The Magic called Kolkata...

What is with this city..magical, mesmerizing, yes yes there is absolutely nothing to go overboard with any Indian city though my vision of foreign cities is close to nil.For all non residing Bengalis ( probashi bengalis living elsewhere in India).. Kolkata is short of a dream unless may be you actually go and start living in it or may be until you have not seen the other happening cities fledgling in India. Anyway for us the thirty something Bengalis born and brought up in some other state fed on a staple diet of Anandabazar patrika, Anandamelas, Deba Sahiyta Kutir Publications, at times Rabindra sangeets ( which we eventually left for Enid Blyton, Mills and Boons and Hindi film music) and also a literal staple diet of rice and mustard fish ( which also we have grown out of but still can,t do without at times) Kolkata holds what we had missed out in our childhood..an open often embarrassingly loud conversation in Bengali, the most flamboyant Durga Puja to be witnessed, buying Bengali books in College Street at amazing bargains, catch up a movie at Nandan ( which i was able to do with my father once), stroll along Maidan and Esplanade gorging on phuchkas and alu kablis, listen to Bengali music all around..and eat ,eat and eat...from amazing street food to a wide variety of fish, rolls at amazingly happy prices.

This year while our journey towards home in Silchar we stopped for a night and a morning over Kolkata. Just could not have enough of the city. 

Two miniscule cups of tea bought by husband from Durgapur station  @ 3  per cup

Difficult to capture the ' ' minisculity'

The Hotel we stayed in Sudder Street

Lunch was ethereal here

                      

             The Sweets Counter.. They also have a Biryani and Chaap counter on the other side

Before I move on to the next pics..definitely have to stop at this one and marvel. We chose this place to stay so as to have a feel of Kolkata for the little time we would be there..New Market, Park Street, Esplanade all close by . For lunch which was already late by a delayed train... we decided to stop by whatever we could find. Pity we did not click the pic of the menu and the dream that was served. Since my toddler was continuously disturbing we decided on the menu as suggested by the staff. It began with a dish something called Kochu Shaak diye Chingri Much ( Shrimps with some herb i can,t translate), it was probably steamed with mustard paste and a dab of mustard oil. Busy in rebuking and controlling the toddler and attending to my uncle who came to meet us there, i was happy they served me the food... and my..one fistful of food.. and believe me this is no exaggeration..for a while i was out of the world..this is food..i stared blankly at my woman friday, used to sharing these delights with her, ' My God what was this..'  She nodded excitedly..' So tasty'...Next came a heavenly moong dal, bhaapa illish, shol macher jhol with phoolkopi alu ( amazing as well) and a homely kind of kajai macher jhol...by that time me and husband have started exclaiming in enthusiasm. And the best part with the exorbitant illish as one of the orders we ended up paying five hundred fifty in all with these exotic food and a full stomach and more for three persons.
Later i analysed the cuisine might have been Bangladeshi as was written somewhere in their pamphlet so the taste felt so strikingly similar yet different. So much to discover..albeit the stomach conditions. With fully stuffed stomachs we did not dare for the sweet stuff , so i urged husband to get us gurer rashogollas ( brown ones made of jaggery) with the Kati Rolls from park street for dinner. Kati rolls though tasty were hugely oily  and being in Delhi for some years would give more marks to a healthier Rumali  version but again Rashogollas from the same place where we had lunch were....husband simply closed his eyes after sinking his teeth in as his head nodded in uummm.. soft silky stuffed with khoya inside. Huh speak of going overboard with food.

Imagine the rush at a tea shop..near New Market..we tried the tea there with  hot tiny crispy  pakodas with lemon chutney

New Market , Park Street all geared up for Christmas...we loved the time we were there..in full festive spirit

So Bong... Tea.. Coffee..and the quintessential Adda..

Some clicks in the morning

Snuggling for warmth

All these are available right here in the street and we have actually seen foreigners dining here

A wonder price list isn,t it...not to miss the bread and Ghoogni ( Bangla version of Matar)

The Tea cum breakfast joint is a hit with foreigners as well

Flury,s..I have heard the name since i used to come to Kolkata with parents,  seems very popular in old bangla movies as well..if i,m correct Uttam Kumar had tea here in some movie

Again forgot to click the pics of breakfast and the menu as me and husband were as usual tangled in some tiff. We ordered for an English breakfast and me a cheese  mushroom omlettee and coffee. Guess there was some feel of the Raj.. with a breakfast full of sausages , bacon and eggs, hash brown, tomatoes. Just overlooking the price factor... the long windows giving way to Park Street behind, a relaxed Sunday pre Christmas morning not a prompt service but looking by the age of the waiters.. i think some restaurants have retained their old captains and waiters.. i have seen in Moulin Rouge as well .. i haven,t seen waiters of such age in any other city i guess..this is Kolkata. I don't have much idea of European breakfast.. so husband helped me with bacon and eggs and gradually the taste built up into me, sausages were a bit too salty health wise, hash brown was crispy tasty something i heard of for the first time. On the whole i loved the ambiance and later sunk teeth into the soft cheese mushroom omelette with a warm cup of coffee.

I copied this pic from net..this plagiarism is ok i guess..i agree with the writer  the price was exorbitant

May be it isn,t the price always, the feel, a peep into old Kolkata.. the days of the Raj, a leisurely Sunday morning..leaving the sleeping toddler at hotel..the two of us..beginning of  a holiday, magic was gripping into us slowly. I was happy with husband for a pleasant morning, a short stroll, clicking pics of a half asleep Kolkata..and a breakfast at Flury,s. In Delhi we could never wake up early enough  and ' agree' for a breakfast outside.  Though as we just began to fight over the most trivial issue at hand, food was served and as we ate silently, miffed at the taste and ambience, the growing crowd.. only with coffee husband asked me ' What were you saying?' ...By that time i was savouring my cheese mushroom omelette..and for once i couldn,t remember what the war was all about.

The stay wasn,t just long enough.

The Magenta Diary: : My entry for the Get Published contest

A love story i grew up with, lived and breathed with the protagonist and grew apart as i moved into my own stories. A love story i relived  again as the dreams, feelings of an impossibly impractical eccentric at times , an early twenty something woman  unfurled through the pale yellow pages of an old magenta coloured diary.

If one ever asks me of a love story...leaving apart my own tryst with this thing called love.. it has to be the story of Ananyadi. The 'di'  in the name ( pronounced as in dee) is of course the endearing term for didi ( not to be confused with the ubiquitous ' didi' ruling the Bong state). Ananyadi was  five/six years elder to me, taught me Calculus and Physics before she became the 'Ananyadi' of my life.. intelligent, funny, silly at times with a haunting pair of eyes. I heard of her affair from her neighbour  my classmate before i  knew Ananyadi personally. The most striking thing  in that time in that small town was  a seemingly seedhi saadhi studious girl having an affair with a married man!! Bombshell really. Her boyfriend it seemed was at least fifteen years older to her, a top notch surgeon in some gulf country, married..

I was drawn  to her love story along with her Calculus lessons. Her boldness and her love miffed the teenage me. It happens.. love really happens across age across oceans..She loves him so much.. may be he is cheating on her, fooling her as Reshmi said but the spark in Ananyadi,s eyes dazzled me .
Then actually one fine day Dr Vinay Sengupta was in our little town.. to meet her.. yes out of chat windows and instant messages he was in real.. a victory for Ananyadi,s love.. her man  travelled 1000 miles to meet her..her eyes danced with joy..joy of love as she showed us Reshmi and me the gifts he got for her and it wasn,t those foreign gifts but the love they bore radiated in her elation.

Then.. did they get married..obviously  no. Life isn,t a Hndi film where loving a married man and getting married isn,t an impossibility, the  insecurity, the stigma parents, society..a different ball game altogether and if you get past through all these.. the reason for which you did all these get lost..love gets lost. What happened to them.. Ananyadi and Dr Vinay next four to five years they were together to the extent i also got gifts from the gulf country once year at least. Then Ananyadi moved out of our small town, national capital was beckoning her with a new career. And.. well i had an affair and forgot about them for sometime, as i broke up and then got married in the hurried attempt by parents to hide my affair and send me off to another city.

Then...they broke up .She told me when i met her in my wedding. By that time i was' eager to get married' type  and thought it was fine..Ananyadi should move on and get ' settled' like me. She is getting old.

And then.. the magenta diary.. you can sniff and live love even if  you think the writings carry no meaning..

Then.....

This is my entry for the HarperCollins–IndiBlogger Get Published contest, which is run with inputs fromYashodhara Lal and HarperCollins India.

Our first visit to the zoo

Dear Ninni

Winters are just on the doorsteps..some warm clothes taken out, most of the times we remain confused what to wear, if the cloths are a bit too warm braving the scorching sun during noon or the chill of the evenings causing a slight shiver..which indicates normal cloths are not just enough. Fog, smog.. Delhi sky remains veiled most of the times but a pleasant feeling freed of extremities of the Delhi weather.

So one fine day we decided to visit the zoo. Actually we have been planning since many days but our work schedules, weather, other commitments did not allow. Your grandparents are here and thanks to your father's over enthusiasm when they are here..do i sound cynical..let me.. you will be discovering my cynicism and eccentricities gradually and may be find them irksome...but.. no i won't say thats how i am..i will try to be better..anyways we set for zoo one early sunday morning.

We are always late for everything, reach everywhere just about when entry gates are about to close, or the movie is past 5-10 minutes, or the shows are over, mall entry is closed but that day somehow we reached early when the crowd has not yet built up..and as your grandma remarked even the animals were not up from their slumber!! A lovely morning and we started with white ducks, then made our way for the White tiger. You know in Guwahati I've been to the zoo many times in childhood but with you it is like looking through your eyes again and hence the thrill and me and your father getting more excited than you!! With you it is a backward journey be it enjoying Durga  Puja, Deepawali, visit to the park and now zoo..like we are going back in time and finding those lost joys....

The tigers... one lazing in the sun, other too seemed extremely lazy drinking water near the ditch, you know it hurt seeing them forced out of their habitat and left idle here, nothing to do!!  One was kept confined in a cage like area and it was moving ferociously inside..out of its abode, out of its instinct, out of prey..may be it did not yet succumb to the environment thrust upon it...

Next was reptile house, a disappointment i must day barring a few pythons, most of the cages are empty,clay models of turtles and snakes... wonder where all the species have vanished! Yes i loved the white swans lazing about near a pond and a strange big bird called ' emu' resembling ostrich. Then we could see the ' sloth  bear' dark and all bear like..talk of bear hugs.!! And we absolutely loved the two giraffes loitering in the woods.. as your grandma remarked they seemed the most amicable  may be because of the fact that they had a partner or rather a compatible partner was my analysis!! Or may be as the day progressed the animals were waking up and caught up with the day.. and most of them were nocturnal as well. We had passed by a crocodile which your grandma swore was made of plastic, though your father and grandpa argued for the contrary, i was in doldrums as well doubting if the crocodile was real. And to dispense with all the doubts it opened its eye body position remaining same!! We remembered one famous line by Tagore from his story wherein one character  believed to be dead by all had to commit suicide to prove that she was not a witch and indeed she had been alive!!

Ah.. now all of us were beginning to get exhausted and you changing from one shoulder to another, Choco Bars, Biscuits...but no you won't walk. So some coffee and we had plans to skip the ' lion, elephants' part and moved in to the bird cages. Peacocks, pheasants, parrots ( other names i cannot remember)  all were chirping, chattering fun to watch. A ferocious cheetah banging on the cages...freedom Ninni is so sought after may be you realise it only after losing it, a lonely chimpanzee snuggled at the top of a cage with its back to us, it never showed its face once, another lonely rhino looked totally lost in the huge space meant for it.

You know while i went as a child i remember the ' fun' part which was getting tepid as i grew up, but this time though the loneliness of the animals, their lack of freedom and natural habitat was a sore sight but i won't complain...they the zoo authorities had put in effort after these animals so that they thrive and breed  and thats how we can see them.

Last was the algae lake with lots of cranes and other migratory birds, that was very lively as no one was caged there. The birds were catching fish from the pond, protecting their eggs and chics.. you know some of these birds come from far away countries unable to bear the cold there..strange how they find their way thousands of miles across the border and return home once winter is over

Panchi Nadiya pawan ke jhoke..koi sarhad na inhe roke..

It was a fun visit, we had lots of fun with you and as i said it was just like going back in time for us, taking a look at the animals through your eyes, gaping at the size and shapes like seeing them for the first time removing the layers of cliches already embedded deep in brain, just looking at things without preconceived ideas. I was telling you father.. i cannot find a proper children story to tell you, Cindrella, Snow Ehite were so cliched  with mother dying father getting a step mom!! He told me why not Panchatantra tales, i tried to tell him those fables we grew up with.. now while i tell you sound irrelevant most of the time. I gave example of the fox and grapes story.. hungry fox trying to have grapes but not being able..i feel sad for the fox!! Yes your father looked at me with unbelievable eyes trying hard not to laugh. I tried to reason, we grew up with these tales they are printed in our memory but when i begin to tell you the cliches become so conspicuous....

So where do i find non cliched things for you as i let you gobble up super cliched episodes of doraemon and chota bheem while i laze about in blogs and facebook !!  Anyways this post was about our visit to the zoo and the fun we had and the pics we clicked. Hope you love it when you read it.

Love
Yours Ma

Emu

The Ferocious One

Growing up in Baba,s shoulders!!

In Happy times.. with your grandma

White Pheasant

Migratory Birds...

We visited Purana Quila as well

The Team

Thammu  Dadu and you

Prelude to a Short Story

A short story on ' Real love in new India'..my short story may not have the format of a conventional story.. climax,anticlimax and specially the punch on the end so characteristic of a good story. The story begins and perhaps ends with the reflections  and introspection of a woman who has read about this contest and while trying her hand at participating in the contest delves deep into herself from where she had began and where she is now. Yes, I know it might sound a bit auto biographical but more or less all stories have the shadow of the author as the soul underneath it ..get heavily influenced by the life of the author and hence lends the ' reality touch' all readers craves for in reading fiction.

Strangely though fiction is seemed a getaway from hard core life, in some way all of us look for a bit of ourselves in any fiction we read and it rejoices us when similarity strikes, ' this happened with me' feeling and the writer stands complacent somehow her writing has struck a cord with readers. Will it happen with me..nice to muse..

The story hovers over the protagonist,s quest for love and the subsequent void she has reached in her life where perhaps love has no place or has it... she embarks on the journey of her life trying to decipher what she missed, what she achieved, her apparent loveless life, her past. She toys with all the pros and cons and ifs and buts and though unsure and confused somehow she knows love or no love in her life.. this is the life she is in love with. She has reached a stage where she had begun to love all she had, and her curious adventurous mind has stopped yearning for someone new..someone who would arouse her senses and make her alive. She had been attracted to men and men to her, but somehow like every mortal being each relation had its birth, life and death, some died young..some lived longer . Anyhow she could not outlive death and has moved on in life.

 She has grown on books where love is ethereal, perennial and wished to love one person in life, or spend life mourning for one..but she is not the character of the books she love to read, she is a realist and the force of life has made her love the real life she leads more than the mystery of the unknown. She accepts her life with her husband and amidst the hard core real life they lead with careers, emi,s,sales pressure, customers, a daughter to take care of.. may be somewhere far away there is a glimpse of love she has longed all her life or being the intelligent realist she is..may be  over the years she has painted this obscure picture of love..and will channel  the entire forces of her life believing this picture to be true.

This is my entry for the HarperCollins–IndiBlogger Get Published contest, which is run with inputs from Yashodhara Lal andHarperCollins India.

Durga Puja.. Looking back and forth..

Dear Ninni

Owing to a complex cross cultural upbringing we are giving you where Navaratri, Dusshera, Karva Chauth, Diwali are being celebrated with full pomp and festivity, we took special care this year to give you a feel of  ' Durga Puja'.  Strange, something which has been such a vital part of our young days , me and your father's, something which we would long forward the whole year,something which would begin with the whiff of ' Shefali or shewli ' flower in the air, sky a shade bluer and gear up with the beginning of  many shopping trips by ma and neighbouring aunts. Many shopping trips didn't mean they used to shop like we do now, it was like one saree at a time  after a lot of shop scanning and the next trip to return it as neighbour aunty has remarked something negative or may be simply raised an eyebrow in disapproval!! I have seen my father's extreme irritation but guess that was the fun of Puja shopping and  final envious nod by neighbouring aunt and Mashi...the battle was won!!

You of course have seen malls and supermarkets by the time your senses worked, learned to take a trolley and pick up your stuff, have seen your ma shopping, learned to check the price tag as ma does though unable to decipher the meaning. While we were young, when lucky, ma used to take me along for shopping  and believe me it was a very boring affair.We would sit in the shop, the salesman would get out sarees, after around a dozen is seen ,colour,design demanded , price bargained..it was a daunting task to walk out, but the trick was if you walk out and if your bargain was correct salesman would call you back ' Arey boudi.. madam suniye to' .. still you have to pretend to walk out till he gives a call again!! Since my mother emulated our neighbour aunt and it seemed ma always felt she was a master at bargaining and walking out so she followed it when we went for shopping. It never worked as fine and the salesman always did not call back!! If he did.. ma would doubt, not only doubt but try to bargain further as she thought he agreed a bit too soon!! 'Perhaps her face.. she makes it so grim.. they give in' she would remark about her neighbour.  Shop hunting in the busy alleys of Fancy Bazar  Guwahati before the pujas.. was an experience into  itself.

After Ma's saree part , our outfits.. sometimes ill fitting (no trial rooms that time), shyness and awkwardess dominating during teens, white based typical Bengali sarees for oldies, totally white dhoti like cloths for the widows in the family (though things changed gradually..widows were given normal sarees but white had to be dominant), Baba's outfit came last and sometimes he went without new cloths..may be to cover up for the expenditure incurred or as he would put it.. ' I don't need new cloths..'  By Mahalaya ( It marks the beginning of Devi Paksha in simple words the Puja season) preparations would gear up..in the Mahalaya day Ma would invariably switch on the radio at wee hours of the morning and Birendra Krishna Bhadra's unmistakable voice year after year ' Ya Devi Sarva bhuteshu'...and in the early years all would wake up in the morning, the entire neighbourhood, collect ' Shewli' flowers. These subsided gradually with just lame playing of audio cassettes then CDs and no early morning walks.

Finally Pujas would begin. Shoppings completed, gifts distributed, showed to all and sundry who come home. No parlour hopping that time by Ma or aunts..things were simple. In the Shaptami day Baba would give the first report of the idol in the morning of the Puja in neighbourhood. We collected flowers..those Shewli strewn in the ground..filled our baskets..not an easy task..braving vector bites (thankfully no dengue that time), squatting all the time and then stitched garlands to be put across the photo of Goddess at home..these seem a fairy tale to me as well now!! And yes all those Sharadiya Bangla magazines ( Sharadiya because of Sharat season I guess), we would finish the novels one by one me, Baba, my aunt, grandma later my brother and discuss which was the best. You know one of the most loved writers, creator of ' Kakababu' expired this year and I have read Kakababu from the first Puja magazine I learnt to read. But this is life... some new writings are good, some are average and this year I haven't read a single one because I could not go to C.R. Park and get the magazines in time. Another young character I was so fond of when kid ' Gogol' also disappeared with the writer's early demise like happy Puja days.

In the evenings we would go out with parents mainly, sometimes with Bubu (my aunt), pandal hopping and inspite of father's strong dislike me and ma would go for the carts selling hot chaats!! Ma used to be extremely happy as she was relieved of cooking at least in the evenings though no formal 'eating out' then. In the Ashtami day sometimes we would visit Ram Krishna Mission offer Anjali amidst the huge crowd, stand in queue for Khichuri served as prasad. When a bit older I started visiting with friends, neigbouring Didis and there was a different aspect to Puja.. getting dressed in your best and longing for attention...I understood that gradually as I noticed them getting all attention from boys and they laughing it off with  pride..there was envy for the pretty girls and extreme consciousness and gawkiness in the teenage days would lead me to stick to parents  or friends and never venture out alone.

In the Dashami day when the idol was immersed I also went behind the truck with my neighbouring aunt ( four years older to me) and her father when we were kids and saw boys dancing in Mithun Chakraborty style and I remember she also trying some moves with slogans like ' Asche bachar abar hobe!!' Evenings were reserved for offering ' pranams' to elders, tying the sacred thread around wrist and then gorge on coconut ladoos , nimkis, sweets.. gradually less home made stuff and more outside stuff.

A void used to be there after Puja was over, though holidays continued but the climax was over.. While we grew, up me and brother, some years we used the holidays to go out for a trip with parents and sometimes got the chance to watch the Kolkata Pujas or Delhi Pujas, sometimes we missed it altogether but now..since my brother moved out of Guwahati , coming home is a must for him during the Pujas and me.. after you have come I'm a diligent pandal hopper though before you in Delhi I longed for the cultural programmes and the big names who performed but with you I want to feel the ' Durga Puja', both your father and I. just like bygone days brushing us with a breeze, to show you, a part of us we left back home in a different time, balloons, toy pistols what not...we got them only in Puja time and my neighbouring aunt I talk about ( Tutu pishi) , she preserved her cherished balloon beneath the lid of a drum containing rice ( earlier we used to have drums or tins containing rice and we used to have rice thrice a day) so that it survives a longer time and believe me it did to my surprise and she would open everyday and show me her blue balloon!!

Last year in Barapani I was not able to show you Durga Puja, this time we took you around Delhi and though we thought it was more for you guess it was more for us..to find a bit of lost days again, a bit of togetherness in this tight paced life..

Leaving you with some pics.

Love

Yours Ma

During childhood we used to have idol counts to boast of to friends and peers so just an idol count for you

Elite Puja of GK II.. Pandal is all empty before 11.. good for clicking pics

Olympic rings at Matri mandir Safdarjung Enclave

Dont miss the huge vessels of delicious prasad..:)

Pious you...

Original you?

Mayur Vihar Puja had Rabindranath theme

Your mom going all traditional