What’s good in my town?

My friend and fellow blogger whose blog site I encourage you to check out at http://theycallmetater.com writes about What’s Good in Tater Town. While I read his posts diligently and like what he writes, I love his posts about What’s Good in Tater Town the most. As I sat outside today and looked at the most beautiful blue sky, the hopeful green of early spring, fat bunnies in my back yard and the familiar ping of ball hitting a baseball bat in the baseball fields behind my house, I realized THIS was good in MY town. Yet my inside was clenched over anxiety about rising Covid cases in India, when can I go home, health and well being of my parents, my distance from them and thousand other thoughts. The constant anxiety is probably taking away years from my life. And then I thought about my friend’s post about what ‘his’ good is in his town. He enlists having dinner with his son and daughter as something good that happened, reading out in the deck is something good that happened, getting a free coffee from Dunkin is something good that happened. These are indeed good things that happened. He notices these, acknowledges these and writes them down. I too have these moments but I am so busy worrying that I gloss over them. And lose them in the process.

So I mindfully looked around me to honor the beautiful day. I looked at the new green and appreciated the life it promised. I had dinner with my family and I focused on what they said. Ryan had a weekend of fantastic swim meet, dropping time in all his events. That was good. Sahana got her first vaccine. That was amazing.

I think I will follow my friend’s example and write down what is good in my town. Who knows, perhaps I will inspire someone to look within their life to find the ‘goods’ like I was inspired?

Bengali New Year: Shubho Noboborsho

Today is Bengali New year. It is the first day of the first month in Bengali calendar – Boishakh. Traditionally, we do not (or did not) ring in our new year with champagne and fireworks. Instead, we woke up to a day of sweets, good food and new clothes. We started the morning by touching the feet of our elders, seeking blessings as a brand new year begun with promise and most importantly, hope. Every new beginning needed (and still needs) to be blessed by our elders. Although I am not religious, I am a big believer in blessings. Since my childhood, I grew up touching the feet of my parents and other grown ups, seeking their blessings before an exam, first day of school, new year, birthdays because I like to believe that the good wishes and blessings create a positive energy which leads to well being. I also think the humility of asking for blessings is a lovely gesture. Instead of saying ‘happy new year’ we used the Bengali wish Shubho Noboborsho. However, I have seen greetings like Happy Poila Boishakh on social media and the purist in me cringed just a tiny bit.

We Bengalis believe morning shows the day or in other words, the first day of a new year is a precursor to how the new year is going to be. If we spent the first day by eating good food, wearing new outfits, and are generally in good mood it would bode well for the rest of the year. Start the year off in the right footing. Or just make it another excuse to indulge in culinary delights. Us, Bengalis love our food. Most of us truly live to eat and we are completely unapologetic about it. I recently went to a small gathering of friends where we literally talked about all the hidden gems of good eateries spread all over Kolkata. Food, politics and art – that is what we talk about. What else is there in life anyway?

Today is a regular work day for all of us. Sean is busy with his work, I have to do mine and the kids are in school. I woke up looking out at the bright sunshiny day and in a very typical Bengali way, I started thinking what can I cook to make the day somewhat celebratory? I had eggs in the house, onions, ginger, garlic, potatoes, tomato paste and …… posto (poppy seeds). I had to log in to work at 10. So I gave up my usual languishing with a cup of coffee in the morning. After talking to my parents to wish them Shubho Noboborsho, and asking for their blessings, I sprung into action. I made onion garlic ginger paste, chopped green chilis, sautéed, stirred, boiled and within 35 minutes I had my dim posto ready. Dim Posto is egg curry cooked with poppy seed paste.

It is a simple dish, nothing fancy. I want this to be a precursor for the days to come. I want simple, uneventful days ahead of me. I want nothing fancy, nothing exciting even. I will take boring, comforting, wholesome. I wish the same for all of you. Whether you are a Bengali or not, I wish you an uneventful year on this day, the day I celebrate the beginning of a new year. May you be healthy, may your life rock back to a steady rhythm, may it be comforting and uneventful. And if there are events, may those be happy.

Shubho Noboborsho.

Mustard oil in my relationship.

Mustard oil is an integral part of Bengali cuisine. My memories of childhood have the strong smell of mustard oil weaved within them. If you have not had the experience of being in a home where dry red chili is added to smoking hot mustard oil it will be hard for you to imagine the effect. The sharpness and jhaanj (do not know the English word for it, just imagine extreme pungent and sharp smell) of this deadly combination will clear your sinuses, will make your eyes water and will certainly make you sneeze. But you want to know what is food heaven? It is a drizzle of mustard oil on Hilsa fish cooked in mustard gravy (bhapa ilish) or mashed potatoes with onion, green chili and mustard oil, or alu posto, dhokar dalna, bati chocchori – all cooked in mustard oil.

Now, mustard oil is an acquired taste. I don’t know many Indians outside of Bengal who appreciate mustard oil as much as we do. They simply can not handle it. The strength, the sharpness, the jhaanj. So think about my poor, white husband who had to experience the first jolt of mustard oil in our house. He coughed, sneezed, hiccuped at the same time when he breathed in the air laden with double dose of mustard oil tempered with nigella seeds and dried red chilis.

“Oh my goodness, what is that? What are you cooking? What is this toxic gas? Are you trying to kill me?” Cough, cough, sneeze, sneeze!

I calmly answered, “That is just mustard oil.”

“It is deadly.”

I needed to assert how our way of life was going to be in our newly formed partnership and had to lay down the rules.

“Listen buddy! I love you to the moon and back. But my love is not unconditional. If you come between me and my mustard oil, this relationship is not going to last. I don’t buy fish heads so as not to gross you out and I only cook dried fish (shutki mach) when you are traveling. I have given up a lot for love. I will not give up mustard oil.”

He backed off. Now when I cook my Bengali food he quietly turns our big exhaust fan on and knows not to say anything. You can take the girl out of the land of mustard oil, you can not take the mustard oil out of the girl. Especially a girl who was massaged in mustard oil and laid out to bake in the sun during winter months as an infant because the grown ups during those days thought massaging a baby with mustard oil and laying them out in the sun was beneficial to skin, circulation system and muscles of the infant. So yes, my relationship with mustard oil is deep and long. NO one messes with it! 🙂

My heart is full because I read this book.

The beginning of the pandemic was a chaotic, extreme anxiety provoking, fearful time. On top of a deadly virus killing off human beings physically, there was the political rhetoric in the United States of America that was killing us emotionally. Once maniacal political drama subsided, we started getting hopeful about vaccines and then plunged right back into uncertainties about our turn, distribution, fairness, cutting in line, guilt. Now we are slowly opening up and again we are anxious about our ability to mingle with human kind while keeping everyone safe. Phew! That was an exhausting overview.

Amidst all this, I read a lot of books. Last night, I stayed up till midnight (despite it being a work week) to finish a children’s fiction called The Remarkable Journey of Coyote Sunrise by Dan Gemeinhart. It filled me up with a warm fuzzy feeling as I read the last page, smiled at the fact that Gemeinhart was an elementary school teacher/librarian and thanked him for giving this reader solace during these times.

Twelve year old Coyote lives on a school bus driven by her dad Rodeo. They have been crisscrossing the country in that school bus for the last five years which they converted into their home. Five years ago, Coyote lost her mom and two sisters in a car crash when she was just seven years old. Since then, her dad left their home in Poplar Springs and drove around with her in their mobile home, the school bus named Yager. They stop at gas stations to fill up with gas, get food – most importantly slushies, and when Coyote can find a kind lady with a cell phone who lets her use it, she calls her grandma at Poplar Springs. Grandma always asks when she was coming home. But Coyote does not have an answer because Coyote and Rodeo do not plan to go home which, they fear, will bring back memories that will torment them for ever. During one such phone conversation, grandma tells Coyote that the park where she used to play with her sisters is being torn up by the city to turn it into a parking lot. But Coyote has a memory box buried underneath a tree in that park which she must rescue. The memory box was created by her mother and her sisters. They intended to go back for it after 10 years but 5 days after burying the memory box, her mom and sisters died in the car crash. Now Coyote needs to get her father to drive back home in exactly four days before the construction begins but she can not tell him that they are going back to Poplar Springs because going back is a hard ‘no go’ with Rodeo. So Coyote must plan to get her way without letting Rodeo know that they were actually heading home. Who knew the journey home is going to be the most difficult one? But Coyote is nothing but tenacious. She figures out a plan to make Rodeo drive in the direction of home. And during their journey back Coyote picks up some misfits who are also searching for their own destinations. There is Lester who needs to find his lady love, Salvador and her mama, Esperanza Vega is running away from a difficult situation, Val is looking for acceptance and of course Gladys needs to go to her mom. But 12 year old Coyote’s first friend, before others joined them, was a cool kitty named Ivan.

The writing is so full of heart, Coyote is such a fierce and spunky girl who carries her sorrow with such bravery and compassion, Rodeo may look like a bearded hippie but one has to look into his eyes and see the kindness that is brimming in him. Everything about this book touched my soul, the tragedy, Coyote and Rodeo’s grief, their overwhelming love for each other and humanity, the friendship, the good will. The author does not shield his young readers from the harshness/reality of life. Life is not easy, tragedies happen, violence happens, lack of acceptance happens but to balance the scale there is love, kindness, friendship, good will and most importantly resilience. The will to continue on this beautiful journey called life wins at the end.

We pivoted.

Last year was very different in terms of the service our library provided due to pandemic. Our branches closed in mid march and we pivoted to online classes within 3 weeks or so. And I had to facilitate my book club – online – via WebEx. I was terrified. New platform, new way of doing things, my very old, tired Chromebook, unknown technology….. recipe for disaster. I am a chicken and I was ready to throw in the towel. My boss said, ‘Just give it a shot. You can do it.’ My intrepid co facilitator said ‘Lets do this.’ My friend from work gave me confidence – “Think of what you will be doing for the community. They will be happy to see you providing their familiar platform in this uncertain time.” I timidly said, ‘okay.’ So I did it. I learnt how to navigate WebEx, sent out invitations to the participants. I pivoted. Many of my coworkers pivoted with confidence, I pivoted kicking and screaming.

On the evening of the book club, several of the participants joined. My old yet faithful Chromebook did not fail me. My co facilitator failed to show up though. I texted her in desperation, “They are all here. where are you?” She said, “I am trying, I can not get on!” I smiled on camera, while in my head a mantra played out, “This is gonna be a disaster! This is gonna be a disaster!” Lastly, I held my phone on speaker near my laptop with my friend on the phone, co facilitating with me. It was not perfect by any means but we were ‘together’ somehow. At the beginning of the session, I could not focus on what book club members were saying as I tried to hold the phone up, check my questions that I had painstakingly prepared, tried to make eye contact with pixelated figures on my screen. There were echoes when someone spoke, we fumbled on our end trying to figure out how to minimize the echo and finally muted ourselves. But before I knew it, I was enjoying myself. And basking in my ability to conduct a virtual book club while holding a speaker phone up so my co facilitator could participate. The participants seemed relieved to be able to talk about books – a constant, in such turbulent times. And they were thankful that we arranged this ‘meeting’. They were relieved that we planned to continue to meet each month. For some, that was their constant during those times. While everything was shut down, they could read a book and talk about a different world, different set of characters. They could escape from their pandemic ridden world with fellow bibliophiles.

That was back in April 2020. Now I love our virtual book club discussions. From a free WebEx account our library got licenses for wonderful Zoom accounts. The connections are great for the most part. I feel so much more comfortable with the technology. I can not believe I was so fearful of this new way of doing things – pivoting, a year ago. Since my book club meetings are in the evening, I throw on a pretty sweater over my pajamas, put on some earrings, light make up and voila! I am ready to roll…. I mean, have literary discussion.

While I do miss face to face discussions, I have noticed through our various virtual classes that participants with limited mobility can join us. Participants who do not have child care can join us. I have changed my mind about virtual classes – they are more inclusive in a way. There are folks who do not have the luxury of owning a computer, smart phone or tablet and eventually in person classes will start when it is safe, but I hope some of these virtual classes will continue to give equal access to all.