Shree's Scribbles: June 2007

Saturday, June 30, 2007

Bangalore

Two days after my Kolkata trip my husband and myself went to Bangalore where my sister lives. While in Kolkata I had told her that I would visit her before I started working again but she insisted that we come right away as there were so many parties lined up on the four nights that we spent in Bangalore.

The 6th of June was their third wedding anniversary so we decided to leave them alone for the day and reached Bangalore on the 7th. We took the morning Shatabdi Express and their driver picked us up from the railway station and took us to her office on MG Road and having collected the keys to her apartment we went for lunch to this nice place on Cunningham road called Fresco which happened to be a favourite of my husband's, it was my first time and it was nice. I also liked this place "100ft" on 100ft road, Indira nagar which was quite similar in that both are boutique restaurants to which my sister had taken me on my last visit, and kept insisting on taking him there but gave in to his wish .

Though we wanted to leave my sister and her husband to celebrate their anniversary by them-selves, they waited for us to come so that we could all go out to dinner together with some of their other friends as they were taking a seven day trip to the Maldives to celebrate their anniversary in a few days anyways. We went to their place after lunch and met up with them at the Windsor Manor poolside restaurant called The Afghan where they had reserved a table for 9pm. The food was good and the weather was excellent so it was a very pleasant evening.

The next evening we went for this party at the Leela Kempenski " which was a fashion show and launch of the new lines of some well known designers like Anamika Khanna, Tarun Tahiliani and "Kipling" bags. A close friend of mine from my early work days who happened to be in Bangalore, and another close friend from college and her husband who are also settled in Bangalore joined us and overall we had a really good time. The evening after that we went to the launch party of a health club and spa and the event was organized by FTV and most of the people there were same as the night before.

Since my sister and her husband were leaving on their Maldives trip and since my close friend from college also lives just a block away from my sisters we decided to stay another day at their place and were entertained to very good Bengali food as her mother happened to be there on one of her visists and she knew me for ages and my taste in food.

We returned to Chennai early monday morning. Reaching Chennai from Bangalore is in many ways a shock, for one the heat strikes you hard on your face and so does the visibly vastly different culture.

9:28 AM | Permalink |

Monday, June 18, 2007

Moving On

The fifteen days that I spent in Kolkata were very eventful. I made up for the lack of socialising for the last year in Chennai, as I hardly know anyone here yet. I met up with all my friends and relatives who still happen to live in Kolkata many of whom have also moved out like me . Most days I would be invited to lunch or dinner to someones house and on certain days my friends even had get together's so that I could meet up with everyone without having to go meeting everyone individually.

My days enfolded like this..... I would go for a morning walk to the Central Park in Salt Lake or take a walk around my neighbourhood in Salt Lake. The first few days I went along with Ma but soon realised that walking at her pace would give me no real exercise as I badly needed it from the amount I had been eating since coming to Kolkata, what with all the invitations and everyone making my favourite dishes.

After the walk I would return home to the morning tea and newspaper reading at my favourite place either on the cane chair in the front balcony if the sun was not up too hot or at the head of our huge dining table so that I could spread the pages of the newspaper all out. Then when Ma returned from her walk I would have an elaborate breakfast as Ma was trying to revive my lost one time good looks as she would put it.

Then I would spend the morning chatting with Ma and once it was time for her to leave for work( she still looks after Baba's Printing Press) I would get ready and go to catch up with my friends or whatever else I had to do and try and be back by 8 Pm by the time she returned. All dinner invitations I would take Ma along. I wanted to spend as much time as possible with her as once I left she would be alone again.

In addition to everything else I did in kolkata I also happened to meet up with my ex-boyfriend and his wife. Now its not like I had not been in touch with them earlier. Strange as it may sound his wife actually had been calling me up lately in Chennai to take my advice on various factors of her new life that is her husband and her in-laws. He had introduced her to me over the telephone and somehow she seemed to have taken a liking to me and felt she could trust me enough to complain about him and ask my advice on how to deal with him and his folks.

We met up on a couple of occasions and they even took me out to dinner at the restaurant "Tangerine" and we managed to have a wonderful time though I have to admit it seemed strange at some points. His wife for one would go into total silence for a few seconds while I kept talking endlessly to fill in those silences. We ladies even shared a plate of lamb chops which they make excellently as well as had the same cocktails, two bloody Marys each and she could not stop raving about my choice of restaurant and the food. I was surprised that they had not been there earlier considering it was such a favourite and it was the first restaurant I had taken my husband to on our trip to kolkata.

Watching the two of them together was like looking at old photo albums, you look at each picture and remember the situations around the picture and smile at those thoughts as most of them would have happy memories attached to them.

Now isn't "moving on" all about forgetting the bad, remembering the good and being happy in the present.

4:10 AM | Permalink |

Wednesday, June 06, 2007

Home Coming.....

I came back from Kolkata on the 4th of June, after a fifteen day stay which was absolutely relaxing, fruitful, enjoyable and perfect. But isn't that how a trip back home to mama after a year of being married and taking on all the responsibilities of a new household is supposed to be.

I would love to recount the incidents of my visit but I will take it one at a time and start with the day I reached.

I landed in Kolkata Airport on the 21st of May at 6.30 Pm to a thundering sky and lashing rains. It seemed like the perfect welcome and respite from the immense heat of Chennai. I felt like even the Gods were blessing my visit or was it Dad showering his love from the heavens because it is there that he lives, in the heavens over kolkata.

I had asked Ma not to come to the Airport as the driver was on leave and so I proceeded to take a pre-paid cab home but not before nostalgically looking about the airport which once not so long ago used to be my second home. I was working with one of the premier airlines of today from 1995 to 2001 and looking after service quality knew every part or rather nook and corner of the airport like the back of my hand. Most of the staff of the airline except the loaders have changed but the airport authority staff as well as the guys in the snacks and coffee counters and the very loyal Indian airlines staff remain the same.

Most of these people still love me and consider me an integral part of the airport and flash me the most welcoming smile when I pass.The pre-paid Taxi counter guys give me my token out of turn asking why I bother to queue. I stopped and said Hi to as many people as I came face to face with all of them asking me where I now was. Now wouldn't you call all of this a real home coming.

When the Taxi reached our gate our twenty year's old watchman whom we lovingly call Darwanji came and took the bags from the car dickey and handing the taxi token to the driver as well as beaming a broad smile at Darwanji and asking how he was rushed upstairs to the second floor where Ma lives. She has let out the first two floors as it helps her maintain the house and provides some company in the huge house where she is all alone except for a full time maid.

Looking at Ma I was both happy as well as sad. Happy for the very obvious reason but sad because each time I see her lately she seems to have aged more. One reason being the sixty six years she has lived but more so from the loneliness and sadness of living in a house which just a year and more back was inhabited by the family she loved. My sister moved to Bangalore and got married three years or so back, then Baba passed away about a year later and then I got married and left a year back.

Often I wonder at life.....one has a family and all when one has the strength to live alone and believe me Ma is one of the strongest women I or rather the world has seen and then just when you need a family the most you ironically are left to deal with time alone. I was so happy to be home and happier that I would be staying for sometime. I quickly took a walk around the house to see whether everything was like the way I left it and believe me it was intact. Ma does not move a thing since we all left, not even the things she should, somehow all that makes things at home just the way they were even twenty years back and that's what I love about the place.

The familiarity, security, warmth and the memories all frozen in time as if nothing had changed. Ma has not thrown away even the bed clothes and table cloth that were there a couple of years back when we all lived there, though they are immaculately taken care of. At the dining table I sat at my usual place at the head of the table which I had shifted to, the day Baba passed away so that the emptiness of that chair which Baba had occupied for years would not haunt me and Ma.

I still remember the moment when I sat on that seat after Baba's death, Ma looked at me with a strange look which I have not been unable to decipher till date. Was she relieved that it would not be empty after all or was she uspet that I had sat at his place. Somehow I could not bear to see the place vacant as it would constanly remind me of Baba's absence and that was the reason I had shifted there. Our housekeeper whom we call "mashi" (auntie) had prepared an elaborate meal with so many items that I had to skip the rice and roti to be able to taste them all.

I kept all my stuff in my room which had been mine ever since we moved into the house in 1987 and though I wanted to sleep there that night for old time's sake I slept with Ma on her side of the bed as she had since the night of Baba's death shifted to his side of the bed for the very same reason that I had taken Baba's place at the table. Somehow I could never get my-self to garland Baba's photographs at home or allow anyone to do so. All of Baba's photographs, even the portraits we had put up after he passed away were never ever garlanded. All the pictures stand till date like he were still alive and alive he is.....in our hearts and in our home. My mother says she feels his strong presence there and stongly believes that he wathces over her........ I am sure he does and its still feels like when we all lived there.

6:40 AM | Permalink |

Shree's Scribbles

Saturday, June 30, 2007

Bangalore

Monday, June 18, 2007

Moving On

Wednesday, June 06, 2007

Home Coming.....

About me

Last posts

Archives

Links