Chhat puja at Gomia

Missing thekuas this time. It was my last link to the celebration that chhat puja was in my childhood days. The visit to the river ghaat was mandatory. Both at sundown and at the following sun rise. Each trip held a separate attraction.

The fun began even before we reached the ghaat. We would generally be walking in groups - I with my friends and mother with hers. All along the way we would see beautifully decorated bullock carts carrying stalks of bananas, other fruits, thekuas, sweets and other items required for the puja. There would be devotees performing penances by doing sashtang pranams all along the way or by carrying heavy tokris of puja goods on their heads. There would be blaring loudspeakers as well as groups of women singing hymns of Chhathi maiya, children shouting in excitement and worried mothers shouting to control the mischievous ones. All together the entire way would be filled with a happy and harmonious din.
The evening trip was primarily taken to be with friends, to play in the crowded river bank and to watch the fire crackers make interesting patterns of light in the sky slowly turning dark. As the devotees prayed to the sun, they would light the diyas and place them in donas, the saal leaf bowls, and floated them in the river. In the newly acquired darkness of dusk, the entire place seemed transported to a magic land of fairy tales.
The trip at dawn was more difficult. There would be chill in the air and hauling oneself out of the bed seemed onerous. Yet, the temptation of "ghaat fresh" thekua was extremely tempting. I remember collecting thekuas one or two piece each from our aquaintances immediately after they finished their morning puja. When we returned, we would have a bag full of special thekuas to savour. The thekuas offered at ghaat were usually different from what was made in larger quantities for distribution. And that took care of my breakfast for that day. Through out the entire day afterwards there would be friends, acquaintances, father's colleagues dropping in with bags full of prasad, thekua and pedakiyas being chief attraction in them.

Now when I look back, I think, how easily we used to adapt to all kinds of occasions and enjoyed each of them to the fullest! I wonder at the religious rigour that our friends' mothers used to go through and how, yet, never, race, custum, belief or culture had come in the way of friendships. I look back and thank Gomia for giving us a childhood that celebrated pluralism, diversity and human relationships. 

The Monster

Short Story 2017 Featured Nabanita Sengupta

The Monster

The arrogant summer sun exploded into a hundred pieces and Raya swayed like a wooden doll with an eroded base. Her hands gripped a human arm before she lost all consciousness. After all how much could a ten year old bear. 

Drifting in and out of her consciousness, Raya vaguely heard human voices, conversing in Hindi. She was comforted, at least it was not the den of those infant devouring kuchche khao (Gobble you up raw) shouting monsters! They surely won't speak in a known tongue, the language of her family and friends! For Raya, languages signified familiarity and that meant a zone of comfort to her mind still unexposed to the sordidness of this world. Her subconscious mind alleviated her tension, assuring that familiarity of tongue meant a certain level of association, that she was among human beings like her own self, even if strangers. So, even now, when she felt closest to peril in her pursuit of the kuchche khaos, she drew comfort from the familiar language that she could hear and immediately fell into another round of slumber brought upon by an exhausted physical and mental state.
A skinny hand caressing her forehead woke her up. As she parted her eyelids, first in a hairline gap, and then gradually wider, the greyish white wall of the room in which she was lying down at that time, with its dense cobwebs and multiple cracks revealed squalor to her child’s eyes that was till that point only acquainted with the middle class mode of existence. Slowly, she adjusted her eyes to the dim light of the room and sharpened her gaze. An old woman with numerous wrinkles, which told stories of her long and poverty stricken existence, was sitting near her head and moving her long, thin fingers along her forehead. As soon as she felt Raya stirring into consciousness, she offered her a glass of water.

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A Room full of Tales

As Trisha walked down the pathway to the porch of that immense house, looming even larger in its afternoon shadow, she remembered it to be full of rooms. Rooms big and small, dusty and clean, dingy and airy — of all possible kinds, made that house. Each room had some story to tell, and one in particular had stories in hundreds along with a storyteller.

The rooms of that house were arranged in a particular pattern, like the chessboard squares – some occupied, some vacant. And those vacant ones were generally under lock and key, opened only occasionally to be fed with air and sunlight. Even rooms needed nutrition to survive. Like the pieces in a game of chess, each occupant had a designated room, personal or to share. These occupants also had their assigned importance which often shifted with time or manoeuvrings of their fellow house mates. But there was one occupant, the grand old man, whose significance never wavered. Even as a little girl, Trisha had always sensed this — his difference from the rest of the brood, in his personality as well as magnanimity. He was the driving force of the huge, old, almost crumbling piece of machinery that this house was.

He occupied one huge, circular room, containing a semi circular wooden table, its stomach bursting with books from all around the world. There were peculiar arrangements of lights as well. The old man had lights of various wattage which he used in accordance with the light outside. As the day sky gave way to dusk and eventually to the night, the illumination within the old man’s room kept increasing, giving a surreal touch to it. As a child Trisha had found this arrangement fascinating and she loved that room the best. It was where she had spent the best times of her childhood and adolescence; it had signified stories in her growing up days. Stories which homed in the crannies of that old man’s mind, slithered down to his heart and splurged out of his lips as the ancient heart pumped it with a practiced motion. She would sit listening, mesmerised by the perfect modulation of that ancient storyteller. The old man was her Pied Piper, she could dance to his tunes, walk with him to the edge of the world and back. Their mutual love for tales had tied them together in a strong bond – the young girl with her curiosity and the old man full of tales. The tales would feed her never ending curiosity and whet up her appetite for more.

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Dosa party

As I dealt out the liquid Dosa mixture on the tawa, waiting for it to turn crispy yet not brittle, childhood memories wafted in, taking me back by almost 20-25 years. Nostalgia is a luxury that I often allow myself, and delving deep down the memory hole, like Alice, I find a wonderland. A wonderland of beautiful images stitched in vibrant colours. What triggers my trip to that fascinating world varies from time to time. Mostly it's something as innocuous  as  making a Dosa or as I had talked once earlier, making kadhi or meeting old time family friends.

Dosa, the pan Indian 'South Indian’ dish first touched my palate through the loving hands of Rani aunty and George uncle, our Malayali neighbours. The crispness of masala dosa juxtaposed with the hot and tangy sambhar did some kind of magic to my taste bud and initiated a love story that still continues.

My mother encashed upon this love of mine to add another enticing item to her already diverse range of cuisines and it found its way into our kitchen as well.

But her dosa making somehow did not remain confined to our four-member family. What started as her evening treat for her family, slowly blossomed into small evening get-togethers or 'dosa party', as nomenclatured by us. And they became popular in no time.

The soaking of rice and urad dal the evening before, ran simultaneous to calling up friends,

• “come over tomorrow evening, I'm going to make dosa"
• Sure! Wouldn't like to miss it. And I shall come early to help you with preparations.
• Arre no no, just come and we shall have a nice evening.

Similar conversations generally followed with a few more friends. And for us, an evening of dosa also translated into an evening playing around with friends, chitchats and fun.

Peeping through the nostalgic clouds around those evening, I recall the camaraderie between my  mother and other aunties. They would, at complete ease, take hold of my mother's kitchen and ma would busy herself overseeing eating, loading empty plates with still more sambhar, chutney and dosa. Aunties kept taking turns to pour the liquid batter over the hot tawa and while waiting for the batter to assume the perfect crispiness, they gossiped to their hearts content. The kitchen transcended its utilitarian aspect to become a space for budding and nurturing bonhomie. It became a space for exchanging news, finding and offering solace, of laughter and advice, of shared joys and disappointments, and most importantly, into a zone of close friendship.

Such evenings were very dear to my mother and her friends as they had the capability to turn a monotonous lonely existence into one of companionship. in the peaceful but limited life of Gomia, such evenings were breathers especially for our mothers. Today as I looked at my guests for our dosa party and my child play acting the role of the waiter, offering his hand made menu cards to them, those evenings came back more powerfully to me. in a completely dissimilar lifestyle of 24x7 hours of running around, of virtual socialising,  these evenings are once again breathers, bringing in the much required human touch in our otherwise gadget dominated lives. Though our dosa party has now diversified from serving just masala dosa to cheese and butter dosa, along with the chicken and egg variants as well, though the number of kids playing around has also reduced considerably, the essence of togetherness and adda has still remained the same. Certain things remain unchanged even through generations, even across time and places.

Gomia Chronicle I (Friendship day special)

Prompted by a visit by one of our very close family friends, and that too on this friendship day, at my current Kolkata residence, I once again delved into my extremely rich reservoir of childhood memories. Gomia is that fairy tale world of everything-sweet-and-good, the name that itself transports me to a world completely different from the one that I live in now. Like Narayan’s Malgudi, Gomia had a childlike purity and innocence of a world yet to mature into the self centred materialistic world of our everyday existence. Whether it was our own childhood or Gomia’s lack of connection with the other world, I cannot tell now, but that was a township with a marked distinction of a place being one single entity, undivided by petty factionalist tendencies.

One of my favourite activities as a young girl was to go for day and night stays to one of our family friends’ houses or have them over at mine. In Gomia, it was a frequently done thing and a number of Saturdays were spent in friends’ houses. Of course it is something quite unthinkable for children of that age group in my current metropolitan dwelling but in those days, even our parents did not hesitate to give in to our demands of night stays at close friends’ houses. Perhaps the bond of friendship was stronger and trust was more condensed in that small place of about a thousand or so population. I remember playing carom with Piu di or at Ayan and Mala’s place or the upma-sambhar breakfast by Dutta aunty. The Mr. Potato Head coin box owned by Piku and Piu di still tugs at my imagination because I had a childhood fancy of its developing feet one day and simply running away like the Gingerbread Man.

And then there was my month long stay divided between these households due to my grandmother’s illness that prompted my mother to take up residence in Kolkata for that many days and my father to shuttle between these two places. My brother being too young to stay back had to be taken along. That was the period which probably taught me the values of friendship, trust and care. Every single day, the aunties (with whoever I was staying for that day) would help me get ready for school, prepare my breakfast and tiffin, inquire about my day at school on my return and take care of all my needs. Their children kept me company and I enjoyed my entire stay, hopping from one house to another at my whims and fancy.

It was the most significant learning period of my life. Probably its importance was not appreciated by me then but as I grew older and as I continue my life in this bustling metropolis, I miss those beautifully crafted relationships devoid of any blood ties or any selfish motives; ties that a group of people bore year after years in their own modest ways. It now teaches me to value friends and to hold that relationship as something most sacrosanct.

I still recall that time with fondness and also ponder; shall I ever be able to provide my son with that kind of bond of friendship and good faith in the community in which he is growing up?

Reconstructing childhood

The world suddenly is so ruthless. It always was, but now, increasingly, devastations are becoming rule of the day. Flood, earthquakes, accidents, terror attacks – the daily staple of all news agencies, is enough to fill the mind with horror. Inadvertently I seek recluse in the peace of our childhood and adolescent days when the world at least appeared more livable.

The place where you spend your childhood probably has the most lasting impression on your personality. Gomia – the place where I have spent just sixteen years of my life holds a special place in my memory. It is a place perhaps unique on the map and a place that has come a long way. But its journey across time is a story for some other times; to my mind it still remains that intriguing little township that I had left behind in the late 1990s, apparently dormant, but with a strong positive energy. It held variety not just topographically but also linguistically. In fact, it won’t be an exaggeration to call it a microcosmic representation of India. Located in the Giridih district of Bihar, and later in the Bokaro district of Jharkhand, after the state was born, it is nestled between two rivulets, surrounded by a range of hillocks with a rich diversity of flora and fauna. A part of the Chhotanagpur plateau, Gomia is well endowed in terms of topographic and natural diversity. Culturally, it had a vibrant and thriving community comprising of representatives of almost all the states of the country. So probably we grew up in a climate of cultural amalgamation and not alienation. This I think had a lasting effect on our psyche, which is why Gomians in any part of the world can instantly relate to each other, so what if they had never even met there!

The point of unity for the township was the factory – the ICI Explosives Limited, initially an Indo-British joint enterprise, called IEL or the Indian Explosives Limited, established around 1956. The township had grown around it and strangely, the factory had a very authoritative presence in the everyday life of this community. It seemed to regulate every movement of the residents there. The timely sirens emanating from the factory, signifying the change in the shift of the factory employees, peculiarly came to symbolize the schedule of an everyday life in Gomia. It marked the beginning and ending hours of the school in the day, time for children to go out to play in the afternoon, time for dinner and time to bed at night and time to wake up early in the morning. Our parents would tell us to wait for the afternoon siren of five o’clock before we rushed out to play. When the 12 noon siren was blown, the women would gear up for the family lunch as it meant lunch break for their office going husbands who generally returned home for a meal and a short siesta. By 1:30, the warning signal reverberated in the airs of the township, asking those employees to rejoin their office by 2pm. The 1:30 signal also signified homecoming for the school children as the school got over by 1:15.

The school was another interesting feature of that society. Continuously crisscrossing its path with the inhabitants on a daily basis, but lacking in the infrastructural advantages of the urban ones, the school was able to inculcate in its students a hunger for success. Success, not exactly in the material sense of the world; but albeit as a drive to make it well in the world. With a sprawling campus in the folds of nature, the school had the amenities of modern education – library, laboratories, a big playground, pure drinking water, proper toilet facilities, a cheap store cum book shop, etc, etc. yet in an indescribable manner, to me, it seemed to exist in vacuum, not in continuum with the rest of the world. I still find it an enigma as to how could so many of us from such a remote locality could comfortably grab a place the real world of cut throat competition and cutting edge dynamism.

Gomia, interestingly, believed in the singularity of existence – which is why there was a single housing estate, a single hospital, one English medium school, one club with its pool and badminton court, one recreational centre and one rifle shooting club too. Oh yes, there was also one guesthouse, later very popular among the student community, but that will be something to talk about in another time and another blog. Well this point of singularity forced the small population of this town to coexist and there emerged an interesting medley of divergent cultures. Religion had its place too – a Shiva temple, a church, a masjid and a gurudwara – all had their place of pride in the community. A pride which is rare in this world – a pride of peaceful co-existence.

It was a world remote in the true sense of the word. The rest of the world did not have much impact on that quaint little township of the Chhotanagpur plateau though winds of change had slowly started gaining motion by the time we left that place, a couple of years before the change of the millennium. Actually, there was a tenuous connection with the world outside – constantly its young population kept migrating outwards in search of greener pastures and kept revisiting at least as long as their parents' stayed there. Ironically, it was not a place where we had ever dreamt of making a career, yet it is a place almost sacred in most of our hearts. Probably nostalgia, a sense of the impossibility of return and truant memory has invested that place with a good amount of utopian quality as reflected in my writing here. Yet in today’s extremely fragmented and disillusioned world, it seems to be the only recluse for my perturbed heart and mind; even if to others it appears to be a myth created out of my overworked, nostalgic brain.

Bonding and Bondages

Phone calls were now very infrequent. Meetings even more so. Yet, the presence of each other in their lives was constant. Riza, appropriated from Rishani, knew that there were some shoulders on which she could cry unabashed and unquestioned and that is why when her life reached the crisis she straightaway took a train to Delhi. For her Delhi is where heart is. A phone call, few clothes hurriedly dumped into the rucksack along with some essential documents, her wallet, a ticket in Tatkal quota and she was off.

Shivani hurried to finish her office chores. She had to be in time to receive Riza from the station. Sill, short for Shalini, got caught in her own domestic tangles in the last minute and could not go to the station herself. Shina or Shivani was going alone. She missed her friend’s company and her reassuring presence. Shina herself was quite tensed thinking how she would handle Riza, so heartbroken, so despondent she had seemed over the phone. Shina could have done with some company. But that is what life is these days.

Sill required some quick thinking. She knew she could not antagonize her husband now of all the times that she has her best friend coming over. She did not want her friend to get caught in their own domestic cacophony that tended to erupt at all times. She knew Riza was completely shattered by her own experience and at least for the time being she should not be burdened with anything more.

Sill often thought of the women in her life, and men. Life had been generous in bestowing her with friends. She thought of her short stint in the college, her colleagues, her principal – a strong woman of convinctions in her middle ages. That lady had been the strongest influence in her life. In spite of all the clichés in her life – a love marriage gone wrong, a career compromised for motherhood, an insensitive husband and boring domestic chores; there was one cliché she could reject with conviction – that a woman was another woman’s worst enemy. She still thought of the last day meeting she had with the principal. That lady tried her best to convince Sill that leaving job was not an option, especially since her job allowed her with enough time for the family. Perhaps the older one had sensed right then with her experience and intuition that this young, bright assistant professor of her college cannot remain content without her job for long. But just like once her new found love had; now her newly acquired motherhood blurred her discerning capacities. Even her mother-in-law, another woman whose prudence she had learnt to respect with time, had warned her against it. But that was the time when she bloated in a sense of self-sacrifice that motherhood demands. She had probably and perhaps wrongfully expected Rajan to stop her from doing it. And that was where she felt betrayed. Rajan did not stop her, instead said she was free to take whatever decision suited her, he will take care of the family. Was her ego hurt then? She still does not understand.

It was noon and though she had managed to coax Rajan into picking up their daughter home from school since he was working from home that day, he opted out of the chore this morning, excusing himself on the pretext of some emergency conference call. Sill was infuriated. She knew it was a ruse he was making simply to get her worked up. Previously she would have reacted differently. By now she had learnt to keep her moods under control. So instead of getting into useless arguments reminding him of his family obligations, she followed a simpler path of picking up her mobile and getting through Shina. Unmarried still as she approached forty, Shina was often the last minute answer to many of her female friends’ distress calls. And Riza was special.

Shina hurried to finish her full day tasks in half a day even as she thanked her stars for sparing her a male companion for the rest of her life. She had her own demons of loneliness to slay, thoughts of dying alone in her old age, completely unattended, often snatched away her night’s sleep. But she had her means of dealing with them too. She had never viewed marriage through rosy glasses and has become even more skeptic as she saw her best friends drag through their matrimonial existences. What was it, she often thought, that made our parents click and what is it that we lack today. Was it actually what the elders say about this generation – lack of adaptability and self control? Or was it something else? That she herself was an outsider to this institution made her a detached and objective observer. Yet she often found herself to be at a loss. She had common friends marrying each other and she had friends opting for the marriages fixed by their parents. She had heard tales of agony from friends of both genders and she had tried her best to reach an understanding of the situations.

She shook herself out of her thoughts, quickly sent the last of the mails, shut down her laptop and rushed out of her office. She was looking forward to meet Riza after years, though not in the best of times. Memories tumbled one after the other as she approached New Delhi Railway station.

She knew Rajan – a passionate photographer and brilliant student of economics since their student days. Both he and Sill were brilliant in their respective fields. Their attraction for each other had stemmed largely from their mutual respect and their similar interests. Sill being a student in Sociology and he of Economics, both had dreamt of undertaking joint research projects since their post graduation days in the university. But then came marriage in between and overtook all their other areas of interest. Madly in love with each other, both went against their parents to get married and then took up jobs that took them away from their dream careers. When Shreya was about to be born Sill took the decision that still drives Shina mad. Sill chucked her job to be a full time mummy. And problems were born. Rajan’s office engagements grew and he started devoting more time towards his career in order to earn a comfortable living. With the cushion of double income gone, he had to exert himself more. Then he had his photography – a passion that predates Sill. That further ate into their family time. Sill became more and more exasperated with her status as a homemaker which had no need for her academic excellence. Rajan’s promotions made her happy but at the same time made her feel the loss of her career all the more. Being the typical male Rajan was happy in his own world, quite insensitive to his wife’s agony and Sill, the true Indian wife, did not bother to talk it out with her husband. They started drifting apart. Both were engulfed in the circles they had created around themselves and silently blamed the other for incompetence and insensitivity. Initially the cracks in the relationship were latent. Gradually, as time elapsed, they grew more irritable with each other and fissures started appearing on the surface and now, both are happier when the other is not around.

Shina sighed. And her thoughts went back to Riza – the bubbliest one among the entire group. She knew how to be happy, how to live life. And now? Shina flinched at the thought of seeing a heartbroken Riza. Shina had warned Riza against settling for arranged marriage. She knew that her friend was not set for the kind of compromises that such a relationship required. Yet she went ahead, adventurous as usual, with a love for the unknown. Proving all her fears to be untrue, they were extremely compatible right from the day one of their relationship. Shlok was caring, considerate, broadminded, well-employed etc, and etc. It was like a fairytale. But fairy tales have witches and demons too. Shlok had hidden the fact that he was incapable of carrying on a normal conjugal life. He had married Riza simply to retain all the semblances of a normal heterosexual middleclass individual. And he felt guilty about it too. His guilt made him pamper Riza initially to all the goodies of an extravagant lifestyle much beyond what his actual pocket allowed and it took Riza some time to grasp the reality. When the financial burden started proving heavier than he could handle, his pampering gave way to tortures. He would shout at the smallest pretext, call her names and lately had even taken to hurt her. Riza was confused. She had her career to fall back upon. She could do without a child as that, she thought, might put a brake on her flourishing career. But there were times when the lack of physical bonding left her restless, dissatisfied and infuriated. She writhed in agony at the duplicity of her husband. She could not stand being cheated upon. Though she felt bad for Shlok initially, that feeling gradually subsided as his tortures increased. Then one night she decided to call it quits. She simply left that house next morning and boarded the train, not even leaving a note for Shlok.

Shina checked her watch. She was just on time to see Riza stepping down the train. She looked war-weathered. As they hugged each other, their eyes moistened.

Few hours later, as the trio sat on Sil’s terrace sipping into freshly brewed coffee, life seemed to have come a full circle for each of them. They drew strength from each other and looked into the horizon full of possibilities.