What is water?
A playground churns,
where grasshoppers slide
slip and turn, on the foamy might.
A cracked bowl glazed
on the earth walls catch
the pearls that fall from the curdling sky.
A silken bow, of clever spin
sweeping its path into deep woods dark
to weave the threads of the arching sun.
A fisherman's song haunting
echoes spring miles of empty nets
and emerge, with sorrowful paper boats.
Sukanya Sen
Thursday, November 18, 2010
Monday, October 18, 2010
The two Indias in New York
On either side of the fast-paced, eclectic Manhattan Island lie two faces of India. Literally within twenty minutes of commute from Central Manhattan, Jackson Heights in the Queens Borough of New York and Journal Square in Jersey City compete to lend New York its multi-ethnic character. There is the usual fare of Gujarati -owned chain of grocery stores called Patel Brothers. If you are a Bengali, you might be invited to the New Jersey Durga Puja and also for a Bengali Sammelan dinner on some weekend.
However, as one travels deeper into the two neighborhoods- through the narrow by lanes of Jackson Heights and the wide river walk along the Hudson River in the Newport area of Jersey City or the low-lying single story homes in Queens to the high rise condos in New Jersey – the vastly different urban landscape begins to reflect as to how grossly misplaced terms like "melting pot" can be. And one realizes the futility of trying to encapsulate India and Indians settled across New York into generic terms of cultural appropriation.
Jackson Heights:
This place boasts of its very own State Bank of India branch.
Jaikishan Nagar. Jackson Vihar. Jackson Bagh. Call it what you may- there is an endless string of jokes attached to this place. The F train from Manhattan stops at 74th Street between Roosevelt Avenue and 37th Avenue and the first objects of fancy are the shiny manhole covers marked in bold by the phrase "Made in India". Since iron molding and casting is potentially harmful for the environment and banned in America, these manhole covers were shipped in large numbers from Howrah in Kolkata by Shakti Industries for Con Edison and New York City’s Department of Environmental Protection, as well as for departments in New Orleans and Syracuse. Further down, beauty parlors and threading salons try to sell the “art of fine eyebrows”. Video installations of the thread piercing the skin are fixed on shop doorways next to posters of yesteryear film actresses. Madhuri Dikshit in her Choli ke Peeche outfit and Juhi Chawla in her balloon-like frocks with thick eyebrows and a bow fixed in her rather big hair will remind you of how carefully time remains balanced in Jackson Heights. The sleek, shiny women of modern India coexist with their slightly vintage peers. Rows of shops sell cheap DVDs of films that I have never even heard. They are titled like Khooni Daastan and Aadhi Raat Mein. My friend and I search for the names of producers and actors without much success but the blurbs on the covers manage to tell us the standard love story of the boy meets girl variety. All for five dollars.
When Karan Johar moved location from Mumbai to the awe inspiring Manhattan skyline and swooped down to the standard exposed brick houses and bustling street life of Queens- it was perhaps a depiction that could have come closest to representing the desi community in New York. We reached Queens just at a time when lunch hours were about to begin. The restaurants had names like Delhi Express, Rawalpindi Express and Pindi Dhaba. Groups of women clad in salwar-kurtas and keds were stepping out of their homes for afternoon walks. Some stood haggling with the owner of a vegetable stall. We walked into a halwai store. The shop smelled vaguely like Nathu’s Sweets in New Friends Colony of Delhi- a mixture of phenyl and milk. “This is so much like India,” my friend whispered to me as we tasted the mini rasgullas. “Better than India, Ma’am,” the lady behind the counter told us. “Try the desi ghee laddoo.” Much like Nathus Sweets, the shop also sold dosas, papdi chaats and gol gappas. The non descript décor with plain walls and polyvinyl chairs rang with sounds of laughter, clattering of steel plates and glasses and a strange mixture of languages- English, Spanish, Bengali and Gujarati and dialects that I could barely recognize.
In the next lane, mannequins dressed up in shimmery lehangas and fake diamond encrusted dupattas stared out from shop windows. “Only 400 dollars. Perfect for mehendi ceremony,” a pot-bellied shop assistant yelled out at me as I stared at the astronomical prices of salwar suits, trying in vain to convert the dollar prices into rupees. Wedding trousseaus, glittering bangles, peshawari chappals, achkans, chiffon saris lined the store.
"Bangladeshi?" the shop owner persisted.
"No Indian. Bengali," I answered back as he sized me up in my rather non-specific outfit comprising of skinny jeans and an Old Navy shirt. I suddenly felt out of place in my supposed “western” outfit. That was perhaps the eternal crisis in the existence of Diaspora and hyphenated identities- the need to conform to a new society and yet maintain the distinct identity of origin.
New Jersey:
“You need to eat the Indian food at Raaz,” a friend living in New Jersey told me. I was a little skeptical. With a name like Raaz (aka secret!) ,I couldn’t really trust the food coming out of there. And Jersey City wasn’t really a place you were supposed to seen at- especially if you are someone remotely connected to the creative industries. It was supposed to be a place teeming with Indians- techies, bankers, financiers and MBAs. “Come,” my friend begged. “It is another India. Truly.”
The Jersey City PATH train stops right across a plush mall of a size that perhaps doesn’t even exist in Manhattan. White tiled floors bounce off light towards glass ceilings with skylights. Sanitized air conditioned air blocks out the city grime and noise. Marc Jacobs, Kenneth Cole, Gucci and Prada line the floors. There is something universal in the design of malls- the way entrances and exits are placed. Or in the familiarity of the design of food courts and even in the food they sell- from chicken teriyaki to General Tao’s chicken or the extra creamy kadhai chicken that Raaz had to offer. In way people arrange themselves and gauge passersby. You will probably forget that you are in Jersey City or even America for that matter. Jersey could be Gurgaon and Newport Mall could be Emporia.
At the bottom of the mall, an office was designated as a site for University of Phoenix- one of the biggest online universities operating in the world today. The location of the virtual university office couldn’t have been more apt. The tradition of teaching and learning has been based on human contact and educationists today fear the increasing viability of online coaching and training programs.
The analogy seemed clear. Jersey City too reflected a steady usurpation of street life into the bored domains of glass ceilings and malls. The demise of a vital street life is slowly transforming the urban form of India. The boundaries between UP, Haryana and Delhi are ambiguous at best- marked by the global structures of capitalism and consumer culture. And more than 8000 miles away- across the Atlantic, Jackson Heights is trying to maintain the other face of India- the vivaciousness of making contact on the streets.
However, as one travels deeper into the two neighborhoods- through the narrow by lanes of Jackson Heights and the wide river walk along the Hudson River in the Newport area of Jersey City or the low-lying single story homes in Queens to the high rise condos in New Jersey – the vastly different urban landscape begins to reflect as to how grossly misplaced terms like "melting pot" can be. And one realizes the futility of trying to encapsulate India and Indians settled across New York into generic terms of cultural appropriation.
Jackson Heights:
This place boasts of its very own State Bank of India branch.
Jaikishan Nagar. Jackson Vihar. Jackson Bagh. Call it what you may- there is an endless string of jokes attached to this place. The F train from Manhattan stops at 74th Street between Roosevelt Avenue and 37th Avenue and the first objects of fancy are the shiny manhole covers marked in bold by the phrase "Made in India". Since iron molding and casting is potentially harmful for the environment and banned in America, these manhole covers were shipped in large numbers from Howrah in Kolkata by Shakti Industries for Con Edison and New York City’s Department of Environmental Protection, as well as for departments in New Orleans and Syracuse. Further down, beauty parlors and threading salons try to sell the “art of fine eyebrows”. Video installations of the thread piercing the skin are fixed on shop doorways next to posters of yesteryear film actresses. Madhuri Dikshit in her Choli ke Peeche outfit and Juhi Chawla in her balloon-like frocks with thick eyebrows and a bow fixed in her rather big hair will remind you of how carefully time remains balanced in Jackson Heights. The sleek, shiny women of modern India coexist with their slightly vintage peers. Rows of shops sell cheap DVDs of films that I have never even heard. They are titled like Khooni Daastan and Aadhi Raat Mein. My friend and I search for the names of producers and actors without much success but the blurbs on the covers manage to tell us the standard love story of the boy meets girl variety. All for five dollars.
When Karan Johar moved location from Mumbai to the awe inspiring Manhattan skyline and swooped down to the standard exposed brick houses and bustling street life of Queens- it was perhaps a depiction that could have come closest to representing the desi community in New York. We reached Queens just at a time when lunch hours were about to begin. The restaurants had names like Delhi Express, Rawalpindi Express and Pindi Dhaba. Groups of women clad in salwar-kurtas and keds were stepping out of their homes for afternoon walks. Some stood haggling with the owner of a vegetable stall. We walked into a halwai store. The shop smelled vaguely like Nathu’s Sweets in New Friends Colony of Delhi- a mixture of phenyl and milk. “This is so much like India,” my friend whispered to me as we tasted the mini rasgullas. “Better than India, Ma’am,” the lady behind the counter told us. “Try the desi ghee laddoo.” Much like Nathus Sweets, the shop also sold dosas, papdi chaats and gol gappas. The non descript décor with plain walls and polyvinyl chairs rang with sounds of laughter, clattering of steel plates and glasses and a strange mixture of languages- English, Spanish, Bengali and Gujarati and dialects that I could barely recognize.
In the next lane, mannequins dressed up in shimmery lehangas and fake diamond encrusted dupattas stared out from shop windows. “Only 400 dollars. Perfect for mehendi ceremony,” a pot-bellied shop assistant yelled out at me as I stared at the astronomical prices of salwar suits, trying in vain to convert the dollar prices into rupees. Wedding trousseaus, glittering bangles, peshawari chappals, achkans, chiffon saris lined the store.
"Bangladeshi?" the shop owner persisted.
"No Indian. Bengali," I answered back as he sized me up in my rather non-specific outfit comprising of skinny jeans and an Old Navy shirt. I suddenly felt out of place in my supposed “western” outfit. That was perhaps the eternal crisis in the existence of Diaspora and hyphenated identities- the need to conform to a new society and yet maintain the distinct identity of origin.
New Jersey:
“You need to eat the Indian food at Raaz,” a friend living in New Jersey told me. I was a little skeptical. With a name like Raaz (aka secret!) ,I couldn’t really trust the food coming out of there. And Jersey City wasn’t really a place you were supposed to seen at- especially if you are someone remotely connected to the creative industries. It was supposed to be a place teeming with Indians- techies, bankers, financiers and MBAs. “Come,” my friend begged. “It is another India. Truly.”
The Jersey City PATH train stops right across a plush mall of a size that perhaps doesn’t even exist in Manhattan. White tiled floors bounce off light towards glass ceilings with skylights. Sanitized air conditioned air blocks out the city grime and noise. Marc Jacobs, Kenneth Cole, Gucci and Prada line the floors. There is something universal in the design of malls- the way entrances and exits are placed. Or in the familiarity of the design of food courts and even in the food they sell- from chicken teriyaki to General Tao’s chicken or the extra creamy kadhai chicken that Raaz had to offer. In way people arrange themselves and gauge passersby. You will probably forget that you are in Jersey City or even America for that matter. Jersey could be Gurgaon and Newport Mall could be Emporia.
At the bottom of the mall, an office was designated as a site for University of Phoenix- one of the biggest online universities operating in the world today. The location of the virtual university office couldn’t have been more apt. The tradition of teaching and learning has been based on human contact and educationists today fear the increasing viability of online coaching and training programs.
The analogy seemed clear. Jersey City too reflected a steady usurpation of street life into the bored domains of glass ceilings and malls. The demise of a vital street life is slowly transforming the urban form of India. The boundaries between UP, Haryana and Delhi are ambiguous at best- marked by the global structures of capitalism and consumer culture. And more than 8000 miles away- across the Atlantic, Jackson Heights is trying to maintain the other face of India- the vivaciousness of making contact on the streets.
Friday, September 24, 2010
As I sat in Prospect Park, carrying the Heart of India
I sat in Prospect Park on a sunny afternoon, watching Fall just about to set in. The leaves were turning yellow at the tips- the rest of the body crisp and charming green after a bout of rain the night before. I was carrying the Heart of India with me- Mark Tully's journeys into the hinterlands of UP and Bihar- his accounts of watching caste wars and greedy zamindars in action or barren women going to old temples to pray for a child. For the most part, the book felt like a revisiting of childhood stories that any Indian child would read in Panchatantra or Amar Chitra Katha- the tone was of Once upon a time tales. Hardly any dramatic writing or heavy metaphorical language that Indians are so famous for. What was most fascinating was Tully's definition of fiction and non-fiction writing. The stories seemed true. They were observational more than evidence-based.
I noticed how alone I was in Prospect Park. A vast open space in the middle of one of the busiest cities in the world. And I thought of home, the streets of Delhi, the connections that had broken off in the two years that I had been away from home. What evidence would emerge true for my writing- if I were to pick up a pen and paper and start scribbling at that very moment? How can we classify writing that emerges from the gaps in memory and in retrospect? Who would believe in these frail images of a past life?
The street that I start to remember does not have a name. It exists, but as a concept. It is where people fight for parking space. A soiled red and black tent , rented from caterers emerges occasionally from the houses when birthday parties, anniversaries, weddings or annual harvest festivals take place. The vegetable sellers push their cart through the celebrating bodies and in the midst of it all, children clamor for space and attention as they play cricket. There are mango trees and overgrown shrubs outside some houses and the colorful flowers and seasonal fruits are the cause of much friction between the neighbors.
The street is not just a street...it is the locus of my imagination, the place I start writing from.
I often return to the house on the street, but with great difficulty at times because the directions to the landmarks keep changing. At one time there was an open tea stall to the left of the street. But the owner managed to make a lot of money and moved a little further down the road in to the fish market. The sky was no longer visible from his shop, but had red plastic chairs inside it and a badly made sign board hung outside said " Tea and Snakes".
The street of this year, in which I tell my story has a monster that my sister and I were always cautioned against. There is a shop, sharing the wall of a house, with an asbestos sheet covering, propped up by bamboo canes. Hand painted posters of women with bulging cleavages flap in the gentle breeze. It is difficult to guess who they are. We lower our eyes and rush past it as we walk home from the bus stop, the film songs blaring from a radio, filling the empty weekday afternoon. At times, we stand watching from a distance as our grandfather quickly buys a cigarette from there. He hides them in his shirt pocket, and clutches our hands to take us home.
The home of this year is being painted and the exterior is effervescent, the white shines in the golden sun. The smell is of the arrival of a new blue awning, of a new season and a new color, as the black door frames are replaced by a pleasant yellow. My house resembles an ice cream parlor, but I don't mind it at all.
On a Sunday in the home of this year, my sister and I play with Lego blocks. We place the small potted plants first, but they keep getting knocked over by our skinny elbows. The house has red, yellow and green brick walls and a red chimney. I wonder why our house does not have a chimney...the long snout, placed on the roof through which Mary Poppins traveled in and out. I think she got stuck in the chimney once, and that is why we never got a chimney. The one story house grew in to two, as the blocks vanished from the box. I turn my attention to the ladybug that my uncle has sent from England. I hold it in my hands and wind the tiny key as it sputters and crawls on the cool floor. Big feet suddenly appear in front of my eyes, dusty soles and hard nails, that leave a trail of dust at the entrance of the yellow door. I look up and a pair of bloody red protruding eyes stare back at me. A smile that has a missing front tooth and a couple of more at the side, breaks in to a maniacal laugh as it bends down to grab my shoulders. In the background I hear my sister yell in fright as she grabs my hand and we run to my grandparent's bedroom and hide under their bed. It is the Missing Tooth plumber she says, and both of us sit in the darkness, hoping that the ants would not give away our secret. A layer of dust lies on the boxes and I try to open them. A sneeze shakes the earth and the ants shift their trail. The game is over.
At an hour on a Sunday in the home of this year as the day is settling in, I return to my home's childhood again ,when my sister and I wear identical clothes ( she is in pink and I am in blue, but that is the only difference) and run out to the sunny porch. My grandmother has taken out a new sari, a white one with a red border., but her hair is still messy, the comb stuck in it as she settles on a brown wicker chair. My grandfather reads a red book, with brown withering papers, as the golden rays glisten on his silk shirt. At this very minute of the hour, my mother comes hurrying out putting the clasp on her silver watch and runs her hand over her black hair, tied up in a bun.
At this second of the minute of the hour of the day of the month of this year of the dream... when we scramble to sit in position, the small in the front and the tall at the back..my father cranks the camera. It whirs and clicks..as we move from the land of messy blue, red, pink, green and gold to just those two- black and white. I wander in the day and think in my dreams. And I want to have this dream tonight.
******
The street has a name- of a revolutionary freedom fighter who fought for independence. The house is located in the colony of people displaced from East Pakistan. I lost the ladybird one day and could never find it again. The plumber with the missing tooth, disappeared around the corner and was never found again. The house stopped glowing as the two stories grew up in to three.
I noticed how alone I was in Prospect Park. A vast open space in the middle of one of the busiest cities in the world. And I thought of home, the streets of Delhi, the connections that had broken off in the two years that I had been away from home. What evidence would emerge true for my writing- if I were to pick up a pen and paper and start scribbling at that very moment? How can we classify writing that emerges from the gaps in memory and in retrospect? Who would believe in these frail images of a past life?
The street that I start to remember does not have a name. It exists, but as a concept. It is where people fight for parking space. A soiled red and black tent , rented from caterers emerges occasionally from the houses when birthday parties, anniversaries, weddings or annual harvest festivals take place. The vegetable sellers push their cart through the celebrating bodies and in the midst of it all, children clamor for space and attention as they play cricket. There are mango trees and overgrown shrubs outside some houses and the colorful flowers and seasonal fruits are the cause of much friction between the neighbors.
The street is not just a street...it is the locus of my imagination, the place I start writing from.
I often return to the house on the street, but with great difficulty at times because the directions to the landmarks keep changing. At one time there was an open tea stall to the left of the street. But the owner managed to make a lot of money and moved a little further down the road in to the fish market. The sky was no longer visible from his shop, but had red plastic chairs inside it and a badly made sign board hung outside said " Tea and Snakes".
The street of this year, in which I tell my story has a monster that my sister and I were always cautioned against. There is a shop, sharing the wall of a house, with an asbestos sheet covering, propped up by bamboo canes. Hand painted posters of women with bulging cleavages flap in the gentle breeze. It is difficult to guess who they are. We lower our eyes and rush past it as we walk home from the bus stop, the film songs blaring from a radio, filling the empty weekday afternoon. At times, we stand watching from a distance as our grandfather quickly buys a cigarette from there. He hides them in his shirt pocket, and clutches our hands to take us home.
The home of this year is being painted and the exterior is effervescent, the white shines in the golden sun. The smell is of the arrival of a new blue awning, of a new season and a new color, as the black door frames are replaced by a pleasant yellow. My house resembles an ice cream parlor, but I don't mind it at all.
On a Sunday in the home of this year, my sister and I play with Lego blocks. We place the small potted plants first, but they keep getting knocked over by our skinny elbows. The house has red, yellow and green brick walls and a red chimney. I wonder why our house does not have a chimney...the long snout, placed on the roof through which Mary Poppins traveled in and out. I think she got stuck in the chimney once, and that is why we never got a chimney. The one story house grew in to two, as the blocks vanished from the box. I turn my attention to the ladybug that my uncle has sent from England. I hold it in my hands and wind the tiny key as it sputters and crawls on the cool floor. Big feet suddenly appear in front of my eyes, dusty soles and hard nails, that leave a trail of dust at the entrance of the yellow door. I look up and a pair of bloody red protruding eyes stare back at me. A smile that has a missing front tooth and a couple of more at the side, breaks in to a maniacal laugh as it bends down to grab my shoulders. In the background I hear my sister yell in fright as she grabs my hand and we run to my grandparent's bedroom and hide under their bed. It is the Missing Tooth plumber she says, and both of us sit in the darkness, hoping that the ants would not give away our secret. A layer of dust lies on the boxes and I try to open them. A sneeze shakes the earth and the ants shift their trail. The game is over.
At an hour on a Sunday in the home of this year as the day is settling in, I return to my home's childhood again ,when my sister and I wear identical clothes ( she is in pink and I am in blue, but that is the only difference) and run out to the sunny porch. My grandmother has taken out a new sari, a white one with a red border., but her hair is still messy, the comb stuck in it as she settles on a brown wicker chair. My grandfather reads a red book, with brown withering papers, as the golden rays glisten on his silk shirt. At this very minute of the hour, my mother comes hurrying out putting the clasp on her silver watch and runs her hand over her black hair, tied up in a bun.
At this second of the minute of the hour of the day of the month of this year of the dream... when we scramble to sit in position, the small in the front and the tall at the back..my father cranks the camera. It whirs and clicks..as we move from the land of messy blue, red, pink, green and gold to just those two- black and white. I wander in the day and think in my dreams. And I want to have this dream tonight.
******
The street has a name- of a revolutionary freedom fighter who fought for independence. The house is located in the colony of people displaced from East Pakistan. I lost the ladybird one day and could never find it again. The plumber with the missing tooth, disappeared around the corner and was never found again. The house stopped glowing as the two stories grew up in to three.
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
Lost in the city- NRB adventures in Kolkata Part 2
The next morning, I found out that the CEO, Mr. Ghosh stayed in the guest house. He stood brushing his teeth at the basin near the foot of the staircase. The early morning attire consisted of not a safari suit, but a white turned grey vest and a checked green dhoti. He nodded at me and tried to grin, digging shamelessly into his crotch and the toothpaste foaming at his open mouth.
A small porcelain cup, covered with brown cracks stood waiting for me in the room marked “DINING HALL”. A single table with six chairs was occupied by a boisterous family of ten. Two wailing kids ran around the table, chasing one another for a toy. My tea didn't look very appetizing and I stayed just long enough to know that the family's excitement bordered around a marriage they had come to attend.
I asked Gopal if Pintuda was waiting for me. He said a quick no and disappeared around the corner. Then he yelled from the passage that the driver often drank in to the night at the street corner stall. I left Monalisa behind for the day- alone and without any orientation and annoyed at having trusted the driver so easily.
The city had woken up to the hot day. The imminent traffic jams. A sudden bend. And then an empty brown road, separated by a tram track. The new driver asked me the address of my destination for the third time in a row. And I replied yet again- Ballygunge, adding the Mime Academy and “55 by 4”. I said the numbers in English, because I had always been confused about reciting numbers in Bengali.
Numbers...5...6..7. I gathered that we were heading in the wrong direction. So we turned back again. A mall with a glass exterior reflected light on the dusty brown road. Blonde models staring out from Marks and Spencer windows and Revlon salons looked upon the rest of the buildings that stood low, without walls, melting in to one another. An overwhelming number of cables, wires, battered telephone polls and aged hoardings tied this mass of concrete and glass together. The driver told me at this point that it was not profitable for him to help me in this search. The black and yellow taxi sped off as I stood on the road, and read the address boards, hoping that the number 4 would magically appear somewhere.
In desperation, I walked in to one of the bicycle repair shops to ask find the whereabouts of the “Academy”. The shop owner looked with interest at my diary, and kept saying that the name was familiar. He went out in to the next shop. The second shopkeeper went out to ask a man on the street.
They argued for a couple of minutes and then the original shopkeeper finally led the way in to a narrow alley between two shops. The drain was choked, the earth semi dry under the sun now.
I could already see the camera man sneering at this pitiful “location”. Location had to be sublime beauty for him. A white board with faded letters said- JOGESH DUTTA MIME ACADEMY.
The sunlight reflected off the jagged edges of broken windows on a forlorn building. A nylon rope hung low around the compound, displaying underwear of varying sizes but there was no sign of any family member. A door half open seemed like the only entry. I entered a dark interior.
The shopkeeper disappeared and so did the sounds of the street. Slightly unsure,I made my way up a flight of staircase. There must be a nice auditorium somewhere, I assured myself.
“Hello! How can I help you?”. It was so dark that I hadn't noticed a man sitting there. Medium build, puffy faced and hair parted in the center. The room looked like an attic. There were posters with painted faces and I couldn't really be sure if this was the same man, but in a moment of nervousness I said, “Hello! Mr. Dutta. I have come from Delhi to meet you.”
His face remained expressionless, “I am not Mr. Dutta. I am his assistant Somesh.”
“Will Mr. Dutta come anytime soon? It is really important that I meet him. I am a producer for a children's program. Sesame Street. It is quite famous...it is shown in the US as well..” I rattled on. The assistant didn't look impressed.
He started patronizingly, “Well, Mr Dutta is 90 years old now. Great man!”
“Umm..I know,” I said, my heart starting to sink.
“He does not come to the Academy anymore. So I manage it on my own. We are facing a hard time...no money,” he paused and then said, “Which channel did you say you are from?”
“Cartoon network.”
Smoothing his parting, he continued, “Channels pay a lot of money..right? Well, we charge atleast 5000 rupees for using our auditorium. We are planning a children's workshop in August....”
“I don't want to shoot a workshop...” I tried to cut in. The program had to be on air in August I thought to myself. But it seemed as if he hadn't heard me and continued talking in his monotone, “I am off to Edinburgh today for a performance. When I come back we can talk.”
Be a persistent journalist, my boss had said. So I tried asking a final question, “Where is your auditorium?” The question seemed to have shaken him up. Irritatedly he replied, “Oh..I could have shown you...but I seem to have lost the keys. But you can see it from here..” pointing to an hollow spot on the wall. The beam of sunlight brought out the shape of a pile of broken chairs and moth eaten curtains. I looked back at Somesh and gave him a weak smile. He stared back unsmiling, the middle parting on his scalp glimmering like a frozen river bed.
The idea of a story on mime had evaporated. His beady, empty eyes stared back. I said a hasty goodbye and started to walk away. "You want water..Ms..?" Somesh started to ask, walking towards me.
"No..no..I am fine.."
I could feel sweat trickling down my spine. I backed towards the staircase and knocked myself against something hard and wooden. There was a gnawing pain somewhere.
"Be careful..these stairs are old," he was walking towards me with his hands outstretched. Psycho. Psycho. My head was pounding. You are over reacting. This happens only in movies. Wait..you are here to make movies. Move, you idiot. Move!
Out on the street, I ran past a family who probably owned the displayed clothes. I stopped only when I had come back to the spot where I had been dropped off before. I was breathing hard. But I was more worried that my first idea had fallen through. I walked down the road- aimless and less certain now. Day 1 was half way through and the story count was still zilch. My boss wouldn't really care that some assistant had turned out turned out to be a psychpath cum serial killer. He would probably make a joke that all Bengali men had a psycho streak in them.
A sign across the street said Calcutta Information Center. On an instinct I walked in.
Clusters of twenty-somethings burst out laughing at the computer screen. The information bureau seemed more like a seedy cyber cafe. I picked up a city catalogue and flipped the pages to the section of “Important people in the city”. Thankfully the catalogue was in both English and Bengali. Musicians. Painters. Politicians. Magicians. Jugglers. A whole family of jugglers.
“Hi. I am Moushumi speaking.” I recognized her as the daughter of the head juggler and gave my usual introduction- that I had come from to Delhi to meet them for my film, since they were famous in the country. “Do you have children?” I asked her a little bluntly. “Yes, I have a daughter. She is six.”
“Can she juggle?” I asked.
“Not too much, but she can do some tricks. But she is really good at studies and painting too.”
“Oh! Great...!” I replied back. I wasn't really interested in her academics or painting skills. Ruthless as it seemed, I just wanted the child to be a juggler.
“I am visiting my father right now. You can come and meet us all tomorrow.”
I gave a silent sigh of relief and hailed a taxi back to Monalisa Guest house.A child juggler- this would be the best story ever!
More adventures coming up readers..not quite the Byomkesh Bakshi stuff..but oh well!
Cheerio!
Travel Bee
A small porcelain cup, covered with brown cracks stood waiting for me in the room marked “DINING HALL”. A single table with six chairs was occupied by a boisterous family of ten. Two wailing kids ran around the table, chasing one another for a toy. My tea didn't look very appetizing and I stayed just long enough to know that the family's excitement bordered around a marriage they had come to attend.
I asked Gopal if Pintuda was waiting for me. He said a quick no and disappeared around the corner. Then he yelled from the passage that the driver often drank in to the night at the street corner stall. I left Monalisa behind for the day- alone and without any orientation and annoyed at having trusted the driver so easily.
The city had woken up to the hot day. The imminent traffic jams. A sudden bend. And then an empty brown road, separated by a tram track. The new driver asked me the address of my destination for the third time in a row. And I replied yet again- Ballygunge, adding the Mime Academy and “55 by 4”. I said the numbers in English, because I had always been confused about reciting numbers in Bengali.
Numbers...5...6..7. I gathered that we were heading in the wrong direction. So we turned back again. A mall with a glass exterior reflected light on the dusty brown road. Blonde models staring out from Marks and Spencer windows and Revlon salons looked upon the rest of the buildings that stood low, without walls, melting in to one another. An overwhelming number of cables, wires, battered telephone polls and aged hoardings tied this mass of concrete and glass together. The driver told me at this point that it was not profitable for him to help me in this search. The black and yellow taxi sped off as I stood on the road, and read the address boards, hoping that the number 4 would magically appear somewhere.
In desperation, I walked in to one of the bicycle repair shops to ask find the whereabouts of the “Academy”. The shop owner looked with interest at my diary, and kept saying that the name was familiar. He went out in to the next shop. The second shopkeeper went out to ask a man on the street.
They argued for a couple of minutes and then the original shopkeeper finally led the way in to a narrow alley between two shops. The drain was choked, the earth semi dry under the sun now.
I could already see the camera man sneering at this pitiful “location”. Location had to be sublime beauty for him. A white board with faded letters said- JOGESH DUTTA MIME ACADEMY.
The sunlight reflected off the jagged edges of broken windows on a forlorn building. A nylon rope hung low around the compound, displaying underwear of varying sizes but there was no sign of any family member. A door half open seemed like the only entry. I entered a dark interior.
The shopkeeper disappeared and so did the sounds of the street. Slightly unsure,I made my way up a flight of staircase. There must be a nice auditorium somewhere, I assured myself.
“Hello! How can I help you?”. It was so dark that I hadn't noticed a man sitting there. Medium build, puffy faced and hair parted in the center. The room looked like an attic. There were posters with painted faces and I couldn't really be sure if this was the same man, but in a moment of nervousness I said, “Hello! Mr. Dutta. I have come from Delhi to meet you.”
His face remained expressionless, “I am not Mr. Dutta. I am his assistant Somesh.”
“Will Mr. Dutta come anytime soon? It is really important that I meet him. I am a producer for a children's program. Sesame Street. It is quite famous...it is shown in the US as well..” I rattled on. The assistant didn't look impressed.
He started patronizingly, “Well, Mr Dutta is 90 years old now. Great man!”
“Umm..I know,” I said, my heart starting to sink.
“He does not come to the Academy anymore. So I manage it on my own. We are facing a hard time...no money,” he paused and then said, “Which channel did you say you are from?”
“Cartoon network.”
Smoothing his parting, he continued, “Channels pay a lot of money..right? Well, we charge atleast 5000 rupees for using our auditorium. We are planning a children's workshop in August....”
“I don't want to shoot a workshop...” I tried to cut in. The program had to be on air in August I thought to myself. But it seemed as if he hadn't heard me and continued talking in his monotone, “I am off to Edinburgh today for a performance. When I come back we can talk.”
Be a persistent journalist, my boss had said. So I tried asking a final question, “Where is your auditorium?” The question seemed to have shaken him up. Irritatedly he replied, “Oh..I could have shown you...but I seem to have lost the keys. But you can see it from here..” pointing to an hollow spot on the wall. The beam of sunlight brought out the shape of a pile of broken chairs and moth eaten curtains. I looked back at Somesh and gave him a weak smile. He stared back unsmiling, the middle parting on his scalp glimmering like a frozen river bed.
The idea of a story on mime had evaporated. His beady, empty eyes stared back. I said a hasty goodbye and started to walk away. "You want water..Ms..?" Somesh started to ask, walking towards me.
"No..no..I am fine.."
I could feel sweat trickling down my spine. I backed towards the staircase and knocked myself against something hard and wooden. There was a gnawing pain somewhere.
"Be careful..these stairs are old," he was walking towards me with his hands outstretched. Psycho. Psycho. My head was pounding. You are over reacting. This happens only in movies. Wait..you are here to make movies. Move, you idiot. Move!
Out on the street, I ran past a family who probably owned the displayed clothes. I stopped only when I had come back to the spot where I had been dropped off before. I was breathing hard. But I was more worried that my first idea had fallen through. I walked down the road- aimless and less certain now. Day 1 was half way through and the story count was still zilch. My boss wouldn't really care that some assistant had turned out turned out to be a psychpath cum serial killer. He would probably make a joke that all Bengali men had a psycho streak in them.
A sign across the street said Calcutta Information Center. On an instinct I walked in.
Clusters of twenty-somethings burst out laughing at the computer screen. The information bureau seemed more like a seedy cyber cafe. I picked up a city catalogue and flipped the pages to the section of “Important people in the city”. Thankfully the catalogue was in both English and Bengali. Musicians. Painters. Politicians. Magicians. Jugglers. A whole family of jugglers.
“Hi. I am Moushumi speaking.” I recognized her as the daughter of the head juggler and gave my usual introduction- that I had come from to Delhi to meet them for my film, since they were famous in the country. “Do you have children?” I asked her a little bluntly. “Yes, I have a daughter. She is six.”
“Can she juggle?” I asked.
“Not too much, but she can do some tricks. But she is really good at studies and painting too.”
“Oh! Great...!” I replied back. I wasn't really interested in her academics or painting skills. Ruthless as it seemed, I just wanted the child to be a juggler.
“I am visiting my father right now. You can come and meet us all tomorrow.”
I gave a silent sigh of relief and hailed a taxi back to Monalisa Guest house.A child juggler- this would be the best story ever!
More adventures coming up readers..not quite the Byomkesh Bakshi stuff..but oh well!
Cheerio!
Travel Bee
Thursday, September 2, 2010
The Non resident Bengali's adventures in Kolkata- Part 1
Most Probashi Bangalis or the Non Resident Bengalis (henceforth known as NRBs) are a strange specimen in Kolkata. They are meant to be treated with utter disdain because of the horrendously Punjufied Bengali accents. But if you are a NRB from CR Park you might save yourself some of the disgrace. If you are a woman NRB from CR Park you will score some brownie points because Delhi women give the gossipy men at tea stalls something to talk about. And if you are a NRB woman from CR Park with a camera crew in tow- well, you can be assured that the whole town will be following you AND think of you as nothing less than Sushmita Sen- who cares if she hasn't produced a single hit film in her life and you are a lowly producer for an Indian version of a American TV muppet show that Indians kids don't even like watching. Here are some funny anecdotal moments that the the muppet show would never dare to tell (yes, funny only in retrospect). I am going to try and recall them as distinctly as possible. But as it happens with memory, any resemblance to characters (dead, alive or barely alive) and events is not coincidental- it is completely intentional, but with a dash of good humor and the tricks that my memory decided to play in the moment of writing.
In 2007, as a part of the Sesame Street India team, I was asked to shoot a series of short films in Kolkata.My boss said, “You have to capture the flavor of Calcutta, OK? Who else would know the city but a Bengali?” I hated to break it to him that people speaking the language “Bengali” and people who have grown up in Calcutta as “Bengalis” were completely diverse. And that I was a Bengali who had grown up in Delhi. The last time I had been to Calcutta was twenty years back. My knowledge of the city, its history and culture was perhaps as superficial as his.
“It is not easy being a Live Action film producer,” my boss said with an air of certainty at one of our pre-departure meetings, as he glanced at my notes for probable stories in Calcutta:
Probable ideas for shooting:
1.Jogesh Dutta Mime Academy---- Ballygunge Circular Road.
2. Painting- Patachitra at the Kalighat Temple
3. Find a mansion near North Calcutta- organize a treasure hunt.
4. Shadow show by Geyon Theater- They make shadow puppets from cardboard, colour papers and waste materials. (no address in directory)
5. Clock towers of Calcutta: a family maintains the clock tower of St. Paul's Cathedral. The child of the family travels up the winding stairs to see his grandfather at work. **
6. Football match in the Maidan.
7. Horse ride/ Tram ride/ Boat ride in the city- show Victoria Memorial/ Princep Ghat
8. A trip to the flower market.
9. Food:
It was a humble beginning. In a tiny, obscure corner of Bagbazar in North Kolkata, Nobin Chandra set up a sweet shop in 1866, but the last thing he wanted was to run a mere sales counter. The passion to create something of his very own haunted him. His ambition was to create a completely original sweet, that would bring new excitement to the Bengali palate. There was in him an intense desire to create a sweetmeat that was never there before... the ultimate delicacy. He toiled for months, armed with imagination, skill and tenacity, and sometime in the year 1868, his labours paid off. He made small balls of casein (cottage cheese) and boiled them in hot sugar syrup. The result was a succulent, spongy sweet with a unique, distinctive taste. Nobin Das christened it the “Rossogolla” and a legend
was born.- http://originofrasgulla.blogspot.com/
10. Learning Katha embroidery
11. Trip to the science city
**(Refer to Indian Express news- the grandfather was 80 years old in 1997!- no phone number or contact information)
My boss sighed and then after a moment of silence, his red face looked at me with irritation to say-“Well...Sukanya. These are all so overdone!” He used the word overdone with great frequency. “Science City will be boring! What will the child do there? He can't stand just stand there and watch.And music is super overdone on Sesame...” His voice started to grow louder and his face redder- “Painting is overdone too. And wait..you actually thought of football. The cameraman is lazy and bulky. Do you think he will actually run around and fall with a child on a football field? The clock tower story is your best bet...I want that one!” He was on the verge
of standing up now, sweat beginning to break out on his plump face as he said, “ But even then, where is the story and the drive, the motivation for the child! What is the take-away factor for the child? I repeat-look for the flavor of Calcutta...Kolkata..whatever!”
The tirade stopped as he fixed me with a hard stare. “Oh..and by the way, the budget has been slashed down. You need to take a look at your hotel booking again. It is 1000 rupees a day now for the hotel..Calcutta is cheap right?”, he said with nonchalance. “ And take the early morning or late night flight...!” he added.
Monalisa Guesthouse~
An uncle of mine, on returning from one of his trips remarked to me, “ You know
all sorts of strange things happen to me when I travel”. I stared at him, not quite sure what to make of this statement. And he went on, “ You know.. there will be water splattered on my seat or it wont have a seat number...or worst still, my berth might have been taken by someone else.” He added almost gleefully that this time while on his trip to Darjeeling, someone stole his slippers on the train, and I pictured him walking around bare feet in the town. My plane got ready to land in Calcutta's Netaji Subhash Airport, and the big rain drops smeared on the tiny window. I wondered if strange things happening on travels ran in the family. The night before I was to leave, the airline's ground staff had gone on a strike and Calcutta had recorded its maximum rainfall for the season.
As I stepped out from the air-conditioned dome on to the damp earth of the city, I felt swamped by the tide of taxi drivers and auto-rickshaw drivers,standing at the side rails calling out to hassled travelers. My father, a veteran traveler to this city, had given me a set of instructions to follow and one of them had been to make a beeline for the prepaid taxi stand. The drivers in the city are rogues he had warned. My driver however had a half smile playing on his face as he helped me with my luggage, but remembering my father's warning I didn't smile back. An overpowering smell of petroleum clung on to the hot, blackened interior of the Ambassador car. I sat on the edge of the grimy seat, sweat now beginning to break out on my face.
We sped in to the city with swaying coconut tress, past billboards and past signs of familiar cell phone companies, but the rounded shape of the Bengali alphabets that dotted the skyline, made me realize how different this city was from mine. I had never learnt to read the Bengali alphabets and my city-guide map with the English words strewn across, seemed strangely out of place.
The maniacal car veered, and the loud sounds of the city crept in, as we went from the suburban Eastern Metropolitan Bypass in to the dense territory of South Calcutta. The drive yelled and asked me, “Didi...first time in our Kolkata?”. Not wanting to make conversation I replied, “Can I get breakfast somewhere?”. Too happy to comply and be of some assistance, he said that he would take me to his favourite eating joint.
The car stopped in a narrow jumble of bikes and other cars. A bazaar of paranoia greeted me. The driver's lanky frame with the hollow cheeks kept getting swallowed by the crowd, emerging a couple of times and then his long strides fell back in the giant's mouth yet again. Yelling out his name would do no good, still I called out “Pintuda..wait!!”. He didn't wait and several men standing at the grey and brown tea stall snickered. And I followed like a detective on a criminal's trail.
Sweet tea in small brown earthen cups, orange lozenges wrapped in slightly blackened
plastic, Lays chips in bright yellow bags that had gathered dust, deep fried fish rolls and mutton cutlets, scrambled eggs and omelette with extra chillies, plastic yo-yo balls that gave out a blue light, pirated DVDs of “KING KOG” and “STAR WAS”, bright red night gowns with polka dots and crochet at the hem, fake silk batik kurtas with wooden buttons and pink fishnet vests all stood united in one place- on the streets of Gariahat Bazaar in Calcutta.
A black and yellow taxi skidded to hit the side rails of the footpath as it just about missed the bus which had no place demarcated as its stop. The angry, irritated honking continued as the sweaty bodies descending from the bus, filled up the moist air, trying to avoid the open drain, the beggars pleading for alms, vociferous college kids and the hassled women with shopping bags who had hitched up their cotton saris to their ankles revealing plain sandals falling soundlessly on the city grime. People fought for every inch and gap and hole. The excess, it seemed was sacred for the city.
Being a finicky person didn't really help in this situation, as I shriveled up my body and pressed my arms at my sides, and watched helplessly as my blue slippers got caught between people and rain puddles. In a fit of frustration, I abandoned the careful gait, and ran behind the driver, who had stopped in front of the restaurant “Bhojohori Manna”. “He was a world conquering hero-chef”, my driver said, rightly gauging my befuddled expression and happy to pass on this trivia.
I didn't remember inviting him for breakfast. I scanned the menu to realize that he really had gotten me to his favorite restaurant. The place had no eggs and toast that I wanted, but specialized in kebabs, Biriyani, fish curries and chicken dishes. He ate a whole plate of Biriyani- which I would later realize is a favorite with Calcuttans while I fiddled on a glass of fresh lime soda. He asked me if I ate and drank only this much for breakfast. I replied, “Sometimes..”. From then on we shifted topics quickly. He asked me where I stayed in Delhi. “Chittaranjan Park”, I said. He looked as if he found a long lost friend as he said “That is where all Bengalis of Delhi stay right..! That is why your Bengali is so good..!” he concluded, slapping his thighs with the oily hands, pleased to have finally completed the jigsaw puzzle. I gave a weak smile, as the frayed menu card stared back at me with its incomprehensible letters. The child like excitement spread further across his face when he got to know that I had come to Calcutta to make films. “Didi..have you gone to Bombay and met any of the superstars?”, he asked me expectantly. I just replied in a plain no, not wanting to elucidate details that I made only documentary films, thinking he would not understand them anyway.
While going back to the car, he decided to take me through a shortcut and we walked through a dingy back lane. Hawkers cooked in the open. Their pots and pans stood tilted and skewed, bending under the weight of the gathering rain water. Men bathed openly from a community tap, and children played with pebbles on the moss covered ground. My house had always had a back lane but I had forgotten what it looked like,always having been forbidden to play there as a child. “It is dangerous for a girl to be there alone", everyone would say. The rusty door remained shut for years till someone remembered to open the massive lock and sweep away the brittle leaves gathered at the corners, during a spring cleaning session. I felt adventurous and delight in walking and watching this locked up world after so many years. But shooting in this rough margin would be out of question. The ideology of Sesame Street was different.
The humidity seemed to be on the rise as we walked through the lane. Some women stopped washing the clothes and men standing at tea stalls stared at this odd couple go by. I kept my eyes down and walked quickly, not noticing a man pulling a rickshaw running towards me. Being stared at is common in Indian towns and cities. Men stare at women and women stare away in to nothing.
I suddenly felt a jerk on my arms as Pintuda pulled me aside, screeching “Didi..”, his voice getting hammered by the noisy wheels of the rickshaw on the unpaved road. He hollered at the receeding back of the rickshaw puller who had not bothered to stop.. “Be careful...didi has come here to make a film ok!!”.
Perhaps, feeling that this incident had brought us closer, he turned on some Bengali music in the car, composed by a well-known pop musician, Bappi Lahiri. Pintuda seemed pleased to know that I had recognized the composer. Jhoom jhoom jhoom baba “Bappida stays in Bombay right..?”, he asked me from the rear view mirror. I nodded and started to give a set of vague directions to Monalisa Guest House. Next to the Rowing Club. Close to Marco Polo Restaurant.
Without any hesitation, the taxi turned and merrily threw water on the hassled pedestrians. It sped past a road named Ballygunge Circular Road and I remembered reading the name somewhere.
I kept trying to locate the place in my mind as I fished around for my diary in my bag. The taxi screeched to a halt. I hit on my head on the front seat. A disgusting smell filled my nostrils.
A decayed monster with cracked green walls and a clogged driveway floating in knee deep water stared back. “Monalisa Guest House..Didi”, Pintuda said somewhat apologetically. I couldn't really have expected a boutique hotel in thousand rupees a day.
I was annoyed not knowing how I would navigate this driveway, and asked the driver to pull up to the front door. I tiptoed on to the ground, not wanting to get my feet muddy. A man sitting at the reception desk, wearing a brown safari suit stared at me with interest, his gaze challenging me to find the dry spots. Behind him, I could see through an alcove, a tiny, smoky kitchen at work.
He yelled “Ayeee...Gopal...Gopaaal!!”. His shout cut through the dim noise of the street and the kitchen, and I toppled over. My knees sank in the murk. A small scrawny boy came running out of the door, wearing a thin T-shirt over a cloth wrapped around his thighs, the hem high enough to avoid the water. He splashed his way towards the car, and with ease carried my suitcase back to the front desk. The water dripped from my jeans, as I managed to smile at the man in the safari suit. He introduced himself as Mr. Bimal Ghosh- CEO of the guest house.
In a moment of anxiety and fear of facing an unknown city, I asked Pintuda to return the next day and take me around. He would be only too glad he said, and promised to reach the guest house at 10 am sharp.
I sat in the quiet of the small room of the same green shade. A thin bed had a lumpy
mattress and a dowdy bed cover with brown flowers that matched the curtains hanging from the window. There was no shower in the bathroom, but pink plastic buckets, with broken handles and scratched bodies. An enormous task stood before me. The crew from Delhi would arrive soon and I had to find those children in this eccentric city.
For no particular reason, Ballygunge Circular Road came back to mind. I referred to the Lonely Planet Guide and then my diary which mentioned the Mime Academy on the same road.
The Lonely Planet guide was clearly not meant for a film producer, hunting for children. Needless to say the “Places to Visit” section had no mention of this Academy or its whereabouts. Instead it listed botanical gardens, art museums and buildings that were the glorious remnants of the British Empire.
My father had remarked in the passing about Jogesh Dutta as being a famous mime artist. However, my boss had seemed skeptical on hearing this information, and said that he had never heard of this “man” before. “Bengalis have a way of making everybody famous”, he had added.
Historically, Bengal had always been a mecca for intellectual renaissance and artistic practices, boasting of geniuses such as the poet Rabindranath Tagore, the first Asian Nobel laureate and Satyajit Ray, who gave India a privileged position in world cinema. Though there are many more who can be recounted, these two figures have remained much revered and a common love- tying together the Bengalis of the home and the world. A film made by Satyajit Ray once encapsulated the three great loves of the Bengali community- eating great food, traveling around the world and lastly, engaging in culture and the arts. It is almost a rite of passage for children of Bengali descent, no matter which part of the world they are in, to learn music and especially Rabindra Sangeet. I remembered learning music from someone whose name I can never remember, but we called him the grandfather who teaches music. At the age of seven, I never quite understood what the grandiose words meant and ran away from the class once. Sitting in the room that day, I regretted not having gone back. Perhaps the songs would have helped me understand the city and its people better.
A wishful picture came to mind. A shiny, wooden auditorium. Children with faces painted white, practicing the art of mime. That would be my first stop the next morning.
Will keep the stories rolling, dear readers!It is night for now..
Cheers (aka Ullash in Bengali since we are in the thick of Bong land and spirit)
Travel Bee
In 2007, as a part of the Sesame Street India team, I was asked to shoot a series of short films in Kolkata.My boss said, “You have to capture the flavor of Calcutta, OK? Who else would know the city but a Bengali?” I hated to break it to him that people speaking the language “Bengali” and people who have grown up in Calcutta as “Bengalis” were completely diverse. And that I was a Bengali who had grown up in Delhi. The last time I had been to Calcutta was twenty years back. My knowledge of the city, its history and culture was perhaps as superficial as his.
“It is not easy being a Live Action film producer,” my boss said with an air of certainty at one of our pre-departure meetings, as he glanced at my notes for probable stories in Calcutta:
Probable ideas for shooting:
1.Jogesh Dutta Mime Academy---- Ballygunge Circular Road.
2. Painting- Patachitra at the Kalighat Temple
3. Find a mansion near North Calcutta- organize a treasure hunt.
4. Shadow show by Geyon Theater- They make shadow puppets from cardboard, colour papers and waste materials. (no address in directory)
5. Clock towers of Calcutta: a family maintains the clock tower of St. Paul's Cathedral. The child of the family travels up the winding stairs to see his grandfather at work. **
6. Football match in the Maidan.
7. Horse ride/ Tram ride/ Boat ride in the city- show Victoria Memorial/ Princep Ghat
8. A trip to the flower market.
9. Food:
It was a humble beginning. In a tiny, obscure corner of Bagbazar in North Kolkata, Nobin Chandra set up a sweet shop in 1866, but the last thing he wanted was to run a mere sales counter. The passion to create something of his very own haunted him. His ambition was to create a completely original sweet, that would bring new excitement to the Bengali palate. There was in him an intense desire to create a sweetmeat that was never there before... the ultimate delicacy. He toiled for months, armed with imagination, skill and tenacity, and sometime in the year 1868, his labours paid off. He made small balls of casein (cottage cheese) and boiled them in hot sugar syrup. The result was a succulent, spongy sweet with a unique, distinctive taste. Nobin Das christened it the “Rossogolla” and a legend
was born.- http://originofrasgulla.blogspot.com/
10. Learning Katha embroidery
11. Trip to the science city
**(Refer to Indian Express news- the grandfather was 80 years old in 1997!- no phone number or contact information)
My boss sighed and then after a moment of silence, his red face looked at me with irritation to say-“Well...Sukanya. These are all so overdone!” He used the word overdone with great frequency. “Science City will be boring! What will the child do there? He can't stand just stand there and watch.And music is super overdone on Sesame...” His voice started to grow louder and his face redder- “Painting is overdone too. And wait..you actually thought of football. The cameraman is lazy and bulky. Do you think he will actually run around and fall with a child on a football field? The clock tower story is your best bet...I want that one!” He was on the verge
of standing up now, sweat beginning to break out on his plump face as he said, “ But even then, where is the story and the drive, the motivation for the child! What is the take-away factor for the child? I repeat-look for the flavor of Calcutta...Kolkata..whatever!”
The tirade stopped as he fixed me with a hard stare. “Oh..and by the way, the budget has been slashed down. You need to take a look at your hotel booking again. It is 1000 rupees a day now for the hotel..Calcutta is cheap right?”, he said with nonchalance. “ And take the early morning or late night flight...!” he added.
Monalisa Guesthouse~
An uncle of mine, on returning from one of his trips remarked to me, “ You know
all sorts of strange things happen to me when I travel”. I stared at him, not quite sure what to make of this statement. And he went on, “ You know.. there will be water splattered on my seat or it wont have a seat number...or worst still, my berth might have been taken by someone else.” He added almost gleefully that this time while on his trip to Darjeeling, someone stole his slippers on the train, and I pictured him walking around bare feet in the town. My plane got ready to land in Calcutta's Netaji Subhash Airport, and the big rain drops smeared on the tiny window. I wondered if strange things happening on travels ran in the family. The night before I was to leave, the airline's ground staff had gone on a strike and Calcutta had recorded its maximum rainfall for the season.
As I stepped out from the air-conditioned dome on to the damp earth of the city, I felt swamped by the tide of taxi drivers and auto-rickshaw drivers,standing at the side rails calling out to hassled travelers. My father, a veteran traveler to this city, had given me a set of instructions to follow and one of them had been to make a beeline for the prepaid taxi stand. The drivers in the city are rogues he had warned. My driver however had a half smile playing on his face as he helped me with my luggage, but remembering my father's warning I didn't smile back. An overpowering smell of petroleum clung on to the hot, blackened interior of the Ambassador car. I sat on the edge of the grimy seat, sweat now beginning to break out on my face.
We sped in to the city with swaying coconut tress, past billboards and past signs of familiar cell phone companies, but the rounded shape of the Bengali alphabets that dotted the skyline, made me realize how different this city was from mine. I had never learnt to read the Bengali alphabets and my city-guide map with the English words strewn across, seemed strangely out of place.
The maniacal car veered, and the loud sounds of the city crept in, as we went from the suburban Eastern Metropolitan Bypass in to the dense territory of South Calcutta. The drive yelled and asked me, “Didi...first time in our Kolkata?”. Not wanting to make conversation I replied, “Can I get breakfast somewhere?”. Too happy to comply and be of some assistance, he said that he would take me to his favourite eating joint.
The car stopped in a narrow jumble of bikes and other cars. A bazaar of paranoia greeted me. The driver's lanky frame with the hollow cheeks kept getting swallowed by the crowd, emerging a couple of times and then his long strides fell back in the giant's mouth yet again. Yelling out his name would do no good, still I called out “Pintuda..wait!!”. He didn't wait and several men standing at the grey and brown tea stall snickered. And I followed like a detective on a criminal's trail.
Sweet tea in small brown earthen cups, orange lozenges wrapped in slightly blackened
plastic, Lays chips in bright yellow bags that had gathered dust, deep fried fish rolls and mutton cutlets, scrambled eggs and omelette with extra chillies, plastic yo-yo balls that gave out a blue light, pirated DVDs of “KING KOG” and “STAR WAS”, bright red night gowns with polka dots and crochet at the hem, fake silk batik kurtas with wooden buttons and pink fishnet vests all stood united in one place- on the streets of Gariahat Bazaar in Calcutta.
A black and yellow taxi skidded to hit the side rails of the footpath as it just about missed the bus which had no place demarcated as its stop. The angry, irritated honking continued as the sweaty bodies descending from the bus, filled up the moist air, trying to avoid the open drain, the beggars pleading for alms, vociferous college kids and the hassled women with shopping bags who had hitched up their cotton saris to their ankles revealing plain sandals falling soundlessly on the city grime. People fought for every inch and gap and hole. The excess, it seemed was sacred for the city.
Being a finicky person didn't really help in this situation, as I shriveled up my body and pressed my arms at my sides, and watched helplessly as my blue slippers got caught between people and rain puddles. In a fit of frustration, I abandoned the careful gait, and ran behind the driver, who had stopped in front of the restaurant “Bhojohori Manna”. “He was a world conquering hero-chef”, my driver said, rightly gauging my befuddled expression and happy to pass on this trivia.
I didn't remember inviting him for breakfast. I scanned the menu to realize that he really had gotten me to his favorite restaurant. The place had no eggs and toast that I wanted, but specialized in kebabs, Biriyani, fish curries and chicken dishes. He ate a whole plate of Biriyani- which I would later realize is a favorite with Calcuttans while I fiddled on a glass of fresh lime soda. He asked me if I ate and drank only this much for breakfast. I replied, “Sometimes..”. From then on we shifted topics quickly. He asked me where I stayed in Delhi. “Chittaranjan Park”, I said. He looked as if he found a long lost friend as he said “That is where all Bengalis of Delhi stay right..! That is why your Bengali is so good..!” he concluded, slapping his thighs with the oily hands, pleased to have finally completed the jigsaw puzzle. I gave a weak smile, as the frayed menu card stared back at me with its incomprehensible letters. The child like excitement spread further across his face when he got to know that I had come to Calcutta to make films. “Didi..have you gone to Bombay and met any of the superstars?”, he asked me expectantly. I just replied in a plain no, not wanting to elucidate details that I made only documentary films, thinking he would not understand them anyway.
While going back to the car, he decided to take me through a shortcut and we walked through a dingy back lane. Hawkers cooked in the open. Their pots and pans stood tilted and skewed, bending under the weight of the gathering rain water. Men bathed openly from a community tap, and children played with pebbles on the moss covered ground. My house had always had a back lane but I had forgotten what it looked like,always having been forbidden to play there as a child. “It is dangerous for a girl to be there alone", everyone would say. The rusty door remained shut for years till someone remembered to open the massive lock and sweep away the brittle leaves gathered at the corners, during a spring cleaning session. I felt adventurous and delight in walking and watching this locked up world after so many years. But shooting in this rough margin would be out of question. The ideology of Sesame Street was different.
The humidity seemed to be on the rise as we walked through the lane. Some women stopped washing the clothes and men standing at tea stalls stared at this odd couple go by. I kept my eyes down and walked quickly, not noticing a man pulling a rickshaw running towards me. Being stared at is common in Indian towns and cities. Men stare at women and women stare away in to nothing.
I suddenly felt a jerk on my arms as Pintuda pulled me aside, screeching “Didi..”, his voice getting hammered by the noisy wheels of the rickshaw on the unpaved road. He hollered at the receeding back of the rickshaw puller who had not bothered to stop.. “Be careful...didi has come here to make a film ok!!”.
Perhaps, feeling that this incident had brought us closer, he turned on some Bengali music in the car, composed by a well-known pop musician, Bappi Lahiri. Pintuda seemed pleased to know that I had recognized the composer. Jhoom jhoom jhoom baba “Bappida stays in Bombay right..?”, he asked me from the rear view mirror. I nodded and started to give a set of vague directions to Monalisa Guest House. Next to the Rowing Club. Close to Marco Polo Restaurant.
Without any hesitation, the taxi turned and merrily threw water on the hassled pedestrians. It sped past a road named Ballygunge Circular Road and I remembered reading the name somewhere.
I kept trying to locate the place in my mind as I fished around for my diary in my bag. The taxi screeched to a halt. I hit on my head on the front seat. A disgusting smell filled my nostrils.
A decayed monster with cracked green walls and a clogged driveway floating in knee deep water stared back. “Monalisa Guest House..Didi”, Pintuda said somewhat apologetically. I couldn't really have expected a boutique hotel in thousand rupees a day.
I was annoyed not knowing how I would navigate this driveway, and asked the driver to pull up to the front door. I tiptoed on to the ground, not wanting to get my feet muddy. A man sitting at the reception desk, wearing a brown safari suit stared at me with interest, his gaze challenging me to find the dry spots. Behind him, I could see through an alcove, a tiny, smoky kitchen at work.
He yelled “Ayeee...Gopal...Gopaaal!!”. His shout cut through the dim noise of the street and the kitchen, and I toppled over. My knees sank in the murk. A small scrawny boy came running out of the door, wearing a thin T-shirt over a cloth wrapped around his thighs, the hem high enough to avoid the water. He splashed his way towards the car, and with ease carried my suitcase back to the front desk. The water dripped from my jeans, as I managed to smile at the man in the safari suit. He introduced himself as Mr. Bimal Ghosh- CEO of the guest house.
In a moment of anxiety and fear of facing an unknown city, I asked Pintuda to return the next day and take me around. He would be only too glad he said, and promised to reach the guest house at 10 am sharp.
I sat in the quiet of the small room of the same green shade. A thin bed had a lumpy
mattress and a dowdy bed cover with brown flowers that matched the curtains hanging from the window. There was no shower in the bathroom, but pink plastic buckets, with broken handles and scratched bodies. An enormous task stood before me. The crew from Delhi would arrive soon and I had to find those children in this eccentric city.
For no particular reason, Ballygunge Circular Road came back to mind. I referred to the Lonely Planet Guide and then my diary which mentioned the Mime Academy on the same road.
The Lonely Planet guide was clearly not meant for a film producer, hunting for children. Needless to say the “Places to Visit” section had no mention of this Academy or its whereabouts. Instead it listed botanical gardens, art museums and buildings that were the glorious remnants of the British Empire.
My father had remarked in the passing about Jogesh Dutta as being a famous mime artist. However, my boss had seemed skeptical on hearing this information, and said that he had never heard of this “man” before. “Bengalis have a way of making everybody famous”, he had added.
Historically, Bengal had always been a mecca for intellectual renaissance and artistic practices, boasting of geniuses such as the poet Rabindranath Tagore, the first Asian Nobel laureate and Satyajit Ray, who gave India a privileged position in world cinema. Though there are many more who can be recounted, these two figures have remained much revered and a common love- tying together the Bengalis of the home and the world. A film made by Satyajit Ray once encapsulated the three great loves of the Bengali community- eating great food, traveling around the world and lastly, engaging in culture and the arts. It is almost a rite of passage for children of Bengali descent, no matter which part of the world they are in, to learn music and especially Rabindra Sangeet. I remembered learning music from someone whose name I can never remember, but we called him the grandfather who teaches music. At the age of seven, I never quite understood what the grandiose words meant and ran away from the class once. Sitting in the room that day, I regretted not having gone back. Perhaps the songs would have helped me understand the city and its people better.
A wishful picture came to mind. A shiny, wooden auditorium. Children with faces painted white, practicing the art of mime. That would be my first stop the next morning.
Will keep the stories rolling, dear readers!It is night for now..
Cheers (aka Ullash in Bengali since we are in the thick of Bong land and spirit)
Travel Bee
Monday, August 9, 2010
Sexy in the City
Be forewarned. This is hardly going to be your desi take on the Carrie Bradshaw-Samantha what's her name brand of feminism. Quite the opposite in fact. I am not going to beat around the bush here. I hated the fact that Samantha was waving those darn condoms in a public space supposed to be the souk- in the face of the bewildered "Middle-eastern" men. We could all see how hard she was trying to make those pumped up breasts remain in place and the skin remain intact by applying hummus.
See if you are a desi woman, you have probably remained very secretive about your beauty rituals. Why let the man see what goes on to get the perfect shape of eyebrows right? I for one have found feminism to be a very distorted notion in America. Coming from a country where couples can be beaten up for kissing in park to a place where there is PDA galore, hems rise and flash, one would wonder how desis react to such a drastic change in situation. Admittedly, it can get a little confusing and then liberating. You don't have to worry about the lechy dude in his dhinchak Lancer cat-calling if you dare to step out in your mini or don't cover your arms.
I like to believe am a through and through Dilliwalli. So it came as no surprise that sitting in California, I was mulling and writing about Delhi, excavating every possible artifact that I could- to make the setting of my novel in progress come alive. I was born and raised in the city and then traipsed through the city while shooting my documentary film projects and all my memories of the city are collapsed into a huge colorful palette. I can never forget the city- the roads named after freedom fighters, the large leafy trees and the white houses, eating icecream at India gate, the rude autowallahs, the snobbery I inculcated during my time at an uppity women's college and then going to the urban slums of Delh to do "research" only to realize that what strikes my fancy is the way women gathered around a flat screen TV to watch Tulsi Mihir Virani and children enamored by Pokemon.
Over the years, my notion of what constitutes an "urban" India has become distorted. I have to place the word "urban" in quotes simply because it doesnot remain a generic term anymore. Cities are no longer urban and urban spaces are no longer exclusively cities. It can not be- simply because dreams are no longer exclusive to cities. I have always been a fan of film noir- the gangsters, the gun shots, the chase sequences, the femme fatale, the sleazy bars and the nice at heart prostitute who gets shot at the end for helping our hero. So when a film claims to be a city film about women in a city- my radars go up. There have been two in the recent past in fact- one claiming to be the desi version of the other. Aisha and Sex and the City II. I have mulled over this entry for a long time and for some reason couldn't come up with an appropriate title. So sexy in the city it is..considering how many films do a double whammy of being the woman in a particular city- the fashionable-career woman in New York, the socialite woman in Delhi, the small town woman who goes to Mumbai to make it big! We have our roles for women defined and we better fit into these typecasts..else, you know what- all hell will break lose. Women like Aisha (pleae watch the latest film Aisha) might have to marry a poor BPO sector boy from Bahadurgarh and women like Carrie might have to settle for only one apartment in NY (poor her! sob sob) and take care of children without nannies.
See there are a couple of issues here. It is not just about looking good and wearing the Malino Blahanics and walking to the grocery store (oh..hang on! these women don't goto grocery stores. They wine and dine out and drink coffee to get rid of their hangovers. Hamari Aisha has to be a little more gharelu than that. So she bakes lest those fingernails get haldi in them.) The parallels are obvious. It is not just about being sexy and romping around the city. It is also not just about spending all that money to buy that Coco Chanel dress from Emporia Mall or Fifth Avenue. I wish it were that simple. It is about who has the right to look sexy. And while it seems alarming to even write this-- sexiness comes with a class spin in our supposed new genre of female lib movies also known as chick flicks. Think about it. How convenient it is to tie up money with your English speaking abilities and your accent to how you dress and which pubs you hang out in. The action happens in the billboard cities- Mumbai could be Manhattan and Gurgaon could be Dubai. Literally. But I only wish that the filmmakers didn't reduce feminism to such cheap quotients of capitalism and then try so blatantly, so hard to maintain the actually banal and irrelevant status quo. No wonder the Bahadurgarhi girl gets the accountant's son. And hamari apni laadli Aisha has to get the suave Wharton return boy. How convenient!
Come on. I thought cities were supposed to be less class stratified than that. They were supposed to spaces where people landed with ambition and dreams. Since when did dreams begin to get a class spin and since when did uber elite (and actually quite obnoxious at that) women start universalizing the struggles of every woman? Ofcourse Aisha and Carrie love their lives. They have to. They have rich husbands and rich fathers to take care of them. And ofcourse they have the right to look sexy in hot pants. Unlike the other lesser mortals of women (who by the way are completely non existent from the scenario) traveling in autos, buses and subways- accumulating the grime and filth of the city, these women are always seen hailing cabs or climbing into Daddy's chauffer driven cars. Class,status,profession, what and whom you can desire, sex appeal, speaking English (it is a different matter how Punjabified Aisha's own accent was) - they are all corollaries of each other.
A couple of years back, while doing a research project on cinema and cities, I chanced upon a hilarious and witty film called UP ke Bunty aur Babli- a direct take off on Bunty aur Babli that was made by Shaad Ali. The only difference was that the dreams of UP ke Bunty aur Babli had been scaled down- they stole tractors and cows and sang songs in the fields. That was the only difference- scale. Who cared about class and status? Those were things that were meant to be acquired in the course of the film. India A, B, C, D..we love attaching these labels. But what perhaps often goes unnoticed is that with devices like the satellite, cable TV and internet- dreams and aspirations can in no certain way remain restricted within class. Manhattan is within everyone's reach. Come to New Jersey if you don't believe me. And Carrie and gang..well, I have gone hoarse screaming about the absolutely trite nature of white feminism with their utterly foolish ambitions and escapades. One film critic in India actually had the nerve to call Aisha "the desi version of Sex and the City". I shuddered at the comparison. Or maybe both films deserve a comparison to each other- not only for the lack of satirical value but also for the "let's charge it to daddy's credit card" kind of feminism.
Come on, give us a women a little "credit" now.
Till next time readers..
Cheerio!
Travel Bee
See if you are a desi woman, you have probably remained very secretive about your beauty rituals. Why let the man see what goes on to get the perfect shape of eyebrows right? I for one have found feminism to be a very distorted notion in America. Coming from a country where couples can be beaten up for kissing in park to a place where there is PDA galore, hems rise and flash, one would wonder how desis react to such a drastic change in situation. Admittedly, it can get a little confusing and then liberating. You don't have to worry about the lechy dude in his dhinchak Lancer cat-calling if you dare to step out in your mini or don't cover your arms.
I like to believe am a through and through Dilliwalli. So it came as no surprise that sitting in California, I was mulling and writing about Delhi, excavating every possible artifact that I could- to make the setting of my novel in progress come alive. I was born and raised in the city and then traipsed through the city while shooting my documentary film projects and all my memories of the city are collapsed into a huge colorful palette. I can never forget the city- the roads named after freedom fighters, the large leafy trees and the white houses, eating icecream at India gate, the rude autowallahs, the snobbery I inculcated during my time at an uppity women's college and then going to the urban slums of Delh to do "research" only to realize that what strikes my fancy is the way women gathered around a flat screen TV to watch Tulsi Mihir Virani and children enamored by Pokemon.
Over the years, my notion of what constitutes an "urban" India has become distorted. I have to place the word "urban" in quotes simply because it doesnot remain a generic term anymore. Cities are no longer urban and urban spaces are no longer exclusively cities. It can not be- simply because dreams are no longer exclusive to cities. I have always been a fan of film noir- the gangsters, the gun shots, the chase sequences, the femme fatale, the sleazy bars and the nice at heart prostitute who gets shot at the end for helping our hero. So when a film claims to be a city film about women in a city- my radars go up. There have been two in the recent past in fact- one claiming to be the desi version of the other. Aisha and Sex and the City II. I have mulled over this entry for a long time and for some reason couldn't come up with an appropriate title. So sexy in the city it is..considering how many films do a double whammy of being the woman in a particular city- the fashionable-career woman in New York, the socialite woman in Delhi, the small town woman who goes to Mumbai to make it big! We have our roles for women defined and we better fit into these typecasts..else, you know what- all hell will break lose. Women like Aisha (pleae watch the latest film Aisha) might have to marry a poor BPO sector boy from Bahadurgarh and women like Carrie might have to settle for only one apartment in NY (poor her! sob sob) and take care of children without nannies.
See there are a couple of issues here. It is not just about looking good and wearing the Malino Blahanics and walking to the grocery store (oh..hang on! these women don't goto grocery stores. They wine and dine out and drink coffee to get rid of their hangovers. Hamari Aisha has to be a little more gharelu than that. So she bakes lest those fingernails get haldi in them.) The parallels are obvious. It is not just about being sexy and romping around the city. It is also not just about spending all that money to buy that Coco Chanel dress from Emporia Mall or Fifth Avenue. I wish it were that simple. It is about who has the right to look sexy. And while it seems alarming to even write this-- sexiness comes with a class spin in our supposed new genre of female lib movies also known as chick flicks. Think about it. How convenient it is to tie up money with your English speaking abilities and your accent to how you dress and which pubs you hang out in. The action happens in the billboard cities- Mumbai could be Manhattan and Gurgaon could be Dubai. Literally. But I only wish that the filmmakers didn't reduce feminism to such cheap quotients of capitalism and then try so blatantly, so hard to maintain the actually banal and irrelevant status quo. No wonder the Bahadurgarhi girl gets the accountant's son. And hamari apni laadli Aisha has to get the suave Wharton return boy. How convenient!
Come on. I thought cities were supposed to be less class stratified than that. They were supposed to spaces where people landed with ambition and dreams. Since when did dreams begin to get a class spin and since when did uber elite (and actually quite obnoxious at that) women start universalizing the struggles of every woman? Ofcourse Aisha and Carrie love their lives. They have to. They have rich husbands and rich fathers to take care of them. And ofcourse they have the right to look sexy in hot pants. Unlike the other lesser mortals of women (who by the way are completely non existent from the scenario) traveling in autos, buses and subways- accumulating the grime and filth of the city, these women are always seen hailing cabs or climbing into Daddy's chauffer driven cars. Class,status,profession, what and whom you can desire, sex appeal, speaking English (it is a different matter how Punjabified Aisha's own accent was) - they are all corollaries of each other.
A couple of years back, while doing a research project on cinema and cities, I chanced upon a hilarious and witty film called UP ke Bunty aur Babli- a direct take off on Bunty aur Babli that was made by Shaad Ali. The only difference was that the dreams of UP ke Bunty aur Babli had been scaled down- they stole tractors and cows and sang songs in the fields. That was the only difference- scale. Who cared about class and status? Those were things that were meant to be acquired in the course of the film. India A, B, C, D..we love attaching these labels. But what perhaps often goes unnoticed is that with devices like the satellite, cable TV and internet- dreams and aspirations can in no certain way remain restricted within class. Manhattan is within everyone's reach. Come to New Jersey if you don't believe me. And Carrie and gang..well, I have gone hoarse screaming about the absolutely trite nature of white feminism with their utterly foolish ambitions and escapades. One film critic in India actually had the nerve to call Aisha "the desi version of Sex and the City". I shuddered at the comparison. Or maybe both films deserve a comparison to each other- not only for the lack of satirical value but also for the "let's charge it to daddy's credit card" kind of feminism.
Come on, give us a women a little "credit" now.
Till next time readers..
Cheerio!
Travel Bee
Friday, August 6, 2010
Strange encounters for the desi kind
There are three dreams that any Bengali would love to fulfill: eat and drink themselves to death (no wonder Bengali households are stocked with Digene and Gelusil), travel around the world (yes, the monkey cap is the best friend), and revel in arts and music (from Rabindranath to the Beatles- everyone is "ours").
So when a desi Bengali woman gets to fulfill even one of these pursuits in a place that has practically fallen off the map, one would obviously expect some strange encounters, right? (like meeting yet another member from Bong land..yes, we are omnipresent!). There were encounters alright- not the exuberant sorts that would make you jump off the seat...but the more shadowy, whispery sort- the kind that tickle you on the neck and then vanish into nothingness.
When I dreamed of Llano del Rio that night, a dusty, stony world filled my vision. The crisp light bouncing off the mountains sharpened the shadows of trees. Two men stood in a pit surrounded by sandy dunes and watch each other. Their eyes twitched on the golden, rugged faces. A slow drip of water fell in to a bowl of cowboy hat. A confident hand reached towards a black leather holster. A cloud of red dust got kicked up by the hooves of horses as a gun fired in the silent air.
The great American hero even in his violent and destructive acts, emerges as the symbol of hope and an agent for attaining utopia in a world ridden by treachery, devils and savages. This is where I encountered American history- not in the unequivocal narratives of my history textbook but in these formula films that tell stories of moving westwards, expansion and conquering frontiers. I wished for the desert sanctuary to be filled with these vivid men on horsebacks because the idea of searching for a socialist city in the global palace of capitalism seemed slightly perplexing.
When I travel to a new place or within a new place, I am scared of getting lost in unfamiliar surroundings. I have never been good with maps. The arrow marking the north confuses me because I never know how to orient myself. For a long time now, I have learned to rely on landmarks. I try to memorize the names of the most insignificant stations and obscure buildings. I know that a Metrolink train stops at both Tustin and Irvine but an Amtrak train stops only at the Irvine station. Time is of utmost significance between landmarks. When I take the Metrolink from Los Angeles, I start packing my bag as soon as my train reaches Sylmar to get down at Newhall. There is not enough time between the two stations to get up and make my way to the door. And if I get lost, I have no qualms in stopping people on the roads and asking for directions.
But as we set out to visit the Utopian site of a colony named Llano del Rio that the American Socialists had envisioned in 1914, my usual travel gear failed significantly. Miles and miles of sprawling barren land filled the way from Newhall to Llano del Rio. Black rock faces and dry bushes, charred from the recent fires in the Los Angeles county rose up to face the surprisingly harsh November sun. No walking sticks would even mistakenly find their way there. There were no pedestrian sidewalks, crossings or subways. One arresting bend of the road, like many others had a sign warding off pedestrians. Masses of shimmering gray concrete had taken over the topography of the desert. Streams of cars and trucks flowed past us in to the urban wilderness. A couple of romantic names like Singing Hills Drive and Littlerock are the only diversions that I can now recall. Despite being in a car with my classmates, all united in our attempt to seek this historical site, I felt as though I was straggling in the landscape of sameness. The desert seemed to have an effect of sucking one in to temporary amnesia- to keep its mysteries and secrets alive- so that no one can go tell it to the rest of the world.
And so I tried to keep up by noting down everything in an “almost stupidly” manner like Perec suggests. In the colorless forms, standing out against the spotless blue sky, there were miles of walled subdivisions. There were million dollar condos. The condos had pools, golf courses, gyms, spas and jacuzzis. Jack in the Box, Wendy's, Taco Bell, Mc Donalds, KFC, CVC pharmacy, Ralphs, Vons, In and Out, KFC, CVC, In and Out. The subdivisions began to flounder as the beat started to repeat itself. The number of cars thinned down as we crossed a little shop of horrors selling goblins. The site, as indicated by a Google map, is located on the elbow of Pearblossom Highway, tucked away in Antelope Valley.
View Larger Map
Dan, sitting in the front of the car, playing the role of the navigator in the desert, pointed to a narrow, brown trail and yelled, “I spot Utopia.” Caroline's car dipped and swerved on the unpaved road before coming to a halt. There were no similarities to the photographs that I have been looking at. Instead a parking space for helicopters greets us. We backtracked towards Pearblossom Highway.
As we reached the site of Llano, a familiar view of the ruins took over. Familiar only because of having seen a vast range of photo archives struggling to keep a utopic past alive. Photographs give you a sense of fixity in a new place, despite the body being in a state of flux. But sometimes there is a danger of knowing too much and a pleasant surprise being spoilt. Milt Stark was our official guide for the day. Almost eighty-five years old and a resident of the Valley since 1923, he was the co-founder of the Antelope Valley Heritage Foundation, an organization established in attempt to save important historical, archaeological and biological sites in the Antelope Valley. As we went trooping in to the depths of the ruins with Milt Stark directing us to the history of alternative future, I found myself not discovering the banal details like the color and the texture of the stone surfaces anymore, but noticing and excavating artifacts that lay buried in the middle of Milt Stark's memory and the surrounding mountains turning blue under the sun. We walked through the skeletons of the fireplaces marking the location of an old hotel building. Wandering down a little further was the remnants of a water creek, a cannery and a field stone cistern. A pile of copper cans lay strewn around, almost as if people had dropped them in haste and fled the miseries of the colony. Stark said that people in the colony had used them for storing food. And the glorious cinema hall, post office and California's first Montessori school seem to have disappeared in the desert soil.
As Stark started to speak, the figure of Job Harriman began to shroud the silent, ghost colony. Disillusioned with the state of politics and an economy bending down in Depression, Harriman and his associates set out to set up a model commune according to the Marxian school of philosophy, based on the idea of surplus value for the common good. The means of production were to be owned jointly and equally by the colonists and they were to share the benefits of surplus labour. In Stark's view, a major reason for the Colony's failure in its quest for Utopia lay in the fact that the colonists were not grounded in the principles of socialism. At the end of the day, they just wanted their pay of four dollars a day and shirked their duties, wanting the largest share of the commissary. A wide difference of opinions and in fighting escalated between the colonists as the colony itself grew over matters of agricultural produce and its distribution.
In a letter (dated February 21, 1918) to a prospective colonist, a Llano committee member explaining the rules and formulae of peaceful cohabitation writes-
"Remember, should you come here, that this is no heaven. We can't do the impossible. We haven't an Utopia. You'd think we were some lumber town if you dropped in just now. It will be that way for some time. Also we haven't a bank in the sky out of which we can coin money or power. We must work with what we have and do as all pioneers do overcome by sheer force and persistence. Would like to have you become an installment member. The Ten dollars you send here monthly will help develop the place, you can see that.
If you are in doubt about anything please write at once.
Fraternally
LLANO DEL RIO COMPANY of Nevada.
Membership Department.
E.S. Wooster,
Dict. Williams.
PS--Almost forgot to mention that we found no enclosure in your letter. Did you neglect to send it?"
As I walked along the dusty lanes of a dead Llano, I thought about this letter and the contradictory nature of its foundational philosophy seemed to loom larger than the greed and mental attitudes of the colonists. It was perhaps not just the harsh realities of the surroundings (it was discovered that an earthquake fault line diverted much of the colony's water supplies) and the quarrels amongst the people that spelled a slow disappearance of the colony, but money, capitalism and socialism themselves formed an unfaithful triad. Job Harriman's utopia was ultimately premised on an industrial enterprise, the off shoot of which was to be a system based on equal opportunities. But I wondered if the author of the graffiti knew this as he sprayed “APOCALYPSE SHORTLY” on the very ground that Harriman must have walked on.
In an undergraduate class of social anthropology, I had read a fascinating account of how traditional societies such as those of the agricultural communities of the Kwakuitul tribe in the Pacific North West, are marked not money or goods of monetary value. Instead a symbolic idea of exchange perpetuates the idea of economics through the traditional feast of the Potlatch. A Potlatch is a grand feast and a large presentation of goods that aim for not only a reciprocity and redistribution of wealth, but in fact maintain the kinship structures of the society.
As I left Llano and Stark and the traces of Harriman behind I felt that perhaps Utopia was never the aim of the colony. It was perhaps a chapter of struggle in history to capture an alternative frontier of value systems. It offers no clear answers and remains mystical much like the desert itself. Or perhaps the desert has the ability to lock up the past in its vast expanse and the men of the desert - Harriman, Stark and the cowboys seek nostalgia in the loneliness.
Travel Bee is getting a little spooked out here, dear readers..
Till next time..
Safe travels!
Monday, August 2, 2010
How I Met Your Father while learning to cook Bhindi
In the words of my sister.."You can write well. And you can cook well." Hmmm.."So what could your job options possibly be?"..Hmm.."Maybe write a cookbook." She broke out into spasms of giggles and here I am recording her words in my blog..she really did provide some food for thought.
Ok, the amount of cooking I know can barely fill a postcard, let alone a cookbook. But I am convinced that Americans have completely bulldozed and romanticized the concept of kitchen, food, cooking and grocery shopping. Think about it- don't all the romances have the horrendous, icky diner and the utterly delectable man wrapped up into the same scenario? She spills wine on his expensive shirt. He finds the trace of mustard above her lips incredibly cute. She meets the man of dreams in the dog and cat aisle of the neighbourhood grocery store. And don't be surprised if the man of her dreams is the pizza delivery guy. Yes, pizza and sex-- buy one get one free. Something is screaming capitalism to me right there, but you know what-- lets get back to the food.
You see..if you are a desi woman like me..brought up in a Bengali bhadralok household, chances are that all you have ever done in your life are poda-shuna (aka reading, writing and mugging- the necessary pursuits that will make you conquer the world), and maybe singing, dancing and painting (one, two, three or all of the above) and if you have a super liberal family like mine- karate could be one of your traits too.
So needless to say, you would have little regard for the khana, pakana and bartan-dhona. You would be able to recite Yeats, lambast Baudrillard (yes, apparently hyper-reality is passe now..hmmm) and have a poster of Edward Said in your room (America has little regard for him, but let's just remain in kitchen politics for sometime)- you will probably not be able to tell those dals apart (and no, rajma and chanas don't count).
This is the slightly strange thing about desi men, though. The few that I have encountered have turned out to be excellent cooks- one of them claimed to know how to make kale soup and yams (now this is getting fancy) and the other one actually made the perfect paranthas and looked at me with complete disdain when I managed make scrambled eggs look like they had been in the range of some intense crossfire. No sanskaar women of this generation have, I heard him smirk. Well, if you have played cricket with eggs at the age of four, you will have little reverence for produce and other natural products. I probably shouldnot be writing this. When the economy runs dry, the number of eligible men shrinks too. Paisa, makaan- all dabaoed beneath the ground. Oh well..the feminist in me is kicking in..
So what does a desi woman do when hunger strikes for desi khana. And if the only vegetable that you have ever liked is the bhindi- do the foreign shores offer you the nostalgic gastronomic delight? Yes, there is little that the foreign shores don't offer you-- but I think it is looped within a political conduit. See...the first thing that you have to do is look for bhindis. Goto the grocery store and ask for okras (not ladyfingers..we desis love to call baingan brinjals and bhindis ladyfingers. If you ever say these words, the cute guy in the aisle will at best think you are an exotic beauty from some long lost island, give you a polite smile and walk away..so..watch what you say). Ok..the okras will be frozen and chopped. See ..this is what I sometimes like about America. Very no-nonsense and straightforward- allowing for little public intervention.
Else imagine the scene in your neighbourhood- next door neighbour Chintu's mummy hollering after the sabziwallah in her pink Lajpat Nagar housecoat, the flimsy fabric seamlessly curved against her dimpled thighs and her boobs sneakily hidden by the voil dupatta. She huffs out of the house and yells at the poor fellow for ignoring her. And once the poor fellow makes the mistake of stopping, she haggles with him to reduce the price from three rupees to two rupees. And very soon Raju, Bablu and Pinky's respective mummies will also join in. And perhaps the discussion will turn from price of chillies to price of saris to Ratna Didi's daughter who is marrying an MBA from god-knows-what-college in Karnataka. (Yes, they can get snooty and picky. But god lives in the microeconomic details here).
Oh no..no such drama here in America. We have little time for drama. Haggling is despicable and so are mass uprisings. And believe me, there is little drama in the cooking of this version of bhindi.
Dunk the cut okras in a microwavable bowl. Add two teaspoons of olive oil. Fry some cumin and drop into the bhindi. Add chopped onions, garlic, tomatoes and garam masala. Mix all the ingredients and cover the bowl and pop it into the microwave for 15 minutes on high. Your bhindi masala is ready..sadly without drama.
You see..I am all for some action on the streets- where Chintu's mummy is wagging her fingers at an old sabziwallah- as shriveled up as his sabzis and fighting in her nasal voice. I like that the Lajpat Nagar House of Fashion housecoat is fighting for attention with Levis Jeans. And I like that the Indian woman is claiming her public space.
Well..you will hardly find such excitement over cut okras. See America. You hardly give me anything to write about. For the last five years it was the Bush -Laden ka adbhut kissa and for the next five years it will be Obama uhauling stories of unemployment and oil spills across the country. So those gappi ladies standing at the crossing of the fish market, chatting nineteen to dozen are probably worth more than your politically correct narratives.
And as much as I am a sap and love to watch American romcoms, I never met any potential father of my children in the aisle of a grocery store. Why? Because I asked for ladyfingers. Not okras. The linguistic vagaries that my English teacher never taught me. And I wasn't even called an exotic beauty (that was the best case scenario but the worst happened to me). The guy looked at me as if I was growing horns and ran for his life.
Till next time readers..keep inventing some drama in your cooking. Who needs recipes anyway?
Cheerio..
Travel Bee
Ok, the amount of cooking I know can barely fill a postcard, let alone a cookbook. But I am convinced that Americans have completely bulldozed and romanticized the concept of kitchen, food, cooking and grocery shopping. Think about it- don't all the romances have the horrendous, icky diner and the utterly delectable man wrapped up into the same scenario? She spills wine on his expensive shirt. He finds the trace of mustard above her lips incredibly cute. She meets the man of dreams in the dog and cat aisle of the neighbourhood grocery store. And don't be surprised if the man of her dreams is the pizza delivery guy. Yes, pizza and sex-- buy one get one free. Something is screaming capitalism to me right there, but you know what-- lets get back to the food.
You see..if you are a desi woman like me..brought up in a Bengali bhadralok household, chances are that all you have ever done in your life are poda-shuna (aka reading, writing and mugging- the necessary pursuits that will make you conquer the world), and maybe singing, dancing and painting (one, two, three or all of the above) and if you have a super liberal family like mine- karate could be one of your traits too.
So needless to say, you would have little regard for the khana, pakana and bartan-dhona. You would be able to recite Yeats, lambast Baudrillard (yes, apparently hyper-reality is passe now..hmmm) and have a poster of Edward Said in your room (America has little regard for him, but let's just remain in kitchen politics for sometime)- you will probably not be able to tell those dals apart (and no, rajma and chanas don't count).
This is the slightly strange thing about desi men, though. The few that I have encountered have turned out to be excellent cooks- one of them claimed to know how to make kale soup and yams (now this is getting fancy) and the other one actually made the perfect paranthas and looked at me with complete disdain when I managed make scrambled eggs look like they had been in the range of some intense crossfire. No sanskaar women of this generation have, I heard him smirk. Well, if you have played cricket with eggs at the age of four, you will have little reverence for produce and other natural products. I probably shouldnot be writing this. When the economy runs dry, the number of eligible men shrinks too. Paisa, makaan- all dabaoed beneath the ground. Oh well..the feminist in me is kicking in..
So what does a desi woman do when hunger strikes for desi khana. And if the only vegetable that you have ever liked is the bhindi- do the foreign shores offer you the nostalgic gastronomic delight? Yes, there is little that the foreign shores don't offer you-- but I think it is looped within a political conduit. See...the first thing that you have to do is look for bhindis. Goto the grocery store and ask for okras (not ladyfingers..we desis love to call baingan brinjals and bhindis ladyfingers. If you ever say these words, the cute guy in the aisle will at best think you are an exotic beauty from some long lost island, give you a polite smile and walk away..so..watch what you say). Ok..the okras will be frozen and chopped. See ..this is what I sometimes like about America. Very no-nonsense and straightforward- allowing for little public intervention.
Else imagine the scene in your neighbourhood- next door neighbour Chintu's mummy hollering after the sabziwallah in her pink Lajpat Nagar housecoat, the flimsy fabric seamlessly curved against her dimpled thighs and her boobs sneakily hidden by the voil dupatta. She huffs out of the house and yells at the poor fellow for ignoring her. And once the poor fellow makes the mistake of stopping, she haggles with him to reduce the price from three rupees to two rupees. And very soon Raju, Bablu and Pinky's respective mummies will also join in. And perhaps the discussion will turn from price of chillies to price of saris to Ratna Didi's daughter who is marrying an MBA from god-knows-what-college in Karnataka. (Yes, they can get snooty and picky. But god lives in the microeconomic details here).
Oh no..no such drama here in America. We have little time for drama. Haggling is despicable and so are mass uprisings. And believe me, there is little drama in the cooking of this version of bhindi.
Dunk the cut okras in a microwavable bowl. Add two teaspoons of olive oil. Fry some cumin and drop into the bhindi. Add chopped onions, garlic, tomatoes and garam masala. Mix all the ingredients and cover the bowl and pop it into the microwave for 15 minutes on high. Your bhindi masala is ready..sadly without drama.
You see..I am all for some action on the streets- where Chintu's mummy is wagging her fingers at an old sabziwallah- as shriveled up as his sabzis and fighting in her nasal voice. I like that the Lajpat Nagar House of Fashion housecoat is fighting for attention with Levis Jeans. And I like that the Indian woman is claiming her public space.
Well..you will hardly find such excitement over cut okras. See America. You hardly give me anything to write about. For the last five years it was the Bush -Laden ka adbhut kissa and for the next five years it will be Obama uhauling stories of unemployment and oil spills across the country. So those gappi ladies standing at the crossing of the fish market, chatting nineteen to dozen are probably worth more than your politically correct narratives.
And as much as I am a sap and love to watch American romcoms, I never met any potential father of my children in the aisle of a grocery store. Why? Because I asked for ladyfingers. Not okras. The linguistic vagaries that my English teacher never taught me. And I wasn't even called an exotic beauty (that was the best case scenario but the worst happened to me). The guy looked at me as if I was growing horns and ran for his life.
Till next time readers..keep inventing some drama in your cooking. Who needs recipes anyway?
Cheerio..
Travel Bee
sound advice- papdi chaat speaks from Bombay
one cannot escape advice- this universal phenomenon is inevitable, unless you are a sadhu meditating in the himalayas. it's a bug that bites everyone with any human contact, in any form- direct or not. dispensing advice is rather simple, but to receive and digest it can be as difficult as pappad for your digestive juices.
before giving advice, stop and think; does that individual need any advice from you? do you, as a person, have expertise in that particular subject matter? or does the said person want to rant and only needs a good ear?
sometimes advice comes from people who could use some themselves.
from the "fraandly" neighbourhood aunty "beta, kitni moti ho gayi hai. thoda hisaab se khaaya kar. subah garam paani peelena, aur gym ki membership tumhe sonu discount mein dilwah dega. tere health ke liye hi bol rahi hoon!"..sigh.... only if the chair wasn't giving way under the weight of her humongous behind....
sometimes, when you least expect it - "I'm telling you, buy this stock, its going to sky rocket! mark my words! i'll change my name otherwise!".. well if it doesn't, what good is it to me if you change your name?!
sometimes its patriotic- "India should spend more on defense and the military! these damn terrorists should be taught a lesson!" - like that's the way to stop terrorism.
sometimes its selfish.."why don't you sell your flat to me, that way the property would be within the family and everyone's happy!" - the money, would then come in installments over decades or not come at all!
sometimes warm and friendly- "maybe you should not breakup. think twice before taking a rash decision."- now that one may actually work!
..and there are a million different facets of advice giving which i can't possibly elaborate on.
since desis give advice to each other on everything, you start expecting it and are slightly disappointed when nobody is around to give you any. being away from home teaches you this harsh truth. advice that is not only for that particular individual but helps build what we call a community.
so to all those parents, teachers, guidance counselors, doctors, spouses and friends (some who told me to carry that prestige pressure cooker to the US of A)- keep the advice flowing, coz maybe, just maybe it might actually be useful!
- Papdi Chaat (the pseudonym is a tribute to the Mexican guy who made me the dish in California, and to Sukanya who bore the brunt of the extra red chilli powder!)
before giving advice, stop and think; does that individual need any advice from you? do you, as a person, have expertise in that particular subject matter? or does the said person want to rant and only needs a good ear?
sometimes advice comes from people who could use some themselves.
from the "fraandly" neighbourhood aunty "beta, kitni moti ho gayi hai. thoda hisaab se khaaya kar. subah garam paani peelena, aur gym ki membership tumhe sonu discount mein dilwah dega. tere health ke liye hi bol rahi hoon!"..sigh.... only if the chair wasn't giving way under the weight of her humongous behind....
sometimes, when you least expect it - "I'm telling you, buy this stock, its going to sky rocket! mark my words! i'll change my name otherwise!".. well if it doesn't, what good is it to me if you change your name?!
sometimes its patriotic- "India should spend more on defense and the military! these damn terrorists should be taught a lesson!" - like that's the way to stop terrorism.
sometimes its selfish.."why don't you sell your flat to me, that way the property would be within the family and everyone's happy!" - the money, would then come in installments over decades or not come at all!
sometimes warm and friendly- "maybe you should not breakup. think twice before taking a rash decision."- now that one may actually work!
..and there are a million different facets of advice giving which i can't possibly elaborate on.
since desis give advice to each other on everything, you start expecting it and are slightly disappointed when nobody is around to give you any. being away from home teaches you this harsh truth. advice that is not only for that particular individual but helps build what we call a community.
so to all those parents, teachers, guidance counselors, doctors, spouses and friends (some who told me to carry that prestige pressure cooker to the US of A)- keep the advice flowing, coz maybe, just maybe it might actually be useful!
- Papdi Chaat (the pseudonym is a tribute to the Mexican guy who made me the dish in California, and to Sukanya who bore the brunt of the extra red chilli powder!)
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
Introduction..Ladies and Ladies ke Gentlemans!
Hello Hello..
Before I begin, I have a confession to make. There have been only two occassions in which I have written a blog. The first time- I was superbored at my job and wanted to bitch about the situation and the world wide web provided a seamless outlet (I won't mention which job and if you meet me, please don't ask me). If you have worked in offices of the nature that I have worked in- where "research" is carried out on the Internet 99.99% of the times, you will know what I mean by the seamless bit. If it is on the web, well, it is comepletely legit!
Well and the second time is now. When unemployment is gnawing at my brains and the writing bug is crawling up my arms- so I guess the world wide web is the best friend yet again. Between job aps and checking email constantly only to realise that the email was a job alert and not a job- I can be relieved about the fact that atleast in this case, there is no big boss tapping on my shoulder and asking about for that "report". Well, truth be told, the job situation isn't that bad. The neighbourhood pujari has told my mom that the planets are aligning in my favour and there are indications of fortuitous results at the end of this month. I hate to point out that this pretty much seems like Met forecasts that we get (baarish ke aasar nazar aa rahen hain types!). This also, by the way comes from a man who has given me two ugly jyotish waale ungoothis to wear (yes..the shimmery stone ones that are supposed to bring you love and luck..horrors!!) and those rings unfortunately done nothing to elevate my social life!
Before I begin, I have a confession to make. There have been only two occassions in which I have written a blog. The first time- I was superbored at my job and wanted to bitch about the situation and the world wide web provided a seamless outlet (I won't mention which job and if you meet me, please don't ask me). If you have worked in offices of the nature that I have worked in- where "research" is carried out on the Internet 99.99% of the times, you will know what I mean by the seamless bit. If it is on the web, well, it is comepletely legit!
Well and the second time is now. When unemployment is gnawing at my brains and the writing bug is crawling up my arms- so I guess the world wide web is the best friend yet again. Between job aps and checking email constantly only to realise that the email was a job alert and not a job- I can be relieved about the fact that atleast in this case, there is no big boss tapping on my shoulder and asking about for that "report". Well, truth be told, the job situation isn't that bad. The neighbourhood pujari has told my mom that the planets are aligning in my favour and there are indications of fortuitous results at the end of this month. I hate to point out that this pretty much seems like Met forecasts that we get (baarish ke aasar nazar aa rahen hain types!). This also, by the way comes from a man who has given me two ugly jyotish waale ungoothis to wear (yes..the shimmery stone ones that are supposed to bring you love and luck..horrors!!) and those rings unfortunately done nothing to elevate my social life!
Hmmm..social life. Ok..so let us backtrack here a bit and go back to 2008 when I left a not so well paying job, packed 2 huge suitcases which essentially looked like steamer trunks and landed in Los Angeles one day-- all starry eyed and expecting to be blown away by a cool sea breeze and swaying palm trees. And at 25 when the only celebrity spottings that you have ever had are Raza Murad (yes..who is he?) and a really aging Akshay Kumar, then LA seems the place to be right? So amid teary farewells and jealous neighbourhood aunties who were finally rethinking their decision to make their children into engineers and not "filmwallahs"- I boarded the Kithhey Pacific and left for the fair lands where dreams apparently come true. Oh boy..and fair they were! In fact the land was so white, that I had to put my sun shades on. Don't get it? Well..white feet, white hair, white necks, white fingers, white writers, white talks. White..white and more white! Ok I have to be a little fair here. The problem was not really in LA. It was in Valencia - the burb of the burb where the school was. See when a school claims to be about 30 minutes away from downtown LA- you would think that you would pretty much be dancing in the thick of action right? Well, no! In America, your sense of space and time will have to be renegotiated because in 30 minutes you will have to cross freeways and god knows what other ways- well ways that could give the Great Barrier Reef a run for its money. And the buses ..oh the buses make the Delhi bluelines and DTCs seem like super sonic jets! But more on that later.. Bottom line- if you are coming anywhere on the West coast- get a CAR! Well, obviously no one told me that and as you might have guessed, the celebrity spotting didn't quite happen either. Brangelina didn't exactly wave at me. Ok fine. Michael Jackson died within a 20 mile radius of my house. But like I said , America forces you to rethink the whole concept of space. And anyway, I found out about MJ's death through facebook. Old Mc Luhan (aka guy who termed "global village") must be preening by now.
And well..there were other problems too. The biggest one being- no one really looked like me. It was a year later that my friend Prerna Chawla came from Mumbai and the idea for this blog germinated. Over greasy Chinese and Thai take out food (believe me..there is little difference between the two), we rued over everything- joblessness, lovelessness, angsty long distance relationships, CalArts theatre shows, overgrown eyebrows and moustaches, Delhi VS Mumbai debates, classes, how to make bhindi in 10 minutes, finding the Asian grocery store and eating samosa, falling sick and wondering if the insurance would take care of us- the list is endless.
If you have read this far, perhaps you are interested! So if you want to add some color to that barren landscape, join the discussion and share your stories- we won't discriminate against you- no matter what visa you are on-F1, J1, H1, N1, H1N1 (oops whatever happened to that virus??), H4- whatever labels these guys put on us..Desi Women can Talk on this blog. And spread this blog wherever the education industry has taken Desi women- UK , Europe (yes Australia and Canada- we will count you in as well..)
Wow..that was one hell of a long-assed introduction. Well..you know what. Here is another confession. I have been accused of being "boring" by some people from different quarters. So maybe this is a lame attempt to be funny and take a lighter view of things. And I think that is the most humbling thing about writing and making films- you are throwing yourself out to the winds. Needless to say, you will step on some toes and maybe mighty hard. But guess what- on this blog, we don't care. Because we watch out for our own toes.
Cheerios!
Travel Bee
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