Probashi phorever

This entire post is about dh, notwithstanding his earlier misgivings about being featured on this blog.

He was born in Calcutta - lived there for just the first couple of years of his life or so - but then you know it, he is a probashi for life. Given that he went for his first Durgo immersion (without informing folks at home) at the tender age of two, the time he misses Calcutta most is obviously during Durga Puja. Whether it be the politics and sport of pandal or para, he misses Calcutta so!

I had dh sing his (just one among many) ode to Cal songs and it was pleasingly enough for me, Sumaner gaan. So here are a clip (in dh's voice) and the full lyrics of one of the prime of Kabir Suman , which I got from here.

prothomoto ami tomake chai, ditioto ami tomake chai
tritioto ami tomake chai, shesh porjonto tomake chai.
nijhum ondhokare tomake chai, ratbhor hole ami tomake chai
shokaler koishore tomake chai, shondher obokashe tomake chai.
boishakhi jhore ami tomake chai, asharer meghe ami tomake chai
srabone srabone ami tomake chai, okal bodhone ami tomake chai.


kobekar kolkata shohorer pothe, purono notun mukh ghore imarote
ogonti manusher klanto michile, ochena chhutir chhowa tumi ene dile
nagorik klantite tomake chai, ek fota shantite tomake chai
bohudur hete eshe tomake chai, e jibon bhalobeshe tomake chai.

chourastar mor'e-park'e-dokan'e, shohor'e-gonz'e-gram'e-ekhane-okhane
station terminus ghate bondore, ochena drawing room'er chena bondor'e
balish-toshok-katha-purono chadore, thanda sheet'er raat'e leper ador'e
kadi kathey, coukathe , madurey paposhey , hashi-raag-oviman-jhogra-aposhe

tomake chai, tomake chai, tomake chai, tomake chai.

ek cup chaa'e ami tomake chai, daine o baye ami tomake chai
dekha na dekhai ami tomake chai, na bola kothai ami tomake chai.


shirshendur kono notun novel e, hothat porte bosha abol tabole
oboddho kobita ar thungri-kheyal'e, slogane slongane-dhaka deyale deyale
Sholil Chowdhury'r fele asha gan'e, Chaurasiya'r bashi mukhorito pran'e
bhule jaowa Himangshu Dutta'r shur'e, shei kobekar onurodher ashor'e.
tomake chai, tomake chai, tomake chai, tomake chai.
onurodh'e, minoti-te tomake chai, bedona'r arti-te tomake chai
dabi-daowa-chahida'i tomake chai, lojja-didha'i ami tomake chai.

odhikar bujhe neya prokhor dabite, shararat jege anka loraku chhobi te
chhipchhipe kobitar chhonde bhashay, buddhi'r juktite bachar ashai
srenihin shomajer chiro bashonai, din bodol'er dhora chetonai
didha-dondher din ghochhar shopne, shammyobad'er dak ghume-jagorone
bikkhobe-biplobe tomake chai, bishon oshomvobe tomake chai
shanti oshantite tomake chai, ei bibhranti-te tomake chai.

Happy Durga Puja folks! :)

PS: Here it is, finally posted the audio clip! Ok, am very proud of dh's singing skills- so go ahead and download & enjoy this :)

DEAR Me

*Drop Everything And Read*

Ever since childhood I read stuff. I can not claim any credit for that reading because all around me there always were plenty of books. The 'right' books. No 'trash' was allowed to us at home and somehow it never seemed to matter that I was reading Arthur Miller when I was 8 and Freud while I was 14 (pretty irrelevant was how much of it I could understand and assimilate!). I was still in school in pigtails and scruffy shoes when I read The Second Sex (my first Bible). There never was any time for me to read frivolous stuff which my contemporaries were surreptitiously deciphering. I could read Sons and Lovers and Women in Love before I ever was permitted to read a vapid romance(Lady C. came later though). Georgette Heyer was on, Danielle Steele wasn't. Shaw was on but James Hadley Chase & Harold Robbins weren't (back then!)

School was a lark with a wonderful library and a delightfully charming librarian. I have yet to come across anyone as dignified and graceful and yet so firmly in control over the legions of louts who used to fidget through the mandatory Library period every week. Library was really a place where I could sit (very quietly) and forget the whole world and read. Whether it was a classic or a reference text, the library was always well-stocked and yet we would often complain about a missing book- and wondrously, it would appear on the shelves, with its fresh scent, within weeks. A favourite haunt of mine, when I was bunking classes in school, was the library (more often than the streets of Sunder Nagar!) and far more difficult to be in because, unlike being in Sweets Corner, one had to come up with valid excuses to justify one's presence at the Library. But then, like most of my teachers, Mrs. Jalil was rather kind to me and did not interrupt my education!

College was where I came into my own. One had absolute and total freedom within those all girls gates- may be a bit stultifying but it was a haven. There were so many nooks and corners one could curl up in and spend hours- the most favourite being the library with its low divans and bolster pillows in the little favoured musty upstairs reading room. I was not too interested in poring over the text books, which would be hidden among the non-related reference books racks by the girls who not only wanted to do well academically but also wished to seal their success by ensuring others' failure. The reference library was a delight. I would wait for the gaggle of giggly girls to leave by their 1.30, or latest by the 2.30 Specials, and stay on till late evening, till finally hunger would drive me home. In between would be the ambles across to other colleges in the campus and a few beyond too. There would be slide shows, discussions, seminars, demonstrations, movie screenings (docu-edu-tainment only!), walks in the Ridge and much discussion and debate of ideas and thoughts- all of which would push me back to Drop Everything And Read.

I would read everywhere- at home- in bed, at the table, in the loo, in the buses (which were NOT Specials and therefore were adrenaline surcharged ideal 'eve-teasing' environment), in libraries, in parks, under trees, in coffee-houses, over hot steaming chai, just about everywhere. It helped that there were others around me who paced me, because try as I might, I could never compete with my Sis in either the width or depth of reading. I read nearly all I could lay my hands on and with the passage ot time became increasingly inclusive in reading much more than I read - BUT there were limitations. I could never read 'trash', however hard I tried to break the childhood hex. I could never go past the initial unease with sci-fi which I developed an aversion to early in life - whether it be Wells or Kingsley I shunned them even while I loved Verne. After the initial unfortunate exposure to Bunyan, I could never pick up a preachy Christian tale, however fantastically well-written.

And there was the limitation of language. English and Hindi were, and remain to this day, the only languages which I can read and write in. I could not read as much of Hindi as I wanted. I regret that I haven't read as much of the modern Hindi literature as I could have.

And now, off for some DEAR time, dearies.

NOTE: The term DEAR was introduced to me by a school in which ds was fortunate enough to enrol but could not study beyond one month as we moved to Bangalore.

Personal

CP & I

NOTE: This post is not, repeat NOT, about dh or my marriage. This post, like the rest of this unleavened blog, is about me.

As a child I was notoriously shy. There were stories of how people had to bend extremely low to be able to hear me apart from the tales of how I never seemed to pay any attention, be interested in any thing around me. I had many friends and no single best friend to choose amongst them.

Then there were the usual loyalty issues at home. Being the youngest, I was always asked to align myself with one of my ever sparring siblings. Big brother was very very much older and spent the little time we had together being alternately kind and cruel, like one would with a pet mouse. Big S was more forthright and took charge, demanding pledges of absolute loyalty.

There was this instance when the maha block-bluster was released in the mid-1970s (Sholay). Being that we were non-filmi types, our family was the only one in the entire neighbourhood, which hadn't seen it! The songs- they were everywhere. Inspired by one such, Big S asked to hold my hand and sing with her about how our friendship would be eternal and that it would live on even after our breath leaves our bodies and so on. To her everlasting chagrin and, I must admit, to my credit, I never held her hand or made any such promise to her. Some such song may have been sung by dh too (oh, I suffer so from amnesia), but I have never been pinned down by a word to any one.

There were others who tried to play the emotional blackmail game, if you like/love/care for me, then you have to ----- and just this way.

I never commit. I never promise anyone anything. And yet can never hold myself back from delivering on all those promises not made. Put myself through all manner of extremes and unpleasant stuff to endure, last out, see things through, stay till the end, do the done thing - but, I don't ever commit. I never say ever or never.

So whom am I fooling?

Oh *my* Boy!

All my Love, all my kissing,
you don't know what you've been missing
Oh-Boy

(break in singing for some loud wet kisses on my head)

We've been OD-ing on La Bamba at home and for all the hype around Valens, this was what ds was found crooning wistfully. Holly it is for my little boy- oh boy!

C'mon Let's Go, little darling - after all, The sky belongs to the Stars!

Now On

Scott talks of the Stunt work he has been performing day after day for over fifteen years and hopes to for another 30 years or so! He is, despite all disclaimers to the contrary, a safety net, and knows the value of staying on, being there. And yes, how he has to keep performing the same stunt without safety devices or doubles.

Wonder when one the show stops and these stunts or being the net cease. There never seems a fine time.

Being On, got to keep doing the tight-rope walk, the balancing act, the flying trapeze, the ultimate endurance stunt- Reality!

Bangalore Bouquet

When I was uprooted and transplanted from Delhi to Bangalore, I was excited about the move. I did the usual (maybe not so typical for me) housewifely things such as decide the house we'd be living in, picking out the furnishings and so on.

Dh had been making a few trips to Bangalore and had shortlisted a few probables among the houses for me to check out. When I saw this house, I knew it was 'my house'! Just as I had chosen all the houses I've lived in in the past.

I was told that the previous occupant of the house was a single American gent, who like other single American gents, had more time and interest in techie innovations than gardens and lawns. Thats so NOT true, given that I know at least one single, very American gent who not only bothers about what he grows and how!The most attractive feature about the house was not the delightfully quiet street or the near continuous canopy of trees above or even the absence of open trash receptacles around it. It was the palms! Glorious luxuriant palms which obviously had taken years to grow and had been just left to do so.



The palms got me. But the palms also showed up the lack of any other form of healthy vegetation in the patch of dirt around the house. We set about righting this wrong earnestly. Overnight we got hundreds of potted and other plants in and arranged them in the freshly laid organically rich beds.

And grass! It has been laid so many times that I fear that by now it must have acquired a reputation for promiscuity!

Most of the initial tranche were foliage plants except for the odd (can you fathom I don't fancy them?) anthuriums, sadabahars (they are so ubiquitous they are called Graveyard flowers), poinsettia (now what exactly is the flower there?), and of course the already present sampige.

Then I picked up many roses from Lalbagh apart from doing what came easiest to me- rushing to Delhi and getting Chrysanthamums, Calendulas, Gerberas, Dahlias et al from my favourite haunt there at Rajdhani Nursery in Jorbagh. Some of them plants took root, put out luxuriant foliage but stopped at that. No huge prize winning flowers.

Gradually I learnt to come to terms with the fact that I was NOT in Delhi. And that I should learn to love the flowers of this garden city. There was this balled compound flower, in various shades of orange and red, which no self-respecting Bangalore garden could be without (I still haven't found out the name of that one!)

But always there were hibiscus! What a variety of them...

Treat me well

I love doctors, I hate doctors. Like most of the junta around me, doctors too are rather terrified of me- and some with good cause to be so.

My intense love-hate relationship with doctors (as with many others in my life!) began only after I became a mother. Till then, I was quite in awe of doctors and let sleeping docs lie. I never provoked them, threw sticks at them or asked them to fetch for me. But of course, this meant that I did not bestow on them too much of mind space. It was a strict policy of non-interference. But since then I have crossed the (s)Hades to acquire the status of a Mom From Hell!

This week, my son got up in the middle of the night and was tossing and turning. The angel that he is, he never cries. But it is enough indication for me to know that there must something REALLY troubling him, for him to be up. 'What is it, Angel', I ask. 'My ear hurts.' Sure enough, I give him a mandated dose of paracetamol and try to soothe him back to sleep. Half an hour later, things seem to have only gone worse. I hate it but I know there is a bottle of this at the back of the medical cabinet which is brought out only at such emergencies. After the tiniest dose which may work, I try to soothe him back to sleep yet again. It is nearly morning before he finally falls in to a restful sleep pattern.

Later, the pilgrimage to the neighbourhood doctor. The usual long waiting; the exposure to all manner of stray infections concentrated there; the sight and sounds of all the others who are suffering and suffering badly, it seems; makes me feel it may have been better to stay at home than being in the clinic. The diagnosis indicates (oral, NOT written) that there could be an abscess in the ear which is painful and may have to be removed.

The hastily scrawled prescription lists among other medications, the same analgesic-anti-inflammatory as well as some ear-drops. Given ds's susceptibility to ear-trouble and prior acquaintance with that particular brand of ear-drops, I interject- Doesn't it contain Gentamycitin? Yes, it is a very good drug, I am informed. Highly effective in ear infections. But isn't Gentamicin highly ototoxic? I happen to know a number of children who are deaf because of that drug. That's all right; it IS a very effective drug !

With thoughts of Foucault's Birth of the Clinic (a refreshingly simplistic take on one who is a most difficult writer) and the prescient Ivan Illich's Medical Nemesis (and another doctor's take )

Iatrogenesis?

I love doctors, I love medicine, but most all, I love the kid.