The Bong Connection - I

For the longest time I was mocked by my cousins in Calcutta (apologize to the puritans, I like that name way better!) for butchering the language. Reason - An average sentence spoken by me would be, very inappropriately and very fairly, distributed between the three languages known - Bengali, English and Hindi. Our kin, devils that they were, would make me say every sentence thrice.."gawd...she's so funny'' they'd holler!

Cut two - Letters written in Bengali would arrive at all the important occasions from mamabari..and like a prompt illiterate, I would hand them over to ma, and wait for her to read them out to us. On my part, I would send return mails in English-illustrated-Bengali - giving my folks fodder for giggles, garnished with occasional awwwws.....Sunday afternoon regional movies on Doordarshan would be absolute nightmares with the impeccable shuddho bangla dialogues! It was bad enough that people wrote the script, could they at least not speak the 'normal' colloquial language? 

And then the historic year- my sister's sixth grade -which would change things forever. As a part of her curriculum, she had to opt for a regional language, and anyone's guess that she would've chosen Bengali, since at every level she shared my sentiments about our haplessness. And therein began a basic bangla literacy drive. The alphabet was learnt, words were read and appreciated, and sentences constructed. And life in the Bengali-text-world was rosy like never before. Print was managed with slow reading, and a fair amount of intelligent guessing. Though handwriting comprehension was still a major challenge, a strange sense of triumph would prevail every time we read something, the disproportionate time-taken-to-read-it notwithstanding..

The casual fling with the Bengali script, however, did not progress to a lingering romance. Wish it had though..  everytime I pass the Golpo Shongroho in the book shelf, or cross the Kali Mondir library, I feel wistful.

Perhaps it's time to rekindle an old flame...

Tending Towards an Average

It is the law of averages at work.

Back in my PhD days (in Bangalore, for the uninitiated), the social clock perennially ticked. Our work, or rather working, was fluidic-ally  adjusted around the now-nothing-now-here jamborees. The latter is a fair exaggeration, since the outings could as well be a mundane exercise like a meal in the mess. The entire gang (about the five and a half of us - the fraction accounting for a non regular member) would ensure that the meal is synchronously had. And it 'matter-eth' not even if everyone else has to wait for close to an hour for the last one to show up. We had to make a grand entry in the mess in full strength, stop the mess guys in their tracks and scrape the vessels for the long awaited lunch thereafter......
And then off-campus friends complained, that we weren't catching up enough (despite having a minimum of 3 conference calls per week). What better way to appease them, than to plan a weekend of movies, cooking and idle chatting - on the preceding Monday, so that the week staring ahead would fly off in anticipation....

Cut to the present, PhD over, base shifted to home grounds (read Delhi), and not unexpectedly, relocation blues strike. Does seem odd when you find that the roots to your very own city seem a little shaken. Small things like a brand new flyover, or a shop that you had seen for years at a site, wound up and dusted off - add to the unfamiliarity of it all. To top it all, you discover that your social life has come to a grinding halt. Quite obviously, it is the 'non-family' social life I'm talking of. The connect with the old gang is restricted to those intersection weekends when you are not travelling or tied up with family commitments and when they are not travelling and or wiped off by more important things. And when there are weekend-plans brewing up in the office, you're like - yeah, whatever, I'm in...!!

Unmistakably, the law of averages...
  

Cat Sunday

One of the little conveniences of the grab-and-get world of today are instant food mixes. And when you buy a pack, you bring home a foolproof way to an edible meal. And what is the limit of unskillful-ness? When you get an instant dosa mix and fail to make those golden crispy dosas that you fancied for breakfast. I mean the concoction is for total dummies, and looks like I stand a notch below..
Now compare this inefficiency to a contrasting skill displayed by my neighborhood cat,  who occasionally pays us visits. The same day she sneaks in the kitchen and polishes off 10 ounces of some creamy milk from a saucepan, without spilling a drop, and without upturning the wretched vessel..
My respect for cats just shot up...

Population Kinetics

A busy Monday, and you need to get to a destination, lets say A. An obvious choice of travel, the Metro. The Metro in question, the travel lifeline of erstwhile Delhi. Welcome home to the Delhi Metro, and the package-deal junta who travel by it on a daily basis, with not so much a glance at the fellow traveller next to him. And if you take five minutes out of your rush-to-get to A-time, you can actually notice patterns in the way the metro bound population moves, or not moves. My take:
-Superfast : I need to get going asap, dont have a minute to waste - A simple rule to keep in mind while taking the tube is that you can only get somewhere as fast as the metro does, and the latter is compassionate enough to wait for most people stationed for it. If not, there's always another one barely arriving at a five minute interval. But our folks here bluntly push their way to board the train, before the disembarking people are completely through. And yes, this is irrespective of the availability of seats, which could have been the lollipop on bait.
-Sluggish : I have a boss who's either supremely understanding or doesn't care about my being late- As a stark contrast to the above, these people have all the time in the world - they don't attempt to move faster by a cm/hr at the sight of a train, at the announcement of it, or upon de-boarding it to get to their destination.
-Stationary : I am pissed by the blistering heat outside, station cooling is a relief/lets catch up for a chat at the station : Yeah, these are the people who remain permanently seated at the platform. At any point of time they have absolutely no desire to rise up and make their way to the train that has come in. They're chatting away, often animatedly, often otherwise, train be damned. Serious envy targets of category 1, provided the latter have the time to look.
-Ultimate entropy, the brownian motion :My kids were blowing my brains out, thought a train ride would help - yelling, screeching little ones, throwing tantrums, right, centre, and mom's in a brownian motion act to pacify. Threats, candies, clucking noises fall on deaf ears, as these kitten make tears. Sympathetic co-passengers cast a look, alternatingly at the terrorist kid and the sheepish mother, thanking their lucky stars for not being in her shoes. Relief finally comes, when she disembarks with the kid(s), ending everyone's agony.
I'm sure I'm missing quite a few here, will be more watchful on my next metro yatra...:)

Thawed Out..

I'm celebrating the second year anniversary of my blog..ha! well not literally..the inception of this little space happened a couple of years back, when in a turbid moment I coined a name for the blog-to-be. The inspiration, as one would say, was desire for a creative vent (60%), peer pressure (35% ) and admitting sheepishly, a little bit of that wannabe style quotient (5%).All the while I was wondering if I need to make people privy to my personal space, or if I'm actually seeking a sounding board in total strangers.Then, in time, preoccupations got the better of me, and things were cold-shelved and forgotten..
And now, after a good two years, the procrastination ends. And as the blog-let thaws, I size my inhibitions again. Is it just a moment, or will this affair last? - too early to say..As of now, I think I'll just hit the publish button, we'll think about those another day..