstanding Mother. How it is never too late to change and how Mother is so clever that she will be able to “change in one day, pukka”. But to no avail; Mother waves aside all our requests and explanations breezily, saying, “Nonsense! My communication skills are perfectly alright! Don’t try to channel your inability to understand simple instructions as my inefficiencies. I haven’t grown this old without understanding a thing or two about the Universe.”

So we all suffer. The cook comes in the morning, and asks respectfully, “What will I cook, Elder Sister?”
“Cook this. And oh- cook that as well,” is Mother’s helpful instruction.
The cook, with a nervous twitch in the corner of her left eye, opens the refrigerator, only to be greeted by 10 different types of vegetables smiling up at her. “But Sister…” she falters.
“Ofh ho!” Mother says, “Every day the same story. Didn’t I just ask you to cook this and that? You’ve been working here for five years; how many more instructions do you need? And listen, don’t use so much spice. Use a little.”
“Half a spoon or one spoon?” asks the cook.
“A little.”
The cook gives up, cooks whatever is easiest, and makes herself a large mug of tea using Milkmaid instead of milk.

In the afternoon, Mother and I go to the Mall. “What a beautiful dress!” Mother exclaims.
“Where?” I whip around excitedly.
“There!” Mother is equally excited.
“WHERE?”
“THERE!” Mother is standing in the same spot and same posture for the last five minutes. No pointing out the direction with her finger, no turn of the neck or head, no eyeball pointing.
“Where? Where??” I want the beautiful dress, renunciation be damned.
“There! Baba how many times will I tell you! You have never had a sense of direction. How many times in your childhood have I asked you to take dance lessons, so that you improve your hand eye coordination. You never listen to me. There’s no need to look any more,” she says, despondent now, "that lady has taken the dress and gone off."
“Where?” I still see a glimmer of hope. I can always trip the lady with my feet and grab the dress out of her hand.
“There!”
Result: I have a Freudian argument with Mother, and make her sit down on a sofa while I go around the Mall alone. Peace. But not for long. Mother, bored after a few minutes, and wanting a companionable experience with her daughter, gets up and approaches the nearest shop assistant, requesting sweetly, “Please can you take me there?”
“Where, Madam?” enquires the gullible assistant.
“Where my daughter is, naturally!” says Mother, scandalized that she has been made to use a Noun, and her facial expressions show exactly what she thinks of the assistant.

What transpires then I do not know, but in ten minutes I hear a strident announcement on the P.A system, saying, “Ms. Swati, wherever you are, your Mother is waiting for you HERE.”

Did I just imagine the sarcastic inflection of the voice on ‘HERE’? I think not; there is after all a thing like the parents’ transgressions being paid for by their children.

To be fair, it is not that Mother never uses Nouns, but that she does not use them often and enough. If there was a blood test which measured the usage of Nouns by a person, Mother’s test results would elicit international medical & linguistic interest. For example, while watching Pelican Brief for the -nth time on HBO, Mother might suddenly turn back smilingly and ask, “Who was that other girl?” Or, she may suddenly look up from her daily crossword puzzle and ask, “Quick. The name of the President who died.” Years of dealing with Mother will make you realize the salient points of each case as quick as lightening:

Case A (easy)
a. Mother is referring to another Hollywood actress…
b. who has acted in at least one film alongside Julia Roberts…
c. and which actress Mother likes…
d. and which film Mother has seen.

After this you play a quick game of elimination in your mind and arrive at a list of five to six actresses. Then, you proceed to throw these names at Mother in a 20-questions fashion to arrive at the correct answer. Not that tough.

Case B (difficult)
a. Mother is not referring to a dead President at all. She is referring to a President who was assassinated.
b. There are 195 countries in the world.
c. You do not know the form of governance in 185 of those countries.
d. Even if you did know the system of governance in each of the 185 countries, you would still not have a clue as to which countries have ever had one or more of their Presidents assassinated.
e. You will not be able to contact 185 foreign embassies in time for Mother to solve her crossword puzzle.
f. Crosswords are evil.

Anyways, we are an optimistic bunch, and live in the hope that Mother will soon start using more Nouns in her speech, so that we can avoid a situation like “The Battle of Pull, April 17, 2008”. On which day, it all started with Mother’s pithy instruction: “Pull that.” But that story can neither be written down nor narrated effectively for the understanding of the general public, as no Nouns were used by either of the warring sides in that battle.

You would think its spring when all the young girls are hanging out at the Zurich Hauptbahnhoff wearing very high heels, sheer stockings, tiny t-shirts, and no pants. It is a conflicting time we live in, when girls wear no pants, the baby’s breath is in early bloom, the sky has cleared and the distant mountains turn greener by the day. And yet the thermometer reads 4°C, the rain falls day and night, and on Monday when you go to work, you are greeted by two inches of snow that claw and eat into your flimsy shoes. Spring might have sprung, but it will take her a while to settle down in Zurich.

Like the spring, I’ve been a fickle settler in Zurich for the last six months. People told me stories about how Switzerland was a difficult place to settle down in, how the people were conservative and without any opinion on anything. But rather than the people, the most resistance I found to my settling down came from within. With a start I realized that age (or something like that) was catching up with me, and that I was not as much the adventurous and open-minded person I once used to be.

As if to rub it in, Zurich has been nothing but kind and patient with me. It is a neatly maintained old European city, with narrow cobwebbed alleys and beautiful buildings. Added to this, rivers and lakes and hills and parks surround the city, making it appear like a city from a fairy tale. The people are mostly courteous, if a trifle boring, and the administration & facilities work like clockwork.

And yet I feel restless and often, lonely. I am scared that I have lost my grip on life, and I cannot make meaning of anything any more. Life has made me disenchanted with life itself, lowered my expectations of other human beings, and erased my ability to be surprised by anything that anyone does, says, or thinks. I don’t know if I am withdrawn into a shell, away from everything, or pulverized into a fine dust that spreads my sadness all over the world.

I thought 2009 was the worst year of my life, but now I am not so sure what 2010 holds in store. But it is impossible for me- any one- to not clutch on to a tiny sliver of hope when spring has finally sprung.

Yay! I have been interviewed by vaguelyalive !

1. What is the one bit of Kolkata I should absolutely not miss going to if/when I go there? And what do you miss about Kolkata the most right now? And on a sort-of-related note, do you prefer saying Calcutta or Kolkata?
a. If you’re going for a little while, like a week or two, forget everything else and just enjoy the food!
b. If you’re going for a month or so, venture out on public transport everyday. Take different routes at different times of the day, and use different modes of transport. I find that that is a very cool way of getting to know the character of the city.
c. If you’re staying for more than six months, make some friends among college students, journalists, artists, etc. Join them in weekly adda, jamming, or rehearsal sessions. Walk with them in a protest march. Volunteer for some social work.
And I prefer saying Calcutta :-)

2. Would you say you have a romantic heart? Was there a great, big defining moment when you realised you were in love, or was it a slow gradual process? Did your notion of what love was match up to reality? This question is basically me going, "What are your thoughts on love?" Be as specific or general as you would like. (Note: Be specific because I want a luuuurve story, thanks).
I have a very romantic heart! And for me the concept of romance does not apply only to my love for a partner, it never has. It means many many more things- idealism, adventure, curiosity, humor, knowledge, a desire to understand and forgive and forget... love for my family and friends and city and country. I think I am romantic because I believe in hope and redemption. I will always find a person or a thing or a concept to love- even in the darkest of situations :-)

3. If you wrote a book (or if you've already written one), what would it be about? Who (as in, target group) is it meant for and why?
It would either be a children’s book, or it would be about Calcutta. And clichéd as it may sound, I would only be writing for me.

4. What is your favourite poem? Why do you like it?
Lots & lots! But a special one is The Last Duchess, by Robert Browning. I learned it in school but I still laugh every time I read it. And it also makes me remember how marvelous our English Teacher was.

5. What is your favourite Bengali word? Please to provide pronunciation guide.
Again, lots & lots! One of them is Monami (pronounce: "Mawnami"), which is a very common name for girls. The interesting thing is that it is derived from the French, "mon ami(e)". There are many such derived words in everyday usage in Bengali. To me it is symbolic of the dynamic & democratic nature of the language.

When we graduated high school, our families and teachers considered it only natural that my friend and foremost academic rival- the primly named Miss Mandeep Kaur Janeja Bhans- and I, would prefer to read History and English at college, respectively. After all, they were our favorite subjects, and we were among the best students of the subjects in the city. So we two young girls, roaming a toy city like toy soldiers returning from a victorious war, applied at the top three colleges in town, smug in our belief that we would be accepted by one or more of these colleges. What we left unsaid was that we were pretty sure to get into the top college.

But we were in for a shock. When the final admission lists came out at this toppest of the top college, we figured nowhere on the History and English lists. Mandeep was second on the History waiting list, and I was eleventh on the English one. However, by a twist of fate, we had made our ways into the final lists of our secondary choices, our safe subjects. Mandeep topped the Sociology list, and I was fifth on the Geography list.

We looked stupidly at each other. All around us stood plump fathers with their unknown daughters and sons, wiping copious sweat from their large oily foreheads and congratulating other fathers on their wards passing the History and/ or English exams. But Mandeep and I were alone, and thinking the same thoughts. This is the end. Our ‘careers’ are ending before they have even begun. We have let down our parents. Teachers. Friends and younger siblings. Elder siblings as well, in Mandeep’s case. Twenty years from now we will not be coming to this venerable institution for college reunions. We are useless human beings.

I don’t know how it happened, but standing there, looking at each other, and feeling like spanking the brand new English & History students for stealing what was legitimately ours, Mandeep and I took a dramatic decision at more or less the same nanosecond- we would study our safe subjects in this great college. After we had nearly fallen down with relief and recovered and hugged each other instead, we came up with a list of our reasons that we would later share with our parents, teachers, and friends.

1. We loved History and English, respectively. We didn’t need to ‘study’ them to learn more about them. In fact, it would be so not cool to study our first loves only to take exams in them later. Suppose you loved a boy. Would you take an exam in him for the next three years? Great loves were personal things that one kept private.
2. We were great students. Great. Our brains were the size of prize winning watermelons. This automatically ensured that we would do well in Sociology and Geography with the least amount of effort, leaving us with copious amounts of time to devote to a serious study of History and English.
3. 'Career'. As far as we knew(!), Sociology and Geography would get us better jobs than English or History would.
4. It would be 'below our dignity' to wait for a month in anticipation of making our way into the final English or History lists.

So, much to the puzzlement of everyone around us, we studied our safe subjects at college, Sociology and Geography. Did we like it? That is another story. But years later, I realized that Mandeep had another reason for joining that specific college; one that she had never, ever told me about. She had had a crush on a senior boy since her high school days, and to spend the next three years in close proximity to the boy while studying Sociology seemed a better option than studying History at another college.

When I try to remember the boy, I remember a very pretty, light eyed boy with light brown hair (he was from Kashmir) who was in second year English. I suspect he ‘cultivated his personality’. Girls always hung/clung around/to him, and he smoked a pipe. In fact, I remember once seeing him run a 200 meters competition while he was smoking his pipe.

Which brings us to the end of this post and the arrival of a question- why am I writing this post? The obvious reasons are of course that I have not written here for a long time, and that I am mostly always in a nostalgic mood, and that I like little stories. But the reason deep inside my heart is that I have lost all contact with Mandeep since 1998. We got busy with the ‘constructive period in your life’, as our parents used to call it in those days, and our conversations and letters became infrequent and then stopped completely. Now, no one knows where she is. Whenever we meet we ask each other the inevitable question- “Where is Mandeep?”

I hope she is out there somewhere, on the other side of the blank wall of our ignorance of her whereabouts. I wonder what she may be doing now, right this moment. Maybe she is drinking coffee and making a face. Maybe she is still writing with an ink pen and being the butt of office jokes. Or maybe she is giving a mean presentation. Maybe she is climbing a mountain with a group of friends. Maybe she is taking her children to school. She will buy a red T shirt on her way back home.

If you know her, say 'hi' from me. From us. Tell her that her old school friends from Calcutta miss her.

I am Ebenezer Bleezer,
I run BLEEZER'S ICE CREAM STORE,
there are flavors in my freezer
you have never seen before,
twenty-eight divine creations
too delicious to resist,
why not do yourself a favor,
try the flavors on my list:

( Read more... )

One of the few good things about having so much time on my hands is that I am reading a little more than I did last year. I have a long way to go, for example, to catch up with my reading levels seven or eight years back, but I am getting better.

The books I've read so far this year, in order of enjoyment:

Novels, Short Stories, and Poetry
12. H G Wells/ The Island of Dr Moreau: An important book in the history of science fiction, but boring and obvious when read more than 100 years later.
11. Daniyal Mueenuddin/ In Other Rooms, Other Wonders: A collection of stories showing the resigned feudalism of contemporary Pakistan. Reads a little like Jhumpa Lahiri. The first few stories are interesting, but then they get repetitive.
10. Giovanni Boccacio/ The Eaten Heart: Unlikely Tales of Love: Like #12, an important book (The Decameron) in the history of the novel, but a little simple for this age and time. I liked it a lot, though.
09. Dorothy Parker/ Collected Poetry of Dorothy Parker: Cute with an undertone of darkness.
08. Selma Lagerlof/ The Emperor of Portugalia: Very beautiful language, philosophy, and imagery. This is my first Lagerlof novel.
07. Doris Lessing/ The Golden Notebook: I read this book twice. The first time round I hated it. I hated the three women and I was disgusted at how they were throwing away their lives. But the second time around I understood the women- all the characters, actually- a little better.
06. Truman Capote/ Breakfast at Tiffany’s: Sweet.
05. Great Stories by Nobel Prize Winners: Sweet. I read many European authors for the first time in this anthology.
04. Philip Roth/ American Pastoral: I am halfway through this book. I like it, but it can get a little verbose.
03. Evelyn Waugh/ Decline & Fall: One of my favoritest authors! I had read most of Evelyn Waugh’s novels in school; I am now going to re-read them.
02. Lindsey Collen/ Mutiny: I loved loved loved this book. It is based on the true story of a mutiny in a women's prison in Mauritius, and how the prisoners flee taking advantage of the melee of two approaching cyclones. But that is only part of the story.
01. Thomas Hardy/ A Mere Interlude: I love Thomas Hardy. After I read a Hardy book, I imagine the settings in my mind for days. If I could draw, Hardy's works would be among my inspirations.This collection of three short stories are skillfully woven with humor and irony and fate and resignation, and they are each a little sad. They are all love stories and reminded me of the first love story I read- Asya, by Ivan Turgenev. Unless they have happy endings, I am not reading any more love stories.

Non-fiction
04. Karl Marx & Frederick Engels/ The Communist Manifesto
03. Maggie Ann Bowers/ Magic(al) Realism
02. Salman Rushdie/ The Jaguar Smile
01. David Hampshire/ Living & Working in Switzerland

Children’s and Young Adult Fiction
07. Joseph Jacobs/ Irish Fairy Tales
06. Upendrakishore Ray Chaudhuri/ Puraner Golpo
05,  04, and 03. Enid Blyton/ The Enchanted Wood, The Magic Faraway Tree, The Folk of the Faraway Tree
02. Roald Dahl/ Boy: Tales of Childhood
01. Premendra Mitra/ Ghanada Samagra

Easy Reads
03. Agatha Christie/ The Clocks
02. Craig Smith/ Blood Lance
01. Agatha Christie/ Taken at the Flood