Ode to Baba.
Today, 19th - It has
been 2 years since he passed away today. Unlike movies, books or even
philosophy – experiencing your parent’s passing away is a unique experience for
everyone just like much written about ‘giving birth to a baby’ experience.
Having lived away from home since
my school, our interactions were limited to weekends or holidays. But what I
experienced in last 4 years of his life, since he got detected by cancer made
up for it. Especially the last 3 months before he passed away is something
which will remain etched in my mind till I pass away to be with him.
It was a coincidence that the
kids put up Inside Out – the Pixar movie this Friday– which talks about core
memory, personality islands, long term memory area & memory dumps where
memories start fading away.
In a world governed by a 10 hr
work schedule and now COVID, baba’s death was another core memory orb stored
away in my memory, which gets activated – on my drive back from office
completely sapped of my energy, or if I am reading an article about Assam /
Defence or while listening to Bengali folk music and also during my fortnightly
chat with my cousin in Assam who was closest to my baba. These are the core
memory orbs which got awakened and I would be under it’s influence for a while
till sleep / work took over.
Everything is still vividly
printed on my mind and it flashes in front of me – both his violent death and
his peaceful face on top of a lifeless body which got shoved into an electric
crematorium. There was tremendous pain in last month when I could barely hear
him speak with the cancer spreading to most part of his lungs so much, that
even taking a sip of water was painful.
Nothing made sense for a long
time, I wanted to do lot of things in his memory, fulfilling his wishes like
setting up an old age home / finishing school in his village. But with two growing
up kids – reality caught hold me and kicked me out to make a living, creating a
memory island which will become reality at some point in life.
One of my core memories of my
Baba of course was his cooking, right from the time when I was a child – his
cooking was legendary. Whether it is bhog in Durga Puja or Picnics, or
cooking the pithe’ during Sankranti, dry fish, choonga (rice cooked
inside bamboo’s) – he was the Master Chef in ourextended family. In 2018, even
with cancer – he made his pithe’ during Sankranti, in fact he tried a dish which
he never did in his life. In last 2 years he was staying with me – he would
cajole me into helping him with cooking and keep instructing me – don’t drop it
like this – oil will spill or the colour should be light brown, keep the flame
low. In his heart he knew, after him – there is no one who could take the
tradition forward. He was very proud of his seleti (selet is a place in
the current Bangladesh) background and tried to inculcate / introduce as much
of it in our modern home of butter chicken, baked vegetables & grilled
fish. Well, he at least succeeded in putting a seed inside me.
So today, in his honour I made
mustard fish curry, masoor dal & payesh (kheer). I remembered him cooking,
instructing, guiding, scolding and then enjoying the food with relish, which my
family also did. We made a small shrine in kitchen and paid homage to him. I
want to continue the tradition and vowed to learn the art of making pithe’ in
next 1 year. Promise.
To continue the talk on food
& North East: Axione (Netflix) is a lovely, heart-warming movie
about a group of north east teenagers wanting to make a special dish in their
rented house in Delhi. The problem – the dish smells bad (read disgusting) to
others. With an original cast (I am not even sure they are actors), it is
almost like the film was shot using a handycam. Very natural and light. Brought
out Delhi, it’s Punjabi culture and of course the travails of all north eastern
community. Yes. There was a message – but not blatant.
Talking about Delhi neighbourhood, Coincidentally I also saw ‘Beautiful day in Neighbourhood’ (Prime) - starring Tom Hanks and is an autobiographical film inspired by the article, Can you say Hero …? Written by Tom Junod and published in Esquire in 19 98.
It has a nice warm feeling around
it, the film is slow, takes it’s time to move from one scene to other but
somehow all of us in the family felt Tom Hanks over did it. The whole way of
talking and acting like Fred Rogers. Although he worked hard to get into the
shoes of Fred Rogers, (like he always does) – spending 100 of hours looking at
the footage of the children’s documentary. For us in sitting in India, it is
just another American movie, or another famous personality brought to screen. So,
it did not touch us, we just saw it as another film. The last few lines come
from that perspective.
But as I read more about Fred
Rogers, I realized that he is an Enigma, a phenomenon of his own. And enacting his
role is like playing Gandhi / Mandela – their version minus the politics. As I
read more about him, I started admiring him / his purpose and his ability to touch
people and in this case change them. As I read more about Fred Rogers and his
punishing schedule
Read the article below on which
the movie is bases and you will understand how tough the role is & how
powerful the effect of his show has on children – especially those who are
suffering. More importantly how it changed Tom Junod.
See this documentary, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Won%27t_You_Be_My_Neighbor%3F_(film)
(Netflix) which won multiple awards in case you are keen to understand him
better. My admiration for him grew & grew for him.
Tailpiece, COVID, is teaching
different thing to different people. Yesterday for the 2nd time
Nikita, my elder daughter cut my hear. I got back to walking outside and little
bit running after March. It really felt nice kicking and alive to experience
the bright sunlight & the whole feeling of openness, the birds chirping all
around and seeing a few smiles from fellow walkers– albeit under the mask.
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