In continuation with my personal account of the recent India visit, Kolkata has got me stumped. It was a week back when I woke up to the usual cacophony of crows and honking of motorcycles and buses from my Subodh Mallik Square residence in central Calcutta, I realized my world has changed overnight.
The jetlag was so bad, that I had been staggering sideways
every time I struggled to leave the bed and tell myself that I didn't share a
meal with the zombies last night. Fortunately, besides the terrible dust and
pollution, the weather God was considerably generous to somewhat dethrone the humidity
level if not entirely. All I really had to do was pry myself from my envious
forever-21 scarf and jacket, and allow my pores to breathe in an already soggy
t-shirt once out of the airport terminal on a November morning. Thank God there
were four moderately healthy people from my family waiting to receive me with
an illuminating smile and a hefty Bhojpuri bhayia to move my luggage into the
boot and drive away with the AC blasting its chill at me on the front seat in
full swing. The feeling of stepping in a palatial house of the pre-independence
era, that you are lucky to call your in-law's is very different from living
three sixty five days in your much endeared townhome overseas, that you might
very well be missing for the next one and half months. Anything from a little
cold water over my head, to a pair of old pajama encrusted with powdered
camphor balls stacked up in the cupboard felt nothing short of heavenly. To wind
up, a plateful of loochi and aloor dom for a Bengali breakfast on a vegetarian
Tuesday wasn't too much to ask for. And finally, I let gravity help me crawl in
to my comfortable bed and soon my spirits conked off for next fifteen hours.
As a matter of fact, for an English-speaking non-resident
Indian in Calcutta, mustering people skill isn't duck soup. Another morning
dawned in the heart of my city of joy, though there weren't too many reasons
to feel joyful about that day. My dad was due with a minor surgery of his
hernia that he had been procrastinating for couple of years now, and I was
finally waiting outside the operation theatre to hear the pleasant news of the
process smoothly getting over. Family, relatives, and friends assembled to
convey their good wishes. Most of us were out since early morning, and were
ravenous, so we conveniently decided to peek into the hospital cafeteria to
grab a bite. My mom and aunt preferred to stay back at the visitor's lounge and
we were guided erratically yet determinedly through the dismal corridors that
at last led us to a raucous crowd. The cafe area was congested with monobloc chairs,
so much so that it interfered in the space between the pantry and the cash
counter. Everyone except those busy munching on 'cha aar bishkut' looked blank
in their faces and the waiters (I choose to put the term 'steward' away here) could hardly decipher what we were expecting
from them. Arghhh!
We five somehow managed to squeeze ourselves in oafishly at
a table that had the ceiling fan glaring at us in a manner that emanated a
certain sullenness. No wonder, the fan was unsparingly expelled from its
routine duties for next four months. As a matter of fact, the issues someone 'fresh
from the land of milk and honey' faces in communicating with quintessential Kolkatans
is nothing to do with either one's Yankee blood or the lavish ways of survival
abroad. It purely roots from the reality that we tend to show adequate respect
to whomsoever we come across and the respect is pronounced through certain very
selectively polite words along with the useless hope to exchange few basic
pleasantries :
''Good Morning! May I have the menu please?'' - I chirped
in.
In response to that blue story from this khadi kurta clad
(for a welcome change) alien, the waiter standing next to our table gave me a
'Ki je bolen didi' (What crap you chattering sister!) sort of a look and was
sure to snigger. ''Boshun boshun'' (Come, take a seat) - He chortled passing on
the menu card that displayed a long list of junks starting from Khasta Kochuri to
Shingara, from double dim er omelet to Chicken 'Chowmin' (I insist, it is
'chowmin'). Nom nom!
All of a sudden a coarse voice chimed in the background - ''Eii
Ghontuuuu!!! Kothaye more geli? Jaa jaa giye jol ta tebile e diye aye.'' (Ghontu,
where the hell are you? Go and serve water at the table)
Living in Kolkata, one is bound to get accustomed to be
thrust upon with servants over and over again. Plenty of them. It is a part of
the upper middle class Bong living, that we, most of the probashis aren't
privileged with. And it is probably my American middle class savoir-faire, that
makes me uncomfortable to see a young boy of ten-twelve years being bombarded
with those unrighteous commands, and the poor child has no option but to lay down
his arms. Out here, I emphasize the usage of the word 'servants' because that is exactly
how upper and middle class Indians refer to them, and this is how they are
treated. Though the proverb goes - If you pay peanuts, you get monkeys, the
scenario specifically in Kolkata functions reversely. It is ostensibly, the
impact of the incontrovertible British rule, that has perhaps got India’s
privileged classes prospering hand over fist vastly owing to the boom of IT,
but sadly there is still a significant number of lumpen-precariats oppressed in
a position of financial dependency and subjugation. In West, equality and
respect for all is a way of life, and the one serving us at a fine dining restaurant is not always necessarily catering to the whims and fancies of certain guests
because they are compelled to, for the sake of their own bread and butter, more so
because they develop a sense of independence and freedom at a very early age.
Sharing a shelter with the parents after eighteen is close to a disgrace to
them, and they take pride in considering themselves self-sufficient and that is
exactly what they instill within their children too.
Likely to be the British
extraction, who believe in helping themselves in all situations with requisite
self-sufficiency, similar to most of the Yankees, even I and my husband prefer
doing things for ourselves, hence being served always make us feel slightly
guilty. Even after being brought up in India for last thirty to thirty five
years, maids and waiters make us faintly uncomfortable and therefore we are
inherently extra generous with them in our words and gestures, which to the temperament of the average Indian may usually appear downrightly
comical.
Though it was the eleventh month of the year, I brooded that gone were the days when we were small and the Winter lasted for roughly
two and half months with the seasonal lows dipping to 45-52 °F (9–11 °C).
With every year passing by, the tropical delight actually tends to torture us now, especially those who have left their snow-laden wonderland behind
in pursuit of meeting their families. I am referring to myself, who has been
despairingly and despondently missing her New Jersey wind chill that could have
followed with the Winter lover pulling out the hoodies and furry coats for
herself and the consort. In my observation, it's the heavy moisture in the air
of amar shonar bangla and the overcast sky, that is contributing to make the
atmosphere muggy and the days agonizing for Kolkatans.
''Dada, ektu fan ta chaliye deben?'' (Dada, could you please
turn on the fan?) - I requested.
''Pakha ta...................hmmm...maneeeeee....chaliye
debo?????'' - Pat came the hesitant reply.
In no time I ended up resembling a buffoon and it fleetly struck
me back, that for my dear dadas and didis, it is officially Winter, regardless
of how sweaty and restless one feels without the luxury of a fan or the
air-condition.
However, I was successful in convincing this dada at the
eatery that we did need the fan to stay alive in a claustrophobic রেস্টুরেন্ট (Restaurant), that was further
constricted by a swarm of horribly perspiring chhele (guys) and meye (Girl). We
placed a minimum order of black coffee and Shingara and my folks' hunger
seemed like the best sauce then. For me, everybody was curiously and
diligently leafing through the menu to settle with something not even with a
dash of deep fried morsel and of course low in calorie. The only item my eyes could
stop at was the option of a choco-bar. After my doting folks were through, I
went ahead to eagerly ask him for the ice cream.
''Amar jonyo ekta choco-bar'' (A choco-bar
for me please) - I declared.
''Ice cream taaa.....Hobe na. Ekhon sheet
er shomoye...'' - The waiter uniformed in a plain white formal shirt answered. Quite dishearteningly, there was no shivering Bengali behind his signature monkey cap
this time. You know what? It is yet to come. January maash ta ashuk. (Let the month of Jan
arrive) Bwah-hah-hah!
A new day, a new assignment. I have been
transporting the burden of getting my birth certificate corrected, from one
part of the mother earth to another. Sometimes, it is just a mare piece of paper
that costs you enough hurdles, harassments, denials and a lot of running errand
to ensure something as vital as the issuance of your citizenship of the Yankee Doodles goes right.
So, however crude and disastrous it might feel, you are ought to bear the
brunt of gracing the maximum number of government offices in Kolkata with your
Yankee presence just to discover and rediscover, WHO can finally come to your
rescue and show you the legal way for obtaining a modified birth certificate
with your full name imprinted on it instead of you addressed as 'Baby Sinha',
and divulged as a chunk of pink flesh weighing 9.5 pounds, 'born to Mrs. Uma
Sinha'. Finally, after a lot of uncertainty,
the husband's bum chum buddy intervened to make my life easier with his lawful
volition, and Kolkata's Bankshall Court was the ultimate destination. Voila!
I was given a fair warning of the terminal
aspects of crime that I was going to witness at the venue, leave aside the
ramshackle infrastructure of the court that
could throttle someone in his fine fettle in a blink with its sooty walls and rusty
grilles. The waiting room was bursting in its clamorous debates amongst our
brothers and sisters whose corpus came in different shapes and sizes. They were
sweating like whores in the church and subsequently effused a redolence that
smothered us as though we were beaten to within an inch of our lives. The
honorable judge was supposed to show up at 14:00 hrs, only to bless our
affidavits with his precious autograph, but left us in sheer unpredictability
as it was already 14:30 hrs.
This is another factor that makes us, the
Indians, be it resident or non-resident, stand out from the rest of the world
that follows an altogether different clock but we, can't part with our pitiable punctuality and its plaintive
consequences which, the overtly smart Aryans as well as Dravidians strive to
manipulate with their daily shenanigans to no avail. Sigh!
Here came Her Highness, the judge, at 15:15
hrs, draped in a floral green and orange cotton saree, her shankha pola (The
traditional Bengali Red and White bangles symbolic of one's marital status) and
the much lionized didir hawai choti. (Hawai slippers)
Soon to my amusement, the crowd started moving
forward and a shrill proclamation echoed into the ears registering straight on
to the brain for next ten days - ''Samner dike egiye jaan!'' (Please proceed
forward).
I was bewildered to see an unusually quiet
and meek judge for the very first time in my life, who, with all due respect,
seemed nothing more than literate to me. Her constant prompter, a gentleman
garbed in a Black coat looked more like a judge than her, and guided her
through the testimonials on each page and even pointed the space wherein she
was supposed to sign. Nevertheless, time was limited, one could only glance
through the documents, and I was no one to cast my doubt on our Her Highness's
credentials.
The thing with the Indian reservation system
is invariably controversial and has resulted in many protracted legal
disputes and plentitude of legal interpretations. Yet it continues to dominate
us, notwithstanding the fact that the Supreme Court had earlier ruled that the
total percentage of reservation should not exceed 50% of the seats. Whatever
said and done, we can't turn a blind eye to the fact that the quota benefits
ingested by certain communities has been only acting like a protozoan rogue, dispersing
the venom of disharmony and hostility amongst the people. India’s caste system
has always been so vast, so intricate, and ineffaceably engraved on our
national psyche, that for foreigners to comprehend this discord and thus the extra
benefits is always unfathomable. The seed of discrimination more often than not
germinates from one group that is repeatedly considered the most abhorrent and repulsive,
by the rest. And they are seldom included in the system, rather detested as untouchables,
outcastes, or Scheduled Castes. Our Her Highness was in all probability one of
those downtrodden souls who, substantially is appraised as the paramount cause
behind reservation and corruption that has knocked the nation down from its
growth and advancement.
On our way back from the Bankshall court, I could also
manage to sneak a look into the recent hullabaloo over the subject of intolerance that has provoked an
uproar across the entire country. Whilst we couldn't find a safe parking for the vehicle, we
had to walk down a couple of miles. As I crossed those spasmodic hovels on
both sides of the street, an interesting episode or two caught my sight -
As we walked briskly, I spotted a rustic couple standing in
front of a shanty, whose pitch went from high to higher in an argumentative
spree. By the time we were to pass that scene, the male counterpart had already
come down to the point of exercising his inexorable hegemony on the poor girl.
Grabbed by her hair, she was thumped down ruthlessly near the blazing hot oven,
and was consistently slapped, punched and kicked until she screamed in pain and
the neighbors found a new grapevine to direct their attention to but desisted
from speaking up. It wasn't a rude awakening for me as such. The spectators
might have been preoccupied with burning down Amir Khan's posters since one political
party even offered reward worth 1 lakh to anybody who can manage to slap him on
the charges of expressing his inhibitions which got some agitated mobs all over the
nation slamming his image as an intolerant traitor. I was even prepared to
discern slogans that may have spouted - ''Dada, Pakistan chole jaan''
(Dada, Go to Pakistan) Yikes!
The indubitable truth is, whether intolerance has crept in
and is growing manifolds or not, we, as people have definitely become
intolerant towards life and the fellow members of our
society. We keep yelling our hearts out over jargons like Nationalism,
Liberalism, Egalitarianism, Terrorism and Pietism on the national television every
day, but all the fundamental human virtues such as compassion and civility are
almost extinct from our constitution nowadays. From talking about civility, I
can't resist myself from pulling another anecdote out of my hat. As our endless
walk came to a halt and we at last reached the car, I hurriedly hopped in and
the AC blasting on my skin felt like a long awaited rain in the desert. As the
car took a turn, a bus jam-packed with only heads that I could see was as usual
boarding few more desperate dadas and didis. The pandemonium got my head
hanging out of the car window to relish a rare sight that I knew I was going to
miss for at least next two years -
'' “Aei conductor ticket koro.....” (Give me the ticket and
take fare) - Whooped one of the passengers.
“Dichchi dichchi korben na” – (Don’t say giving giving) -
Retorted another tossing the former's demand away. Silence is believed to be
golden, the conductor was seemingly muted, and I genuinely did not blame him!
The area was likely
one of those, where the carnivorous scavengers - the dogs, the cats, the rats,
and the crows, habitually devoured all that they consider edible from the waste
pile. It was later in the afternoon, so the insouciant gomata also joined the
brigade, while lazily chewing up whatever vegetable scraps were strewn all over
the road.
Our driver got himself involved into a series of heated
retorts, but with whom???
''Apni ki kore janlen ami gadi te daag ta ketechhi??'' (How
can you say that I have scratched on your car?) - A clumsy looking commoner riposted
in self-defense.
''Chhere dao Tapas! Deri hoye jachhe je...'' (Leave it
Tapas. We are getting late) - Insisted my father-in-law.
Chances were, our sincere chauffeur Tapas got it right and
his contemplation couldn't have been more accurate that it was a deliberate
damage made to the bodywork. But one
can't really complain over something so trivial in a country that is still
not free from the predicaments like starvation, poverty and unemployment. This,
evidently relates to the disproportion within the fabric of different social
strata, and we are a total failure in bridging this gap. Someone who lives hand
to mouth, someone who has an ailing old mother battling life and death back
home, someone who has a marriageable daughter who can't help but abandon
studies due to financial woes, someone who has a wife that is rebuked day in
and day out at peoples' houses while serving as their domestic help, a top
model of Sedan is a distant dream for him, and perhaps it is this inability,
vexation and disconsolateness, that gives birth to an unmitigated destructiveness,
that being so, in a momentary frenzy of depravity, one doesn't hinder from defacing
someone else's hard earned glory.
As I submerged myself into these contemplations tuning on to
radio FM 93.5, another bus gripped my attention. I tried looking through the
tinted window of our AC car, and all I could see was a multitude of heads jostling
to adjust themselves in the hurly burly of a Kolkatan's mundane life. Epic was
not when the bus driver became the captain of the ship, and the conductor
barely his co-pilot, but another pat response that made me cachinnate and my
India visit memorable as ever.
''Aaaaste ladies, kole bachcha achhe....!!!'' (Watch out ladies,
there are infants on board) Oops!
