Chutzpah

I have met women in my life, some of them are in my family who choose to be the victim. They choose to be beaten, abused, ill-treated, and walked all over and they glorify their lives because they had to  go through or are still going through all this. They turn themselves into some sort of sacrificing martyr. These women scare me.

And then ever so rarely you come across stories of extraordinary deed by ordinary women such as Shabnam Ramasamy. These people in Shabnam'w word hold life by its collar, push it to the wall and say ‘you live according to me and not me according to you!’

 SALUTE !!

TAXI DRIVER

• NAME :. P.N ROY
• AGE : 27
• PROFESSION : TAXI DRIVER
• LOCATION : Cab ride from Deshapriya Park to Tollygaunge
• ETHNICITY : U.P. 

Vote is over and Narendra Modi has been appointed our Hon'ble Prime Minister. Politics and vote fever seem to have died down from the papers but it is still quite fresh in my memory. Apart from the meetings and the morchas and the verbal fights on t.v. and every other vote centre the heated debates, one feature that marked this year votes for me is the acute lack of public transport. As it is the cab drivers in Kolkata derive some sort of a sarcastic pleasure in refusing passengers. And just before the vote even the few cabs which would have considered not refusing seemed to be all booked for vote duty.

One such harrowing hot and humid May late evening I got down at DeshaPriya Park hoping to catch an auto and could not find anything. I saw this cab coming towards me and although it had "ON VOTE DUTY" written on the front shield I hailed. I was tired and desperate. He told me he will only go if I am going towards Ranikuthi. I climbed in gratefully. For some reason he took a liking to me and started talking.

He is originally from U.P. and like million others heard that Kolkata would give him an opportunity to survive and came over to try his luck about 4 months back. He did not have a choice other than leaving U.P. because he fell in love with a girl there he was not supposed to and if he did not flee he would have been dead. As soon as he got this assignment of driving one of his boss's three cabs his cab got stamped for vote duty. So every morning at around 6 he has to go down to some government official's house in Alipore and has to mandatorily stay there till 6 PM. This particular official hardly ever gets out of the house. The cab is instead used by the wife and the teenage daughter as their personal car. The routine is that around noon everyday the wife and daughter goes out somewhere or the other and comes back home after 8 PM. That however does not mean that he can report late or he is getting paid more than his promised stripend. He was telling me that he knows that he is just starting and that he can barely afford his meals but at the end of the day he knows that he does his job well.I actually asked him why do you guys keep on refusing passengers.And he said that he never does. Only when he is really tired. He knows that other cab drivers do and he thinks no better of them than the government official to whom he is working for now. He made that very clear in quite expletive terms, because these cabbies give honest cab drivers like him a bad name, or that is what he feels.

It was a little difficult understanding his heavily accented Hindi, but it was nice and friendly contrary to most other cab rides where I always stay on the guard and keep a finger on speed dial.

After paying him and before getting down, I asked him if I could take his picture and told him I will share it on the internet. He was taken aback, but he was still talkative and then asked if he would become famous. I told him, I hardly think so.

And then I asked him what happened to the girl ? The one he was in love with. For the first time he went quiet and said "I hope to God, she killed herself." Then he drove away.

Guest Blog : Why and Where

So just like all the famous people across the internet have a guest blogger, I have a guest blog today. It is a beautifully written expression of a place and what that word "place" mean. In all honesty this was written by one of my friends and not intended for publishing. But I begged and cajoled (not a lot... just a little) and asked this friend to chronicle it. The friend's reply was why don't you? Although I doubt if it was serious  I am still going to take it seriously.

Also I think I might ask people to contribute their ideas on some topics related to Kolkata here. The only problem being, I don't know many people. Uhh Well!!!!! Let me stop blabbering now and just post the piece. Here goes.

Why and Where

Relevance of a place, sometimes takes a life-time to discover. For some of us, some places we have stayed in hold relevance in terms of money and matter. For some, there strings a deep emotional tie. For some, there could be a bitter memory that stays, and for some it is just a mere place to lead their everyday life.

Ever since we take our first step, life goes into a running mode with a set sequence of events following one another. Learning, earning; doing something to make a mark, no matter how small. What we do forget in this race is the relevance of the places we pass through in this process. What would happen if these places did not exist? Logical answer would be that we would end up at some other place. The word PLACE thus, does hold relevance. Come to think of it, I myself had never thought in this regard as well till about a few days back.

My place of concern here is my birth place. The state capital of West Bengal, India. Kolkata (previously Calcutta). Ever since birth, I too fell into the daily running to learn and later earn. Though life has taken me to and through several places for varied reasons, now that I look back, had Kolkata not been there, would my life still be the same? Would I have ever learnt riding a bicycle had I not held my father’s forefinger and learnt balancing on two wheels in the lanes of Lansdowne (Sarat Bose Road). Would I learn to make friends like I do, had my baby steps not made their way to the group of children who I first made friends with? Would my childhood stories be the same as they are, had they not been in Kolkata? These are strange but relevant questions, for me at least, now that I retrospect.

What does leave marks about a place are the most relevant events that occur while being there. For me Kolkata, in that regard was a place of loss. Mostly, in terms of people close. What I did not look at is that the sense of loss came after I had learnt to love and adore selflessly. What I do now realize is that it is this city, which has again given me a chance to walk ahead in life.

I had hardly seen a Kolkata night, till about a few days back. Rather, I had seen it from eyes of a skeptic. All it took was the perspective of another set of eyes, which saw life even in hallows of hell. These eyes showed how beautiful this city can be, and what makes it so beautiful. These eyes had seen losses, some large, yet the city was still beautiful to them for many more reasons. They taught me to look up and look into those reasons. They showed me so much in such short time, that I had not seen in a life time. These eyes showed me what makes a place bad or beautiful is me myself. The eyes that were so lovely themselves, right there in my city. 

From – Devil Reloaded

Basantika

Today is Poila Boisakh. The auspicious beginning of new year and the end of Bosonto.

I am not sure why I am writing this down today as this incident happened atleast a couple of weeks back. It happened in the middle of Bosanto. But it stayed with me.

My cousin RJ is a singer. She was performing in Deshapriyo Park as part of an annual concert "Basantika" arranged by her school of music. This was just a week after Holi. The weather was perfect with a cool breeze flowing. I made myself commfortable on the carpet with my mother and my aunt. There were all these lovely young(at heart definitely) men and women from the age of  4 to 60 dressed in the colours of Spring sitting around me with bright coloured Abir smeared quite artistically on their cheeks. There were dance recitals and songs and poetry recitals. There were artists painting large canvases with the hues of yellow and orange and red and green. There was this ambiance and energy of creativity and appreciation and everyone was enthralled, engrossed and enamoured by it.

And there were this group of girls between the age of 4 to 6. All dressed up in saris and jewelleries with flowers in their hair. They were playing among themselves, throwing flowers at each other(something very Shantiniketan about it) and then suddenly I noticed two street kids among them. The younger one was about three and the older one, perhaps four. At first they sat at quite a distance and  looked at the group of girls playing rathar tentatively. Then the younger one took a handful of flowers and threw at the nearest girl. The girl  threw it back at the child and slowly but steadily the two kids became a part of the group. Playing with them, laughing with them and enjoying with them. Then came the food packets. I actually instinctively found myself concentrating more on the kids than on the concert from that moment on. The little girls actually even shared their food with them. Like buddies. Eating from the same packet. I must admit. In my adult mind I was cringing thinking perhaps this is not the most hygenic thing to do. The little girls did not care or bother. As far as they were concerned they had made two new friends and they were sharing. And then suddenly a group of slightly older girls around the age of 10 to 12 came with their food packets. The older girls dissaproved of the situation visibly. One of the older girls gave the two kids a packet and a bottle of water and showed them the way out. I am sure that this is what is considered an act of kindness. But there was also this sense of demarcation in that act of kindness. Like the girls were in some sort of a higher position to feel sorry or pity for the two kids. They could show kindness to them but not consider them at par. Perhaps not even consider them human. The  way those little girls were behaving was much more humane, much more real. They were fighting about who gets the piece of cake like they would with friends, with equals.

I wonder when this sense that we are better, that we are privileged creeps inside us ? When does it become them and us? When do they cease to become perhaps even people ?

With the sun setting, sitting in the middle of this beautiful, cultural ambiance, I could not shake away the melancholy from my soul. Because I have myself grown up. I can never do what those little girls did.

Social Etiquette No 42 : You must offer your seat to the elderly.

See the image above ? See how happy and grateful the nice smiling elderly person looks ? See how happy and content the girl looks?

You must offer your seat to the elderly.

So this little line have been hammered into my head from when I was like about 14 and started going to school by myself in public transport by my school teachers, parents and above all the black board with bright white letters inside every 24-29 tram.

So, last Friday in an overcrowded V9 bus, I noticed this elderly(atleast I thought she was) woman struggling quite hard to hold on to the unreachable handles and stand. She kept on constantly tripping and falling. True to my ingrained good behaviour I generously(atleast I thought I was being generous) got up from my confortable seat and offered it to her. What followed was rathar unexpected. Instead of accepting the seat she visibly got upset and asked  " Why are you giving ME your seat ? There are lots of people standing around. You did not get up for any of them ." I scratched my head rathar adorably(atleast I think it was) and replied "Because I have always been told to offer me seat to the elderly." At this point she got furious and then using (in what can pollitely be described as) rathar strong words asked me how old I thought she was. I wanted to reply 72 but I realized it is best to  keep shut and take my seat again. She continued with, the attitude problem of today's college going generation and how to them anybody and everybody who is out of college comes under the category of elderly.

I could not bring myself to tell her that I am sadly not a college going student, nowhere even close. Sitting in my comfortable seat, I witnessed the image of the happy, smiling cuddly elderly woman thanking me gratefully and offering me hajmola(atleast that is what I think all women over the age of 55 carry in their bag) shatter into tiny little pieces.

Just to maintain parity(atleast that is what most  Software Engineers or people with OCD do)
NAME : Not known
AGE : How old do you think I am?
LOCATION : V9 bus
ETHNICITY : She was talking in Bangla but with a strong underlying accent. I suspect Gujrati.
ATTIRE : Red and Purple Salwar Suit, MangalSutra, Purple LipStick( atleast these are the things I noticed)

Look at me.

Kalki Kochlin, I am honestly a fan. And no this has nothing to do with her acting. Here is a person who thinks like me and so many of us in today's India and not afraid to voice it out loud. She goes above and beyond just advertising about washing machines and lipsticks. And I wish they show this little piece throughout all television channels instead of some one telling me I am worth a packet of hair color product.


I salute you Kalki. Standing Ovation from me.

http://www.storypick.com/unbelievable-performance-kalki-koechlin-feels-like-woman/

The Master, The Mistress and The Bachelor of Arts.

Disclaimer : I did record all of their voices, but when I came back and replayed the recording it was all gibberish. So this entire post is from memory. 

Location :  A very well known silver shop in Hoggs Market(popularly known as New Market).

It is a Saturday afternoon. This tiny shop is very busy as usual and brimming with customers. I was here a week back and had wanted this particular piece of earring which they were  nice enough to bring. Me, KB and SB as usual are also checking out 75 other different things. This shop has an array of breathtaking pieces of jewellery and every time I come here I keep on wishing if only I could afford to buy every piece they have. I am pretty sure I will not even mind the duplicates. But this Saturday I had another agenda. I wanted to feature them in my blog.

NAME : Vashi
AGE : 60
ETHNICITY : Sindhi

From the first day itself I like this vital middle-aged man. He always has a friendly smile and is quick but genuine with his compliments. He reminiscences about his grandfather who came and settled in Kolkata from Sindh Punjab post India partition. The shop he tells me was established in  1962. This shop was also his father's baby. He used to be an accountant in a reputed Engineering office and did not initially have much interest in the shop. Now he is nurturing his father's dreams by taking forth the tradition. He also mentions that his son (who is his constant companion) is very interested and he is happy to transfer the responsibility to his capable hands.
He talks about the Kolkata of the 60's and the people then and the people now and how the customer's profile have changed throughout all these years.
He asks me jokingly about the Prince Charming in my life with a twinkle in his eye.
He is one of those very few people who know how to live their life to the fullest and be happy and makes others smile around him.

NAME : Rupa
AGE : 56
ETHNICITY : Sindhi

Rupa just like her brother has an easy smile and a friendly attitude. But at the same time it is easy to figure our her deep perceptive inner core.Talking with her reveals more and I wanted to talk with her more. It felt like she believes in the same philosopy of life as me. Also she is one of the very few people who guessed my age correctly. She is a professor and she is single. She lives by herself. I asked her if she has any pets and she told me she does not. She said she is happiest with herself. She talked about how losing her elder brother suddenly made her seek solace in meditation and spirituality. She has this aura of calm reassurance and she imparts it to everyone around her.

NAME :  Vinayak
AGE : 23
ETHNICITY : Sindhi

The cutest looking boy with a shy yet charming demeanor enticing with his lovely pretty fares. He feels like the life of the shop. He is passionate about this shop and it shows. He even designs some of the jewellery himself. His father calls onto him for every minute details and he seems to know all those minute details. He is calm and collected and seems to be everywhere at the same time. The only time I noticed he looked a little uncomfortable was when he had to bargain with two older ladies. But he was polite and firm with them at the same time. It was highly admirable. He is also the solver of all problems silver. All you need to do is present him with the problem and he will definitely resolve it. He also likes dancing and was sweet enough to invite three of us to his concert.

For me personally it feels great just being in the shop and talking with them and looking at all the pretty things. They never force you to buy. They never stop you from trying. The never tire from showing you whatever you want to see. And they do it with a warm and friendly smile.


Actual Address: Asian Arts , F61 New Market. Kolkata - 700067.