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 :)

Holding women back

Have you heard of the term "likeability factor"? When a woman is assertive and imposes her ideas with power, then she is considered bossy and disliked by her peers or managers. However, if she focuses on "being nice" then she gets bulldozed and pushed off to the side. A classic example of damned if you do, damned if you don't. Isn't it?

In the wake of India finally winning two medals this Olympic, and both of them won by female athletes, I was wondering about the situation these girls had to endure. There are certain sports which may be fine for a girl in India, like badminton or tennis, or even golf. For gymnastics, I can see people saying, "what will you do by becoming a gymnast?" but maybe not in such a bad way. But for a wrestler, I simply can't fathom what she had to go through, especially as she was trained at a place which only allowed boys. The state this wrestler is from, is notorious for female feticide and infanticide. So much so that the male to female ratio got very much skewed in the recent past. In an Indian household, the "likeability factor" becomes whether you can be a traditional daughter-in-law or not. In the name of upholding your family honor, basically girls are tied down and their wings clipped.

That is one common thing across all countries, cultures, religions throughout the ages. I am reading a book called "Daughters of the Samurai" and I realized this once again. When the three young Japanese girls came to the US and got rid of their kimonos, the first thing they realized was that they could leap over garden paths, catch falling flower petals on their laps and didn't have to walk by shuffling their feet in between the kimono wraps. A small bit of independence, right?

Let's start from the most serious ones. Women who talk less are liked more. I know this very well because I am a famous chatterbox. A person who is introvert, shy, doesn't speak much means what? That she doesn't let her opinions come forward. She would keep quiet when her parents arrange for a match. In the east, a "good girl" should not choose her own husband. It is shameful. Parents and elders would decide what she would do with her life and she should just follow that.

After getting married, she agains drowns her own likes and dislikes and maintains her "likeability" by serving her in-laws without making a fuss. If she chooses to keep her maiden name then she is not really showing her love for her husband. If she wants to keep her job and be independent, then also she is not fulfilling the role of a true daughter in law.

Then comes the question of babies. If a woman decides not to have babies then the whole world will remind her how horrific and selfish her decision is. In this regard the West is no better than the East. In over populated countries at least abortion is a legal and religion is not brought into it in every step. A mother choosing abortion would be demonized in no time.

Women have been drawn back in the name of family, babies, by drilling into their heads that their dreams don't matter, it is the husband and the kids who need to be made happy. They are also drawn back in the name of culture (whatever that means) and are constantly reminded of the fact that women are less capable than men. Recently, the funny (yet strong) Chinese swimmer Fu Yuanhui publicly told reporters that her periods made it difficult for her to swim. China almost fell apart at that comment. Women didn't understand how she swam while on periods because they back there don't use tampons. I understood that very well because growing up I never used tampons either, and I knew that you just don't swim or do any difficult physical activity while on periods.

It is just so wrong. You can do everything while on periods. The more active you are, the less cramps you get.

On Friday, I was in a similar situation as Fu Yuanhui and though decades and centuries of foremothers were telling me that I should rest after coming back from work, I disregarded those thoughts, put on my training clothes and went to the gym. After my regular training, I also swam for half an hour. The water and the stretching helped my muscles relax. It was a small step in my life, nothing major in the context of troubles women are facing all over the world. But for me, I know that I am not letting myself be held back physically just because I was born with X chromosome instead of Y.

India and Olympics - is it mutually exclusive?

"Mens sana in corpore sano" - a healthy mind in a healthy body. We all know what it means, that is we know theoretically what it mean, but our generation of Indians (or rather, the entire sub continent) has failed to understand that a healthy body is a rich possession. Probably the most important possession we have been endowed with by Nature or God whatever your choice of belief is.

On this Independence Day, I am writing this article with quite a lot of disappointment. Over the last few days as I saw Michael Phelps, Katie Ledecky, Maya Dirado, Nathan Adrian, Simon Biles and their teams going up to the podium again and again, their faces radiant at the sound of "The Star Spangled Banner", inside I was longing for that day when I would see our tricolor rising and hear the familiar tune of my most favorite song in the world. However, to this day, even after refreshing the webpage over and over again, the medal count of India still remains zero.

I have seen the comments praising our athletes, encouraging Dipa Karmakar for her "vault of death" and consoling ourselves that our athletes have won hearts if not medals. But even before you start the competition, when a country of 1.2 billion citizens only have 120 participants, we have started to lose. When a billion people pin their hopes on one 22 year old girl, that is when we have lost.

Why is it so?

Every time I raised this question I was flooded by replies of - poverty and corruption. Yes, it is true. When an athlete can't afford one square meal how can you expect them to compete with those who have the best training and nutrition? I agree, it is sad. Perhaps, worse is the corruption which is all pervading in our government. Government officials traveled business class to Rio and the athletes came all the way cramped like sardines in a can. But that isn't the only problem. The problem starts from the society.

"Which family would want a daughter in law who can run round kicking football all day, but can't make round chapattis?" 

Remember this? This is where our losses start from. A society where teenagers are encouraged to study for 12 or 14 hours before exams, where engineering entrance exam is considered more important than a kid's life, where schools don't have playgrounds and parents firmly tell boys to forget about cricket and football once they have reached 9th grade can't really set the scene for athletes to grow. And if you are a girl, then you have to jump through hoops of fire.

We are setting up generations of people who have no connection with physical activities. I am one of them as well. It took me 25 years to start hiking actively and 7 more years to learn to swim. Why? Because all the activities I wanted to do, my parents told me that as I wear glasses, I should not do it, for the fear of breaking my glasses. I wonder if the glasses were more important than a life skill or learning a new sport.

Here in the West, I am reminded of our lack of physical ability quite frequently. When we went hiking yesterday, Arnab and I were the ones who had to turn around at 7500 ft because we were going much slower than the rest of the team. The others made it to base camp at 10,000 ft, we couldn't. The hobbies we talked about while young were mainly reading, listening to music, painting or singing, at most dancing. There are many people from the cities who can't even ride a bike properly (me included). Here most kids start camping and hiking from a really early age, followed by swimming, gymnastics, skiing, snowboarding and what not. Most normal people go to the gym regularly. Women can do push-ups, they train with weights, build muscles. Things that in India are still unheard of. Yes, it is true that there are millions of unhealthy people here and obesity is almost an epidemic now, but my point is that the society encourages physical activities of every kind. When we travel, finding a hotel with a good view of the mountain range is enough for most people. To trek in the Himalayas, for which Americans and Europeans travel half the world over, is an activity hardly a handful of Indians are interested in. Olympians don't grow overnight. Like it takes the athletes years and years of discipline and practice, it also takes the society years and years of patience and right decisions.

We used to write essays on the benefits of sports. Our teachers and parents probably would have done better for us if they understood those benefits themselves.

So the next time you share that picture of Dipa Karmakar glorifying that you watched gymnastics for the first time in your life because of her, remember that you are part of the reason she couldn't bring a medal back. If you watched gymnastics for the first time in 2016 only because she could make it all the way there, there is no wonder that your generation failed to produce any gymnasts. Dipa Karmakar apologized to the Nation for disappointing us, I think we are the ones who should apologize to the athletes for failing to provide a proper platform for them.

Talking about delayed gratification

It is quite common knowledge that delayed gratification is a good thing. Waiting for something good, preparing yourself for a better future, have been drilled into kids across all cultures in many different ways. For example, which Indian kid didn't grow up hearing parents say, "if you study now, you will have a secure future which you will be able to enjoy much more". We know that sacrificing small enjoyments now, especially those of smaller significance, generally leads to happier things later. Education and career together generally comprise of a good example. Of course, I would point out here that there needs to be a balance. There can be nothing more sad than a kid wasting his entire childhood only for securing good marks. I have seen some people like that, and sadly, they didn't really enjoy their adult lives either. Most of them became socially awkward and lacked friends.

St. Francis watching over all creatures big and small

Anyway, in my life, the best form of delayed gratification and the happiness gained from that has come through gardening. I had almost no idea about gardening before we moved to this house. Like everything, I wanted to try my hand at this new adventure and very soon I figured out that the first thing needed, even before I got my hand into potting soil, compost or even my gloves, was patience. I lack that skill, but however much I may want the plants to grow, they would not listen to me. They need to and always will follow Nature. Yes, I can fertilize them, but even with that I can't really make them DO anything.

We got a garden arbor and I wanted to have a climber grow on it. I have seen many pictures of lovely arbors in Europe where climbing roses cover the entire arch. So I got a plant that would supposedly thrive here in part shade and dug up a big hole and stuck that in there next to the arbor. It was a skinny little thing with weak tendrils. I watched its buds come out one by one and little green shoots emerging from there. Painstakingly, I would wrap the young branches around each bar of the arbor and would think of the day it would be able to climb over to the other side.

Two years passed. Last Fall it showed beautiful fall coloring before calling it a year. This Spring, tiny buds emerged one day and magically the next morning, the bright green young leaves came out. It reminded me of the Bengali poem "কাল ছিল ডাল খালি , আজ ফুলে যায় ভরে। বল দেখি তুই মালী, হয় সে কেমন করে?" 

(Yesterday the branches were all lonely, today they are filled with flowers, tell me Gardener, how can this be?)

Over the arch

Now, in summer that same plant has formed a leafy canopy over the arching arbor and many new branches have grown. Actually it is becoming so crowded there that we have installed two more trellises so that the young tendrils can hang on to them. It is so peaceful to stand under the arbor and look up. Busy spiders weave their webs carefully that glisten in the morning sunshine. A climbing rose is making its way up the arbor, dotting the green foliage with blood red flowers. Bees buzz around, birds chirp. It is like a little nook of peace and quietude. 

Revelations of a student's life

I was an above average student for most of my life, but I have been notorious about my hatred towards studying for exams. Growing up in a culture where academic abilities were considered to be even more important than other normal social qualities, I had the habit of studying only as much as I needed to get a decent enough grade (and sometimes even poorer grades made me feel ok enough). I saw no reason why teenagers need to waste two thirds of their days just to score high marks and I still see no value in that. What I am trying to get to is that I didn't like formal education.

To say that I didn't like to go to school or college would be totally wrong though. As someone who gains energy from being with people, I definitely enjoyed school and college both, but being a day scholar, I had no idea what an ideal "campus life" should be. I was introduced to it though the bright and shiny colorful magazines at USEFI where I went for my GRE preparation. When I saw those pictures of college students sitting on grassy fields studying together or walking, working at labs, I unknowingly started to dream of a future like that. In the last semester of my undergrad, I had the opportunity to represent our college at a tech fest of the prestigious IIT. Don't ask me about the projects or how we did there, but I can confidently say that my gain from that short trip was huge! Other than the fact that I was introduced to many other young students from the rest of the country and had the luck to attend a speech by Capt. Rakesh Sharma, I also found out what that campus life is all about. One evening after dinner, as we were walking to the load runner robot trials I felt a deep sense of independence and I was really looking forward to the University days that were soon to come.

Many people have dreams about University, what I mostly wanted to do was ride a bicycle in the campus wearing shorts. I am glad to report that it came true in the summer of 2008!

I actually started studying on my own and out of my own interest during my masters and I could finally feel that life was what you want it to be. Things were tough, like I had very little money, programming was hard (given my shaky foundations of the subject) and cooking a decent meal was an ordeal, but life was good in general.

Last weekend, I had these feelings come in a wave as I visited the world famous Stanford University. Like a hallowed place, I felt that the campus is thriving with new ideas, hard work, immense intellectual power and all the good things that go with it. Just like people believe that religious places have a good spirit hanging around, I believe that universities and laboratories have that too (maybe much more than places of religion). Simple thing is that both Arnab and me, coming from humble academic backgrounds felt like attending classes once more, work in the labs and learn new things. The power of learning conquered all the bad experiences of memorizing long notes without understanding, reading photocopies, having disgusting teachers and the whole concept of scoring marks for a better future. Walking through the peaceful campus where teachers were meeting under the shade of a tree and students taking naps on benches in between classes, I should admit I felt jealous, especially at the sight of students riding their bikes to class. I remembered my own college days where I had to carry books from the library along with my T and roll pack, managing my clothes while sitting precariously on a three wheeled public transport wondering if the guy next to me is getting unnecessarily close on purpose. These universities do not lack funds, students don't have to choose a particular course because the other choices are unavailable due to lack of a teacher, student politics are unheard of, cafeterias don't overflow with students smoking cigarettes. The ambience is of learning, peace and quiet. Yes, it is true that stray incidents do happen here too, like the recent criminal case at Stanford, but those incidents can't tarnish the quality of these places.


I asked my parents why they didn't choose to migrate here, because then I would have got better career choices and at least wouldn't have to struggle for maintaining my work visa or wait for years to get a permanent residency. But then I also realized that while it is true that nobody would prefer to struggle over getting a plush life, these experiences have made me what I am today. The fact that I know both sides of the equation would at least make me grateful for the the life that I have today.