Dissecting Rabindranath

Rabindranath was a person quite difficult to understand. He was more a philosopher than a poet or a social reformer. However, being a human, he too had some shortcomings. Like, we don't know why he married his daughters off at such early ages and that too by paying a huge dowry which he could barely afford. We don't know what made him not encourage his older sister Swarnakumari in her writings. But as he is not here to defend himself there is no point in making these into huge issues. He will be remembered by his contribution to the Bengal Renaissance, as one of the brightest jewels in the crown of Bengal. Without him, we would not have anything to hold on to during our difficult times. His songs and poems have given solace to Bengalis far and wide through all the dark days.

One of the things that bother me a lot is the repeated discussions of Rabindranath's relationship with his sister-in-law (elder brother Jyotirindranath's wife) Kadambari Devi. I have no idea what these two people have done to intrigue the busybodies of Bengal throughout the ages. Maybe the main reason being, even the most progressive people today (rather the ones who claim to be "progressive") cannot digest the fact that a man and a woman can be friends. The relationship between a newly married bride and her younger brothers and sisters-in-law in the Bengali family is a very sweet one. Especially in the old days when the age difference between spouses used to be more than ten years, husbands were hardly in the same intellectual level as their wives to be friends. Those young girls actually were brought up at their in-laws. They of course grew closer with the younger siblings of the husbands who had a narrower age gap with the young wives. The relationship of Rabindranath and Kadambari evolved thus. She was two years older than Rabindranath and as Satyajit Ray (who actually knew Rabindranath) puts it "she was his best friend and severest critic". Why is that so difficult to understand? And what is the need of romanticizing such a relationship?

Did they love one another? Of course they did. I assume it is a basic human tendency to love your near ones, especially your friends. We also have to remember that in the Tagore family children were not looked after by their mothers. They had maids and later men servants to take care of them. Probably the main intent was "plain living and high thinking" but that led to young kids feeling quite neglected. Rabindranath, being the fourteenth child of his parents hardly ever got a chance to be close to his mother. Kadambari, as a young lonely bride used to spend a lot of time with this young boy and it was from her that Rabindranath first experienced the tender love that only a woman can show. But to twist that into a romantic relationship and worse still, to encash that is what makes me very angry. I don't know what possessed me to watch the Bengali movie Kadambari. Apart from it being a very bad movie from a cinematic performance (the scene transitions were very choppy and the story didn't much progress well), there were huge factual mistakes (they did not wear such colorful clothes, neither that much jewelry, Brahmo weddings were shown wrong, the makeup was horrible) and it is obvious that either the director did not care to research or he intentionally commercialized the facts. I am yet to figure out why they showed Jnanadanandini like an evil queen. She was a remarkable lady who was probably a century or more advanced than her times. Even if she did have some human shortcomings, to show only that and ignore her contribution to Bengal's culture is not just mean but very offensive. As a director or author you have a responsibility to mould your readers and viewers. That lecherous man Ranjan Bandopadhyay has created some weird letters and have called them Kadambari's suicide note. History tells us that the actual suicide note was destroyed by the Tagore family and of course its transcript was never available. Who has given these people the right to defame those who are the pride of our culture? The fact that these people are not present to defend themselves doesn't make it not a crime.

The Tagore family has been the cradle of the Bengal Renaissance. The women of this family have contributed immensely for the betterment of Bengali girls for centuries. We should be grateful to them and showcase them in the best possible way as we should be proud of them. People who have a tendency to look at everything through jaundiced eyes should choose other topics to scandalize on and leave the Tagores to researchers, educationalists and educated people to read, understand and find inspiration from.

Re-living my childhood

Having kids is a tough thing. It sure has a lot of enjoyment and fun but that comes with a lot of responsibility too. Having a niece is just getting the fun part without the responsibility. You are not allowed to spoil your kids, but spoiling your niece is totally permissible. It is true that Bhollu does remind me that now I am a grown up ("Tumi to boro") especially while asking for favors like a horse ride or a bottle of bubbles, but she also reminds me that now I am free to do all the crazy childish things with her that I didn't know I was missing all these years.

Coming home to Calcutta now has an added fun of being with her. Her funny antics of dressing up as Goddess Lakshmi and blessing us or using Lego blocks to build an idol of Lakshmi (she gets very angry if I make fun of Lakshmi or the goddess's special Owl - I told her that the owl looks like the snowman Olaf) are crazy but it shows me things from her viewpoint. Who said that Lego blocks are supposed to create engineering marvels only? With her I can go over reading a word book and teach her the difference between "this" "that" "these" and "those",  I can draw using sidewalk chalk and play all sorts of funny games. True, she does throw tantrums at times, but as I treat kids like adults and she being quite a sensible kid, it is quite easy for me to explain things to her. 

She goes to the same school as I and gets on the same school bus. She goes to our art school as well to the same art teacher and it is quite a sea change for me to realize that now I am the escort to the school bus stop or to the art school and not the student any more. When my art tutor told Bhollu, "ask your aunt to choose a drawing for you" I was shocked!! At 31, I should not be so shocked, many of my class mates have kids older than Bhollu but as I have been the "baby of the family" for more than a quarter century, this realization takes time to seep in. 

It is fun to relive my childhood in this way - to read out to her, to teach her new things (sometimes at the dismay of my sister, like when I taught her how to make a face in a roti), to ride a horse or run down a hill side with her. It feels great to be the cool aunt because I let her touch street dogs when the other elders yelled "don't touch it will bite you" and I let her play Temple Run on my Android tablet when I was not at home. My sister saw that and asked my aunt, "why did Ria leave her tab with her when she is not at home?" To which Bhollu replied, "Because Mimi loves me."

The best part is to listen to her talk - about her friends, her experiences in swimming at a pool in Goa, her ideas of the mythological characters and her trials and tribulations, like not allowed to sing a newly learned song in front of the tiger at the zoo. Well, to adults that might not be a big thing, but for a five year old, being denied a chance to sing to a real tiger can be a direct insult. Perspectives do matter. She also has the capacity to teach what is right. In India, where "please" and "thank you" are rarely ever mentioned, she has made it a habit to thank all the drivers on our trip. When I was asking leave of my family before going to the airport, she made sure that I respectfully say goodbye to my grandma's nurse. 

A super extrovert who would do her rounds at restaurants and go talk to people at all the tables, a bouncy little girl with a sharp mind she has breathed new life to our house. It pleases me to the utmost so see her run up and down the stairs in our ancestral house where she is the fifth generation growing up. I haven't seen me grow up, but I can completely see my crazy self in her.

Home is ...

I said before that to come back to things that never change give me a feeling of reassurance that I am home. Like, I know exactly which angle the orange sun beams would enter my room at 6:30 in the morning. I know how much of the tree would be visible if I sit as my study table. These are little things that make up the whole big situation. These are the things that bring me home.

Home isn't in the suburbs where the house (my in-laws house) is like visiting relatives. I never know that place. I can't walk down the stairs blindfold. I don't know the neighborhood. I can't tell the books in the book shelf by looking at just their spines. I don't know the neighbors. 3 days a year for 6 years only amounts to 18 days. That can't be compared to 23 years at a stretch and a month each year after that of living in my own house.

In the villages of Bengal, I am a complete stranger. However much I may like the glimpse of the rice fields or wonder at the experience of walking on the narrow divides through those fields at dusk when the cows return to their sheds, I don't belong there. I am a tourist who is seeking a new experience, who asks questions and takes photos.

I belong to Calcutta.

I belong to the place where there is noisy traffic, where the typical sound of banging on the sides of the buses and the conductor yelling "Howrah Howrah Howrah, Howrah jabe, khali bus" (empty bus, going to Howrah) wakes me up in the morning. Where Eden Gardens has a soft spot in my heart and I can't pass by the stadium without imagining the cricket shots being played there and the loud cheers that roll. How well we know where would be a good spot to sit in the stands where the Sun won't blaze throughout the day. We know that H block gives the best view and K block only gets the morning Sun and a little afternoon Sun. I belong to the afternoon walks to Lake and to Lake Market to buy little fancy things or eat from the road side vendors. And idle walk at Deshapriya Park while eating Jhaal-Muri and pointing out to Arnab where the cricket pitch is and telling him about the eternal rivalry between the two clubs there - Milan Samiti and DKS brings me back to home. I can see the spot where the big ferris wheel called Giant Wheel used to be placed at the Durga Pujo fair and where I shot balloons with an air rifle. I can see teenaged boys practicing their cricket shots and remembered my friends Sayan and Biswadeep as eighth graders right there. I belong to the crowds of Gariahat where vendors still cry - "Didi edike", "Didi ki lagbe?" (what can I get for you? Didi, come here) with an irritating yet friendly way. Even though I am familiar with many a shiny shopping mall, the colorful clothes and bright imitation jewelry never fail to attract me at Gariahat. There is a typical girly craving to buy everything accompanied by shiny eyes and a quick dig in the wallet.

Home is in eating the sharp spicy and tangy Phuchka dipped in tamarind water and in Kwality ice cream. It is in the smell of flowers of Lake Market on a sultry summer afternoon when the southern breeze starts blowing, in the sweetness of sandesh made with notun-gur and in the feeling that I am surrounded with lots of laughter and fun and people whom I love.

All thanks to Job Charnock for deciding to stop at this place for his mid-day break.

The kids who have it all

From the perspective of the worldly person, these kids have nothing. Most of them are orphans, almost all unwanted, some were actually deserted who were picked up from places like railway platforms, some were brutally treated by people in whose homes they worked as domestic helps. They barely have clothes on their backs, even the ones they have, barring one or two have been handed down, old and torn at places. They have no toys, they make their own toys with scraps of rubber bands, twigs, leaves and mud. They can't afford to eat many foods. And they don't have any wants.

They are happy.

I have never seen so many kids, ranging from toddlers to late teenagers live in such perfect harmony. The sounds heard were of laughter, songs and screams of joy. There wasn't a glum face to see, no fights or quarrels and no negativity. Everyone was busy according to his or her own level. The older boys were playing football, the younger boys got hold of a basketball which they used in place of a football in a smaller yard. The girls were playing some indigenous village game like hopscotch (which I later realized helps in balance, works out the core muscles and creates hand, eye, foot coordination and is not that easy when you have to hop on one leg on an uneven ground). They had a picnic on New Year's Day where the main attraction was cooking and eating in the open. The elders cooked the food, helped by the older girls. The boys created the open fire stove with bricks, the little ones brought wood and the others helped in preparing food. The best thing was that all the vegetables were grown by them. In a place where a bunch of women are working, people always think that there will be quarrels and misunderstandings, but all I saw was laughter and fun.

I have seen kids with literally room full of toys, I have seen six year olds who can't eat by themselves or pick on their food for hours without eating with a good appetite and then I have seen these kids. The ones who are undaunted by poverty, who have the will to excel in studies (and many of them have already). A cracked blackboard, a harmonium missing a few reeds, old ragged teddy bears can give them all the happiness they want. The boy who innovated a slingshot out of a twig and torn rubber bands has learned through his own experience that aiming at 45 degrees makes his shot go the farthest. He would shine much brighter in later life than the boy who only knows how to push a button on his police car to sound the siren. The little girl who uses her imagination to create a perfect scene with idols and their religious ceremony is indeed spending her time in a better way than the toddler gobbling TV shows for hours.

These kids are learning responsibility through their posts as "ministers". They have areas to look after like managing school stationery, making sure everyone drinks the right amount of water throughout the day, cleaning rooms and bathrooms, looking after the guests, presiding over physical training and even baking cakes with the bare minimum resources.

Seattle seems a place too far off from here. There wasting food after being served a huge portion in the name of avoiding contamination is widely prevalent, here if these kids waste a single bite they have to clarify why. They do chores without being paid any allowance. They only get to watch TV on Sundays for a couple hours and even then they only watch channels like Discovery, Animal Planet and sports. They play out in the open, they swim in the pond and exercise by dancing. And even though they are very honest about their past lives - like many of them don't know their birthdays, or know that they have been deserted by families, they have now got what true unconditional love is.

If you are interested in knowing more about them, please contact Mr. Balaram Karan (phone:+91 99326 71081) of the orphanage Antyoday Anath Ashram.

The well loved house

I strongly believe that those people are truly blessed who still have their childhood home to come back to every year and if that is the ancestral home, then they are double blessed. Which, definitely is the case for me. In this 88-year old yellow brick house, I feel like a load is taken off me the moment I enter through the dark green heavy wooden door right under where the house number 125 is embossed.

I don't know what goes into making a house, but when it comes to making a home for five generations, I think our house has all the necessary ingredients. I am not sure how many houses in Calcutta are this well loved. How many houses of this stature exist in the city today anyway? The solid 25 inch brick walls have the capacity to shelter us from anything the world might throw at us. Those shiny red floors can brighten every spirit. To run up and down the stairs, to touch the railings and trace the shapes that they make, to spin those little things that are supposed to hold a window open once more gives me the feeling that the house is welcoming me home. I know that I can still walk blindfold all the way up the stairs to the third floor. My brain has it mastered so well. The familiar gong of the wall clock is so reassuring. That clock is also giving perfect time for almost a century now.

To come back here is to become my carefree self once more. The biggest decision I have to take now is how to decorate the Christmas tree and what ornaments to buy for it. Everything else is taken care of.

Do you remember those cordless phones? How they could be taken anywhere all around the house, but at the end of the day they were put on their cradles to be recharged? My home is like that. Wherever I may travel and roam, I need to come here for some time to get recharged.

"Wind in their hair and mud on their boots"

Of the things that please me, one of my dearest favorites is a pair of muddy hiking boots that I take off my tired feet. I did not know the pleasures of hiking until I got married and settled in Washington. The "upper left" corner (as one of my friend calls this state) of this country is a beautiful place, especially if you love Nature then you wouldn't need to look too far. Beautiful green trails attractive all year round with meadows of wild flowers, misty mountains, rain on fern leaves, ice crystals and the crunch of fall leaves under your boots will be enough to lift your spirits. I am so glad that REI tried to get everyone outdoors on the day of Black Friday. Instead of doing rounds in the shopping mall and spending money on a bunch of crap, they tried to make people go and enjoy things that come for free and actually do you good. And I can't be more grateful to have a partner who shares my enthusiasm in roaming in the wild, that the sight of a lake at the end of the hike is more attractive to him than an expensive leather jacket.

I have some dream hikes in my bucket list -

1. Wonderland trail - hike/backpack for 12-15 days. A trail that encircles Mt. Rainier.
2. Machu Picchu Inca trail - following Hiram Bingham to the "Lost City of the Incas"
3. African Safari - to the land where wild animals roam free....
4. Mount Kilimanjaro climb - to the Mountain of the Moon
5. Iceland winter adventure - maybe to find the center of the Earth?
6. And last but not the least - Mt. Everest base camp

It is difficult to explain what is so fascinating about Nature. I know of some people who (sadly) do not get inspired by Nature. One person went to the amazing Hoh Rainforest in Olympic National Park and asked his friend "ok I see the trees, now what? Do I expect the trees to dance for me?" No, they won't. The mountains won't join in a chorus, neither would the river beat the drums... actually things will be very quiet and you will hear the chirping of birds, the boom of a thunderous waterfall before you actually turn the bend and see one. If you hike along the ocean, you would take your time to see the different sea weeds and the strange and unique shape of driftwood. The main thing is to slow down. I am a goal motivated person, so sometimes I have the tendency to keep walking with the end of the trail in mind. That feeling of achievement is good, but hiking isn't a competitive sport. You don't have to prove anyone anything. Last week, this mentality made me walk past beautiful ice crystals without noticing them. Good that Arnab was behind me and he pointed them. Later I intentionally slowed down to admire the mushrooms growing on stumps of fallen trees.

Long back I received four books by National Geographic specially created for young explores. I am so glad that my uncle gave those to me, because growing up in a city in India, it would have been very difficult for me to learn to admire the little things Nature offer. The books - "Creatures of the woods" and "The World beneath your feet" had opened my eyes to look at this world from a different perspective. It taught me to love animals (despite their looks) and to make me aware of a vast and beautiful Nature.

Skinny shaming

"Do you buy your clothes at the kids department?"
"Your bones would make good toothpicks."
These have been comments that I am very familiar with. People have grabbed my wrists to show how small they are, some have also grabbed my neck to show how small it is. I have been asked why I need to work out and yes, many times I have been told to eat more or else I would be blown away by the wind. I have got many comments on photos posted on Facebook saying I look skinnier than before. The best part is when I visit India (almost annually) the same set of people ask me if I have lost more weight than the previous year. I wonder if there was any time in history when they have seen me as anything else but skinny. The fact that I am probably much healthier and have more energy than my so-called curvy counterparts escape people. Then there are some who just can't believe if I do gain weight. Even if I tell them that I have grown out of my clothes, they will confidently say that the cotton clothes have shrunk.

Why is it not ok to fat shame people even when they are using the word "fat shaming" as an excuse to lead unhealthy lifestyles but it is ok to skinny shame someone who eats healthy and is a regular hiker? No I am not "lucky", I don't starve, I am not "on a diet", it is in my genes to have a faster metabolism. You can be jealous that I drink whole milk and don't gain a pound but there is nothing that you (or I) can do about it.

It is mean to make fun of anyone's weight. I understand that people might not be meaning any harm, but a constant reminder that "you need to gain weight in order to look pretty" doesn't do good for a girl's confidence. I know very well that shopping for a watch or a bracelet is difficult. I know that there are very few clothes that I can wear (thanks Ann Taylor for your petite section). These are reminders enough and I don't need your snarky comments to add to that. I am lucky to not let these things matter and I was unfamiliar with the term negative body image until in my late twenties but considering the general population, skinny shaming can be as bad as fat shaming. If you really find someone starving herself or not eating properly explain to her why an optimum body weight matters. Yes, I am trying to gain weight, not because it will make me look nice but because I need to maintain an optimum weight in order to stay healthy as I age. I am eating well, at regular times and yes, I can indulge myself with chocolate croissants and hot chocolate if I want to without any worry. If you try to shame me because you are jealous about it, sorry! One of my friends said that it is a coping mechanism of unhealthy overweight people. I agree with her, especially after I have heard people tell me, "I used to be like you before having kids" with a sigh. But hey, you know what, my mom is still pretty slim after having me so sorry if I disappoint you by staying slim even after having kids.

Why I brought this topic up today?
1. I feel it is unfair to make anyone feel bad about the way she looks.
2. It is even more unfair when you can't call a fat person fat but can easily shout out to a skinny person from across the room telling her to eat another sandwich.
3. A healthy mind in a healthy body is all that matters.
4. I will be going to India soon and woe to that person who greets me with a "did you lose more weight?" comment this time. This is a fair warning.