Growing up in Kolkata

I thought it would be easy to write about my growing up years in Kolkata, but seems not. For a long time, now I don’t remember how long, after I got married and moved to Mumbai I kept defending Kolkata in any discussion vis a vis Mumbai. Mumbaites, have no patience for a city like Kolkata. They think it’s a dirty city, Kolkata people are lazy, nobody is bothered about any progress there, the traffic is crazy and the only thing the calcuttans are good at is endless talking/gossiping (adda in Bengali) and drinking tea. Now it has been more than twelve years since I moved out of Kolkata, so my love for my home city is not as clouded as it was back then. It is easier for me to accept the facts that yes, there are problems, but still nothing takes away the charm of Kolkata, despite all its flaws. The language itself is a charmer. Robindro Songeet playing at traffic signal makes you sing even when you are having a bad day. When a shopkeeper who is much older than you addresses you – “ Ma aar kichu chayi” ( meaning- mother do u want anything more) , it makes you feel so very loved. When we were growing up in Kolkata thirty years back, the city had a different charm. How in one word a Bengali can address you as a Mother and a daughter at the same time is still a mystery to me. During Durga Puja, the city reverberates with the sound of dhak (loud drums) and Anjali (ritual of worshipping Goddess Durga with Sanskrit chantings)  in the morning. Everybody dresses up in their new clothes and only one question is asked by every child and teenager- Pujoye koto jama holo- meaning how many dresses did you get for this festival. The mashis, pishis, ma, baba, dida, jethu, kaku, even khurtoto mashis, shower their young nieces and nephews with dresses. A Bengali looks forward to Durga Puja the whole year and rightfully so. The six days in the city from (Panchami to doshomi), are only for fun and festivities. The whole city comes to a standstill till doshomi, which is usually the visarjan (immersion of the huge Durga idols) day.

I grew up in a very typical Bengali middle class para (locality), in south Calcutta, where ours was the only Marwari family. My younger sister learnt to talk in Bengali first; she picked up Hindi, our own mother tongue, only after she started school. We lived in a two storied building in which the ground floor was occupied by a Bengali family and the first and second floors were occupied by us.

We used to call the lady of the house “ Boro Ma” means the eldest mother and her husband as “Jethu”, means the elder brother of my father. I don’t know how these relationships started and formed but I fondly remember boro ma. She had the white European skin, very smooth, absolutely blemish free, and the softest and the gentlest possible touch and voice. Their household comprised of herself, Jethu, their two sons (Bor da and Chor da), her two-widowed sister in laws and two young girls. We used to address her sis in laws as Mej di means the middle one and Shej di means the one before the youngest. The two young girls – Dalia and Shoheli – were the daughters of Jethu’s elder brother who lived in the ancestral village, and the girls had come to Kolkata to study and make something out of their life. These girls were older to my sis, and me but still we became friends. We spent many afternoons in boroma’s house playing carom, Chinese checkers, reading or just generally sitting with them and then playing badminton outdoors with the girls. My mom somehow was always busy in the kitchen and Dad was never around during playtimes. But boro ma and jethu, mej di, shej di were always there to play with us and talk to us. The upcoming metro train in Kolkata resulting in his untimely retirement had gobbled Jethu’s shop up. I guess that’s the reason he was always around in the house. The family was meeting its expenses with the money they got as compensation from the government for the shop, waiting for the sons to finish their education and start earning. Despite all the hardships, which the family, must have went through, I don’t remember a single moment in their house, when I felt something was lacking. If we were around their house, during evening tea time, we were offered whatever everybody was having- mostly it was either muri (puffed rice grains) or roasted pea nuts …yummy I can still smell them.freshly roasted by boroma, or alur chop (fried potato stuffed hot snack- very typical Kolkata street food) from a nearby shop. This meant apart from their own family of four members, extended family of four more members, there were two of us my sister, that boro ma used to share her food with.

I understand all this today, never could guage anything back then. Just enjoyed the bounties they had to offer. Whenever I used to get some books from the school as prize for doing well, it was Jethu who appreciated those books and read them and re read them, making his own notes.