My Christmas gift
This is the season when we feel compelled to give. We give our time at homeless shelters, buy bags of food for the hungry and write checks out to charities that help people in far-flung places. Sometimes, it’s difficult to choose an agency. Many of us are cynical about how effectively the money will be spent. Or we question whether it will do any good at all.
I do not pretend to know the answers to solving global poverty, but I will share with you a story about one family whose life is about to change radically.
Ibrahim Gulam lives in a part of central Kolkata that is usually not seen by visitors to the city. I would guess that many of my friends and relatives have never even been to this part of town. The main road still bears its British name — Colin Road.
the streets are overflowing with workshops and warehouses. Gulam lives in an area where plaster molding is manufactured. Some of the men and women look like aliens, their dark faces perpetually smeared with white dust.
Crime and drug addiction is rampant in this part of town. So, too, are broken hearts. Broken dreams.
You have to snake through tiny lanes bursting with humanity to get to the room that Ibrahim shares with his parents and three siblings. He and his brother sleep atop the hard bed, his mother and sisters share the floor and his father, an asthmatic who has not been able to hold down a full time job because of his respiratory ailments, lies under the bed.
In the summer, the heat and humidity are so intense that the whitewash on the walls peels off. Little adorns the dark, cramped room save scripture from the Quran. Ibrahim’s mother cooks on a coal-burning stove on the floor outside, where shoes heap up and the cement is incessantly wet from household use.
The family shares a latrine with countless other people. Often, bathing is done is public at the local tubewell.
The smells here are like nothing found in America — a mixture of life and waste and human misery.
Westerners dubbed this “the city of joy.” I heard a businessman on my flight back telling the flight attendant that he had taken his young son for a tour of Kolkata slums. He leaned back in his $4,000 business class seat and talked of how “fascinating” the lives of the poor were.
He should talk to Ibrahim.
To say that his life has been a struggle is an understatement.
I met him when he was in grade school. He was one of several children my brother and I sponsored. We paid for their schooling so that they would have a chance in life.
No one in Ibrahim’s neighborhood has finished high school. His father, Gulam Siddiq, studied in a Bengali medium school but dropped out in the second grade, later learning how to be an electrician. His mother, Rabyia Sultana, stopped in the fifth grade in her native Bihar.
I wanted Ibrahim and his siblings not to live the life of his parents. I wanted to do everything in power to preserve his joie de vivre.
I watched him grow, visited him when I went home every year. He did well in Navjjyoti, a school for poor children that my friend Vijay helped establish. He was admitted to the reputable Assembly of God Church school. So was his brother Zahid and sisters Anjum and Zahida.
Ibrahim is now 24 and will soon earn a degree from Seacom Engineering College. I visited him in early December and his latest report card showed him excelling in almost every subject.
His brother and sister followed in his footsteps and are also in college. His youngest sister will enroll in college next year. She wants to study microbiology.
Ibrahim’s mother beamed with pride as she talked about her children. She knows that one day soon, the family will leave that dismal room. On Ibrahim’s salary, they will be able to afford a flat in a nicer part of the city, put better food in their bellies.
Ibrahim had the fortitude to win against all odds — to study in dim light, distracted by the hub-bub of the slum. He persisted when I had half expected him to give up. Yet, year after year, he delighted me with his report cards. A few years ago, he came to visit me with his grades in hand. That’s when he told me: “I want to be an engineer. I want life to be different.”
In India, a nation of 1.1 billion people, sometimes, not even an education is a ticket out of poverty. But without it, a young man or woman stands no chance of success. There, vocations do not pay as well as they do in America. Labour is cheap and the life of an electrician like Ibrahim’s father is far from comfort.
I sponsor other children in Kolkata as well. I talk to their parents, who want to pull them out of classrooms and put them to work instead. Many of them are not supportive of their children and even punish them for wanting to sit down with their books. But it’s not easy persuading a poor person to give up another source of income.
Not all my kids have been as successful as Ibrahim. Ranjeet Shaw is struggling to pass his high school board exams, though he told me when I saw him a few weeks ago that he was not giving up. He has seen hope and he is not going to let it go without a fight.
I don’t have children of my own, but my Kolkata kids have filled that void in my life. And then some.
Mehndi
I met my dear friend Vijay Chowdhary when I was in the fifth grade. My brother and I went to school with Vijay and his sister Renu. They were Marwaris originally from Rajasthan who had settled in Bengal and I quickly became fascinated with facets of their culture that were, up until then, unknown to me.
Like mehndi.
Bengali women in my family lined their heels with alta, a red dye that matched the traditional red bordered white saris they wore. But the women in Renu’s family adorned themselves with mehndi or henna.
On occasion, Renu’s mother would call upon mehndi artisans for a visit and I would tear away from home, running down the streets of New Alipur’s Block N to make sure I was included. The mehndi artisans were old Marwari women, their hands so crinkled and worn that the liquids involved in the process would trickle down the crevices of their skin like ancient rivers snaking from the Himalayas to the Bay of Bengal.
The women needed no tools. No brushes or tubes or pens or instruments used in modern-day beauty salons. They worked quickly and deftly with their fingers, applying the thicky, goopy paste made from a powder of dried henna leaves, lemon, tea, eucalyptus or nilgiri oil. It smelled heavenly.
The paste went on dark as they worked their magic on my hands. Intricate designs with paisleys, flowers, geometrics. I was mesmerized.
Renu and I hardly had the patience to sit for three hours for the mehndi to work its magic. But somehow we managed to keep still, applying a sugary concoction to make sure it didn’t dry and fall off our hands prematurely.
And then came the fun part. We scraped off the dried paste with butter knives and marveled at the burnt orange stains on our skin. My mother would get after me for not washing my hands properly for days after that — I wanted to preserve the henna as long as I possibly could.
These days, mehndi is everywhere in India. Everywhere here. You can find mehndi artists at craft fairs and salons. Was it Madonna who made the ancient Eastern practice trendy here? Or Gwen Stefani?
It’s so popular that you can get it done on the streets of Calcutta by village men who have decided to make a penny off the trend. So here I am in this photo, on the streets of Gariahat, Kolkata’s busiest Bengali shopping area, sitting on a cheap plastic stool on Rash Behari Avenue, getting my arms adorned.
I told Mr. Pal I had little time. “Ten minutes,” he said. “And one hundred rupees.”
He wanted extra for making it speedy. So I paid him what amounted to about $2, watched the world around me — and a whole new one emerging on my arms.
Bangali biye (Bengali wedding)
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Members of the younger generation in my family think differently than did my grandparents. Many of the centuries-old traditions and rituals are falling away as young men and women adopt a more progressive — and often more gender equitable — outlook toward life.
But one thing that remains constant are the intricate ways of a Bengali Hindu wedding.
My cousin’s daughter, Shoma, had been planning her wedding for months. I arrived early on the morning of December 2 for the remaining five days of festivities. That afternoon, family members blessed the bride (many with 22 karat gold jewelry in hand) in a ceremony known as Aai Budo Bhaat. It’s also a bachelorette party of sorts and several of Shoma’s friends showed up later in the evening for a dinner party.
The next day, the women of the family grind turmeric with a mortar and pestle and anoint the bride with the paste. This allegedly brightens the complexion and makes her skin glow on her wedding day. It’s a messy affair, leaving women with stubborn ochre-stained nails.
There are numerous pre-wedding rituals. What they have in common is food.
With each ceremony, the family gathers for an elaborate feast, which for Bengalis is incomplete without a spectacular fish preparation. Often the fish is saturated with mustard paste and steamed inside a banana leaf.
Then there is rice. Lentils. Fried puffed breads. Roasted eggplant. Medleys made with vegetables we never see here — red pumpkin, bitter gourd, and greens and beans that I couldn’t even name in English. Mutton curries and savory chutneys.
And, of course, the sweet stuff — the other thing that have made Bengalis famous. Sweet curd, sandesh, rasagollahs, malai chom choms. (Pictured here are some sweets that arrived from the groom’s family. The photo of the fish, a Ganges carp, was sent along with other gifts as an offering of goodwill from Shoma’s family to the groom’s household.)
By wedding day, I swore I could not eat another morsel.
Shomas’s family greeted the groom, who arrived in a flower-laden car with a large entourage. Shoma’s mother blessed him with a bamboo tray containing an earthen lamp, husked rice and trefoil (see photo).
The actual ceremony, oddly enough, is often not even witnessed by guests. Astrologers set the time for the nuptials and sometimes, it’s in the middle of the night! Luckily, Shoma’s was in the evening and people did gather around the marriage platform, though few really understood the Sanskrit mantras the priest was chanting.
Shoma looked like a princess, a blanket of gold around her neck and chest and the henna on her arms hidden by filigreed and bejewelled bangles. Even her tiara was solid gold.
Bride and groom exchanged flower garlands (see photo). The end of her maroon brocaded sari was tied to one end of his perfectly pleated and ironed white muslin and silk.
Shoma and her groom, Bishan, sat on front of a fire to chant mantras after the priest. They took seven rounds around the flames. Agni, the god of fire, is the divine witness to the union.
Shoma and Bishan will be living in Istanbul, where he has a job with a bank. The rituals performed on a hazy Kolkata December night will soon become as distant as the moon.
I was glad to have witnessed the actual ceremony for once. It reminded me of what an ancient land India is. Steeped in tradition. And it made me ponder whether the next generation, consumed with McDonalds and Macintoshes, will still foster such ceremony.
And then, I, who was determined not to fill my belly once again, did just that.
Kolkata
On my way home.
It has been more than a year that I was in my beloved Kolkata. A feast and sore for the eyes all at once. An assault on all the senses.
I feel the excitement of a bride to be. And of someone who, near death, fulfills every dream.
I am minutes away now from Lufthansa Flight 445 that will carry me across the Atlantic. Then, another jet that will sail over the gentle landscapes of Europe and the rugged terrain of Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan. My heart will beat faster as the flight trackers shows names like Varanasi, Patna, Dhaka. It will pound as the plane descends into Kolkata.
Below me I will see the dim twinkling lights of a city that operates on 25 watts, save the glaring fluorescent tubes that are off at this late hour.
It’s a feeling I have known for many years. Familiar and comfortable like an old pair of shoes that no longer suit me but stay in my closet year after year.
I used to think of my mother’s smile as the plane touched Kolkata soil. My father used to be waiting for me among the throngs of people. That stopped when my father became incapacitated with Alzheimers. I began taking a taxi in the dead of night, smelling the cow dung and the acrid smell of the Chinese tanneries as we raced our way to Ballygung on the Eastern Bypass.
Ma would always be waiting for me. At 3 in the morning, she was waiting. In her wheelchair. Her eyes battling the kind of deep sleep awoman in her 60s needs at that hour.
But she was waiting.
No one waits for me anymore. I pay the $300 for a rickety Ambassador taxi that takes its time meandering in the dead of night.
I rest my head on an unfamiliar pillow, in an unfamiliar room, sadness and excitement gelling inside to keep me awake. Sleep finally comes when the sun begins to rise and the horns of the Tatas and Marutis begin the city’s symphony of sounds.
It is still my city, I think. But not.
Remembering 26/11
A year ago, I was making my way to Mexico City, dreaming of the serene canals of Xochimilco and the burst of a hot tamale in my mouth.
By my heart was heavy.
In my homeland, Mumbai was under siege, attacked by gunmen in hotels, the main train station, a popular restaurant and a Jewish cultural center. More than 160 people perished on that day that came to be known as “26/11.”
I watched the flames engulf the Taj Mahal Palace and Tower Hotel, a majestic landmark in India’s largest city. The stairwell there is mesmerizing. British Raj architecture at its finest.
On my last visit to Mumbai, I had stayed at the Oberoi-Trident in a room that offered a view of Marine Drive and the waves of the Arabian Sea.
Both hotels were scenes of tragedy a year ago.
Mumbaikers are like New Yorkers. They never stop in a city that hardly sleeps.
But they did stop on Thursday. Just as they had a year ago. Except then, it was forced upon them. Today, they chose to pause — and remember.
Fallen citizens and local heroes. And what it’s like to survive.
In the CNN newsroom, I sat quietly in a corner to write about the anniversary. Tragedy is always difficult to convey. It’s that much harder when it becomes personal.
Read the story: http://bit.ly/8wGQgc
And with each bite of turkey, give thanks for all we have.
White House feasting
President Barack Obama hosts his first state visit today. The guest? Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
Makes me proud.
Singh, India’s first Sikh leader, is an a Cambridge- and Oxford-educated economist who was first sworn in as prime minister in May 2004 and again this past May when the Congress party won national elections.
During his visit to Washington, Singh will certainly be looking for ways to continue strong bonds forged between India and the United States under the administration of George W. Bush. Talk may not come easy — India’s chief rivals China and Pakistan are both strong U.S. allies.
Foreign policy aside, here comes the real question. What’s for dinner?
Politico reports that the White House has invited super chef Marcus Samuelsson of Aquavit fame to cook the divine for Obama’s first state dinner. Wonder if Samuelsson will be mixing masala on the menu.
Though he’s nearing 80, Singh is known to be hale and hearty partly because he follows a strict diet, preferring vegetarian over carnivorous fare. A potato-filled dosa over mutton kabobs.
I’ll be waiting to find out what goes onto Singh’s plate tonight. He is, after all, the leader of a nation that now, after years of post-colonial poverty, has become an economic giant commanding global attention.
Tonight’s state dinner might just contain the ultimate carrot.
Ode to a water tank
Tallah Tank turns 100 today.
What is Tallah Tank, you might ask. It’s allegedly the world’s largest water tank of its kind, holding a whopping nine million gallons of water to supply a city burgeoning with over 15 million people. If Tallah were to store aviation fuel in its belly, writes The Telegraph newspaper, it would be enough to fuel 158 jumbo jets.
It’s a landmark in my native Kolkata that very few tourists ever see. Located in the northern part of the city, Tallah is hardly a destination. But it’s a marvel in a city where very few things work efficiently.
“In fact,” a local Kolkata Municipal Corporation official told The Telgraph, “the city would run dry of the tank were to be shut down for a day.
Tallah has never let Kolkatans down. It has sprung only 14 leaks since it was built in the days of colonialism. The British Empire crumbled (thankfully) but Tallah kept standing. Massive. Majestic. Even menacing.
That’s how I looked at Tallah as a little girl who passed it by in a taxi on the way home to Baranagar from New Alipur, in the southern half of the city.
After a long ride through congested streets and snaking lanes, Tallah was my sign that home was near. Once the rickety black and yellow Ambassador whizzed by the tank on Barackpur Trunk Road, I could see the tops of coconut palms and the muli-story buildings of the Indian Statistical Institute.
I didn’t know then that Tallah was Kolkata’s source of water. But it was appropriate that it was such a vital symbol for me.
Happy 100th, Tallah.
Invisible people
We take so many things for granted here in the United States, among them a little piece of paper documenting births. But millions of people across the world do not have birth certificates.
Their existence is not documented. They are often unable to access benefits, including life-saving medicines.
In many places, a person lacking a birth certificate cannot marry, vote, get a good job, obtain a passport or register their own children’s births.
They are invisible, really.
I know what it feels like. I don’t have a birth certificate.
I was only a few days old when I left on the steps of a Calcutta orphanage. My world changed when my parents adopted me and gave me a life I could never have even dreamed of as an orphan.
My father took out a small newspaper ad announcing to the world that he was claiming me as his daughter. If anyone had an objection, this was their time to speak. That was how the law worked back in 1962 in India.
I grew up without that essential birth document. Nor did I have an adoption certificate. I didn’t think about it until the day I faced a U.S. immigration officer in Jacksonville, Florida, during an interview for a green card.
“As far as I’m concerned,” he said, “you don’t exist.”
I felt small. Unwanted.
Invisible.
An international charity called Plan has been working hard to make sure that fewer people feel invisible. So far they have enabled 40 million people in 32 countries gain access to documents.
“A birth certificate gives you legal identity as a child or as an adult. It gives you a nationality and a sense of belonging,” Plan’s chief of global advocacy Nadya Kassam told CNN in a story posted online today.
The certificate, Kassam said, proves who you are.
I still don’t have a birth certificate ( I never will) but I am now a U.S. citizen and hold my new passport close to my heart. For me, it’s so much more than a travel document.
It just might be a lifesaver one day — my only proof that I exist.
