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Life in Kolkata

Kolkata is an old, dirty and polluted city. But every day I find something or the other that endears me to this city even more. One day it was the old grandpa who was sitting outside his home, literally on his doorpost, at noon, trying to read a Bengali newspaper while dozing off every ten seconds. Another day, it is the uncle who sells vegetables, who painstakingly gets up from his perch to hang his weighing balance and weighs half a kg of potato for me. It is the grumpy uncle I see in the aisles of the British Library who moves around with his walking stick and carefully extracts books from shelves and pores over them in the hope of finding his next best read. Oh, how can I forget the taxi dada who came back to wait at the gate in the hopes that I will come running back to the same spot he dropped me to get my forgotten cell phone. (I did, but that's a whole story for another day) It is in the permeating fragrance of paalappookkal that covers the footpaths and makes me st
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What benches teach us

No, I am not talking about the second-row bench in the seventh standard classroom of my high school which I was made to climb for disturbing class decorum. That only taught me how to talk in class without getting caught. I am talking about the two benches that adorned either side of our huge dining table once upon a time.   One was strong and sturdy. The other one was a tiny rickety bench on unsteady legs that played seesaw every time one of us placed our bottom on it. This is much before the time when dining benches became fashionable. Every furniture catalogue that I see nowadays has a dining set with one bench, mostly cushioned affairs. Dining benches, entryway benches, balcony benches are all back in vogue now. But we had plain and simple wooden benches who witnessed a lot in their long lives.   Early mornings, you could find my drowsy-eyed, sleepy headed brother perched on one of its ends with a Cibaca toothbrush sticking out of his mouth, refusing to fully wake up.

The Blue Dappi

Do you remember the blue dappi? Probably not. It used to stand on top of our kannadi alamari. I love how all the things and rooms had their own name in our old house. Kannadi alamari, ammachide petti, Radio muri, Kochu muri, Cement muri and so on. Now when I think back to it, it lends a certain charm to those places and memories. Anyway, coming back to the point, the blue dappi was made of plastic, round in shape and had a cyan colour – the colour I call blue and some call green. It held coins and rubber bands, loose nuts and bolts, torn off buttons and sometimes, even the remnant threads. It was small, the size of a katori and was neglected most of the time. But for me, it came to prominence every Sunday.   Just before leaving for church and Sunday school, I had the special power to take a one-rupee coin out of it for nercha. That’s it. Take off the lid, pick a one-rupee coin and go. Oh, how wrong. It was not so simple a task.   On some days, I wanted to find the newest coi

Delhi Diaries - 3

Monday Morning. The plan is to wake up early and visit Humayun's Tomb when the crowd is less and day is just starting. And I did wake up early! Since I wanted to come back to the hotel room as early as possible as I was working from home (hotel!). Opened up the curtains, peered out to see some trees swaying in the breeze. A little wind never hurt anyone, I thought to myself. Closed the curtains and we both got ready in ten minutes flat. Just to check if the day has brightened further, I opened up the curtains again. And saw that the winds were accompanied by rain now. Wow. Middle of summer. Middle of our trip. And it starts raining. We had not bothered to carry our umbrellas to Delhi and now Delhi has decided to treat us to summer rains. But we were not to be dejected. On and aboard, we decided. Called an Uber in deference to the rains and we set out for Humayun's tomb. It took us less than half an hour to reach the complex. Contrary to our expectations, the Uber drive

Delhi Diaries - 2

Since I was a 'Delhi veteran' and claimed to know everything that is there to know about the touristy Delhi, I was spouting off facts about all the places as if it were my own backyard. We entered the hotel via a backdoor entry and reached the reception. The reception resembled the office of a business tycoon from the dubbed Telugu movies, complete with the Dad and the Son. They agreed to keep our luggage safely till it was time to check-in so that we can go off sightseeing. The plan was to travel solely by Delhi metro and not depend on Uber or rickshaws. When we realised that Qutb Minar was just 4-5 kms away, we decided to give in and take a rickshaw. The funny thing about rickshaws in Delhi are, (they obviously don't go by meter) the fares multiply in terms of 20. It is either 40 or 60 or 80 or 120. No dearth of willing rickshaw-walahs either. We jumped into one and within no time reached the gates of Qutb Minar complex. It was an early Sunday morning around 8.30 and

Delhi Diaries - 1

7 April 2018, Saturday First trip in Rajadhani. I was expecting Raja-comfort, Raja-food, basically Raja-everything. Well, at least I met with two others who felt entitled to the same if nothing else. We had booked aisle seats/upper berths and entered the compartment to find a grandma and grandpa sprawled across the entire seating area. They were perfectly comfy covered with those thick blankets and showed no enthusiasm to move even a tiny inch to accommodate us. After waiting for may be 30 seconds, I moved the edge of grandma’s blanket aside and placed my butt firmly on the seat. And hubby laid claim to his seat also, right opposite to mine. After settling down with all the luggage and Pollyanna, I started reading. Much to my dismay, I slowly began to realize that the book I was reading was not what I had intended to read. I had confused Pollyanna with Pippi Longstocking and had eagerly taken it out of the library without even checking it properly. And, Pollyanna was too