I edited a story this week about a woman who found rebirth through a pregnancy during the pandemic. I tried hard to understand how she felt and yet, the concepts of motherhood were so alien to me. I have never been a mother. I will never be one. I had a mother once. I will …
I have always been called the oldest among my cousins because the truly eldest of my generation were so much older than the rest of us, the sons of my eldest aunt, that they were not a part of our childhood gang. It was almost as though Gonuda and Manuda should have been our kakas …
I grew up in a Kolkata that is vastly different than the one today. My childhood memories are not of afternoons spent in South City’s sprawling food court eating burgers or watching movies in IMAX theaters.
In my youth, Kolkata fell frequently into darkness during incessant power cuts and my brother and I grew desperate to escape the thick, hot air of my grandfather’s house. We played cricket on the streets and ate phuchka at the New Alipur park. I saw the movie “Yaadon ki Baaraat” at least a dozen times just to get out of the sun, sit under a fan and listen to my favorite Bollywood song, “Chura Liya Hai Tumne.” That was the only way to hear it unless a neighborhood paan and bidi stall decided to blast it with a mic.
Adda was a thing. I mean, really a thing, and we often accompanied Ma on evening jaunts to visit friends and relatives. I lived through food rations and water shortages. I hung from crowded buses hoping my slip-on shoes would not slip off. Back then, only the uber-wealthy owned cars. My father never did; not on his professorial salary at the Indian Statistical Institute.
Life seemed hard compared to the modern conveniences of what middle class Kolkatans have now. We had little in the way of consumer goods or comfort. We slept on hard beds and without air-conditioning, we awoke drenched every morning, our pores opened wide and cleaned by air wetter than a damp towel. I dreamed of a day when we would no longer have to beg my uncle, then a merchant marine, to bring us back Kit-Kats from his adventures overseas. Or when I wouldn’t have to think of creative ways to stretch the waistline on the one pair of jeans I had left, as though I could defy childhood growth.
Continue readingMemories of Durga Pujo and a very different Kolkata
He was known in my native India as the hero of the Bangladesh war. In Israel, he was known as the highest-ranking Jew in the Indian Army. Lieutenant General Farj Rafael Jacob died Wednesday morning. He was 92. Jacob said in interviews that he was drawn to the then-British Indian Army in 1942 because of the …
Pope Francis announced that Mother Teresa is becoming a saint. She will be canonized next fall. The pontiff attributed the miraculous healing of a Brazilian man with multiple brain tumors, which means the Albanian-born nun can now ascend to the most vaulted status in the Catholic church. But for me, and millions in my hometown …
I’ve been immersed in writing about death after spending a week in Varanasi at a home where ailing, elderly Hindus go to end their lives. They want to die there because they believe dying within the boundaries of the ancient city of Kashi will mean moksha, or salvation for the soul. The story — I will …
In my childhood, there weren’t too many Bengali women who had made it big enough to attain celebrity status. But there was Suchitra Sen, goddess of cinema. Her films, usually with Uttam Kumar, were wildly popular in Kolkata. To me, Sen was the ultimate beauty. She had a certain Bengaliness about her. She was feminine …
I’m at work today, on Thanksgiving, surrounded by news that projects mankind in the worst sort of way — war, murder, rape. But I am also heartened by the best of humanity. I was especially reminded of that as I wrote a CNN story about a Holocaust survivor who met his Polish Catholic rescuer for …
I turned 51 today. Last year was the milestone year. The big 50. I felt OK about it. 50 is the new 40, my older friends told me. I celebrated with a big party. My brother came from Canada, my cousin from New York. My sisters-in-law traveled great distances, too. Then everyone went home and …
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