Keeping the tradition alive in 21st century

For most of us when the holiday list was shared 15^th Jan looked like a long weekend staring at us. The day being a Thursday, if you take Friday off you get 4 days – somebody quipped. It’s Mysore, Goa or Phuket – maybe a cycling expedition or a food / photography trail – which is in vogue these days. Oh! Of course all formats – online / offline - So flipkart to Big Bazaar will be on sale – Flat 50% off only for the weekend. Welcome to the consumer economy. How much can you buy I wonder?

My baba traveled from a village in the easternmost part of Bengal in 1949 enlisted in Armed Forces served the country for 35 years or so, fought in 2 wars & retired 15 years back. But in all those years, 13^th night was always the same – it didn't matter if he was posted in Kashmir, Kanpur, and Hyderabad. He has to spend the 13^th night making pithe. I do not think an exact translation is available in English language – calling it sweet is like calling ostrich a bird. It’s a traditional Bengali sweet made out of rice flour & coconut (sounds weird as I write it) on the occasion of Shankranti – a harvest festival.

My fondest memory of Shankranti is to go along with baba to the market hunt for a place where they could dry grind the rice (make rice flour) the most important ingredient of making pithe then buy coconut, jaggery & come back home loaded. Of course we will order 3 times the milk – again a very important part of the ingredient. Then there is something called a kuruni (kind of scraper but again not the right translation) which is kept aside only for this one day. Later as the fridge entered our house, we would keep a special kind of jaggery called patali gud in the refrigerator.

Post dinner the master chef of our house would spread everything around him and start – with me & mom as assistants, me for tasting, and she for helping & learning. The pithe making & storytelling of what happened in his village would go on till midnight. Once done, the entire house would be filled with this unique smell of milk, sweets, coconut. In those days there were no refrigerator so we would spread all types of pithe’s in a corner, cover them with newspaper and go to sleep in the same room – that being a 1 room flat.  

As a kid I used to look forward to the 13^th night – although it happened every single year – the sweets were the same; the process was the same I used to become feverish with excitement. There was something innocent about the whole affair. I guess in those days – with no malls to go to, no TV to turn to, no mobile & internets these were the small occasions we would look forward to & it bound the family together.

Cut to 2015 – Baba at present enjoying a longish breaks at the same village from where I am guessing he learnt to make these pithe’s from his maa & baudi’s, pre pone’s his night out by a few days. He makes 3 types of pithe’s & couriers it to me by DTDC. And bang on that reaches me on the 10^th – few days before Shankranti.

I reflect on the effort & hung my head in shame. As a family we would have spent hours staring at the TV screen as the master chef takes us from US to Australia, we live with the contestants every single day & our heart skips if Laura gets eliminated & tears flow if our favorite contestant fails to win. Here is a 75 year old live person carrying the tradition of food making in his head & making it with his own hand but we haven’t had time to learn the same – at least in the name of keeping the tradition alive.

Thanks! Baba is all I can say. Next time I will give it a shot & inch towards my 3^rd bok phul ;)

Wrote on 10/01/2015

Voices

The first time we heard their voice was in 2000 when Niki was born & 2003 when Joyee was born. It was a cry – I guess that’s how all of us start to make sound. Over last 14 years they learnt to speak – starting from garbled words to the right word to the right diction.

On June 14, the voices faded away and the house grew silent. It is a strange experience when you live in a house which had all kind of voices filled in every nook & corner of house. Discussions / decisions / games / fights / crying / movie reviews / seeing TV together & so on & so forth.

As the days passed we craved for these voices and tried to create our own pseudo ways of recalling them. We started hearing their voices through things associated with them – like TV shows which they were glued on.

We would let the master chef play in the background just to have some presence in the house – we know the sofas are empty but in our mind as we cook or carry on with our homely chores we can visualize the kids sitting & sweating it out to find out who is getting eliminated.

We would see the entire season of - “Once upon a Time” all over again because these shows in some sense took us back to the time we spent together, more importantly it brought alive all the discussions & story telling done by Joyee as would inadvertently would have missed a few episodes.

It’s a startling contradiction we parents live with – when the kids were here they will bring the house down because of their fights, debates, discussions, finally one of us would step in & after lot of arguments 2 of them would go back to their corners. As parents we never enjoy the fights & it’s after effects. We would often say to each other – when will these kids grow up & make peace.

Now, when they did grow up & leave – the peace becomes unbearable at times. We keep waiting for the vacation to begin when the nook & corner of our house will once again get filled with voices - laughter, screams, shouts, discussions, compliments, wishes…….anything which will make both of us to live through till the next vacation. 

Come soon Babes…

Wrote on 06/01/2015

A thousand Splendid Suns

I read Kite Runners long- long time back, the plot is there somewhere in the back of my mind but the thing I remember most about the book is the innocence of childhood friendship, losing it & the scars it leaves behind – a very poignant tale which reverberates in your heart a long time after you have kept the book down. Nikita read it in her summer hols & loved it. She is 15 – since then she has been after us to buy “A thousand splendid Suns”. She went back to her boarding but I got hold of the book in our library last week – I finished it in 2 sittings.

This is a book which tells you the life of 2 women in a war torn Afghanistan from 1973 to 2003. 30 years of Afghanistan (Kabul) seen through the eyes, heart n soul of Mariam & Laila. While the warlords of Mujahedeen & Taliban set rules of living outside the house the man of the house sets the rule inside the house – rules for the women. Religion, rather its interpretation is fundamental to both of them – whether it’s the Taliban or it’s Rashid – Mariam & Laila’s husband. The violence at home & outside is stark. But there are also bouts of love, hope & longing which keep’s the readers engaged till the end. After the first few pages you are literally living with Mariam & thinking ahead on what more can happen to her.

The book shows the impact of war on personal life. Sitting in the living room and watching the bombs drop in Afghanistan is one thing & reading the life story of 2 women in a war torn Afghanistan where parents get blown by a rocket launcher, brothers become shahid because they are fighting for jehad, or a misdirected missiles hits a truck & killing most of the refugees travelling in truck – moves you on a different level. It gives you a perspective on how war or conflict can have a fundamental impact on society which can be felt by few generations after the war is over.

Caught between the crossfire’s of warlords & politics, most Afghani’s fled their home & at one point there were around 8 million Afghanistan refugees in Iran & Pakistan living in horrific conditions. In fact the book took shape in the author’s mind when he visited one of the refugee camps.

There are several questions which came to mind – the first and foremost being, is it something my 15 year old should read? The answer after some thinking was a strong YES. She should know how cruel the world outside can be & how religion fundamentalism can shape personal / society / country & at some point world future. How being a women can be detrimental to one’s life in certain parts of the world. I know the next question from her will be - What next? Or So What? I do not have an answer but awareness is knowledge. The book raises many questions in your mind & children her age should spend time thinking / discussing it with her friends. One should go beyond the Twilight series & read books which pose questions about the world we live in & this is one such book.

Who is to be blamed? Religion – Politics - The Individual? As I read the book it was an instant disgust for what Taliban had done – if you read the Shari’a rules you will think – this can’t happen in today’s world.

I am mentioning a few below: Singing is forbidden. Dancing is forbidden. Playing cards, playing chess & kite flying are forbidden. Writing books, watching films & painting pictures are forbidden. For women – If you laugh in public you will be beaten. You will not paint your nails. If you do you will lose a finger. You will not under any circumstance, show your face. You will cover your face with burqa when outside. If you do not, you will be severely beaten.

But from Taliban’s point – they were only enforcing what was sanctioned by their religion.

When Russians invaded Afghanistan they brought in their rules - women were not only practicing law & medicine. So from our stand point we would say Russians were good for the country.

Afghanistan like Indian kingdoms had several tribes – pashtun, Tajik, ??, ?? who had become warlords & divided Afghanistan for their benefits. The warlords were trained & mostly funded by US to counter Russians. The warlords had their personal interest in making money.

Sitting in 2014 – this is history & history can only be read, understood, dissected, analyzed – but cannot be lived. To some extent you can relive those times by reading a book like – Thousand Splendid Suns / Half of a Yellow sun (Nigeria) / The Buro Quartet (Indonesia) / The millennium Series (Europe) are some of the books I loved reading.

I recollect what one of my prof used to tell us again & again before starting discussion on any business case – In retrospect all of us are the best strategist & will have all the answers, put your selves in the CEO’s shoes at that point in time & think what you would have done, In real life ‘maybe’ does not exist – It’s either a YES or NO.

Wrote on 01/12/2014

Feeling Lucky

Maybe it’s someone I spoke to some time back who is suffering badly because of a life threatening disease while I thought he was partying in Goa or maybe it’s the Air Asia Plan crash or the blast which happened at Church Street, Bangalore or the book by Dalai Lama which I finished today. But the feeling that I end the year with is “I am lucky!”

How often do we say that to ourselves? Rarely, I guess it’s the way our measures of happiness have changed over the years; we don’t believe in celebrating or enjoying the present moment but are always on a chase / search for the perfect moment.

Coming home before the sun has set from your work (a rarity in today’s world) sitting in the balcony of your own house watching the elegant eagles floating in air, having hot tea & jhal muri with your loved one. As the world outside goes into a tizzy to celebrate the last 4 hrs of 2014, we prefer to just sit & chat and I feel lucky just being able to do this.

As the sun sets on 2014 I end the year surrendering to Gulzar saab’s voice & songs playing from one of my favorite cassette (yes! I still listen to my cassettes in the days of MP3 N MP4) – a double album called “Dil dhoondta hai” which has Gulzar reciting poetry in his gravelly voice followed by a song from his film.

Here’s one - “Kitni choti choti si khwaish leker chal dete hain hum – ek ghar, ek angan, ek chulha, bas itni si zamin our use dhapne  ke liya itna sa aasman….So true guzar sahib! Happy New Year!!

You can listen to the song (not the shairi) from his movie Dil dhoondtaa Hai….here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K3TW899qJAQ sung beautifully by Bhupinder.

Wrote on 31/12/2014