The day approaches and we are like ants salvaging the festival. Some pandals are helplessly staring at us like shipwrecks. Yesterday however the fury of the rain subsided and we got better weather. Luckily we didn’t have to go looking for a boatman.
One of the English newspapers that I read published a puja supplement yesterday which they decided to call Utsav. It’s dedicated to err… `the spirit of womanhood.’ Talking of clichés, there is a whole book now written by an expert on how and what to avoid. Anyway the supplement is stuffed with the usual celebrity balderdash-who is doing what on pujas. From fashion models to the magician, the minister of Fire (in charge of the fire services department) to the artist, every one is there, saying they will do the pandal hopping or the ubiquitous adda with friends or eating out with family.
Adda as an institution may or may not be a Bengali discovery but many a great idea and minor nuisance has been born in those sessions of chatting, in a way which is far from gossip yet never too serious or boring. The French have a verb, bavarde, which comes close to adda. Whoever be the originators of adda it is apparent that Bengali celebrities and commoners alike indulge whole-heartedly in this pastime when the goddess is around. The rest of the year, even we get too busy.
The gripping Ghonada stories by the Bengali author Premendra Mitra were spun around this institution of adda. Stories in which the slightly older Ghonada held a group of young men (who shared a mess accommodation with him) enthralled, by relating stories of his adventures around the world. And with what drama he would begin those stories at those immortalised adda sessions. Thus the young mens’ adda in Mr Mitra’s magic pen would be transformed to an arena where good fought against evil, where Ghonada, the `teller of tall tales,’ spoke in little known African tongues with Dinka tribals, or fought with greedy double agents on Arctic freeze.
Talk of eating out at pujas one of my friends is planning to set up a stall for rolls near one of the big pujas of north Calcutta. While he will miss our addas and assorted diversions of puja days, he, like many others who do this, will make a neat little sum feeding the revellers. I plan to give him company by helping with his stall at least for an evening. Let’s see. He translated Chekov into Bengali recently and did quite a fine job. Another friend, a rising poet, suggested a new dish of snails and mushrooms which (if he gives me the recipe) one might try to prepare during the pujas, just for the fun of it.
The puja issues of the Bengali periodicals like Desh and Anadamela have been monopolised by the folks at home. So I have been surviving on Harper Lee. Sunil Ganguly is writing a short story in instalments in Ananda Bazar Patrika which I am reading. The next instalment is due today but my grandmother wants to read it first. Also planning to watch a movie with Shalini. But there’s some problem there. Her phone is not working and her mobile is always in the off mode. What is happening?
It seems the rain has become a bigger star than the Mother about to reach her home. Or is it just that the last few days before the pujas we consciously quieten our spirits and go about our work unassumingly just so that the sudden burst of joy and gaiety is all the more satisfying. From the time the dhaks begin to beat on the day of sasthi.
By the way many of my fellow Bengalis are going holidaying with their friends or families. As we like to do during the pujas. In fact Calcutta can be divided into those who would like to go travelling (near or far) during the pujas and leave the crowds and the noise and the gaiety behind them and those who would vouch for staying back in the city and enjoying the festivities. As you know we like to travel and are among the most visible tourists in this country. We slip away to the mountains or visit makbaras and mausoleums in far off cities at the slightest hint of a holiday. Thanks to the rains the puja holidays this year could be manipulated a bit-extended at the top or the bottom-let’s see!
One of the mobile service providers is offering dhak beats as caller tune. I am thinking of downloading one. Could the tune change to the plainitive and sad air on doshomi day when she leaves us again for a year leaving our hearts suddenly empty.
In my own way I did the soul-emptying nonchalant routine yesterday. As if nothing had happened or going to happen. As if Durga Puja is just another festival that will come and go with some noise here some colour there. I met a friend from Delhi who is a psychiatrist. He is helping me with the research for a novel I am trying to write. We ate croissants and ham sandwiches with orange juice at the new Flury’s. Not the laid-back old Flury’s of somnolent waiters and white tablecloth but the new American style house which my friend from Delhi however found laid back still. Then I tried to work a bit supervising the production of our journal but found that the printing press was without power.
No, power cuts are not back in Calcutta its just the rains. Just the rains. I inhale the rich smoky smell of the whisky, something strange is happening in my head. I smile to myself, I want to laugh aloud, something to do with my friend from Delhi? Will I miss her when she is gone after five days, am I drinking more frequently just because of that. To ignore her coming and going. To ignore the sudden surge of happiness that she brings for me. A dark hideous depression nails me down at night. I had gone to the blood river where they were fishing for barracudas, barracudas in the blood, the rain has begun again, blue and black rain, banishing firestorms blow across the face of this sandy city. Late very late I drift to a disturbed slumber.
The Sunday Statesman has published my travel piece. It makes me smile this morning.
P.S. Bad news: There are flood like situation in parts of West Bengal.
One of the English newspapers that I read published a puja supplement yesterday which they decided to call Utsav. It’s dedicated to err… `the spirit of womanhood.’ Talking of clichés, there is a whole book now written by an expert on how and what to avoid. Anyway the supplement is stuffed with the usual celebrity balderdash-who is doing what on pujas. From fashion models to the magician, the minister of Fire (in charge of the fire services department) to the artist, every one is there, saying they will do the pandal hopping or the ubiquitous adda with friends or eating out with family.
Adda as an institution may or may not be a Bengali discovery but many a great idea and minor nuisance has been born in those sessions of chatting, in a way which is far from gossip yet never too serious or boring. The French have a verb, bavarde, which comes close to adda. Whoever be the originators of adda it is apparent that Bengali celebrities and commoners alike indulge whole-heartedly in this pastime when the goddess is around. The rest of the year, even we get too busy.
The gripping Ghonada stories by the Bengali author Premendra Mitra were spun around this institution of adda. Stories in which the slightly older Ghonada held a group of young men (who shared a mess accommodation with him) enthralled, by relating stories of his adventures around the world. And with what drama he would begin those stories at those immortalised adda sessions. Thus the young mens’ adda in Mr Mitra’s magic pen would be transformed to an arena where good fought against evil, where Ghonada, the `teller of tall tales,’ spoke in little known African tongues with Dinka tribals, or fought with greedy double agents on Arctic freeze.
Talk of eating out at pujas one of my friends is planning to set up a stall for rolls near one of the big pujas of north Calcutta. While he will miss our addas and assorted diversions of puja days, he, like many others who do this, will make a neat little sum feeding the revellers. I plan to give him company by helping with his stall at least for an evening. Let’s see. He translated Chekov into Bengali recently and did quite a fine job. Another friend, a rising poet, suggested a new dish of snails and mushrooms which (if he gives me the recipe) one might try to prepare during the pujas, just for the fun of it.
The puja issues of the Bengali periodicals like Desh and Anadamela have been monopolised by the folks at home. So I have been surviving on Harper Lee. Sunil Ganguly is writing a short story in instalments in Ananda Bazar Patrika which I am reading. The next instalment is due today but my grandmother wants to read it first. Also planning to watch a movie with Shalini. But there’s some problem there. Her phone is not working and her mobile is always in the off mode. What is happening?
It seems the rain has become a bigger star than the Mother about to reach her home. Or is it just that the last few days before the pujas we consciously quieten our spirits and go about our work unassumingly just so that the sudden burst of joy and gaiety is all the more satisfying. From the time the dhaks begin to beat on the day of sasthi.
By the way many of my fellow Bengalis are going holidaying with their friends or families. As we like to do during the pujas. In fact Calcutta can be divided into those who would like to go travelling (near or far) during the pujas and leave the crowds and the noise and the gaiety behind them and those who would vouch for staying back in the city and enjoying the festivities. As you know we like to travel and are among the most visible tourists in this country. We slip away to the mountains or visit makbaras and mausoleums in far off cities at the slightest hint of a holiday. Thanks to the rains the puja holidays this year could be manipulated a bit-extended at the top or the bottom-let’s see!
One of the mobile service providers is offering dhak beats as caller tune. I am thinking of downloading one. Could the tune change to the plainitive and sad air on doshomi day when she leaves us again for a year leaving our hearts suddenly empty.
In my own way I did the soul-emptying nonchalant routine yesterday. As if nothing had happened or going to happen. As if Durga Puja is just another festival that will come and go with some noise here some colour there. I met a friend from Delhi who is a psychiatrist. He is helping me with the research for a novel I am trying to write. We ate croissants and ham sandwiches with orange juice at the new Flury’s. Not the laid-back old Flury’s of somnolent waiters and white tablecloth but the new American style house which my friend from Delhi however found laid back still. Then I tried to work a bit supervising the production of our journal but found that the printing press was without power.
No, power cuts are not back in Calcutta its just the rains. Just the rains. I inhale the rich smoky smell of the whisky, something strange is happening in my head. I smile to myself, I want to laugh aloud, something to do with my friend from Delhi? Will I miss her when she is gone after five days, am I drinking more frequently just because of that. To ignore her coming and going. To ignore the sudden surge of happiness that she brings for me. A dark hideous depression nails me down at night. I had gone to the blood river where they were fishing for barracudas, barracudas in the blood, the rain has begun again, blue and black rain, banishing firestorms blow across the face of this sandy city. Late very late I drift to a disturbed slumber.
The Sunday Statesman has published my travel piece. It makes me smile this morning.
P.S. Bad news: There are flood like situation in parts of West Bengal.
(©Copyright reserved by author. Published work.)
(Durga image courtesy http://www.londonpuja.com/)
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