Go Waiter!

The 'Thotho' is a uniquely Bengali ceremony performed on the evening before the wedding. Representatives from the bride’s house visit the house of the groom’s in their best clothes, their arms laden with gifts. They cascade inside in endless cheerful waves, laughing, joking among themselves and loudly calling out greetings to everyone from behind the towering piles of gifts. A happy buzz fills the house. Compared to the formal, sober Tam Brahm wedding ceremonies that I was used to attending my cousin Prashant’s wedding seemed to be a riot of laughter, colour and noise.

A room was specially allotted to them to place their gifts. Within minutes every square inch of the floor was completely covered with cellophane wrapped trays carrying a bewildering range of gifts. I saw a brand new suit, formal shoes, deodorants, perfumes, imported soap, a shaving kit, an Ipod, two digital cameras, a cell phone, assorted nuts, a fruit basket, dozens of Bengali sweets, Swiss chocolates and even a foot massager.

“And where is the groom?” one of the ladies turned to me and asked with an evil smile.

“He’s just getting ready. He’s changing in his room” I replied.

They laughed and exchanged knowing smiles. I couldn’t quite figure out why. Did they want to tease him? The bride to be hadn’t come anyway. She wasn’t supposed to see her future husband on the day before the wedding. So who could they embarrass him in front of? Little did I know of what was in store for him.

When Prashant emerged from his room, the entire party fell on him and dragged him as he kicked and protested loudly to a chair placed specially in the center of the hall. Quick as a flash they undressed him, leaving him clad only in a skimpy pair of boxers. With boisterous encouragement from the crowd, a few of the bride’s aunts began smearing vast quantities of moist turmeric on his face, torso and legs. Within a few seconds he was totally unrecognizable as a human being.

I was mystified by the ritual. One of the bride’s cousins turned to me and explained how the same turmeric would be smeared on the bride on the morning of the wedding. I wanted to prod him for more details but he returned to the crowd to cheer his aunts on.

The elders from our own side gazed at the spectacle with horrified fascination. The groom was never attacked in our own weddings. He was revered and practically worshiped, whereas here the groom was being stripped and manhandled by the ladies of the house.

I for one found the whole thing hilarious. Now this was the atmosphere a wedding ought to have. I envied the Bengalis for the easy camaraderie that they demonstrated. A wedding was a simple, joyous affair, a time for happiness and celebration, not a time to worry if the groom’s side was happy with the arrangements. I took out my digi cam and began snapping pictures from every possible angle. Standing on a chair as I was unable to penetrate the frenzied crowds, I called out to Prashant and asked him to smile. He bared his teeth in my direction.

“Dinesh!” my uncle called out. I reluctantly abandoned the chair and pushed my way through the crowd towards him.

Smiling, he reached for me and placed his arm around my shoulders. “This is my sister Praveena’s only son” he introduced me to a family consisting of a middle aged couple and a grandmother. The family had been nodding and smiling as he introduced me but their smiles vanished the moment my mothers name was mentioned. Instantly their faces assumed a troubled expression and they gazed at me gloomily. I didn’t know what to say. I was caught up in the festivities and I didn’t really feel like raking up the past. I was in no frame of mind to discuss their deaths. Besides, I felt vastly uncomfortable receiving the sympathy of strangers.

I was uneasy because I made them uneasy. I didn’t want to make them to feel like I was writhing in pain inside because it made things extremely awkward. I had no idea what I was supposed to do. Was I supposed to assume the suffering expression of an unfortunate victim or was I supposed to pretend like it was no big deal? In the embarrassing silence that ensued, I kept my eyes glued to the floor and hoped they would go away. A stranger could never be privy to my feelings.

It wasn’t just that I couldn’t how to express grief in front of those I didn’t know. There were times when I didn’t have a clue to how I felt about it myself. The hurt and suffering swam somewhere in the murky depths of my consciousness but I could never reach out and touch them during the day. I would ask myself how it felt to not have parents and never get a reply. The answer was too complex.

When the people I sat next to on trains and buses struck up a polite conversation to help pass time on a long journey asked me what my father did, I would tell them he was no more. They would immediately express their sympathy and after a brief silence hesitantly ask me what my mother did. Over a period of time I learnt that it was unwise to reveal she too had passed away because it threw them into confusion on how to react. The rest of the journey would be ruined. The bolder ones would ask me for details – something I resented but could never convey while the quieter ones would mumble their sympathy and hide behind their news papers, giving me a sad peek from time to time. To avoid the embarrassment I began to pretend that everything was just the same as it used to be: That my father was a University professor and my mother a school teacher. It helped avoid complications but I felt hollow inside as I gaily narrated these true lies.

As I shifted uncomfortably on my feet, I felt a hand reach up and caress my cheek. It was the grandmother and she smiled sweetly at me as she looked deep into my eyes and murmured a few kind words. She spoke in Bengali but I understood what she was trying to convey. Somehow her touch made all the difference. I didn’t try to move away.

Still smiling she patted her knee and beckoned. Unsure of what she meant, I turned to my uncle for help.

“She wants you to sit on her knee” he whispered.

“Eh?”

“Just do it.”

She patted her knee again and gave me a radiant smile. I had no idea how to respond. How could I possibly sit on her without crushing the life out of her? Besides I was twenty five. I couldn’t possibly clamber onto her lap; I’d lost the right to such behavior more than a decade ago. The idea of a full grown adult sitting on the lap of a sweet old lady seemed patently ridiculous. Yet there she was, smiling and gently encouraging me to do just the same. Even her son and daughter in law didn’t have any objections. The entire family was nodding and smiling, wanting me to paralyze her from waist below. Unable to protest, I lowered myself gingerly onto her knee, expecting to hear her bones crack any moment. Her knees held. I sat, rigid, blinking, immobile and afraid to breathe. I was fully conscious of the spectacle I was making.

She laughed softly and patted me on the head. Holding my chin, she looked into my eyes and whispered in Bengali. I fell silent and listened.

We were strangers. We belonged to different times and different cultures. Five decades stretched between us. She spoke only Bengali and yet she connected with me like no one else had. Maybe it was because of her age, or the light of understanding that seemed to shine in her eyes. I knew that she knew how I felt deep inside. Slowly, I felt my inhibitions melt away. Sitting on her lap, my heart suddenly wanted to tell her how much I missed my parents, of how I dreamt of them every night and woke up disoriented, unable to bridge the gap between my past life and my present. I wanted to tell her how I hated hospitals, of how the sight of an ice box paralyzed me, of how unreal it was to watch their bodies roll towards the roaring flames of the crematorium.

But of course I didn’t actually say anything. I knew I didn’t have to. She would know anyway.

I don’t think I spent more than a minute on her lap. But it was enough. She smiled again as I rose. I smiled back and returned to the crowd feeling at peace with myself.

I think she knew that I needed a lap to sit on.

Apologies for not updating...I've been caught up at work and I do not have an internet connection at home. I'll try and post my next update by the weekend.

When I look back now, at my arduous struggle with the national language, I must admit that I still have a long way to go. When in school my understanding of its vocabulary and grammar was so poor that my Hindi teacher labeled me an “Angrezi (Englishman)” and then washed her hands off me. With its complex rules on gender the language never ceased to seem alien to me. Thus each time an occasion rose for me to speak in Hindi I would hesitate before muttering my question or answer undertone. I did not want to come across as rude or just plain retarded.

And then I ended up spending two years in the dusty badlands of Uttar Pradesh and I no longer had any place to hide. I found it hard to fit in with my peers. It didn’t matter that they conversed in English with me. Without Hindi, I could never hope to follow the intricacies of a conversation or understand a joke. Swear words made no sense to me and when insulted I could only smile and nod enthusiastically in response.

It was impossible to talk to the dhobi in English and sign language was prone to misinterpretation. When my pants went missing, I summoned him to my room. I then pointed somewhere towards his zip area, widened my eyes and made vigorous questioning movements with my hands. He left and never returned after that. Looking back I realize he may have misunderstood my intentions.

Even when I did try Hindi my friends would respond with an “Oh! You have a typical Southie accent! What Mr.Rajnikanth? If I did try to neutralize my natural accent they would make a face and tell me I sounded contrived and artificial. There was no way I could please them. When Om Shanti Om released I was tormented in every corner of the campus with jeers like “Bad Cat!” or “Naughty Cat!” As much as I tried to defend Tamil cinema, my valiant protests resulted in no improvement of perception.

I continued to struggle with similar sounding words like Chaathi and Chathri and Utharna and Uthaarna. When it rained, I unwittingly almost asked my classmate if I could borrow his chest and once while traveling in a local bus I asked the gentleman sitting next to me if had to take my clothes off in the next stop.

Over a period of time I gradually became more comfortable with the language. I found it easier to participate in conversations and could frown menacingly when insulted. When I went to Bangalore for a vacation, it hurt me physically to listen to my sister converse with the security guard in Hindi.

With the exception of Jodha Akbar, I now found it possible to follow the dialogues of all Bollywood movies. I began singing Hindi songs and even understood the lyrics. By the end of my two years at IMT, I could even appreciate the occasional shaayiri.

I still struggle with numbers though. I can’t count beyond twenty and it makes life difficult on the street. Variations in accent are still a bit of a problem. For the life of me I cannot follow a Bihari accent.

But I am no longer an Angrezi :-)

It’s been an eventful week. There are about fourteen management trainees and we’ve been more or less treated like royalty in the company. All the attention has frankly made us quite uncomfortable. Everywhere we go we are told that the organization expects a lot from us. However the exact role we have to play is still a little vague :-)

We’ve been battered with psychometric tests; Tests on our perceived locus of control, our preferred learning style, our career anchor and so on and so forth. Sometimes I feel we’ve been analyzed to death. But while I’m largely skeptical of the mushy, touchy feely stuff that HR does, I have to admit that I’ve learned a couple of things about myself.

On the house front, we’ve been given a luxurious guest house to stay for a week, after which we need to find a place of our own. So far the house hunting hasn’t gone well. Considering that we’ve spent three months at home followed by a lovely guest house, it seems impossible to live in a flat without an AC, a TV in each room and a caretaker to anxiously ask us what we’d like for dinner. Some of the places I saw were frankly disturbing. I’d get depressed if I had to come back from a hard day at the office and live in a dump.

So that’s pretty much what I’ve been up to. Now I’m off to meet a house broker.Wish me luck again :-)

And thus my vacation comes to an end :-). I leave for Noida tomorrow to join work. I’m a little excited , a little anxious and a little sad…

Wish me luck. I’m going to need it :-)

Part 3 (Please scroll down for the earlier parts)

Winter came early to Ghaziabad that year. From strolling around in shorts and cut off vests and sweating into the bed at night there had been an imperceptible shift to full sleeved shirts and light sweaters. Blankets began to be pulled out from the cupboard. The roaring coolers without which the summer days and nights in the hostel had been impossible went into early retirement. The hardier of the students still persisted with the ceiling fan but in most rooms it remained switched off at night. The change in weather also resulted in a general improvement in appearance. The summer months had been cause for endless perspiration and no matter how many times one showered, it was impossible not to appear sticky. Every individual walked within his own half meter radius of icky discomfort and he cringed if anyone crossed the barrier. There was no back slapping among friends and even the most lovesick of couples preferred to talk to each other instead of indulging in acts of affection. There was certain restlessness in the air. Patience was short and tempers flared frequently.

When winter came however the perspiration (and as a consequence the tension) dried up. The air became clean and crisp. The students looked smart in their sweaters and everyone appeared fresh and cheerful. The couples suddenly couldn’t get enough of each other. Even the campus was very pretty in the early months of the cold.

The cold wasn’t the only thing that was new to IMT. Mango had given birth to five pups and they joyfully greeted the world with little yips and wagging tails. Perpetually ravenous, they worried their mother incessantly for milk and affection. With their tiny tails oscillating wildly like pendulums gone haywire, they suckled on her teats like there was no tomorrow. As they toppled each other in a desperate attempt to reach the best teat, they were a treat to watch. Relaxing quietly on her side as she fed them, Mango was the very picture of a serene, content mother.

She was of course a very lucky dog. A student of the executive batch had fallen head over heels in love with the pups. Fearing harm to them, he had allowed her to take up residence in his room. He spread sacking material on the floor for the family to lie down on. Thrice a day, he made trips to the canteen and returned with eggs, milk and bread for her to wolf down. For a stray dog, she led a life of luxury. The room though became a mess. It stank to the high heavens but that did not deter him from providing for her. It was an act of selfless love.

When the administrative staff began to make complaining noises he shouted them down and made it clear that if they tried anything the consequences would be unpleasant. But he was a worried man. The executive course ran only for a year and his time was almost up. He was certain the pups would be thrown out after he left and he had done his best to find homes for them. He managed to find a home for one of the pups but the other four sadly were not that lucky. What was he to do?

The first time I visited the room, I was both touched by the sight of the pups and taken aback by the havoc they had created. The tables had been dragged to the side to make room for a sea of sacking material. From the middle of this sea, rose two beds – tiny human settlements completely at the mercy of their canine overlords. While the exec guy looked perfectly at home, his roomie looked like he didn’t know what hit him. Overnight he had gone from being part owner of the room to a poorly treated guest. Books worth four semesters lay scattered on his bed. Any other location would have invited the curiosity of the four legged fiends. It was impossible not to feel sorry for him. The pups shuffled around, sniffing everything in their path, determined to explore every corner of the room. Every now and then one of them would dart for the door, eager to see what lay outside these four walls. Immediately the exec student would curse and scoop the pup up before he disappeared into the big bad world yonder.

The pups captivated me completely. I couldn’t bear the thought of them being thrown out when they were so small and entirely incapable of looking after themselves. The nasty dogs outside the campus would finish them off in minutes. I brought Mathew, Deepa and Aritri over to look at the pups and think of a solution. As expected they fell for the pups too. I wasn’t alone in my fears anymore.

So we decided to bring them over to our hostel. I-lobby was the only coed hostel in IMT. Coed in the sense that the ground floor and first floor were occupied by the boys while the second and third floors were occupied by the girls. As we all stayed in the same hostel, it would be easier to look after them. We reasoned that if we kept the pups a little longer, they would grow big enough to fend for themselves. It also gave us more time to find homes for them.

It was a decision that would complicate our lives terribly in the weeks to come.