Welcome rains in Kalyani. Good enough reason to go out and play cricket. Much to the chagrin of my dad!!! The nephews here are rapt attention as they try to get their batsman dad out…

“Aachchha baba, ei blogger byapar-ta ki?” (‘Son, what is this thing called blogger?”), he asked as he got up on his bed and sat down again. The good news is he seems to be gaining physical and mental strength enough to will himself to get up and sit down on his bed. Per my family, this is the best they have seen him in the last ten days. The difficult thing though is that now I had to figure out a plausible way to explain what is a blogger. As you may or may not realize, there are three main challenges in explaining the concept of a blogger to my dad.

The first challenge, clearly, is explaining the concept of a blogger to my dad 🙂 To this day, he is still worried about how does this thing called Google (or as he calls it “Googly”) get to know everything. Forget that – he still has not figured out how my brother in Kolkata gets to know his (dad’s) medical test results done in Kalyani earlier than he himself does. He thinks email means the hospital guy rattles off all the results on the phone to my brother who diligently writes them down on paper and pen. I could barely get past a simple explanation that a blog is like a daily journal where you can write your opinions, stories, events – whatever you want. Instead of paper and pen, you write it on a computer which keeps it in the internet. His immediate interruption was to enquire if I can write blogs too. I told him, yes and that I indeed am a blogger. You could see the pride of an Indian dad welling in him and overflowing in his face. He has not a clue what is a blogger but he was proud as proud can be that his son was a blogger. Go figure!! I am sure by this time he had figured out that if his son was a blogger, it probably is not a bad thing after all. Might be even a great thing 🙂 After all, his son does it 🙂

The second challenge is my dad relies on a few time-tested sources of information for himself. “Ami AT Dev-er dictionary -tey kothao khnuje pelam na”. Meaning, he could not find that word anywhere in AT Dev dictionary (a popular local English dictionary) . And as everybody in his neighborhood knows, if it is not in AT Dev dictionary, the entire English empire has no power to come up with any more new words. Mind you, the said AT Dev dictionary that he has is the 1973 edition – before even internet was around. Let alone blogs and bloggers.

The third challenge – and this is a tough one – is that he is hard of hearing. Over the years, watching him, I have concluded that being hard of hearing and having an infuriating need to understand everything going on around you is highly positively correlated. We got him a high end hearing aid. Just like his attitude towards dialysis, he just refuses to give in to that. I would barely start “Blogger maaney holo….” (‘blogger means…’) and he would rudely interrupt me “Smuggler??????” (this one needs no translation 🙂 ). Trying to suppress laughter while explaining a blogger is not something for the faint of the heart.

In any case, after a long (and enjoyable, I might add) conversation, he concluded (without being any the wiser on what a blogger is) “Koto ki sob beriyechhe. Koto kichhu dekhey gelam”!! (‘So many things have been invented.. So many things I got to learn before I die’).

Thinking later, I kicked myself for not going for a simple Machiavellian route – “Bloggers are people who have been completely cured after going thru dialysis”!!!! 🙂 “Tumio blogger hobey?” 🙂 🙂

My brother, nephews and myself marched into my dad’s house this afternoon and found him asleep in his bed. Which is what we were expecting. Half an hour later he woke up and in the first sign of physical improvement, instead of continuing to lie down, he got up and sat down in the bed.

And then something happened that showed that mentally he is bouncing back too… After asking about my flights and such, he called the nephews closer to him. In a sign of good spirits, he asked them “amakey tora dujona miley knaadhhey tultey paarbi to?” Meaning – “you two can lift me up on your shoulders right?” in an apparent reference to the walk to the crematorium after his death.

Riku – the elder one – was trying to do the math in his mind around weight and shoulder strength. Rishu – the younger one – gave it less than a second’s thought and said “Keno? Truck daakbo.” (“Why? We will rent a truck!”)

We are off to a good start!!

This was the other defining moment of the trip. My brother took this picture. The first reaction of my cousin (who lived with us and literally helped me stand up when I was a few months old) when she saw me after all these years and realized that I have indeed finally stood up in my life. Priceless tears of happiness…. Was absolutely worth daring that broken bridge over the river just for this moment…

This was the defining moment of the trip. It was a very difficult angle to take a picture from (it was a three feet wide corridor). You could see peace had dawned on his face – the constant frowns and upside down lips were gone – as he sat down on the floor on the temple that his dad built – for the same God that he named his son (my dad) after. The close up shows the deep thoughts he was in as he stared at the idol inside. I can only imagine him having strong flashbacks and memories of his late mother, late brother and all that he had heard about his dad.

Going through my camera pictures now (not iPhone pictures) finding out some shots that have captured the moments very well…
My brother, here is intently watching my dad’s reactions (you can see a part of him on the right side of the picture) as he enter’s his birthplace for the first time in over 75 years….

We checked out of the resort and were heading towards my brother’s home in Kolkata. A few minutes into the journey, I just floated the hypothetical “How about we head back to our parents in Kalyani?”. Of course, there were always those initial “Would be great, but what about…..?”. Ultimately, the surprise element of the adventure was enough that we decided we will change course. The price to be paid was that we would have to wake up very early and head back to Kolkata at a God forsaken time tomorrow morning.

The journey was a tad tedious what with my brother getting caught driving without a license (he left it at the resort, the cop was nice enough to let him go after talking to the resort) and getting caught in a tight jam due to construction. After about four hours we finally had covered 100 km (60 miles).

Of course, there was complete mayhem once we all walked in our parents’ house. Remember, they were under the impression they were going to see me in another three to four months when I left home a few days back. Then the two nephews confounded their whole confusion by trying to pull their own stunts of surprises. With all the commotion, my sister and niece came up from downstairs and promptly added to the confusion.

You can see in this picture my elder nephew holding court and has convinced half the crowd that we are leaving in about another hour’s time. Of course, slowly but surely he is getting caught in his own lies. But the best was when my mom demanded to know why do we have to leave tonight (which is untrue, by the way) and before my sister in law could explain that she had duties in her school tomorrow for India’s Republic Day ceremony (which is the truth, by the way), my brother added for good measure “Kaal Obama aaschhen” (Tomorrow Obama will be coming).

My father who is hard of hearing raised his voice “Kaal tor Baba Ma aaschhen???” (meaning Your inlaws are coming in tomorrow?) 🙂

Right now, there is absolute chaos and total confusion. At this rate, even I might forget what are our real plans are 🙂

Giving some cricketing tips to my nephew. The real cricketers might point out that what I was teaching had nothing to do with cricket whatsoever – in fact the bat is nowhere near the ball… but that is just a matter of detail… 🙂

And those are the 23 cousins and their families (including the two in the inset who had to leave early and myself as the photographer) that got together for a couple of days. This has never happened before ever and I don’t think we can pull this off again ever but it was certainly great to see all those relatives of mine for a few days all under the same roof. Learnt a lot about my extended family from mom’s side.

Statistically, the youngest and the eldest ones were separated by about half a century!!!
Also, we had 1 doctor, 5 teachers, 6 in other services and 5 homemakers.
Further, if you discount me, everybody lives within 100 miles of each other or less! The one exception point (me) is about 10,000 miles away!!!

And that completes my third goal for this trip!!