Returning to Bangkok after the floods…

A month back I had left Bangkok on two day’s notice. The flood waters were flowing towards Bangkok. As it engulfed the old airport area, the government complex, the already tense Bangkok-ians panicked. I was advised by my colleagues to stock up on dry food and water. The shelves at the super-markets emptied at a very fast rate. Next, the government announced a five day holiday to enable the people in Bangkok to prepare for the floods. All people who could take refuge in other provinces were advised to do so. My colleagues advised me to leave and within the next 48 hours I was on a flight to Delhi.

I returned yesterday. As I glanced down from the airplane, I could still see water everywhere. Sandbags are still outside the houses. Today as I entered my office, the first person I met was my senior colleague, a very senior lawyer who on a week day is always in formal attire – dressed very casually, with his shirt not tucked in and a salt and pepper beard on his chin. His office and house is still under water. He and his family have been living out of an apartment since the last one month. One of the first things he said to me was – that his collection of around 200 books had got destroyed. The shelves that he had stacked them on could not bear the weight and had crashed into the water. He has decided to grow a beard till he can return to his home. Other friends have temporarily moved in with other colleagues. Some are busy cleaning up after the waters receded from their homes. The stagnant water has left behind residue that is not easy to wash away. Colleagues who had temporarily migrated to other provinces to escape the floods are slowly returning to the city.

Today someone said that our office and apartment were saved from the floods because a well known nightclub cum hotel happens to be located nearby. The hotel is supposedly owned by some powerful people. The flood waters had reached the intersection but did not cross the traffic lights and advance towards the hotel.

I opened the door of my apartment and was reminded of the condition in which I had left for Delhi. The mental exhaustion of the past weeks had expressed itself in fever. I was shivering and sweating the same time I was packing. Things that I had planned to take with me to Delhi were still waiting in neat piles. I had omitted to pack them. There was a bowl of cooked rice in the fridge – now covered with a thick layer of feathery fungus. A packet of tomatoes had somehow turned into a red liquid. Leafy vegetables were – no longer leafy. And there was lots of stored water.

My ‘flood supplies’ of wheat biscuits, corn-flakes and soy milk came to my rescue as I cleaned and scrubbed.

Today, there were other colleagues as well who returned to office after a long time. So, it was back to flood talk – recounting experiences, exchanging news. But the worst has passed. The tension was not there. We celebrated our return with dinner and wine and stories about work, broken hearts and … floods. After dinner we went to the super-market but did not buy anything – the price of vegetables and fruits seemed very high, much higher than usual. It would be cheaper to buy from the street vendor.

Such is life – its different shades woven together so intricately. And to live it – one just has to accept it all…

Ghas ki roti… grass rotis

While in school there was a story in our Hindi text book about how Maharana Pratap after one of his battles with the Mughals had to take refuge in the forests amongst a group of bhil adivasis. They lived a hard life and he and his family had to survive on ghas ki roti or rotis made with grass. I used to wonder- What would ghas ki roti look like – a green flattened bird’s nest? How would it taste? How would it be made? Would it not get burnt if put on fire? Would it not be simpler, just to eat the grass just as it was – fresh?

But then, these are not questions that you ask in class from a Hindi teacher.

Yesterday I bought a brunch of fresh coriander leaves in the morning. I thought I would make some coriander chutney, but I did not have any other ingredients needed for it. Then I had an idea. I put the bunch in water – leaves, stems all of it (except the root) and boiled for a few minutes. After that, while it was still warm, I mixed it with wheat flour, some salt and kneaded it into dough. And made rotis with it. They tasted good. The fresh flavor of coriander leaves was still there.

I tried it again today with cha-om (acacia) leaves – a herb that is quiet often used in Thai cuisine, often eaten raw. The rotis tasted very ‘earthy’ – leaving an after-taste of freshness, that I can’t find any words to describe.

But I think I have found answer to my questions – about what ghas ki roti would look like, or how they would taste…

Growing up with Indian Railways

Of late I have been frequently remembering our travels with the Indian Railways and it struck me – how big a role it has played in our growing up years. Every school vacation meant – going to our grandmother’s home in Kanpur. A 24 hrs journey by train. And after the school going years – it connected us to many more cities, in search of higher education, in the course of work and simply for the sake of travel.

These memories are like a kaleidoscope. As I remember them – each thought slowly grows and merges into another – weaving together something that is beautiful and priceless. If I were to write about all of them, it would run into pages and pages. But what do I remember most?

The standing in queues before reservation offices. Once the dates of the summer vacations would be announced, my father would book the tickets for our onward journey. I remember going with him to the reservation office at a very young age. We used to have a separate queue for women. My father used to make us stand in that queue since it used to be a very short one. When our turn came, he used to handle the booking for us. The men in the other queue would grumble and mumble, but father managed to get his way. That’s how we learnt to do things – to fill in the railway concession forms distributed from the school, claim the student concession due to us and once we reached Kanpur, to help mother reserve our tickets for our return journey home.

I remember the excitement of travelling by train. Our faces pressed against the window bars – we used to see the landscape roll along with us. As we travelled from Jamshedpur to Kanpur, the mineral rich red soil of Singhbhum slowly turned into the yellow alluvial soil, the hills of chotanagpur plateau were replaced by the gangetic plain, the mustard fields and the mango orchards. We crossed over the river ganges at Allahabad. I remember, once the train was running quite late and for some reason it stopped for a long time, right on the bridge over the river. I still remember the sun setting over the river.

I remember the excitement over – who would our co-passengers be? Would it be a big family with many little children who would cry all the way? Or would there be somebody with an interesting repertoire of stories to share? I think we got our first taste of ‘stuffed bitter gourd’ during these journeys when our co-passengers shared their meals with us.

There was that exhilaration in stepping out from the train by ourselves into an unknown station – to buy a cup of tea, some food items, refill the bottles of water or wash utensils. But there was also that one time – when mother stepped out to buy some cucumber – and the train started moving. Mother had to climb into a moving train. We got a good scolding by all and learnt a lesson about not taking unnecessary risks.

I remember the summer, during the times of trouble in Punjab, when our train whose final destination was Amritsar, was stopped on the way. There was some kind of checking happening and the sikh men for some reason kept glancing into our ladies coupe. When mother asked them – what the matter was, they got more agitated. We latched the doors and windows and sat quietly inside, praying, till the train started moving again.

And I remember that summer – when many things happened.

By this time, my elder sister was studying the last year of high school in Kanpur. Mother decided that it was time for us to travel on our own. So when summer vacations came she packed me and my younger sister – off to Kanpur, all by ourselves. I remember – I was very angry with her for doing so. Did she not worry about our safety? How would we manage on our own? But we did. In fact – we attracted a lot of curiosity from our co-passengers. Two young girls traveling on their own – was not very common in those days. We reached our destination safely. I even made my first pen-friend during that journey.

That summer, elder sister had to worry about securing admission in a university. She was exploring different options and one was Lucknow University, one hour away from Kanpur. Her plan of action was to go there for a day and make enquiries. I was to accompany her. We would take an early morning train to Lucknow, visit the university during the day and then take the evening train back to Kanpur. We told our grandmother. She was a brave lady – who gave us permission easily. My grandfather or my uncle who might have raised objections – were not told. On our way to Lucknow – we made friends who helped us to plan the day. We boarded the train for our return journey in the evening. Our compartment was full of men. And the way they looked at us – it was a bit scary. We were uncomfortable. When the ticket checker came – we told him we wanted to change our seats and could he seat us in the company of women? The ticket checker understood our predicament and helped us. On reaching Kanpur I remember, we almost ran out from the train – the railway station – and hurriedly boarded a rickshaw for home. Conversation had dried out between us. We were so scared. It was only when we reached home, could we relax. We found everyone anxiously waiting for us. Grandmother was so relieved to see us back.

It was the same summer that Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated. We were returning to Jamshedpur. Halfway through the journey, the train stopped at Gaya station for around 4-5 hrs. There was some disturbance along the route. There was no food or water available at the station. It was hot and we all were hungry and thirsty. There were two Christian nuns who were traveling with us. They said that in Gaya city – there was a convent and they could go and get food and water from there. Would our elder sister accompany them? We three had to decide amongst us – and we thought, why not! So – she went off with people whom we had just met – into an unknown city – leaving her two younger sisters behind in the train with unknown people. Such evil things could have happened to us in those few hours. But nothing happened. My sister did come back to us  after some time with water, fresh bread and honey.

That same journey… from Gaya, the train started its journey again halting at every station. One station away from Jamshedpur it was stalled again for a few hours. It was already very late in the night. There was an alternative – that we get off our present train and board another one heading to Jamshedpur. Again, a big decision  – what to do? Father would be waiting for this train in Jamshedpur. How would we let him know that we changed trains? Anyway, we decided to move along with the crowd and change trains. Finally we reached Jamshedpur and father was there waiting – for both trains at the railway station.

After that summer, as we enrolled in university we started journeying on our own. Journeys to new places with different objectives – leaving the comfort and security of our home for new set ups and responsibilities. Apprehensive, uncertain, and sometimes a bit afraid of that which awaited us. And there have been those return journeys to home – traveling with a completely different set of emotions.

There have been those journeys – when unseen hands have groped throughout the night. Sometimes we were able to shout and ward them off, sometimes we used our elbows and hit out – and sometimes we just had to find a way to avoid those hands. There have been times when the toilets have been so dirty that you ate nothing, drank nothing – so that you would not have to visit them. And there have been those innumerable ‘Bollywood moments’ – when some earth shattering event could have happened, changing the  entire course of our lives.

But they did not.

We continued to travel and enjoy our journeys, filing these experiences away in our memories – in the process, unconsciously learning about how to trust and yet be aware of others, about our strengths and weaknesses, risks and challenges and ways of coping with these challenges.

And could there have been another better way to learn?

Going down memory lane…

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10150166908028379&set=a.10150166080828379.298396.631948378&type=1&pid=6840726&id=631948378

‘Don’t tell the Nazis’… I remember this play well…

One day, while going to class from the morning assembly, KKG (Krishnokoli Gupta) pulled me out of the line. I remember looking down at my socks and shoes. They were reasonable clean. Then, what could it be? A few other girls were pulled out as well. We were told to meet with her during recess – when she made us read from some text. And the next thing I knew was – that I had been selected for this school play – ‘Don’t tell the Nazis’.

It was a play about sisters who provided refuge to the pilot of a plane that was shot down and the Nazis came looking for him.

I don’t remember which class were we in… std 8 or 7?

And I don’t remember the occasion for which the play was being staged. But I do remember it was staged at one of the clubs in Jamshedpur. Was it the United Club?

I remember memorizing my lines. I remember, Abhishek Yadav, the injured pilot, making fun of me – during one rehearsal I had tried to help him by pulling at his supposedly injured arm…

I remember our costumes that we got from home – my navy blue suede skirt and white blouse with puffed sleeves. Our teacher wanted us to sew some patches on our skirts to give the impression that we were poor. Ma refused – she said that the fabric would get spoilt. Instead we rubbed powder on to it – in patches – to give it a dirty look.

I remember getting ready for the performance at the club. There was this small make up room and we had some guys as make-up men. I remember in the beginning, every time his hand came near my face, I pursed my lips at him – anticipating that coat of lipstick. But it was always – dab of foundation, powder, kajal… and I think just to keep me waiting… he applied the lipstick right at the end.

Where did my fascination for lipstick go?

The play went well. My family was there. I remember other parents saying nice things at the end.

Yes, I also remember – I forgot a line. There was a moment of confusion, but the other friends, quite experienced in acting, covered it up for me.

I don’t know why KKG selected me as one of the characters, but whatever be the reason – I am thankful to her – for giving me that experience and these memories.

I think – that was the first and the last time, anybody was able to coax out a public performance from me.

For Every Woman by Nancy. R. Smith

I was reading something when I came across this, and wanted to share…

For Every Woman

For every woman who is tired of acting weak when she knows she is strong,

There is a man who is tired of appearing strong when he feels vulnerable.

For every woman who is tired of acting dumb,

There is a man who is burdened with the constant expectation of ‘knowing everything’.

For every woman who is tired of being called “ an emotional female”,

There is a man who is denied the right to weep and be gentle.

For every woman who feels “tied down” by her children,

There is a man who is denied the full pleasure of shared parenthood.

For every woman who is denied meaningful employment and equal pay,

There is a man who must bear full financial responsibility for another human being.

For every woman who takes a step towards her own liberation,

There is a man who finds that the way to freedom has been made a little easier.

Snip snip snip

The new year started with these small eruptions, breaking the known routine of life – ejecting out so many different things – all of which had to be dealt with attention and care. I desperately needed some diversion – something that would take my mind off from the questions of the present.

Colleen McCullough’s sequel to Pride and Prejudice did not help.

What else?

Cut my hair that now fell below my waist! It needed trimming badly and in this city where there are half a dozen hair salons in every street, I had never stepped into any in the five long years of being here.

I enlisted AK to help me in this project. Excited by the idea – she sent me a catalogue. I examined the different hair styles wistfully – Bipasa Basu, Priyanka Chopra, in their sexy, mysterious, enchanting, girl-next-door avatars stared back at me, all of them having the same question – would you be able to carry this hairstyle in the same way that I do? AK, my sisters pushed me – ‘you need to look different’. My inner voice questioned – what if you don’t like the different ‘you’?

A date with the hair salon was made. AK and her boyfriend accompanied me. After a lengthy round of conversation in thai and english – a hair style was selected. And I surrendered myself.

I watched as my hair was reduced to half its length with rather harsh stabs of the scissors. The uneven lengths were then coated with some liquid, rolled and encased in small cylinders with rubber bands. As I sat there waiting, whiffs of something burning came to me… I looked around but could not identify the source. Soon the ends of each cylinder were connected to wires and the machine plugged into the socket.

My hair rolled up in cylinders was being barbecued gently. After some hours the heat was stopped. Hair was uncased – shampooed – more liquid applied – and twirled again and again while it was blow dried.

I got to see my new look – soft curls framed my face. Not bad! AK’s boyfriend had a new look too. His curly, wavy hair was now as straight as a sheet of new paper.

As directed by the stylist, since then, every morning with oily hands I have to coax the strands of my wet hair into curls. In the early days they obliged easily but then the barbecued ends started to break away.

It is going to be two weeks now. Though sometimes I still get the same whiff of ‘something burning’ while combing, my hair is almost back to being as straight as it ever was. So has my life.

Avatar

Happy New Year! I did not think I would start the new year with raving and ranting – but I read that ‘avatar’ had become a big box office hit. And I could not help myself.

I saw Avatar during the holidays. It was a brilliant film in terms of technology – the visuals, the animated characters, but I was so disappointed in its story.

The film is about Pandora, a land in another planet. The planet is of interest to the white men from earth because of its rich natural resources that includes a precious mineral. An industrialist wants to harvest it. He descends on Pandora with a scientific team and an army unit. The science team finds a way in which humans can change their physiology to adapt to the atmospheric conditions of Pandora and blend in with the Pandoreans or the Navi as they are called. One of the ‘human turned Navi’ has to convince the people to leave their land, so that mining operations can start. If the people refuse – the army would play its hand. In this process, the science team falls in love with Pandora – because its rich diversity provides an intriguing area of research. And the man assigned to have the dialogue with the Pandorean – falls in love with the daughter of the Navi chief. The time allotted for finding peaceful means gets exhausted. The Pandoreans refuse to leave. Tanks and all kinds of heavy weapons that you can imagine – are all set to start rolling.

At this point of the film I was waiting for the Pandoreans to get their resources together – their ancient spirits, the living trees, the powerful looking birds and animals – and put up a fierce fight and defeat the might of bombs and guns.

But alas, that was too romantic a dream.

It seemed only the ‘human-pandoreans’ had the power to save the people from destruction. The man-in-love was able to tame the most powerful and symbolic animal in Pandora in a matter of seconds. Consequently he becomes their chief and the Navi bow before him in reverence and awe. It is he, and no other, who pleads with the ancient spirits to come to the aid of the people. Well, after that, the end was predictable. Under his leadership the men and the machines were defeated. Albeit after the ancient tree was uprooted by tanks and carpet bombs caused unimaginable destruction. The hero becomes a Pandorean and all live happily after.

The film had so much arrogance about it.

I read that the film was set in the year 2154. But I had such a feeling of ‘déjà vu’ while watching it. Nothing seems to have changed from what it is today. The army unit or the ‘marines’ appeared to be on a holiday after a war on earth. The industrialists with plans of uprooting civilizations for looting their wealth seemed undaunted. And it was still the ‘white man’ who had all the power – the power to destruct and the power to be the savior.

And even after 150 years, still only men are thought fit to rule. Only Jake could assume the title of the Chief. Neither ‘neytiri’ the brave daughter of the Navi chief who taught Jake everything he knew about Pandora nor ‘mo-at’ the strong spiritual guru and mother of Neytiri could assume that role.

Why???

Rickshaws and the motor-cy(s)

I once again missed the rickshaw today.

Rickshaw – the mode of transport that is still popular in most parts of south Asia. In fact Wikipedia says that Dhaka is the ‘rickshaw capital’ of the world. It looks small -but you will be surprised at how much holding capacity it has. It was this rickshaw, which took us children, around ten in number, with our school bags, lunch boxes, water bottles and other paraphernalia to school every day and also brought us safely back home – be it any weather – monsoon, winter or summer. In Dhaka I have seen it accommodating three adults. A woman dressed very prettily flanked by two other adults – all sitting quite comfortably is not an uncommon sight – though I never cease wondering – where is the space?

These rickshaws are so useful to commute between those small distances which are not covered by any other public transport or those distances which are sometimes too long to be covered on foot. It is this utility – that taught us to respect their trade as well. After getting dependent on them, a time comes when you start asking yourself – “if I cannot walk the distance, should I be bargaining so hard with the man who is going to pull my weight?” or maybe we got the early lessons from my grandmother, who after coming back from the market in the hot sun, would ask the rickshaw puller to wait while she instructed us to get him a glass of cool water and a piece of jaggery or gud.

Alas – in Bangkok there are no rickshaws. What you have instead is the motorcycle taxis or the motor-cy as they are commonly called. They are a complete opposite to the slow and steady rickshaw. I believe their motto is to offer a – ‘one stop journey in record time’ and in order to live up to it, they zig zag their way between cars and buses, get around the red lights in most imaginative ways possible and reach you at your destination in a blink of an eye. You can request them to go – cha cha (slow- slow), but I think once the engine starts running, they remember nothing but their motto. And it is because they think they are the king of the roads, I wage a silent war with them every day when I walk between my office and home. The motor-cy think, pedestrians have no business to occupy the side of the road while I am insistent to claim that right of mine.

It is not only their audacity and recklessness that makes me averse to using them. It is also this lack of personal space between the driver and the commuter. But still, there are times when you have no other option. And today was such a day. The motorcycle driver assigned to me had long silky hair tied up in a ponytail. I thought nothing of it till we started. After which I could not decide whether I should hold on to the motorcycle for my life or his ponytail to prevent his hair from whipping against my face!!

How I wish there were rickshaws in Bangkok!

photocredits: wikepdia

In search of roots

This time my visit to Bangladesh had a special mission attached to it. I was to go to Maimansingh to find out if there are any traces or memories left of my paternal ancestors – my great grandfather, Shri Amar Chandra Datta who founded the Bramho Boys School, and who left sometime in the late 1930s. He had three sons and one daughter. One of his sons Shri Porimol Datta, stayed on, teaching in the same school, leaving for India around 1950s. The daughter married the nephew of Shri Chittoranjan Das.

Armed with these facts, we did go to Maimansingh. We were directed to the house of one of the old families – Bramhan Kutir. The family gave us a very warm welcome and over tea and biscuits – we found out that the Bramho Boys School no longer exists. Atleast by the same name. Maybe it had been renamed afterwards. There used to be many Hindus in the Maimansingh region – but most of them left, first during the partition and then during the liberation war in 1970. Now there are very few of the Bramho Samaj left.

They said they would contact us if they could find any relevant information. We left these few facts with others as well. Maybe we will get a lead, maybe we won’t.

If we do not, my parents may be a bit disheartened. But me? I don’t think so. My journey to know my roots – has just begun. Perhaps it is the same for anybody from Punjab or Sindh – but I have realized that when I speak Bengali in Bangladesh, my nationality, even more – the difference in religion which was the reason for the partition, is of no consequence. My friends, Khala Amma, introduce me – as a daughter of Maimansingh, now settled in Delhi. It makes me feel as small as a worm as I know so little about this land and at the same time it fills me up with a sense of belonging…

… and I hope that a day would come when I would be able to speak bangla, without having to hear that it is very difficult to understand me as I speak it with a strange English accent!

You know – Mumtaj?

Do you know Mumtaj?

Mumtaj?? You mean Taj Mahal?

Nonono – Dharmendra? Hema Malini? Amitab Bachan?

Oooo – you mean the actress Mumtaj! Films!

Yes, – Rajesh Khanna – very handsome

hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

you know sholay? ‘Daughter of Kashmir’? ‘Chang peun Kaew’?

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmm …chang peun kaew? No, I don’t know…

But that is a famous movie in Thailand, about an elephant who is a friend…

Noooo – I don’t see thai movies.

Nooooo – Indian movie – not thai movie – rajesh khanna!

Indian movie? What could it be? I rack and rack my brains – but can’t find an answer…

Kashmiri women – very beautiful

Hmmmmmmmmmmm

Indian films very nice – many songs – you climb and walk through three mountains in one song….

Hmmmmmmmmm

Dance around trees, rivers, fields – ooooo I like it! Do all Indian people sing and dance like that?

This is a conversation I had with my taxi driver yesterday during a drive through unexpected heavy traffic. And I have had similar conversations with taxi drivers before. What is interesting is that they do not know the actors of today. It seems around 20 years back, before dvds and vcds came to Thailand – Indian films used to be screened at the theaters. With hindi soundtrack – and subtitles in Thai. And that is why these stars of yesteryears are recalled fondly even now.

At the end I did figure out though – ‘Chang peun Kaew’ could only be ‘hathi mere sathi’. And daughter of kashmir – perhaps ‘kashmir ki kali’. After all, Sharmila Tagore is very beautiful…