BI'JOY'A! But Without the 'JOY'

I am not a Bengali who wears my "bongness" on my sleeve...which I confess sometimes makes my regional identity a bit of a problem for people who meet me for the first time. Technically I didn't ever consider myself as a part of the big bong fraternity that drools over 'fish chop' and flutters their eyelids at the sound of Rabindra Sangeet. I grew up in a small town called Bhubaneshwar which is the capital of Orissa (located on the Eastern part of the Indian map) and well is the land of 'Oriyas'. I grew up with kids and neighbours who were anything but Bengali and apart from my Dadu (Grandfather) who tuned into the local radio station playing old Tagore and Najrul at night and his pronounced "shos"...'bongness' wasn't drilled into my head. But yes, I still use this defense tactic with my Cal bong friends. I spent summers reading Anandobajar's magazine and figuring out this cartoon called Montu, and twisted my tongue and scratched my head as I practiced the Bengali letters on my slate.

Turning eight I moved to Hyderabad where I spent the next ten years of my life mixing around with Telugu kids and neighbours. There wasn't ever any pressure to learn the local language because our maids and auto drivers spoke in a mix of old Hyderabadi Hindi and sometimes Telugu and well the local peopel themselves never had this "Speak our language because you are in our land" kind of attitude. "Unho idhari khadey they, idharich. Sachi !" (He was right here, right here. Really, I am telling you so).

But all this changed dramatically with my shift to Kolkata. It's quite funny. My early schooling was in Bhubaneshwar, mid and high in Hyderabad and Graduation in Kolkata. Three distinct phases of my life divided into 3 cities. So in Cal, I was sniffed up and down by bong 18 year olds who couldn't figure why a Bengali girl couldn't speak her own mother tongue the way she is "supposed" to, why were all my words in Bangla with "s" and not the pronounced - not to mention what my family poked fun at -- rolling "shos" (I would say "ekhaney boso", instead of "ekhaney bosho"). I guess somewhere the guilt and curiosity to be loyal to my bongness began within Presidency College's walls. I hung on to every single line my friends spoke, made them recite lines from plays, poems and in one case even made my new found crush at a fest (who I had invited home for the first time) read out "Aabol Tabol" aloud for me, that's the very famous book with funny verse for kids written by Sukumar Ray. I could go on and on about all the food, the way we wore our sarees and dhotis during Pujo, a Bengali boy who took my obession a step further... I even introduced myself to people as "Ronjona" as opposed to my earlier North Indian accented Ranjana (pronouced 'RUN JAN AAAA')..... a rebirth of sorts.

The long and short of all this is that I am a different person today thanks to my 3 years in the land of Tagore. And I am awfully morose at the moment, misery that only a true blue Bong would feel during Bijoya if he had to work, sit late night over an edit shift, eating pasta and reeling from the awful smell of some poisonous phenyl that's just been used to clean the office. Instead I should be with family and friends, laughing over scrumptous bhog and intoxicated by the heady mix of chandan, jhuno (frankinscence) and joba(hibiscus) phool. Instead of staring at cold gleamy phenyl mopped floors, my eyes should be focussing on soothing off white alpana patterns on red cement floors etched out lovingly by my Ma and Kakimas . This is my Bijoya in Mumbai away from Ma and Baba, away from the Bengali boy, my precious friend from Cal and the new ones I acquired in Mumbai in 1201 post one's departure...no sight of Godess Durga this year, no aratis, no being overwhelmed having your heart in your mouth as the dhak's rhythm grows louder......... I can't even shrug off with what my colleagues term as "This is life in the media so learn to live with it". My 'bongness' has begun to matter :)

With or Without Who...

The fastest thought that takes over you even before you know it, is the thought that seeps into you while you are surrounded by dim lights, blue, red, green , purple ones while you sip your drink and pretend that life will take its own course, putting you and your memories in a less painful place. The thought starts as a trickle in your head, the faucet gingerly being opened on a winter’s night afraid that what will pour will sting your flesh, makes you shudder uncomfortably You fight it, smiling across the table to your buddy, taking another swig of the beer that’s come by ‘four in a pack for the price of three”, you smile away your unsettling thought, you are trying not to open the faucet yet. You like all things risky with a potential to hurt you but so enticing, so seductive. So you open the faucet. This time you take a stronger bitter gulp of your “draft” beer. You flinch, find your buddy sneaking a peek at your face, you smile back reassuring him, “Yes, I’m ok. No I’m not crying within or unhappy. Yes these tears aren’t to be wasted now”. But the faucet has been turned on faster, the music louder and the beer’s high – well you are not drunk, so you think faster. A flat with a view that looks out to the matchbox city, offering you a horizon unmatchable for a suburban accommodation. The flat is a home no longer identifiable by two or three bedrooms, it’s the pair of clothes you always find strewn in the hall when you come home first, it’s the ash tray by the bedside, a watch forgotten to be worn to office today, a goblet of wine that’s been drunk while Murakami’s Norwegian Wood was flipped in silence. I smile. I breathe in small gulps, take another look at my watch. It’s closer to bedtime, there’s no door to be locked open, no clothes strewn about, no ash tray...not even the ashes that would settle on the floor and get into my hair, no wine stained goblet, the only semblance of a watch :the impending doom of an early Monday morning, the clock by my bedside staring at me angrily, and the Norwegian Wood.... a boy is strumming the lyrics on his guitar, his eyes close and open to look at me and then look away. I wait for him to look again. I stare at my watch. It’s time to take the last swig of my lukewarm beer. The wait is over. There’s a passenger, I have been waiting for but now the wait is over. I have to return home alone.

Of friends leaving

If I were to think of a single trend that persists in my life, it is that of change when things around you are settling down. Yes yes , I never denied change is bad. Having to accept new situations, people or even a room makes us more accomodating of the immense diversities that life demands from us..sometimes impinges.

So I have grown up moving from a small town to a big city, from being heckled and bullied in my school's playground by the class "leader" to a convent school that let me sprint through its corridors without a care, from love that seemed everything to new love I don't think will ever grow old...from one job to another and so on.

To be honest , I don't mind change. Looking back I know why I can reach out to people so easily and adjust to changes in my surroundings. I haven't quite exactly trampled around my country but I absorbed and apprecaited the ethos of every new place I moved to.

But when friends move, it's difficult. It always has been. The girl in school I shared all my secrets with and with whom summers were spent cycling all aorund town moved away to Bangalore when I was ten. I cried but the crazed routine of school didn't give the me time to grieve for long. Since then I haven't grieved remotely about people moving out of the routine that my life had become.

I am hurrying to finish my sentences. Anxious to meet a friend - one more in the latest list, who will soon leave Mumbai. And well there aren't any tears as of now. The last two months have been the closest to what I can call the "best". Summer afternoons spent walking around South Mumbai locating extinct dhobi ghaats or clicking pictures of a synagogue I couldn't have asked to be painted in any other colour- blue..we laughed at ourselves and spoke in silences. Two years back we did the same on Kolkata's streets..gauging our lives in 20 questions. There wasn't too much spent together in the interim. But the last two months..seemed to have made up for two years.

No cliches! No cliches! Thats what I keep in mind when I script my stories, when I interview people, when I create the stuff for people to see on the idiot box. So I'll stop. Perhaps a lot more unsaid but better this way.

I spoke about breaking free last night. I don't know if he will manage it ..perhaps not yet. But perhaps between the both of us I 'll be happier if he gets there first. I''ll just request "The Piano Man " at Toto's everytime I miss him :)