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 never have one again. My mother died 20 years ago … Continue reading In the middle of the day…
On the 24th day of my pandemic isolation, I learned my Pishi, my auntie, had died in her home in Kolkata. The news was not wholly unexpected – she had been ill and suffering for many months. But nonetheless, a dread bore down on me so hard that it made me wonder if I had contracted the virus. How would I ever go home … Continue reading Remembering Pishi: I’ve lost a role model, confidante and second mother
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 reading “Memories of Durga Pujo and a very different Kolkata”
A few weeks ago, I went to see “3 1/2 Minutes, Ten Bullets,” a riveting documentary about the shooting death of Jordan Davis at a Jacksonville gas station. It’s well worth your time. On the way out, I picked up a Midtown Art film calendar that had Apu’s face on the cover. Apu as in Satyajit Ray’s “The Apu Trilogy, the highly acclaimed series … Continue reading Satyajit Ray, or Manikmama
The film “Aradhana” had just made its big splash in 1969 when my family returned once again from a soujourn in America to India. As we settled back to a middle-class existence that back then meant ration cards and standing in line for water, the songs of “Aradhana” blared on speakers at street stalls. We had a radio at home but half the time we … Continue reading Rangakaka: Remembering a colorful life
On a bright December afternoon in Kolkata, I watched a handful of young women throw their arms in the air, swirl the scarves of their salwar kameez and leap from one end of the courtyard to the other. They danced their cares away. Literally. The women had all been forced into prostitution or into abusive relationships. Dance was their therapy. For some, it was their only joy … Continue reading Wonderwomen
A headline in my hometown newspaper brought me to tears this morning. B.P. Panesar had died. He was a renowned artist. Water color. Oil. Etchings. He was also made a name as mentor to Shakila, a poor village woman who gained fame for her collages. He gave away his earnings as an artist to charity. He never married and lived for many years in one … Continue reading Panesar
