After 19 months of facing the virus in India, I realized that apart from my 'blog posts', even my stray thoughts on social media have somewhere unwittingly added up to a COVID DIARY of sorts. Quite a few are reflections on/about my daughter, who has been my only constant companion through this period. The rest charts the covid-graph in my life & mind. Thought of collating it for this month's post for AE.
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We had met as mothers, recently, at a Birthday party hosted by a mutual friend. Predictably, our conversation primarily centered round the children - of very different sizes - milling around us and what a challenge online schooling has been for all concerned. We had so much to rant that we almost forgot to talk about ourselves... until dinner was served. A wonderful, home-cooked chicken and fried rice with a salad.
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Ignore the chipped nails, please! Notice, instead, the middle finger... do you see something? I am not sure whether it has come out in the photo, but it is very much there, I can assure you... a slight protrusion, just below the rim of the nail, on the left side of the finger. It used to be a solid tiny ball of swollen flesh once, with distended skin, abrasive to the touch. A gift from Exams taken 25/30 years ago.
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I miss Srishti!In my mind, these quotes belong together.
I was emotionally mature and schooled enough in sorrow to understand the truth of Hardy's statement even in my early youth. Successive decades have only proved its veracity to me in ever new ways.
I was emotionally mature and schooled enough in sorrow to understand the truth of Hardy's statement even in my early youth. Successive decades have only proved its veracity to me in ever new ways.
I miss Srishti!
It's exactly 3 weeks that she has been away from me, staying with her dad & his parents. And it will be almost another 2 before she can return. A whole month (or more)!
Reason? I tested covid positive 3 weeks back & got admitted in a nursing home the day after - thanks to my wonderful doctor-friend, Saurabh Basu. I returned after 12 days. But just 2 days later, my father tested positive.
"Mama for this month's post my paintings ok?" I got this sudden WhatsApp text one evening, earlier this month. It was sent from my dad's phone. The sender was in the drawing room and I was in the bedroom - a mighty distance of ----- meters separating us!
This is her latest excitement: sending me texts from a different room, using Baba's phone - "I am hungry"; "When will you have your tea"?; "How am I looking here (in a selfie)"?
"Mama for this month's post my paintings ok?" I got this sudden WhatsApp text one evening, earlier this month. It was sent from my dad's phone. The sender was in the drawing room and I was in the bedroom - a mighty distance of ----- meters separating us!
This is her latest excitement: sending me texts from a different room, using Baba's phone - "I am hungry"; "When will you have your tea"?; "How am I looking here (in a selfie)"?
Corona + Amphan is the worst double whammy one can think of - and we are facing that at the moment. By “we”, I mean Bangladesh and two eastern states of India – Orissa and West Bengal. Cyclone Amphan hit us on 20th May. Last year, a similar cyclone - Fani - had hit the coastal belt lining the Bay of Bengal in early May. It coincided with my daughter Srishti’s Birthday - so, the small party I’d arranged at home for her had to be cancelled. This year, a day after Amphan, with no internet, we could barely wish our niece in Hyderabad on her Birthday. While the ISD call did connect, all that could be heard from the other side were garbled voices… but at least, we could shout out a “Happy Birthday”!
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I’m writing this post to motivate myself to finish the reading list I have for the quarantine. In the very limited time that I have at my disposal (yes: my problem - as I’ve already written in my personal blog earlier this month - is not a surfeit of time, but a lack of it), I have had to choose between reading and writing; and in the last couple of weeks, I’ve prioritized writing. That, too, hasn’t happened much, but even that wouldn’t have happened if I’d read more. But I so want to read more…!I’m not “catching up” with books – with the latest titles, etc. I’m just reading what I’ve wanted to for a while now, but haven’t had a chance.
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When she went to her weekly ballet class on Saturday, 14th March, Srishti had no idea that her normal school routine was about to change drastically. On Saturday, 15th March, the West Bengal State Government declared suspension of all classes and exams in all educational institutions of the state till 31st March – to combat the spread of the COVID-19 virus. I broke the news to Srishti only on Sunday night. She gave me a quizzical look… but thankfully was very sleepy and didn’t proceed to ask any question.
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My writing is born of fear, the fear of failure – always palpable, always present.
From 2005-2020, these have been my fears:
My first work of fiction - GariahatJunction, a collection of short stories - is just out! Published by Kitaab International (Singapore), it is available online on Flipkart (within India) & on Kitaabstore for global customers. Sharing a bit of the book here...!
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Christmas is here. This year, as I geared up for the occasion - especially the ritual of decorating the Christmas tree with my daughter - I couldn’t help but think back to my girlhood. Studying in a Catholic convent as I did, Christmas was an eagerly awaited time of the year and undoubtedly the highlight of the winter season for us in school.
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2019 has been a well-read, well-reviewed year for me. Actually, half-year. For most of the books that I read/reviewed happened between the Bengali New Year (Nabo Borsho) in April and the biggest Bengali festival (Durga Puja) in October. They are Bengali markers in an English calendar simply because the first and last books I read – by some chance – coincided with the Bengali festivals.
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I have just started working in a private college in Kolkata; and among my teaching assignments this semester, my favourite is an essay by F. Scott Fitzgerald: The Crack-up. Written for the magazine ‘Esquire’ for their three consecutive issues of February, March and April 1936, this piece is one of the finest examples of the ‘personal essay’ – bold (for its time, in that the author chose to write about his breakdown at all ), insightful and moving. In writing about his crack-up, Fitzgerald gives us the highlights of his biography – but he does not give away names and years (that homework is meant for the reader), and very interestingly, actually conceals as much as he reveals.
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It is that time of the year again - when Ma Durga comes visiting with her four children (Lakshmi, Saraswati, Ganesh and Kartik) to her natal home down in the plains, leaving her husband's (Lord Shiva) abode in the Himalayas for ten days. It is a Hindu festival, particularly special to Bengalis, who celebrate it unfailingly wherever in the world they may be. However, nothing can match the native celebration in Bengal, especially in the city of Kolkata.
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My mother, the closet writer, has come out at last!
At 70, she has published her first book of fiction in Bangla – “Mukh-Michhil” (A Procession of Faces). It is a collection of 45 short-shorts (or ‘Anu-golpo’, as they are called in Bangla). Initially inspired by the popular Bengali writer Banaphool’s ‘Natun Golpo’ in the late 1970s, she has been writing off and on in this genre ever since.
In 2017, I relocated back to my home city, Kolkata (capital of the Indian state of West Bengal) after a decade of living and working in the Netherlands. Both the city and I have changed irrevocably in the intervening time – hence, I find myself in something like a new relationship with an old lover! While I have taken most of what this new ‘relationship status’ entails in my stride, some aspects are difficult to accept. A reduced respect for diversity (both in the city and the state) is one of them.
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