YeaRs of ChriSTmas

It has been exactly a year since I last woke up with a hangover. Last year this day I was at work, nursing a headache and sore throat but enjoying the quiet and peace of an office whose sensible employees, much to my delight,  were enjoying their Christmas offs in their homes or in places other than office.  On some days, it is a joy being alone at work..like it is joyful being alone generally.....on some days!  "On some days only" is a necessary "*conditions apply" clause. 


In 2007, I spent Christmas eve decorating my 2 feet tall Christmas tree with many tiny bells, gifts, mistletoes, stars, lights and shifting it from one point to the other in the balcony in a bid to find a spot from where my tree could see the world or at least Western Express Highway, Oberoi Towers, and the cityscape from Malad to Bandra.  Such a fight!  I do not have a tree now for the past two years.  But if I were to revive the practice, it would still be unacceptable for me to have the tree inside my house and not close to a window or a balcony from where it could see the world (or part of it).  I cannot imagine how boring it must be to stand decorated and facing walls!!!  It better see and be seen.


It is hard to recollect the Christmas of 2006. Amid marriages of two cousins and my own impending ceremony, Christmas was lost. Like many other things I am sure.  I think I was in Pune. Or maybe home. Or I could have been anywhere and I would not remember. 
I owned a pair of pink corduroys which I liked wearing over a fitted, comfortable black T.  Having bought the two on Christmas Day in 2005, I wore them for a party I attended in the evening in Borivli's IC Colony.  The streets of IC Colony were full of people dressed in quintessential Christmassy clothes headed for Midnight Mass.  This is the time when there is smell of perfume and many perfumes mixing together, wafting into and across streets.  Of course, this is what they mean when they say that something is in the air. Christmas is!  Can be. I do not own the corduroys anymore, nor the black T, nor the beige heels I wore with it.  I do not own the silver pendant anymore. Nor the watch, nor the hair nor the mind. 


Some midnights are spent in kitchens of dear friends (rest of the house being full of sleeping and tired relatives) on their pre-wedding night, discussing the ceremonies of that day and the anxieties of the next.  Puneet got married in 2004 on the 24th of December.  A  beautifully  fresh and cold Pune evening it was!  One that made the nose burn with each breathe.  And of course, the kitchen platform numbed my butt but we sat and chatted away.  Pre-wedding anxieties can be never ending. 


My Christmas tree was my pride, my pastime and my object of beauty for a good ten days during Christmas.  I shopped for a crib for it at Bandstand on a pleasantly cool evening in 2003. When I showed pictures of my Christmas tree, decorated in all its finery, to a very dear friend it elicited a, "Ummm, where is the tree though"?  response from him that made me realize how over the top I had gone with the decorations.  I miss some responses such as these that made me see my "areas of improvement" with a dash of laughter and humor.


A parrot green cotton kurta and a beautiful paisley scarf was the highlight of Christmas day 2002. Accompanying Neha for an audition for a movie at Khar and then deciding to crash into Christmas celebrations at a friend's place At Bandra (as catharsis for the horrible feelings associated with horrible performances at the horrible auditions), Christmas was very Bandra, very merry and very nice.  


Christmas 2001.  Next....


I had not planned for any festival as much as I did for Christmas 2000.  I had a different outfit for Midnight Mass and a different one for the party that followed. I had butterflies on having met someone very nice, Mood I loomed large on my mind, the performances therein did. Natasha and Christie were great companions during that December and my parents were out of town. I was in college and there was long-term Myopia.


And I need to stop blogging and head out......for air...the one that has Christmas in it.

आठवणीची कविता

आठवण चवीची...

तू बनवलेल्या फोडणीच्या  भाताची....

ब्रेडच्या भाजीची आणी आम्बट-गोड केकची.

मधल्या सुट्टीतील डब्यातल्या गम्तींची...

आठवण स्वरांची,

स्वयंपाक करत असताना म्हटलेल्या गाण्यांची,

वेणी घालत असताना शिकवलेल्या श्लोकान्ची... 

बेला के फूलची आणी पेटीच्या प्रक्टिस ची..

आठवण वासान्ची,

तव्यावारील गरम पोळ्यांची, कढवलेल्या तुपाची 

देव्हार्यातील उत्बत्तीची, उतू जात जात....

शांत झालेल्या उकळत्या दुधाची.

आठवण उन्हाची,

चहाच्या सोबतीला असलेल्या किरणांची.

फ़ोन काढून ठेवलेल्या, ताणलेल्या झोपेची.

घरातल्या भिन्तिन्ना ऊब देणार्या प्रकाशाची.

आठवण पाण्याची,

गच्चीत्ल्या फुलांची आणी पार्व्यांच्या आंघोळीची

डोळ्यात डबडबणार्या अश्रूंची 

पलंगाजवळील तांब्या-भांड्याची....

आठवण...
...डोळ्यासमोर नसलेल्या...
पण तरीही असलेल्या 
जादूच्या गोष्टींची.

PReTty CIT(t)y

It was a not at all a cold, end-of-December morning.  The first step of the plan was to head to Bandstand.  It was 6 am and pitch dark.  We left the rick near Khoja florists, at the end of Hill Road and the beginning of the Bandstand promenade.  In semi-darkness we walked along the promenade concentrating more on the buildings towards the left than the vast sea on the right. There was still time for the sea to reveal itself.

I kept peppering our walk with trivia when we passed Shahrukh's Mannat, trivia about Mount Mary church and the festival, about St. Catherin's, more trivia as we crossed the Taj Land's End, adding trivia about the Bandra festival, the many performances and the Bandra citizen's efforts and initiatives. Stopping for a while at the amphitheater, we could not help but enjoy a few moments of silence taking in the beautiful stone steps flanked by green trees getting brighter more than deeper in the light of the rising sun.

We climbed up the steps to the old fort. Looked at the sea link. Climbed down the steps and down a few rocks to where one could hear the water lapping against the rocky shore. From here the sky looked a light grey giving way to a rozy pink. We looked at the sea link again.

The next step was to hop into a cab and cruise along the sea link to Worli.  The city is pretty in the mornings.  Waking up gloriously.  And I realized I had never seen it the way I saw it that day. I was out with no other purpose but to show my colleagues around and with no other agenda but to see its different shades. Crossing the sea link over to Worli and the sea face we finally got back on the city roads on our way to Matunga Circle. It was trivia time once more.  Poonam chambers, Dadar catering college, Siddhivinayak, Vanita Samaj, YMCA, Shivaji Park, Shiv Sena Bhavan, Shivaji Mandir, Plaza theatre, Dadar station and finally Matunga Circle.

Getting off at the circle we took a walk through the modest flower market near Matunga station.  Matunga makes me want to be draped in a saree, braid my hair, adorn it with loads of flowers, smell of sandalwood and walk towards a temple with flowers and pooja stuff.  Walking through some quiet lanes of Matunga, lined by Gulmohar trees, leaves falling down with each passing gust of wind, Bombay never seemed like that. It never before looked the way it did that morning. Reaffirmed love. Some loves do not change.


After a simple yet simply delicious breakfast of Neer Dosas and Pesserayetta downed with the incomparable filter coffee at the Madras Cafe I headed home.

I did see different hues of Bombay.......grey giving way to rozy pink that turned a bright azure.

BlAckBirDs

Chintan, Thank you for sharing this poem by Wallace Stevens and making the birds in my painting come alive for me:

Thirteen Ways to Look at a Blackbird

I Among twenty snowy mountains, The only moving thing Was the eye of the blackbird.

II I was of three minds, Like a tree In which there are three blackbirds.

III The blackbird whirled in the autumn winds. It was a small part of the pantomime.

IV A man and a woman Are one. A man and a woman and a blackbird Are one.

V I do not know which to prefer, The beauty of inflections Or the beauty of innuendoes, The blackbird whistling Or just after.

VI Icicles filled the long window With barbaric glass. The shadow of the blackbird Crossed it, to and fro. The mood Traced in the shadow An indecipherable cause.

VII O thin men of Haddam, Why do you imagine golden birds? Do you not see how the blackbird Walks around the feet Of the women about you?

VIII I know noble accents And lucid, inescapable rhythms; But I know, too, That the blackbird is involved In what I know.

IX When the blackbird flew out of sight, It marked the edge Of one of many circles.

X At the sight of blackbirds Flying in a green light, Even the bawds of euphony Would cry out sharply.

XI He rode over Connecticut In a glass coach. Once, a fear pierced him, In that he mistook The shadow of his equipage For blackbirds.

XII The river is moving. The blackbird must be flying.

XIII It was evening all afternoon. It was snowing And it was going to snow. The blackbird sat In the cedar-limbs

This painting has 11 blackbirds...........
Two are forever flying in circles and sometimes far and wide....lost in finding themselves. Even if they were to come and settle here, there is not any place on the wire...they are meant to fly........

NeVerBefore

Today was my last day in Kolkata before I return again.

It was a “Neverbefore” day! Clad in a jacket and with my sack on my shoulders, I stepped out in the chilly winter morning to see the Howrah Bridge. It was a Sunday and the city was waking slower than usual. A slight mist cloaked it all over. The city’s colors muted in the dull grey of the mist made it seem less loud and more like it was still tossing and turning, undecided about getting out of bed on a Sunday morning.

The Howrah Bridge however, establishing an identity of its own, was up and buzzing. It is a daunting structure built 2 centuries ago and it only seems to be crystallizing, solidifying and concretizing more with each passing day.

Under the buzzing bridge flew the seemingly calm Ganga. It belies its own strong currents with a façade of calmness with chunks of happy green plankton floating atop its waters. It is like a woman who is strong headed and impulsive but engrossed in an attempt at being ladylike. But strong headed she is and it shows…! In pockets where it swirls and tumbles over itself, one catches a glimpse of her, whose reserve of calmness has finally given way, exposing her true fiery nature. She is delightful to be watched.

On the banks of this river and below the Howrah Bridge, to one corner is a blooming and buzzing market. Blooming with the choicest of flowers and buzzing with a hundred bees. It is a cacophony of sellers shouting, radios blaring and colors jolting one’s senses out of numbness. It is an assault; a beautiful, colorful, flowery, scented and delicately dewy assault.

Moving away from the Bridge and the flower market I entre further North, drifting through old Kolkata into a lane that breaks my heart as much as it excites it. I am at a Mela that happens every Sunday and has been since many years. There are birds, fish, dogs and plants to see and to buy.

I watch vendors forcibly drag puppies out of their cages in an attempt to comb their hair in order to make them look like “good , take-away puppies”. The prim and proper combed fur lasts so until the next moment when the puppies, freeing themselves from the clutches of the vendors shake themselves up and regain their composure while the vendors lose theirs. God knows how many times this continues. There are yelps and squeals and baby barks. I walk away further….

Into another world…

The lane extends into a disharmony of sounds made by caged birds of I do not know which breed or kind. The chirping is all in the cages, the trees lining the lane, however, are silent.

There are these birds that do not fly and then there are the birds from under the water that do not swim…in plastic bags hung from hooks and low-lying branches float beautiful fish, their tail fins swirling behind them. Their movements are obstructed and economical in those plastic packets. Most fish sit still, floating rather than swimming.

A sight to behold is when the rays of the early morning sun fall into the water, on the scales of the orange goldfish turning them a golden orange. The sun rays dance, the fish dance and the plastic bags flutter….I pray they are strong enough to allow the fish to enjoy this moment…where they shimmer, bask and hopefully smile.

Leaving the lane with mixed feelings, mixed sounds and mixed sights of birds, plants and dogs…I hail a cab to return to the hotel. The cab makes its way through the beautiful streets of Kolkata and I am lucky to cut right through Chowringhee Lane.

Kolkata….. I could have been born in you. You are soft like mother’s old cotton sari.

KoLKatA MOmenTs

“Bengal thinks today, India thinks tomorrow…” says Shohini, my colleague and founder of Shonbed, an NGO that strives to help victims of domestic abuse, sexual abuse, trafficking and prostitution rediscover pride, dignity and grace in themselves through dancing.

Seated in Dolly’s Tea shop, a quaint tea shop of polished wood and comforting lanterns that engulf the place in a warm cozy yellow light, we talk about Kolkata and its magnetism and what it got.

“Where there is a Bengali, there is rebellion”, says Shohini. And Kolkata being a hub for one is a hub for both. It is throbbing and pulsating with an energy that I have not seen anyplace else.

“People here are “mad” and Kolkata is what it is because of our Addas”….Addas being the “katta” or a meeting point for like-minded people. Here is where the revolutionary spirit a Bengali is naturally imbibed with finds expression and validation. From what career choices to make, to who should be voted for and what, the Adda conversations cover it all. Addas is where the people of Kolkata build and nurture a vision for this city and state in their own small lanes and small yet collectively big ways. Here is where dialog happens and ideas are exchanged and the plinth is laid for social change. People are aware and enjoy freedom that they enjoy to the fullest. One can find someone or the other in a crowded market area like Goriahat addressing the throngs on a microphone. It could be and usually is the “common man” of Kolkata. People do not shy away from expressing and voicing grievances. However, if this Adda culture, which is the spine of the awareness of its citizens and their active action and participation ebbs in its appeal, it will change Kolkata and in a way deeper than the skyscraper epidemic that is swallowing it currently will.

I have loved the streets of Kolkata. This time my journeys to and fro are full of “rickshow” rides.

The cycle rickshaws swerve and tip and turn, gracefully precariously and it is easy to fall out of one on a speed-breaker or a pothole. Even they have a great deal of character!

A walk in the neighborhood today morning left my head buzzing. Nameplates on old style one-storied homes, carved in indecipherable yet beautiful Bangla script, do not allow for comprehension but allow for plenty of admiration. I could not stop myself from stopping in front of homes and admiring each one of them. Twice, the narrow lanes, slowly buzzing to life with morning sounds and morning people echoed with the sound of conch shells blown thrice by women of some household post her morning “pujo”.

Cycle rickshaw bells, water carriers towing water to homes, people leaving for work, dogs reluctant to give up the fetal curled up position in the chilly winter mornings and the delicious aroma of fish frying in mustard oil in the kitchens of thoughtful looking Bengali homes is what the lanes were adorned with today morning….and it made my head buzz that too beautifully.

There is no other way Kolkata can do things to me!