Living a small life

In one of my book clubs, I asked a question to my participants (mostly retired women), “How do you make friends at this age?” We were discussing How to Age Disgracefully by Clare Pooley. In the book, one elderly woman is determined to make friends so she makes a list of what she needs to do. I was curious. How do people at a certain age make friends? The resounding response was it is hard. One has to get oneself out there. Some said they joined book clubs at the library to meet people, one person throws parties at their house, some joined kayaking groups, gymnasiums, hiking groups – all in an effort to form a connection with another human being. One person said they are so comfortable in their home that they would never come out if they didn’t have five book clubs to go to. Some had lost their partners, the children have grown and moved away, and now they are alone.

I thought about my life. I am in a new phase in life. The youngest is still in college but he is far away. And when he comes home, it seems like he has outgrown this home. He is eager to make it on his own. The oldest has made it on their own, moved out, doing well. That stage of insanity in terms of work, dinner, practice, homework, swim meets, basketball, baseball, softball, choir practice, cello lessons are behind me. Now it is work and then home. A walk after work, quiet dinner, and then a book. On Mondays each week, I think this coming weekend I am going to do something, maybe go to the city, see some excitement. Then Thursday comes around and I get tired. The weekend plans hardly materialize. Some close friends from India asked me the other day, “What’s going on with you? What’s new?” I have no answer to that. My life truly is simply going to work and coming home. A small life, as I learned from the book Mrs. Queen’s Rise to Fame by Olivia Ford.

If I hadn’t read Debbie Tung’s Quiet Girl in a Noisy World, I would worry something is wrong with me. I say that because this small life suits me well. Even as a teenager, I loved staying at home. My mother was surprised when I didn’t put up a fight when she dictated that I was responsible for walking the dog each day at 5 pm right after college since the dog was mine. While all my friends went to movies, stayed at campus spending time together, I dutifully got on the public bus and headed home. After walking Nabab, I stayed home to read, do homework, hang out with Ma. I did complain a few times but my love for my dog obviously was more than my desire to spend time with friends after class. I never truly had FOMO (fear of missing out, a term I learned from my kids) and I don’t have it now.

I was talking about the small life I lead with a friend at work who also likes to stay home. And she correctly pointed out the difference between being lonely and being alone. Are you content being alone? Yes. Like the participant in my book club, if I didn’t have to go to work, I could stay home all day and not talk to a soul. Having said that, I work at a public library, where my people energy is depleted after spending time with people for 7 and a half hours. I don’t know if I would feel the same way if I did not have a job. Will I seek out company? I will find out in a few years. Retirement here I come.

Smells like home

We were posing for pictures in front of Devi Saraswati’s idol at my local Saraswati pujo. My friend leaned towards me and took a deep breath, “Di, did you wear this saree for the first time since you bought it?” I said, “Yes, how did you know? Does it have a new saree smell?” She replied, “No, it smells of Kolkata. It smells of home.”

I remembered this conversation as I brought up and hung my summer clothes today. I wore them all last summer – my kurtis, my salwars, and washed them too. Yet, as I lovingly stroked them and yes, smelled them, I got a whiff of home and of my parents’ love. Baba bought many of those for me. I have written before that he loved going to Dakkhinapan and buying clothes for me, Sean, Sahana, and Ryan. My parents never agreed on anything except the excellent qualities of their grandchildren and baba’s eye for good clothes. Ma grudgingly agreed his choices were good and he could be trusted to buy salwars and sarees. Many of my summer clothes are infused with their love and today I realized that once they tear or get damaged, I will lose that connection. But we won’t get into that yet. The fact is, the clothes are still lovely and I still wear them and remain wrapped in love.

I recently saw a meme that says something about not feeling the need to text when one lands since someone was tracking their flight the entire time. That is love. And that was my baba. I texted them when I boarded my plane from USA. And he sat on his computer tracking my 24 hour journey home. He would shout out often to ma and Gouri that “they are almost to Dubai, 3 more hours”, or “Sumitra, get ready to go to the airport, their plane will be landing in an hour.” They went to the airport way early, hung out, had very sweet, overpriced coffee, and looked up at every traveler coming out from immigration hoping it would be me and the kids.

Baba was a doer. I can’t say I had the closest relationship with him. He worked from dawn till night, had only a day off, when he ate and slept. I cannot imagine a man having any energy left to do anything other than rest. He worked 6 days a week but still couldn’t make enough money to make ends meet. My primary parent was my mother and understandably I was closer to her. As I grew up though, got married, moved far away, and baba retired, I realized that he was a brilliant manager and organizer. He became the manager of the apartment building that they moved into, he organized lavish birthday parties for Sahana every time we went back to India. He made sure everything worked like clockwork when we visited. I remember when all the work was done so that we had everything we needed, he would give a satisfied grunt and call out for a cup of tea. Next morning, he would wake up and ask me, “Aaj ki mach khabi?” (what kind of fish would you eat today?) And like a spoiled brat I would speak my desire, and that wish would be fulfilled. My love language is feeding people. I inherited that from him.

He also found family in strangers and animals. He created this beautiful network of people through social media. They became like family. Some of them tried their best to help me during my time of need when I was desperately trying to keep baba alive. He fed all the animals in our neighborhood, paid to spay and neuter them, grieved when one died.

I find myself often cooking the food that baba liked – lot of postobata, shorshe r jhal. Typical Bengali dishes. He did not enjoy biriyanis or other fancy dishes. Give him Bengali food and he was happy. I learned, late in life, to cook those things.

I went for a walk this morning to a small park with a lovely pond. There is a gazebo where one can sit and look at the water, the birds, the greenery. I could visualize baba sitting there, soaking in the beauty of nature, soaking in the quiet. Born and brought up in Kolkata, the man loved and hunkered for nature. When he visited us in the US, he spent hours sitting in our back deck, looking out into the green, watching the deer who sauntered in, the squirrels, rabbits, and birds. He always said, “I wish I could take this backyard to Kolkata. “

This blog is a stream of consciousness on the day I lost him four years ago. He did not go gently into the night. He fought a good fight. But finally, Covid, and failure of infrastructure won.

You are on your own…

I have been married to a picky eater for almost 25 years now. At the beginning of our relationship, Sean was more versatile in his food habits. He ate a little chicken, a meatball sub now and then, some swordfish on special occasions. He never loved non veg fare but he still ate it occasionally. We could go to a restaurant and he could order fish or a chicken dish. Then India destroyed it for me. We moved to India for 6 years and he discovered vegetarian delight – more specifically North Indian veg delights – dal, paneer makhni, garlic naan. After our stint in Delhi we came back to US with a more fussy Sean than ever before. Instead of expanding his culinary venture after being in a country with fascinating culinary culture, he retracted it. And my problems begun.

He gave up all kinds of meat including fish. For a vegetarian, he does not eat vegetables like cauliflower, mushroom, cabbage, peppers…..and the list goes on. He is very self sufficient and fends for himself at home unless I make his favorite food from the goodness of my heart. But it is always difficult to choose a restaurant to dine with him. Instead of looking for something that I would like to eat, I scan the menu for possibilities for Sean. Most restaurants have veggie entrès made of peppers or portabello mushrooms which are untouchables for him. So we move on to the next restaurant and the next. To be fair to him though, he always encourages me to go to the restaurant of my choice. “I will find something ” he says.

We went to New Orleans for a getaway without the kids a few years ago. This restaurant crisis became more acute in a city where even the red beans were cooked with sausage. I forlornly walked past one restaurant after another which boasted delicious non veg cuisine but had hardly any vegetarian choices. Finally we ended up at pizza places and a Mexican restaurant. IN NEW ORLEANS!!

Since the pandemic hit, we stopped eating out, of course. Now we have started ordering takeout. And I see something has shifted within me. I know he loves to eat at home so I don’t consider his choices of food from restaurants any more. The kids and I order kebabs, chicken wings, chicken 65 and wait for him to fix his own caprese sandwich. He prefers it this way and I do not care. He is on his own now. This realization hit me as I picked up sushi for lunch for the 3 of us with nary a thought about my husband. 😀

Lately, he has become vegan. First, he was a vegetarian who did not eat vegetables and now he is a vegan who still does not eat vegetables. I constantly tell him, “I can not cook for you anymore!” But guess what I did today, on my day off? I made vegan pesto and substituted cheese with nutritional yeast. No matter how many times I resolve to not cook food to cater to his taste, I end up looking for vegan recipes – that do not involve vegetables. Try it. It is a difficult task. These days, I make a lot of black beans, shallow fried falafels, dal, red lentil burgers, smoothies with frozen berries, spinach, oatmilk…

Why do I not leave him to make his own food? Two reasons. First, food, at the end of the day, is my love language. Second, if there is no food made he will unquestionably make peanut butter sandwiches for himself everyday. I can’t stand watching him cheerfully eating peanut butter sandwiches every single day! What is the joy of living if you don’t have variety in food? I am absolutely projecting my feelings on him but the fact stands, it bothers me to watch him left to his own culinary devices.

So I tell him “You are on your own, dude. I can’t cook for you any more.” He smiles. I let him eat peanut butter for a few days while I search for vegan recipes and then go back to cooking again.

Hindsight is 20/20

I realize now, at my ripe old age of 52, that I have been such a fool. I did not appreciate all the wonderful things that I took for granted in the past.

I still remember grumbling and pouting as I was forced to take a nap in the afternoon next to my mother in the blistering heat of Kolkata as a child. I wanted to listen to stories (or read when I was able) from my mother but she needed a break from me, I am sure. So she mandated that I close my eyes and fall asleep in the afternoon. I would open one eye to see if she was sleeping so I could quietly sneak away from her and have a few hours of freedom. Some days I could, most days, I got caught. It seemed like a punishment in those days and now afternoon naps, when I can get one, are such decadent luxuries that happen once in a blue moon.

Every morning, before I left for college, the woman who cooked for our family prepared pomfret fish in mustard gravy and hot, steaming rice for me. I barely touched it. I was so eager to leave home and eat junk food from Milanda’s canteen at Jadavpur University that I turned up my nose at the lovingly prepared meal at home. I picked at the rice and fish and Jhumadi (the chef extraordinaire) yelled at me, “Didi ar ektu bhat khao. Oi jonye tumi oto roga.” (Eat a little more rice. You are so thin because you don’t eat.) I grabbed my bag and shut the door behind me. I would kill for someone to prepare that exact same food for me. Especially when I come back home from work and have to prepare dinner.

Last night, I was massaging argan oil in my hair. It was a chore when I was little. Not that I had to do anything myself. Someone sat me in front of them, massaged coconut oil in my long hair, braided them tightly before I could go to bed. The belief was, if you tied your hair very tightly in plaits before going to bed, your hair grew faster. And hair oil was necessary for a full head of hair, of course. I dreaded this ritual. I hated anyone touching my hair. And the tight braids before bed time hurt my head. I was a demure child but I did rebel against hair tying before bed time. My mother, who cut her hair short, relented and let me go to bed with my hair open. That was such a win! But hair oil was a must. As I massaged hair oil last night, I longed for those loving massages again. I could go to a salon, of course. But it was not simply the massage though, it was the entire ambiance. Me sitting on the floor with my long hair down my back in our one room flat. The TV blaring in front. Ma sitting on the bed chatting with the household help and Jhumadi telling us her life story while putting oil in my hair. I can almost see the scene in front of my eyes.

So, the moral of this blog is soak up any nurturing that you are getting at his point in your life. If someone is doing something for you, enjoy every minute, don’t take any of it for granted. When you are adulting real hard and there is no one massaging oil in your hair or making you pomfret fish in mustard gravy or forcing you to slow down and take a nap, you will look back and sigh. Hindsight is always 20/20.

Stat line is flat

Well, hello world! I peeked in to my oft neglected blog after a long time and saw to no one’s surprise that the statistics line of my blog site is flat. For all these days, no one has peeked in to see if mama is thinking. Mama has been thinking but she has been too lazy to put those thoughts down on her blog site.

It is summer in the library baby!! After spending just 2 hours in the children’s section, helping young readers find books (but lets face it, none of the books I suggest are on the shelves), toys, handing them and their parents reading lists, giving them hints as to where the scavenger hunt clues are, giving out tickets for children’s classes, listening to little ones scream because it is their naptime and their care giver refuses to take them home, I fall flat on my face and do not feel like writing. After a day at the library, I come home and surf Instagram to watch food vlogs and animal videos.

I have had some fun times with both my kids. Sahana took me out to celebrate my 10 year work anniversary. I still have to wrap my head around the fact that I have an adult child. I had made it clear to her when she was an angry teen and I had to lay down ground rules that I am not here to be her friend, I am and always will be her parent. But I feel the line is getting a bit blurry from time to time. She asked me what I would have changed, if I could, in these 10 years of working at the library. I did not have an answer right then. But after giving it some hard thought, I realized, there were times I put my responsibility towards work over my children’s activities. It is too late now but I wish I had done things differently.

Ryan at age 17 is a much nicer young man than he was a couple of years ago. He is really fun to talk to and as he grows up, I find his wicked sense of humor very similar to my father’s. He resembles his grandfather as well and sometimes, when he talks I lose my focus as I see baba peeking through his eyes, his smile. He will assume some leadership roles in his senior year at his high school and I think he will lead with maturity, empathy and grace. Very surprisingly, he does not fight me like he used to when I ask to do chores for me. If I ask him to do something, he says ‘sure’ and does it (except for making his bed or keeping his room clean, and that drives me crazy). I am a very involved parent and like to know everything that is going on in my children’s lives but I am learning to stay silent but present so they come to me with questions/thoughts/ideas. I fail often, but I try again.

Sean and I have not had much time to relax together. We both have been working hard. I miss him and often feel lonely. I guess such is middle age. I realized that now that my parents are gone and children are growing up to have their own lives, the person whose companionship I crave and when he is not around, miss is my husband’s. We vex each other often and I realize we squabble more as we get older and crankier but we laugh too, despite and still.

This blog is really not substantial. I am just showing some love to this online journal of mine. Not sure why you would be interested in reading about my children, but some of you do read so thank you. I have some ideas to write more substantial (may be not, but it is my blog so I can write whatever feels substantial to moi) in upcoming weeks.

I want the stat line not to stay flat – it is an ego boost to see the line go up, so please click 🙂 !

Looking back

I promise this post is not sad. It is more wistful and perhaps a didactic one. Continue reading though, I will try not to sound preachy, I will preach/teach only to myself.

Let me say one thing right at the beginning that I do not consider myself overweight…..yet. My BMI, if you believe the chart, is still within normal range. Let’s ignore the fact that it is creeping towards the higher end of normal but those are nitty gritties. This blog is about how I have perceived myself over the years as I was living in that moment, and how I see my photos of past years, now.

I weighed 112 pounds, 50 kgs when I came to this country in my mid twenties. I ate whatever I wanted, ice-cream and desserts for dinner, drank copious amount of soda and did not gain any weight. I did end up with 2 cavities in my teeth within 7 months of being here though. At age 29, I had my first child and put on some weight because I continued to eat indiscriminately. Then I saw my photos at Sahana’s rice eating ceremony. I gasped. After getting over the shock at the fact that I, in fact, can gain weight, I started being mindful of the quantity of food I ate, started walking and lost the extra pounds. I think I was satisfied with how I looked but I am not sure. Looking back, I can never remember a time when I was comfortable with how I looked. That is a terrible way to live. Anyway, I had Ryan at 34. Losing the weight after him was not too much of a struggle because running after young children took care of the extra calories I consumed . Also, I hardly had time to eat. With each decade, however, I packed on some extra weight which I was unable to lose till that became my new normal. I turned 50 a couple of years ago and I have a new bar again. I have never been this heavy in my life. My mid section and face are carrying all the extra weight. I have been asked twice this year if I was pregnant. On top of it all, I simply love food. I try not to indulge too much, I try to stay active, I try to incorporate fruits and veggies in my diet but clothes still feel tight. Errr…I sometimes cheat though. I sneak in a brownie at work or two despite my good intentions of staying away from added sugar. Oh well!

What is interesting, however, is when I look back and see some of my photos in my twenties, thirties, forties or even a couple of years ago, I think to myself, “Oh, I looked mighty fine at that age.” I am quite sure though that I did not think I looked mighty fine when I was at that age. I am positive I had misgivings about my body shape, my skin, my hair. I think I will look back on this age in 10 years (if I am alive) and think “Hmm, I looked quite good.”

Here comes the preachy part – to myself! I wouldn’t preach to you, I wouldn’t dare. Appreciate myself today, not ten years later while looking back. In this journey of my life when I feel I am learning new things constantly, this new lesson just got added to the curriculum.

“Girlie things”

Sahana never really played with dolls when she was little. I don’t recall us buying her dolls. Her Grammy gave her a plush puppy on her 3rd birthday, and that was the only toy that she slept with all throughout. When we moved to US from India, we donated all her toys except Puppy. That toy traveled with her in her bag pack to a new country and brought her 5 year old self a sense of grounding when her whole world went through an enormous change.

Sahana and I never did things that are stereotyped as “girlie”. Neither of us enjoy shopping so we did not find joy in that, I do not know how to put on makeup effectively so there were no makeup tutorials, we never did our nails together, growing up she never wanted me to touch her hair so did not do that either. When she needed clothes before school started, we would go to Target, pick up whatever she needed without a lot of deliberatation and ran to the book store nearby to detox from the shopping experience. Neither of us had any trouble spending time there. When I look back at Sahana’s childhood, I think so fondly of our time together reading books. Our biggest excitement was going to our local library where I would sit in the children’s area with a book and she would lose herself in the world of a thick tome that she picked up from the stacks. Even today when I see a child tucked up in a corner completely engrossed in the pages of a book I think of little Sahana.

Well, little girls grow up. And mine did too. This Saturday she gave me an early birthday present- a gift of getting manicure and pedicure together. As we got our nails cleaned and polished, I looked at this kid in wonder. Like every mother on the planet, I wondered how did we get here? When did she grow up so? Did I blink? Anyway, we got all fancied up and both realized that this is truly the first time in all of Sahana’s 22 years that we have done our nails together. We laughed about our lack of girlie activities that mother daughters do. Our activities involved going to book stores and libraries. And then we laughed out loud. Why? Because while we got our nails done and legs massaged, guess what we primarily talked about? Libraries!

One year… Part 1.

Our last wishes to each other was “Happy mother’s day” over a video call on May 9th, 2021. She wished me in an enthusiastic voice from her hospital bed. She had a high virus count of Covid infection. Although her tone was light and cheery, I could see she was tired. I asked her how she was feeling, she said she felt fine, just a little tired. I told her to get some rest and we will talk soon. She took my advice to heart, turned on one side and closed her eyes very comfortably. And she went to rest forever.

On one year death anniversary of my mother, I continue to ask why. Why did it end this way? Why me? Why us? And the universe whispers back, why not you?

I wish I had faith. I don’t. I don’t know if she is watching over me. In a way, I don’t want her to. She is free now from all that bound her to this earth including me. I will live my life remembering her love but I want her to be free. I hear energy is indestructible. So I hope her energy is within everything that is beautiful. I think of her every day. Every single day at different times. I cry sometimes, but I mainly smile at her memories. We have had difficult times together, we faced a lot of challenges, there were many disagreements, raised voices. But my brain has sifted through all our negative moments and only preserved laughter. When I close my eyes, I see her smiling face, and for that, I am grateful.

Connecting with strangers.

This came up in my Facebook memory feed today. A friend, who is an ardent Kolkata lover like me had shared this a while back. My world in Kolkata was whole then. Kolkata was home. It still is, in a way, but not in the same way it used to be. The city knows my every ‘first’, so it will always be my love but it is also smeared with sadness and tainted, somewhat, with my anger.

Anyway, I digress. What I wanted to write was this. I took some of ma’s sarees in a tiny tailoring shop near Maddox Square. There was hardly enough space for 6 people to stand comfortably within the store. My cousin, Sahana and I along with the wonderful woman who was taking our measurements, had taken up most of the room in the store. It was hot in there, a standing fan was whirring tiredly, circulating hot air within the store. The pleasing smell of new garments permeated the space reminding me of Durga puja when this smell of new garments surrounded us along with unmitigated joy. For the rest of the year, we could not afford to buy anything new. I digress, again. As we were giving measurements and my cousin was explaining the design to the tailor, a woman walked in with fabric that she wanted to be made into blouses. We Bengalis don’t say hi/hello to each other, I noticed. Is there a Bengali equivalent of greeting other than nomoshkar? And nomoshkar sounds too strange to begin a conversation with a stranger. It seems like we just jump in. And we did – this woman and I. I don’t remember who initiated the conversation or how it started but by the end of it I knew so much about her. Then our work was done, we bade each other farewell. We, most likely, will never meet again but a connection was made, life stories were exchanged.

During my previous trips, I have made similar connections with complete strangers in Ananda Publications book store in Gariahat. That was easy though. Bibliophiles simply start talking about books and suggest books to each other. “Have you read…..?” “NO, did you like it? Maybe I should buy it.” Kind of like dog owners here, one does not need any introduction to exclaim about dogs on walks with their pets.

Strangers become friends in that city in the East, for sure. At least friends for a few moments, an hour, a few hours. Some friendships continue perhaps, and some don’t. But the connection that was made kind of lingers in the heart and perhaps one remembers that I met someone, a stranger, who lend me an ear, and who shared snippets of their lives.

Here…eat!

This blog is about our recent trip to Kolkata. No, not about the emptiness and grief but about love. Gouri, as I have written before, took care of my parents till they died. And Breshpati, Khushi’s mom, also took care of them but she did not stay with them. She came to work and went back home after her work was done.

As I wrote earlier, this blog is about love. Love through food and feeding. My days in Kolkata were fraught with anxiety compounded with grief. And while I felt the impossible amount of love being showered upon us by the women who live in our house, I was too distraught and anxious to fully appreciate it. Looking back, I can feel the warmth of their love, their tireless efforts to show us that although my parents were gone, they were there to love us. Breshpati made my favorite food every single day. Gouri got the ingredients and did the prep work for cooking. Breshpati’s mother did our laundry, swept and mopped the floor. Although I sat down to eat, I did not have any appetite due to the intensity of grief and anxiety of cutting through bureaucratic red tape. But I made an effort. Since I am older, they listened to my refusal to more and more food but young Sahana had no such escape. They showed their love upon her by constantly trying to feed her.

Here is what happened. Sahana would eat lunch around 1 pm after we got back from our various errands at banks. The ladies would eat their lunch after us and settle for their afternoon siesta. Breshpati woke up from her nap within an hour to break a sweet pomegranate and bring the seeds to Sahana on a plate because one day Sahana mentioned she loves pomegranates. Sahana, not quite hungry after her sumptuous lunch only an hour before, would take the plate so as not to offend Breshpati. Having fed Sahana yet again, she would go back to resume her nap. After about an hour of pomegranate, a chocolate bar would appear for Sahana, brought in by either Khushi or Gouri. And then naps would resume for them again. Within 45 minutes of chocolate, the ice cream vendor would go by our street. Naps would be forgotten at the deep cry of Kwality icecreaaaaaaaam. Tremendous excitement would ensue among the ladies as they called down to the ice cream wallah to wait. Khushi and Gouri would run down to buy ice cream for all, whether you want it or not (they can not fathom why one would not want ice cream) and offer us those with triumphant smiles. I would forcefully refuse and request Khushi to eat my share. And right after ice cream would be tea time.

Before we left, Gouri said to me, “Didi, we can never give you the love that your parents gave you. But we tried our best to make sure your home coming was at least somewhat similar to what it used to be.” She said all this in Bengali as she shed tears at our departure. Now I think back to those few days and realize that with everything going on about settling affairs, I really could not appreciate their immense love towards us. But I think back on it now and know that despite my horrible loss, I am lucky in love and also wonder what did I do to deserve it?