A place to call Home

There is a very bad double standard about me. I cannot imagine not living in a joint family, but after marriage, I always want new couples to set up their new home. I know this is wrong, but this is clearly what I think. I was brought up in my ancestral house, as the fourth generation living in here and I am immensely proud of that fact. I very much believe that a person is shaped by the house they live in as well. When it is an old house with nooks and crannies, staircases, a dark and dusty attic, rooms filled with old books of family members not alive any more, you slowly build up a connection with your past, and you get to know your family better through the innumerable black and white photos and the old books of literature, sports, and movies.

My old desk, now used as my home office

This house is as important as my living family. I can feel a sense of life in here, and I firmly believe that when you love something, it most definitely loves you back (not applicable for humans, but applies to everything else in life), so I can feel the house has its special way of welcoming me. There is a certain way a window is supposed to close, one step in the staircase is rounded instead of having a corner, one threshold of a door is sloping, so you step over it otherwise you slip and fall. Those things remind me that I am in my fort.

Then there is the thing about a joint family. Probably because I grew up with a dozen people in the house, I have always been so comfortable around people. I have never been alone in the house ever. Wherever we need to go, there would be people accompanying, just like that. When I went to pick up the application form for my Engineering Entrance test, four people and a driver went with me. I am so used to travel in crowded cars. I mean, that feels like normal. Even now, when somebody randomly says (somebody is either me, or my brother-in-law), "let's go to Marble Palace" or "let's go eat something nice", we gather at least half a dozen people who willingly go with us. Then as usual, something random happens, like losing the way, or coming back with the wrong cake, or some people left behind. Things like this have been happening throughout the ages. My grandmother used to say that our tenants (at that time, we had a family renting our ground floor) got married and nobody knew, while for us, if someone went to buy shoes, they got back home with a regiment of cops, and the whole neighborhood got to know of that.

Family photo on Christmas Day

Here's an old world charm snugly hanging in our house. I feel the presence of my grand parents, my great uncles, and my great-grand parents in here. The things they used, their furniture, their books, clocks and all here and with it is a feeling of comfort, happiness, and the confidence that I always have a place to come home to. This is where my strong roots are, and this is where the best place in the whole wide world is.

Dangal! Dangal!

Thanks life for little bits of mercy. Last Saturday we were planning to go to the movie "Byomkesh parbo". I shouldn't really say "we" because I was against that plan in the beginning. I have a VERY STRONG dislike for movies messing up the imaginative characters from a book. For the same reason, I don't watch Sherlock Holmes. Also, when the stories get shortened or unnecessary parts added for movies, I get very mad. So, there is no reason why I would be elated to watch Byomkesh (also when the names of the movies have no connection to what story it is). However, after quizzing Bhut about the last Byomkesh movie this director made and being satisfied with her reply, I thought ok I should give it a try. But, life has small mercies sometimes and the movie theater where this one was running is currently reserved for International Children's Film Festival. Hence, no tickets. Change of plan. The entire troupe of seven people finally got seats in a row to watch Dangal.

That was a great movie. There have been three movies in my life that I have watched without reading reviews, and on the second day after release. Two of them have been great, the third one? I had to purge my mind with Surf Excel after watching it. (For those who know Bengali, it was Rituparno Ghosh's "Antarmahal".) Anyway, I am more than happy with the decision to watch Dangal because, I loved the theme of women's empowerment and I also loved to see Indian girls making their mark in a sport which is by no means "feminine" or "graceful" and women are terribly underrepresented. If this movie inspires young girls to take care of themselves by eating healthy foods and doing regular exercises to strengthen their bodies, instead of trying to look "beautiful" and posing for disgusting duck-faced selfies, I would say he movie would be really successful.

But, is that enough for girls? Are we doing all that we should? Doesn't seem so. True the female feticide have decreased and many a girl have protested and canceled their weddings when the groom's side asked for a dowry, but there are still weird notions that are plaguing women. I can give you some examples from my own life.

The day after my wedding reception, some neighbors of my in-laws came to "see" me. That wasn't just a social call, it was a probe to see how the new bride is behaving, what she is wearing, what she is doing, etc. That is why women come to do these probes because they can directly get in the areas of kitchen and the new bride's bedroom, which men cannot. I think those people were disappointed to see the new bride in PJs with no jewelry on.

I don't know why people take it upon themselves to find out what is going on someone's life, but if you are a woman, a working one, and on top of that live in the West, then you are a big asset of curiosity. They stereotype you as Westernized who doesn't care about our tradition, who probably can't wear a saree, can't (or doesn't) cook or take care of the house, don't want to have babies, or at least not right after getting married because her career is super important, and the best one, probably can't read Bengali. For that, even after seven years of getting married, I was asked by three women in the past couple days if I know how to cook. When I told them that I just don't know, but I love to cook, they were quite surprised. Because the mismatch between expected and actual caused a little discomfort.

The same thing happened at my sister-in-law's (Arnab's sister's) wedding. Her aunts had already drilled in her head that Ria won't wear a saree, and that she can't really walk if she wears a saree, also that Ria hardly cares about Hindu weddings. It was so much fun to prove them wrong.

What people need to realize is that stereotypes are dangerous. It not only creates a bias, but it also creates a divide, a rift between people and is troublesome. It tells girls "you are not good at math" and that sinks in, it tells bachelors "boys should be messy and they shouldn't know how to cook", it tells "you are not beautiful" and causes anorexia. It is very hurtful to impose your own choices on others "as the norm". It is the norm that girls should be subservient, it is the norm that in arranged marriages the girl's family should oblige to every whim of the groom's family. The Western countries shouldn't really feel elated either. When a girl chooses abortion, she is made to feel like dirt by religious and political groups. She is forced to feel terrible about her choice, but if she needs help to rear her unwanted and unplanned child then she is told to get a job and support herself. Because a stereotypical "good girl" should never have an unplanned/unwanted baby and in case she has, a stereotypical mother should immediately have all her maternal instincts flooding in which should put her baby above everything else. Right? Dream on people! It sounds heavenly, but it is not real.

Every person is unique and every person's life is unique. We have no insight of what is going on in other's lives and why they are behaving in the way they are. Instead of asking "why are you so skinny" as a conversation starter, or make judgmental comments like "you are getting too old to get married" isn't is way easier to ask about someone's hobbies, get to know where they have traveled to, what they like to eat, or other fun, happy things?

Out Of Context

Kids in Bengal, who come from properly educated families, grow up with the book 'Ha Ja Ba Ra La' (wiki link here. The word 'Ha-Ja-Ba-Ra-La' is actually five Bengali consonants (H,J,B,R,L) strewn together and it means gibberish). Influenced by Lewis Carroll's famous Alice in Wonderland, our own Sukumar Ray wrote this story of a little boy meeting strange and super crazy characters in a world of dreams. the same author also has a collection of nonsense rhymes called 'Abol Tabol' (meaning weird and random), some of which I have memorized even now!
Both 'Abol Tabol' and 'Ha-Ja-Ba-Ra-La' mention the impossible. Other than having talking animals, who are pretty smart and sassy at times, they also open the gates to a world where you can just be yourself. The opening poem of the collection 'Abol Tabol' takes you to this place where you can be yourself without any inhibition, especially for borderline crazy people like me, being yourself is the most important thing I crave for after my basic necessities of food and clothing are met. In 'Ha-Ja-Ba-Ra-La' too, you come across characters that people generally think are not possible to meet in real life.

But they are wrong.

I know some people, I am very pleased to call quite a few of them my friends, who can very easily be added to the list of characters from 'Ha-Ja-Ba-Ra-La' and they would fit in there perfectly well. We have compiled a list of comments with the theme of "out of context", which have actually been spoken by people. If you read through them, you will certainly know for yourself who I acquaint with nowadays, and why I feel so comfortable around them.

“I am plural now”

"I need a human aurora near me”

“My head would be a terrible place to be”

“I’m sorry I have mass.”

“I asked him if he wanted a new coffin”

“Stop taking showers and you don’t have to worry about it all”

“My friend had a very very small aorta”

“If you stay at it long enough, it turns into a koala” 

“If tofu and cheese had a kid”

"Do you create your own lightbulbs?"

"You should name your sock."

"Do you speak for all yetis or just yourself?"

"All rainbows are circular. Have you ever thought about that? No! You only think about yourself!”

“Have you experienced issues with the sun before?”

Now, you will know why I feel like I have come to the right place :)