Where Have They Gone?

Believe it or not , each of us are riding on our private space shuttles. Sometimes we embrace change to avoid unpleasant memories or leave behind unworthy opponents. We spearhead into another dimension, erasing habits, cruising along the bylanes of ‘happy times’ trying to make a forever stop. As we move from experience to circumstance to phenomena there are some artifacts which get left behind, which history stops producing and we stop consuming and this blog is dedicated to those lost crafts.

The Dooley: In Anglo Indian houses , in times before the refrigerator became a necessity, there lived a small wooden cupboard with a netted front. This was called the Dooley or meat-safe. The Dooley was a cool dark fragrant cupboard, which nurtured in it’s recesses, left over meat curries , sambol, tomato rice and Christmas cake . No one quite knew the science behind the Dooley or how it kept Christmas cakes from spoiling from December to March. It was store crafted by the ‘hand of god’ and many grandmothers and grace said, we left it at that. Goodbye Mysterious Dooley..the flies have flown to Canada.

The Round Oven: In little cantonment towns , thirty years ago there lived a small steel round oven with a black coil which shuddered and sparked and sometimes sang ‘ping’ when it got too hot. These towns were home to army colonies, forest rangers , mining engineers, and were also known as temporary posting sites. In these sleepy little nooks where life revolved around the mines or the dam or the army, the local excitement was provided by the monthly trip to the ‘nearest big city’ and afternoons spent in competitive baking. Pies, cakes, biscuits, breads and toasties were manufactured in those little tin ovens marking the ‘true colony wife and mother’ from the ‘ just landed new-bees’. Goodbye Round Oven…Your coil is going to remain forever unchanged.

The Aalna: The clotheshorse or aalna has become a ‘curiosity piece ‘in heritage hotels. Yet in a time not so long ago, there lived in the red tiled, flowered patterned corridors of old Calcutta, the mighty Aalna. An aalna was truly an essential piece of furniture in a tropical land. It had a wooden frame with two beautifully carved side stands which held twelve rods between them. You took off your once worn cottons , drenched with the afternoon sun, spread them across the aalna to dry, sprinkled some talcum powder on it , switched the fan on and let it be. You bought time for yourself, you could stare at the aalna, and contemplate on the dirt quotient of your clothes, without them getting in everyone’s way. You could decide if you should iron them out and wear them once more or did they need to go into the wash a.s.a.p. Nowadays, the choice does not exist. OCD freaks like me possess a bunch of faded clothes since everything goes into the washing machine after a one time wear. Or you spend your time sniffing naphthalene and day before yesterday’s perfume on people with bright clothes.( It went straight into the cupboard)Goodbye Aalna..you are sorely missed.

The electric water heating rod: In cold, paying guest accommodations across campus towns there lived a wicked, heating rod with an evil temperament. In Hudson Lines, North Campus, PG’s were treated worse than dung beetles. They had no coolers, no working kitchens, no dignity and no company after ten, when uncle ji locked the gates. In this waste land, the only kicks one got was from using that little bit more electricity, without informing the landlord. To stay alive in the cold Delhi winter, students would hide electric heating rods under clothes and behind books. The rod would be attached to a bucket and it was a mean ingrate. It would give us shocks so that we sported permed frizzy hair , burnt our buckets, tripped the electricity and got us caught. I for one, am very happy that the electric water heating rod is no longer a part of my life. Goodbye and good riddance!

The Sataranchi: Parents of the seventies did not have ‘Little Champs’ and ‘ Voice of Young India’ to indulge in, so a whole lot of us were chased off to learn classical dancing on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Friday’s . An important part of the Indian classical dance training experience was the ‘on the deathbed’ guruji, with absolutely no teeth but enough spirit in his bones, to whack you on your legs whenever you bungled a move. This cadaverous old gentlemen would be seated on a sataranchi, which looked like the illegitimate union between a wooden platform and a bed. There would also be a disinterested ‘tabalchi’ seated beside him, keeping lack lustre rhythm and looking out of the window. The guriji would more than make up for the tabalchi’s lack of interest, by keeping his own beat. He would hurl the child beating baton against the sataranchi beating out ' dha dhin dhin da' ( if it was a monday it would be kathak) or ' talanku jhum'(if it was a wednesday it would be bharat natyam), as the occasion demanded.
Who knows if in some small dancing school in the middle of a market , a podgy little cross eyed child is still trying to measure her footsteps to the ‘na thin thin tha’ of a beaten sataranchi?

The Festival Of Food

Come October, nostalgia fills the air. Airports get clogged as the 'last minute Kolkattan' rushes back home to participate in the Durga Pujo binging . In little and large corners across the world, pockets of Bengalis gather, get organised and chomp their way across 'cultural programs' and ' Kabiraji cutkets' , the focal point of all pujo celebrations.The important questions which dot the day are- 'Which artist is coming?' ' When is the Sit and Draw competition', ' Did we finally get that biryani stall we wanted?'

While the rest of India, goes into a nine day fast, the Calcuttan goes into a 5 day hyper-food festival mode, with 'Silly Chicken' and 'Moten Biryani'. Continuous feasting without fasting. The best thing about the Pujos though, are that they are completely divorced from religion. Growing up, it was as much a part of Indrani Chakraborty's social calendar as Elina Da Silva's or Nitasha Islam's. We didn't grow up thinking we had different gods, just specific cuisine occasions. Come Id , we would line up outside Nitasha's or Shabnam's door, come Christmas the good Brahmins would sit on the overstuffed sofa tucking into the 'beef vindaloos.'

So come October, no matter how far we are from the many miked lanes of old Kolkata and the lights which showcase the political satire of the day, if we want ,we always have a way back in. You may be crossing a Manhattan street, or nurturing a Soho beer, you may be picking mangoes in Darwin, or freezing your little bits off in Toronto. You may be eating idlis in Bengaluru or commuting in a matro between Gurgaon and Dilli. Come October, all you need to do is close your eyes, and connect with the memory of the dhak ...and suddenly you are enveloped in a circus of senses...fragrant arati , women dancing, the lingering taste of ashtami mutton, a hot kolkata evening and a gorgeous mother, who only comes visiting once a year :)

Shubho Bijoya everyone and much love