"Memories are made of these"

2012-02-11T03:17:00.000-08:00

A blog post I read a while back, got me thinking about my own teenage years.
I was overweight and not good-looking. I was also rather hirsute! In those days, at least here in India, not that many youngsters got their eyebrows done or facial hair removed, more so because, as I remember, bodily hair was only either shaved off or tweezed off.
I studied in a girls' school--a convent and none of my classmates would come out and say that I was fat or ugly or anything. But then I had a younger brother who had no such scruples and hummed 'Baby Elephant's Walk' whenever he wanted to annoy me.
Those were the days of shift dresses and tight skirts (so tight that you were forced to take mincing steps) and my mother flatly refused to let me get anything stitched like that because she thought I was too fat for those kinds of fashions (I was kind of bosomy and my mother felt that Western style clothes just attracted unwanted, negative attention ). I remember that, after much pleading from me and from one of my best friends, she finally allowed me to get one shift dress made, which I personally thought made me look slimmer, but which my mother wasn't too happy about. From the time I was 12, for most formal occasions my mother got me to wear saris. For school of course we had uniforms.
But when I got into the 9th standard and the class got split into sections, depending on the classes/subjects we elected to do, I found I was much more comfortable with my classmates. We were all science students and therefore considered more career-oriented and so being upto-the-minute fashionable was not given that much importance.
Even so, there were social occasions we occasionally attended, more so because of the work my father did, where there might be girls about my age, from the upper crust of Calcutta society and how I hated going because I felt fat, ugly and so unsophisticated, next to these smart svelte young women. In that sense wearing a sari was good because although I might be considered old-fashioned, at least there wouldn't be any unfavourable comparisons, as there might have been if I was dressed fashionably! That was when I began telling myself--'Packaging may count, but that's not everything; what counts is what's within the package and you have brains and you can build substance. There will be people you will come across who will appreciate the substance as long as the package is cleanly and neatly wrapped'. [:-)]
There was a kind of safety in the fact that well-behaved girls from good families did not have boyfriends as in going steady. So that kind of competition was never there. In that sense I think that the not needing to have a sweetheart at that age, took away a great part of the pressure--for both boys and girls--of having to be good-looking or attractive in an accepted mould.

2011-10-16T01:13:00.000-07:00

I lie with my eyes shut waiting for my headache meds to take effect. I remember a bad headache when I was maybe 5 or 6. Then the room where I lay came into view, like watching an old movie.
It was the guest room in the palatial house we lived in, in Bandra, Mumbai. My mother had got the walls painted a delicate shade of lilac, almost the colour of these lilacs.

(from Wikepedia)

The curtains and the bedspreads were in white cotton fabric on which there were flower borders, embroidered in cross-stitch, in the same lilac as the walls. This is the nearest likeness.

On the bedside tables were tall white metal candlesticks converted into lamps, and with white lampshades. There was a beautiful rosewood vanity table/dressing table against a wall, which too, as I seem to remember, had white cotton circular doilies on them. That was the done way of dressing up the vanity table those days.
I then took a walk through the house and the thought came up, that sadly I can no longer check out how true my memories are, because that house is no more, having given way to a huge flat.

Feeling Old

2011-07-08T05:26:00.000-07:00

These days, so often I feel so old that growing up and attendant memories seem like an aeon ago. It's only music that can trigger memories and I guess the fact that I am trying to listen to new music these days has closed the door to many memories. Maybe I should go back to listening to some of the music of my salad days :-)

2011-03-19T12:56:00.000-07:00

It's strange how childhood memories suddenly come back at the weirdest times. The other night I was lying in bed with my eyes shut and on the verge of sleep when memories of a house my parents had lived in, just flooded me, so much so it woke me up!
This house was in Ranchi, Bihar, where my father worked in a Public Sector Undertaking for around 3 years. It was an old British made bungalow for some government officer I think--PSG bungalow. Spacious and airy, it was a gracious house. The thick walls and the surrounding verandahs kept the house cool in the hot Bihar summers.
There were 4 bedrooms surrounding a large sitting room and a dining area. The kitchen was far away--as was common in houses in pre-Independence India. But an area near the dining room had been converted into a small kitchen. The bungalow had extensive grounds with a number of fruit trees of different kinds.
The memory that woke me, was of the room I used while in that house. I had asked and was given a room at the front of the house, opening out onto a broad, shady verandah that ran the whole length of the front of the house. I was given the choice to do up the room the way I wanted --with available furnishings.
The memory of the bright emerald green bedspreads I had was so clear that it was almost tangible. The thought of the colour in my mind's eye, then dredged out other objects that I had loved--my guitar hung on the wall, the music system in pride of place and some posters on the wall. I saw myself as I had been then--wearing a green sari and my thick, frizzy hair in a tight braid!
There arose also, the memory of two of the fruit trees, a guava tree just out back behind the house and a huge jamun tree in the front of the house, beside the gate. The tree bore a large number of plump jamuns and all the kids in the neighbourhood would be outside the gate, picking jamuns during the season. Somehow no jamun I've eaten after that has seemed as good. Sadly I don't remember any mango trees, though I love mangoes.
I remember too, a singing master who came to teach me during one of my vacations and of all things Bengali music. I only remember two of the songs, one an East Bengali boat song and one a song of Tagore's!
I searched for the house in Google maps. But then I thought it must have been long gone--probably given way for a whole host of houses perhaps.

2010-10-15T08:16:00.000-07:00

It's been a really long time since I posted here. But the memories have to come and so strongly, that you want to write about them.
Today, just randomly, I remembered the flat that we stayed in last, while in Calcutta (Kolkatta). It was a gracious, spacious old flat. We were on the ground floor. There were four bedrooms, with attached bathrooms and what came to my mind were the beautiful copper boilers in each bathroom, for hot water. They were huge, by today's water heater standards, and the water was heated by piped-in gas. When you wanted hot water for a bath, you had to turn the main jet out from underneath, light it and then slowly turn it back in, when the burner ring, under this great big boiler, got lit. My mother instructed us all to be very careful when lighting it, as she warned that otherwise there could be an explosion!
There was a cooking range in the kitchen,with a large oven, which too was powered by piped-in gas (natural gas). Only my mother lit the oven, as she considered it too dangerous for anyone else to do.
I also remember that there was a long corridor running through the house, from which all the rooms led off. This corridor was a scary place to traverse at night, especially for my younger sister. As there were 4 bedrooms, and we didn't need them all, one bedroom was hardly ever used. For some strange reason, we invested this room with all the scary night things children are afraid of. Now one had to walk down the corridor quite a way, to put on the corridor light. But even when the light was on, somehow the part of the corridor, near the unused room, seemed much darker. To get to our bedroom, or my parents bedroom, we had to go through this darker area and pass the unused room. So, if my mother asked one of us (usually me, being the older one there)to get something from her room or ours, it was an act fraught with terror. My mother had no patience with such stupid fears and expected action pronto. So, I would run past this room, without looking in. But, over time, I managed to conquer my fears by forcing myself to enter that room and put on the light, usually accompanied by our family dog [:-)]. But it remained scary for my younger siblings for quite a long time.

The Beatles--formed 50 years back!

2010-05-24T07:56:00.000-07:00

I see that I haven't written a post here for around 6 months now!! I guess there were no specific memories that came up.
But for a while now, I've been thinking about the Beatles and yesterday I saw a program on India Today's Headlines Today, a tribute to the Beatles and that really brought back ever so many memories.
I did all my growing up to a background of the Beatles music. In India, in the 60s, original Western music took a long while to reach our shores. What I seem to remember is that 1964 was the time, anyway, when the Beatles came into my life. In the Calcutta of those days, there used to be a radio progamme of English pop at around 7.30 pm. I don't remember now if it was there every day of the week or only on Saturdays. But I do know how I loved it when the Beatles played. Elvis was very popular in India and strangely Country Western music was also very popular among those who listened to English music. But I remember that I was ready to get into an argument with anyone who decried the Beatles and their music, or said that Elvis was better :-)
At that time, of course, there were very rarely printed lyrics available and what we all had to do, was sit with a pen and paper and try to figure out the lyrics, If one was lucky enough to own a record, then it became easier to get the lyrics, as you could listen to the same song umpteen times. (You must remember at that time there were no audio tapes, where one could pause a tape). So I remember the excitement when my mother bought one of the English women's magazines--Woman & Home I think it was--and it had lyrics to a number of the Beatles songs. My brother and I carefully cut that out and kept it very safely. Incidentally, in that compilation was the lyrics for 'From me to you'. There is a funny story attached to that. My brother--he may have been 11 or 12--insisted that the words in the song went, "I have long arms to hold you and keep you by my side" and all my yelling at him that that sounded totally ridiculous, he just wouldn't agree, because he said a senior in his school had sung those words. So it gave me great satisfaction to show him the correct lyrics, when we got that compilation.
A large part of my studies were done with music playing in the background, and I recall my father getting really upset about that.
Later, when I got into University in Chennai, we could always listen to Radio Ceylon, which had many more programmes of Western pop.
I am, naturally, still a BIG Beatles fan and my children all listen to their music and love it too. I've added the video bar of their music, to go with this post.

Christmas Past

2009-12-18T07:28:00.000-08:00

To my mind, my memory of Christmas is always associated with my mother. She was the one who made Christmas special. It wasn't that she cooked mountains--or even cooked much, but it was the excitement she managed to give us, wherever we happened to be, whether at home, or at my grandfather's place or even in the train! In fact that was one of my memorable Christmases, when my mother carefully put out presents for us on our train berths as we sped through the night to visit her father. I'd posted about that Christmas earlier here at the end of that post. She obviously enjoyed our excitement.
I hope my children and grandkids have good memories of Christmas with me too.

Pajama party

2009-11-04T04:24:00.000-08:00

I saw a school version of the musical 'Grease' recently. Incidentally that was my very first introduction to the musical. I had heard about it naturally, but never got a chance to see or hear it before this.
Watching the pyjama party scene that the girls have in the play (complete with baby doll pyjamas, though very modestly made, in deference to parents and family watching!), brought back the memory of the one pyjama party I had--a proper one.
This party took place probably in '64 or '65, when I was around 13 or 14 (a very vulnerable age). I had spent the night at various aunts' and uncles' place before but never with a bunch of girls almost my own age, till then. There was this couple from the US, who were working with my father for a short time, while we were in Calcutta. They had a daughter who was around my age. So that is how I got invited to an American style pyjama party.
Well anyway, there were quite a few girls there, all of whom were children of other US expats (as I remember) and I was the only Indian kid there. The early part of the evening was interesting because they had an American style barbecue, with steaks, et al and a cake dessert I think, all of which was unfamiliar to me, but which I enjoyed thoroughly. Besides the parents of my young hostess were there and they did what they could to help me fit in. It was only later at night, when the pyjama part of the party began that I began to feel the complete outsider.
Here I was, a teenage girl, who didn't shave my legs, nor remove facial hair or wear make-up. Young girls of my age in the India of that time very definitely did not do things like that. Besides I was plump and I had long hair tied in 2 tight pigtails (or else my thick frizzy hair got impossibly tangled) unlike the other girls, all of whom either had their hair worn short or in a high ponytail. Suffice it to say that I was as alien to the girls there, as they seemed to me.
I can see the picture of that room so clearly now and I can see me sitting on a bed in a corner being the observer. I remember hearing them talk derogatorily about other girls who didn't shave their legs, watching as some of them stuffed rolled up toilet paper into the front of their clothes to look busty, while I loathed that I had breasts which attracted attention from sick older men (yes horrible) and watching in fascination as they tried on make-up. I really felt like the ultimate outsider and I so wished that my mother--as was normally her wont--had vetoed the idea.
Anyway, the upshot of all this was that I came out in hives--big huge itchy ones--on my face and and limbs and and the worried parents of the girl called my parents and sent me home, wondering whether it was their cat, or some food I had eaten earlier, that I was allergic to.
Much later, after reading much more American fiction (till then I had read mainly British fiction), I realised that those girls had indulged in behaviour very normal for them. Besides, they were too young to appreciate a person from another culture, never having been exposed to that before. I really was such a drag for them I guess and I'm sure my young hostess must have been very relieved when I left.
The whole experience was such a culture shock to me that I had just shoved the memory deep into the back of my mind. So I was really surprised to find the memories flooding back, when I watched the play.

My teen clothes

2009-06-21T02:08:00.000-07:00

A blog post by Ageless Bonding on the wearing of the half-sari brought back memories of my teenage years. I was decidedly plump and the fashion at that point was for tight salwar kameezes, where the salwar was loose, almost like today's but the kameez/kurta was cut like the vintage sheath dresses of the early 60s--like this.

I remember one of the girls I knew, come to church in a kurta cut even tighter than this dress (if possible) and her having to waddle up the stairs into church cos it was too tight to allow her to stride! Of course, not that many of my classmates were allowed to wear skirts that were that narrow. But,being a good deal thinner than me, they were able to wear other kinds of Western clothes.

We had a school uniform with a pleated skirt and a blouse, which were both white--in the Cal summer, while in winter we had a darker colour serge skirt and we got to wear cardigans. Now I was quite buxom in comparison to many of my classmates and I hated it--being stared at by sick men who must have thought I was older than my 13 years. I used to be so grateful for the winter uniform, when the cardi kind of hid my boobs. It was around that time that my mother decided that I really was way too busty to be wearing any kind of Western clothes and certainly not the narrowly cut kurtas. And so sari it was that I wore for all formal occasions. I was only allowed to wear Western clothes to the homes of family or to school--an all girls' one.
So, all the clothes that I would have loved to wear, I designed and made for my paper dolls ( I had been lucky to get a sort of Barbie & Ken type pair of paper dolls!) and for my skinny younger sister.
And later, when I left home to join university and I lost around 15 pounds in the first term, I almost completely gave up wearing saris, switching to the then fashion of loose kurtas and churidhars. Bliss!

2009-04-25T12:57:00.000-07:00

While at my daughter's home I happened to read a Western and that brought back a flood of memories of the books I read while at school. I took books from our school library, occasionally from the library of the club my father was a member of, but most of all from Oxford Book House on Park Street, which had a lending library in those days--apart form the book store. I think I haunted that place.
My reading tastes were totally eclectic. They ranged from Westerns--mostly Zane Grey, to World War II stories, mainly the Western theatre of war and particularly books about the RAF, books by Gerald Durrell ( Iread all his books that I could lay my hands on then), some of the classics for girls--Jane Eyre and Lousia Alcott's books, to books by Barbara Cartland. It was also important for me to research the background of stories I read, for which there was the Encyclpedia Brittanica in school.
But it was my intense interest in the Air Force stories that even got to me after a bit. So much so at one point I was sure that I must be a re-incarnation of an RAF fighter pilot!!!! I even wrote a couple of chapters of a story based on an RAF pilot in the first person.
I hadn't thought of all that in a long while, till I read this Western. Now, when I look back, I can't imagine how I read all those books. I suppose they were unusual books for a 14 year old girl to read!
But I must say that whatever series I was going through, I got most of what I wanted from Oxford Library. It really was an amazing place.

I remember...

2009-02-12T07:35:00.000-08:00

It is my mother's death anniversary tomorrow and I was remembering the fun things about my mother.
I remember, after my younger sister was born, there was this old rocking cradle, in which she slept and I wanted to have a turn in lying in it too. I was a little over 4 then and my mother allowed me a turn in it.
I remember that when my younger brother and I played pretend games, she played along with us--if we turned a flat table over and said it was a boat, she'd tie a cloth to the legs for a sail; if we made a long line of chairs and said it was a train, she'd bring food--as in trains in India normally have and once she even brought us lunch in a tiffin carrier.
I remember too her going for a movie--'Escapade in Japan' and realised it was the story of two children and then telling us the story in detail. That whole scene is so vivid in my mind.
She sang well and so we learnt a wealth of songs.
I remember, but now I can no longer verify.

Train travel

2009-01-09T22:04:00.000-08:00

Whenever I hear a train whistle or the drone of a plane far overhead, it touches something inside of me.
When I was growing up, my family did a lot of travelling. My father changed his place of work quite a few times before I finished my education (school and college). Then we were away from my parents’ native state, which was Kerala. So, all that meant a great deal of travelling. Every holiday we got, while I was in school, we went somewhere. When we lived in Bombay, there were weekend trips to where one of my uncles lived--in Ambaranath--which was far out then, and later to Kirkee, when he moved there. Often it was to visit my mother’s unmarried sister who lived and worked in Pune for many years. An occasional outing would be to Bhandup where a cousin lived in the quarters of an MNC company's factory. The factory and surrounding quarters covered a vast area, which had a clubhouse with swimming pool and even a small golf course of it's own.
While my father worked in Bombay, every two years he got a free trip home for the family—home being Kerala naturally for my parents. Then we used to go by car. We had a blue Dodge and our driver was a Rajput with an appropriate moustache. Devi Singh was his name and he came with us to Kerala on all those trips.
The trip took around 3 days.
What excitement it was! The car would be packed the previous day. My mother would have packed food for the journey. It was usually vattayappam and erachi ularthiathu (rice cake and beef spicy fried). These kept well. There would also be many hard-boiled eggs, bread, a cake maybe and lots of water--in big containers. Even now, when I think of that sort of food, it fills me with excitement more than anything else.
We would be woken up at 4 am, while it was still dark, which only added to the excitement. We would leave while it was still dark, so that we could travel longer distances before it was too hot (after all that was before the advent of car ACs). We usually stopped for an early lunch at one of the Travellers' Bungalows of that time and rest there for a bit. Then we would travel on till our night stop, which was usually not later than around 8 p.m.
As we had had to have the car windows open, it was dusty. But I can't remember any of the discomfort now. Many of the highways then were lined with shady trees on either side. Sometimes, when it got too hot, we would wet towels and hang them at the the windows, tied to the carrier on the top. I'm sure it was quite tough for my mother. But she was an avid traveller herself. So I remember only fun and excitement. So even today, I love driving long distances.
As my mother loved travelling, even train travel with her was fun. If my father was not coming home, we went by train and those were the days of coal-powered trains (at least till around the mid '60s)But my mother made even those enjoyable. Those were the days of single first-class compartments, with a door to each side and no corridors. Those were the days of travelling with big tin trunks and a huge holdalls which held sheets and pillows. And the food service at the major stations were often served by liveried bearers and served on beautifully laid trays with real china.
I remember one time, we couldn't get tickets on time and we ended up travelling on Christmas Eve, reaching our destination--my mother's home--only late Christmas Day. My younger siblings & I (who were travelling with my mother) were quite upset about that. But my mother put our Christmas gifts on our train bunks late at night and told my younger siblings that Santa had visited the train too!
Lovely memories that have given me a joy in travelling, which I hope I have shared with my children.

My Piano Teacher

2008-11-26T07:51:00.000-08:00

My piano teacher in Calcutta was a little old lady called Mrs. Beresford-Scott. She was one of the ‘Staying On’ (like the book by Paul Scott) Britishers. She lived in a small flat in an old apartment block on Park Street, very close to Flury’s the bakery of the time. It was a tiny flat. Her sitting room—where she held her music classes, had the piano, and a couple of sofas and a lovely bay window with some seating in the window. She gave piano lessons as well as voice lessons. I only went to her for piano lessons. But I remember a lady built along operatic lines, coming to her for voice training.
She was a strict, but good teacher. She really taught me to express the feeling in a piece of music. Though I got rapped on my knuckles occasionally, I was very fond of her. Sometimes, she played a piece for us, and she played with feeling, although her hands were old and gnarled.
Once a month, Mrs. Scott would go to the hairdresser (as I can recall). There she would be with her white hair freshly blued and set in determined waves. Those were the days of big rollers, large hair drying hoods and plenty of hair-spray. The day after the visit to the hairdresser, she would occasionally use a little rouge too, apart from her usual lipstick.
Occasionally, if she was pleased with her students, she would send one of us down to Flury’s to buy a pastry for each for us, as a special treat. I knew she was fond of me, because I practised regularly, even scales. I just loved playing and she knew that. So I was a recipient of the pastries quite a few times.
I went to music class with her for at least 4 years. But we never went into any other part of her flat. I don’t ever remember even using the bathroom there. Just the one time, she sent me into her bedroom to get something. It was a tiny bedroom, crammed with furniture. There were a few photographs around and I was dying to look at them closely, but was scared that she might come looking for me, if I took too much time. I remember seeing these pictures on a dresser, of a young man in uniform. I couldn’t resist looking at that photograph closely, as it was at eye level. I wondered whether it was her son. She never spoke of family—husband or children. Never once in those 4 years, did I ever see any visitors in her flat.
Many years later, my sister was living in Calcutta, on Park Street, not far from where Mrs. Beresford-Scott had lived and my sister found out that she had passed away quite a few years before. May she have found music aplenty on the other side.

My pet squirrel

2008-10-09T01:06:00.000-07:00

The sight of a hamster recently, reminded me of the squirrel(chipmunk really) I had as a pet for a while, when I was maybe 13. This was in Calcutta.
One evening, I remember going for a walk--with whom I can't remember. We lived off Camac Street then and when we turned into one of the darker streets, we saw this man selling baby squirrels. He had 3 with him. The price for one was 50 paise. Since that fit in well with my budget, I bought one. The squirrel was absolutely tiny. The man who sold it to me said that it would have to be fed milk as it was too tiny to eat.

(Image courtesy Wikimedia-animal photos.)

I remember I took it home and then made a nest in a shoe box, lining it with cotton wool and maybe bits of cloth. I laid the little thing carefully inside and tried to feed it with an ink dropper with milk. But it was too small and weak even for that. Then I dipped some cotton wool in milk and made a little teat with one end and put it into the little squirrel's mouth. It happily sucked that. Now when I think about it, it must have been my persistence and sheer love of the animal that this little thing survived.
I can't remember what I named the animal (can't remember if it was male or female even). But very soon it learnt it's name and would come when I called. By this time Chippy (for convenience I'll call it Chippy and assume it's female) was too big for the shoe box and was allowed the run of the house. When I went to school in the morning, Chippy would run up the curtains in my room and stay there. I would leave a bit of food in her shoe box. When I returned from school and called out her name, Chippy would come chittering down and then she would be with me till my bedtime, either in lap, or in the pocket of my skirt, or on my head. I had long, thick hair then, which hung in 2 braids and the squirrel's absolutely favourite place was to climb up and sit on my head just under a braid. Chippy came with me to the dining table, in spite of my mother's grumbles. But then she too got used to it, because Chippy really was so well behaved.
Once I took Chippy to school without telling my mother. On looking back, I can't imagine how I had the guts to do that--smuggling a squirrel out of the house and into school--because I was basically very law-abiding; not at all one of those wild rebellious kinds. Anyway Chippy came with me and I hid her in my desk during each lesson period. We had those old-fashioned wooden desks with lift-up lids. I kept the lid a teeny-weeny bit open with my eraser, so that Chippy would have air. In between the lessons I let her out. For one lesson, I couldn't push her back into my desk; instead she sat quietly on my head, under my braid with only her tail hangin down. But since said tail was well hidden by my hair, we didn't get caught! It was a relief to get back home without any incident. I was heroine of the class for the day :)
I guess the fact that it was an all girls school made for the peaceful day. I bet if there had been boys in the class, some tamasha would have taken place and Chippy and I would have been caught.
One day when I returned from school, there was no Chippy. I called and called but she was nowhere to be found. The only explanation I have is that the window was open that day and either one of the cats came in and caught her, or she decided to go back to nature. But I fear it must have been the former, because otherwise I am sure Chippy would have come back to the window at least once to see me.

Sounds I loved

2008-09-22T02:18:00.000-07:00

Recently I was thinking about the sounds that I grew up with and that I had loved, while growing up--in both Bombay and Calcutta.
There were the early morning Bhajans, if you woke up early enough; there was the Muslim Call to prayer, beautiful and haunting; then, as the day went by, various vendors with such musical calls--'Appoos, appoos (Bombay during mango season); the man seliing seetmeats door--to-door, the chiudawalla (selling spicy crispies)the knife sharpening man with his humming, flying wheel; the key repair man going 'chinnkk, chinnk, chinnk' as he swung the big ring with all the keys on it; then there was the man who fluffed the cotton in one's pillows and mattresses with and instrument I don't the name of but was shaped like a big single string musical instrument. You heard the low 'boing, boing, boing' and knew who it was. Along with this was of course the ice-cream and kulfi cart. I also vaguely remember in Bombay, the gaiwalla--milkman--who came with his herd, maybe a couple of buffaloes and a cow, and stood outside folk's gates and milked the animal of choice in front of you and gave you the milk so you knew you weren't being cheated.
When I got married and came to live in Kerala I realised how much I missed these sounds. But then those sounds were replaced by the sounds of local vendors. Here, now if I get up early enough, I do sometimes get to hear the early morning prayer from the nearest temple and occasionally a very faint Muslim call to prayer in the evening. Besides, as I am working, I no longer heard the regular day sounds because I am not at home anymore at the time when the vendors go by. Ah well, time goes on and the world has changed.

2008-07-10T10:02:00.000-07:00

Recently, when tidying the topmost shelf of my cupboard, I came across a diary I had kept in 1966 (yes I still have it). It was the year I was in the 11th standard in school, the last year of school, when I did my Senior Cambridge exams.
Reading the diary brought back so many memories of school and my growing up days in Calcutta. It brought back to me so many of my favourite places --School (on Middleton Row), Oxford Book store, which was then a library too and was one of my totally fave places; my piano lessons from a little old Scottish lady, who lived in a small flat near Flury's; the antiques stores on Park Street outside which I window shopped so much; Victoria Memorial, St. Paul's Cathedral, where I sang in the choir; New Market; the Alipore Zoo, so loved, though frequently visited.
Along with these should also be added favourite foods from Cal days--pastries from Flury's; pattice, meat puffs, from Nahum's in New Market; kathi rolls outside New Market; rock candy sticks from New Market (haven't seen them anywhere else); puchhkas from the man outside school or from in front of Victoria Memorial; black salt pieces, carefully wrapped and licked surreptitiously during break; lovely Gujarati food provided by a sweet old couple in school; Kalimpong Dairy farm stuff; Chinese food from somewhere on Park Street or sometimes from Free School Street (still about the best Indian Chinese I've eaten); mishti doi, rasgullas, sandesh, from wherever (can't decide which I like more); what's more here, where I am in Kerala, it's impossible to get authentic versions of any of the above *sigh*.
I was able to go back to Calcutta quite a few times after my children were born, maybe not for the best of reasons (my eldest son used to be taken there to see an orthopaedic doctor), but I still enjoyed myself and my children also got to love some of these foods. But I haven't been for several years now--maybe around 15 years or more. I guess I should schedule a trip for myself to see what Kolkata looks like now as against my Calcutta.

2008-02-17T04:51:00.000-08:00

Unfortunately my sharpest memory of boarding school is not very pleasant. I contracted Hepatitis A in my second year there, and it was a pretty bad attack. I remember being repeatedly sick and being put in the infirmary (yes, that's what our sick room was called). The worst thing about Hep A during it's worst stages, is the total lack of interest in food and the puking! The time I got it was near Easter and my mother had ordered for a big chocolate Easter egg to be delivered to me. The sisters very kindly brought me a piece of the egg. I took a bite of it, more because my eyes were hungry, and probably brought it all up! I couldn't look at chocolate Easter eggs for quite a while.

After about 10 days there, (so it seems to me now), my mother landed up all the way from Bombay, to take care of her very sick chick. What a relief it was to see her! She promptly got permission for me to leave the hostel till the doctor certified me free of the Hep A. She then stayed with me somewhere nearby for around 2 weeks, by which time I could atleast look at food without loathing. She then brought me down to Kerala for our traditional treatment of Hep A. But by then I was rid of the Hep A virus. I went back to school around a week later.

2008-01-27T01:50:00.000-08:00

The whole boarding school way of life was still quite Brit at that time (remember it was only 13 years after Independence). I was there only for 2 years. I went in in the 4th standard(grade) and was moved to the 5th in the middle of the year (what was called a double-promotion). When I moved to the 6th it was the 1st Form(yes, as in Enid Blyton & the England of those days).
I remember among my chosen extra-curricular activities were ballet and riding. I like watching ballet and love ballet music, but I realised, pretty early, that I was too clumsy to be good at it.
But riding I loved, more because I love animals I think. We were taught on sturdy ponies, who had all been used to having green kids, try to control them. So they were very gentle. I so loved their horsey smell and the brushing them afterwards. I remember once, as a special treat, I was allowed to ride our instructor's horse, a beautiful big, black horse and the thrill of it. Incidentally, our riding instructor was an English woman, one of those who had decided to stay on. There were quite a few of them in Ooty, and the horse was her own. All the ponies were for hire from the men who kept them for tourists near Ooty Lake. Of course, after leaving Ooty there's been no chance to ride.

2008-01-23T02:10:00.000-08:00

I went off to Boarding school in Ooty when I was 8, which should make it '60 January. I can't remember the logic for being sent off to boarding school except that both my elder brothers had been in boarding school--in Ooty. There was also the fact that my mother probably found it difficult to manage the 3 of us younger children together. Anyway, whatever the reasons, I went.
I remember getting together all the requisite clothes and my mother getting name tags--my name, machine stitched on a tape roll kind of thing. It was pretty easy to get something like that done in Bombay of that time. Then my mother took me to the book store in Flora Fountain and brought me 'The Naughtiest Girl in School' by Enid Blyton and a sequel, writing on the inside cover 'I hope you won't be the naughtiest girl'. [I loved the book and the character, but I was never like the heroine, being the sort who almost always followed rules and was rebellious only in my mind!]
The next most important thing was getting one's tuck box ready. For that, one was expected to have a box, into which all the food items from home were to be packed. These were then given into the custody of the nun who was one of those associated with the dining room & kitchens. What I remember most was a raspberry shaped sweet (like the orange shaped ones), pink in colour and sour-sweet, which I loved. There were certainly some of these in the tuck box. Any medicines that were needed were also to be specified. I was, in general, a healthy 8 year old. But it was usual to be given a multi-vitamin tonic and the in one in those days was Feradol, a sort of malty concoction. In the cooler weather of Ooty it got thick and was somehow much tastier and so almost and addition to the tuck box :).
I remember the day I was to leave, all of us girls who were part of the Bombay party, had to assemble at the Villa Theresa convent and all our luggage--box of clothes, tuck box and bedroll, given to the nuns. After that we all headed for the station, where there was a whole first class carriage reserved for us. I think I was one of the very few South Indians. Most of the other girls were Parsis. Anyway, we were all asked to take our places in our assigned compartments, after saying our good byes. Now my mother, having been brought up as a good Anglican, was very stiff-upper-lip, in the old Brit style. So she shed not a tear, which made me also hold my tears in. Besides this whole 'travelling in a gang' thing was exciting. I was fine through the 3 day journey. I enjoyed every bit of it---the carriage being shunted into a lay-by at Madras station, the day trip out to Madras, the changing of trains at Mettupalayam for the small Nilgiris Blue Train, the putting on of cardigans as the weather grew cooler at the higher altitudes--were all new and interesting experiences. I didn't cry even on the first night after getting to school. What finally did me in was when after about 3 days I woke up in the night to hear one of our school nannies snoring in exactly the same tone as my mother's snore! That brought the tears in earnest and I cried enough to make up for the past week I think. I can say I settled down and was very happy. But that's not really true. I stuck it out in a fairly well adjusted manner, but I was deeply homesick. Luckily it was only for 2 years. More on that later.

2007-11-21T03:31:00.000-08:00

As I've mentioned earlier, the Bombay I grew up in was a much more laid-back city than it is now. It was also a much smaller city. In those days the Aarey Milk Colony(was what it was called) was far out of the city and we were taken there as Junior School kids, as a one day excursion out of the city!
There were more open spaces in those days. We were taken to the Malabar Hill gardens quite frequently, where there was a boot shaped slide--more like the 'Old woman who lived in a shoe' kind of thing--a boot with a roof on top. I wonder whether it is still there. Once we moved to Bandra, the Bandstand was a favourite spot for a quick visit.

Juhu beach was not the hip and happening place it is now and we went often to swim there and I think there was a club nearby which someone in the family was a member of.

There were lots of eateries we were taken to as both my parents were adventurous in their food tastes. I remember the Irani restaurants for the falooda and pattice; then there was Nanking's Chinese restaurant (the one near the Royal Yacht Club) near the Gateway of India, a regular haunt; there was Bombelli's bakery at Breach Candy (not there any more) which had the most moist chocolate pastries. Then there was the Parsi Dairy farm icecreams, hot jalebis--somewhere Worli side is what I remember faintly--bhelpuri around the Breach Candy area, absolutely delicious Kala jamuns and rosogollas which were brought to the house in big clay pots (absolutely unthinkable now I'm sure), gingerale and some other fizzy soft drink, all inextricably linked to my memories of Bombay.
Of course now Bombay has more than enough famous eateries and the bhelpuri and hot jalebis are available in so many places. But I promise you that those absolutely black and sweet gulab/kala jamuns were to die for and I've never had stuff like that afterwards.

2007-11-06T01:37:00.000-08:00

I haven't posted here in a long time. Somehow the memories didn't seem so important and my words not at all compelling!
There is one more memory from that childhood visit to my aunt's farm, which shocked and upset me then. That was my first instance of seeing untouchability at close quarters (or at least my first clear memory). The fields were being harvested and the rice fields were full of workers. At that time they too were fed by the house. So, at noon, I saw them all sitting down in a long line in the front yard away from the house. As I watched, each of the people sitting on the ground made a hole in the ground in front of them (this was in the Mavelikara side of Kerala, where the topsoil is almost like sea sand). Then the holes were lined with leaves and they were then served with 'kanji'--rice gruel into these holes, which they ate with spoons made from folded jackfruit leaves. I was really upset. I remember asking my aunt why they had to eat like that, why did they not have some vessel to have the 'kanji' in. She explained to me that they were from the lowest castes and could not be given food in our vessels.
I am really glad to say that that was the last time I saw anything like that. This would have been in the early '50s. After that I must say Kerala progressed rapidly. Elected Communist governments certainly improved the lot of people a great deal, bringing in education for all and really helping the lower castes feel a sense of pride in themselves and a sense of hope for the future. Now, belonging to the Backward classes is not something to be hidden because of all the benefits, chief of which is reservation of course. Now, each caste works hard to get the 'backward' tag attached! What a change!!

2007-10-07T09:07:00.000-07:00

I'm going to be 56 tomorrow. Most of the time the inner me doesn't remember that. But of course in the outer me there's no getting away from that!

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Listening to: You're listening to Jazz from www.Batanga.com. The Best in Latin Music.
via FoxyTunes

2007-09-18T02:58:00.000-07:00

There are so many wonderful memories of the time I spent in Kerala at that time, enough for a huge number of posts.
One of the memories is connected with one of the cows. There were a number of cows there. As I've always loved animals, I hung around, when they were being milked, when they were taken being untied to be led out to the fields and when they were led back to their shed. I loved the smell of the cows and the hay(which is dry rice stalks here).
One day one of the cows was being delivered of a calf. I remember her as a big black cow. Naturally I wanted to see. I was in time to watch the calf being wiped down and the cow standing up to lick her. Oh how cute the calf was. It stood up on it's wobbly legs and took a step towards me. I was thrilled. Just then my aunt called me. So I very merrily turned round to go back to the kitchen verandah. The calf--probably because I was the first living thing he/she had seen, started following me. The cow took one look and decided that her calf was being stolen. She charged after the both of us--calf and me, be mooing loudly. I ran for my life--5 yr old me--and cleared the verandah steps in one jump, by which time someone came and caught the cow! But I must confess that as the memory is dredged up, I remember being scared, but more excited by the thought that the calf followed me!

2007-09-07T11:21:00.000-07:00

After my sister was born, maybe around 3 or 4 months later--I don't really remember, I was sent off to Kerala. I must have been there for around 2months at least. My time there was divided between staying with my mother's elder sister at a farm near Mavelikara, and my father's sister's house in Tiruvella. My mother told me later it was because that with two younger ones after me, she felt she couldn't give me enough attention and so sent me off. Besides, I was generally friendly and so didn't have too much of a hassle going to new places to stay.
Whatever the reason, I had a thoroughly enjoyable time staying with my aunts.
More on that later.

2007-09-01T01:40:00.000-07:00

I remember the day my sister was born (or it may have been while my mother was in hospital with her). That was in Jan 1956. As my mother was in hospital, only my father was there to take us to hospital. I guess he must have got my little brother ready too. But what I remember was that after I had got my dress on, my dad combed my hair. Normally, I had a side parting (pic. in earlier post). My father just combed all my hair back and I remember protesting vigorously, telling him that girls did not have their hair combed that way. He told me that that's the only way he knew how to do it and that I could have my hair combed the way I wanted when my mum came back from the hospital!
As soon as we reached the hospital, I didn't even look at the baby, but ran straight to my mother and told her that Dad had no idea how to comb hair. I was so upset that my hair had been combed like a boy's :) How my mother laughed.
I was almost 4 1/2 then.

2007-08-21T01:38:00.000-07:00

The Bandra house was situated opposite the tiny, quaint, St. Stephen's church on Mt. Mary Rd. The grounds of the house covered almost an acre. [Today there are 3 flats there :(]
Our neighbours who lived downstairs and we, were supposed to share the garden My mother had a gardener and laid out flower beds & I vaguely remember a lawn. I remember one time my mother even planted cassava(kappa) which she brought from Kerala.
It was certainly heavenly for us small children, there was so much place to play. The downstairs people had a boy around our age, who went to the same school too. So we were always playing, my younger brother, B from downstairs and me. My kid sister was just a baby after all. I can't find any pictures of the garden there, though I know there was one. You'll have to take my word for it I guess :)

2007-08-17T04:29:00.000-07:00

This is a picture of the terrace outside the 'ballroom' of the Bandra home. The whole floor was decorated with an old-fashioned mosaic design, where the small pieces were all from broken pieces of china. I remember the pattern vaguely as white and a dark greeny blue. It was really pretty.

2007-08-06T10:43:00.000-07:00

By the time I was 4, we moved to Bandra to Mount Mary Hill. Since we lived there for 5 years, the memories are very clear, apart from the fact that there were lots of pictures taken by my mother's younger sister.
It was a huge place. I remember going to see it on a dark evening, climbing up the wooden stairs and walking into this huge room, which was to serve as our company room. My mother was very pregnant at that time with my younger sister and had to waddle up the stairs. But she liked the place mainly because there was a huge ground and a lovely terrace for us children. It was actually one of those old Brit mansions. The actual sitting room and dining room and two bedrooms were downstairs. There was a side door out of that sitting room which lead up these wooden stairs to the ballroom, I kid you not! It was just like one imagined a ballroom to be from books I've read since. There were around 4 or 5 doors leading out onto the landing and 3 doors to the terrace. My mother told me fairly recently (before she died), that the landlord had wanted them to take the whole house. But she apparently said she was just not prepared to look after such a huge place. So we took only the top floor and somebody else took the ground floor.
So then we had this huge room which my mother had a hard time filling up, just 2 bedrooms and an enclosed verandah at the back, which we used as the dining room. That front room was so big my kid brother learned how to bicycle in that room!
Here is an edited picture from that time--
Those are just 2 of the four doors. You can get an idea of the place I think.
I'll post more pictures and more about the house in another post.

2007-08-03T09:14:00.000-07:00

Pixelchick asks what my first memory was. Well I thought I'd do a little post on that. My earliest memory is a happy memory. I remember the flat and my high chair at the dining table and a cornflour pudding in the shape of a pink rabbit, waiting for me. I didn't like drinking milk and so my mother made these for me most days. We used to get Brown and Polson's custard powder in various colours and flavours. So my mother used to make one for me for tea and I remember the pink rabbit so well. This is somewhat like that except this is jelly.

Another memory from those times was not so nice. I used to go from school to a much older married cousin's house and be there for a while till I went home. Well, one day, while my cousin was sleeping and his wife was looking after me, I drew coloured pictures all over a wall of theirs!. They were a newly married couple then and the poor wife was horrified and told her husband the minute he woke up. He growled at me for his wife's sake and that was all. But I remember the terrified feeling, wondering whether I would get a spank or get shouted at.
Both these memories are from before I was 4 (I think).

1953-'55

2007-07-20T02:36:00.000-07:00

I was born in Bombay, the Bombay Salman Rushdie writes about in Midnight's children (which was what so attracted me in the book).
My earliest memory is living in a flat, which I'm told was called Ben Nevis, somewhere near Kemp's corner. I still have hazy memories of verandahs facing the sea and the sound of the sea. I'm told we stayed there from when I was around 2 till I was 4.
My younger brother must have been around(there is only 20 months difference between us), but I can't remember him, though I do remember going to a nursery school nearby--Villa Theresa apparently. As I can remember, I enjoyed school.
The Bombay skyline of that time was already mostly flats--particularly in that area. But life was far less frenetic than today. The skyline in that area has certainly changed a great deal, but has retained enough of the old to give me a faint sense of familiarity when I visited after many years. I loved being a Bombayite!
This was very much a part of the skyline in my growing up days--gracious Bombay

2007-07-04T09:31:00.000-07:00

still being created! This is to be started after my children leave.