Rath...

After two weeks of continuous sunshine and summer heat, it rained  today, bringing the temperature down considerably. The day dawned cloudy, with big dark grey clouds crowding the sky, reminding me of monsoon back home.  It started pouring buckets, the parched soil of Oxford soaked up the water gratefully and the trees are back in their green glory. They no longer look tired and yellow, wilting  under the relentless heat of the sun.

A message in my inbox informed me that it is Ratha Jatra today. Ratha Jatra is the Hindu celebration when the three deity siblings Jaganath, Balaram and Subhadra get up on a magnificent chariot and go off for their annual visit to their aunt's house. The celebration originated in the Jaganath temple of Puri but spread in the rest of India as well. If you want to know more, you could check this out.

To come back to the weather, one of the folklores that I grew up with is that it always rains on the day of rath. I remember as a kid cuddling upto my mother as she read me poems from Rabindranath Tagore's Sishu. There were many a poem on rath and the rain associated with rath.

Today  in this far away land, watching the rains those far away memories floated back.

I remember childhood days when we never had any school holidays for rath. So throughout the day in school there was heavy anticipation. We would all be busy planning how to decorate the rath we would be pulling in the evening. Yes each child in Kolkata during my childhood days were given a  small chariot to decorate and pull. And if we were really lucky we would even get to buy a brand new one, specially if the old one had disintegrated. I remember more than the pujo it was the chariot pulling which generated all the excitement.

These chariots were made of plywood, loosely nailed together and brightly coloured. They disintegrated really easily too. They came in various sizes, with first, second and third and sometimes fourth levels. So there used to be an inherent competition about the length of our chariots. The most magnificent ones were the three storied ones.

So after school we would decorate the chariots with colourful papers, glitters, flowers and leaves, put in  Jaganath, Balaram and Subhadra idols, a small plate with a sweet (prasad), an incense stand with a couple of incense sticks burning (much to the horror of elders and the incessant warnings) and after a round of the house [sometimes a pround grandma would put in an one rupee coin as dakhina (offering to the God)].  I remember my father coming home early to help me with my rath. As a youngster memories of me jumping up and down with joy and not being much help in decorating the rath is still there.  After a round of the house, it was time to make a round of the neighbourhood lane and the serious business of showing off the rath to the neighbourhood children and inspecting theirs. In my case it was our compound.  Kids from other houses would also come out with their chariots and after a couple of rounds of dragging the chariots with strings (which because of its lightweight would keep tripping/falling, or the idols would fall face down or the incense stand would stumble) we would offer the prasad to each other and then return home in glory. Next day in school we would all be agog with stories of how magnificent our raths were.

The rath with all the decorations would stay for 7 days, because that is the number of days these Gods would spend in their aunt's house. Then on the 8th day it was the ulto rath (return journey). Ulto rath was not that exciting, so we would do one quick round and then dismantle the rath and keep it safe for next year.

Apart from this, another attraction of rath was the food. Papar bhaja (poppadam) and suji ir halua (suji ka halwa) were must for rath. Also in Rashbehari there used to be a rath er mela (fair in celebration of rath). Among other things I remember the huge papor bhajas (they used to have huge speciality popadams) and also the nurseries. Since July is serious monsoon time in India with a lot of planting happening, these fairs would have huge nurseries selling all kinds of plants. How green and vibrant those plants looked to my young eyes.

I do not remember when I stopped getting excited about rath. Somewhere around teenage I guess.  But the younger memories are vibrant enough to last forever.

Looking back...

Now that I have again developed the habit of not being to sleep at night, my favourite way to spend nights is to watch the railtracks and listen to my husband's ipod. Lately I have been listening a lot to Ajan Datta.

His music is as fresh as ever. I am listening to him after a long time. His music takes me back all the way to my city Kolkata, to the old days, to the happiness, the sadness, the growing up. Now when all those memories come flocking back, I smile to myself. Its been a long journey and when I look back I don't think I would want to change one single thing.

On a completely unrelated track spent a very nice evening. We went to listen to a symphony, it was sold out, so went with a friend to his college bar, had some yummy cocktails at really subsidised rates and sat in his common room which we had all to ourselves. I am going to miss Oxford and its various colleges when I leave.

Tomorrow we are planning to go for a picnic and our usual Sunday walk, weather permitting.

Have a happy Sunday.

Full moon, Kojagori Lokkhi Pujo....

Today is full moon. As I sit writing this, from my window I can see the full moon slowly rising in the dusky sky.

One significance of this full moon night is that some Bengalis worship Goddess Lakkhi on this day. It is generally said that Bengalis from East Bengal do this, more so they offer ilish maach (hilsa fish) to the goddess. But my father's side of the family in spite being staunchly from the western side of Bengal perform this pujo (praying ceremony). This full moon day in Bengali calender is called kojagori lokkhi pujo.

In my family the pujo is held in the evening when the moon is shinning brightly in its full glory. For this particular pujo, there is no idol, rather a kunke which is an old bowl like thing made of mixed metals like bronze, silver etc and has intricate designs. Years ago during zamindari system or maybe even before this it was used to measure grain. It is kind of a family heirloom. Since lokkhi or lakshmi is the goddess of wealth hence worshipping this kukne. The ceremony is usually brief.

What used to be fun was the dinner that my mother usually prepared. It used to be a vegetarian meal with luchi, aloor dom, cholar dal, begun bhaja, dhoka, phul kopir torkari and usually payash for dessert. I am almost salivating thinking about those goodies. My mother is sure to make all of these dishes today, though with the family dispersing the dinner has become less fussier. I can almost see my mother standing in her kitchen frying luchis, while the aloor dom shimmers in a pot next to her, in between the luchis she would check the aloo, instruct the maid to taste the payash after she finished chopping the brinjal for begun bhaja. The dinner used to be a big thing in our house once. As a kid I remember all my dadus (grandfathers), uncles, aunts, cousins gather in our house, since our thakur ghor (worship room) was very small most of us would spill in the terrace. Some of us would play hide and seek while the elders used to laugh and joke, some one would start singing some rabindrasangeet being inspired by the full moon. After the pujo there would be prasaad (sweets and fruits which are offered to the goddess is usually eaten in a Hindu home by the everyone after the ceremony gets over) distribution and then finally dinner.

I wish I had some photographs to show, let me see if I can find some old ones.
Enjoy the full moon folks, I sure am while the Oxford moon plays hide seek with the clouds!

Passing away....

Today heard that an old school friend has passed away last week. We had lost touch some 10/12 years back, then thanks to orkut we got in touch again. Heard that he was sick, had a kidney transplant....finally that he has passed away.
Cant seem to get his face out of my mind....Arnab the guy I knew in school....the shy grin, the slight stutter...the dreams...till last week he was one of us....today he is no more....maybe he is somewhere high up, grinning his shy grin at all of us....how fragile life is....

Just like that....

They say with each passing days incidents which are part of our lives become memories, then time dims them, ultimately they get pushed to the furthest corners of our brain to stay there till something triggers them back to the forefront of our consciousness.

This makes me compare memories with a trunk full of old clothes. I am sure you all have had experiences of sitting with your mothers, while they pulled out old trunks and then shook out old clothes smelling strongly of moth balls and faintly of some old forgotten perfume. I remember as a child I used to be facinated by old trunks-- they were synonymous to mystery, great excitement and unrevelaed treasure. If in the process I got sprayed with the accumulated dust from the piece of cloth which wrapped the trunk so be it. Not being afraid of lizards and cockroaches, a couple of their carcases or eggs never bothered me much. I loved it more when either of my parents explained in details each item that came out of the trunk--like this trunk was part of your grandmother's wedding trousseau, the fancy dark blue velvet blouse with beadwork was your grandmother's favourite one, it was done by Meher Ali who had a tailoring shop in New Market, she had a matching sari to wear this with, (it as a very memshahebi thing to possess and wear and was consiedered to be very fasionable at that time), an old dairy whose pages have become brittle and the ink has become faded, an old dry leaf used as a page mark, a fountain pen which someone had got my grandfather from Britain, an old cookie tin filled with stamps...a beautiful lady's evening purse and some beautifully embrodiered handkerchifs....a jwellery box stuffed with trinkets and stones which must have come undone from some necklace or some other piece of jwellery....I remember being awestruck with each item that came out....touch them lightly so that they do not dissolve into a thousand pieces...my imagination would take a flying leap....I would be transported to a time when my long dead grandmother was just a young girl. I have heard that she was married at the age of 16 which was quiet an age considering the time. I would start pestering my father with loads of questions like "did women during that time go out to shop like we do?"...."No"....my father would patiently explain, " all the trades people used to come to their home...they would be downstairs while the women would assmble in the first floor veranda and throw a rope down. The traders would tie their merchandise to these and then a servant would pull the rope up."... This seemed very limited way of shopping to me, but how can you be satisfied with seeing just a few of whatever you want to buy....my young brain rebelled at the thought to not being able to walk into a shop and choose. To explain the restriction my father would launch into a socio cultural sketch of the time. Then my mother would come and chip in with stories of her family's shopping. It seemed like most of the shopping was done by men at that time, or traders came home. This seemed very very unsatisfactory to me. Looking back at those time I smile at my naivitee and am so thankful for having been born in the present.

School Reunion

We have this group of friends who have barely managed to hold onto each other since school. In this group most of us know each other since we were three years old. While in school we were not necessarily best of friends, but over the years somehow the bond strenghtened. I remember the first time we had consciously gone out as a group must have been when we were in class vi or vii during pujo. The regular meeting point was Anondomela in Gariahat. Oveer the years the group had been really fluid, people came and left depending on their convinience. During the school years the strenght would be twenty odd, after school the number lessened and came down to thirteen/ fourteen. After school, we became much more regular in meeting, we would meet in someone's house, spend the whole day together, pull each others' legs and have a lot of fun.

Then a time came for dispersal, some friends left Kolkata, me included, some got married and some got busy with careers. Our meetings decreased substantially. Even though not meeting regularly, some of us would be constantly in touch, while the rest would be intermittently in touch. Some would just read the emails but never reply back. Some of us would meet when possible. In the meantime most of us got married and settled down. Some we lost trace of, and are trying to establish contact.

Now thanks to orkut, most of us are back in touch. Lots of other school friends are also back in touch. Since this group was always fluid to begin with, chances of expanding this group always remains. But the old veterans always refer the old and restricted composition. These are the bunch of friends who we feel most comfortable with. You can just relax and be yourself and have loads of fun in the process.

Some of us met suddenly a few days back. It was like revisiting the good old school days.