'E' is for Examinations!

With two school-going teenage girls in the house, every now and then, we have to undergo this ordeal called examinations.
I tip-toe around the house so as not to disturb the little darlings when they are studying. And they "study" everywhere. The dining table, the sofa, the guest bedroom, even the piano is littered with textbooks and hastily scribbled gibberish which they insist are notes. Yes, you got it. They study everywhere except at their study tables. I should just turn their room into a swimming pool, take a deep breath and stay underwater until the exams are over.
Coming back to where I was, here I am trying to maintain peace and a feeling of calm, conducive for studying peacefully. Peace. Did I say peace? That's impossible. You see, "she took my eraser and Ma, she licked my earphones and she will not share her colour pencils and she lost my compass and she is not studying and she is kicking my chair and she pulled my hair and she is hiding in the loo and playing with the iPad and she is reading so loudly and LOOK MA, SHE IS HUMMING!"
I've tried separating them but they gravitate to each other. I try to ignore them. But that's impossible.
So after a round of weak 'shut up's and 'stop disturbing your sister' without any success I march in to where ever they are. I make them sit up straight, stop slouching and remove all distractions like Archie's Digests, story books and the PSP that have been shoved under some papers as soon as they heard me approach. I lecture them about responsibilities and that it's high time they knew what was good for them. I refuse to nursemaid them, I say and for good measure I add that if their grades do not measure up they are not coming for the summer vacation with us! They know the drill. They listen. It usually works until I have left the room. The 'shut ups' and 'I will tell' are softer now. I settle back into whatever I am doing.
One daughter strolls in,"I don't understand this."
"This", of course, is the whole Physics book.
"But you have Physics tomorrow, no? What were you doing for so long?"
"I was doing Geography."
"Why?"
"Because I like it."
You cannot argue with that kind of logic. And the Physics has to be learnt.
So I bite back the harsh words I was going to say and we spend two hours going over the chapters.
Obviously, she has no notes, she falls from the sky as if this is the first time she has heard the word 'mass' and has no recollection of anything being taught in school. As she looks at me wide eyed, I snap,"what were you doing when they taught you in school?"
She smiles coyly, "I like it when you teach."
Yes, I am a sucker for things like that. I smile vaguely. I tell her to learn diagrams and revise this, that and the other.
And I go to find the other beauty.
She is lying in the guest bedroom book open on her face, fast asleep.
The cordless phone is next to her. Discharged.
I shake her awake.
"I'm resting," she protests.
"Well, you've been resting all day.Get up and study!"
As I leave the room she says shyly, "Ma, will you read this for me?"
A piece of Bengali literature. Thankfully it's an interesting one by Satyajit Ray. I read. Then she makes me read another and another. I am filled with disgust.
"And where were you when they taught this in Class?"
"Choir practice."
Prompt comes the answer. As it has for the last week for any subject or any class you ask her. It seems all she does in school is attend choir practice! She should be Lata Mangeshkar by now!
I mutter something unprintable about what I think of her choir and leave the room.

I wish I could say they study seriously after all that. There's still the shouts, the occasional outbursts as each one picks on the other. Somehow amid all that I hope they are also learning something. The schools I understand have their schedules to keep and standards to maintain but all these examinations make my skin crawl and take a toll on my mental well being.
But, we'll have to discuss that some other time. I have to go now.
You see, "SHE IS HUMMING AGAIN!"

'D" is for Dreams

I've always been a dreamer. And I'm not just talking about the waking ones. I'm talking about the ones I cannot control, the ones that take me to new and often uncharted territories at night. In my late teens I had acquired a dream dictionary and off and on tried to maintain a dream diary in an effort to decipher what my dreams meant. I was heavily into symbolism and the like.
Recently I've been having these dreams. My father-in-law (sometimes with my mother-in-law, sometimes alone) has regularly been featuring in my dreams. I was very fond of him and he passed away 18 months ago. So it wasn't exactly unpleasant to have him around in my dreams. Usually the scenario was in an old house, often the house of my childhood. Sometimes the theme changed, we were all on vacation. or sitting down for a meal together. Always, there was something he was trying to say, something that eluded me. I used to wake up disturbed, often commenting about these dreams to my husband. But I also got used to seeing them every night.
Ten days ago my husband fell sick while in Delhi for an outstation case. He returned to Calcutta and visited the doctor. The day we admitted him I was nervous and worried. By nightfall three stents had been placed in his heart and the doctor was happy with the prognosis. I returned home late and fell asleep, shattered by the day's events.
For the first time in weeks I did not dream of my father-in-law.
I haven't since.
Yet.

'C' is for CALCUTTA.

It had to be Calcutta, albeit the fact that it has recently been renamed with an ugly K. At the heart of every Calcuttan, Calcutta will always be Calcutta.

The city of my birth, the city that is my home.

So what is Calcutta like? Hot, crowded, dusty, humid, loud, dirty and full of people who think it's their birthright to spit and abuse. Tempers run high, the traffic will drive you mad and the decibel levels on the streets will surely have you moaning in agony. There are a hundred and one reasons to hate the city, to declare that living here is an utter pain. 

Yet, I love it.

Here's ten reasons why:

1.  It's home. I am utterly and totally comfortable in its arms. From the narrow alleys in the North to the lakes in the South. From the Strand in the West to the wetlands in the East, there is no place like home.
2. The street food. Whether you are in the mood for a light snack or a heavier something, there's something for everyone. Jhalmuri to Chaat to rolls to phuchkas to Coolfis. It's all here.
3. The Southern breeze. No matter how hot or humid it, gets. No matter how much you have been sweltering or sweating in the day, every evening a cool Southern breeze will caress the tiredness off your limbs. That's why South facing housing is so important in Calcutta.
4.  The connectivity. You don't have a car? No sweat. There are buses, trams, taxis, rickshaws, auto-rickshaws and even a metro to whisk you to your destination. Yes, you may be stuck in traffic sometimes, and you may feel like you almost died but you'll get there with little trouble. Usually.
5.  The riverfront. It's a rather nice walk down the riverside all the way from Princep Ghat to the Millenium Park and beyond. And they are proposing to stretch it further. And there are street food stalls nicely interspersed along the way to make the walk more interesting. And if you are really in the mood, a ride on a dinghy on the Hoogly river at sunset might be just what the doctor ordered!
6. The fine dining. Well Calcutta is not New York or London when it comes to food destinations but the food that is served in the restaurants are certainly top class. The Chinese, especially, which is borrowed from China and spiced in Bengal has no substitute in the world!
7. The heritage buildings. Take a tour of the High Court , the GPO and the Raj Bhavan area. If historic buildings are your thing there's a world waiting to be discovered. Just take a walk in the narrow lanes and by lanes of the North. Amid the squalor and the haphazard new concrete blocks, you'll be surprised at the lovely old bungalows! Yes, and people still live there!
8. The cosmopolitan-ness: Yes, that quiet Christian lady lives next to the Sindhi who blasts music every weekend who lives next to the devout Madrasi who lives above the Bong who hates Dings but learns where to get a good pork curry from them along with the fat Marwari lady who hates the smell of fish frying but loves to share gossip and the occasional chicken kabab with the Muslim family across the street who's father officially does not drink but enjoys a tipple with his friend the Punjabi round the corner. It goes on. They are the butt of each other's jokes. They have the bitterest fights but in the end they all live together. It works. 
9. The humour: Yes, the intrinsic nature of Calcuttans to "tell you a jokes" and to laugh at everything and anything and specially themselves!
10.  The Winters: Calcutta winters are perfect although they last for barely 6 weeks in December and January. The temperature hovers around 10,11 degrees C and the sun feels good on the back. Ideal for sitting in the sun and sipping on that glass of chilled beer or whatever. For a game of cricket or badminton in the lawn. To head to the Maidan or the riverside or further from the city for that idyllic picnic. Yes, had I not been living here, surely I would hanker to return to Calcutta every winter.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     Oh, Calcutta!

    

'B' for boredom, blogs and books!

When I was 10 my dad gave me a diary and asked me to scribble in it…any old nonsense, he said and I wouldn't have to show it to anyone. That idea really grabbed me, that secrecy bit. So day by day I started. At first it was drawings, doodles, even pictures I liked. Then each year got a little complicated. Growing up, secrets shared, first crushes, giggly school friends, the first Harold Robbins (OMG they actually write this stuff!!!), boys, dreams, heroes, nightmares, fantasies, fears, anger, resentment, joys…everything came to be chronicled and by the time I left college I could give you a little detail about each day of my life from age ten…..Amazing. And crazy. I had this little cupboard (locked, of course) in my room at home where I stored these diaries….and I would guard it with my life….the keys were well hidden and in my custody even when I was away in college.

Then, one day before I got married I opened that cupboard and spent the better part of the day sitting in front of it. Some of it made me laugh, some made me cry and a lot made me shudder at my own naiveté and idiocy!!! So I burned it all. Dragged out every last bit of loose paper and let it burn. Today I sometimes wonder why I didn’t just seal it all in a carton and bring it with me……but years of my life were gone. I do not know why I did it. Was it to safeguard my own privacy or was it just a ploy to hide what a jackass I could be? And now that I’m older and it has ceased to matter what people think, those are the pages of my life I miss…the humdrum days of a girl growing up slightly confused, slightly crazy and more than slightly rebellious.

No, I don’t think I was either unique or newsworthy but that life was mine.

                

          And later, much later, when I sat with a pen in hand I often found my uninspired writing: “…..went to court and came home…clients in the evening…conference at 8” and wondered why I wrote. Wasn’t all of that in my Court diary anyway, and who the hell cared? Years later if I read that diary would I enjoy sifting thorough pages of a routine existence? Ah but that’s it. It’s our monotony that makes us who we are. And more often than not, back then, it made me bored and crabby and difficult to live with.

          So I started writing. On this blog for friends and any stranger who cared to pass that way. And that is what inspired my first book, "A SLIVER OF MOONBEAM".

             Boredom can be very creative, don't you think? 

'A' is for Awesome.

Ever since I decided I would participate in the A to Z challenge this morning, I've been thinking of words with A. I ran the gamut from Apple (predictably) to Adhd (don't even ask!) and got to the club from Court with little else on my mind. Met my daughters after their swim and there it was, the word I had been searching for all day: AWESOME!

No, no, don't get me wrong. My daughters do not inspire the thought on sight. It's just that they use the darn word ALL the time. Anything they like, is, alternatively, 'awesome' or 'cool'. I mean anything. Right from the stir-fry you made for dinner to the old shoe that finally emerged from under the bed....only one word describes it all.

Right now in Calcutta it is 39 degrees C. The heat is stifling. The spouse has been unwell and is at home so he gets to spend the day being entertained by two teenage girls who are on holiday right now and believe that life begins and ends with the TV. Unfortunately since Dad is home, they are now subject to strict disciplining which is otherwise missing as we both are at work. They are unable to grow roots in front of the TV or the computer and even restrained in their squabbling! Their daily diet of coke and chips have been replaced with home-cooked meals eaten with their Dad. 

The school reopens next week which coincides nicely with when their Dad too goes back to work....... 

Me? I go out to work and shut the door quietly on the home front. Its like being on vacation.

What's the word for it now? Ah. There it is: Awesome.

Term break, anyone?

The girls have finished their exams. They are now on what is known as a 'term break' which is basically a device designed by schools to justify every paisa they charge for keeping your children at school. Term break means there are no text books for the new year yet, hence no studies and you cannot scream at them to go sit and do something constructive (read study) for a change.

So what do the girls do during the term break? Why, they have so many options and each one is carefully crafted to make sure the mothers go stark raving mad!

1. They eat. They eat the food that is in the fridge, they polish off the snacks and cheese and biscuits and cookies and leftovers and the supplies that were supposed to last you the entire month and when you return home they look petulantly and say, 'there's nothing to eat'. 
2. They fall sick. After all that coke and chips and rubbish they have been stuffing themselves with, what do you expect? They groan around on the bed and complain of a tummy ache. The only known cure is to switch on the TV.
3. They watch TV. Of course they watch TV. They have roots growing out of their backsides and into the sofa with tendrils reaching into the woodwork. They are rooted in front of that magical box. They eat and sleep and nap and do everything possible in front of the TV. Its like a new religion. Thank heavens we do not have a portable potty in the house! 
4. They phone. Do not ever try to call our landline at home, it's always engaged. One girl or the other is constantly on the phone, sometimes two on simultaneous lines. They hang up and call again. The cordless is constantly discharged, the battery has  committed suicide. I do not know what they talk about but they talk to same person(s) over and over again. They must be slow in the head because they have to call the same friend at least six times to finally decide that they will meet for a swim at 11 am!                      
5. They go out. Or, rather, they are constantly making plans to meet their friends. Whether its the club or a friend's house or somewhere else, they have absolutely no concern about whether the driver will be free or the car will be available. And no prizes for guessing who have to reschedule their lives to fit these in! 
6. They play games. And it's not the Monopoly and Scrabble kind. Their favourite game is called "Let's get Ma." It goes something like this. They are sitting and calmly watching TV and gorging on food and leaving crumbs for the red ants on the sofa. Obviously since morning when I left the house, they have not found the time to take a shower or change. I enter. They see me and jump up. Soon they are in the two loos while I am standing cross legged outside one or the other begging them to hurry up. They turn on the shower. I'm afraid it is quite likely that my daughters account for half the world's water shortage. Each time they have a shower they also consume a whole bottle of shampoo, half a conditioner and one whole body gel. As they emerge leaving soap suds and water in their wake, you will be forgiven for thinking I live in a soap factory. If they are kind they will have made an attempt at mopping the floor. Then they barely wipe themselves. They chatter non stop about some stupid thing or the other. They pull on some clothes and sit on my bed with big water droplets running down their head and onto my bed knowing it irritates the hell out of me. When they know I cannot take anymore, they ask if they can watch TV. "Anything, anything," I mutter. "Just get out of here."
7. They go online. Yes the wi-fi is perpetually on in the house. So is the computer, the ipod and the tablet. Along with the TV. My daughters are multi-taskers. They have the ability to screw up multiple things at the same time. With their heads full of all the nonsense they watch on TV combined  with the stupid comments on the social networking sites and the junk they watch on youtube, you are forgiven for thinking that glazed look they wear is drug induced! 
8. Oh yeah,  they also sleep. Actually to be fair, Amisha sleeps. Isha loves to play her favourite game of "Let's get Ma" early in the morning by thumbing through the T2 in the morning BEFORE I have had a chance to extract my sudoku. Of course she has to know what her horoscope says and which celebrity is doing what at 7 in the morning!! Amisha? Well, that is another story. She sleeps. She sleeps through everything. Including several commands to get up. Even after you think you have succeeded in waking her because she is sitting slumped over her bowl of cereals, you can bet she is back in bed faster than you can say "good morning Amisha!" She does not wake up until her father shouts at her before we leave for Court or her friend calls. Whichever is earlier. Even then I suspect she just goes back to sleep before we are down the stairs! 

Ah. They joy of term break! I know, soon their school session will start and the little darlings will be back in school and slogging with their studies and books. They will again have to face the tough world of exams and be piled with oodles of homework and projects and all.
Aw, we should just let the poor babies be! 

You know what? 

I cant wait for their classes to start!