The heart picks up…

I woke up to gentle nudges from my mother.

‘Uthe por. Khela shuru hobe, dekhbi na? (Wake up, the game is going to start. Won’t you watch it?)

I used to wake up, rub my eyes and turn my attention to the already blaring TV set. A football match between two countries was set to begin in a World Cup tournament. It was perhaps 2 or 3 in the morning, and most likely I had school the next day. Yet, she woke me up. Yet, she let me watch. When my father chided about school and health, she said, ‘There will always be school, but Football World Cup comes around every four years!’ I have seen very few football enthusiasts like my mother and thankfully, she has passed on her zeal for the game to me. I learnt the rules of offside, the different positions of footballers and other nuances of the game from her. Football, for me, is so much more than just a game. It is the companionship of my mother and sometimes father, sipping cups of tea in the middle of week night and watching athletes fight it out over the possession of a ball on the field. It is the resounding GOAAAAAAAAL erupting in the neighborhood at the dark hours of night when a foreign team scored (India never had a team to field in the global arena and still does not). It is the collective joy of our favored team’s win. It is the combined sadness of an entire community when our favorite team lost. Football was my first means to connect with the world without quite being aware of it. It certainly was a means to bond with my football crazy city of Kolkata.

I grew up in those dark days of no internet and no cable. Our entertainments were limited to newspapers, magazines, and the limited shows that Doordarshan provided on television. But those were enough to fire up our fervor for football. After watching an early morning football game we would go to school and analyze each shot, each miss, each corner, each penalty. We would defend our favorite soccer player and berate the opponents. We read up the sports pages and spouted statistics to impress. During lunch and recess, we would take a temporary break from playing basketball and kick around a soccer ball pretending to be Zico or Zidane. We would talk of nothing else. What else was there to talk about when the World cup was being fought over in the global arena? We lived in football haze. And how we loved that. We would get home, finish our evening chores, get to bed and set the alarm for the next game. My mother, I remember, watched the game and cooked the next day’s meal before dawn so she could rest the following day. This became our routine for the entire month. We lived during the night and drooped during the day. We were football owls.

The road side dadas (local neighborhood boys) hung the flags of their respective teams by the roadside and set up shrines to their football teams complete with garlanded photographs of the footballers. Our paara (neighborhood) donned the yellow and green of Brazil. Our next paara sported blue and white of Argentina. There were trash talks galore:

‘Ja, ja neche neche goal debo toder!’ (Get lost, we will dance into your goals!)

‘Dekhe nebo, dekhe nebo toder!’ (We shall see!)

All good-natured, all in good humor. But these built up the ambiance and that whole month of the tournament was nothing like ordinary times. Most of my friends, family, acquaintances were caught up in football fever. Our schedules, lives, homework, jobs rotated around the schedules of our favorite teams. In public buses and trains complete strangers either bonded over Bebeto’s crib dance or exchanged heated words over Maradona’s controversial goal. There was either hate or love in my world, there was very little indifference. You were either a friend or a foe. There was nothing in between. There must have been folks who did not care for our frenzy. For us, they simply faded into oblivion – for that month. And after the Final game was played and the after the Champion team lifted the trophy, we walked around for a few days in a daze, lost, dejected and unsure of what to say when football talk died down. Commuters looked forlornly out of the windows in silence and snapped at fellow commuters, we picked up the basketball again in school, we lovingly looked at our scrapbooks full of pictures and statistics of the World Cup tournament till we put them away and forgot about them, our mothers became the dragon ladies, stickler for rules and disciplines. And life, for a while, lost its color. Till the next craze – local football, Wimbledon, cricket whatever. And the fan frenzy returned with a vengeance.

I am a middle aged woman now as Soccer world cup 2014 gets underway, living in a country where soccer is not a religion. I am a chauffeur, chef, educator, counselor, disciplinarian, hugs giver – or in one word, a mother. I don’t have enough time to indulge in football frenzy anymore. Yet, I can’t seem to help it. I have the schedule posted on my refrigerator wall, I have the games highlighted, I have time set aside. And thanks to Facebook, I get to watch the game with my fellow enthusiasts who are scattered all over the world. We discuss the game, we berate teams, we trash talk, we laugh together and we plan which games to watch together virtually. It is not the same as watching it with my mother in the middle of night and with the entire neighborhood, but it works quite well.

I surprise my new friends with my soccer zeal. Do you even know anything about the footballers in the Brazil team that you are cheering for, they ask! I do not know a thing! I do not have any statistics or any information on the players of Brazil memorized anymore, but does that really matter? The support for my team is not dependent on any of that. I say Brazil will win simply because I believe. Yes, they were the world champions five times, yes they play amazingly beautiful football but most importantly the faith comes straight from the heart. The heart does not care for numbers or reason. It just remembers the passion of the past, the moments that I have lived during past Football World Cups and it simply picks up from there.

And non soccer enthusiasts? I love you deeply, I really do but you simply do NOT exist for me till July 13th 2014. I hope you don’t mind. It is not personal. 🙂

Shylockism…

I laid my head on my husband’s shoulder and said, ‘We have given birth to the reincarnation of Shylock!’ My insensitive husband guffawed at that, I snapped my head up, glared at him and showed him the white of my eye!

We were seated at my parents’ house in the summer of 2013 in Kolkata enjoying a few stolen moments while the rest of the family played up on the terrace.

This story is about my 8-year-old son, whose love of money has assumed legendary proportions amongst family and friends. Ryan has been often spotted sitting in a corner with his money jar, counting pennies and dimes. He saves everything he gets for birthdays and Christmases and puts it in his college fund (his money jar). He claims he is saving every penny from a young age to help us pay for his college since he has heard us talk about education in America being expensive.

Ryan’s Shylockism started innocently enough. On the second day of our vacation in Kolkata, his grandfather (dadai) asked him if he wanted to accompany him to the fish market. Ryan agreed. Upon return, I received an excited boy glowing from sweat and happiness and a chuckling grandfather.

‘Your son is something else. That boy will go far!’ His grandfather was still laughing.

I learnt, in due course, that Ryan offered to carry dadai’s tholi (jute bag carrying fresh fish) home. Dadai was touched by his young grandson’s offer to help and let him carry the bag. When they reached home, Ryan innocently asked if dadai thought he deserved to be paid for his services.

‘Paid? Why?’ Dadai played along.

‘Well, first I carried bloody fish and fish head which is extremely gross and second, didn’t you save some money by not getting on the rickshaw because I carried your bag? Don’t you think I deserve the rickshaw fare?’ He asked.

‘I hope you didn’t pay him!!!’ I exclaimed.

My father said with a chuckle, ‘How could I not? I was defeated by logic!’

A pattern thus developed. Ryan refused to go on fun outings, if there was a possibility of accompanying dadai on errands. Dadai let him keep the change from rickshaw fares and bus fares – which Ryan termed as his payment for ‘companionship’. This story spread far and wide. All of a sudden, there was an amusing competition among the adoring aunts, uncles, grandmothers (my aunts) and grandfathers (my uncles) to pay Ryan money for kisses and hugs. I have pictures of Ryan holding bills while a grandmother kisses his cheeks.

I laughed along for a while and then tried to stop relatives from playing this game. But as it happens whenever I go back home, my children hide behind the indulgent family members and smile at me cheekily as I get chastised for being too strict.

Ryan often counted his ever increasing pile of notes with a gleam in his eyes and proudly told his sister how much he had. I shuddered at his mercenary tendencies. I talked to him in private about not accepting money from family, he shrugged and said, ‘But they want to give it to me!’

The night before we left for home, Ryan carried some of his money when we went out for our last stroll in Kolkata. He disclosed he needed to find a toy store as he planned to buy a toy for 3 month old baby Khushi, who was living in my parent’s house at that time. Khushi is the baby girl of the young woman who cooked delightful meals for us during our stay in Kolkata. A toy shop was found, a toy for Khushi was bought, Ryan’s own money was spent to buy it. That made me smile.

As we headed home, Ryan ran into Bancharaam – the famous sweet shop in Gariahat. During our two week stay, Ryan dashed into every sweet shop or cake shop that we came across to longingly stare at the varied sweetmeats displayed in the show cases. We hardly bought any, yet he went in to see them and salivate over them. As he went into the sweet shop, he saw a little girl, about the same age as Ryan, tugging at my shirt for some money. He came out and whispered to me, he wanted to buy her some sweets. The girl chose the sweets she wanted and Ryan bought them for her. My smile widened.

On the morning of our departure, Ryan kept insisting that his parents hand him over all his money at once. He had given his money to us for safe keeping. He was getting in the way, so I gave him his money back and told him sternly to stay out of our way so we could finish packing.

In a little while, his grandmother came into our room, holding a bunch of bills with a baffled expression. Ryan had taken all the money and given it all to his grandmother to spend as she chose fit, after he was gone.

Sean and I exchanged glances. I gave his apple cheeks a kiss as I laughed and wiped away a tear at the same time.

Everything was alright with the world again.

Despite..

Kolkata comes back in my blogs recurrently. I go to Kolkata in my mind, to roost perhaps, when my reality gets too overwhelming. Writing about Kolkata, thinking about my time there, gives me a strange sense of calm. Quite ironic really, considering the controlled chaos that Kolkata is.

Whenever I go back home, I look for continuity. I search for the city I left behind. The fast changing face of the city baffles me mostly. Like a typical Non Resident Indian, I lament the loss of the city’s uniqueness and despise the generic look of it with gated communities, huge, impersonal, air-conditioned malls, McDonald’s golden arches and KFC’s red and white General’s face, coffee shops in every nook and cranny. Kolkatans snort at such romanticism. It is easy for you to romanticize, you don’t have to deal with the daily inconveniences, they say. And they are right. No city stays frozen in time. They develop, they move up and move on.

My yearning for my old Kolkata remains, though. I desperately seek out the old city and find it still hidden beneath. I find the iron filigreed balconies in old mildewed buildings that have escaped the real estate developer’s greed (It is a matter of time). The conference of crows on the antenna of our neighbor’s terrace, the dome of the Science city as I sip my afternoon tea on the terrace of our building and look towards the horizon, the lonesome coconut tree that reminds me how green Kolkata used to be, the little boy completely immersed in flying his kite, the intense cricket match on the street in front of my house, the woman of the house stretching out her laundry on the laundry line on her terrace, Ram Krishna Mission’s dome standing tall in its white splendor and the smiles that envelope me in its warmth as I step off the taxi with my luggage ‘Didi, kotodin thakbe?’ (How long will you stay, big sister?)

I found such continuity in the general demeanor and even the physical frame of the conductors of public buses. The customer service is still as I remember – impersonal, very effective, functional and rough around the edges. The physical appearances seem the same – lanky, young and somewhat reckless. My main means of transport, when I go back, are the rickety mini buses, public buses and auto rickshaws. I observe, with amusement, as the conductors continue to do the ‘phraaaaak’ sound with the tickets in their hand, reminding the passengers, with that sound, and their voice ‘Ticket, ticket!’ The bus drivers still drive recklessly, overtaking the bus in front to get more passengers.

One tradition continues, I discovered. The conductors continue to slap the side of the bus twice as the bus approaches a stop helter skelter, and yell, ‘Ekdom bendhe debe. Ladies, baccha ache!’ (Come to a complete stop, there are ladies and children who will get off)! Men don’t get the special treatment. As a fiery feminist in my young days, this discrimination made my blood boil. But now, this gesture brings a smile to my face. I smile because I have learned to pick my battles and also perhaps, I find another facet of Kolkata that remains unchanged.

I remember the tight grasp of my young mother’s hand, as she unsteadily made her way to the door of a moving bus with me in tow, shouting to the young conductor, ‘Bhai ekdom bendhe dao, baccha ache!’ (Brother, bring the bus to a complete stop, I have a child)! I did the same with my children. I held Ryan’s hand tightly and made sure Sahana held on, as I made my demand to the conductor, ‘Ekdom bendhe dao, baccha ache!’ The reply was standard as well, ‘Haa didi, ashun!’ (Yes sister, come) !

It was raining as we made our way back home from the bus stop. Monsoon in Kolkata is beautiful to watch from a high rise building and terrible to endure if one is on the road. As we carefully avoided the dirty water, potholes, garbage on the streets and rushing traffic, Sahana touched my arm gently and said, ‘This city is so full of love, Ma!’ I smiled in the fading light of the cloud covered sun. ‘Where did you find the love?’ I asked.

‘Did you see how the conductor cared? He brought the bus to a complete stop for us and even helped Ryan get down by holding his hand!’ She said.

Despite the gloom, I found my sun. And despite the squalor, Sahana found love.

Almost home…

The preparation of going home to Kolkata starts almost ten months prior to the actual date. It starts with pinning my husband down to look at his calendar and give me some dates to work with. Then comes the intolerable stress and anxiety about finding the best price for tickets, looking at layovers, working out swim meet conflicts, assuring the competitive son that going to India is more important than swimming in the Divisionals. Finally, when the tickets are bought, thinking about and looking for gifts to bring back home. And while doing all this, pausing suddenly to savor the sweetness of a childhood memory, smiling at some inconsequential snippet of home that is precious to only me, being mindful of the soothing, calming, reassuring feeling that I will go home soon and I will bask in everything that is so familiar, yet somewhat different with the passage of time.

Driving to the airport, standing at the check in line, getting on the flight – I don’t quite mind. There is the hustle bustle of fellow travelers. The energy of others, at the beginning of the journey, energizes me. I see fellow South Asians and play guessing games with the family – which city do you think they are going to? I note with awe, the immaculately dressed and impeccably made up women getting ready to board a long flight. How do they look so good and will they look this good at the end of 24 hour travel, I wonder. Some actually do!

As I find my seat on the plane and buckle my seatbelt, I look around and grin foolishly at whoever catches my eye. My joy is contagious, I get smiles and nods back generally. And every time the flight starts moving for take off, I invariably say, ‘Here we go! Goodbye_______ (my hometown)! We will see you soon!’ The children haven’t chastised me about it yet! They smile indulgently at my enthusiasm.

As I feel the plane starting to descend, I grip Sean’s arm and smile, despite the terrible ear popping, ‘Half the journey is over, dude” The lay over is spent walking around whichever airport we are transiting from, looking at duty-free goodies and eyeing the chocolates. Then it is time to get back on the next plane again. This time, the flight is full of Bangla speaking fellow passengers, saree or salwar kameez donned, brown-skinned, small boned, familiar! I eavesdrop shamelessly, butt into conversations unwanted but soon get accepted. The common topic of discussion, generally is ‘Kotodin por deshe jacchen?'(How long has it been since you went home) ! Desh….motherland…a word that fills me with a warm and fuzzy feeling of belonging.

I bear the 24 plus hours of travel in relatively good humor. I smile and nod ecstatically at the grumpy immigration officials at Kolkata airport. I seem to want to impress upon them that the entry stamp that they so nonchalantly pressed upon my passport is so meaningful to me. They are the gatekeepers who just opened the door to the enchanted land where my past is waiting for me.

I turn into a very disagreeable person at the baggage claim, I confess. Every second there seems intolerable. My husband feels my irritation, he massages my back, smiles kindly, tries to distract with conversation, yet I remain irritated. Each time this interminable wait to retrieve our luggage becomes unbearable. So close, yet not quite there. I politely harass the young airport officials, ‘Bhai eto deri hocche?’ (Brother, what’s taking so long?). Invariably, the carousel gets stuck and I mutter under my breath.

I do all this because just behind the wall stand two humans who I simply can not wait to see. They have been counting months and then days, like me, till our plane touches the ground. I know they have come early to avoid getting stuck in Kolkata traffic and I know that as every passenger goes out of the terminal, their eyes brighten with hope. And then dim again. It’s not me, yet. Not us. They are the treasurers of my childhood and youth, they keep my memories tucked away in their treasure chest and guard them with love and longing. They are the ones who smile wistful smiles at my ‘remember when’s. They are the only two people who ever so eagerly await my arrival and shed tears at my departure.

Finally, when our luggage is gathered we push our cart to the exit past the custom official, my eyes scan for those two beloved faces as the children run ahead. This reunion happens every twelve months and I am parched for their presence. When I see them, or they see us, my father’s face is a combination of relief, joy, excitement, happiness. His face seems just about ready to burst with all these emotions. My mother is more expressive, she smiles from ear to ear, squeals our names, comes forward to envelope the grand children in a bear hug, and then hugs me fiercely with unspilt tears of happiness glistening in her eyes. My father gives me an awkward side hug (hugging doesn’t come naturally to him), he hugs his grandkids and shakes hand with his son-in-law.

He, then, gets busy warding off unsolicited help from airport porters, calls the driver of the rented car that will take us home. My daughter, who is fluent in Bengali, claims Didiya (grandma) and narrates all that happened on the flight. Little Ryan is generally shy, unable to speak the language, stands quietly with a shy, tired smile. Didiya notices and takes his hand. His little hand willingly disappears in her grasp. He nods and smiles mostly while his sister talks nineteen to the dozen. In the car, as we head home, Ryan slowly reaches out and touches Dadai’s (grandfather) shoulder giving him a little nudge. Dadai nudges him back with a conspiratorial smile while I blink away some unexpected tears at this silent communing.

Finally, my two worlds meet.

Khushi

She didn’t have a daak nam (pet name or nick name) when we first saw her. She was simply a bundle of dimpled chin, kicking thighs, little hands and a cherubic face. As we entered our house in Kolkata, after a long 25 hour travel, we saw her intently focussed on the ceiling fan overhead, taxing her two month old brain to understand what makes the funny thing work. We walked towards her, she tried to focus her eyes on the faces of these strangers and uttered some adorable kitten sounds with a toothless smile. Sean asked me what was Bangla for happy.

‘Khushi.’ I said.

‘She should be named Khushi then because that is what she is. Khushi.’

Khushi is the new-born baby of our domestic help, Breshpati. As she lay there, kicking her impossibly little yet impeccably shaped tiny feet, Khushi didn’t know she was unwittingly the key player in a tragic drama that her birth has begun. Her birth in the ‘wrong’ gender, to be precise. Although she was born at the end of May in 2013 in a semi developed country called India, she was still unwanted because she didn’t have a penis. She was healthy and impossibly cute but she was still a girl. Her father’s family didn’t want her. After her birth in a hospital where the sanitary conditions left much to be desired and her mother had to stay up all night to keep little cockroaches off her new-born baby, Khushi’s father did not come to see her. He finally came after several days, and after innumerable phone calls. We met Khushi when she was almost 3 months. Till date, her paternal grandparents hadn’t come to see their grandchild. Breshpati was at our house, cooking for us. She meant to take her baby back to her in-law’s house after we left. She was nervous. She was nervous about the reception she and her daughter were going to get in a home, which was supposed to be her ‘forever home.’

I don’t know what can be more entertaining than babies – of any species. I can spend hours just staring at the face of a baby and Khushi provided me my baby fix. As I sat next to her, watching her dark liquid eyes, rosebud mouth, little tongue and every expression, I thought back upon the time I had given birth to Sahana. I felt on the top of the world. Was I any less than a queen, triumphant, with a living miracle in my arms? Phone calls, visits, cards, gifts, good wishes and love flooded our lives. While Sahana slept, her nursery filled up with toys which she didn’t need, and perhaps never played with. She didn’t want for love, attention or anything material. And here was another baby, lying by herself with just one rattle for toy, and the ceiling fan for her mobil. Her mother was busy cooking for another family, instead of spending every waking minute with her, like I did, to drink in the last drop of her infancy. She simply doesn’t have the luxury. And Khushi was still khushi. She learnt to entertain herself, she looked around, smiled at the light that came in through the French windows and touched her pretty face. She clung on to a piece of her bedding and tried to bring it to her mouth, she got a handful of her own hair and gave it a hard pull. Her face registered surprise but she didn’t cry out. As I stroked her soft skin, I got uncharacteristically angry. Angry at our society, the ignorance, the pretentiousness that India is shining. Angry and ashamed that girl children were still a liability, still a burden. WHY? HOW LONG?

I first met Breshpati when she was a skinny 10-year-old. Her older sister used to work in our house and she used to tag along with her to watch television. After a few years, I heard Breshpati was given in marriage at the tender age of 14. The bridegroom’s family saw her in the streets, liked what they saw and asked for her hand. They wanted less dowry. Her family manipulated her age, changed papers to reflect she was eighteen and married her off – one less mouth to feed.

Within a year of the marriage she fled from her marital home when her husband tried to choke her in his drunkenness. When her brothers and parents told her to go back and accept her fate, for God had meant her to be with her husband, she said she would rather give up her life.

My parents decided to employ her in their house as a domestic help and I made a condition that she has to go to school. The school part didn’t work out, despite private tutor, adult literacy centers. The television with its lure of mushy soaps kept books and alphabets far away. She worked for over 10 years, saved up a decent sum in the bank…and fell in love.

Against the wishes of her family, she married her suitor who didn’t earn much money, lived with his parents and was controlled by his mother. Later, I found out she had spent her last penny that she saved in the bank to provide a decent dowry to the man, who claimed to love her and wanted to marry her. I was disappointed at this, but heard good stories about how the young man treated her. ‘She deserves all the happiness. She will get it this time,’ I thought. Within a year, I heard Breshpati was pregnant.

I talked to Breshpati whenever I had a chance during my visit to Kolkata, to find out what plans she had for her future which, now, involved another precious life. I learnt, from our conversations, that change was happening in my country. Imperceptible, perhaps, but slowly and steadily. Mindsets of young women, at least among the urban poor, were changing. I do believe media is somewhat responsible for this positive change. Showcasing some strong role models in popular television was helping women mold their ideals and demand their rights. Breshpati, I found out, wasn’t going to request acceptance for her girl child from her in-laws, she was going to demand it. Her face glistened in excitement as she animatedly explained to me her plans for her daughter. She had made it clear to her husband that if she felt any kind of disregard towards her daughter because she was a girl, she was simply going to pack up and leave. She made it clear that she is more than capable of raising her daughter by herself and raising her well. She is determined to give her daughter the best opportunities at education that she can and her little girl should never feel she is any less than a boy. This was no different from what I wanted my girl to believe! She believes in equal opportunity for both boys and girls and woe be to the one who makes her daughter feel otherwise. As she talked more, she looked no less than a queen, who was ready for battle and who was also sure of her victory. As her daughter suckled at her breast, she reminisced the missed opportunities that she didn’t avail. Her mother took her to work at a young age so they had enough money to send her older and her younger brothers to school. She was determined not to let that happen to Khushi.

Breshpati’s face sparkled as she spoke. Khushi will be OK. Breshpati is indeed the queen and we all her soldiers. My family, my parents. We will make sure Breshpati gets all the ammunitions she needs to win the battles against the social stigma against her child’s gender, against illiteracy, poverty and injustice. I felt better as I planted a kiss on little Khushi’s head and said goodbye. In her mother’s sparkle, I saw India sparkling. We are not shining yet, but we have started to sparkle. That’s a start!

My love for Kolkata…inexplicable.

I can never sell Kolkata to people who show interest in touring India.

“Errr.. there is the Victoria Memorial, and the St. Paul’s Cathedral. The Maidan is a nice green expanse in the middle of the concrete jungle. And then there is the Ganga and Outram ghaat!” I stammer.

But we can’t boast of the Taj Mahal or the Khaju Raho temples, we don’t have the Lal Quilla or the Lake Palace, we don’t have the pristine Himalayas (unless you go to North Bengal) to lure tourists. Instead, we have bandhs (strikes) at the drop of a hat, we have traffic jams, we have terrible pollution and we have tall concrete buildings which, I feel, are suffocating the whole city. And we have terribly long summer. The pleasant winds bringing respite in the summer evenings, are halted by tall buildings that are choking the city slowly.

In my young and foolish days, I took up arms against those who dared to say a word against Kolkata. I was ready to break up with my boy friend who dared criticize my city. I got this passion from my fire-brand mother, who brain washed me from an early age “east or west, Kolkata is the best”. Yeah, she is very parochial. I inherited that mentality from her and kept the fire of nationalistic pride ignited in my heart. My friends too, were die-hard Kolkata fans and believed that only us, the Kolkata lovers, had the right to criticize our city but heaven have mercy on those outsiders, who dared utter a word against it.

Those days are gone. I am a wise, mature woman now who left Kolkata in the mid nineties and never went back to stay. I learned, in due course, that criticizing something/ someone doesn’t mean loving it less. It means we acknowledge a problem and that is a first step towards looking for a solution. That also means something/someone does not have to be blemish free for us to love, we can love something/someone warts and all.

I wonder sometimes why I love the city like the way I do. Does distance make it easier to love Kolkata? Why does the city invoke such a passionate need in me to protect it from outsider’s disdain? Objectively speaking, what exactly is going for the city of Kolkata? Am I really protecting the city or am I safe guarding the memories that the city and I have built together? I still get teary eyed when I listen to Kabir Suman’s

“Ei shohor jaane amar prothom shob kichu
Palate chai joto she aashe amar pichu pichu”

This city knows my every ‘first’
It comes after me, no matter how far I go from it.

It is not the brick, mortar cement of the city that I love, but the faces, the love, the blessings, the friendships, the heartbreak, the experiences that slowly and lovingly molded me, created ‘me’ and shaped me to the person I turned out to be. It is a very personal kind of love that I have for Kolkata.

Those of you who read my blogs know by now, I am a big believer of living in the moments. I have grown up and moved away but whenever I think back to my home city, the moments and memories of my past crowd around me. The sound of Indian classical music coming from the different houses in the neighborhood as the little girls sat down with their harmonium to practice music every evening, the smell of meat cooking only on Sundays in our middle class neighborhood, the communal ‘antakshari’ game on our respective balconies during daily power cuts, the collective sound of ‘Aaahhhh’ when the lights came back on. There are unpleasant memories too but those don’t surface in my mind much. I have lived through them, and left them behind. I came away with the beautiful ones.

I am going home in a few weeks (still over a month left but the time remaining seems shorter if I talk in weeks, hence….)! Friends ask me what are you going to do when you go back? Do? I will do absolutely nothing. I will lay in our king size family bed, next to my mother and talk. Or not. We will probably read or listen to our favorite songs. I am looking forward to those moments of easy silence next to the person who I still want when I am sad or don’t feel well. I will accompany my father to Gariahat market and hear him proudly say to the fishseller ‘Shob cheye bhalo mach ta dao dekhi. Meye esheche.’ (Give us the best fish, my daughter has come) ! I will cherish his ways of showing love – by buying the tastiest fish, the choicest mangoes, the tenderest meat and the satisfaction in his face when I exclaim how good everything is.

I am not sure if this is true for every immigrant. The thing that I miss most about home is the familiarity. I miss the shared history. I love my adopted land but I am not familiar with the tv shows of the seventies, or the baseball players of yester years. When my contemporaries exclaim about how much they loved a certain show growing up and turn to me and say, ‘Remember?’ I say, ‘No, I don’t!’ I remember Humlog and Fauji and Sunil Gavaskar and East Bengal Mohanbagan rivalry.

I will immerse myself in all that familiarity, all the love for two weeks and come back with enough memories to sustain me in the coming year. The greetings of the neighborhood boys, the smiling faces of my aunts and uncles, the welcome from my friends are my personal treasures. They are the city’s love for me which I can’t show an outsiders. They belong to me and to those who can still feel the love.

Incredible! In more ways than one.

Recently, I watched a movie The Best Exotic Marigold hotel where a group of elderly British people make a conscious choice to live their golden days in a retirement facility in Jaipur, India. They all have their unique reasons for doing so – one goes to get a hip replacement, one goes looking for lost love, one goes due to financial difficulties. But the movie is not the reason I decided to write the blog. It is because of all the memories the movie brought back. Memories of incidents, memories of people who came in our lives for a brief time. Incidents that made me fill up with inexplicable pride that I was born in India, incidents that made me enraged over the cunning of some of my fellowmen, incidents that made me indignant against how, many in my country, were treated, incidents that made me want to hide my face in shame, and incidents that made my heart melt at the show of human kindness.

Sean and I hosted many friends and family from the United States during our six-year stint in New Delhi. The movie brought back memories of how India can be a complete onslaught on an individual’s senses. Nothing can prepare one for the country. No matter how many tour books one reads, how many videos one watches, one can’t comprehend India unless one has felt the full-fledged blast of the country on one’s sensory organs at arrival. The smell, the explosion of colors, the multitude of people, the complete disregard for personal space, the honking cars, the errant cows, the street dogs, the weaving auto rikshaws, the little make shift shops along the road – the little composites of the larger picture. And hidden within the chaos is the amazing sunset over the river Ganges in Varanasi, the silhouette of a fisherman’s boat drifting idly on the Hooghly river as the sun sets over the horizon, the tiny little nameless flower growing from the crack in a concrete within the moldy buildings of a city, the kind auto driver advising me, like one of my own, to give a warm bath to my rain drenched children as soon as I get home, so they don’t catch a cold.

The question that friends and family asked me often was, how did we deal with the abject poverty staring right at us, wherever we went. My brother-in-law was very disturbed by the people, little children and elderly folks, begging on the streets. I said ‘We have to learn to look past them because it is impossible for us to help each individual that accost us! You have to ignore them, develop a slightly clinical detachment or else, their sorrow will engulf you!” He said, “I can’t. I simply can not!” At the end of his visit, the poverty, especially the little children begging on the streets wore him down. I remember him breaking down in tears after sitting at the train station in Agra, surrounded by little children asking him for money, food!

I realized, after watching the movie, how bewildering India must have seemed to the visitors who came to tour. Living in the midst of the chaos, I didn’t completely empathize with my guests. While they shuddered at the sight of little, scrawny children hitting the window of our air-conditioned car in the hope of money, I nonchalantly talked on about the sight-seeing I had planned for them or the place I intended to take them for dinner. Their focus was somewhere else, I realize now. Since I lived with the problem, it ceased to be one, for me.

Sean developed his unique way of dealing with beggars during his eight year stay in Kolkata and Delhi. When elderly beggars asked for alms, he folded his hands and bent his head – the Indian gesture of Namaste. As they insisted, he smiled and did the namaste again. With children, he established a relationship by either juggling (he does juggle relatively well) or making funny faces or asking them their name in atrocious Hindi. The result was unadulterated, joyful laughter. The white man playing the fool. It never failed to elicit a smile, a laugh.

Every Saturday, we went to the American club where we played sports, ate pizza and swam. At a traffic light, about 5-7 children ran to the cars asking for money or food. They were led by a wild haired, young girl of about 12. She managed the kids, led them to the cars and when the lights changed led them safely back to the sidewalk. But it always made us nervous to see them weave between the chaotic traffic. They came to our car as well. Sean rolled down his window and shook their hands, I smiled and baby Sahana gave them toothy grins from her car seat in the back. One very hot summer afternoon, Sean offered the wilting children his water bottle filled with Gatorade. The faces were worth watching. They had expected plain water but what they tasted was so much better, what a treat. From then on, it was not money they wanted but “Bhaiya paani, paani” (brother, water, water)! We started carrying extra bottles of Gatorade to share. They drank quickly while the light was red, passed on the bottles to us as the light changed and swiftly moved back to safety as the cars started moving. The girl made sure each child was safe. She did a lot of talking and laughing, all in Hindi. Sean responded with a big grin and some broken Hindi. Neither understood what was being said. I smiled at the exchange.

A couple of days after Rakhi, the girl brought a rakhi to our stopped car and tied it around Sean’s wrist. Rakhi is a beautiful festival celebrating love between a brother and a sister. Sisters tie strings around their brothers’ wrist wishing long life and happiness. Brothers swear to protect their sisters. I won’t go into the whole spiel of gender discrimination here. Suffice it to say it is a festival of love, the intentions behind are beautiful and good. Anyway, Sean was touched beyond words. We didn’t have anything to give her. So the next time we met Sean got her a warm, soft shawl to keep her warm during Delhi’s bitter cold. She touched the shawl in delight and felt the softness against her cheek. “Accha hai, bhaiya!” (Its good, brother) and ran away as the light turned green.

We continued to see her and her charges for the next few months that we lived in Delhi. We never saw her wearing the shawl ever and wondered if she got to keep it, after all. Then we left Delhi…..and I forgot about her. Till I saw the movie, and the young wild haired girl came back to my mind. Now I don’t stop thinking about her. I wonder how she fared. Did she find happiness or is she still roaming the streets, begging or selling….herself?

Way back when…

I firmly believe it is always a good idea to start at the beginning. For instance, the day I caught a glimpse of the back of a tall, well-built man at the book corner of an upscale store in a five star hotel in Kolkata, where I worked at the time. The man must have felt the brush of the pallu of my saree on his arm, or the soft gentle swish of air as I passed by him to the cash register, he turned back and smiled at me. Months of customer service training made me immediately flex my facial muscles into a responding grin. But then I smiled a real smile. Maybe I smiled because his smile was so genuine and warm, maybe because he had kind eyes or just maybe because I was twenty-four and a very handsome man just smiled at me.

I finished my job at the register and went back to my department in the mezzanine floor and promptly forgot about the man downstairs. In about ten minutes, he came up. He needed a gift for a wedding he had to attend, it was a Sunday and all the stores in the city were closed. I gave him some suggestions, of course, but surprisingly, the conversation gradually shifted from gift ideas to us – my Master’s program, university, job, likes, preferences, his work, education et all. I do not remember what all we talked about, but I do remember we talked for about two and a half hours. My poor manager sent a coworker up to my floor to make sure I was coping fine with a foreigner. I also remember, after talking for close to an hour, he asked me if I was married. When I said no, he extended his arm, gripped my hand in a firm handshake and gave me his name. I tease him to this day that if I WAS married, would he have not told me his name? He says he wanted to make sure the coast was clear for him to pursue farther. Fair enough!

Before he left, he handed me his card and asked me to call him sometime. The cards that I got at that job generally ended up in the trash can. His, I kept. After a couple of weeks, while searching for change in my purse, I came up with his card. I remembered the feeling of happiness and excitement in me when he was talking, the ready smile and the twinkling green eyes. I made a decision, very unnatural for me. I decided to give him a call. I am naturally shy, not prone to taking chances or making the first move. But I wanted to see him again.

I could almost hear the pounding of my heart as I dialed the number and heard the phone ring on the other end. And then his deep voice boomed into my ears. I managed a squeaky hello and a stuttering ‘I am Piyali!’

The response to that was, “Which Piyali?”

Oh, the embarrassment!!! I felt a flush of warmth creeping upon my face as shame swept over me. He didn’t remember me! I wanted to hang up immediately, instead I calmly mentioned I was Piyali from the ______! My voice didn’t waver but I was close to tears at the humiliation of being so forgettable. He recovered quickly. He even managed enthusiasm in his voice, which he now claims, was genuine. And then dropped the second bomb.

“Do you want me to take you out for dinner sometime?”

Do I want him to???? No I did not. Girls in parochial Kolkata in mid nineties did not go out to dinner with unknown men. All I wanted was to see him again, maybe at the store, in a safe environment, among a lot of people!!! My degradation, at that point, was complete. I politely said, “No thank you. I just called to say hello. You have a good day!”

I was bitterly disappointed but also strangely relieved that I could close that chapter and move on. His interest in me that night meant nothing. The next day, he was back at the store. And the next, and the day after that. He kept coming back. I was thrilled to bits, reveling in all the attention and the cherishing the novelty of knowing a man from a different country.

Then one day he asked me, “So, when are you going to the Book fair with me?” Not “Will you go to the book fair with me” but “When….” I was caught off guard. I couldn’t go out with him. My virtue as a middle class, rule following Bengali woman was at stake if I was seen with a man, a white man at that! Yet, in my heart, I desperately wanted to. I broke the unwritten rules yet again, I gave in. Our first date was the Kolkata Book fair, standing in line to get ticket, walking leisurely to the book stalls, stopping to see the local artists paint pictures, pointing out the ones we liked the best, laughing at our dust laden shoes, talking of our idea of a perfect life partner, telling him I never wish to get married, wishing his wife good luck when he said he wanted six children.

Our courtship was beautiful. Our rendezvous were covert, romantic and thrilling. For the demure, rule follower me, dating was a wild adventure in itself, dating a foreigner was beyond belief. He waited for me in front of the RamKrishna Mission in Golpark, outside my Mass Communication classes, he came by the hotel at night to pick me up and drop me home in his car. We walked along the Lake and the Maidan, we sat by the musical fountains and I talked to him about Rabindra Nath Tagore, sung him a few of my favorite songs. We ate ice cream at Scoops by the river Ganga and watched the sun go down by the Howrah bridge. We soaked in the sight of the pinkish hue of the Victoria memorial as the last rays of Kolkata sun illuminated the splendid marble architecture. Kolkata is a city where I was born, I have many pleasant memories of it. But the streets of Kolkata, that I roamed with the special man by my side will always have a special place in my heart. It was on those streets that we explored each other fully and discovered each other’s thoughts, views, core values. We found commonality and we found differences. We learnt, we grew and we fell in love.

Almost seventeen years and two children later, we are here today. Silver highlights in my black hair, and there is stylish grey around his temples. The love notes that we used to write to each other every day have been replaced by grocery lists, sticky notes saying ‘there is food in the oven’, quick texts saying when the kids need to be picked up and from where. I mourn the loss of the wild rush of the romance of the first few years. What happened to those days of listening to love songs, day dreaming, walking the streets of Kolkata and later Baltimore, endlessly, completely lost in each other, sighing over poetry of Pablo Neruda, candle lit dinners and serenades? G.B Shaw is spot on when he says:

When two people are under the influence of the most violent, most insane, most delusive, and most transient of passions, they are required to swear that they will remain in that excited, abnormal, and exhausting condition continuously until death do them part. ~G.B. Shaw, Getting Married, 1908.

We did not remain in that excited, abnormal and exhausting condition continuously. Who does, after seventeen years? The most violent, most insane, most delusive and most transient of passions have given way to steady rhythm of gentle companionship and a deeper bond of trust, love and understanding. We have both learnt to recognize and appreciate the different manifestations of love that is not limited to love notes, love songs, moon sightings and passionate sighs, but goes way beyond that to make one feel truly cherished.

Some nights I come back home from work to find him fast asleep or semi asleep. I open the refrigerator – my dinner is waiting to be heated up, the dishes are done and the kitchen is sparkly clean. I feel completely loved then – more than love letters, diamond rings or flowers could ever make me feel. I wake up in the morning after a night of snow to find the driveway already shoveled and my car cleaned so I can get out without worries. Most mornings, I feel him covering me up with my kicked away blanket and tucking me in so I can get a few more minutes of sleep as he gets up to do his exercise. In my semi awake state I hear him softly shutting my door and whispering to the children, “Don’t bother mommy. Let her sleep in!” Children, schedules, home works, activities, jobs take up most of our time these days. Mortgage, bills, college funds have replaced thoughts of Neruda, Dali, Simon and Garfunkel. Most days we don’t feel it, yet some days, while taking a hike among nature, when we have a moment to pause and take stock, we look at each other and find fulfillment. We are in it together, we built our life together, creating a family, nurturing our young ones and taking care of each other in sickness and health.

Despite all our responsibilities, I still find time to put my arm in the crook of his elbow when we go for a walk, he still makes me feel like a giggly girl when he flashes a smile and teases, we still banter like we used to which seem very amusing to the children, he still calls me out to show a splendor of nature – like the sunlight creating a rainbow in a spiderweb on the side of our house. I still don’t enjoy any experience to the fullest unless I have shared it with him. It was simply wonderful to be young and recklessly in love. I am so glad we have those memories. But I am indeed glad to grow and mature in this relationship with my spouse where a few stolen moments in the morning before the craziness starts see us through the entire day.

I love being married for all the right reasons. I love the man in my life for the man that he is. I love the feeling of being the only one for him. I also love being married for the reason Rita Rudner says here.

It’s so great to find that one special person you want to annoy for the rest of your life. ~Rita Rudner

Indeed!

That time of the year.

Every year around this time, I wallow in self-pity. As the leaves start changing colors, the heat of the summer wanes, the blue of the sky simply dazzles my eye, the wispy clouds float aimlessly, I look up and my mind dissociates to travel back in time. Between cooking and cleaning and working and driving the children around my heart remembers the beat of the dhak from a long, long time ago. Durga puja – the biggest festival of the Bengalis is about to begin.

The myth goes somewhat like this:

Mahishashur, a demon, won over the heart of creator Brahma by his devotion and earned a boon that no man or deity can destroy him. He initially desired immortality but since immortality can only be achieved by a god, Brahma asked him to choose another wish. He chose to be killed by a woman, thinking no woman can be powerful enough to destroy him. Brahma granted him this wish.

His victory complete, he wrecked havoc on the abode of the gods in heaven and defeated them in war. He acclaimed the throne of Indra while the defeated gods ran to the safe sanctuary of Lord Shiva to seek his help. Shiva and the other gods, with their collective energy, created a brilliant, formidable force in the shape of a young woman. She was Shakti (power) endowed with divine gifts. She was the evil slayer, who finally destroyed the evil force and prevailed the good.

In Bengal, however, Devi Durga is more than the destroyer of evil. She comes to us as the much beloved daughter coming home to her parent’s house after a year. The societal structure has been skilfully woven in to this myth and made this festival a very personal and endearing one for most Bengalis. Durga is not only the revered goddess, she is our very own, our dear girl, come back to us for a visit after a long absence. The women, after marriage, are expected to leave their parents’ home and make a new life with her husband’s family. In rural Bengal, it was not easy for daughters to visit their parents’ home often due to distance, transportation, responsibilities. It was indeed a time to celebrate when the daughters finally came to visit. The same concept was passed on to Devi Durga, thus blurring the divide between godliness and humanity. I absolutely love this merging of the abstract with the concrete. Pujo is not just about celebrating the home-coming of the goddess but also the home-coming of many, many other daughters who couldn’t come back to their ancestral homes any other time of the year.

I haven’t been back to my home town Kolkata during Durga puja for over ten years now. This year I couldn’t even go to the local celebration because of work. When I looked at my schedule, I was crestfallen. I won’t get to see even a glimpse of the goddess this year? But now that the day is upon us, I am strangely not that sad anymore. I have those memories hidden in my heart in a beautiful gift wrapped package, waiting for me to open. So that is what I did. And this is what I found.

My first memory of Durga puja is the sky, always the sky. I remember looking up at the brilliant blue sky on a clear day as a little girl counting days till school closed for puja vacations. Our family had our own puja primarily done by my grandmother, who probably knew more mantras than the priest conducting the puja, but could only help in the capacity of an assistant due to her gender. A woman couldn’t be a priest. Durga puja of my childhood is one of unadulterated joy – we wore new clothes every day for four days of the puja, unending games with cousins, no lessons to prepare, we always seemed to stay under the radar of the grown ups since they were busy with their friends and family members. I remember us playing ‘detectives’. Some of us older cousins always assumed the role of the main detectives – Sherlock Holmes and others of his ilk while the younger cousins reveled in the roles of our side kicks – till they got a bit older and rebelled against this injustice. There were good foods galore, the taste of which I can still taste if I close my eyes, late nights, lot of laughter, camaraderie, just a bubble of happiness surrounding us. We knew the bubble was going to pop in four days and real life would be back with a vengeance. But those four days of puja was special and different and structure free.

The family puja finally stopped due to financial constraint when I was about nine. But Durga continued to come to Kolkata and Bengal every year, no matter. As I got older, the four days of Durga puja changed meaning for me. From teenage, I felt the absence of any sort of spiritualism in Durga puja in the opulence and grandeur that I saw all around me. Durga puja, however, remained as a symbol of happy times when life was vastly different from the structure and routine that kept us prisoners. It was a ritual, a joyous celebration. Durga, in my doubting, skeptic mind ceased to be a goddess, but she continued to be that young woman who came to her parents’ house with her four children to rest her weary bones. Durga puja was synonymous with sunshiny mornings, smiling mother, flutter causing dhaak beats, music blaring through microphones in the pandals nearby, the rustle of the new clothes, the limp due to blisters caused by new shoes.

And the crushes of Pujo romance!!! I remember taking umpteenth rounds within a marked perimeter with giggling girl friends so we could catch a glimpse of the young men who caused our hearts to beat a little faster. The stolen glances were all we had and they were enough. Pujo romances were not meant to last. They had the mystery and aura of those magical days. As I grew up, I simply stayed home during the colorful, bright and crowded evenings of those four days. But I still felt this veneer of good will and joyous spirit enveloping me. I long for that feeling. There was a collective sense of joy, rejoicing and abandonment. We were in unison in this feeling of letting go of our real lives for four short days. There was still poverty and sorrow, the homeless people, living on the streets, and that didn’t escape me. But even the little girl, sleeping on the streets with her family donned a new ribbon in her wild and unkempt hair, and skipped around in the pujo pandals.

There were unpleasantness in the crowd – pickpockets, eve teasing, the nasty man rubbing against an unsuspecting girl – but the distance has made those memories fade away. I have gleaned only the good and saved only the treasures. At this time of the year, the blue sky with wispy clouds is the only continuity I have left. The sky still reminds me that it is time for that special daughter to come home to us. I look up and get lost. When I look down and around, my real life painfully reminds me, I am far, far away from home. I speak fondly of those days, but my family can not relate. They don’t share the same memories.

Friends and family back home complain of the traffic jam, the crowd, the unnecessary opulence, the competitions that pujo pandals have these days. Durga pujo has lost its spirituality. Where is Durga in all this glitter, they ask. And I agree. This grandeur of pandals, this show of wealth – designer clothes and new jewellery, is not what Durga pujo is all about! For me, Durga pujo is all about reconciliation, reunion with family and with one’s inner self, it is about the special search within us to draw inspiration from the goddess to slay our inner demons and emerge victorious. And as I have already mentioned, Durga pujo, for me, is about happiness in letting go of structure and routine, just for a few days.

One year, I will go back home and try to relive my memories. I sincerely hope I will find those feelings that I wrapped up in my heart before I left home. If I don’t, no matter, I will keep the ones I have safe, and open them each year as Durga gets ready to make her descent to earth, bringing with her, her children, her lion, the repentant ashur at her feet and most importantly happiness and joy!

It could have been my story…..

It could have been my story but it isn’t because of an accident – the accident of birth. I am going to write a story today. A true story that shook me to the core. This story didn’t make the newspaper but it didn’t stay within the neighborhood where it took place either, it spread word to mouth and it reached me here, in America.

Not too long ago, a young woman, who we shall call Reena, was dreaming of a happy home with a loving husband. She didn’t belong to the emergent middle class in India, she was from the lowest strata, living in a simple home in a slum in Kolkata and dreaming of a simple, but content life with the man she was about to marry. It didn’t work out as she had planned, like it often doesn’t! Her husband didn’t share her dreams and didn’t want to share his life with her either. He drove her away after a few years of marriage. The reason? Who cares about it? She is just a woman and she is absolutely replaceable.

Reena came back home broken, abused. Her family did not welcome her with open arms. Why would they? She was just another mouth to feed and their resources were meagre. She had taken her share of the family inheritance in her dowry. When she returned empty-handed, she found she had no support in anyone or in any form. She was stigmatized since she was returned by her husband. It was her shame, she must have been at fault, of course! One day, during a quarrel, her brother said her life was not worth living. She was a burden to them, she was a burden to the world. The woman was emotionally vulnerable to begin with, she broke down completely and set herself on fire to end it, once and for all.

She couldn’t finish the job that she started though. Neighbors rescued her and took her to the hospital. Instead of succumbing to her injuries, she hung on to life. Reena survived. She walked out of that hospital with a misshapen face, disfigured with horrendous scars. She withdrew within herself, hid in the house for a while, covered her face with the pallu of her sari. But for some strange reason, she rediscovered her will to live again. This experience transformed her…gave her a will to try one more time, to take a shot at life. She didn’t talk to a therapist about it, she barely had two square meals but she must have figured out what doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger, for she came out of her house swinging, determined to make it!

She was always a hard worker, she started looking for a job as a domestic help. But faced rejection, yet again. People didn’t want to look at a scarred face in their house doing their chores. A retired couple were divided on this issue of hiring Reena. Mrs. Basu wanted to give Reena a job on humanitarian grounds, to give her a chance at life again, while Mr. Basu feared the grandchildren, when they came to visit, will be scared by her. He was sympathetic to what life had dealt her but wasn’t ready to employ her for her deformity.

My India is shining brightly for many. We are hosting the Commonwealth games, beauty pageants, the Formula 1 car racing! It is an exciting time to be in Inda with its trendsetting fashion, booming IT industry, entertainment industry, the telecom industry. The glittering, sparkly malls, the retail therapy that my friends do to pick themselves up when they’ve had a rough day, the big decisions they make whether to buy the Prada handbag, the Jimmy Choo slippers, the latest iPhone or Mac Air. By saying this, I am not passing any judgements on anybody or trying to act holier than thou. If I didn’t dislike shopping with a passion and I had the money, who knows, I would probably do the same! We have been free from the British rule for only 65 years and look where we have come! I applaud the efforts of my country women and men. Hard work, perseverance, grit, determination, talent – a combination of all these have propelled the country forward despite the snail paced bureaucracy and corruption. But there are these pockets of darkness that we need to, yet, illuminate. Many, many good men and women are working hard to make a difference. I have had the good fortune of meeting some of them and seeing the fruits of their effort. While it is certainly encouraging, we still have a long, long way to go. So many women, urban and rural alike are underprivileged, uneducated, and are still at the mercy of societal indifference, neglect and discrimination.

I was discussing the state of women with some Indian friends, while sitting in a beautiful home, eating delicious food, when one of my friends commented that we are not in a position to criticize India. We left the country a while ago and what exactly are we doing to change the situation? We have lost the right to criticize the day we boarded the plane to leave for good. That brought me down from my lofty, all-knowing state and dashed me to harsh reality! My friend was right! It was so easy for me to criticize and point out the problems at a social gathering and then do nothing about it but just return to my comfortable home, to get a good night’s sleep. What a hypocrite!

I couldn’t do a thing to change Reena’s situation but I wanted to try. I spoke to Mr. Basu pleading with him to employ Reena for her skills and not reject her, yet again, this time for the deformity of her face. Children are sensitive, and by giving Reena a job, he can actually set a great example for his grandchildren. This is a perfect opportunity to teach his grandchildren the important lessons of giving a fellow human a chance, to teach them everybody deserves a chance, the lesson of looking deeper for beauty than what is visible to the eye, the lesson of compassion and empathy, the lesson of acceptance of others who may be different! His grandchildren will be enriched by this experience. They will learn from her that if life gives you lemon, make some lemonade. I do believe I have convinced him. I just may have a good night’s sleep tonight.