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.

Adulting

As I continue to adult for over three decades, I have come to the conclusion that adulting is no fun. Unfortunately and realistically, I have been adulting since I was fourteen or fifteen years old. When one is poor one does not have the luxury of being a child for long. My parents were not good with money, so at a very early age I started working, primarily teaching younger kids for money. I was more financially responsible than both my parents, so I was given the job of managing household budget. When I think back on it, I realize how stressful it was, trying to balance our expenses including repaying debts that we had incurred to maintain our household and our status in society as middle class.

Once I fell in love, adulting became much more exciting. The stolen glances, the holding hands, the gorgeous smile of my boyfriend directed at me made my heart flutter. Marriage was an adventure. Parenthood was the busiest, most challenging, and most rewarding part of my adulthood. But then came financial decisions, savings, planning for future, what to do for our retirements, health concerns, aging parents who lived far away. Adulting became a lot more work. I don’t have a head for numbers. IRAs, Roth IRAs, CDs, 403Bs sound like harsh, alien words. I want to shut my ears. Truly. Yet, we have to make decisions 🙄. Save for our old age, pay for college, look for our last home. The worst part of adulting (mature adulting?) is losing our parents and other loved ones. We have reached that age where the generation who used to be our roof is slowly fading out. We are moving up to the roof – cycle of life.

But here is the best part. For me, the routine in our house growing up was something like this. Wake up, clean up and then study. My mother believed in the discipline of doing school work in freshly rested mind. Unless it was Durga puja or my birthday, there was no exception to this rule. After final examination though I was allowed to wake up and crack open a story book and read for pleasure. Ma still believed that if not school work, I should read when I wake up to continue the habit of reading/studying during break between classes. I still remember how I cherished those mornings. Honest confession? I was one of those kids who hid story books inside text books and read with unwavering attention. My mother beamed at my concentration as she passed by. This morning, as I opened my book to read with my morning coffee, I realized that this is the best part of being an adult. I know my responsibilities and make my own decisions. No more hiding books within text books. Of course, I have to go to work, I have to finish a few chores before I go. But nobody can stop me from indulging in my reading in the morning, or whenever I want. And nobody (but my conscience and glucose level) to frown upon me as I eat a chocolate bar that pair beautifully with a good book.

Adulting is not all bad.

How will my children remember me?

I just finished reading an incredible memoir in graphic novel by Tyler Feder. The book is called Dancing at the Pity Party. Feder chronicles her journey in grief after losing her mother to uterine cancer when she was nineteen. This book has both humor and heartbreak as Feder paints the beautiful relationship that she had with her quirky, funny, extremely creative mother, her diagnosis of cancer, her physical decline and ultimately her demise. There is nothing funny in death but Feder’s mother found ways to keep her girls smiling even through extreme grief. After her death, Tyler, her two younger sisters and their father need to relearn to live life without the bright, shining light that was their mother.

Tyler Feder remembers the memories she created with her mother. And this made me think how my children will remember me when I am gone. Don’t get me wrong, I do not plan to go anywhere for a long time if it is in my hands. But there will be an ‘after me’ and what memories will my children have when they think of mom.

My fondest memories of my mother is our reading time together. And seeing her laugh. Her laughter did not remain just in her face, it traveled to her eyes and eventually to her whole body. She laughed with her whole being and it is the most beautiful visual I have of her in my mind’s eye.

I will venture to guess what my two kids will remember of their mother:

Numerous trips to the library.

Cuddles and reading books together.

Whenever Sean traveled, our tradition was to make kathi rolls and eat them sitting on the kitchen floor Indian style.

Many hours spent petting Sage. Many, many hours of laughter over Sage’s antics.

Buying burgers and fries from the concession stand in the ball fields and eating on the grass watching a little league baseball game.

Eating dinner in the back deck while solving the problems of the world. Now that I think about it, our dinner time conversations were always very deep.

My gullibility? My first reaction to a comment is to believe it. “Really?” “No, mom. That was a joke.”

Listening to music together in the car while driving to sports events.

Days of making quick pesto pasta for dinner due to lack of time (and planning).

Alu bhaja and patla dal.

Being a sounding board.

Yelling/nagging.

Also laughing (and not being able to stop).

I don’t know if I will be remembered as a shining light. I hope to be remembered as a constant light. I want them to remember me as “Mom was there when I needed her.”

A day of deep breaths and blinking away tears

I woke up with a soft kiss on my cheeks as Sean said goodbye before he headed to the airport. I tried my best to fall asleep but sleep eluded me. I was dreading the day. It is ironical that I dread March 2nd since it was a day of excitement and happiness in my life for many years. It is baba’s birthday.

Today was a day of deep breaths and a lot of blinking. As I drove to the gym, I felt my chest constrict with pain. I tried to breathe in, hold it and exhale slowly. No matter how much I tried to focus on the happy memories, all I could think about was the last few days of his struggle and my utter helplessness.

A few friends still remembered him. They wrote on his Facebook page. Khushi wrote too. She said she missed him so much. She hopes both of them are blessing her from heaven. I also read a passage from A.A Milne’s Winnie the Pooh where Pooh is having a very Difficult day and Piglet asks him if he wants to talk about it. Pooh doesn’t want to talk. So Piglet just sits with him. When someone is having a very Difficult day, it is wonderful to just sit with them. Perhaps that is what friendship is all about. I needed a Piglet.

I had a very Difficult day but I went about my life – gym, work, dinner, without Piglet. I got through it. Today brought back glimpses of the very painful place I was in. I am certainly getting out of it and I am sure tomorrow will be better and as years go by birthdays will hurt less. Grief is like the waves – it ebbs and flows.

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.

A moment with Durga

This year I went to Boston to celebrate Durga puja with my cousin sister. Boston Durga bari’s Durga Puja is a beautiful four day affair that brings back memories of Durga puja of home. The ambiance, the joy, the rustle of new clothes, the trendy blouses, the designer kurta pajamas, the elegant sarees, the intricate jewelry, the smoke of dhunuchi and the crowd – all of these evoked the quintessential pujo feelings. If it wasn’t so cold as soon as one stepped outside the mandap (the tent in the parking lot of Braj Mandir Temple) in Holbrook, MA, one could totally feel like one was in a ghoroya puja of Kolkata.

I have my own unique relationship with the goddess. I don’t feel the need to participate in pushpanjali, or boron or any kind of ritual. My relationship with Durga is not one of a devotee and a deity. It is much more personal. To me, she is an embodiment of my memories of special four days every year. She is a feeling in my heart that is precious and invaluable. It is hard to explain. She is also a symbol of everything that I consider good. She is the divinity that, I hope, resides within me and within others. Every year, her celebration, reminds me to nurture this divinity within me and slay my inner demons so I am kinder, more considerate, less judgmental. Durga is also shakti – power. Those who wrote the Vedas knew the inherent power that women possess so they made a woman the symbol of power. Durga is all powerful yet when she comes to us she comes as the daughter of the house coming to her ‘baaper bari’ (her parents’ house). She is our beloved girl as well as the epitome of ‘mighty girl’. We do not worship her because we fear her. We worship her and love her because she is our very own, our dearest girl who assures us, inspires us, loves us and also blesses us. At least, this is how I relate to her.

During the four days of Durga puja, I sat far away from the idol while devotees stood in line to see a glimpse of Durga’s face. I admired the fashion, the jewelry, the little children instead of focusing on the mantras and the aarti. When everyone had left late at night and my sister was busy arranging the kitchen for next day’s massive preparation of food, I walked over to the front of the tent where the idol of Durga was placed decked with weapons in her ten arms and adorned with jewelry. The repentant ashura sat at her feet looking up, seeking forgiveness. And Durga had forgiven him. Her eyes, in this particular idol, radiated kindness, assurance. I bowed my head in front of the idol made of clay. But in reality, I bowed my head in gratitude for all the memories that her advent to the world has gifted me. She is my ‘shorot kal er neel akash’ (the blue sky of autumn), she is my ‘kashphul’ (according to Google, wild sugarcane that grows in Bengal during autumn), she is my smell of new clothes, my puja vacation from school, she is my mother’s laughter and my father’s relaxation, she is my memories of first crush and beating heart, she is my intolerable crowd, my pandal hopping, my Kolkata lights. She is the blisters on my feet due to new shoes, the rustle of my new clothes. She is my delicious street food and outing with friends. She is my counting pocket money to see how far that will take us. She is the crowded traffic on the streets, the red ribbon on the hair of the little girl who lives on the streets with her homeless family. She is the ‘bonedi barir pujo’. She is house full of relatives. Mostly, she is my feeling of joy and love and family.

She is all these memories that I keep in my heart all year and take out to savor during these four days every year. I will never get them back but I am so blessed that I have them forever.

Thank you, 90’s Bollywood hits

No, really! Thank you to the toe tapping numbers of the 90’s Bollywood hits, the item numbers as we used to call them. I have loved listening to them in my 20’s on my cassette tapes, hated them being blared out of big speakers from puja pandals during Durga Puja, loved them again when I set up my new life here in United States and brought my cassette tapes with me. Then the songs got transferred to music cds which my baba bought for me and I packed them in my suitcase when I came back after a visit home. Now I listen to them on Spotify. They are a connection to my wild and crazy (not) teens and twenties. The lyrics don’t touch one’s soul or evoke any deep feelings, at least in my opinion. You don’t drown in the soul stirring music – at least the songs I listen to. Tagore’s songs are like a gentle salve for my soul, I listen to them when I want peace. The dhamakedar (upbeat) Bollywood songs that I like to listen to are energetic, often meaningless, and most importantly, catchy. They make your feet tap and even me, someone born with two left feet, wants to sway my hips to the beat.

I wrote in a previous blog that I have started going to the gym for mental health (and also since 4 people asked me if I was pregnant). The 90’s Bollywood hits are the reason I look forward to sweating it out on the elliptical – sometimes for an hour. I lovingly pack my headphones and phone as I get ready for gym. If I ever forgot either of those, I will truly turn around and come back home. Bottom line – I go to gym to listen to music uninterrupted for an hour and a half. The work out, my friends, is secondary.

And when songs from Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge come on, or those from Kuch Kuch Hota Hai, I pump the pedals to the beat. My pace goes up and boy, am I in the zone!

I wiped sweat from my eyes today, huffing and puffing at the elliptical and wondered why I enjoy this mindless music so much when I work out. I have tried music of Kabir Suman or Rabindrasangeet but they don’t quite get me through the pain. Hindi music, that too peppy numbers of the 90’s and early 2000’s, get the job done. As I listen to the same songs everyday and sing along quietly, I remember the memories associated with them. The memories of sitting with my mother or friends in the dark cinema hall, the thin, elderly ushers showing us our seat, the musty smell of the carpet in cinema halls like Priya or Ujjala or Nabina or Aleya.

In fact, the excitement of going to the movie theater started with the mini bus ride to the cinema hall when I was younger. Ma held my hand tightly as we got off the bus and stood in line to get tickets. I am somewhat embarrassed to admit that ma, sometimes, even bought tickets from blackers (folks who sold tickets of a sold out show in black market for an elevated price) and I asked her hopefully “Did you get it?” We made the trip from home to the cinema hall in the blistering heat of Kolkata and we were determined not to go home without seeing the show. After the movie, there was always some lip smacking treats like the famous Ujjala’s chanachur, or phuchka or vegetable chop before the bus ride home. The music of those movies stayed on in my memory even if the stories didn’t. And today, many decades later, they still make me groove. Who remembers the huge posters of the actors and actresses that were actually drawn and painted by artists and posted up on the cinema halls and bill boards? Do they have those anymore?

I must have been a teenager when I saw an actress wearing a certain design of a salwar kameez and fell in love with it. I wanted to wear a kameez of the same design! So I cut out the photo of the heroine, Rati Agnihotri (if any of you remember her), from a film magazine and took it to our local tailor.

“Dada, I want my kameez made in this style.”

He took the cut out from my hand and looked at it intensely. He then looked up at me and slowly let his gaze slide down my skinny body. It sounds sexual but it was not. In fact it was the complete opposite. His glance was clinical and devoid of any emotions, He was appraising a body and wondering if his artwork will be worthwhile. Can the skinny frame of a young girl do his masterpiece justice? He then pointed to the voluptuous curves of the actress and looked at my figure that was pretty much a straight line. That glance was enough to convey his message – the cut is not going to look good on me as it looked on Rati Agnihotri. I had him make the kameez anyway. And he was right. The design was completely wasted on me. 🙂

Anyway, back to the songs. They bring back a lot of memories. And here is the thing though. I only remember the happy memories. I don’t remember the unbearable heat, the sweat, the smell, the mosquito bites, the scolding that I received for misbehaving. I remember when I hear these songs – ma, friends, friendships, Kolkata evenings, delicious street food, romance, beating heart as I thought of my boyfriend as I listened to Shahrukh Khan romancing Kajol via songs. And now those same songs are seeing me through pain. So thank you, 90’s Bollywood hits. You rock!

Sunshiny today

Every morning after I wake up I sit in my reading chair and take a few moments to look at the smiling pictures of both my parents on our coffee table. When they were alive I reached for my phone as soon as my eyes opened. There would be a message from ma in whatsapp. Most of the days the message asked “ki korchish?” (What are you doing?) The woman never really got the time difference right 😀. I would obviously be sleeping during her waking hours. My response would be “ei uthlam.” (just woke up). Most days I would call later to have a longer conversation but some days, that was our only exchange. But we connected everyday. I snooped on baba’s activity on Facebook and when I saw he was active and posting something funny every hour, I would breathe easy – he was well.

These days my whatsapp messenger remains silent. So I commune for a few minutes everyday with them in the morning. At a certain time, the sun hits their smiling faces just right and both of them light up in front of my eyes. I watch the transformation happen. In a strange way, it makes me happy. I took a picture of sunlit ma today. Sometimes this feeling is all I need to carry in my heart to get me through the day.

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.

Lost in my own city

I went for my usual walk this morning but Dhakuria lake was closed for Holi so I took a detour, got lost somewhat in my own city, asked for direction, was told by the caring man that my destination was too far and ‘sister, take an auto, you can not walk that far’. I thanked him and turned around as I was walking in the wrong direction. The man continued to give me directions and to warn me of the distance. I smiled at him but did not tell him that taking an auto was not an option as I carried no money. So I walked and it felt good. I walked through my very familiar and now somewhat unknown city. Some of the old, now decrepit, houses in my path have been there for years. They were part of my landscape all my life. They evoked so many memories. The new buildings were remote and unknown and if you ask me, they don’t belong to the Kolkata I know – my Kolkata.

‘My’ Kolkata is getting smaller with every visit. Old, familiar houses are being demolished and new apartments are being built. The city is sprawling out in every direction. But those houses along Southern Avenue or the unchanged make shift stores on the sides of Rashbehari Avenue, or the hawkers calling out ‘didi ki lagbe’ (sister what do you want), assure me that ‘my Kolkata’ still exists in some small way.

And I remembered walking the same streets with baba when he walked miles and miles to stay in shape. He talked to, petted and fed every stray dog that crossed his path on these walks. They knew him and crowded around him for the biscuits that he carried in his pocket. As I walked today in the early morning hours, I felt him by my side – youthful, happy, fast and chatty. It was a good morning.