25 December 2017

This happened on Christmas Day a couple of years back. It is still very funny!!

Excerpt from 2015 Dec 25th blog entry:
—
Awww!! It broke her heart to learn that Santa Claus is not real 🙁

I am not talking about my daughters. I am not talking of any of my nieces either. This is my seventy year old mom in India. During our early morning ritual – a phone call – today, she started arguing with me about Santa Claus. Much as I tried to explain to her that he is an imaginary character that parents tell their kids to deflect who got all the gifts, she steadfastly stood her ground that I had no idea what I was talking about. She felt I was getting confused because I forgot his real name – Nicholas!

“Ami bortoman-e porechhi onar asol naam Nikolas”. Apparently, a local Bengali newspaper is a lot more reliable source of information than her son of fifty summers. Not to mention half the stuff those local newspapers publish clearly have been picked from books found in the local library section visibly marked “Fiction”.

What absolutely took the cake – I mean literally – is when I had to tell her that cakes are not that big a thing during Christmas here. As an aside, anybody who has grown up around the parts of the country I did in India, exchanging Christmas cards and eating cake were the big highlights of any Christmas day. I come from a state where 30% of the population are Muslims and most of the rest Hindus. I grew up in a Christian school till tenth grade. Unlike the deep division in thoughts that I get exposed to today along the religious lines, life then, was all about celebrating all the religious festivals – regardless of which religion. Visiting the festively lit up parts of the neighborhood where Christians lived, buying Christmas cards and sending them to everybody and eating a whole lot of Christmas cakes was what Christmas always meant to us. Sometimes we would visit the well decorated local churches too.

But eating cake was a must. Against that backdrop, you can imagine the jaw dropping revelation that my mom was trying to process when I told her that cake is not that big a deal here. That was sacrilege to her. She finally but slowly gave her verdict which was basically suggesting that Christmas is really a British thing. Americans have not learnt about authentic Christmas yet 🙂

But for the mute button on the phone, I could have been in big trouble today. 🙂

She did agree on one thing before we parted – “Oi debdarur moto gachhta – ki jeno?” (referring to an indigenous coniferous looking tree). “Christmas tree”, I replied.

“Yes, Yes, Christmas tree… Christmas tree… I forgot”, she mused.
Score one for her fifty year old son!!! Take that “Bortoman”

Category: Family in India, Humor | 4 Comments on This happened on Christmas Day a couple of years back. It is still very funny!!
24 December 2017

A memorable statement from one of my hospice friends

Spending time with folks who are in the last short strokes of life sometimes can be very funny, sometimes very educational and sometimes outright heart-tugging. If not anything else, watching the compassion that the patients show to each other and the employees there show to the patients, is singularly educational.

I had a memorable moment day before yesterday. First let me set the context. One of my patients – a octogenarian lady – is more or less physically functional – however her short term memory is pretty much non-existent. She does move around in a wheel chair but she is able to move herself.

She has three kids but I am under strict instructions not to bring the topic of two daughters up unless she happened to mention it and even then I am to just acknowledge and move on. There is a particularly painful history she has with her daughters but let me spare you of that.

The son, on the other hand, is a completely different story. It was her son, as I understand, who moved her from a pretty bad situation and put her in the hospice that is very close to her house. He visits her often with his wife and kids and takes her to their place once a month. She absolutely lights up whenever anybody talks about her son.

My last visit this year to any hospice was this Friday and she was my last hospice friend that I had to visit. I was expecting a 20 minute experience. Turns out, we talked for nearly an hour. She was in a very good mood.

So, you ask yourself – what can you possibly talk for an hour with a stranger? First, you will be surprised how people want to tell their story if you let them. In this case, I did not have to bother about that either. She is so devoid of short term memory that an hour of conversation is pretty much twelve re-runs of the same five minute conversation.

I must have answered her standard questions about my family, my daughters, where I work and so on a clear ten times or more. Similarly, she made sure I had heard about ten times about her grandchildren, their ages, her original place of birth and such other things.

To break the monotony, at times, I would press further on the topic of her son – since I knew she is very proud of her.

“Your son, Mrs Valerie, is a gem of a guy”. (names changed to protect piracy)
“He is. He is an absolutely great son. I am very proud of him.”
“As you should be. You should be also proud of yourself how you raised him.”
“Thank you. I had friends help me.”

I was not sure how to avoid broaching another sensitive topic – her husband. So, I just smiled and was wondering what to ask next when she dove into the topic herself.

“My husband left me after my son was born. I needed my friends to help me”.
“I am sorry to hear that. But I am sure glad your friends were around.” Trying to veer away from her husband, I continued “You chose some real great friends”.

She was not to be deterred. “My husband ran away with a floozie”.

Okay, I do not know how you would react, but I was stumped. At that point I was hoping that she will ask me again the same questions about me that I had already answered for a few times.

“Did you re-marry?”
“No”
“So, you raised the kids all by yourself?”
“My husband left us. I had no choice. But I had friends help me.”

“I have to say this, Mrs. Valerie. I am very proud of you and what you have done. I think I have a lot to learn”
“Why, thank you!”
“They say that a great mother raises a great son”
“That is not true”
“That is not true?”, I asked somewhat confused.
“No. A great mother raises not just a great son. A great mother raises a great father”.

It took me a minute or two to realize what she was trying to say. Then it dawned on me. Her pride in her son was not how he has treated her – but how he has treated his own kids. It is not the son in him but the father in him that she feels so proud of.

She immediately interrupted my thoughts with the same old “How many kids do you have?”, “Are you retired?”…

On the drive back from my last hospice visit of the year, I could not help think of a young lady with three kids suddenly deserted by her husband. Somehow, somewhere, she picked up her broken pieces of life and must have made a promise to herself. Although the newborn son she had was going to be bereft of a father figure in his life, she will work the hardest to make him the absolute greatest dad in the world. For sure, she would make him – in her own eyes – far superior to the man who hurt her.

Boy! Did she come thru on that promise!! “A great mother raises a great father”!!!

Category: In Transit | 8 Comments on A memorable statement from one of my hospice friends
23 December 2017

Mixing up drinks at a Holiday Party at a friend’s place

Since the whole year was spent on researching and tasting gins from different countries, I took a different tack and went with a Vodka theme. It was mostly Bengali people, the cocktails were tailored to the usual Bengali tastes. The first cocktail (BGJ) was mostly to cater to the tropical climate spicy tastes – had ginger, jalapenos and basil leaves with vodka. The second one was for the ones who like aniseed (very commonly chewed by Bengalis after dinner). Called a Samtini, this had vodka, Anisette liqueur and a dash of blue curacao. Then there was the Pineapple upside down cocktail – with vanilla vodka, pineapple juice and grenadine for the never failing sweet taste buds of the Bengali tongue. And finally to cater to the modern health conscious Bengali – who would like to have the whiff of sweet taste but not much sugar in it, I had the Harrington – which is vodka, orange curacao and a little of green chartreuse.

This was my last party mixing drinks for this year. Thanks are due to Joyjit and Baisakhi for letting me do it.

Category: Cocktails | 3 Comments on Mixing up drinks at a Holiday Party at a friend’s place
23 December 2017

8 slow miles

That was not very enjoyable. But, in all likelihood the last run of the year in USA. I have 3 more miles left to finish off 100 miles every month this year. As has been my practice of the last few years, I will save that milestone For a run with my brother in India when I see him next week.

The weather was gloomy and there was a slight drizzle. I love to run in that kind of weather. But the wooden trail was dangerously slippery. There was overgrown algae after all the damp and wet days of last week and the dead, wet leaves made the wooden trail very treacherous. Every time I tried to pick up speed, I started slipping. One gentleman came crashing down from his bike barely a couple of feet away from me while negotiating a corner. I was pretty sure he would have broken a bone or two. Fortunately, he picked himself up without any help and insisted he did not feel any stinging or intense pain. That was scary though!!!

Now for the last, largely ceremonial milestone run with my brother in India…

Category: Running | 4 Comments on 8 slow miles
22 December 2017

Professional test. Word check.

If you sit down and start rattling off the different names of professions you can think of, I bet you that you will surprise yourself. In these days of hyper specialization, there are more professions (along with their specializations) than you can shake a stick at. Just think of the generic profession of “doctor”. Now think of how many different kinds of doctors you can think of – surgeons, podiatrist, oculist, optometrist, dentist, psychiatrist, cardiologist, anesthesiologist, immunologist, dermatologist, gynecologist, oncologist, pediatrician, urologist, rheumatologist…. you get the idea right?

Let’s try some unique words for professions today. Admittedly, some of these are uncommon these days.

Avoid writing the answers in the Comments section to give others a chance. However, feel free to write down how many answers you knew (just the number) before you start Googling.

1. Let’s start with the good old days when bows and arrows were the chief mechanism for hunting and defense. What do you call somebody whose job is to make bows? Believe it or not, there is a word for somebody who specializes in making arrows too. Do you know that name?

2. You will probably recognize who a blacksmith is. (worker of iron). Or a goldsmith or silversmith. Now, who is a redsmith? And who is a whitesmith?

3. Who is a catchpole?

4. There are carpenters who specialize in making chests and boxes (as opposed to doors, for example). What do you call them?

5. Who is a wainwright?

6. Long back, before alarm clocks were around, in England, there were professional people who would go around knocking on people’s doors and windows to wake them up on time. What were they called? (Interestingly, there was a time that professionals would dart peas out of a blowpipe to hit the windows of higher floors to wake people up on time!!!)

7. Making wigs is a profession unto itself. What are such wigmakers called?

8. Who is a castermonger?

9. You know all those cadavers that are used – for example – medical purposes? There are professional grave diggers who dig up recently buried coffins to retrieve the cadaver to be used for various purposes. What are they called?

10. And finally, who is a lector?

Category: Word Play | 35 Comments on Professional test. Word check.
22 December 2017

Existential question

As difficult as it might be to believe that I went to a party and stayed till midnight, it pales in comparison to the following jaw dropping realization I had on my drive back… Not a single selfie was taken during the whole party!!!

The well-conversed in Bengali parties in Atlanta area surely will sympathize with my confusion around an essential existential question …

If, during a party, not a single selfie was taken and posted in Facebook, did the party really happen?

🙂

Category: Humor, Musings | 11 Comments on Existential question