ever after....
My mother was 20 when she got married. My father was 25. She was still in college, he was earning exactly Rs.1100 a month. They got hitched. I DON'T KNOW WHAT THEY WERE THINKING!!!I was not there to intervene, you see.. anyhow, they got hitched. She continued going to college, he refused to go to work for more than thrice a week. The rest of the time he sat at home and read incessantly. Every evening a bunch of rowdy, jobless changra chhnoras came over and created ruckus till 2am, after which point they debated whether to stay over (as usual) or go home (for a change!). Every evening.
During summer they went to Deshopriyo Park and whiled away the evenings with cha,chiney badam, and cigarettes. Then Ma finished her M.A. and got herself a job, it was becoming difficult to make ends meet. Didn't help much, though. She blew up her salary by the 15th of every single month. On food, on books and on travelling.
Whenever they managed to save a hundred bucks, they a)went for a movie with the entire gang b)went and bought obscure Russian novels c)went to Campari or Pao Chien and ate like savages. When they scraped together 500, off they went to Darjeeling, or Ghatshila or Shantiniketan often on a day's notice! And of course, intermittently the gang got sloshed, took out my Dadu's car and went for crazy long drives at 2am(evidently their favourite time of the day!)
27 years have passed since. The thin, timid girl of twenty who used to cry for her parents (who lived only three houses away!) at every given opportunity, and who scandalized her entire shoshur baari by wearing gloves while washing handkerchiefs, has become a large, shrill, ebullient, domineering school teacher types ginni. The guy who used to read for 12 hours a day is now a workaholic who goes out at8 in the morning, comes home at 10pm, and falls asleep every night with a book open in his lap. They have stopped giving books to each other on every birthday and anniversary. They fight from the moment they wake up to the moment they fall asleep. But they are still together. And strangely enough, still very much in love. And that is no mean feat.
The gang has dispersed. Baunduley bachelors have become much married men. But every Sunday, three or four of them turn up with beer bottles, and sit around till Ma yells and turns them out. All of them get together every pujo and make me blush with their keoramo. At times i feel ashamed.
But one thing i know...and that is, if 27 years from now I manage to have a life as warm, as fun, as secure and as honest as theirs, my gratitude to God would know no bounds. I know i dont say too many nice things about them,( nor for that matter, to them.) But here's to Ma and Baba, whol despite never having succeeded in making much money, have made such a brilliant life for themselves ....and for me!! Cheers...and touch wood!
During summer they went to Deshopriyo Park and whiled away the evenings with cha,chiney badam, and cigarettes. Then Ma finished her M.A. and got herself a job, it was becoming difficult to make ends meet. Didn't help much, though. She blew up her salary by the 15th of every single month. On food, on books and on travelling.
Whenever they managed to save a hundred bucks, they a)went for a movie with the entire gang b)went and bought obscure Russian novels c)went to Campari or Pao Chien and ate like savages. When they scraped together 500, off they went to Darjeeling, or Ghatshila or Shantiniketan often on a day's notice! And of course, intermittently the gang got sloshed, took out my Dadu's car and went for crazy long drives at 2am(evidently their favourite time of the day!)
27 years have passed since. The thin, timid girl of twenty who used to cry for her parents (who lived only three houses away!) at every given opportunity, and who scandalized her entire shoshur baari by wearing gloves while washing handkerchiefs, has become a large, shrill, ebullient, domineering school teacher types ginni. The guy who used to read for 12 hours a day is now a workaholic who goes out at8 in the morning, comes home at 10pm, and falls asleep every night with a book open in his lap. They have stopped giving books to each other on every birthday and anniversary. They fight from the moment they wake up to the moment they fall asleep. But they are still together. And strangely enough, still very much in love. And that is no mean feat.
The gang has dispersed. Baunduley bachelors have become much married men. But every Sunday, three or four of them turn up with beer bottles, and sit around till Ma yells and turns them out. All of them get together every pujo and make me blush with their keoramo. At times i feel ashamed.
But one thing i know...and that is, if 27 years from now I manage to have a life as warm, as fun, as secure and as honest as theirs, my gratitude to God would know no bounds. I know i dont say too many nice things about them,( nor for that matter, to them.) But here's to Ma and Baba, whol despite never having succeeded in making much money, have made such a brilliant life for themselves ....and for me!! Cheers...and touch wood!
posted by mojo at 10:07 PM
15 Comments:
"if 27 years from now I manage to have a life as warm, as fun, as secure and as honest as theirs, my gratitude to God would know no bounds."
my thoughts exactly :)
Apart from the living apart thing, I wouldn't mind being in my parents' shoes. :)
and even more than that, I would like to have friends like they do. a bunch of 50 year olds, who have stuck with my parents for 23 years or more. goofing away to glory. :)
you are tagged, btw!
They fight from the moment they wake up to the moment they fall asleep.
Yes, yes, mine does do. Mostly on important matters like why a potol bought a week ago hasn't still been used up. And then things from twenty years back will get raked up...
And according to my Dad, those families without jhogras - they are the abnormal/defunct ones.
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Remember me? I had that question on Lonesong Street some time ago, on your blog. I read your blog once in a while since you write well, even if a tad 'over the top' once in a while. I am your parent's age and from Kolkata (although I don't live there anymore.....have been away for more than 25 years, but still love going back which is quite often) and have college going kids like yourself.....I was able to relate completely to your latest post.....all of us who grew up in Kolkata in the 'swinging' sixties & seventies seem to have simlar profiles......no money when we were young, loads of friends who have lasted a lifetime and a lifelong bonding with the 'spirit & ethos' of Kolkata. Two things, or the lack of them, contributed to the 'profiling' of our Gen.....No tecchnology intrusions -no PC, no internet, no TV, no mobiles (not even calculators, till the mid seventies!), & something called middle class 'incomes' of parents which always circumscribed our world....& which meant that we were forced to be more convivial.....high points were local football, para cricket & football (full of passion & lacerated knees & elbows), Vietnam & Ho Chi Minh etc, etc and of course, cha, adda and Chitta's mutton stew on Dacres lane (which, I know, is still popular, since I quietly visit him whenever I'm in Kolkata!). It was a very, very small and orderly world then, whereas you have, and are still, growing up in a far more 'borderless' and economically liberated era and the two worlds are chalk & cheese. Nostalgia is a good thing in many ways, but I think the India & Kolkata of today is a much better and exciting place than when we were growing up. Physically & otherwise, it was quite a hell hole then - no electricity - grid-lock traffic (prior to the Metro & EM Bypass)& crappy politics that atrophied an entire generation of opportunities. The great thing about the Kolkata of today is that the spirit is still intact, the politics certainly more rational and pragmatic(??skating on thin ice?!)and the infratructure and physicals dramatically improved.
@yippie: :D
@bimbo: sappy ugi concurs
@r.i.m: "And then things from twenty years back will get raked up..." everyday man!
@cheeni kum: i dont think calcutta has changed much, fundamentally....
In many ways it hasn't and many other ways it has......depends on the time-span of comparison and the things one is looking at. The city does still retain it's very, very special soul ( which is absent in most other cities), public opinion still does matter and 'money' does not yet significantly determine ones's social standing in Kolkata. These are terrific 'constants'. However, if one goes back to the early and mid seventies and compares the Kolkata of that period to the Kolkata of today, the physical & other changes have been quite dramatic......it's a whole lot cleaner, traffic is still bad but a whole lot more orderly and it's really opened up with the Bypass & Rajarhat etc and of course, all the flyovers which have come up in the last 5 years or so. Plus the Metro & the 2nd Hoogly bridge. There was hardly any major new construction activity till the mid nineties - the shopping malls, new housing complexes, the new hotels, Swabhumi etc are all a phenomenon of the last 5-7 years. Kolkata is certainly a very good case-study in urban renewal, when one looks at the changes with our eyes, since we lived through the earlier era. What's even more heartening is the comparison with what's happened to other Indian metros like Mumbai, Bangalore etc, over the same period. In the early seventies, when we were limping back from the Naxal movement etc and flight of business and commerce, the spirit of the city was quite dead-beat and to most of us it appeared, at that point in time, that all we seemed to have was a great past, a squalid present and no future. Today, the feel-good spirit is back and I feel it in the air and in my bones, every time I go back, although Nandigram, Taslima, Rizwan and women being pushed out of buses etc do ring some alarm bells.
this post reminds me of moonlight and valentino, for some weird reason. mine got married when he was 25 and she was 22. and both my parents were more of the "bhalo" chhele and meye types, so, they didn't do anything back then. but they do now! heheheheh......and it's fun. thanks for a great post.
@cheeni kum: "some alarm bells" i think is a gross understatement.
I agree....that was an unfortunate turn of phrase - major alarm bells is what I feel and meant. Having grown up in Kolkata, I am deeply anguished at the 'psyche' shift that seems to have taken place. Such events, and worse, are very common-place in places like Delhi, but to think that it is also now happening in Bengal is very, very disturbing. But if one were to take some positives out of these developments, then the outpouring of public outrage and the accountability seeking from the CM etc and the inability of the 'powers that be' to sweep things under the carpet, are also indicative that true human & democratic values and institutions are not yet dead & buried, as they are in most other states. One has to just remember Godhra & Gujarat, the reality of farm-land acquisition for industry in other states, Graham Staines, etc, to look at things with a comparative perspective. Having said that, things like forceable 'recapture' at Nandigram, Rizwan etc are completely indefensible, irrespective of any comparisons.
27 years? And it took them so long to have you?
:D
The power of rubber.
:D:D:D:D
yeah...7 bochhor porey aami hoyechhi!!! :):)
ha ha. ur parents seem so similar to mine. my ma was still in college when they got married too. and till date have not saved anything...spending it on books, food, movies and holidays as well...
and yes, i want their life too. :)
I dont know you personally but liked the way you write...keep going...
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