Sitting out in the early mornings and having tea together.

This story is especially for Sharmila who ridicules me for scaling the water tank on the terrace at my dad’s building to have wine.

As a backdrop, I need to first explain two generic words used by Bengalis. The first one is “ye”. This is basically a word thrown to mean anything or everything – especially when you cannot remember the real name – or probably ever knew. A common English colloquial equivalent would be “whatchamacallit” or “that thingy”. Hope you get the general drift.

My parents – throughout my childhood – were a tad more conservative than the peer group I grew up with. There were three absolute no-nos for me and my sibling when we were growing up. First was watching Hindi movies (this is where they differed from most all my other friends’ parents I knew) – especially listening to the “laareylappa” songs. Not sure what “laareylappa” truly meant – but I am sure for my dad it translated to “not Rabindrasangeet”. The second prohibition was around smoking cigarettes. The third was around drinking. This might explain why I have never watched Sholay (actually, I do not think I have watched more than three or four Hindi movies in my entire life), never puffed a single puff so far and had my first sip of any alcohol at the age of 32!

And it is that alcohol that brings me to Bengali’s second generic word. You see, for Bengalis till a certain generation – for my parents anyways – the concept of social drinking was non existent. If you drink then you automatically slip down to the lowest rung of society. The whole gamut of your finest bottle of a cabernet to the local potent toddy was summarily dismissed as “mod”. They were all the same source of social evil, thank you very much. The society – according to them anyways – were divided by a deep chasm – the “modo maatals” (drunkards) and the “bhalo chheleys” (otherwise, good guys). You were either destined to be staggering or a staggering success, as it were.

Crossing that chasm was not for the weak of the heart when it came to figuring out how to have a glass of wine or two in Durgapur or Kalyani at my parents’ place. The Durgapur part was relatively simpler – Sharmila and I simply went to “Big Bazar” – name of a shopping mall – which is the excuse we gave to our parents while we went to some local restaurant that served some bad wine. Incidentally, my dad – who grew up with little money and is not exactly aligned with consumerism – was always mighty pleased with Sharmila that in spite of so many evenings being spent shopping in Big Bazar, she never actually bought anything and came home empty handed.

In Kalyani, the problem was a little more subtle. For one, there was no good spot to go and drink. So the solution was to insource the problem. In other words, find some place to drink at home. Dad’s place was ruled out for obvious reasons. Sister’s place was also dicey since mom could walk in any day. Eventually, the problem was solved by hauling our wine bottle and some spicy snacks up to the terrace and then scale the water tank every evening to commence our imbibing. Even if mom came up to the terrace, she would not scale the water tank.

That practice continued for years. And was a constant source for Sharmila to ridicule me and my brother. One fine evening, rains intervened and we had to bundle ourselves back down to my sister’s house. Where we were promptly busted when my mom walked in and saw all of us sitting and having a good time. She made nothing of it. If anything, much to our chagrin, she came and sat among us. Talk of some awkward moments. My brother praising the “soda” we were drinking was at best a noble attempt but a thoroughly unsuccessful one, by my reckoning.

The interesting part is my mom never made a fuss about it and would come and join us every evening after that. You might even remember how she sat with us in the bar of a resort we had taken our parents to one time and had drinks with us (she, of course, had a mocktail). That practice then continued for some time. Everybody knew what was going on. Nobody ever talked about it. You just never explicitly mentioned it by name. And my dad was none the wiser in the bargain.

Finally, we were emboldened to even drink in our dad’s house. Like I said, mom was cool. Dad had no idea.

The crowning glory came yesterday. We were all sitting down with my dad in our veranda outside and were chatting while enjoying the mild wind in an otherwise hot and sultry evening. When my mom walked up and said “Toder “ye”-tar saathey aajkay pniyaji banaabo”. In other words, she offered to make onion fritters for us to go with “that thingy” for the evening. My dad tried asking what she was talking about. She simply brushed him aside.

My brother and I kept looking at each other. Did our mom just encourage us to drink?

Wow! We have come long ways.

So there, Sharmila Roy – you can’t ridicule my brother and me anymore. Our mother makes “pniyaji” to go with that “ye” thing. Let me see you getting your mom to do that now!

An evening of music with my sister. We started doing this first in 1977!

Only a Bengali might truly appreciate this – but we pushed him in his wheelchair for half a mile to a street side vendor hawking “foochka”s !!! He can’t eat with his hand but my brother took care of that formality!!

For all the effort that was taken to teach their hapless uncle how to do the Dental Floss dance – quite unsuccessfully, I might add – they were rewarded with some demo of a two handed drum beat. It is a little tricky in terms of timing and coordination.

Well, that kept them busy for a whole evening! This is the final demo they gave me of a triple combo.

I was simply glad nobody in the resort complained about the ruckus they raised…

Turns out my dad did get in a car to head towards the resort where we were going to all get together as a family. But once I landed in Kolkata airport, I got the news from my brother that I was very afraid of. My dad fell ill after an hour and started throwing up. The decision was taken to not take any more chances and the car turned around to get him back home. All this happened when I was in flight. The good news was that he was very stable after reaching home. The bad news was that if the logistics of his journey was set up differently, this would not have happened at all. Well, we were where we were.

Here came the next complication. You see, we had planned a big surprise for my dad. To go back to his life history, after he left tilling land in his village and moved to Durgapur to join an upcoming steel factory (the one move that put the three of us siblings on a completely different life path), he had then tried to convince other folks from his village to get out of farming and go get a job in an industry. Two that he had succeeded with were my mother’s brother and one of his cousins. I traditionally have called them “Mama” and “Kaka”.

They too moved to Durgapur and started their family there. In the process they got their families on a different arc of financial stability too. And they have been forever thankful to my dad about that. They would always show up at her house and help my dad and mom with a small thing here and a small thing there. In fact, I grew fairly close to my “mama” and his family. He had a big part in my life – from rushing me to the hospital when I came down with typhoid to teaching me how to tie a tie when I had my first job interview. He also was the one who got me interested in math early on by giving me math problems to solve for. My “kaka” lived a little further away and we saw him more on a weekly basis rather than multiple times a week. I remember looking forward to his trips because of his quick, funny quips and the constant supply of logic puzzles he used to have.

After my father suffered his stroke in Sep 2017, during his recovery period, one of the first memories that came back to him was these two uncles. He would repeatedly talk about how much he helped them and how much they helped him back and that that was what being a family meant. He would repeat the same thing over and over again. Looking back, while that part of his memory got restored early, the rest of the brain was still damaged and he had no idea that he had just mentioned the same thing a minute back.

Regardless, those two uncles were his source of pride always. First, they joined him in his call to give up on tiling land. And second, he had helped them get a job. On the other hand, he also was very happy how much he could depend on them whenever he needed some help. He always referred to them as his right arm and left arm.

Back to Sunday. So, the idea was to get those two uncles (and aunts) to come to the resort and spend a couple of days with my dad. We figured he would have a blast. It was not an easy journey for either of the uncles – one of who is a cancer survivor and the other has had some serious nerve damages (and actually cannot speak fully well due to a botched surgery).

Anyways, the best news of the day after I landed was that my dad was stable and normal once he went back home. The quick decision from me was to proceed with the vacation as planned sans my parents. As much as it hurt that I would not see him with my uncles, it was no less a trip for me to spend time with the two uncles myself. While I have kept up with them and their families over the phone and visit them fairly often during my trips to India, this was the first time – after early childhood – that I would get them for some quality time.

And then there was the next generation. For the nephews and the niece, they were literally having hourly countdown to the trip. It would have been devastating for them to cancel the trip.

So, well, we went ahead and pointed all the cars to the resort.

Looking back, it was simply a blast. I will put more pictures soon. But to get a couple of days to sit down and say Thank You to folks who helped you and your siblings in the formative stages of life was invaluable. To do that while similarly creating memorable moments for the next generation at the same time? Now, that was priceless.

The younger nephew teaching me what I am told is called the Dental Floss dance. As a person who dances with the grace of a hippo on a hot plate, I can only say that never in my 53 summers so far had I thought anybody would put the words “dental floss” and “dancing” together in the same breath.