The Guest and More!

A new member came to join our family about 2 years back. He came in as a guest and now he rules the house. At the outset when he came to our place he was totally shattered, heartbroken and scared. With nowhere to go and without any belongings, he looked disillusioned and hopeless. “Only for a week… 2 weeks tops”, I warned my husband. But that kept extending and I finally came around, started to have a soft corner for him. As he recuperated so did he gain his self esteem back and we started to share a rapport which moved from me being the caregiver to a more equal footing and started spending considerable amount of time together. I thought this might create rifts between my husband and me, with me getting so close to someone else and all, but the effect was the opposite. It was amazing just having him around, sometimes we just looked at each other and both knew what the other wanted. He became best buddies with my husband too. Going for walks, watching movies while he lazed around on the sofa, two guys hanging around. Sometimes when my husband was not around, he would get all protective about me and fussed every time I was away from the house for too long. He made me feel guilty about staying out too late, I felt like the kid who was dreading to be grounded. And as it turned out, we had become dependent on him.

Then came a time when we had to move, we had almost decided to sit him down and give him our reasons for leaving him stranded again. I couldn’t get myself to do that and was banking on my husband to break the news to him. Ofcourse, we knew the inevitable outcome- initially he would not react, just stare at us, then he would try to accuse us, throw tantrums and eventually beg us not to go. Just thinking of all these possible reactions and situations made me guilty.

One day I was just sharing my apprehensions with my Mom and the lifesaver that she is, she said “Why, he can come and stay with us! That way he won’t feel bad and you both can also keep meeting him when you drop in.” I jumped with joy at the thought, but it was short-lived as another disturbing thought came to my head. “What about dad, he will hate it. You know how he detests ‘those kinds’?” “Yes but we can’t leave him in the lurch again, and he’s so nice, I was not sure too initially but he’s such a charmer and keeps the mood alive, I would love to have him around, he’s just who we need to have around at this stage. I’ll handle the task of convincing dad”.

It’s been over a year that he moved in with my parents. He’s much older now and his relationship with my parents is even better than us and he’s even more comfortable at their place. He literally rules the house! His protective nature is still intact when it comes to my Mom. As for Dad, the unbelievable has occurred. The Man who hated them and was so rude and shouty each time ‘his kind’ came even into our bungalow, now cannot live without him. Infact the house- helps keep joking among themselves that ‘Sir is hardly bothered about his own food but there has to be enough food for this new guy’.

And that’s how Gyppie, the dog (whose original name’s Gypsie, true to his name, has changed many houses but Mom decided to change it to Gyppie as she doesn’t want him to go anywhere now) has swept the Som household off their feet. He’s my father’s lifeline and they literally feed on each other’s love. When dad goes out on an errand, Gyppie doesn’t budge from the window awaiting his arrival.

Just utter the word ‘pussycat’  and you’ll see a black line of fur just zipping past you. He is so black that it’s difficult to distinguish his feature in photographs. When he sleeps next to me, his breath makes me aware about my own breathing. He’s our baby and like every parent we feel that he’s the best in the world!!

We feel grateful and blessed that Gyppie came into our lives and chose our family to live with. 

Needs

Life can really throw surprises at you when you least expect them. One such surprise, rather a jolt, was when Siddharth, my husband told me that he was considering a job in Orissa! Well, it took a while for me to digest the fact that we might have to move to a city like Bhubaneswar in the far Eastern side of the country. Just as the information was sinking in, came another boom- ‘Not Bhubaneswar, it’s a tiny mining town called Barbil’. Following which I went blank, probably lost consciousness or something. After that there was just a buzz in my ears interspersed by words like ‘remote’, ‘naxalite’, ‘tribals’, ‘far away’ , buzzzzzz….

“I’m not coming, why do you always have to choose places like these, isn’t there anything here, is the job offer really worth it, I’m not coming, don’t go…” I rambled on as my initial reaction. “Relax” said Sid, “It’s just the initial discussions right now, it might not even happen”. Of course, heart of heart he really wanted it to happen. And as it turned out, it did happen.

Luckily Sid understood my hesitation to move, moreover, I feel he was scared to take me there as it was an unknown territory even for him. Eventually we decided that he goes there first, sees whether he himself likes the place, the job in the first place and then after a few months, I go there just to see the place and ’ if and only if’ I feel comfortable do I also shift there.

Things worked out as planned and here I am now living in a tiny, remote, mining town. Well it’s not such a bad place after all, the people are down to earth and hardworking, they are all here for their own reasons and to make a decent living. Of course it helped that my company retained me by offering a work from home option, which is a blessing really.

The one thing that I’m definitely going to take away from this place, is that we  actually need so little in order to survive. I’ve also realized that we humans are such good adaptors! This is my question to you city brats- Can you live without multiplexes? Without the KFCs and the Mc Donald’s of the world? You plan for a dinner outing, everyone starts raking their brains or surfing the internet for new places to go. Apparently ‘zomato.com’ receives 1,420,370 hits per day! But what if the place you stay has only 2 restaurants, 1 movie theater and no Pubs. What do you do then, you adjust. You made do with whatever’s available. I mean who needs cherry tomatoes, lettuce and bell peppers everyday. I remember these things weren’t even available when we were kids, yet the cucumber -onion –gajar salad gives you all that you need.

I can say I’ve come to realize the value of things we take for granted; that there is a world other than ours which is so different yet so lovely; that life can be interesting when you move from the known to the unknown. In short, I thank Sid for getting me to experience this world…

My review of Bhooter Bhabishyat

I finally managed to lay my hands on Bhooter Bhabishyat, the Bengali film and watched it over the weekend. Bhooter Bhabishyat which literally means “the future of the ghosts” or the “future of the past” is a social satire revolving around old,  heritage buildings being pulled down to build shopping malls, multiplexes and high rises and its related implications on the ‘ghosts’ who inhabited those buildings. The storyline builds around an ad- film director (played by Parambrata Chatterjee better known as Satyaki/Rana from Kahani) who is aspiring for his major breakthrough into films. He is looking for a catchy story line based on which he can make his debut and is narrated this story in one of the old mansions called the Chowdhury palace, where he is trying to shoot his ad film. The narrator of the story is obviously not happy with the rapid consumerism which ad films imply and definitely not happy with this old mansion being used to that end. In his story, the mansion is eyed by an infamous developer called Ganesh Bhutoria (played by Mir Afsar Ali) to build a 5 storied mall which is his definite cash cow.

This simple story line if given thrust with its comic, lyrical dialogues and funny characters who are ghosts from various eras. To give you an idea of the bizarre characterization, there is an assassinated Englishman, another one is a refugee from Bangladesh, then there is a cook from Siraj –ud- daula’s kitchen, an Army officer who died in the Kargil war, a heroine from the black and white days who had committed suicide, the daughter of a rich industrialist who also killed herself for love and a musician into ‘rockbaji’ who died of drug abuse. Add to this chaos a brilliant use of wordplay which again is comic because of its simplicity. For eg, the erstwhile actress who committed suicide is named ‘Kadalibala’. Now in Bengali ‘kadali’ means Banana. It sounds funnier in the script of the movie as the characters themselves question the validity of such a name. Speaking of Kadalibala reminds me of another scene where she is wooed by her lover. The dialogues in this scene and many others are so lyrical that I’m sure if I watch the movie 3 more times, I’l be able to say it by rote. Another character is this local goon who is trying to extract some money from Bhutoria if he wants things to go smoothly. His name is Pod Prodhan, which roughly translated means King of Butts! Said in a straight faced manner will definitely make anyone laugh. Of course the English subtitles help for someone like me who does not catch these innuendos quite fast.

This movie reminded me of another lesser known hindi movie called ‘Mirch’ which uses the same aspect of an aspiring film maker trying to make it big. He is then told by his producer “Sex nahi toh nahi bikega” and hence he resorts to our old tales with Sexual overtones and tweeks it to address modern relationships. Well, I just want to say- “Take that Mr- Whoever-Made-Mirch, Bhooter Bhabishyat definitely won without sex” The most amount of sex there is to this movie is a scene where the rich industrialist’s daughter tries to flirt with the rockstar ghost and an Item song in the end. However, the item song builds up to the climax which justifies it being there.

Bhoother Bhabishyat made me nostalgic because it’s made up of stuff similar to grandma’s stories- winning of good over evil, using wit to get what one wants etc. Every Bengali child is initiated to the concept of ‘ghost’ through Satyajit Ray’s Goopi Gain Bagha Bain and director Anik Dutta unabashedly uses aspects of that movie including the main character’s ringtone being “Bhooter Raja” from the Ray film.

Although, there were some aspects of the film which didn’t quite catch my fancy, like juxtaposing a skeleton face over the ghosts face to communicate that they were ghosts. The Item song, although required, was too lengthy especially when you are waiting for the climax.

Nonetheless, its credible that this is Anik Dutta’s directoral debut. This movie can be enjoyed by all age groups and the concept of commercialization and ghosts will both be timeless. I reckon Bhooter Bhabishyat is the Goopi Gain Bagha Bain for the newage kids !

Idiosyncrasies

A boring day, a hectic day, a good –for – nothing day, a bloody shitty day, a fun day, a feel- like- doing- nothing day, there are many days in our lives and we live it all. And who do you think makes the days, the days that they are. God?? Id rather say its the people who we meet everyday.

There are some people who make a lasting impression on our minds or rather our gut by their unfathomable obnoxious behaviours
I met one such character a few months back. He belongs to the HR department of a very reputed Hotel belonging to a renowned group in the Hotel industry, One would expect someone of such profile to have some panache. But it was far from it. After a few initial exhanges, as I offer him my visiting card, he does the most barbaric act that one can ever think of. Apparently, he had just finished his afternoon grub and my card became his tool to dig out all that was stuck between his teeth. As I sat dumbstruck, he went about his task in the most matter of fact way. ‘There goes my identity, there goes my name digging out crap from someone’s plaque filled teeth’, I thought. But alas, I still gather all my wits to offer my card to others too- have to.

Theres another such uncouth who I can think of. This man’s speech is audible only as far as the second word and then metamorph into a whisper- ‘I think it…… s…u….ca…..’, interspersed with an open mouthed cough at regular intervals. ‘Currently there….. go…(cough)… (cough). So it ha….ve….’. Sometimes I get through by lip reading and at other more distressful times I have post- meeting with his junior who hangs on to his seniors lips seems to empathise with my dilemma.

Je Cheoooo- Read On For the Meaning....

We live in a world of heuristics. We humans indeed are cognitive misers. 'Misers' did u say? Yes we fill in the blanks, cover the gaps and bring out our understanding of the world.
I came across this beautiful demonstration of this ‘misery’- ‘The Maid’ wanted to watch television, which she always insists on whenever she feels that she can gradually goad me to put it on. She does this with an amazing tact worthy of being mentioned in Any Self Help book – ’Get Your Own Way in 10 Simple Steps’ – can be a reliable name.
She talks about this thing and that and at the right moment, sometimes in the midst of a sentence blurts it out- ‘Didi TV lagao na’- Ah, not to mention the full set of pearly whites she manifests each time she says this. With all my defenses lowered,I have to put the TV on for her.
Coming back to the point of how we humans make sense of the unstructured information we receive- Music as we all know has its own characteristics. As I put the TV on, it started jarring the song- ‘Paisa phek tamasha dekh……….’ There is a line in the song sung in hip – hop style – ‘Gotta Move ur, gotta move ur body tonight…’
On the given cue, The Maid sings- ‘Go Moova, Go Moova, Go Moova, Baa tui….’. Now The Maid is a cracked vessel when it comes to English. She has studied till 6th grade but has not assimilated any English and any additions will will be leaked out to nothing.
But What the Heck! She enjoyed the music, she sang and I loved it too. So the moment made the two of us happy. Just as I had felt when I heard another street kid sing- ‘Je Cheeooo Cheeeoooo Je Cheooo’ to the tune of the Salman Khan hit- ‘Just Chill!!’
Jai Ho we Indians are Great…

An Ode to My Driving force/s

Inspiration can come from anywhere- Seeing someone else doing what you can do better, Elders admonishing what you should do and what you shouldn’t, a sudden insight that you have not stood by what you said.

For me it was a mix of all these things that motivated me to start a blog or blogging as the popular usage goes. There always was a lingering wish to do it- somehow suppressed by laziness, skepticism, lowered testosterone etc. etc. (well the reasons were many you see). But the ultimate kick on the butt was by a Friend (name withheld for he knows its him I’m talking about). He can talk and talk and talk about himself and his new plans and then suddenly realization dawns upon him that he is being self centered. He asks me to then share about the happenings in my life and here is how the conversation goes-

Friend- Oh Ive been talking only about myself all this while, you tell me what’s happening with you yaar..
Me- Nothing, just the same routine, nothing much yaar. (Thinking- Gosh u sound like you are having marital disturbances, sound cheerful….)
Me- Oh there are many weddings happening next month, will be going home next month. (Bah..)
Friend- Oh really that’s nice…
Me- Yeah (He’s not interested really )
Me- Oh and I’m learning German (Yeah, now that’s a Brownie point)
Friend- I always thought that you have a flair for language, seriously you must start writing…..

And that was just that last push I needed to execute the task that I’ve been pondering for so long.

Of course, there are others who deserve much of the credit – One being my mother and other being my husband. They both have just the right way to get me to do things without being too persistent.