“Alta and sindoor” – the veritable decorative items of a married Bengali woman. By the way, what is “alta” called in English? I believe “sindoor” is called vermillion.
She wore it for the first time when she got married in 1964. The last application was on her lifeless body before they carried her away. The “alta and sindoor” has been sitting there ever since…
Every morning when I used to call her on my way to office, invariably the answer to my question of “What were you doing?” would be “jop-e bosechhilam”. (doing her prayers).
That was her evening routine. Lighting an incense stick, sitting down on the floor and doing her meditative prayers. Till dad asked for another cup of tea or her elder son’s phone call came from the US.
That last matchbox and incense stick pack is still sitting there… untouched for a year.
The clothesline clips have been sitting there for a full year without being used. Mom was finicky about hand washing clothes everyday and putting them out to dry. Which caused dad a heartburn of no small measure since they would obstruct his clean view to the outside world!!
In fact, during my daily phone calls, I could accurately gauge the weather in Kalyani from my mother’s response to my innocuous question about how had the day been. “Good” means the sun was up and the clothes had dried up. “Not good” means the clothes could not be put out due to rains outside and she was worried how were they going to dry.
There was a third response “dhoor dhoor dhoor“, which can be roughly translated to “Terrible”. That would undoubtedly mean that the sun was up but the rains suddenly came in rendering all her clothes wet all over again!!
This is my mom’s final home – B 10/101 Pannalal Road. You would have seen a lot of pictures of this house in my posts over the last decade or more as I have tried to stitch together the anthologies of my four times a year trips here.
After leaving home at the age of 16, this is the place I made more trips to see her than any other place on this earth!
The last stop in Kalna was to visit my mom’s college. I am not sure how it looked in those days (certainly it was not as bright looking with the fresh coat of paint and the marble entrance now) but I do know how my college going mom looked from this old picture of hers that I have.
She did Political Science and Economics as I recollect in a degree that is called B.A. Honors, I think. If I am not very mistaken, it was a 3 year course. She got married right when she was finishing her last year.
Since my grandfather had moved the family from Upalati village to the town of Kalna so that his kids would get better education, I had to go find out where is it that my mom got her education…
Once I got the name of the school from her elder sister, locating it on Google Map was fairly easy. When I reached there, I had no issue getting inside and taking pictures. School was not in session. I am sure the building did not have such fresh new paint those days but I was impressed with the fact that it was established in 1901 !!
To put the inception year in perspective, most people in the world did not bathe daily, the world just got to know about the Nobel prize and Australia became a new born country!!
When my mom reached sixth grade, my grandfather decided to move his family from the village of Upalati to a nearby town called Kalna. He figured that it would be good for the education of his four kids. (He had 2 more later).
This is the house in Kalna that I have great memories of. This is truly a Bengali’s “mamabaari”. The last time I had visited this place was in the 1970s. It took me about half an hour of phone call with my uncle (mom’s brother) to try and pinpoint the house in Google Maps.
Turned out that once I was nearby, I recognized all the small markers – the two ponds, the left and right turn in the alley – in spite of the fact that modern civilizations had penetrated even this town – at least in terms of asphalt roads instead of dirt roads and covered drains instead of open ones.
Introducing ourselves to the current residents wsa less of an issue. They are the descendants of the original owner of the house. My grandpa had rented the house from him. And we are somehow related to them – multiple times removed, I am sure. I found out that the original owner’s name was Haradhan Pan. Which reminded me why my dad always made me write “C/O Haradhan Pan” (Care Of Haradhan Pan) every time I wrote a letter to my grandpa and put his name first in the address line.
I was amazed how much of the house has remained the same. The owners invited us to go around the whole house and take pictures. Which I did. Every step brought back a flood of memories… remembering the excitement when my aunt (mom’s sister) was getting married, the running to the rooftop to wave my grandfather goodbye as he hurried thru the alleys for his 7:55 train, the sleepy dinners sitting on the floor by grandmother’s kitchen under the watchful eyes of the pet cats. There was no electricity those days. It was all lanterns lit by kerosene lamps and hand fans!
As of today, I marveled at the idea that this dilapidated house is where my mom spent her time as a teenager. While I had the chance to take my mom to her birthplace once, I never had brought her back to this house!!!
This will remain, unfortunately, in my wish list for ever.
This stretch of road that marks the entry into the village Jirat has a special meaning to a friend of mine back in Atlanta whose dad grew up (part of his life) here. No doubt he walked around this area (Jirat market). Of course, one can assume that there were no concrete roads then.
I will let the person self-identify!!
My brother and I had just checked in and then settled down at the restaurant in Westin Kolkata. The idea was to grab a quick lunch and then head out to explore all the places my mother had spent time in.
After we had placed our order, a young gentleman caught my eye. He was looking towards me. I had the feeling I must have met him before. From behind the mask, I could not recognize the face at all.
He stepped up – “How are you, sir? Everything okay?”
“Yes, yes!”, I said as I focused on his name tag. Tathagata. I feverishly ran thru in my mind the dozen or so staff members’ names that I knew in the Westin but could not still place him. The name rang familiar but I could not see the face.
I think he sensed my struggle. “I was at the JW Marriott, sir!!”
Immediately, the memories came back to me!! Of course! This is Tathagata – the bartender at the lobby level bar in JW. He diligently fixed me with a Hendricks and tonic followed by a glass of wine every evening in March when I stayed there with my siblings and their families for a few days.
“What are you doing here?”
I learnt that he had moved to Chennai (the Sheraton, I think) and then had to move back to Kolkata since his mom fell ill.
I promised to see him in the evening at his bar.
He fixed me with one of his signature cocktails. And I picked up some wisdom around “blue peas” and how to make a gin change its colors with it (and again with the tonic water). I have to try this at home.
It was good to see Tathagata after almost nine months and learn aa few things about his trade.
