… without the evening sojourn to the street side “foochkawala”!!!
As Nikita likes to describe it – “You poke a hole in the crispy bread, put potatoes in it and then pour dirty water into it”!!

Heavenly in taste!!! We missed my sister in law who was in Kolkata!!

I cannot possibly overstate the improvement in his condition from barely 2 months back. He is actually sleeping, has gotten some memory back, speaking coherently, trying to walk and even having some great moments while chatting with people around him!!

This guy and I go back forty six years – from the time he was born. Born with a lot of complications and almost lost to a virulent attack of jaundice when he was barely a few days old, he was always the “young” one in the house that had to be protected. Somewhere the big brother protective genes had kicked in due to this and all throughout my life, we have been very, very close. We used to write a lot of letters to each other when I left home and then he left home. Now, we talk every single day and almost always we travel together when I am in India.

When we came back from the day trip to Debipur, we realized that dad, mom and the attendant were all sleeping. The evening outside was beautiful. The sun was setting and thru those hazy layers, it looked like a perfect orange orb.

We just sat down with two glasses of wine and enjoyed some quiet time together.

It had been a good day!!

As impressed as I was, (self-indulgently, no doubt) looking at the array of fountain pens I had set up on the table, my father summarized his opinion in a few choice words…

“Streeter more-e dnaragey ja. Khodder peye jaabi”!!!

“Go stand at the street corner. You will get a few customers!!!”

That be my brother (left) !!!

In a somewhat different twist to the age old Shakespearean quote… here is a classic role reversal. The child helping the father take baby steps and learn how to walk by himself!!!

When my brother and I reached home, the first thing dad wanted to do is try practicing some more walking!

When we are out for a week, apparently he tried again walking by himself when everybody was sleeping and had yet another fall. Fortunately, he again escaped easy – with a bump on his forehead. (Last time he had stitches).

As worried as I am that he is being too impatient, full points for not giving up on the urge to walk around again in spite of the falls…

The girls are off to Durgapur. My brother and I are headed towards my parents now.
First things first! Tea by the roadside stall to commence the journey!!

Natasha and Nikita not only got some great time with the grandparents but also their first and second cousins. Looks like Nikita has picked up quite some Bengali. They seem to be bonding over two very common themes in Bengal – eating food and playing card games!!!

Most who have been lucky enough to grow up with grandparents around them will vouch for their undeniable influence – especially in the early stages of childhood. While the advent of modern economic growth started breaking up joint families in India, kids – in most of the cases – maintained reasonable access to their grandparents.

I was lucky to see mine every year. I had only three of them. My dad lost his dad at his tender age of two and a half. My recollection of my grandparents is still of their incredible kindness and generosity towards us. It was as if, as grandchildren, there was no demand too steep and there was no infraction that were punishable in the least bit.

They were our alibi when we were in trouble with our parents, our go-to when we got scared of our parents, our source for funding when our parents won’t buy us a knick knack and our never ending well of stories.

Nikita and Natasha, having been born in the USA do not have that easy an access to their grandparents in India. There was a time we used to come every year to maintain the routine I had with my grandparents. Then that stopped as they grew up and their life got taken over by…. well, life!

You can only imagine how excited I was that this time when both of them expressed the desire to visit their grandparents. One of the moments I was hoping to create – and that is something that had happened only once in my life time for myself – was to see if I can put both them with both side grandparents together under a roof for a day.

That explains the tiring trip to Durgapur and back (a total of 12 hours of driving – we got stuck in a couple of nasty traffic gnarls on the highway) to get Sharmila’s parents. And then after staying over in Kolkata for the night, we were all in Kalyani at my parents’ place!

The smile on the faces pretty much captures it all!

I hope the kids will retain some spotty memories of this day somewhere in their subconscious long after many of us are gone…

P.S. My dad was thrilled to talk to somebody who is from his old city Durgapur and he had a lot of questions around how the city has fared ever since he left!