Detective stories

I think I was in sixth grade when I first read an unabridged Sherlock Holmes' story. I had to look up the words in the dictionary, yes, but that was the beginning of my rendezvous with detectives. Then came the stories of Felu-da which is a part of every Bengali person's growing up, Byomkesh whom I think as my next door neighbor and a little later Miss Marple and Hercule Poirot. I love them all but I wouldn't take a moment to think who's the best, for me it's no one but Holmes!!

After I started working as a Software Test Engineer and have to depend on developers' mistakes for my bread and cheese, I have grown a knack for details and suspect everything that my common sense detects as out of the ordinary. I follow Byomkesh's idea of "jekhane dekhibe chhai, uraiya dekho tai paileo paite paro amulya ratan". Wherever I see a strange thing in developer's code I poke there. Who knows if it may be a defect! Also, same as detectives, software testers have to suspect all users. We can't say "Oh we expected the user to put in his password here" when hackers get's past a security point. We should have suspected that behavior beforehand and thought of stopping that. So I have thought of detective stories from a different perspective.

There are various types of detective stories. With all due respects to Ms. Christie, even though I enjoy her books a lot (I read Nemesis this weekend) and do think that it needs a lot of "thiking outside the box" to create a detective like Miss Marple, her stories always have a lot of suspects each with motives and opportunities and one of them is the killer. Also, her stories sometime lack information. For example, in "Cat among pigeons" we didn't have enough information about the killer, Ann Shapland. In "Murder in the clouds" I simply don't see how anyone can put on a dentist's robe to pose as a flight attendant, nor can I imagine how in "Sparkling cyanide" she says that if you are sitting at a round table you only know your seat relative to the other people. No way lady, that's not how it works! The Christie novels I like are "Death comes as as the end", "Sleeping murder", "The mirror cracked from side to side" (this is the story on which Rituparno Ghosh made his movie "Shubho mahurat"), "13 at dinner" and a few more...but I do feel that picking from a pool of suspects is quite easy.

About Felu-da, I don't want to really compare him to others. The main reason would be the fact that Felu-da's stories are written for the young. They are interwoven with our growing up days, with summer vacations, with getting the thin hard bound books on birthdays and looking at the illustartions on the covers. Actually, I even used Ray's pictures from Felu-da to practice sketching. My art teacher said they were really great human figure sketches which would make my foundation strong. "Gorosthaney sabdhan" is my favorite. Not just that the plot is awesome, but also because I'm a a fan of Calcutta and of family histories, both. I don't want to watch the movie though. Arnab tried to persuade me to watch it but to not avail. I have a very strong imaginative power and it ticks me off to see a 50-yr old Felu-da. If you scrutinize stories that well, you'll see Felu-da stories don't have a host of suspects. They have very mature plots.

Now to Byomkesh. Saradindu is one of my most most most favorite writers. I need an entire article dedicated to him to say how fond I am of his stories, but for Byomkesh, he's one of the finest detectives. It's just that I can see an inspiration from Holmes somewhere behind his stories that makes him a close second to Holmes. Here comes the difficult to solve plots. Take for example "Seemontoheera". You know who the culprit is, you have permission to search his whole household but you have no clue to where the diamond is! Or consider "Pather kanta", what a fine story!! Byomkesh doesn't have a lot of people to pick and choose from, he has to hit the bull's eye. "Sajarur kanta", "Chiriyakhana" and to some extent "Bahni patanga" are I guess the ones where there are a lot of suspicious people. I don't know which one of Byomkesh stories is my most favorite. "Pather kanta" I super like. "Durgorahasya" might be next. "Chorabali" is awesome. I can't leave out "Agnibaan"...Naah, I should leave this here, no way can I pick out one as the best.

The most difficult stories are where all evidences point towards some one who is not the criminal though. Example, "Arthamanartham" where apparently it couldn't be anyone but Sukumar who killed his uncle or "The beryl coronet" where Arthur was seen with the coronet in his hands. Those ones ARE difficult. It needs a lot of knowledge and confidence on the writer's part to think of and solve something like these.

Why is Homes my favorite though? Firstly because he's the pioneer of modern detectives and also because Conan Doyle has a way of providing every single piece of information to the reader. Be in the form of diagrams or floor plans or whatever he thinks he can elaborate with. (Example, "The dancing men") If you have Holmes' brains you can try to solve them yourself! My most favorite Holmes' story is "The Hound of the Baskervilles". The mystery, the people, the family legend and the surroundings create a strange mysterious atmosphere in the countryside. To top it is the family portrait! Oh, if there was only one detective story in the world and that was "The Hound of the Baskervilles", I think it would have been enough for all!!

On a different note, last Friday we were involved in a hit-and-run accident when a guy rammed into our car from behind and then fled while we were calling 911. I had to remember his 7 digit (and letter) license plate number and guess what came to my mind? Felu-da's suggestion! Break the number up into two parts and it's easier to remember two blocks of 3 or 4 digits (or letters) than the whole thing together. Well, that hit-and-run guy is in jail now so you know the advantages of reading detective stories :-)

My son

I was turning in my sleep in the wee hours of dawn when I felt there was something heavy sitting on my right leg. I stuck my other leg out from under the blanket and it touched a soft, furry, warm thing. with the window in the background, I could make out an ovalish thing there. It was Mota, sleeping (and snoring) soundly. I got up and stroked his warm furry back, when he turned inside out showing his white belly and asking for belly rubs! That's how my day starts most of the time :-)

Mota's day starts early. He wakes up at dawn because that's their hunting time. Being a ball of fur he doesn't hunt but he still follows his habit. He'd roam around for a while and then from around 6 would start bugging us. Meowing at us, clawing the bed sheets, trampling all over us and chewing paper and plastic from the waste bin are his ways of getting us off the bed. He knows for certain that after 5-10 minutes of this behavior, one of us would invariably get up and say "C'mon Mota, let's give you something to eat."

The third drawer opens and out comes a can of delicious salmon or tuna or ocean whitefish. If it's salmon day he just can't control himself! When the food reaches his plate he rubs his head on our legs in appreciation. There he chomps away dreaming of the little fishies with eyes half closed. After breakfast, he meticulously uses his litter box and cleans himself thoroughly. When we come to breakfast, he usually potters about there or sits in front of the patio door watching the plants and green grass waving in the breeze. Sometimes he'll catch a glimpse of a birdie and get excited, but he realy doesn't get out and hunt.

If we are at home, he'll stick close to us. Chew papers and magazines, climb up on the back of the couch or just roll over for belly rubs. He goes crazy over stringy and feathery toys. Just tickle him with the feathery "blue bird" and he jumps into action. Crouching behind the sofa or even a pair of shoes, he'll keep watch and then spring at it like a mini-tiger. Arnab says, when God wanted to create tigers, He smoke-tested by making cats! Cats are just a scale reduced version of tigers :-) Another thing is the treat ball. Just put in some treats in the ball and Mota would patiently go on rolling it until all the treats have come out. He would push the ball with his head and control with the two front paws. It's amazing how he solves problems of the ball getting stuck, checking twice under cabinets for treats that might have rolled off...Domestic Shorthairs are intelligent!!

They can sleep soundly for 16 hours so on weekdays it really doesn't bother him much when we are away. He cuddles up on our bed or on his blanket and sleeps. The moment the garage door goes up in the evening, he runs downstairs. (I have seen this when I am at home and Arnab comes back from somewhere.) So, everytime we open the door, he's already there to greet us by rubbing his head. I love these moments!!

In the evenings, Mota and Arnab have their "guy time" when they watch WWE, wrestle with each other or Mota would carry on with "killing" the feathery bird. Sometimes he gets into the mood and play acts. There are "enemies" around whom he chases. Most of the time the "enemy" is a noisy plastic bag or a crumpled sheet of paper!!

It doesn't take much to amuse him but there are things he HATES. He hates me rubbing his fur with wipes because he thinks I am taking away his smell. The dental rinse is another such "bad thing". We have stopped clipping his nails at home because he started giving us a "bankrupt person" look and intentionally used our hall carpet as his litter-box. When we were cleaning up his bad deed, he was lying close by and craning his neck to see if we were doing it ok. So we get the vet's assistants to trim his claws, I don't care is he's mad at them! He takes care to sharpen his tiny clipped nails and scratches our ottomans and sofa regularly. Another scratching thing is out kitchen rug. We got him scratch posts but he couldn't care less for that!

I can't talk about Mota by not saying anything about Kedo. Kedo (actual name Peanut Butter) is our neighbor's cat. He is the biggest, fluffiest, bravest and friendliest cat I have ever seen and has a bottomless pit for a stomach. Here they are sitting face to face.

Kedo is not afraid of water or of fire (as he was sniffing our burning candles), nor is he bothered about rain (he comes with dripping wet fur sometimes) and last winter when there was not a soul out in the snow, we saw his paw marks right outside our patio door. Mota and Kedo have a love-hate relationship. I haven't yet figured out what exactly they think of each other. Kedo is a left-pawed cat and he has hit Mota quite a few times. His parents left him in the house for a week when they went on a vacation. Coming back, they saw the carpet scratched and shredded and all the blinds torn. Who can hold him back? He is independence personified (or rather cat-sonified) and I think is a worthy son of the "land of the free and home of the brave".

At around 10:30, Mota would come upstairs. Meow for a while and then jump up on our bed. Sometimes if he's a little late (maybe he was having a converstaion with Kedo downstairs) and we have turned off the lights, we'll see a pair of glowing orange eyes as he makes his way around and tries to find a place to settle down. Mostly that would be on my pillow close to my head. Sometimes he'd squeeze in between Arnab and me or would lie down near our feet. He feels safe near us and we feel incomplete without him in our lives. He's our furry son- Mota Mao!!

PS: We celebrated his 4th birthday in January, here's a pic!

Xenophobia

It has been 4 years since I moved to US as a Fresh Off Board grad student and by now I am kind-of settled in my adoptive country. In these 4 years I have come across many Indians (students like me, second generation kids, people coming to work here, etc) and I have seen some patterns in their behaviors. There are many Indians who are my friends and whom I really like but I have been recently quite upset about some comments from my fellow countrymen (and women) so I thought of writing this. Here are the behavior patterns:

1. The "haters": Yes, they hate. They hate Americans, Chinese (Asians), Afro-Americans and basically anyone who is "foreign" to them. They hate non-Indian foods, non-Indian cultures and are very articulate about their hatred. They think every other person is dumb, have loose morals and maybe they are doing a favor by coming to this country. They are proud of the fact that they don't have any non-Indian friends and give a weird look to those who do have. When I opted to live at our University dorm with a Philippina girl, I was asked why I was not staying with 4 other Indian girls. To me, broadening my horizon and making friends from outside my known world was more important than having Indian food for every meal and go ga ga over the same Bollywood movies. These "haters" think you need to cling on to your culture lest you forget that. And in order to make sure your own culture is great, you'll have to belittle others.

2. The "recliners" : They are clanish too, but they don't hate or complain. They have small groups of friends and wouldn't mix with new people, nor would they let others into their "group". They're sort of laid back. Would prefer to play indoor games and drink for the whole long weekend instead of camping/hiking or any other kind of activity. They'd want to do a lot of things but would end up lazying for the whole day.

3. The "ultra-moderns": To them living in the US is a dream come true. They think of general American life as those shown in Hollywood movies. They misuse their freedom once they step off the flight. They think you have to drink (in large amounts) to be social and "living in" is the ultimate fashionable thing to do. I have heard of people proudly saying that they are going to some "erotic festivals". Ironically, a majority of them come from very conservative families. When their parents do find out how they are leading their lives, they are almost forced to arranged marriages. They marry nice, soft spoken girls from India who have no idea of their husband's past lives. Some do find out later and then a whole lot of troubles come up.

4. The "Down the memory lane": They are really nice people. I don't have anything against them. The only thing is they cling on to their memories. They are very homesick and every time you talk to them they'll bring up old memories in conversations. They do come from loving close knit families but are unable to form nice, strong friendships in this part of the world. So they are lonely. I feel sorry for them :-(

5. The "Learn nothing, forget nothing": They are mainly from the older generation who are totally confused. They try to hold on to the values they grew up with, and most of them were in there 40s at the time of the "internet revolution" and globalization. They'd not forget what they learnt back and are definitely not able to keep abreast with new things. They say "my daughter can't speak in Bengali" quite proudly but then get ad at the very same daughter for having a non-Indian boyfriend. Though, this is nothing to do with age as I've seen many people my age having the same mentality and I know many "old" people who are actually very modern (and happy).

To them all, here's my message. If you are really proud of your own culture/tradition, you don't have to be clanish to preserve it. You need to tell others about your culture and what's the best way to do that? Mixing with people. Once you start having friends from other cultures, you'll be sharing (and learning) new things. Back in my university days, on Diwali party all my non-Indian friends dressed up in Indian clothes - sarees, salwar suits, lehengas. Even the guys wore sherwanis! Just imagine how fun we girls had when we were all dressing up!!! We had "international potluck dinners" at our dorm (where we didn't invite guys cause they'd eat everything up). My aunt, who is a Kathak dancer and truly an artist has taught school kids here to dance to old Bengali songs. I was so amazed when I saw kids of all cultures dancing (and some even singing) to those songs that we all learnt while growing up. If you read the works of Rammohan, Rabindranath, Vivekanada, Vidyasagar or Netaji you'll see how much they appreciated foreigners. How much they mixed with them, found out the best from the other parts of the world. They were stalwarts of our culture, they were those very people who have created the "culture" we are all so proud of. Rabindranath had said "in the human world giving is sharing." You need to give in order to share. This is how you expand your horizon and include everyone in it. This is how you live in a global village.

"Come to camp..."

"Come to camp girls, come to camp girls,
It's a jolly life and free
Sun and air girls, love and care girls,
It's a joy for you and me..."

- When my mom taught me this girl scout (girls' guide in India)song I didn't have any camping experience. I knew some people would go and live in tents, eat badly cooked (part uncooked) food and almost freeze at night. I was not much bothered. I started camping at 26 when I went to Bay View State Park in WA with Arnab for our first wedding anniversary. It was in western Washington, right beside the Pacific. It was cold and cloudy even in June and we didn't have air mattresses to sleep on so we almost froze!! But it was a great experience!!

The hall of moss trail at Olympic National Park

Luckily me and my husband have similar likes and dislikes and camping is definitely one of our "super likes" so this summer as soon as it started to get a little warm and sunny in WA, we got out tents and hiking boots out. WA is a beautiful state, I'm in love with the pines, spruces, firs and alders that have made WA the "evergreen state". With that when Mt. Rainier covers half the sky in front of you, Mt. Baker glistens in the sunlight with his two companion peaks, the Pacific stretches from end to end or Snoqualmie plunges a great height covering the foliage in a misty spray, it becomes heavenly!

While hiking or camping in the backcountry, where even the smartest smartphone doesn't have network coverage, the most techie person would have nothing to do but to admire Nature. Camping at Cougar Rock in Mt. Rainier National Park was awesome. At night when we were going to sleep, we lay awake for a while. It was dark in the forest, bears and coyotes were "loosed till dawn" and we could hear the sound of Nisqually river flowing nearby. Everything was calm but we knew the snow-capped-smoldering-inside "Restless Giant" Rainier was awake and was guarding us.

Pacific from Kalaloch Lodge

We have seen the diamond studded night sky in Olympic National park. It was the perfect night sky with the star gazer's rival (our big ol' Moon) not there so shine down her "borrowed light" on us. For the first time in my life I saw the Milky Way, and I saw innumerable stars, stars and stars studding the black half dome over us! All this time, Pacific was rumbling and splashing and going up in surf in front of us with his foamy, frothy waves. I had to sing Tagore's "Aji joto taara tobo akashe" and "Mahabishwe Mahakashe" at that time. It would have been an insult to Bengali culture if I didn't do that!!!

Breakfast 

Cooking a frugal meal while camping and living in the Spartan way shows us how little our true needs are. We just need a shelter, some food and enough clothing to keep us warm. That's it. Oh yes, and a companion to share this life with. Nothing more. Just like Jerome said in his masterpiece "Three Men in a Boat", "it's the lumber, man", everything else in life which we value so much is all "lumber". Throw them overboard, Jerome said, and your boat of life would be easy to pull through.

On a chilly, misty morning when a sizzling bacon is cooking on an open fire or when you're making s'mores, playing fireside games with your camper friends, or when you're hiking up up up on the trails with a furry marmot crazily whistling at you, a blue jay flying across white snow, you wouldn't want to trade those experiences for anything in the world. You'll realize what it feels to say "The sky thy roof, the grass thy bed and food what chance may bring"...

That's Nysqually glacier in the background

PS: We are going camping the next long weekend. Hopefully a furry friend would be coming along with us too this time :-)

Wedlock

Recently I was responding to some comments in Facebook where a guy was all about live-in relationships. I don't know why he is so facinated by the concept of live-in, maybe it makes him feel "ultra-modern". As you can already guess, I am not a big fan of living in relationships. They simply don't make any sense to me. People arguing in favor have only one point to state - "if you are already committed to someone, why would you need to have a legal bond?" In a famous Bengali story by Saradindu, "Bidrohi" (The Rebel), Debabrata, the protagonist says, "When there is love, marriage is unnecessary. And where it isn't, marriage is an inhuman exploitation". But that very rebel later when he was mature said "if not anything marriage has a value in society". Here are the points, why.

1. People who are lucky enough to experience true love in their lives know that it's human nature to express that love. You want to tell the world that you are in love. "I want the world to know that you're in love with me" is the way people feel. Wedding, even if that's a simple affair, gives the opportunity to show that publicly.

2. Legal marriage has a social value. If we didn't have this binding, anyone can go live with anyone else. Then they'll have a bunch of kids who will grow up without proper identity. Humans need the concept of a family to grow up. They need a father figure and a maternal caregiver, which is not possible in broken homes.

3. Unlike marriage, live-ins don't have a legal age. So, technically a teenager can decide to live-in with her boyfriend. Which is disastrous.

4. I don't know where to start from if I want to talk about kids of live-in families. They are given up for adoption, abandoned or brought up with a whole bunch of half siblings. Most of the time the parents are immature, young and don't have decent jobs to support them. All these lead to terrible parenting and bringing up of a generation on weak morals.

5. Also, if some people claim that they have a strong enough commitment that doens't require a legal binding, I ask them, if they are so confident in their relationship why are they scared to give their relationship a legal name?

6. If a couple gets divorced, the parents still have the responsibility of bringing up the kids. If they shun that, there is the Court. This is not possible in live-ins. Fights for custody can take ugly turns too. Most of the time single teen moms are left to fend for themselves and their babies.

7. In the pre-historic days people didn't have the concept of marriage, but then they decided that a formal bonding is necessary to thrive in the society. It is not for nothing that ALL religions, cultures and societies all over the world, so different in all other aspects are unanimous in this respect. They all rever the "holy wedlock". A married couple is looked up to. They are wished happiness and blessed by all. From the Sanskrit mantras saying that marriages last for more than one birth, and the famous Corinthians verse 1:13 of "Love is patient, Love is kind" to the general saying of "Marriages are made in Heaven" we see that marriage is still honored as the culmination of love.

9. On top of that, as marriage is a legal bond, you'll need to pay less income tax if you are married. Your life insurance would automatically go to your spouse if you are a WA resident. These are practical points not to be neglected :-)

10. Another point some live-in people said is, they want to stay and test if the person is right for them before they get married. How many people will they live with to test their "trial and error" process?

11. Why are same-sex couples fighting for legalizing their relationships? Just because they know that having a legal commitment is necessary to live in society.

I can only think of one reason in favor of a live-in is that when you already know you are going to marry this person and you are engaged, then instead of renting two different apartments, you can live together. Or, if you are waiting for your wedding after getting the marriage license!!

In my opinion, people who are not confident in their decisions and who want an easy way out from their responsibilities would want to live in. In that way they can gain the advantage of having a relationship but not the responsibility that comes with it.

There's nothing facinating in live-ins. So think about the pros and cons of marriage versus live-ins before you start to show yourself off as a so called "free thinker". Marriage has stood the test of time and I do believe it'll keep on binding the socitey as it has done always.