Sunday, January 30, 2011

স্কুলের প্রথম দিন

আমার ছেলে তখন পাঁচ ছুঁই ছুঁই|নার্সারী ক্লাসে ভর্তি হযেছে|স্কুলের প্রথম দিনে আমি ওকে স্কুলে নিয়ে এসেছি|কোনো কান্নাকাটিই করে নি আসবার সময়|বাবার সঙ্গে এসেছে,বাবা সঙ্গেই থাকবে এরকম কিছু ভেবেছিল হয়তো|আমিও নিশ্চিন্ত ছিলাম, কিন্তু ক্লাসের দরজায় পৌঁছে যেই বুঝল আমি চলে যাব,দিল কান্না জুড়ে|আমায় ছাড়বেনা কিছুতেই|যত বোঝাই স্কুলে অনেক বন্ধু হবে,খেলা ধুলো করতে পারবে,অনেক রাইমস শিখতে পারবে, কত আনন্দ  করতে পারবে, কে শোনে কার কথা|ও কিছুতেই আমার হাত ছাড়বে না,বাড়ি যাবে|বাবা মাকে ছেড়ে নিজের পরিচিত পরিবেশের বাইরে এই অজানা অচেনা ক্লাসের নির্বাসন কক্ষে যেতে ও একেবারেই নারাজ|ওর কান্না থামাতে না পেরে আমি যখন প্রায় হাল ছেড়ে দিয়েছি পাশের ক্লাস থেকে এক কম বয়েসী টিচার বেরিয়ে এসে ছেলের গায়ে মাথায় হাত বুলিয়ে ওকে শান্ত করে হাতে একটা চকচকে আধুলি ধরিয়ে দিলেন|ওই আধুলি টাতেই মন্ত্রের মতো কাজ হল|আমার ছেলে ওই মেয়েটির হাত ধরে ক্লাসে চলে গেল|
টাকার মর্ম তখন আমার ছেলের বোঝার কথা নয়,পারিপার্শিক জগতের 'টাকা স্বর্গ টাকা ধর্ম' মন্ত্র নিশ্চয়ই ওই বয়সে ওর অবচেতন মনে ঢুকে যায় নি| কিন্তু দুটো মিষ্টি কথা আর ওই চকচকে ধাতব আধুলিটাই মন্ত্রের মতো কাজ করেছিল সেদিন,ওই দিয়েই টিচার মেয়েটি সম্ভবত বোঝাতে পেরেছিলেন ও পুরোপুরি শত্রুপুরীতে এসে উপস্থিত হয় নি|
আমার নিজের অভিজ্ঞতা অবশ্য অন্যরকম|আমি যখন প্রথম স্কুলে যাই আমার বয়েস আটের কাছাকাছি|স্কুলে যেতে হবে বলে কান্নাকাটি করার বয়েস পেরিয়ে এসেছি|তাছাড়া বাড়ির চৌহদ্দির বাইরে বন্ধুদের সাথে খেলাধুলোয় তখন আমি অভ্যস্থ|আমার সমস্যা হলো অন্যজায়গায়|আমাদের হেঁটেই স্কুলে যেতে হত,দূরত্ব এমন কিছু নয়,যদিও আজকের দিনে একেই বেশ দূর মনে করেন অনেক বাবা মা|কালিঘাটে আমাদের বাড়ি থেকে চেতলা স্কুলে যেতে পথে আদি গঙ্গার উপরের কাঠের পুল পেরোতে হত|এখন আর সে কাঠের পুল নেই,এখন সেটাই পাকাপোক্ত চেতলা ব্রিজ|কাঠের পুলের পাটাতনগুলোর ফাঁক দিয়ে তলায় বয়ে যাওয়া গঙ্গার ঘোলাটে জলের স্রোত স্পষ্ট দেখা যেত|প্রথম দিন তো বটেই,বেশ কয়েকদিন ওই ব্রিজ পার হতে আমার খুব ভয় করত|মনে হত গলে পরে যাব|হাতে বই খাতা নিয়ে পা টিপে টিপে নাম জপ করতে করতে পার হতাম|দুচারদিনেই ভয়টা চলে গেলো,কবে তা মনে নেই|    

Saturday, January 29, 2011

Bengali and the Blogger

If you want to write a blogpost in Bengali in the Blogger, you seem to have three options.
You may install a free software like Ekushe or any commercially available one in your computer and use its virtual keyboard to type in Bengali with the help of your mouse in MS Word and later transfer it to the blogger editor by the usual copy and paste method. It may not be that easy for those unused to a Bengali keyboard. Bengali, unlike English, joins consonants with vowels as in কি , কো    and also have many joined letters like স্থ or জ্ঞ and typing them may prove difficult.
The other option is to use the Google transliteration website and use the editor to write your post. You may have to use  the virtual keyboard at times by clicking an icon, but that is occasional and only for words that the editor does not throw up as an option. It seems O.K after some practice, but the editor does not have a 'save' option and the written piece may vanish, if by chance the touch of a key or on the pad,moves the browser to another page. It can be quite frustrating to have to write the whole thing once again when the thought process might have already changed. It has happened with me more than once. I had then to copy and paste para by para to the blogger. Irritating.
Thirdly, you may download and install Google transliteration IME (input method editor). Now you have an additional language installed and you can switch between English and Bengali at will whether you are using Notepad, Word or the Blogger directly.I was surprised though it did not have the 'dari' to mark the end of a sentence, a drawback that can be managed in the QWERTY key board itself ' এইভাবে |' .
I forgot to mention that Windows itself allows Bengali to be installed as an additional language, but I did not like the font and in any case, the problem with it is the same as the first option I mentioned.
Surprisingly, the blogger does not have an option for using Bengali directly although such option is available for some Indian languages like Hindi, Tamil and one or two others. Apart from its rich literary traditions, Bengali is one of the most widely spoken languages and according to the Wikipedia ranks sixth in the world. It is also the national language of an independent nation, Bangladesh. Google may include Bengali later as an option in the blogger but I find no justification for its not doing it so far.
I doubt if anyone in Google will be reading this post but if he does, he should take note of it.  
  

Thursday, January 27, 2011

বাংরেজি

লক্ষ্য করলেই দেখা যাবে যে আমরা কথোপকথনে বহু ইংরিজি শব্দ ব্যবহার করি ৷ কিছু কিছু শব্দ আছে যেমন টেবিল ,চেয়ার ,গেলাস যেগুলো  অনেকদিন হলো  বাংলাভাষার অঙ্গ হয়ে পড়েছে ৷কিছু বাংলা শব্দ আজকাল আমরা আর  ব্যবহার করি না বরঞ্চ ইংরিজি প্রতিশব্দগুলোই সহজতর হয়ে গেছে।যেমন ধরা যাক বিদ্যালয় , মহাবিদ্যালয় ।আমরা এখন ইস্কুল কলেজ বলতেই অভ্যস্ত  এছাড়া আজকের প্রয়োজনের অনেক শব্দই আছে যেগুলো মূলত  ইংরিজি যেমন কপি ,টাইপ, ফ্রিজ ইত্যাদি     সময়ের সাথে সাথে ,নতুন নতুন অভিজ্ঞতা প্রকাশের প্রয়োজনে অথবা নতুন ধরণের উপকরণের বর্ণনায় নতুন শব্দ ভাষায় সংযোজিত হবে এটাই স্বাভাবিক ৷এই কারণেই মুসলিম আমলে আরবি ফার্সি থেকে বাংলাভাষায় অনেক  শব্দ এসেছে পরে ইংরিজি জমানায়  ইংরিজি ভাষা থেকে ৷আজকের দিনে পশ্চিমী দুনিয়ার সাথে আমাদের যোগাযোগ এখনো ইংরিজির মাধ্যমেই , তাই ইংরিজি থেকে আরো শব্দ আসবে এটা মেনে নিতেই হবে ৷যে কোনো জীবন্ত ভাষা এভাবেই এগোয় , এভাবেই সম্বৃদ্ধ হয় তা নিয়ে কিছু বলার নেই ,তবু বলতেই হবে আমরা  নিজেদের ভাষার শুদ্ধতা বা নিজস্বতা  রক্ষার ব্যাপারে যথেষ্ট নিস্পৃহ৷কথায় কথায় ইংরিজি ব্যবহার করা আমাদের স্বভাব ৷শিক্ষিতদের মধ্যে এই প্রবনতাটা যেন বেশি ৷এক্ষেত্রে আমি বাংলায় সাধারনভাবে প্রচলিত ইংরিজি শব্দগুলোর কথাই শুধু বলছি না  আমরা আবেদনপত্র না বলে application বলি, অগ্রাহ্য হয়েছে না বলে rejected হয়েছে বলে থাকি, এরকম উদাহরণ অনেক দেয়া  যেতে পারে, তা ছাড়া মাঝে মধ্যে পুরো ইংরিজি বাক্য এসে যাওয়া অস্বাভাবিক কিছু নয় ৷শুনলে মনে হবে আমরা এক মিশ্র ভাষায় কথা বলছি যেটা বাংলা নয় ,বলা যেতে পারে বাংরেজি 
আমরা যখন কলেজে পড়তাম ,কয়েক বন্ধু মিলে ঠিক করেছিলাম ইংরিজি ব্যবহার না করে শুধু বাংলাতেই কথাবার্তা চালাব ৷পুরোপুরি সফল হবার আগেই আমাদের উসাহে ভাটা পড়ে ৷এখন তার জন্যে দুঃখ হয়, মনে হয় এ বিষয়ে আমাদের সকলেরই আরো বেশি সতর্ক থাকা উচিত ৷ 

চড়ুইভাতি

 চড়ুইভাতি কথাটা আজকাল আর ব্যবহার হয় না ৷বনভোজন ও নয় ৷আমরা এখন বলি পিকনিক ৷

এই শীতের মরশুমে সবাই নিশ্চই পিকনিকে যাছে , কলকাতার উপকন্ঠে, নদীর পারে অথবা কোনো পুরনো বাগানবাড়িতে৷আমার প্রথম পিকনিকও  তখন্ কার কলকাতার উপকন্ঠে , সে জায়গা এখন কল্লোলিনী কলকাতা ৷সিরিটির থেকে যে রাস্তা এখন বেহালার দিকে গিয়েছে, পঞ্চাশের দশকে সেটার চারপাশে ছিল গ্রামীন পরিবেশ ৷কাঁচা রাস্তা , ধান ক্ষেত আর অনেক পেয়ারার বাগান ৷রাস্তার মোড়ে কোথাও একটা আঁসফলের গাছ ছিল, যে গাছ থেকে আমরা অনেক আঁসফল পেড়ে খেয়েছিলাম৷সেই প্রথম , তার পরে এই বছরখানেক আগে বাজার থেকে কিছু আঁসফল কিনেছিলাম , সে স্বাদ কিন্তু পাই নি
আমার বয়স তখন  নয় বা দশ , আমরা সমবয়সী এক দল ছেলে মিলে এসেছিলাম পিকনিকে ৷টটিদার উদ্যোগে , টটিদারই উৎসাহে ৷টটিদা ছিলেন আমাদের থেকে সাত আট বছরের বড়, তখন স্কুলের উঁচু ক্লাসে পড়েন, কিন্তু আমাদের বয়সী ছেলেদের সঙ্গে ছিল তার বন্ধুত্ব ৷আমাদের নিয়ে তিনি একটা ক্লাব গড়েছিলেন , তাতে কম করে কুড়ি পঁচিশজন  ছেলে জড়ো হয়েছিল ৷টটিদার বাড়ির সামনেই ছিল চারুর মাঠ ,আমাদের খেলার মাঠ , আমাদের বাড়ির খুব কাছেই ৷মাঠটা কোনো এককালে পুকুর বুজিয়ে তৈরি হযেছিল, বর্ষায় খুব জল জমত ৷আমরা বর্ষাকালেও সেই গোড়ালি উঁচু জলে খেলাধুলো করতাম ৷বাড়িতে তার জন্য বকাও কম খেতে হত না ৷
প্রত্যেক বিকেলে আমরা সব জমা হতাম চারুর মাঠে ৷সেখানে টটিদার নির্দেশে আমরা কুচকাওয়াজ করতাম সারি বেঁধে ৷তার পরে হত নানা ধরনের খেলাধুলো ৷ টটিদার এক বিশেষ আকর্ষনি  শক্তি ছিল আর ছিল  নেতৃত্ব দেবার স্বাভাবিক ক্ষমতা, আমরা তাকে ভালবাসতাম, তাকে মান্য করতাম ৷ টটিদার ও ছিল আমাদের সবার প্রতি সমান স্নেহ ৷
টটিদাই উদ্যোগ নিয়ে সেবার আমাদের পিকনিকের আয়োজন করলেন ৷সিরিটিতে ওঁর কোনো আত্মীয়রা থাকতেন , তাদের বাড়ির কাছেই জায়গা ঠিক হযেছিল ৷আমাদেরই বন্ধুদের কেউ একটা ঠেলা গাড়ি জোগাড় করে এনেছিল , তাতে বাসনকোসন চাপিয়ে আমরা এক সকালে হাঁটা পথে রওনা দিলাম সিরিটির উদ্দেশ্যে । কালিঘাট থেকে পথ কিছু কম নয় কিন্তু আমরা তখন ছোট আর উৎসাহে ভরপুর ,হই হট্টগোল করতে করতে পথ পেরিয়ে এলাম ।
একটা পেয়ারা  বাগানের ভিতর আমাদের জায়গা ঠিক হলো , পাশে একটা পুকুর ,একেবারে প্রকৃত বনভোজনের পরিবেশ ৷আমাদের মধ্যে সম্ভবত অরুন ই রান্নার উদ্যোগ নিয়েছিল , আর কে কে আমার মনে নেই , কিন্তু আমরা ভাত মাংসের ঝোল ঠিকই খেয়েছিলাম ।সারাদিন ধরে পেয়ারা  বাগানে দাপাদাপি করেছি , গাছে উঠেছি , পিঁপডের কামড় খেয়েছি , বিনা অনুমতিতে  পেয়ারা পেড়ে খেয়েছি ,কিভাবে দিন কেটে গিয়েছে জানতেই পারিনি ৷সূর্য ডোবার আগেই অবশ্য টটিদা আমাদের জড়ো  করে, জিনিসপত্র গোছগাছ করিয়ে নিলেন ৷তার পর এক  ঝাঁক স্মৃতি নিয়ে বাড়ি ফেরার পালা ।        


সেই আঁসফল গাছটা আর নেই , সেই পেয়ারা বাগান ও কবে বিলীন হযে গেছে , কিন্তু আমার মনের কোনায় রয়ে গেছে আনন্দের এক টুকরো  স্মৃতি, হীরের টুকরোর মত । এতদিন পরে এই  জানুয়ারির শীতে , সূর্যের কোমল আলোয়  হটাৎই সেটা ঝলসে উঠলো ।  
                     

Tuesday, January 25, 2011

The pencil between the fingers

I was about five years old when our family came to Kolkata. I did not know how to read and write yet.
I was excited when a neighbour who was very fond of me gave me a gift  on the eve of our departure to Kolkata but when I opened  the gift, I found  it was not a toy that could have interested me, but a book I was unable to read. Unlike the children's books of today it did not have any illustration either for me to browse through and enjoy.I remember I was so disappointed that I wept and wept, and had to be consoled by my elder sister.
As a child I could not appreciate the first gift in my life, nor could I understand the love and affection it contained !
The book, I remember, was named 'Kutkuter Daftar' and was about the life of an Ant and its travails. I read it much later, but I must admit it did not leave much of an imprint then.
I learned to read and write soon enough with the help of my elder sister, my Didi, my first teacher who guided me in my first attempts to write the letters of the Bengali alphabet. Didi must have done the same with her other younger siblings. She was around ten or eleven then and was very fond of reading which she is even today, but surprisingly she never went to school or rather was never admitted to one. Girls were already going to schools and colleges those days though the number was not as large as it is today, and it was becoming a socially accepted phenomenon unlike in the days of my mother's childhood when girls were married off at the age of twelve or thirteen in most families even  fifty sixty years after Vidyasagar's efforts to educate the girlchildren. Social attitudes take time to change whatever revolutionaries may think, but in Didi's case my surprise is all the more because our parents laid a great stress on education. They possibly  thought that a girl's salvation lies in her marriage and though education could be one attribute, it was not the most important one in finding a match for her. They were not wrong in a way for Didi was married off when she was sixteen.
There were a number of children in our age group in the neighbourhood and Dadamoni ( my immediate elder ) and I made many friends. We ran around the lanes and bylanes or played games in a nearby field. We were growing up as normal kids and learning our 3 R s at home. There were many to discipline us for unruly behaviour and occasions for disciplining were not at all infrequent. More so, because Dadamoni and I fought too often over many issues which must have seemed significant at our age. A slap or two and even more severe beatings were not at all uncommon. Of course, Dadamoni bore the brunt more often as he was the older one. I remember one instance  when we were tied together back-to-back still angry and straining to get hold of each other as our mother and some elder brothers looked on.
It was at this time that our father thought of furthering our education at home before sending us to school. Days of blissful ignorance were to be over and we had to prepare for becoming responsible citizens of the world. He appointed a private tutor who used to come to our house generally in the afternoon at around four p.m when we were supposed to be at play. Sometimes when we were not at home, he would walk across to the park nearby to seek us out and bring us back for tution. Apart from his bald head, I do not remember much about Mastermasahai (teacher ). But I do remember he was no miser when it came to meting out punishment for tasks not done or for being naughty.He generally used the scale, but at times he deployed a more severe tactic. He would put a pencil between two fingers and press till you cry out. Needless to mention, Dadamoni, the naughtier one, was the usual recipient of his largesses.
Finally, we were sent to school on the same day. I was not even eight at that time, but since there was no age restriction those days, we were considered good enough to be admitted to class five and six respectively. Obviously tutoring at home had its merits. ( a bit of warning here ! as in some ads with stunts.Parents better not try this out these days, else they will not find any school to take their children in )  
Since there is a lot of learned talk now-a-days about discipline and punishment at school and pundits agree that these are reprehensible, I would like to mention that when we were at school in the fifties, it was quite usual for teachers to use a scale on a student for some wrongdoing or other or ask him to stand on the bench or more humiliating, ask him to kneel down while holding the ears in one corner of the classroom. Being a good student or being considered one, I was fortunate that I never suffered any of these, but I do not know of any of my classmates or for that matter any in my school, having committed suicide as a result. Many on the other hand had gone on to become  very successful persons, just as my Dadamoni has despite those pencil and fingers tricks of our Mastermashai.

      


Thursday, January 20, 2011

Roti changes to Ruti

From a historical perspective Roti (the flat round homemade Indian bread or Ruti in Bengali) is a rather new entrant in the Bengali diet chart. We never  had ruti in our menu as children. For us it was always Bhat (cooked rice ) for lunch and dinner. Ruti was the main food item for people in Bihar or other northern and western provinces who preferred ruti to rice.Of course people here would occasionally go to one of the many Punjabi dhabas nearby to have a taste of roti and kasha mangso, but that was 'eating out'.

Then came the food crisis in the late '50s. Rice became scarce and much dearer. The whole State was brought under a strict rationing system. We had to buy rice at the ration shops, but the allotted quantity was far too inadequate and of course of much inferior quality. That was when Bengali homes switched to wheat or rather atta, its ground form, for making rutis at home at least for the evening meal. Shops sprang up in each locality with the necessary machines to grind whole wheat into a rather coarse powdery form of atta. We would take wheat purchased from the grocer to one of these shops for necessary conversion and bring the atta home.

The practice continued in most Bengali households and soon became a normal one. In many a Bengali home, ruti has replaced rice in the evening meal. As for me, I take ruti for dinner for more reasons than one. Firstly, it does not have to be made at home these days. A few metres from my house, there is an outlet making rutis in the evening . It is pretty cheap. Recently, thanks to the inflation, they have raised the price, but it is still Re.1.25 per piece which, for me, is quite reasonable considering that I take only three rutis. I find they do a brisk business which indicates that many a household not only has rutis for dinner, they do not care to take the trouble of making them. Secondly, since the number of rutis I take is fixed, I have a control over my diet and thirdly, rutis being fibre rich may have health benefits. I can not however vouch for the last point as I have not felt any such benefits myself.

I have had some experience in making rutis myself with not much of a satisfying result. It is not so much as making the dough from the atta, but rolling each piece out as a round one before heating it on the oven, that daunted me. Before venturing into a fresh attempt, I thought I would check with some experts this time. Google was my best bet. After all I found out 'how to make curd' through Google - I find the net an amazing source of information for a person as lazy as I am, but that is another story which I may share some other time. After my misadventure with luchis, I searched and found out a blog post which detailed luchi making with a few snapshots of different stages of the process. So I searched and lo and behold, I came across a number of videos demonstrating the making of ruti - here I should call it roti, as in Hindi- in detail. I came across videos showing the functions of the electric roti maker too.

The great thing about the roti maker is its ability to save people like me from a lot of embarrassment by rolling out the rotis in perfect round shapes and sizes in a jiffy.

It is of course not worth investing in one for three rotis a day !   

Luchi and Begun Bhaja

Bengalis love their food. Though they are quite liberal and would not mind sampling various cuisines, particulary North Indian, Continental or Chinese, at the end of the day, it is 'Mach-Bhaat' (fish curry and cooked rice ) for them. Well, even though I said Mach-Bhaat, it is never as simple. The daily meal consists of  in addition some daal ( pulses ) and vegetable preparations at least. And what a wide variety there can be in each of this item !

Bengalis take each item in the meal in a specific order. Daal, Tarkari ( veg preparation ), fish, mutton, and sweets ( if there are any ). Not the other way around. There are other specificities too. If there are two fish preparations, you have to take a particular one first, then the other. In sweets, you take sandesh or rasogolla after mishti dai, not before . It is possibly to prepare your taste buds with each intake for the next one.

Mutton is also a favourite item in the menu , though an occasional one . By mutton I mean of course goat meat and not the lamb variety. Chicken was a taboo in many households in our childhood, more so in the brahmin ones. It used to be mutton curry on a Sunday and we would look forward to it.

Why on a Sunday ? I do not really know, but can only surmise. Everyday was a fish day in any case in a middle class Bengali household, mutton was  a change of taste, something special, on a day of holiday when every one in the family could sit down together to have a meal. Moreover , Bengalis considered mutton too heavy  for daily consumption and of course a bit too expensive  even in those days when mutton sold at Rs.4 or 5 a kg (in the '50s).

Today chicken is quite popular. The number of shops selling poultry in the bazaar testifies to that. But when I see the long queue in front of the mutton shops every Sunday , I realise that the same tradition -  mangser jhol  on a Sunday- continues.

Bengalis' love for sweets is also well known. There are three sweetmeat shops within a hundred metres of where I stay. This must be the case in any residential locality of Kolkata. It seems that the craze for sweets has not much abated despite the increasing incidence of diabetes in this part of the world.

I find many non-Bengalis associate Kolkata with 'mishti dai' (sweet or sweetened curd ) now a days. I like mishti dai too but I do not understand this preference when Kolkata has many other sweets to boast of. Rasogolla, for instance, which must have travelled far and wide thanks to K.C.Das's Rasogolla sold in sealed cans.

A celebrity visiting the city these days loves to say, ' I love Kolkata and its mishti dai '.Obviously the Kolkatans are charmed. They would have been overwhelmed if he or she had said 'I like Ilish macher jhol ( hilsha curry ). But that is most unlikely. The public relations man who tutors the celebrity knows pretty well that such an announcement will sound pretty hollow - and be taken with a pinch of salt, because no body but a Bengali can really manage the hilsha bones effectively enough to be able to enjoy its taste.

In my search for the identity of a Bengali, my identity that is, I find food habits a major component that constitute it. I can go on naming food items one after the other which are quintessentially  Bengali though some of them are fast vanishing from our plate. Mainly because of the labour involved in their preparation and the lack of time (or initiative ) on the part of the housewife - who may also be a working mother. I can name, for example, Mochar Ghanta or Enchorer Tarkari which people flock to have these days in some of the restaurants which have come up to serve Bengali cuisine.Fortunately so ! Same goes for Pattishapta Pithe or Naru which Bengalis buy from some shops today rather than make it at home.

I am sure all these items are still being prepared in some households, but the general trend is, as in many other things modern, outsourcing. That may have taken the personal touch away .

Another essentially Bengali item is luchi which I think is still a favourite in every Bengali home. It is taken with any of a variety of items, begun bhaja (fried slices of brinjal or eggplant), aloor dum ( a potato preparation), kasha mangsho ( a meat preparation) or payesh ( another sweet Bengali delicacy).

A few days back I decided I would make some luchis for myself. The thought of having some hot luchis for breakfast which I had not had for a long time was quite tempting. Added to that was my recently awakened Bengali fervour and that launched me into the project.

After all, luchi making is no big deal. As child, I saw my mother making luchis so many times. She had to feed a large family. When she made luchis, it was in large numbers for an eagerly waiting assemblage. She would make these with an ease and deftness which I always admired -  all the myriad jobs she had to do she did with the same ease and deftness, always fast and tireless. But I admired her even more after my recent experience.

You just have some maida (flour), mix it with some water and a pinch of salt in a flat bottomed bowl to make some dough, divide the dough into some balls, press each ball with your fingers on a chaki (flat round wooden board ) and then use  the beluni ( the wooden cylindrical roller with grips on both sides) to roll each ball separately into a round circular piece four or five inches in diameter - voila, the preparation is complete ! Just heat some oil in the kadai ( round pan ) and put each round piece to soak into this hot oil for frying.There will be this sizzling sound and the luchi will just puff up. You turn both sides in the oil to make it perfect - the puffed fulko luchi.

Not that difficult, I thought. Since I had the chaki and beluni, I got some maida and got into the act straightaway. When I started making the dough, I realised something was wrong. It was sticking to my fingers and to the bowl. Have I put more water than necessary? I added some flour, and again some more and eventually managed to make the dough and the balls, though they remained sticky still. The problem actually accentuated when I tried to roll out the balls on the chaki and make the round pieces. I knew that my pieces would not be round or circular, that would require more practice, I was ready for that , but I was not ready for what was happening. The wet maida was sticking to the chaki and as I pressed the roller, there would be a tear here and a tear there. Some maida was sticking to the roller too. I had to manage by adding more dry maida on the balls and also by sprinkling some on the chaki itself before trying to roll each ball.  This is, I suppose, what they do while making rotis ! Finally, the job was done- I had five pieces- they could not be called round by any stretch of imagination, their shapes defied geometry, but they were the products of my most sincere even if foolish efforts, so I lovingly put each individually into the heated oil.I would say they behaved, though not as well as well made luchis normally do, but they also sizzled in the oil and one or two even puffed up to an extent.

Finally I had my breakfast with some operationally challenged luchis and begunbhaja (which I got done in the same oil ).

Where did I go wrong ? I asked my daughter when she visited next.

It was the simple matter of adding some oil to the flour before making the dough with water. If I were Sherlock Holmes I would have no problem finding it out for myself, but I am not. I am just a true blue Bengali ! And I mess up too often.

But I could not leave it at that. I had to make my luchis next day and this time things worked, though the shape of the luchis left much to be desired.

There is always a tomorrow.

Monday, January 17, 2011

Tequila or Somras ?


  1. This post was originally intended as a comment I made to my nephew Tanmoy's post 'Tequilla Bottle' in his blog ' Ulysses in Utopia'. Though I posted the comment, I thought it could also be published as an independent post.  I may have made a few alterations here and there though.
    Well, you have mentioned Mohua which is a tribal favourite in places where Mohua trees grow. Once I spent a night at Ajodhya Pahar and I woke up in the morning with a ‘top, top’ sound in my ear coming from a distance. A short walk brought me to a tree, the Mohua tree’ I learnt, from which flowers were just falling off making that rhythmic sound. One or two santhal girls were collecting the flowers in a basket to take home for making the family brew.
    In tea areas in North Bengal and Assam, the labours brew ‘rice beer’ i.e a liquour fermented from rice.In the Dooars, it is known as Hadiya or hariya. I forget what it is called in Assam. If you travel along the highway from Jalpaiguri towards Assam, you may come across girls at roadsides at different places sitting with a Hadi and a few aluminium glasses selling the brew.
    In rural areas of Bengal, they ferment the juice from date palm (khejurer ras) and palm (tal).Tari, they call it, I think. And of course in the South they have the very popular tody which is made from coconut .
    In the towns and cities of Bengal,you will find Deshi Mader Dokan, shops selling various brands of country liquor.These are all Govt. licensed.You will find similar shops all over India as distinct from those selling India made Foreign Liquor,IMFL- beer,whiskeys etc. I don’t think our indigenous brews can really be marketed worldwide – unless in the the last forty years they have improved their standard. Though Saratchandra in the past and Sunil Gangopadhya and his group in their Khalasitolla days were quite enamoured by it.
    I should not leave out the ‘cholai’-the strong distilled brew which is generally sold in clandestine shops and is often adulterated with some other intoxicants but has a strong base among the poorer section of the working class.
    In fact, occasional reports of large scale deaths that we read are from consumption of such adulterated cholai or arak.
    What I want to say is that India has a multi-liquor diversity and the unity lies in the fact that drinking is as ancient as anything you can think of. If you go by Nirode Chowdhury, it might have been the cause of split between the Sura and Asura, Devas and Daityas. Somras is something you find in ancient texts and in his Brave New World, Aldous Huxley found it a necessary ingredient in the lives of the people he depicted.
     The social stigma associated with drinking is a very Bengali middle class thing.Though I should not say that drinking is widely prevalent among the Bengali middle class, a large section is not immune to its charm as the thriving businesses of the wine shops indicate. But they would rather keep it in their closet. and to that extent it may be another instance of our hypocrisy.

Thursday, January 13, 2011

শেষমেষ বাংলায়


রোমান অক্ষরে লিখে বাংলায়  transliteration ! Google  সে  সুযোগ  করে দিল । একটু  অভ্যেস  করতে হচ্ছে , কিন্তু   মনে হচ্ছে  বাংলা keyboard এ লেখার থেকে সোজা । অন্তত আমার কাছে । Blogger এ সোজাসুজি বাংলায় লেখা এখনো সম্ভব নয় কিন্তু হিন্দী এসে গেছে , আশা করি কিছুদিনের মধ্যে  বাংলাতেও  পারা যাবে ।
এটা প্রাথমিক প্রচেষ্টা ,লিখতে  সময় লাগছে ।সরাসরি বাংলায় লেখা অভ্যেস নেই অনেকদিন , তাছাড়া , আমাদের অবস্থা  তো  ন  যযৌ ন তস্হৌ ( এটায়   unicode   লাগলো ) ।  ভালকরে   ইংরিজি শেখাও হলো না, বাংলাটাও  যেটুকু জানতাম ভুলে যাচ্ছি ।          

Saturday, January 8, 2011

Krishnakali Ami Tarei Boli

I was once again listening to this song rendered so beautifully by Suchitra Mitra.
But this time my mind was more on the lyrics. After all a Tagore song is best appreciated if the lyric is well understood.
I could vividly picture a sky dark with clouds and the the plants in the paddy fields swaying with the gust of a wind that blew from the east. I could see a dusky village belle rushing out of a hut to look for her cows lowing in fear of an impending storm.
I could see this as I listened to the song. With a few words, Tagore could make the image as real as real could be. I  remembered my experience of being caught in a village road more than forty years ago when I saw a patch of dark cloud in the distant horizon across what seemed like a limitless paddy field suddenly engulfing the whole sky and then a raging storm that was almost turning the world around before it started raining. But then Tagore is the greatest poet we ever had and one of the greatest the world has ever seen.
I did not have any encounter though with any village belle, dark or white. May be because I never had Tagore's eyes.
On a more prosaic note, this post is not about poetic imagery. It is about Tagore's way of looking at life. What did he see in this girl ? She had a dark complexion, which would not find much favour with the match makers of the village those days and will not even today.When it comes to girls, we continue to have   a fixation about the fair complexion - any matrimonial column is a testimony to this.
But the poet saw in this dusky village girl a stunning beauty. In her dark gazelle eyes, and in her flowing locks of hair. In the way she stepped out of her hut and looked at the sky. She was ,to him, like a flower, the flower Krishnakali. Whatever others might say, they may look down upon her for her dark skin but the poet makes us look beyond her complexion and see her as the beautiful girl she is. Tagore wrote this a long time ago when we believe prejudices were stronger and much more entrenched. We adore Tagore- our Rabindranath, our Rabi Thakur- but we learn nothing.
  

Pocket Garer Math

The Gorer Math or the Maidan as we call it, is the large and grassy expanse of open space right in the heart of the city of Kolkata.
We used to call it the Garer Math in our childhood or youth. I think the word Maidan came much later. 
The word must have been coined because it was and remains today the wide open field ( Math ) in front of a fort ( Gar ), the Fort Williams , which the British had established as their army headquarters to control their interests, later the empire.They had left a field wide and open in front in order to be able to spot and track any approaching army. The rear was protected by the river Ganges or Hoogly as it is called here.

The Maidan is not as grassy or green as we have seen it in our childhood , but dotted with trees, it still remains one of the few places in the city one can go for a walk in the morning or evening or even in the daytime in winter to have a breath of fresh air. One can spend idle time with the family sitting on a bench or on the grass and enjoy the sunset across the river Hoogly ( Ganges ) which flows by in the west. Or just savour the beauty of the Victoria Memorial in the south and the chaotic vibrancy of Kolkata life all around.
The press rightly termed it the ‘lungs of the city’ which continue to supply some much needed oxygen to a city which is being depleted of this basic and essential element everyday through the toxic emissions of a tottering transport system and the garbage and filth that the congested city fails to clear with any degree of efficiency.
 This patch of green, this lung of Kolkata, was under periodic invasion for a number of years by Fairs of all kinds and by occassional but large political assemblies and the consequent littering and rampage were starting to give early signals of pulmonary diseases which afflict  the rest of Kolkata.
Thanks to the pressures brought in by environmentalists, more so by the persistent crusade of Subhas Dutta and finally the intervention of the High Court, the Trade Fairs and Book Fairs held in the Maidan at regular intervals have now been shifted. The  political rallies have also moved away, though only a short distance, to choke Kolkata traffic and cause more immediate inconvenience to its people.
I do not know when Garer Math entered our vocabulary in a figurative sense in the expression 'pocket garer math' but whenever it was, it remains as meaningful today as it was then. The Bengalee pocket has always remained more or less 'garer math' i.e empty or without any money.( There are always exceptions ).
 Even if Garer Math becomes greener and more trees grow on it- I hope that happens- with things as they are, I do not see any prospect of money flowing into Bengalee pockets or for that matter in the State. But our heart will remain at the right place, both medically and otherwise. 

Wednesday, January 5, 2011

Change ? What Change ?

 
This is what I wrote about a year ago but it remained as a draft.
"I have not written for quite sometime. It happens with me all the while. I engage in some activity or other, start it with some gusto and then my interest peters out. At least temporarily. Some sort of hibernation, I suppose. It serves an useful natural purpose in case of some living species; in my case none that I perceive.
When I was hibernating, the world was not. Things were happening here and abroad. Post Singur and Nandigram, Mamata Banerjee waltzed her way to victory in a number of constituencies in the last Parliamentary elections. To the accompaniment of her Ma Mati Manush orchestra.She went on to become a Railway Minister in the Union Cabinet and succeeded in inducting a number of her deputies in the party to become junior ministers. Frankly I don't know what they do at Delhi,but they never fail to attend the inauguration ceremonies of various projects that Ms Banerjee has launched and continues to launch in her home state of West Bengal.In fact, she has gone on a spree launching projects,whether they be coach factories or new trains, possibly in a bid to dispel any notion of her anti-industry image which the Singur-Nandigram and the Nano Hatao programme might have protrayed.Only future will tell how many of such projects will see the light of the day, but people have short memories. It is the beginning that matters.More so,if it is loud enough.
   The CPM led left front built a fortress over the years in West Bengal.After 32 years of uninterrupted rule,the fortress can't be said to be crumbling, but there seem to be enough cracks for Mamata and her party to make inroads into hitherto red bastions - whether they be rural areas, panchayats or educational institutions.A no-holds barred turf war is going on with the Assembly elections, barely a year away, in sight.Calcutta is back to the days of bandhs and processions.We,oldies, have seen it all in the sixties and early seventies of the last century when the Left was planning to come to power.
It is no consolation though that history is repeating itself.Mamata Banerjee and her party faithfuls are talking of 'Change',but apart from proposing a change in the Government,no other outline of such ' change' is visible." 
Since then the Assembly election has drawn nearer. The turf war I wrote about has only intensified, if the recent student elections and associated violence in some colleges are any indication.The metro channel is getting blocked practically everyday in rallies and counter rallies causing the usual traffic disruptions and inconveniences to the people.But we, Bengalees, take all these in our strides. We accept this as part of our political culture and know that net practices are required for any big match.

If any thing of note has happened in the last one year in this state, it is the use of the word 'harmad' which, thanks to Mamata Banerjee, has entered our vocabulary and after the country's Home Minister used it in his official communication, is surely on its way to being included in the Oxford dictionary.
After all, nobody can really blame us for neglecting that dictionary. We have contributed words like 'gherao' or 'naxal' to the Oxford Dictionary in the past too.

Tuesday, January 4, 2011

Suchitra Mitra

Suchitra Mitra is no more.

I have never been a great lover of music. I do not have shelves full of music albums,cassette or CDs, but I always loved her Rabindrasangeet. I loved her voice and her distinctive style. One of the few cassettes I have in my car is hers - I listen to it at times. Her 'Krishnakali ami tarei boli' lingers in my ears.

I do not know how to express my condolence, but I share it with all those who love music and Rabindrasangeet, hers in particular.

A star many of my generation looked up to is gone.

Monday, January 3, 2011

Different Strokes 3

I was nearing my retirement when I started swimming again on a regular basis. It was  really on medical advice - intended to check, if possible, the progressive weakening of my backbone and the consequent backache I had been suffering from for the past twenty five years.

Well, there was a span of a year or so, about twenty years before, when I had used a swimming pool and helped my children learn to swim. But time had moved on and the ageing process taken its toll.  I could feel the difference this time around. I could feel the stiffness in my body and the lack of rhythm as I swam.

I persisted though. The idea of keeping myself fit was of course foremost in my mind, but I found swimming a very relaxing and in fact very soothing form of exercise. I also found new friends. Fellow swimmers, nearly my age but mostly younger and from different professions.  After a swim, we would all meet and sit at a table in the club, have a cup of tea or two and some snacks and chat for a hour or so before going off in our own ways.

I started looking forward to these adda sessions, more so after retirement when time ceased to be a constraint and could be a bit oppressive at times.

Coming back to swimming, I found the initial stiffness gone after a few months. I was swimming normally, but just having a swim for  sometime everyday was no longer satisfying enough. I needed something more, something to work towards to, to achieve.I decided it was never too late to learn and I would teach myself to improve my technique, swim better and more effortlessly.

I had no instructor at hand nor at my age, 60 plus already, I felt like going to one. Thanks to modern technology, I had other options. I turned to the Net. I searched YouTube and came across a number of videos on swimming lessons on different strokes. I screened all of them and finally selected some to download. These are excellent videos which I would recommend to any aspiring swimmer. Excellently shot from different angles, underwater or above water, sometimes in slow motion and with commentaries to explain the techniques, these videos were my instructors. I watched them for hours ( cumulatively over a period of time ) to understand the way these elite swimmers swam, their arm and leg movements, the body roll in freestyle, the double kick in butterfly and what not. And I was trying them out in water.

It is one thing to know in your  mind how it is to be done, it is quite another to do it in practice. In swimming, and may be in many other   activities where body coordination is required, driving for sure, the body has to know. The body has to absorb the knowledge.

The body finally does.




This is not a post about swimming lessons, but one thing I can not but share about swimming which I learnt a bit late in the day, though as a student of physics in my college days, I should have learnt it much earlier. It is the drag or the resistance of water which you need to reduce through streamlining the body and executing the strokes properly that gives the swimmer a greater advantage than trying to apply greater force mindlessly.

I continue my swimming, all the strokes, and feel more at ease doing them than ever before. My battle with the butterfly stroke, however, is still not over, but it seems that I am winning despite the limitations imposed by my back.

 My adda also goes on. So also the back problem. That after all is life.

PS. Could not resist the temptation of embedding aYouTube video and giving a  link to another. But there are many more for anyone interested including a two part video of Michael Phelps Butterfly with his Coach's commentary.