21 July 2016

Three hours with one of the most graceful ladies I know…

Way back in 1972 – I was barely a six year old, I recollect going to a neighbor’s house with my sister around lunch time. Cannot remember why – but I suspect we wanted to play with her son – Jayanta – that time all of four or five years old. I also recollect Jayanta not being there (he was in school) but Mrs Dey (that is the lady in question) gracefully kept me and my sister busy by playing with us. Eventually, her son came back from school – and he straightway started throwing up. Apparently, he had thrown up at school too. Mrs. Dey checked his lunch box (called tiffin box in India) and the food was found to be completely uneaten. Before even she could tend to him, her first reaction was to give the fresh orange from his box to me and my sister. And then as she turned her attention to her own son, my sister and myself made ourselves scarce. (We had a prized orange in our hand, mind you).

She left our neighborhood soon thereafter, but my entire life, I have always remembered her for her grace.

Much later in life, I got to know her again. We got brought together mostly because her son and I studied in the same set of schools – from my fifth grade – all the way to engineering college after which he left for US and I decided to stay back in India. (I know, eventually my plans had to be changed. You can blame Citibank for that 🙂 ) But going back to her, over time I did visit her house later, and I recollect that Uncle (Mr. Dey) was always busy going out to play cards (he was a much accomplished Bridge player) but she would patiently sit me down and have all the time to listen to all the blabbering I had to do when I was young.

Much much later again, I had found out that she was visiting her son in Boston and I had made some time from my work related trip – barely an hour – to go see her. And then, again, it became very sparse connection, if any at all.

Finally, she came to stay for some time with her son (who recently has moved to Atlanta). I did go see her and we went out for dinner after she came over. But this was with (and I am not complaining) the whole family.

However, this week, I was able to corner her one on one for over three hours sitting outside in a restaurant very close to her son’s house. That was one of my best times ever. Just having that connection and trust level from having played under her supervision was enough to open up much more than I can even dream of opening up to any other adults (frankly, even friends).

There were way too many things we talked about. But here is a real funny thing – I was in touch with a old colleague of hers (I visited that lady in 2014) that she had been looking for for some time and she was in touch with a kids I used to play with that I have been looking for 15 years!! We had an even barter of phone numbers!! She also reminded me of an event that I have only a blurry memory of. My dad had organized a carrom competition in the neighborhood and the graceful Mrs. Dey was to give out the awards. You want to guess who won the competition? Mr. Dey!!!

There are not too many adults of that age group who can make me feel that comfortable around them as she can and consistently has. I am awkward to begin with. But she has a way of making me feel at ease to open up.

I can’t believe that I started my life in a very small town – way back in India – literally at the edges of the town (only two more streets separated us from the cemetery at the outskirts of the town) – just a few steps from this lady and many a year later, almost on the other end of world, we are again so close in the same city. (although she pops in and out of US and India).

Here’s to a few more of those three hour sessions!!

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19 July 2016

Open letter to my first wife, Sharmila

Sub: Why I am worried that we are Facebook friends

Sharmila,
I am moved to enough concern observing a pattern from my Facebook friends (whose posts are also visible to you) that I feel compelled to write to you. The aforementioned pattern relates to seemingly unending torrent of my friends congratulating their spouse(s) on their (and I assume this is meant to be their spouses’) anniversary.

Let’s start with the circular nature of the congratulations first. At the risk of exposing my naivete, I would go out on a limb and suggest that a friend and his/her spouse are almost always guaranteed to have the exact same marriage anniversary. I have come to this conclusion – after much head scratching, I must hasten to add – by sticking to my rather empirically backed observation that a friend and their spouse has had the same exact marriage. Kind of a definition thing. Therefore, I have concluded that congratulating you on your anniversary would be really congratulating you on making your choice – me!!! And that gets within a spitting distance of being Donal Trump-ish.

What however, causes me particular consternation is their declaration of “best wife/husband in the world” or some such superlative use of adjectives. Elementary grammar dictates that for anybody to declare another person to be the “best” spouse”, one has to have enjoyed a minimum of three spouses (or is the plural “spice”?) in their life. So far, most of those friends has had, to the best of my reckoning, (see, I can use “best” because I have had many reckonings about those friends) – or would at least admit to having – only one spouse. Declaring that one to be the best is like a Sierra Leone guy claiming it to be the best country in the whole wide world without seeing any other country. Some, admittedly has had two spouses, but even in those cases, I would submit that “better” would be a proper word. Not to speak of the danger of tooting one’s horns with a batting average of a meager one in two.

Then there is that small point of our relationship being nothing like the description of their relationship I read on their FB posts (and their anniversary congratulations). You fight with me, you throw tantrums at me, you insist I clean up after myself and even after I have promised to do something, you unnecessarily keep reminding me of it. Repeatedly. Every six months, in fact. Nothing like the charmed life I read about my friends on their Facebook congratulatory note.

Between us, one of us can’t even remember our anniversary date. No point taking names. We are a team. But let’s agree it is not me. Initially I thought your reaction after reading all those self-congratulatory notes from my friends would be “Oh! okay, it is not our date today. So, he did not send me a FB post”. Now I think you are going everyday “Maybe it is today. How come he did not send anything. He always forgets. You know what – that is proof that is is TODAY. Wait till he comes home. How can he do this to me?”

There is only one thing I will admit to – and even that after you have injected me with a healthy dose of truth serum (or a couple of glasses of red wine in my currency – whichever is easier to procure). I will readily admit that I always wanted somebody who is not like me – who is willing to fight, throw tantrums, box my ears to clean up stuff and remind me of my “Honey-dos”. And if I were to live life all over again in real life – not on social media – I would not want anybody other than you to be that person that would constantly nag and irritate me.

So, happy anniversary to me. Now, you go figure out the date!!

– Rajib 🙂

Note for the readers: In case there was any curiosity, I refer to Sharmila as my first wife since I am absolutely confident of that fact. I have no empirical evidence to suggest she is my last wife. Elementary logic would suggest that I cannot establish that till I die. It would be extremely difficult for me to post any blogs at that point of time though.

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17 July 2016

The ultimate test of a mixologist

Here was the challenge:
Our friend Magesh came over with his wife Sripriya and his parents last evening for dinner at our place. A few things bind Magesh and me together. Other than the fact that we studied in the same engineering college and worked in the same start up company, we also share the fact that none of our parents approve of us having alcohol. And Magesh and I are certainly not above a glass or two in the evening. On top of the fact that he cannot drink in front of his parents, I cannot either. Somehow, his mom has formed a very high opinion of me from our initial meetings. You will be amazed how speaking a few Tamil words and in general aligning with her son in case of any debate can endear yourself to any Tamilian mother suitably proud of her son!!

So the challenge was to come up with cocktails that could pass by as extremely innocuous soft drinks. The first task was to make sure that the cocktail was absolutely colorless. It had to be served in similar glasses as Sprite and such that the parents would be having to rise above all suspicions. It had to have a few bubbles, just to remove all doubts.

The second challenge was the aroma. It had to be very subtle and even then it had to stay very close to fruits and vegetables that are very common to an Indian nose. (Any uncommon smell might have given rise to unnecessary curiosity). Eventually, I went with cucumber for the first drink and orange for the second one.

Finally, the drinks had to be shorn of any garnish. The visual clues might have given away. So, needed some concentrated drops of liquer to top off without getting the advantage of the constant drip of the garnish.

The evening could not have gone any smoother. Everybody had a great time. The offending glasses were for everybody to see – as you can see in the picture – but none came away any the wiser 🙂

It was a great evening!!

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15 July 2016

Friend from 11th and 12th days

After meetings in Colorado Springs and then in Denver West – and that made for a looong day, I needed to get some dinner. That presented a good opportunity to catch up with good old Manajit Sengupta from Narendrapur days. I had promised him multiple times that I would visit him when I came to Denver – this was the first time I was able to follow thru with that.

It was great to meet him and his wife Neelanjana. Needless to say, within a few minutes I had already found out some common connections from their college days. One of them happened to be the couple – Joydeep and Swapna that we vacationed with in Coeur D’Alene three months back!!

We had a great time talking about our school days, growing up, our teenager kids and all that good stuff. I came away distinctly with the impression that the goody goody boy image that Manajit had of me lost some of its sheen last evening 🙂

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5 July 2016

Double the fun!!

A couple of years back, I had found Jayasish thru Facebook. We were in the same school for our 11th and 12th grades and we were in the same hostel. He was in UK when I called him. It was great catching up on our old friends. Specially since he has kept up with more of our eleventh and twelfth grade friends than I have. I also found out that Jayasish was planning to move back from UK to India to join his family there.

Last December, when I called up “Jasha” (that is how we called him) to wish him a happy birthday, we had agreed to meet up in Kolkata next time I was there. Unfortunately, in March I missed him due to some last minute changes in my schedule in Kolkata. So, this time, I had scheduled specific time for him.

That is how I met Jasha after 31 years. We spent less than two years together in those days – I remember meeting him for the first time on July 10, 1983. We had just checked into our dorms that Sunday. But during our lunch meeting, he blew me away by some of the details he recollected from those twenty months or so. It was also great to meet his wife – Surita and over lunch I got to know about her family and their two daughters.

Jayasish had further let me know about Pratik’s (another friend of ours from those days) whereabouts. Fortunately for me, Pratik changed his plans for the day accommodate a visit when I called him. Saw Pratik too after 31 years. Also was delighted to meet his wife Sampa. Speaking of intersections. turns out Pratik, Sampa and Sharmila all went to the same engineering college (three years apart though). And Pratik could recollect Sharmila from those days!!

It was absolutely thrilling to get to see Jayasish and Pratik after such a long time. I have not been close to a lot of my friends from eleventh and twelfth grade (relatively speaking compared to my friends till tenth grade). The two of them inspired me to start those searches!!

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5 July 2016

There is an extra window!!!

This young gentleman is a “must visit” for me when I go to Durgapur regardless of how tight my schedule is. One of the “must do”s is for my brother to take him out for a spin in his car. Like many kids his age, he is fascinated by a ride in a car.

This time my brother was using his friend’s car. He got Rana (the kid who is my cousin’s son) to stick his head out of the sunroof and drove him around.

You can see how totally dumbstruck he was with his first experience of a sunroof. “Chhadey ekta janla aachhey abar” (The roof also has a window), he explained to his grandpa (my maternal uncle)… 🙂

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4 July 2016

I almost missed her!!!

“Mousumi? Tor baaki bhognangsho-ta koi?” (meaning – Mousumi? Where is the rest of you?)

If I told you that I have known Mousumi for 43 years of the 50 years that I have lived in this world, and that she is one person I have kept up with consistently (although mostly by phone), you can be easily excused for not understanding how I missed her in the crowd. Before I left US this time, I knew she was going to visit India too (from Singapore) and that there would be a overlap of a couple of days during our stay in India. We had scheduled in an hour of meeting on Saturday early evening.

Mousumi was my classmate from the first grade. Among the girls in my class, I was closest to her. In fact, you can see in the insets how we looked at that time. Later in life, there was a group of us (including both of us) who became very close and would take trips together during our vacations in college days. Her dad also taught me math during summer vacations. Much later, I used to visit her and her family whenever business travel got me near where they lived. In fact, the last time I saw her was one such trip in Sweden twelve years back. I was there for a few hours. We accompanied her son to his tennis game and during that time, the three of us (including her husband) caught up on our “adda”. And that is the thing. I had not seen her (or her pictures) in the last twelve years. But I had a mental picture of her.

As planned, I arrived at South City mall – a couple of minutes after she had already arrived. As I entered the mall on that Saturday evening, I was immediately accosted by millions of people milling around. I started scanning the crowd quickly to see if I could spot her. Making a phone call would have been efficient but it was way too loud for me to hear anything. I distinctly remember a youngish looking woman coming generally in my direction but I figured she was headed for something or somebody behind me. As my eyes continued to scan the crowd and I almost started fishing out my phone, I noticed that lady now smiling at me. And that is when I realized that it was Mousumi standing in front of me.

She has dropped so much weight and now sports such a different hairstyle and looks so much younger that had she not put on her distinct smile, I might have even gotten irritated at her for blocking my way!! That is when I asked her whatever happened with the rest of her 🙂

Finding a quiet spot at South City mall on a Saturday evening is well nigh impossible. However, I knew of one bar (my brother and I frequent it whenever I am in Kolkata) that tended to be quiet in the early evening (and then really loud once the live music began). We headed up there and then soon walked into the relatively sparsely populated bar. The first thing we had to do is convince the people at the bar to tone down the music going on.

After that, we caught up on the last twelve years and much more. There was a lot to discuss – her son – who is now a full time career person, Indranil-da (her husband), her parents (you might remember them as a set of parents I had visited last March), my parents, family in Atlanta and so on. We have common grounds around ailing parents and in laws. Certainly, we have a lot – I mean a lot of common friends. Since I am the one who keeps up with everybody, I was doing most of the updating 🙂

For good measure, we took a perspective of life ever since we have known each other (which is, as you know by now, virtually all our lives). Some of the interesting discussions included anger management (I have never seen or heard anybody see her getting angry), the pros and cons of being introverted, what possibly would our tombstones say, some of the most important lessons we have learnt in life and what we admire most about some of our common friends.

My big mistake was scheduling one hour to catch up with her. I should have known better. By the time I got a reminder call from my brother, we had been sitting there for three hours. I could have gone for another three hours without missing a beat but there were two nephews waiting for me and some good chow-mien I had promised them at their favorite restaurant!

We left soon promising not to wait for another twelve years before the next meeting!!

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