Subho Nobo Borsho

Being a probashi Bengali, there are a lot of things I may not know or even if I do, I may not feel nostalgic about them…I’m quite ashamed to admit that I still don’t know about the origins of the Bengali New Year. I always thought it had something to do with rice planting and harvesting. But who cares for such trivia. I’m just happy thinking about the festivity infused to my otherwise, dull, boring and ‘full of medicines’ day.

Had a longish chat with baba in the morning. I could see the excitement of the day in his eyes and the passion was indeed palpable. I could almost see the hurried crowd at the Howrah Station, the paint of the taxi: black and yellow, feel the sharp taste of mustard in jhaalmuri, smell that familiar humidity laden wind, with fish buried alive inside. Calcutta! I regret not being brought up in a city where I think I belong and owe my genes to. It’s ironical, that it’s the same culture, cuisine and cacophony of Calcutta which I used to shun a decade back is what I want to embrace now.

The image of an average bong in my mind had been—a person with large head, glasses, glistening hair and dark shiny skin (still doubtful whether it’s health, overactive oil glands, sweat or an ungodly mix of all three!) and an overbearing smell of Keo Karpin , while for bonglings it was either over-sized or under-sized school uniforms. …I had my own share of these ‘unfashionable clothes’ days, or years if I may call it …I can still vividly remember family get-togethers in calcutta, when I would be clumsily dressed loafing around and, jethu and pishi chatting-singing-eating over batches, my brother and his gang in one room watching television. The menu used to be more or less fixed with mutton curry and luchi, maacher-jhol bhaat and we all gossping on dinner table until our hands were dry and yellow. My mother not wearing anything other than saris (wearing salwaar-kameez would be considered rebellious by our relatives in Calcutta!) - while i was growing up I resented this clutching onto the idiosyncrasies of bengali life (an exception being the pujo that i looked forward to every year). I had many arguments with my parents on this issue..but that was yesterday.

Today, a decade or more later, it’s me again- trying to take a trip down the memory lane with baba. Gazing out of the window, too weak to get up and enjoy the real ‘bong way of doing things’ . I sigh and wish Subho Nobo Borsho to my bong bandwagon…