Of Father and Daughter

Dad and I was recently having a conversation about what we mean to each other and what the love for family really is. This rare conversation was spurred by watching of Piku.

The movie talks about the love we have in the family or the lack of the same. My father reminisced that all fathers are Piku's father. Some like to come out with it and others pretend to be strong. For some of you who haven't watched the movie yet, Piku's father is a character who is very much dependant on his daughter on almost everything. He won't let his daughter marry someone or even come close to any man because he thinks otherwise he will have to live a lonely life.

My father is still going strong, with God's grace and is not at all dependant on me in any way. Well not at least physically. I mean he can take care of himself and go for his walks and even cook his own meals. But somewhere down there he is Piku's father. He can easily go and stay at his kolkata flat by himself and quite comfortably so, but he would stay with me in Burdwan and cook me meals and take care of me. If I am not there for a day, he won't go for his daily swim, because he is used to going with me. When it comes to marrying me off and mother expresses her regular anxiety about it, dad would calmly say, "She is just 25, now is not time yet." I somehow get a subtle tone of Piku's father, when he says, only uneducated lowly women, who has got no aim in life, gets married.

Dad and I am very close to each other since the time I can remember. Yes we had rough patches and both of us hurt each other in ways which we though were irreparable, but we can't do without each other at the end of the day. Obviously, I don't want my father to be Piku's father, dependant on medicines and thinking all the time that something is wrong with him. I want him to be a healthy man up on his feet as long as he can, but i like the small dependencies he has. I like it how he wants to live with me and how he wants me to accompany him on our daily activities.I like it how he goes for all the movies with me and how he stays with me so that he doesn't feel lonely.

True at times this closeness feels a burden, which makes me worried about his future, but I love him and I don't mind how he is possessive about me. He won't show it but I know he can't live a day without me coming to his room at night and covering him up or adjusting the temperature of the room.


I know someday I will have to live without him, and get used to the absence, but till I have him, I will get the most of him. I don't mind his crankiness or his scoldings, as long as I know he loves me.  

After A Long Time About This And That

I have been absent for a while, due to some personal and some not so personal reasons. it took me some time to recover from some unwelcoming changes that came to my life. However its summer again and though I hate summers, and this year I am in Burdwan so they are much worse.

Durgapur being a familiar place I knew the little pleasure spots of the city, But we moved out of the city and I thought I had enough of the place and would never miss it again. But with the summers setting in and the memories of that wonderful swimming pool makes me miss the place (Just one of the few things I miss.).
However to make me happy daddy pleasantly surprised me today by enrolling himself and me in the local swimming club in the town and we would be going swimming from next week.

Over the last one year I have changed two houses. We moved out of our 20 years of residence in Durgapur to our flat in Kolkata. Mom worked hard for over a month to make the house a home and she did a commendable job. But as soon as we were settled there and I started feeling at home after arranging and rearranging my room for like the 5th time, I got through the Masters course in Burdwan University. I tried travelling up and down for a few days and realised it was not very possible for me. So I took up a rented apartment in the town and Kolkata is just a weekend runaway for me now.

It took me some time to settle in but I like the course, and the people in my class. We are a small class of fifteen people and hence very close knit. I am getting all the attention from the professors and my Computer professor is really kind enough to give me extra time and extra effort to drill the very innate mechanical ideas into my head. I never understood machines and their process. They scare me.

The university campus is huge and green. There are three ponds in the campus and the buildings are old and thick walled. Its really comfortable in this summer heat.

Since my interaction with the world in particular was completely cut off, I had come close to my family and cousins because they were all I had. My cousins and I made some short winter trips and are planning to do some summer trips now.

Cutting myself off gave me a chance to think and I realised that all this time I was running after a mirage. I was running after and looking for the kind of feeling and companionship which can never exist. It was kind of selfishness that I was looking for. Good that i was hit hard on the head and brought back to reality. No I haven't given up on love but my perspective have changed. I still love but I dont expect to be loved back anymore.

The truth is the more we run after it the further away it goes. The trick is to just let it be. Just enjoy the feeling of love. Happiness is to realise that I was in love with the idea of loving and not in love with any particular person.

It took some time to sink in, but once I understood the feeling completely what I experienced was peace. A peace of mind which is bliss. Its like loving the lord himself and knowing that he is always looking over me. It doesn't matter if he cant be touched and felt.

That's all for now and I promise to be regular again.

People II

My first write up on People was a humorous one, where I met only one kind of people coming with only one agenda in mind: getting their children admitted to Sir’s tuition and yet there I saw so many different reactions. I have been spending a lot of time with Sir over a period of six months, and among other good things I have got the chance to see and observe the human kind as a whole. I have come across many parents and students and observed and analyzed them at close quarters and just reached one conclusion: people love to think that they are different and unique; but they are incredibly similar to each other.

As Sir often thinks and talks about how so many people come so close to him and then go away suddenly, I tried talking to a few of them to find out a reason for their sudden disappearance. So a certain X who had spent a considerable amount of time with Sir, spoke to him almost twenty four hours seven days a week over chat for almost a year, had suddenly run out of things to say to Sir. The reason as pointed out by her is that, Sir being a very “serious” man, she can’t think of anything else to tell Sir. And also told me that “Sir is angry” and she doesn't really know why. However she keeps sending chats to Sir asking him, why he is not talking with her or responding to her chats.  Talking to this particular person makes me wonder, if she actually knows what she wants! And if she does know, why does she need to pretend? There can be just two possible things happening: One, that she was never really interested in Sir and pretending the whole time. And Second, she suddenly realized that any kind of relationship with Sir calls for a serious commitment and that scared her.

Another Y, had dropped out of Sir’s life, some six years ago. I tried talking to him too and asking him to come back. Much to my surprise, he promptly replied to my email and told me how much he had missed Sir for all these years, but did not get back to him because he was asked not to. He tried to make me understand that he was all in for a reunion with Sir but he couldn't because “Sir was angry” and he “did not know why.” He however called up Sir to say that he has got “nothing much to say” to him and then told me that it was all “Sir’s fault” that he couldn't talk. But then he kept bothering me about how he missed Sir and how he was important to him and how it is all Sir’s fault that he had to cut him off. Again I ask, why the pretense?

A certain Z, wanted to come back to Sir, and wrote to him telling him how she wants one more chance and won’t disappoint Sir. The day after was spent by her chatting with me and telling me how she missed him and how she wants to come back. How eager she is and all the other things which made me believe that she was really interested. Just twelve hours later she shot an email telling us that she should be left alone and that she is not really interested and again pointed out how it was all Sir’s fault.  I again wonder, why did she have to pretend that she was interested in him?

These are just a few of the many who behave exactly the same way. You might have noticed what I am trying to point out. Without being judgmental, I am just surprised at the incredible similarity between these individuals. Irrespective of age and gender, they all think the same way, behave the same way and even talk the same way. Their way of dealing with certain things is also very similar.

I came across a number of parents as well, and one thing very common in them is that, they tend to think, that since they have given birth to a child, they can treat him the way they want to. They can behave like dictators and treat them like slaves, abuse them unnecessarily, both physically and mentally, and when the child can’t take it anymore and stands up for his rights, the child becomes a “bad boy”, who doesn’t know how to behave. So many people come over to Sir to complain against their sons and daughters, speaking in a way, completely forgetting how they are at fault as well. This makes me wonder about how these parents were brought up! Certainly parents have been the same way generation after generation and like every generation of parents they claim that they are better parents.

I have been teaching for some time and that has helped me meet some more people. Students and parents alike.  Sir often tells about children of 15 being more grown up than the parents who are 50 years old. I realize how true it is. A certain W, had a bad childhood and was sexually abused by her maternal uncle, and is still traumatized because of that. She came to me asking for help. She just wanted to talk to me and eventually to Sir because she hated her counselor. Just few days later, I get a phone call from her mother asking me to stay in my “limits” and not “provoke” her daughter against the woman’s brother.  I wonder did she really think before saying what she did? Her daughter has been sexually abused and all she cares about his her brother. That person, who hurt her daughter, became more important.  I laugh when these mothers come to me and tell me that they love their daughters and are “worried” for them.

I will tell you, she is not a very strange case. She is just one of the many mothers who behave in this way. My mother is no different. They somehow revel in being tyrannical and think that physical and mental abuse is the easiest way to keep their children under “control”. That is how they can gain respect from them and that is how the child is going to “love” them.

The purpose of writing about all these people is not merely to judge them or improve them. It is just a way of expressing my sense of wonder and amazement to the fact that human beings are so similar to each other, in the way they behave. You can actually group them in certain categories. When observed closely, you can notice how desperately people try to fit themselves in that category. Females, irrespective of their age, try very hard to look pretty, have an obsession for shoes, cry for every small things possible, have a strong liking for tall handsome hunks, have to wear dresses that “accentuates” their body (and then shout if men lech at them!), talk about fashion and dresses and make ups, consider reading to be boring (I am talking of the majority of women here, and not about the smaller group who thinks differently.).

Males on the other hand like to pretend to be the “cool strong handsome hunk” types, who don’t have a heart and can’t feel anything. They don’t have emotions and can talk only about cars and bikes and read Playboy and other sports’ magazine.

Parents are supposed to be strict, tyrannical, inhuman beings who can only shout at their children and force them to live their life the way the parents want them to. They expect to be respected and consider their duties towards their children as favors and keep talking about it all the time. If the children stand up for themselves, they are considered to be ill mannered. 

What is funny is that in spite of people being exact mirror images of each other; they claim to be “individuals”. Little do they realize that they are no better than herds of animals who come and go in groups making no significant difference in anybody’s life. I wonder can’t they see each other? Or is it that they like being one of the herd?  

The Box Of Fond Memories

Cleaning up the cluttered book shelf and an old suitcase is messy, but also filled with pleasant surprises. I was looking for a few note books from my school days in an old suitcase and the suitcase soon became a box of memories. 

I came across an old photograph of me and my first ever friend, relaxing in the sun on a winter afternoon. I was hardly 5-6 years old then, and all I was concerned about was the sun setting too early and reducing my play time. That was the biggest worry then, and the biggest responsibility was keeping an eye on my toddler brother and going after the boys who did not give him a chance to be the batsman. The gully cricket was the biggest match ever and cycling around the neighborhood the biggest rebelling act.

Then I came across a few old letters. Yes back then I used to write letters to an old teacher of mine. She used to teach us Bangla and retired and shifted to Calcutta when I was in class eight. She left her address behind and I used to write letters to her. She was kind enough to patiently go through that almost illegible bangla handwriting of mine and reply to me. The smell of those inland letters made me smile and of course the innocence of the words written on them. I wonder if I can still write like that. It is sad how no one writes letters now and the closest alternative now is the email. I have been told a number of times by so many people to write small emails. Alas! I just can't. I am pretty old school here and love writing and reading long emails. Yes now we can chat over the various social networking sites, but then they are not as personal and beautiful and thoughtful as letters and emails.

A little more rummaging through that box of memories and I found an old, pages almost yellow, book by Albert Camus. On the first page of the book was written, "For being an attentive reader, and liking this book so much! --Sir" I remember borrowing that book from Sir and liking it so much and talking about it to him, that he had allowed me to keep that book. It was so precious to the 16 year old me, that I had not displayed it on my bookshelf. 

There were birthday cards and new year cards and gift wrapping papers with small notes from a special someone. An old t-shirt which belonged to the person I first fell in love with. Wrappers of chocolates, movie tickets, and so many other small gifts, and even a glass jar labeled, "a bottle full of sunshine and fresh air from the hills." That was my brother as a seven year old, bringing back fresh air from Darjeeling. I know these things probably mean nothing to so many people, but brought back fond memories to me. 

The final thing I found in that suitcase was a box full of shells. That collection was a recent one. When I was in Chennai, a few friends and I, on a whim went sea digging for shells. Chennai beach has got the most beautiful sea shells ever. We spent almost two hours collecting shells till our fingers were sore with numerous cuts and our back stiff from bending down for so long. But we were happy. We had the best collection of shells ever and we proudly flaunted it around.

These are the little joys of life which makes us happy. Maybe the friend doesn't remember me anymore, or that special someone has drifted away somewhere. The old teacher is no more today. My grown up brother considers it stupid to bring back fresh air in a jar now, and probably Sir doesn't remember giving that book to me. But these things made me smile, and I know what they mean to me. Being responsible and serious is important, I know but then it is the memories of those completely impulsive and careless times which make us smile. Rummaging through this box of memories on a hot summer lazy afternoon really made my day. And may be it is these memories that still help me to be the happy person that I am today.

Pretense: An Easy Way Out

When I was a little girl, just in to school, I was taught not to tell people things that can hurt them. For example, a fat girl shouldn't be called fat. A stupid girl shouldn't be called stupid and some other things. But being the girl I am, I had a hard time pretending, or not telling people what they really are.

I hated pretense as a child and I hate pretense now. But what surprises me is the innumerable bunch of people who love to pretend. They somehow love holding on to it and I don't know what they get out of it?Doesn't it feel like living with a lie? That is not a good feeling I know. So how do they continue doing it for years at a stretch? Or may be even a life time?

It is not only about pretending to call an ugly girl, pretty or pretending to like someone's cooking or dresses or shoes. It is also about pretending to love someone. Pretending about the fact that a certain person is very important, or pretending to be grateful even! 

Small things, small stories tell me how people love to pretend, till their work gets done. I lived very close to the school, and for fourteen years my house was like a telephone booth, a first aid center, a lost and found box and even a "My daughter needs that thing right now" place. Besides giving my classmates a place to wait if they missed their transport back home, my mother provided tiffin to so many girls in my school that it is not even funny. And she did it gladly. A phone call from some tensed parent and she would calm them down and assure them that she would take care of everything. My father even went out of his way to go and drop a few classmates of mine, home, because they missed their transport, and their daddies were too "busy" to come and pick up their own daughters! 

Mothers used (yes USED it is) my house to wait for their daughters to come back from tuition classes, without even thinking that we might have some work to do, and need to go out. They did  not even have the courtesy to ask! 

My father being a gazetted officer, could attested mark sheets and other official documents. He would gladly do it, without much fuss. Naturally, he was taken advantage of. People came with 10-20 copies of their mark sheets and expected my father to sit and sign them all. And being the person he is, my dad did it, till he grew sick and tired of it and stopped bringing his office stamp home. 

We helped everyone gladly, firstly because helping is something good and we should always do things which make us and others feel good. But then is it too much to expect that these people would have a minimum courtesy to feel grateful? Express their gratefulness by at least staying in touch? No sooner did school get over than I lost touch with every one. Now true that I am not a very social person, but then I at least smile at the people I know when I see them here and there! I wonder what are people made of? Is this natural to behave this way? to forget once the work gets done? Doesn't it hurt them somewhere deep down? Don't they have something called the heart? Or at least a conscience? 

I don't know whether I should be grateful for not being like all those I have mentioned above. I mean it must be much easier not to feel anything at all. Not to bear the burden of being ungrateful. Not to have any emotions or memories to make them sad. I am sure it must have been easier... Unfortunately I was born with a heart!

A Not So Happy Holiday

I knew holidays were supposed to be enjoyed. Well that is I think, only one part of the sentence. The complete sentence would be: Holidays in the wild (and architecturally beautiful) places are fun and enjoyable. I am on a trip since the 10th of this month. Six days and we feel that this thing is going on forever and we are not really having a very good time.

Daddy and I made the mistake of planning a trip in this weather. To make it worse we came all the way to Maharashtra, and to big cities. Pune: terribly hot and dry gave us a warm welcome, literally so with cracked lips and nose bleeding. Mumbai, hot again, and extremely humid, is draining us of all energy, by making us sweat, buckets.

I still have two more days to go in this big city of Mumbai which apparently never sleeps. Whatever may be the charm of these big cities, I can never understand, and I don't really want to. After being in five big cities and knowing three of them very closely, I can shout my lungs out and say, "I hate big cities." Though I might write another post, about the trip in details, right now, I don't mind being judged for throwing my hands and legs out and throwing tantrums because I just want to be back home.

There is nothing like home and there is nothing like my small hometown Durgapur. It might be a little behind all these big cities, but it is peaceful and makes me happy. No matter what, It is home!

Phoring

I came to know of this movie from a source I would not trust, but then I am happy that I took the chance. Just a few days back, While I was checking my news feed on Facebook, every next person seemed to “feel happy watching Phoring.”  So I downloaded it to see what the fuss was all about.

I was pleasantly surprised to come across a movie after such a long time with such a fresh storyline. Well many others have touched this theme of adolescent passion, but then this one was different. It covered multiple themes, including God and death, as seen by a 14 year old.

The movie begins with Phoring, a 14 year old boy from a small town in North Bengal, fantasizing about a woman, much older in age than him, and waking up from a wet dream embarrassed. He is basically a lonely child, of a drunken father and a depressed mother. Having lost his only true friend, his elder brother, to malaria, he has no one to talk to but the Gods. His “Thakurs”. He sits by the river on a fallen tree and talks to them about everything. Pleading them to pass him in the exams to telling them about his wet dreams. Well, he talks about his wet dreams, “privately” only to the male God, and is very embarrassed when he mentions it to a “ladies” God.

When he fails his annual examination and decides to kill himself, his “Thakur” miraculously sends someone down to this village school of North Bengal, to make Phoring happy. And yes he is happy. No one ever gave him so much love as this new history teacher did. She understood his love for imagination, and suggested him ways to channelize it in to something productive. Besides, respecting this “Madam” of his, Phoring felt a tug at the heart because of this special privilege.

Naturally so, because when all the boys in his class are madly in love with this teacher, and trying too hard to find out where she lives, he gets the special privilege to visit her often, and know her a little more closely than anyone else. The passion and excitement these 14 year olds feel are portrayed wonderfully. The excitement when Madam, touches his hand or lies down on the bed and a little bit of her legs show. Then there is the jealousy. “Who is that man coming to meet Madam often?” “Why does Madam smile so much when she talks to him?”

He can’t accept the fact that Madam went away somewhere with a friend, without telling him. We also see the jealousy his classmates have against him. The way they make fun of him, because of this heart break. But then we also see the priceless smile on Phoring’s face, when Madam comes to visit him, making him feel all important. The dilemma and uncertainty of a child’s mind about how important he is to a grown up woman is very well portrayed by this child actor (I wonder how they make kids act).

This passion and love goes much deeper. So deep, that one can even give up his normal life, leave his home and go away to an unknown city in search of Madam. Work hard, wash dishes and finally find and meet Madam to ask some unanswered questions. Some questions that had been troubling the little mind for long. 

This kind of love, I think comes when one is innocent. Unperturbed by the vices of the world of a grown up. When one knows how to follow one’s heart and not care about what others say and think. But then Phoring had a very strong conscience. That came out when he conversed with his Gods. The Gods’ voice telling him how he is wrong or how he is being silly is just his inner conflict. His inner voice, stopping him from doing something or encouraging him to go ahead. But his innocent self always asked him to be spontaneous and do whatever his heart agreed to.  Not bothering about what people thinks and finally with time, Phoring learns to deal with his conscience and his conversations with his Thakurs reduce in frequency.

May be as people grow up, they tend to wear a mask, starts pretending to be someone they are not. And then with time, as the teacher aptly says, they forget about the mask. The mask becomes the reality and they tend to hold on to it, unless something traumatising happens and the mask falls off. In Phoring’s dad’s case, his mask of a bad father fell off when he realised that he has lost his son.

What is sad is when this innocence of a child is lost; the love of the untouched heart disappears too. As the movie ends with the Madam promising her student, that she would write him letters, and asks him to reply to them, I wonder, how long will the little boy keep his words? Will he fall out of the need to know where his beloved teacher is? Or will he keep his words and stay interested in the same way that he is now? Will he grow out of this innocence and realise that Madam was after all not that important? Will he lose this attachment and will it be for the good or for the bad? However everything depends on the uncertainty. And no one knows what is for the good and what for the bad. Not even the Gods. Even they fail to understand certain things we mortals do and then we should learn to stop depending on them and create our own stories. Phoring sheds away his dependence on the Gods by saying at the end of the movie: “Thakur, jeta bojhona sheta niye kotha bolo na.” (Do not talk about things you don’t understand.)  Or was he just talking to his inner voice?