A mind full of smells and memories......

Today afternoon at office, just after lunch I was taking a break from work and indulging in one of my favourite activities namely going through one of my favourite blogs "Past Continuous". Sucharita (the creator of the above named thought and nostalgia provoking blog) in her most recent post titled "Nose Talgia" has sure opened the dam which held back the tumultous waves of visual memories which are so deeply attached to our olfactory memories . So ... whatever comes on is all dedicated to you .... friend.
The most enduring smell of my life is that of my Maa in the Prayer room, her freshly bathed presence mingled with the smell of freshly lit incense sticks, sandal wood paste applied to the Gods sitting on her prayer shelf, fresh flowers like Champa, Beli, Jaba plucked from our garden..... This was the smell I and my brother (and later my sister) invariably woke up to. Thinking back, I feel it was more the wonderful, holy smell which woke us up, rather than the 3 times blowing of the conch shell (which my Maa religiously used to do till a year back.. and now she's stopped on doc's advice).

My Babai(dad) coming into the house, with Sunday morning "bajaar", smelling wonderfully of sweat, aftershave(Old Spice), Wills Flake. His left hand laden with a bag full of Potatoes and Onions to last a fortnight.....and a smaller bag somehow also held in the same hand holding Sunday goodies like prawn or...... hilsa and also chicken or ....maybe mutton . The other bag full of green veggies and fruits, fresh and succulent ( which one will be able to relate to only if one has spent the growing up years in a small town.....(Aah Ranchi ! How I miss the town of my childhood ...... far removed from the hurly burly of a Metro!).

The sweet baby smell (a heady concoction of Johnson baby powder, milk and angelic innocence )of my few months old little brother (aah! I can still feel that wonderful warmth, pleasure and pride bubbling over in my small five year old heart as I sit up straight on bed and wait for Maa to tuck him in comfortably on my lap so that she can do the housework on a busy Sunday morning). I revisited the same smell with the same associated feeling, but with more depth, when as a ten year old, on umpteen precious occassions I held my newborn sister close. And now as a mother, I can conjure up the baby smell any time I want to, anywhere I want..... all I need to do is close my eyes, take a deep breath and think of my daughter. I find it a strangely humbling experience....... this smell which remains constant, fresh and powerful in my memory, untainted by the cruelty of passing time over a period of three decades ..........................

Another smell which I feel very strongly about is my " Howrah Baris' ".................. this is the house where my baba, my jethu, my pishi, my sejokaku and my chotokaku grew up in. Just as the people associated with the house grew (in years and in fortune...), the house also added floors and rooms, sported contemporary colours but the essense of the house remained the same. As a kid I looked forward to my summer and winter vacations for 2 months of unadulterated soaking up time of the "Howrah Bari spirit". The wonderful aged fragrance of my "Mum"(my granma), her delicious paranthas fried in Dalda Vanaspati, spicy cauliflower and potato sabzi. She is no more but one look at her almirah(where she hoarded spices, nuts, her sarees, bedsheets and whatnots....) or the family heirloom -an ancient iron chest is enough to conjure an image of her siting on the bed in the corner of the hall and all family clustered around her... some lolling on the bed around her , some on the floor, some on chairs, basking in her presence(this scene was repeatedly enacted during the Durga Pujas when everybody came together.....). My mother and aunts to this day remember her and revere her as the lady who taught them everything they needed to know to run a household efficiently. Wish modern day maas-in-law could take a leaf from her life........

I love the smell of my maa's freshly baked cake (every b'day in the family, christmas, new year and all requests are honoured), her wonderful smelling dhosas & idlis, her dhokas & chole and of course her chilli chicken & very own bangali payas...... the list can go on..... both salivary glands and memory together happily.....working overtime.

I remember the smell of the old big library at my school Bishop Westcott Girls School, Namkum , Ranchi .... musty and old worldish, how the warmth engulfed me when I settled down on one of the old black benches, with a charles dickens or an agatha christie....our English teacher Mrs. Mehra who was also the librarian, with her porcelain skin and twinkling grey eyes , slight 60 year old frame......and crystal clear voice who brought to life all the characters in the shakespeare plays and thomas hardy and charles dickens classics and instilled in me the love for English as a beautiful and expressive language. To this day, my first impulse when I lay my hands on a book, is to take it to my nose and inhale deeply..... funnily enough, books which have smelt good have always been a pleasure to read!!!Haa.....haaa....

There are also smells which are associated with certain difficult phases of life but in this case I chose not to follow the smell trail.......

Let only happy memories prevail!!

Lessons in craft and love...

Yesterday would have been like any other Sunday, sleeping it out till a little later, warm in the knowledge that no alarm was set on the mobile last night...... wouldn't need to rush through the regime of getting up, a quick yoga routine (to try and ensure that the heart and lungs continue to take uncomplainingly, the grind of modern living....), wakeup the little one, trying out different methods of ( coaxing, threatening, cuddling) to keep her from going limp again and closing her eyes.... in short go through the entire marathon of a working day routine.

But my little one had better plans for me. I felt a little soft palm across my cheek and sprung open my eyes. A beaming pixie face greeted me, full of the promises of a bright and sunny day... quite like the beaming sun peeping in through the half parted curtains....." Mamma craft korbo"(I want to do craft!!!)......I do a double take and trying focussing all my attention ( read eyes and ears) on the little bundle of energy who was trying to get settled on my midsection..."Craft????".. I manage to croak! My all of three years and ten months old bundle of joy nods her head confidently and says " aami butterfly korbo" (I want to make a butterfly). By this time she also had the attention of her father who sat up groggily rubbing his eyes and asked me " what did she say she wants to do ???" I rolled my eyes and again focussed on the little cherub, " Baby you want to draw a butterfly with crayons or paint??". She shook her head sending all her hair into a tizzy and educated me " naa naa Mamma, craft korbo paper diye, gum diye..... scissors diye ....". O.k O.k , now I am fully in the picture, she's in the mood to follow in the footsteps of "Uncle Neil " of "Art Attack" fame..... a program on Disney Channel which rocks with the kids.

The morning ablutions, breakfast all are a cakewalk, thanks to the child's by-now-on-fire-desire to get busy with scissors and paper and gum.

So by 10.00 am the mother-daughter duo is ready to begin the Krafty-Butterfly Program.

I ruffle through my bookrack housing old magazines and glossies to gift my daughter a peppy and ready to fly butterfly and presto, find a 2006 may edition of Filmfare Magazine full of pages with colourful ads and starlets in bright designer wear and jewelry.

I take out her drawing book, pencil, eraser, the glossy, fevistick and spread them on the bed. By now my daughter has planted herself squarely in the middle of the bed, her upper body swaying to and fro in anticipated pleasure.

We get on the job without much ado...... I draw a big butterfly taking up an entire page of her large drawing book. I ask her to choose a coloured paper from the glossy and she chooses a green and grey ad page. I teach her how to tear little pieces from the page and show her how it should be stuck on the paper. She laps it all up like some eager beaver...... Her face is a frame of happiness and concentration. She proceeds with amazing dexterity for a three and something year old.

We have been at it for the better part of an hour now. I supply her with more coloured papers " Mamma eto colour paper keno dicho " (why are you giving me so many coloured papers???) I tell her, "Beta ..... a butterfly should have many colours on its wings or it will feel sad...."

She thinks about it and asks....

"Mama aami jodi anek colours di tahle butterfly ki bolbe??"( Mamma if I give many colours to the butterfly what will it tell me??"

I ponder and say " tomay thank you bolbe beta aar khushi hoye ure chole jabe..." (It will thank you and fly off happy...)

She looked at me with round happy eyes and said " Satti mamma"( Is it the truth Mamma?)

I shake my head in the affirmative and hold out my arms.....she jumps into them, I hug her little body close and thank her silently, for giving me this wonderful and priceless lesson in the Craft of Love....

To my Maa - with love

It is difficult,....... no impossible to imagine my world without you. You are like that invisible yet strong thread which holds all the lovely pearls together for the entire world to admire and praise.

Your silent contribution in creating our family foundation and sustaining it till date with constant physical and emotional labour always leaves me OVERWHELMED with wonder and thankfulness.

Maa, with the daily hustle and bustle of our lives, I hardly find time to give you time, but you are happy if I lend you a patient ear just for quarter of an hour ....

You feel guilty, if I thoughtlessly comment that it has been a long time since we had dahi badas and rush on immediately to set correct the aberration........

Maa, I am AT PEACE in the knowledge that by daughter will get the best upbringing, protected and cared for as she is, under your wings......

365 x 24 x 7, you endure my tantrums, emi's tantrums, our great dad's tantrums and a three and a half year old's tantrums (which beats all the tantrums put together), and at 10.30p.m. we still have to literally push you to get into bed......

Maa, any goodness that I may have in me, any capability to make a difference, any patience to put up with plain selfishness and thoughtlessness and still believe that God takes care of good people..... I owe it all to YOU.

YOU ARE THE GREATEST MAA, AND AT 60 , MORE BEAUTIFUL than Sharmila Tagore and Hema Malini put together.........

I wish God gives me the power and the resource to keep you protected from the vagaries of a selfish world, just as you have kept me protected and nourished.

I love you more that I can ever express or more than you will ever know and understand.......

"HAPPY MOTHERS DAY" MAA

11TH MAY 2008

To my daughter- with love

Dearest child,

It has been quite a journey, the mother of all roller coaster rides these past three and a half years................. but the pleasure, the thrill has been unmatched despite the close calls that happened to my poor heart.

At 1.20 am on 7th October, 2004, you decided that enough was enough, the waiting-for-the-right-time-to-see-the-world game had become quite tiresome, and it was time to take matters in your hand. Had you paused just a moment to consult your poor mother, I would have tried to put some good sense in your stubborn head, but now since I know patience is not one of your virtues, I realise that perhaps it would have been in vain. Your timing was bad, child, the sky looked pensive and heavy with a thousand dark intentions. I hated to go down and disturb the sleep of two of the kindest people who walk this beautiful earth( your dear dear grandparents).... but since you showed no intention of listening to me, I had no option but to wake them up and then call up the hospital.

Your "dada" said he will drive me to the hospital and "aeba"would need to come along as well. It was around 3.50 am when we started, the drizzle was steadily increasing to bigger and rounder drops and within minutes the roads resembled slithering, glossy, hissing serpents....... The famous potholes on our Kolkata roads now assumed the look of craters, rapidly filling up with the liquid ire of the Rain God. Well, you sure handed over a great responsibility to your "dada", handling his precious cargo and reaching safely the destination, in that mad, mad night. So at roughly around 20 minutes past 5 or maybe a little later we rolled in through the hospital gates. I was wheeled in with royal treatment and assigned a room with a 72 year old who had (I dont know how!!) broken one of her hip joints and now had a steel ball in her hip socket as replacement .wow imagine!

Well as a matter of fact, you had been in your new home only for 36 weeks, it would have been so much the better for all of us, if you would have stayed back for just another 1 or 2 weeks more.

...... Well, come to think of it, it wasn't that bad actually, because Ma Durga was sheduled to visit her earthly abode around the 19th of October, and Pujas being what it is for Kolkata, doctors might have gone for extended leaves, and what could have been worse, than spending the "DURGA PUJAS" in a hospital bed, when the whole city would be lost in joy and merriment.

There I go again rushing ahead in my tale, sorry sweetheart, lets go back to Room No. 203 A of Aurobindo Seva Kendra at Jodhpur Park....

By 7.30 the entire city was waterlogged, lifts stopped working, doctors couldnt keep deadlines since their vehicles, midway, swallowed water, hiccupped and stalled, the morning shift staff couldn't reach as trains were halted at god forsaken stations and the nurses, attendants and doctors were forced to work overtime.

The same fate was meted to our Omni and your dada and aeba had to dump it at the petrol pump (thank god, the car had the good sense to go kaput there!) and wade through knee deep and then thigh deep waters to come to the hospital at around 10.30 am.

I was getting worried about your safety and kept enquiring for the doctor...... everytime being told not to worry... he was on his way....... finally they couldn't keep it from me anymore, my doc would'nt be able to make it and so his next in charge would take over. I was besides myself with worry. I trusted my doctor with my life and more importantly yours - it was a bond which had gradually developed over a period of 9 long months every moment of which was cherished and loved.....

The lift was not working so 4 (strong) attendants lifted me on a stretcher and carried me up two flights of stairs to the OT. I felt quite funny besides being scared!

7th October, 1.30 p. m. : Suffice it to say, I hate OTs.... they scare me, my nerves desert me and it is living hell........But oh ! I see the familiar face of my angel doctor who smiles behind his mask, I see the smile in his eyes and am reassured.....

7th October, 1.37 pm: my anaesthetist asks me "what do you think.....will it be a boy or a girl......"

7th October, 1.38 pm, Thursday: A sweet feeble cry....... I say 'its a b...a GIRL", the doc smiles and says " yes you are right , a girl it is!"

They bring you near, my heart wells up in my eyes, a pretty child, so frail and delicate ( child, I ate such a lot, what happened ? you let me down you know, 2 kilos and 250 gms, it sure was a bad performance!)

The following 2 days , are a little hazy dear, I was worried for you but not overly..... it was later that I came to know that you sure had battled it out with pipes and tubes and incubators...... but I had always known that you my child are a Fighter with all the letters in capitals and you will make your own destiny.

14th October , Thursday: WE are HOME!!!

Several million milestones later.......

1st February 2007 , 9.15 am : As your dada and I take you to your first date with school "ROCKFORD HOUSE" we are tensed and besides ourselves with worry. The initial moments were easy, you walk in holding my hand, raising shy eyes to the new "aunty" who is smiling at you.... its only when she holds your hand and leads you away that you cry out in protest..............Ah child it wrung my heart to leave you and go to office.

At 10.30 your dada calls me up and tells me that you have been so inconsolable, crying "dada... dada" all the while that they have let you go. Papiya aunty tells your dada that this is the first time she has come across a child who could not be consoled, quietened and diverted by all the means that she had hitherto employed successfully, for all other new entrants to her fold. Well, did'nt we all know how obstinate our little angel could be.......

27 days of pure agony, interspersed with occasional hours of ecstasy followed. You pleaded with us saying " Papiya Aunty baaje (bad), aami ecool (school) jabo na...... dadaaaaaaaaaaa, aami ecool jabo na". Saturdays and Sundays you loved best ....... we agonised over your settling in school, would it ever happen? were they treating you well ? maybe we needed to change schools ???

Aah, finally 28th February 2007 : Before your "dada"'s and my startled eyes you accept Papiya Aunty's hand held out to you, smile shyly, wave to us and go through the school gate WITHOUT A PROTEST. So, our wait is finally over , you have actually started liking school..... looking forward to it in fact.

You sing, you dance, you recite your nursery rhymes in your high pitched sing song voice and each and every word and action of yours we would like to freeze in the frame of time and preserve for ever in the albums of our mind. Oh! how I pray that the cruel hands of time not dim the memory of these moments and our accompanying feelings of pride, joy and weak kneed thankfulness.

I , for one, now fully understand the profoundity of " I love you so much, it hurts". You will too but you have to wait till god lets you become a mother...........................

7th April 2008, Monday: We have lived out a lifetime these past three and a half months, but that is a story for another day, another time.

Today you take your first step towards making your own destiny, preparing yourself for leaving behind footprints on the sands of time.....You did not cry when I handed you over to your class teacher Ananya Banerjee at Delhi Public School. You were brave and I would want you to be so , take every new step with a sparkle in your eyes and spring in your step, however frightened you be in your heart.

You cried when I went to pick to pick you up after school. My heart welled up, I hated your misery as much you hated it...... but dear, as you grow up , life will teach you that man's got to do what man's got to do..... and I was supposed to to be strong and guide you, right?

You blackmailed me into bunking office" Mamma please jeyo na, aamar ssathe thako, aamar khushi hobe". I was too weak hearted a mother to be a disciplinarian and called up to excuse myself.

Aah my child how it wrings my heart when every night while going to bed you ask me in a plaintive voice "Mamma kalke school nei toh..." (mamma, do I need to go to school tomorrow....). And then in the morning again " mamma please dont send me to school...... I dont want to go to BIG school". I go through the entire cycle that I went through when you first started school.

You come back with your tiffin untouched.... throwing us into paroxyms of anxiety...... the entire day you are a happy child but as night comes your question pops up again..... when will you fall in love with your school child ?

7th May 2008, Wednesday : ON the ride to the school I tell you, how your summer hols will commence from 1 day later..... you ask me again and again , Mamma...CHHUTI????, "Yes beta tomar 30 days chutti, tumi khali khelbe, drawing korbe, aamra shopping jabo" , you stare at me your eyes twin twinkling stars.... "mamma satti bolcho toh"(mamma are you telling the truth?)

I promise that its GOd's own Truth.

That day YOU enter school with a SMILE on your Face!!!!!.

So DEAR CHILD we resume anew with renewed hopes our BLESSED journey THROUGH LIFE......

The face of God.....

For the multitude of us God usually signifies some deity or individual specific to our own religion, the respect, fear or love for whom is ingrained in our hearts and minds, perhaps from the very childhood....
As a child, I remember being told by my Maa that God had a book wherein He kept a record of your deeds- good ones with golden stars and bad ones with black stars...... From time to time God went through the records and if the black stars outnumbered the golden ones, then that was when some punishment was meted out and ofcourse a reward if the opposite was true. I had a tough time deciding whether taking pickles from the jar (ofcourse while maa was taking a siesta) to go with a romantic book on a lazy Sunday afternoon amounted to a sin which needed confessing to Maa (and risk a scolding) or was so small an aberration that God would overlook it, in the true spirit of a SPORTING PARENT !
My maa hails from a family of true blue brahmins for whom rituals are almost or perhaps more important than the act of connecting to God( through prayers, mantras or worship...).
During my early childhood, I remember hanging around Maa when she performed Puja, the strange sanskrit mantras uttered from her lips sounded enchanting and I tried hard to commit them to my memory. On days when my school was off I liked to clean up the temple corner ( which Maa had done up in the auspicious North-east corner of the bedroom), decorate the deities with fresh flowers plucked from the garden and sandalwood paste that Maa prepared, and light the incense sticks. The resulting ambience of peace, calm and that special wonderful "holy" smell was something which touched me even at that age.

Now, after two decades and then some more years later, I am hard pressed for time to even spend a couple of minutes with folded hands in front of the innumerable deities that Maa has kept on adding to her worship corner( so much so that Baba has thoughtfully made for her a separate Puja room) ..................... I have to rush to office and reach on time, braving and defeating the morning traffic snarls, ready and feed my three year old before depositing her to her preschool, remember to take the cheque book for the credit card payment lest I be fined an unthinkable amount.....all these rushing in and out of my mind, rendering all my efforts at connecting with God the "old way" , a "mission impossible" kind of feat. I tell myself I will reach out to God later and I also know God will understand.......
....With knowledge that is born of having walked the earth for three decades, I now connect to God in the most simple and unelaborate of ways....... when I sink gratefully into the vacated window seat of the state bus, knowing I will have an hour of unadulterated peace, the morning breeze caressing my face, soulful tunes from FM soothing my morning nerves, my eyes catching the glimpse of the little boy gleefully playing with his sister in front of his unassuming home on the roadside, I thank God from the bottom of my heart, for His boundless mercy in giving me this life and the wonderful feeling of being alive. The small precious moment snatched from the hands of a demanding and unforgiving day comes back to me...... my daughter looking straight into my eyes,with an angelic smile on her face.... the first thing that met my eyes when I opened them in the morning,................ to me that is the face of my God..... for me to love and cherish and worship like never before.........................................

Bound together, for better or for worse....

I am the owner of my Karma
I inherit my karma
I am born of my karma
I am related to my karma
I live supported by my karma
Whatever karma I create,
whether good or evil,
that I shall inherit.............................
No, before you rush headlong into thinking that I am the author of these deep reflections please let me be honest and tell you that these have been spoken by " The Buddha", but the truth of these words was inescapable, even to an ignoramus like me........
Isn't this the only truth that defines life?