When the shiuli flowers...

It's time to celebrate the Goddess once again

 

A few months ago, I paid a visit to my favourite nursery in Delhi to pick up some plants for my balcony. Walking through the rows of spring blooms, I came across a plant that looked very familiar indeed. “Yeh shiuli hai, na?” I asked the gardener who was assisting me. “Nahin madam,” he said, shaking his head. “Isko parijaat kehte hain.” I was unconvinced by this explanation. So, I took a picture and uploaded it into an app that helps identify plants. And what do you know? Both of us were right. This plant is called parijaat in north India; but in east India (where I grew up) it is called shiuli. 

 

As a child growing up in Calcutta, I was always told that the shiuli plant was very auspicious because its flowering – which happens only once a year – heralds the beginning of the Pujo season. Every October, without fail, the white and orange blooms of the shiuli tree burst forth, reminding us that the Goddess Durga is on her way and will soon be among us. These teeny-tiny flowers fall from the shiuli tree every night, carpeting the floor and exuding a heavenly fragrance that I have always associated with Pujo festivities.

 

So, even though the parijaat/shiuli available in the nursery were just small potted plants, I decided to take a couple home with me. In a couple of years, I thought to myself, they would grow strong and high and maybe, in time, they would start to flower and remind me of those heady pre-Pujo evenings I remembered from my days in Cal. So, I transplanted them into roomy pots and resigned myself to a long wait.

 

Well, guess what? Just a few months down the line, as October began to rear its head, these small little bushes that I had been watering faithfully began to throw up little buds on their branches. And in a week or so, my plants were redolent with the shiuli blossoms, exuding their trademark perfume and putting me in the right Pujo spirit. Sure, the flowers were tinier than I remembered from the tree in Calcutta, and they wilted far sooner, but for a little baby plant, my shiuli was doing very well in its role as a harbinger of the Goddess.  

 

But while this gladdened my heart, injecting it with a dose of rose-tinted nostalgia for the Durga Pujos past that I had celebrated in the city of my birth, it also left me a little bit sad. And that’s because this year, Pujo will not have the same resonance in Calcutta. By all accounts, everyone is still shattered by the R.G. Kar rape case, and the Pujo spirit has been diluted with both anger and sadness.

 

And while I know that it will be hard to enjoy the festivities quite as we did in the years gone by, the flowering of the shiuli reminded me that the Goddess will keep her appointment with us this Pujo as well. Now, it is up to us to give her the kind of welcome she deserves and to pray that her avenging spirit does right by the young doctor who has, so far, been failed by the system.

 

'Tis the season

Every city has a time when it shines brightest -- and that's the best time to visit

Cities have their good and bad days just as they have their good and bad seasons. And the best way to get the most of your visits is to choose a time when their good days and good seasons coalesce to make for a fabulous experience. 

For instance, you can’t go wrong visiting Calcutta — as I still refer to it, having grown up there — during Durga Puja. There is a particular magic in the air during the Puja season and you can’t help being infected by it. The entire city is shimmering with lights; walking through the streets is to be left awestruck by the inventiveness of the decorations; and the pandals are often works of art in themselves. The idols of the Goddess are stunning and innovative, leaving even nonbelievers in a state of bliss. And that’s before they’ve tasted the bhog. 

Similarly, Goa can cast a spell on the best of us during the monsoons. There is something enchanting about the landscape dominated by varying shades of green, with the foliage wiped clean by the incessant rain. The sea is grey and stormy and this is probably not the best time to swim. But just sitting on the beach and watching the swell of waves can be mesmerising in itself. 

Every city presents its best face during spring but no one does it better than Delhi. This is the season of flowers in the national capital and every roundabout and street is lined with colourful blooms. The weather is just right to visit its many monuments and parks. The worst of the winter pollution has gone but the evenings and mornings are still cool and pleasing. Take a walk in Old Delhi; feast on a picnic in Sunder Nursery; or simply eat some chaat on the streets; you simply can’t go wrong. 

I have my own reasons to pick particular times to visit certain cities. I like to time my visits to Amritsar either around Baisakhi or Diwali because this is the time when the Golden Temple is decked up like a bride, its gold facade lit by thousands of glittering lights. Yes, you spend more time in queues to visit the Darbar Saheb but the view is totally worth the wait. 

That’s much the same reason why I like to visit London during Christmas and New Year. Yes, the days are short and it is dark by 4 pm but the Christmas lights shine all the brighter for that and there is a feeling of festivity in the air that is truly infectious. And there is no better feeling than sitting by a roaring fireplace with a glass of mulled wine and a mince pie while a shimmering Christmas tree looms in front of you. 

Winter is also the season when my thoughts turn to Venice. The first visit I ever made to La Serenissima was in December and I fell in love with the city as I walked the near-empty streets completely free of tourists. Ever since then I have chosen to visit Venice during the off-season to enjoy the city when it is not heaving with the hordes that invade it in summer. I can’t recommend this enough (having suffered the crowds during one ill-judged summer visit) especially since hotels cost far less at this time. 

Not all men?

 That is true; but believe me, it is Every Single Woman

There are no words to describe the horror that every woman felt when the facts of the rape and murder of a young woman doctor at RG Kar Medical College and Hospital in Kolkata came to light. Sadly, though, there were enough men who found it within themselves to shout “Not All Men” on social media when they were confronted with women expressing shock, sadness and, indeed, anger, at this horrific incident. 

 

Of course, they are right to the extent that not every man is a rapist. But it is equally true that every single woman – and believe me, it is Every Single Woman – has faced sexual molestation of one kind or another at some stage in her life. In fact, to be a woman in India is to live with the constant fear that one day the rape story in the newspaper could be about you. And every woman who reads about any such incident has the same thought in her head: There, but for the Grace of God, go I…

 

No man can possibly understand what it means to live as a woman in this country. For starters, you have to live in a state of constant vigilance, never letting down your guard just in case some threat was to present itself. Men walk down deserted streets without giving it a second thought; women would never venture into the shadows for fear of what they would find. Men can hail a cab to go back home late at night and nod off without a care in the world; women will take a picture of the number plate and share it with friends, map the route, and stay alert just in case things went awry. No man I know has ever considered pepper spray on his person or clutched a bunch of keys in his hand as an improvised weapon; every woman I know has done both at one point or another.

 

What’s worse is that it’s not just stranger danger that a woman has to guard against. She doesn’t just have to worry about the man pressing himself against her on public transport but also about the boss who makes lewd remarks about her figure. It’s not just the man at the street corner who shouts vulgarities at her who is the problem; it’s also the lecherous uncle who has been feeling her up since she was a child. Not only does she have to guard against all these predators she also has to constantly police herself so that she doesn’t “provoke men” or give them “the wrong idea”. And that’s harder than it sounds because anything from a loud laugh to a sleeveless blouse or a short skirt can set these men off – because, don’t you know, she was “asking for it”.

 

It's an exhausting way to live and that, quite frankly, is what every woman is: completely and utterly exhausted. Exhausted trying to find a safe space where she can simply exist without worrying about where the next attack might potentially be coming from. Exhausted because there seems to be no end in sight to the constant threat of sexual violence. And exhausted by the physical, mental and emotional toll this constant hypervigilance takes on her.

 

“Not All Men,” you say? Probably. But it is “Every Single Woman”.

It's a Big Day!

Or Burra Din, as Christmas is dubbed in Calcutta - and it's magical! 

 

Growing up in Calcutta, Christmas was always a magical time of the year for me. It wasn’t just that I went to a convent school or that I had Christian friends who would celebrate this day as a religious festival. It was also because Christmas – or Burra Din, as we called it in Cal – had been transformed into a secular holiday by the denizens of the city, who treated it as a special occasion to be marked by fireworks, street lights, neighbourhood parties and community picnics, in which everyone would wear silly hats, eat, drink and make very merry indeed. 

 

Strangely enough, there was never any tradition of Christmas presents – or, at least, not in my family. And even though there were plenty of men dressed as Santa Claus roaming around the shops in New Market, we children were never encouraged to write to Santa with a wish list of all we wanted. In fact, all we ever got for Christmas was a cake from the famous Nahoum shop (and very delicious it was too). But we did get taken to Park Street, when it was all lit up for the festival, and were treated to a slap-up meal in one of the posh restaurants on the street – a highlight of my year!

 

Perhaps it is all those childhood memories that ensure that I start feeling all festive and celebratory as Christmas comes near. I still draw the line at presents because it seems like a needless commercialization of yet another religious festival. I don’t get in a Christmas tree, mostly because I have no room for one. And no, I don’t attend midnight mass either these days though I have done so in the past and been moved to tears by the power of the choral music. 

 

But I do have some Christmas rituals of my own that I use to mark this time of the year. To recreate the Park Street of my childhood, I string up some fairy lights all around my living room and decorate the dining table with sprigs of holly and mistletoe. I am not much of a baker but I am blessed with friends who send over plum cakes around this time so breakfast usually turns into a calorific feast which I keep telling myself is not sinful because, you know, Christmas!

 

Turkey is not to my taste but you still need a slap-up Christmas lunch. In my house, we go for bangers and mash or lamb and roasted potatoes, with some pasta and risotto for vegetarians, followed up with – what else? – another helping of Christmas cake. Silly hats are optional but everyone must bring a good appetite and memories of Christmases past, which we share around the table along with a few good glugs of champagne or wine. 

 

My stories inevitably hark back to Calcutta and growing up in the city in which Christmas was literally the Big Day (Burra Din). I remember family picnics in Botanical Gardens, where I, along with my childhood friend Kavita, would dance in public with the gay abandon that only children can summon up. And I promise myself that next Christmas I will find my way back there to relive those days one more time.

So, on that note, Merry Christmas to all! 

The spirit of Pujo

It's alive and well; and prospering outside the confines of Calcutta as well

Growing up in Calcutta meant that Pujo was a very special time — even for a true-blue Punjabi family like mine. Yes, my mother sowed a pot with khetri (wheat germ) and we had special pujas every evening in the Navratras and performed Kanjak puja on Ashtami like all devout Punjabis. But we also celebrated the Bengali-style Pujo with equal fervour. As a child I particularly enjoyed getting four sets of new clothes to go pandal-hopping on Shashti, Saptami, Ashtami and Nabami, eating the bhog at different pujos to get a true measure of the culinary delights on offer. 

And then, fate decreed that I had to leave Calcutta and come live and work in Delhi. For many years after I moved, I couldn’t bring myself to celebrate Pujo the same way as I did in Cal. Yes, I knew that there was a sizeable Bengali community in Delhi which celebrated the festival with zest and fervour. But somehow I couldn’t see myself joining the festivities I always associated with Kolkata in a small corner of Delhi that is always Bengal (Chittaranjan Park, of course). So I would content myself with ruminating on Pujas past and promising myself that next year — for sure! — I would go back to Cal for the festival. 

It took me several years to come to the realisation that that was not going to happen. So I did the next best thing. I began attending the Pujos in my immediate neighbourhood in Delhi. These were smaller, more intimate affairs, with many familiar faces, and a genuine sense of community. And I felt that familiar Pujo spirit return to refresh my mind and soul. I soon grew emboldened enough to venture further and attend the larger, more famous Pujos in the capital. And before I knew it, this became an annual ritual. 

This year was different, though. The day the festivities began I was due to travel to Jaipur to attend an event — and who in Rajasthan would be celebrating the Pujos? 

Well, it turned out that a lot of people would be doing just that! As I discovered, there are many as 15 Pujo pandals in Jaipur (reminding me of that old joke: What do you get when three Bengalis get together? Two Pujo Committees!) even though the Bengali community in the city is far from large. 

So it was that on Mahasaptami I managed to recreate my Calcutta memories. I put on a new outfit and headed out with my husband to visit Jaipur’s oldest Durga Pujo pandal in Bani Park. And strangely enough, it was this Pujo that most closely mirrored the Pujos I remembered from my childhood. The pandal was small and compact, the Durga idol was beautiful and serene but not overstylised, the bhog was a simple khichri and tarkari, and the place was overrun by the same kind of Bengali aunties and uncles who used to spoil me when I was a kid. 

Perhaps that explains why, as I stood there, saying a silent prayer to the Goddess, I felt myself retreat to a child-like state of wonder. Or maybe it was just the Devi blessing me with a few moments of grace. 

I would like to think that it was a little bit of both. 

Remains of the day

Coming back to the city of my birth is always a trip down memory lane

 

The best trips down memory lane, as far as I am concerned, are the ones that involve travelling back to my birth city: Kolkata. Or, as it was called during my growing-up years, Calcutta. Or, more familiarly still, the single-syllable Cal. 

 

To me, Kolkata will forever be Cal, no matter what the official name of the city is. And it is the Cal of my memories I return to every time I make a trip to this most beloved of cities. This time, I was visiting after three years, and I was there for the best of reasons: to do a session on my new book, Madam Prime Minister, at the Kolkata Literary Meet. The venue of the festival was Victoria Memorial, and there couldn’t be a more effective trigger for my nostalgia. 

 

As I arrived to attend the first day and watch my husband promote his own book, I found myself transported back to my childhood the moment I laid eyes on that iconic dome. The sunny days I had spent in the museum’s cool confines as a schoolkid, being led around the exhibits by my mother who wanted to improve my mind. The treat after this torture was being allowed to feast on daal vadas and chutney and guzzle Thums Up livened up with copious quantities of masala. My teenage years were misspent on the lawns of this magnificent memorial, when a bunch of us would bunk college and wander aimlessly through the lawns, giggling helplessly every time we came across a courting couple making out in some shady corner (what can I say? We were young and foolish!). 

 

Just sitting in the shadow of Victoria Memorial, lit up in all its glory, was enough to bring all these memories rushing back. And suddenly, I was no longer a middle-aged woman here to promote my second novel. I was a teenager once again, with my entire life in front of me, and the taste of phuchkas in my mouth. 

 

I mean that quite literally as well as metaphorically, because no trip to Cal is complete without a phuchka stop. To me, this is the taste of Calcutta itself: the crisp puri filled with a savoury potato and channa mixture, topped with the green-tinged khatta pani (with none of the saunth nonsense that Delhi golgappas are tainted with). This is what my food dreams are made of; and they can only be fulfilled at the phuckha stops I remember from my growing-up years.

 

In my college days, my favourite phuchka stop was opposite Lighthouse Cinema. My other regular haunt used to be what we called Theatre Road (Shakespeare Sarani, to give it its proper name), which had some of the best chaat on offer. The best shingharas and jilepis (jalebi to you) were found at the mishti dokaan near my house, which sadly no longer exists. And on every trip back to Cal, I try to find a shop that can replicate that taste, and though some come close, none of them can compete with the memory in my head. 

 

It's not just food memories alone that need to be indulged, though. There are also the haunts of my childhood – no matter how altered they may be many decades later – that need to be revisited. A walk down Park Street is obligatory, with quick pit stops at the Oxford Bookstore and a detour down the lane to gaze on the frontage of Loreto House, where I spent so many happy years. I invariably take a drive down the Strand, to gaze on the Hooghly and the cantilevered glory of Howrah Bridge.

 

This time round, my schedule was too tight to fight in the mandatory visit to Botanical Gardens, where I used to frolic as a child among the sprawling expanse of the great Banyan Tree, now sadly barricaded and off limits to visitors. But, as I take a flight out of the city, I console myself with the thought that there is always a next time. 

 

Because when it comes to Cal, it’s always au revoir, never adieu.

 

Bright lights, big city

All great cities have one thing in common – a character of their own

Over the last few months, a series of events have taken me back to a place that I last visited in my childhood. As a young girl, I spent many holidays in the city that Le Corbusier built, at my aunt’s house, roughhousing with my cousins, taking scooter rides down the perfectly-perpendicular streets, shopping in the quiet neighbourhood markets, making the obligatory visits to the Rock Garden and Sukhna Lake.

It was a fun time, but we had to make our fun ourselves. Chandigarh contented itself with being its usual quiet, well-behaved, matronly self, allowing us the space to indulge our high-energy selves but offering next to no encouragement to any boisterous behavior.

But that sleepy, laidback Chandigarh now lives only in my childhood memories. The Chandigarh of today, as I discovered recently, has thrown off that slumber and reticence and emerged as a sleek, sophisticated city that offers everything from trendy restaurants to shopping malls to swanky five-star hotels that would do any metropolis proud. And, more to the point, the once-silent city has found its voice. It still has the quiet, tree-lined streets with the most polite traffic I have encountered in India. But now, it also speaks of prosperity, energy, and a certain can-do spirit at every turn.

The best parallel I can think of is former Test cricketer-turned-TV performer, and now Punjab minister, Navjot Singh Sidhu, who – by all accounts – was a nice quiet chap who barely spoke two words during his cricketing days, but is now impossible to shut up. (Though, to be fair, Chandigarh is a tad more restrained.)

As I drove down its impeccably-clean roads, I started to think about how all great cities have a personality of their own – which may or may not change over the years – an identity that belongs to them alone and which makes it impossible to mistake them for another.

I grew up in Calcutta, feasting on its faded glory of crumbling colonial buildings, run-down infrastructure, over-crowded streets and dilapidated markets. But for all its decrepitude, there was a certain grandeur to the Calcutta of my childhood and youth: the vast expanse of the Maidan, the looming visage of Victoria Memorial, the shabby but beautiful Strand where we went for boat rides down the Hooghly, with the magnificent Howrah Bridge providing the most spectacular of backdrops.

Just like Chandigarh, the Calcutta of my childhood no longer exists. Now, when I go back to the city, I am overwhelmed by the new construction, the bustling malls, the endless network of flyovers (not to mention the one-way system that I have yet to master). Even the colonial structures I grew up with no longer look the same, now that they have been blue-washed by Mamata Banerjee’s government.

But strangely enough, the spirit of the city survives. Once I look past the gleaming skyscrapers and the sprawling hypermarkets, I can see that Calcutta (sorry folks, it is always going to be Calcutta to me; Kolkata is for when I speak Bangla) is still the same City of Joy, one of those rare places where a live culture can survive outside of a bowl of mishti doi.

Most people who move from Calcutta to Delhi seem to spend their days bemoaning their loss. They miss the easy charm of Cal; they hate the hard-headed, cold-eyed indifference of Delhi. Well, I am an exception to that rule.

From the moment I moved to my tiny little barsati in Defence Colony, I fell in love with the city. I loved its changing moods through the seasons: the flowering roundabouts heralding spring; the blooming laburnum announcing the arrival of summer; the parks bursting with green as the monsoon hit; the trees shedding their leaves in preparation of winter.

I also loved the fact that Delhi allowed me to be. This was the big tent I had been looking for all my life. This was where I could be whatever I wanted to be. If I wanted to immerse myself in theatre, art and culture, there were enough museums, galleries and artistic hubs to do so. If history and antiquity was my thing, then I could spend every weekend exploring historical monuments dating back to medieval and Moghul times. If I just wanted to let my lungs expand in some green spaces, then they too were available to me.

The space granted to me in Delhi was not just literal but metaphorical as well. And it allowed me to grow in ways that I could not even have imagined when I first moved here.

Yes, I know what all you folks in Bombay (oops, sorry, Mumbai; though like Calcutta, this will always be Bombay to me) are thinking right about now. Delhi? Really? You love Delhi? But surely, you know that Mumbai is much better? This is the city of dreams, the city of endless possibilities, the city that never sleeps, the city that, oh well, never mind!

Well, you know what, guys? It is possible to love both. I can enjoy the beautiful, tree-lined boulevards of Delhi just as much as I cherish the sea views along Marine Drive. I can embrace the Staid Dowager that is Delhi just as fondly as I hug the Brash Bruiser that is Mumbai.

Because while cities have personalities of their own, identities that are theirs alone, people like us have the luxury of embracing them all and making them our own. And why settle for less, when so much more is on offer?

Back where I once belonged...

Nostalgia tastes rather sweet on a trip back to my old home town

Nearly three years ago now, I wrote a column on how folks like me who can't go back home -- because that home is now long since gone -- are destined to re-create it in their imagination, populate it with their memories and make it the stuff of their dreams. I had confessed my dread of revisiting past haunts for fear that they would have changed beyond recognition; my terror of subjecting my memories to the harsh test of an ever-changing reality.

Which explains why I have stayed away from the stomping grounds of my childhood and youth, choosing to remember them they way they were, rather than come to terms with how they are now. Until last month, that is...

That's when I went back to Calcutta, or Cal as it is always affectionately abbreviated by those who love the city (sorry, but I am only going to call it Kolkata when I speak Bangla), after nearly a decade of staying resolutely away.

But the moment I landed at Netaji Subhas Chandra Airport, it felt as if I had never been away. There was the same air of nonchalant chaos, the same good-natured jostling, and the noise of a hundred-odd people bellowing into their phones to call their drivers ("Kothai achho? Ato deri lagche kano?").

Our own driver, sent by the literary festival that was hosting us, took his time coming. When he finally pulled up, he gave our luggage a disgusted look and muttered, "Baba, koto bhari bag!"  The two young people who were there to receive us went a bit red in the face, and helped with the luggage, while he continued to grumble discontentedly. Oh, the joys of being back in Cal!

Only it wasn't the Cal I knew and loved that whizzed past my rolled-up window. Instead of the sleepy road bordered by little huts and corner shops, there was a busy, bustling highway, flanked on both sides by glittering high rises that housed everything from malls to cinemas to hotels to up-market residences. If I didn't know better, I could have sworn I was in Gurgaon; there was even signage for DLF, for crying out loud.

Talking about loud, our extremely disagreeable driver was venting his frustration about being stuck at a red light by honking incessantly. "What is the point of using the horn?" I wondered aloud, "It won't make the lights change, will it?" His response was immediate and pithy. He rolled down his window and spat vigorously through it. Ah, that famous Bengali temper. How I had missed it!

It was sheer serendipity that our hotel was just a quick stroll away from my old college. So, it seemed the most natural thing in the world to walk down to revisit it between sessions. A million memories ran through my head as I made my way down Middleton Row and saw the familiar green gate of Loreto College before me.

I made my way down the curved driveway, entered through the side gate and went up to the first floor library that had been my sanctuary for three years. It looked a bit smaller than I remembered it, and my favourite desk which I had stockpiled with books, now had an ugly computer sitting on it, but the smell of books was just as intoxicating.

A few deep breaths later, I walked down the staircase and got the biggest surprise ever. There on a big black board were the names of all the gold medal winners over the years. And half-way down the list was mine: glittering in gold letters. My husband, who was even more excited than I was, insisting on taking many pictures, even as groups of bemused college students walked past us.

By then, I was quite sold on this nostalgia thing. So, we walked across the lawn and through the back gate to get to Jyoti Vihar, the venue of many a cheap and tasty lunch during my college days. The idlis, vadas and dosas were just as excellent as I remembered and even passed the test of the foodie husband.

All went swimmingly until we asked for paper napkins. No, said our smiling waiter, they did not provide any. We pointed to the next table, which had paper napkins. Ah, he said, they had brought in their own. Then, clearly taking pity on us, he walked across to the cashier's desk, tore off a bit of newspaper and presented it to us with a flourish. The gesture just about summed up the spirit of Cal for me.

The next day was devoted to revisiting familiar ground. The Bata store on Chowringhee where I had bought my school shoes at the beginning of every new academic year was still stationed to do duty by the next generation of students. The National Museum looked better than ever with a fresh lick of whitewash. And then there was the timeless beauty of Victoria Memorial, soaring majestically at the fringes of the Maidan.

Post-dinner, we decided that a spot of live music was in order. So, off we went to Someplace Else, to sit and wait for the band to show up. Finally a group of middle-aged hipster-types turned up and began playing blues standards from the 50s (circa Muddy Waters). A couple of youngsters in the front asked for a Beatles number. "Sorry," said the band leader, sounding anything but repentant. "We are stuck in a time warp here."

Which is, in the nicest possible way, also a good way to describe Calcutta itself. And long may it stay that way.

It's that time of year again...

When the sweet smell of Pujo is in the air

When the mornings turn a tad cooler, the shiuli starts flowering, and evenings begin to set in earlier every day, my thoughts inevitably turn to the city of my birth. Even though I haven’t lived in Calcutta (sorry, it’s always going to be Calcutta, or even Cal, to me; unless I am speaking Bangla, in which case it is always Kolkata) for two decades, there’s something about early October that always transports me back there, as the memories of Pujos past (that’s Durga Puja to all you non-Bongs/non-Calcuttans out there) bubble up to the surface.

Even as a child, I knew instinctively that there was something special about Pujo. It wasn’t just that our household, holding on tight to our Punjabi roots, celebrated the Navratras by planting ‘Khetri’ (wheat) in a terracotta pot in the puja room, feeding ‘kanjakas’ (young girls who are believed the symbolize the Goddess Durga) on Ashtami, the eighth day of the nine-day period of Navratra, and fasting during this period. It was also that something shifted in the air of the city itself, making it seem more festive, more celebratory, and more excited (and excitable).

The first hint that something was up was evident from the roads, jammed with people heading out for their Pujo shopping, making the traffic even more insane than usual. Next, activity started in the communal maidan near our house, where a pandal seemed to spring up almost overnight. And then, one day, all of us kids would be roused at 4 am to listen to the Mahalaya broadcast on All India Radio, which signaled the beginning of the festivities.

Our household, for its part, turned schizophrenic during this period. Till Ashtami, we were Punjabis, tending our ‘Khetri’ faithfully, staying away from onions and garlic, and eating ‘fast’ food once a day. And then, having broken our fast on Ashtami with our puri-halwa and kala chana, we mutated effortlessly into Bengalis, doing the rounds of the pandals on Mahanabami and Vijayadashami, marveling at the decorations, the lights, gorging on the street food stalls doing business near the pandals, having ‘bhog’, and watching goggle-eyed as the ladies of the neighbourhood performed the ‘Dhunachi nritya’ to the beats of the Dhak, in front of the Goddess on Dashami.

But while we were a religious family, performing all the rituals and reciting all the mantras taught to us by our grandparents, it wasn’t hard to figure out, even as a child, that Pujo in Calcutta transcended religion. It was as much about faith as it was about fun. It was as much about community as it was about culture. It was as much about prayer as it was about partying.

For me, though, one of the best bits about Pujo was that we got new clothes: a set each for the five days of the festival (beginning with Shashthi and ending with Dashami), so that we never had to repeat an outfit when we went pandal-hopping. That meant endless trips to New Market, many excursions to the local tailor, and a mandatory visit to the Bata store on Chowringhee before my Pujo wardrobe was complete.

It was during Pujo that I tried out my first pair of high heels as a teenager (suffice it to say that it did not go well!). It was during Pujo that I first discovered the joys of flirting, safe within the embrace of my giggly girl gang. It was during Pujo that I attended my first Rabindrasangeet recital (and was blown away by the how much better Tagore sounded in the Bengali original than in all the banal English translations I had read until now). And it was during Pujo that I attended my first music concert (Bappi Lahiri was the star performer, accompanied by his gold jewellery, but thankfully even that was not enough to turn me off live performances for life).

Even after I grew up and began working as a journalist, my inner child would emerge triumphantly every time the Goddess paid a visit to her mother’s place. It helped that the newspaper house I worked for, in true-blue Bengali style, would give everyone four days off for Pujo, so that we could go pandal-hopping at leisure, stay up at late-night addas with our friends, gorge on luchi-dal for breakfast and dine on the most scrumptious of biryanis.

And then, one day, I moved out of Cal and was left with only memories of Pujos past to sustain me over the Navratri period. Which is why for me October always comes with sepia-tinted images of Pujo festivities in Calcutta playing in a constant loop in my head.

There is something special about Pujo in Calcutta. No matter how hard the Bengali community in Chittaranjan Park tries to recreate the ambience of Durga Puja in Delhi, it never quite feels like the real thing. I don’t quite know how to explain it, but I can tell the difference whenever I stop by to get my fill of the Pujo spirit. The pandals are just as beautiful, the Goddess looks as amazing, the beat of the Dhak sounds as powerful, the bhog is just as delicious. And yet, there’s something missing.

And that certain something is Calcutta. The city metamorphoses into a magical place when the Goddess comes calling.

So, all of you celebrating in Cal, remember to have an extra rossogolla for those of us exiled from the City of Joy, and forced to observe the festivities from afar. And a very Happy Pujo to all!

Shhhhh.....

The experience of the Kolkata victim shows why rape is still a crime that dares not speak its name

So, what was a 37-year-old divorcee with two children doing at a nightclub in Calcutta well past midnight? Well, I’ll tell you what she wasn’t doing. She wasn’t looking to get brutally gang-raped at gunpoint in a moving car by a bunch of vicious thugs.

That’s all you really need to know. She wasn’t looking to get raped.

Other than that, her sexual history, her marital circumstances, what she was wearing, how much she was drinking, how she was behaving, none of it is at all relevant. All that matters is that she wasn’t asking to be sexually violated.

And yet, ever since the single mother has come forward to report a sexual assault, that’s all we’ve heard: criticism of her behaviour; barely-veiled insinuations about her ‘character’; even a bizarre claim that she is part of a ‘political conspiracy’ against the Mamata Banerjee government.

Divorcee. Nightclub. Drinking. Anglo-Indian. All these words have dominated the discourse for a reason. In fact, the sub-text just leaps out and hits you in the face, doesn’t it? This was a good-time girl looking for a good time.

This was no dutiful wife and mother. She was divorced from her husband. She had left her children at home while she went out partying with her friends. She was drinking. She struck up a conversation with strangers and left the nightclub with them.

See where this is going? Yes, right. She was ‘asking’ for it. Why else would you interact with complete strangers at a nightclub late at night? Why would you allow them to drop you home in their car?

Okay, so let’s assume for argument’s sake, that all these value statements are correct. Let’s accept that her judgement was impaired because she had been drinking. Let’s agree that she made a bad call by leaving the nightclub with a bunch of strangers. Let’s concede that she acted without a requisite regard for her own personal safety.

But you know what? Even if all of this is true, none of it is at all relevant. The only thing that matters is that she was raped. She was subjected to a sexual act that she did not consent to. Her body was violated against her will.

And yet, no matter how hard we try, we can’t seem to wrap our heads around this simple fact: the victim is not at fault. She is not the one who has to pass some sort of ‘purity test’ set by the moral police. She is not the one who needs to account for her past behaviour or her life choices. She is not the one who is guilty. She is not the one who should be feeling ashamed.

But the way things pan out in this skewered world of ours, that’s exactly what ends up happening. It’s the victim who is put in the dock of public morality and asked to explain why this should have happened to her. It’s the victim who is made to feel that she bears responsibility for the assault on her body.

In the Kolkata case, when the victim finally steeled herself to go and report the rape to the police she was met with derision rather than empathy. She was asked how it was possible for someone to be raped in a moving car. Could she describe the positions exactly? One of the officers at the station even asked if they could go to the nightclub in question and get a beer together (because she was ‘that kind’ of girl, right?).

Worse was to follow. The chief minister of the state, Mamata Banerjee, announced grandly that the rape charges were cooked up and were just an attempt to malign the reputation of her government. One of her Cabinet ministers then went on television to ask: why was a divorcee with kids at home doing at a nightclub so late at night?

Well, Mr Minister, let me say this once again very slowly so that you get it: She. Was. Not. Looking. To. Get. Raped.

Now repeat after me: She was not looking to get raped.

But her experience explains why so many rapes go unreported in India. Consider this. Only one out of ten rapes in India is ever reported. And of those reported, only one out of four cases results in a conviction. Pretty good odds if you’re a rapist, right?

If you are a victim, however, the dice is loaded against you from start to finish. First up, the police will refuse to take you seriously unless you fit in with their idea of a rape victim, i.e., a good girl who doesn’t drink, wear revealing clothes or flirts with men. If the case does get registered, it will be open season on everything from your wardrobe choices to your sexual history. And then, the case will drag on for years, making it impossible for you to move on or get some sort of closure.

In other words, after being violated by your rapist, you will end up getting raped yet again by the system. Are you surprised then, that so few women come forward to file a complaint of rape?

Which is why all of us need to salute the bravery of this 37-year-old Anglo-Indian divorcee from Kolkata who had the courage to come forward and tell her story, who had the guts to take on her rapists, who refused to lie down and play dead. No matter what the outcome of the case, in my book, she’s already a winner.