Take that

I had spent my childhood in a small town in Gujarat and my engineering from an even smaller town in Haryana. Big city pollution was always a tough ask for me to handle and so Calcutta's grime and dust atmosphere had me gasping for a breath of fresh air. Being Calcutta there was no such whiff coming so I had to launch a desperate search for any cures I could find to the chronic sniffles that had become part of my daily existence.

My road to a sniffle free existence lay in the wonder and ancient history of Dabur Chyawanprash. I don't know what they put in there but it sure as hell does the job! A lot of people always give me a hard time for having such a feeble immune system and hide bound weirdo habits like having two spoons of Chyawanprash a day which are more suited to doddering 80 year olds wrapped in mufflers and sustained by heavy sweaters. However Chyawanprash works for me and you can call me what you will.

I carried on with my Chyawanprash fixes in the US too as there ain't no shortage of Indians around thereby of Indian products. Only today did I notice the most interesting thing about the jar it is contained in. Beneath the image of the flowing white bearded Hindu sage and on the jar of what is an essential component of our 'Hindu' greatness, the ancient science of Ayurveda, the packing address reads "Dubai, U.A.E". Eat that Sangh Parivar maniacs and the Indian Mujahideen crackpots.

Unwarranted malice

What kind of a disgruntled person would spend precious hours of his life creating a computer virus? It would definitely take a geek to delve into the intricacies of coding and come up with something which plays havoc with what the everyday user requires of his computer. But wouldn't a geek rather play the next revolutionary computer game, discuss his favourite comic book character's second wife on forums or gawk at pictures of beautiful women on the Internet than spend energy and efffort to design something which he cannot even claim openly to be his handiwork. Hacking to some extent makes sense because there are monetary benefits to consider and also there is the challenge and thrill of sneaking past the security a-la the classy art thieves as glamourised by movies like "Entrapment" and the Ocean's series.

The first virus (from what I've read) was written by a Pakistani guy and was titled "BRAIN". All it did was change the infected computer's C drive name to "BRAIN". Not the most brainiest of ideas it must be said but it was only the first step to much more potent descendants.

Another funny one was the "Happy Birthday Joshi" virus (this again is from the days of MS-DOS) which would seize the computer and would relent only after the victim typed "Happy Birthday Joshi"! Viruses are the psychopaths of the virtual world, their life's mission is random destruction. Sometimes though all they need is for someone to wish them a happy birthday. Is that too much to ask of this selfish world?

A fog of thoughts

I would be in a tough spot if asked to name a single book as my favourite book of all time, but I certainly would have no qualms about naming my favourite first chapter. The first chapter of James Joyce's "The portrait of the artist as a young man" continues to make me draw a sharp breath everytime I read it.

A lot of utter gibberish is often peddled under the "stream of consciousness" tag but here's a case where someone has actually been able to successfully describe the whimsical nature of human thought. The central character Stephen Dedalus is in the middle of a school football match, and the nature of his thoughts are the focus of the entire first chapter. He thinks about his childhood, his home and his classes at his boarding school which are about to be dismissed for the holidays all at the same time flitting effortlessly between the three worlds that his mind occupies.

It speaks volumes of why Joyce is considered by many as the greatest English writer of modern times, that one single chapter. It is about those moments when through the fields of neatly arranged plans and routine actions comes rolling a fog of thoughts enveloping everything in its shadowy wake.

The immigrant experience

Last week I had driven down to Brockton (a neighbouring town) to check out a 1996 Accord which I was looking to buy. The owner was a second generation Portuguese immigrant and in the course of conversation we got talking about how his parents had moved to the USA from the 'old land' and how tough it was for him growing up in this country trying to live up to the expectations and norms set for Portuguese society. In a way, I told him, I had had that experience too even though I didn't need to change countries.

I was born in Calcutta, West Bengal on the eastern coast of my country before my dad got a job in Gujarat on the western fringe. India being a country where languages change every two hundred miles, it was no surprise that my mother tongue Bengali was totally useless in my new location. Apparently at 3 years old when we moved to Gujarat, I had gone mute for a number of months just at the shock of having to change languages.

My parents, pure blooded Bengalis did their best to teach us the customs and practices of far-off Calcutta which was always a holiday spot for us and nothing more. But neither did I feel Gujarati in any way by virtue of having grown up in Gujarat. Just as I did not sing Rabindra Sangeet with any kind of gusto, I hated the Gujarati traditional dance of Garba not least because I am blessed with 3 left feet. Hindi was my language of choice, using the local language Gujarati only when unavoidable. It was a feeling of rootlessness that plagues every child who is required to conform to the requirements of one culture while actually living in the middle of another. The Durga Pujos and the inevitable attempts by my mom to teach me to read and write Bengali in the summer vacations were integral to my existence as was wishing every relative under the sun on Poilaa Boisaakh (Bengali New Year).

I felt more Bengali than anything else but this was a feeling most joyfully refuted by my Bengali friends brought up in Calcutta. For them, being Bengali required one to be raised in Calcutta or at least West Bengal; everyone else were just wannabes. For a very long time, I laboured under this impression of not having any identity. This lingering doubt however was cleared in one swoop by my college friend Riddhi, a guy from rural Bengal and unlike the urbanites not hell-bent on proving my un-Bengaliness.

He asked me one day "Do you think that you are a Bengali?"

I was a little taken aback but I managed to muster "Umm... I am but then I can't read or write Bengali."

Riddhi replied "Well stupid, there are so many villagers in Bengal who are illiterate and so can't read or write Bengali. Does that mean that they are not Bengalis?"

Since then, I have been pretty comfortable under my tag of an NRB (Non Resident Bengali), confident that I do qualify as a Bengali if I choose to declare my ethnicity irrespective of whatever flimsy proof the Kolkata bhadralok might have against my eligibility.

Mondays in San Francisco

My first visit to the sunshine state of California was almost at an end. I had separated from my hosts to take a ride on the San Francisco light rail down its steep slopes to Fisherman's Wharf. It was a Monday, the 1st of September, and the Labour Day holiday was on. People were out on the streets as was the pleasant California sun. The occasional sea-gull shrieked its protests at the number of people entering its sea front domain while sounds of the sea-lions basking themselves at Pier 39 floated in from the distance. 

Fisherman's Wharf was a charmed place that afternoon, the people in the most sunny of moods strolling around without a care in the world as the street performers did their stuff. I paused at a group of Jamaicans playing their tinny drums and singing Bob Marley numbers. I got completely caught up in the moment, a near out-of-body experience for my nomad soul. With the sounds of the Pacific in the background, a cool salty afternoon breeze and the infectious "No woman, no cry" number being belted out, I sighed and wished with the deepest possible wish for a job which could offer me more blissful Mondays like this one!

434

12th March, 2006: A Sunday which will live in glory for all time to come for anyone who loves to see Australia beaten in a cricket match. The common room of our hostel had seen many a raucous celebration but none like that day even though India wasn't even one of the combatants.

It was the fifth and final one-dayer, the series decider for the Aussies touring South Africa. The day being a Sunday, the only thing that could be on the TV when a cricket match was on was a cricket match so a few sleepy heads half filled the common room and stared in disbelief as Ricky Ponting took the Proteas to task, the Aussies posting an unprecedented, mammoth, gargantuan, stupendous 434 runs as a target. The bitter memories of the 2004 World Cup final slaughter of India at the hands of the same batsman were awakened and the air was thick with the most vehement curses. How could they do this everytime, the darned Kangaroos, how could they bring their game up to such a level when it came to the big day? Hurt and anger and disappointment hung thick as people resorted to tearing newspapers and slamming the striker on the carrom board to divert their thoughts away from what looked assured to be another Aussie victory.

Who could've thought that a man called Herschelle Gibbs had decided otherwise? He smashed, pulled and cut his way in a dream innings as he came within touching distance of the impossible. Then he fell, and the mournful silence of the common room told the story of whose side we were rooting for. A parade of South African batsmen followed in quick succession, and the Aussies were back from the brink with their confident smirks. But Mark Boucher pulled the Proteas home in the most of nail biting of finishes with one ball to go and one wicket to spare. South Africa: 438/9 in 49.5 overs in what was positively the greatest run chase of all time. What a game!

The common room erupted and we were literally dancing in the aisles. High fives, chest bumps, pumping fists, mindless roars of joy et al were on display as the bitterest cricketing rivals of India were subjected to this incredible defeat. On that night, South Africa was playing for India, wreaking brutal vengeance on the invincible Aussies. The happiness that night defied belief as every cricket lover in our hostel fell asleep with a satisfied smile. It was Monday next day but we couldn't care less. Australia had been beaten and how! This was a story to tell our grandchildren. Even without being at the Wanderers, Jo'burg that night, being in far off Kurukshetra, it was well and truly a "I was there" moment.

The city of joy

Jug Suraiya, the brilliant writer who grew up in Calcutta tries to sum up the city in this beautiful statement:

"In many ways, Calcutta or at least, the Calcutta I knew found an apt metaphor in a derelict, tuneless piano once grand and imposing but now consigned to cobwebs and memories, difficult to accomodate in any practical scheme of things, yet defiantly enduring: pathetic to some, poignant to others, sufficient to itself."

I was born in the city but had then moved out to Gujarat, making only summer vacation visits to my birthplace before finally taking up a job there after graduation. I too have struggled to define what still pulls me to this chaotic city where nothing seems to be going right and have found an apt metaphor in something similar to Mr. Suraiya's train of thought though not exactly the same.

My maternal grandparents lived in the Salt Lake area of Calcutta so far removed from the city that it is its own municipality. But for someone like me coming in on a train from the western fringes of India, this was Calcutta enough for me. The little flat that they lived in ever since I was born was a treasure trove of wonders. They hadn't ever needed a fridge so the butter was kept floating in a bowl of water to preserve it, a unique thing that I had observed and for some trivial reason appreciated during my stays at my grandparents' house. There was a camp bed which was put out in the centre of our drawing room in our honour as we kids loved lying there in the curtain darkened afternoons as mom or grandma spun tales of how we were in the depths of a jungle as a tiger prowled outside our camp.

The wire mesh cabinets in the kitchen held goodies concocted by my grandma especially our all time favourite the sweet and tangy tamarind pickle. The book shelves often coughed up crepe paper covered story books from my mom's childhood which we read with relish and smelt that divine old book smell though sometimes it triggered a sneeze or two. Every year when we came there, the immediate neighbours who were a brother-sister pair slightly older than my sister and me were a big draw too. They used to mark our heights on the wall of their drawing room causing the incomparable thrill of finding out how much taller we had grown over the past year. Their pet pomeranian was as good as ours for the period of time that we lived there.

Then there were the sweet shops of the Labony Colony market in which I'd love to gaze lovingly on the offerings, and the 'mooriwalaa' (Puffed rice seller) who'd come to the flat with his huge basket and I'd be amazed everytime by his physical capabilities only to be reminded by grandma that his 'bostaa' (sack) really weighed nothing at all. The "Chuttii Chuttii" vacation programs on DD Bangla where we'd wait with bated breath for the next installment of the Feluda adventures by Satyajit Ray carried a special thrill when watched in the drawing room of the G-5/6 flat while we munched on 'moori' and 'beguni' (A flour caked fried goody with eggplant inside). The Tortoise slides at the other end of the colony where we'd beg our parents to take us were nothing more than two stone tortoises for kids to clamber over with a big slide on the same ground yet it meant the world to us. The Mother Dairy milk machine, the 'Jahaaj Baari' (Ship House) and a million other oft seen wonders would await us every time we stayed over at our grandparents and would thrill us just the same everytime.

Now that my grandparents have long passed away, a visit to my grandma's flat is not the same but the memories still come flooding back. The dust is wiped off them and they are burnished to a new shine everytime I quietly pass any landmark near my grandma's house that had excited me no end in the past. The coolness of a place lies in the intimacy someone shares with the place, with the stories that pop out of every corner of the streets. It's quite difficult for someone to appreciate who didn't have a part to play in those stories.

Similar to my relationship with my grandparents' house is the bond I share with the city of Calcutta as a whole. The trams clattering their idiosyncratic way through the hellish jams, the chime of the rickshaw puller's bell as he runs through the alleys getting little children to school or fat ladies to the New Market (which actually is at least 120 years old), the welcome relief of Red Road after the choking traffic of Esplanade, the traffic rumbling through the old skeleton of the Howrah Bridge, the crumbling buildings of North Calcutta, the short walk to the Oxford Book Store from my house - a journey which I undertook with joy for the rewards that lay at its end and the sudden rain showers that I love to get caught in - all this and more define my Calcutta. How do I explain this to a person who lands in from the vibrancy and swankiness of Delhi or Bombay (Both cities which I love and appreciate)? How do I get inside their head and ask them that when they are all done with the shopping malls and the late-night partying, whether there is some place they are familiar with from their days of innocence, a fortress of calm and comfort that they'd always turn to? Because that place for me with all its lovable and not-so-lovable flaws is Calcutta.