Tim and Tot had slowly drifted into a troubled heap near my feet after spending the past two hours wiping away the tears from my face.

Deep in my heart I was happy that I was not there to see him go. I wanted to remember him as he was when we last met – strong, silent and confident.  The unshakable pillar in our lives. Not the shadow of the man that I once knew and loved more than anyone or anything else in the world. The passing of time had taken its toll on his indomitable spirit. His flesh had turned weak and three strokes had rendered him speechless and immobile.  In a strange sort of way, his passing had brought a sense of calm to my harried nerves, and no doubt to everyone who truly loved him. The days, months and years of pining, of waiting and suffering had come to an end. He had now found the peace that he so longed for and which we all prayed for. The spirit had been returned to the source.

“Soumya”, I said softly as I continued to stare at the light bulbs flashing by, “can we go home?”

“We are Manju.”

“I know, but I don’t mean this home Soumya, I mean home!”

“India?”

“Yes. Even if it’s for a couple of days. I believe we owe this to our sons. How will they feel if they never really get to know their grandparents? Their country? Or their culture? Over the past three years both of our father’s have expired. Wouldn’t it be terrible for them if our mother’s too were to leave us behind?”

Soumya did not answer immediately. He continued to stare out on to the road ahead. Manjula, unknowingly and unwittingly, had touched upon a thought that had coursed through his mind as well. Wasn’t this – the tangled web of relationships that they had left behind in India – a legacy that they needed to hand down to their sons? It had been 13 long years since either Manjula or he had set foot in their respective homes. Much had changed. And the recent spate of bad news had made him terribly nostalgic and homesick. If this could happen to Manjula’s father, a man he silently admired for his strength and courage, what could happen to his mother or Manjula’s mother or to themselves for that matter with the passing of time?

“Let’s think about it. Flying to India for a vacation – even for  a couple of weeks – will need a lot of planning and money.  It is also dependent on my getting leave from work.  But then, it definitely is worth considering. ”

I knew from his answer that the germ of the idea had found support somewhere in his mind. That is all I needed for the moment to keep my spirits intact.

As I found myself drifting between slumber and deep thought, I found my mind slowly moving on to thoughts of what had been and what we would possibly see if and when we went back now. My sisters had, from the sound of the letters they wrote and the photographs they sent, grown up to be beautiful, measured and intelligent. My brother, handsome and enterprising. Soumya’s siblings too and their children – to whom he was greatly attached – would have changed considerably since we met them last. His mother, my mother – and there I stopped. I couldn’t get myself to visualise her without her customary bold streak of vermilion in her hair and big warm smile that seemed to start around the corner of her eyes and light up her entire face. The rich filigree of her silk saree would now change to delicate thread work on a bland white cotton base.  As would be the case with his mother. The tears started rolling silently down my cheeks once again.  And soon I was asleep.

“Ranga-di, let go!”, I yelled out to my sister Arati, “this is a fight you can’t win!”

“Why should I? This dress is mine and no monkey can take it from me!”

Arati and I had climbed up to the terrace that hot, sultry afternoon during one of our longish visits to Madhupur to find a monkey had taken a fancy to one of Arati’s bright flower printed dresses that had been washed and put out to dry. Rushing toward the monkey, Arati had taken hold of the dress and was trying to wrestle with it to let go.

“Let go, you ape! This is mine!”

The moneky seemed to disagree and soon, before my eyes, a virtual tug-of-war match had ensued. After a couple of minutes and much shrieking on all sides, the monkey decided to put matters to rest. It reached out and slapped Arati right across her face. I watched aghast as it wrenched the dress from her hands and made off to the nearest tree. As the tears steamed down our faces – Arati’s in pain and mine in disbelief – we watched the monkey put on the dress and turn to us in a sure show of victory.

We rushed downstairs to tell our parents what had transpired.

“Ma, Ma..! look at what happened!” I said pointing toward my sister’s crimson red cheek. “A monkey just slapped Ranga-di“ 

Just as we were about to reach the bottom step, I tripped and fell. Arati, who was holding on to my hand, also fell – on top of me.  Through the puddle of blood that started streaming from my nose and the tears running down my cheeks, I noticed my mother and father rushing toward us leaving my son’s Tim and Tot playing on the bed.

“Manjula…Manjula…we’re home”, Soumya said as he gently shook me out of my slumber.

As we walked up the steps to our house with our children in our arms, we knew it was time to seriously consider where we wanted to be and what we wanted to do.

Life gives us many choices not many of which are easy to make. Should we choose to live life for ourselves or for our parents? For now or tomorrow? For our children or for their future? As usual, these were questions I didn’t have an answer to. Well, for the moment at least…

Jim had left for office a couple of hours ago and the boys were in school. But unlike other days, the darkness had not lifted as Manjula had gone about her chores both within and outside the house. If anything, it seemed to have intensified. Something, Manjula instinctively felt, was amiss. So when the phone rang, her heart skipped a beat and when she heard a sobbing voice at the other end, she wasn’t at all surprised.

“Manjula, this is Barrol, could you come over please? I need to talk to you.”

Over the past couple of years, Barrol McAlister, now Mrs Barrol Dey, had become a really good friend. Smitten by her fellow researcher at Oxford – Rathin Day – she had decided to give up her Scottish roots and become a good Indian bride. No doubt part of this was a result of the sunshine years her parent’s had spent in India while working with the British Government under the then East India Company.  Part by the fact that she herself had spent her childhood between the two capitals of British India – Kolkata and Shimla - and had fond memories of the same. And part by the fact that she was fascinated by the riot of colour, music, dancing, melodrama and the romance of Indian cinema. Every weekend she would gladly allow herself to be whisked away into a world of make-believe and would emerge from the Odeon – three and a half hours later – with a smile on her face. In between, she would have laughed, cried, danced, sang, loved, hated and died with many of the actors.

When Rathin walked into the University one day, he seemed like everything she could have ever asked for. He was tall, dark and handsome in a Mills & Boon sort of way. He was also sharp-witted and academically brilliant. Besides the fact that he was Indian, what held him in good stead with Barrol was that he was from Bengal – that part of East India which was famous for its poets, artistes, musicians, social reformers and the intelligentsia of the times. And unlike many of the young men she had met who seemed to be interested only in a handful of things, Rathin could talk for hours about a whole host of subjects. Soon she was immersed in the philosophy of Kant, the non violence of Gandhi, the poetry of Rabindranath, the cinema of Ray, and the sound of the Bhatiali floating across the Ganges at the break of dawn, which Rathin sang to her. Love soon blossomed.

Five years had passed since then. In the interim, Barrol had learnt to speak the Bengali language, had learnt how to wear a sari – in which she looked ravishing – and had learnt to rustle up a reasonably good chicken curry. “Don’t forget one of the surest ways to cement your place in your man’s heart is to offer him food that he really yearns for”, her friends had collectively advised her.

Rathin too had responded warmly to these developments and their brisk courtship soon turned to marriage – first at the Marriage Registrar’s office in the UK and then amid much pomp and splendour back home in Kolkata, where the young lovers had travelled. Rathin had suddenly become the true ‘Sahib’ with a beautiful ‘Memsahib’ to boot. Life was good!

Not wanting to question Barrol on the phone, Manjula quickly picked up her hand bag and walked out of the house.

Half an hour later she knocked on Barrol’s door at Merrydale Garden to find two of their friends already seated there. They looked cross. Very cross. And it was clear that Barrol had been crying. Her tear-stained make up had left gray stains on her otherwise alabaster skin.

“What happened? I asked Barrol and everyone else in unison, “Is everything okay?”

“Hardly”, said Irene, “Rathin’s having an affair…”

“Hold on, Irene”, said Pratima from the other end of the room, “let Barrol tell Manjula”.

“Barrol?”

She slowly looked up, “Rathin has been acting strangely of late. While he has always been busy,  he has recently started staying away over the weekends on the pretext of completing his dissertation at Oxford.”

“So what’s wrong with that?” I asked trying to understand things a little better, “Isn’t he in his final year?”

“He seems to come back happier than usual and has also started bringing home lavish gifts on his way back from the University – something he would rarely do in the past.”

“Is that all? Aren’t you reading too much into this?” I asked. “Isn’t it possible that it is as simple as it looks. That Rathin is indeed happy to be getting along well with his dissertation and happier to be back home? Besides, Rathin doesn’t seem to be the type who would willfully step out of line.”

“I know, that is one of the reasons I married him, Manjula…. Rathin’s earnestness, integrity and honesty. But then how does one explain the fact that he is never ready to take me with him on one of these trips, and the one time that I did land up unannounced, he seemed terribly miffed?”

“And did you find anything?”

“No. I found him pouring over his books in the library.”

“And..?”

“And nothing, really. Apart from the fact that he has spent a fair bit of time with one of his colleagues who has been going through a tough separation. He talks about her all the time!”

“Barrol, that’s lame! Of course, he would be talking about her all the time…and now I see the point behind the expensive gifts and the cheerfulness as well. Don’t you see how lucky he believes he is?”

Pratima and Irene, silent spectators through this entire dialogue, seemed embarrassed that they had so quickly jumped to conclusions and perhaps fanned the fire of jealousy and suspicion.

“Besides”, Irene piped finally, “Indian men – particularly Bengali men – would never do such a thing. They worship their wives like their mothers!”

“While I don’t know much about that, I do know that if you continue in this vein and fill your mind with doubt and suspicion, there is really no turning back for the two of you. You might as well write him off right away, since you would have sooner than later pushed him into an affair that he doesn’t necessarily want to be a part of”, I added.

The next hour and a half was spent allaying the fears of Barrol and strangely enough, the fears of Irene and Pratima, who had almost willed themselves into believing that things were really bad between the young couple. Finally, they were convinced, and the delicate equilibrium of married life had been once more restored. But not for long.

A year down the line, Barroll found Rathin one afternoon cosying up to one of his colleagues outside Christ Church College when he least expected her. Despite the best assurances that Indian men – nay, Bengali men – did not behave in that way, the fact is, Rathin had. While it may be suggested that the cumulative pressures of work, academia, married life and an ulta possessive wife took its toll on their relationship, the fact is that the two of them had looked upon their relationship very differently from the start: Barrol had seen their marriage as a means to grow a lifelong partnership with the man she loved, based  on the fundamental principles of trust, respect, loyalty and love. Rathin, on the other hand, had seen this as a passport to boundless opportunity – the brown Sahib, who was ready to showcase his manhood and cultivate the field of love, even as the rumblings of discontent became louder and louder at home.

Their marriage was a thing of the past.

“Strange? Not at all Manjula, I feel much the same way. Life flows in a continuum. A new generation always out seats the former – much like what is modern and new today becomes staid and boring tomorrow! This is life’s way to ensure that we willingly and gracefully give way to the future.”

Our two boys had been growing up right in front of our eyes. And despite our best efforts to provide them with a ‘similar set of inputs’ in terms of food, emotional support at home, space, choice of school, books, toys, outings and pass-times, the two were growing up to be two very different individuals. Tim – formally known as Sushanto – was a charmer, an outgoing lady-killer who had bright eyes, a glib tongue, a mop of unruly hair and a dimple when he smiled. He was also showing strong signs of academic brilliance and his teachers at school were full of praise for his diligence and quick wit. Tim was also very clear that he would grow up to become an engineer like his father, which gave him the license to open up and destroy almost everything he could lay his hands on, since he wanted to know how it worked.

He was also very clear that he when he grew up he would own the big house down the road where he would stay alone with his wife and children. As for us, we could fend for ourselves!

Tot – Sumanto, that is – on the other hand was quieter and less outgoing.  Awestruck in part by his brother’s exhuberance, he found respite in music, in animals, in team games and yes, extra-curricular activities that allowed him to express himself in his own special way. There was no doubt that he was exceedingly bright – he was promoted twice out of turn since the school authorities were sure his IQ levels were far above his peers – but he was bright in a controlled sort of way. Naturally, when we were summoned one afternoon to an assembly at the Bingley Junior School, we hardly expected what we saw and heard. Little Tot actually led the School Choir! This, we later got to know from his teachers, had been the practice for the past year. “Why hasn’t he told you?”, she asked. All we could do was hemm and haw. We later got to know that he forgot to share that little detail with us, primarily because it came to him so naturally. It wasn’t something to needlessly talk about.

As the boys grew up, we found we had suddenly gained a new identity: “This is Sumanto and Sushanto’s parents..” or “Hello Tim and Tot’s mama!” or “Hi dear, guess who these are, Tim and Tot’s parents, aren’t they a spitting image of their sons?”

I always found the last one slightly confusing. We, the replica of our sons? Wasn’t it supposed to be the other way around? Well, we didn’t really mind, but it brought a smile to our lips every time we heard an excited parent on the street introduce us as such.

Suddenly we had a new engaged social life to take care of. One peppered with aunt’s and uncle’s. With nieces and nephews. With friends and acquaintances from school, from Sunday School, from the Choir, from the football team, from the neighbourhood…And what followed were a stream of birthday parties, christmas parties, presents, balloons, farewell dos and sleepovers. I seem to have become quite the full-time chaperone, whose sole purpose in life was to collect the boys from one place and drop them off at another – at times to two different places, before having to collect them all over again. But I didn’t complain. The tediousness of these chores disappeared everytime I saw a cheerful smile light up their faces when they saw me waiting for them.

Since Soumya was at work through much of this, our weekends were filled up with outings as he tried his best to make up for all the lost time. I remember a conversation we had had fairly early on in our marriage about this.

“Soumya”, I had asked, “do you realize that the way you work that you are going to miss out on so much of our son’s childhood? Tim’s first smile, his first words, his first steps, his first crush, his first football match, everything?”

“I know, but I don’t have a choice, do I?”, he brooded as a darkness suddenly crept over his face. “The pressures at Woden are only increasing. Close to a hundred people were laid off last week as a result of the industrial slump. With the way the economy is going, I am fairly sure that this won’t be the last time people are exited either. I need you to be my eyes and ears and tell me everything you see and find fascinating about them growing up. I need to continue to put my head down and see us through this storm”.

It was moments like these that made us yearn for home. The security of our country. The safety in numbers. The surety of our families. Of our erstwhile way of life.

One of the biggest debates we had with many of our friends was whether we ought to teach Bengali – our mother tongue – to our children as they grew up. “Bengali, their mother tongue?” Rathin had asked one afternoon as he stood with his back to the fireplace.” What, do you want them to be Indian? Face facts sweatheart, your children are British. Their mother tongue is English. Bengali is a thing of the past. Don’t let your hangover with the past become an albatross that you pass on to them!”

We thought otherwise.

Bengali, unlike many of our friends, was the language we spoke at home between ourselves since we were married. We didn’t intend to stop now.

But then help often comes in from the most unexpected quarters. In this case, from the good Dr Goodburn, my sons’ paediatrician.

“Now don’t get me wrong”, she had started one afternoon choosing her words carefully and watching our faces closely for the slightest indication that she was crossing the line of propriety, “your children are no doubt British and I, for one, are extremely glad that they are, otherwise, how would we have met? But let them not forget their roots, their language, who they really are. I still speak my native celtic dialect as well as I do the Queen’s English. It gives me a sense of identity, of belonging that I hold very dear. Teach them your language as well. English will come naturally to them. Your language won’t, since they will hardly hear it around them as they grow up.

“And don’t worry about them growing up confused”, she tried to reassure us, “a child can learn up to five languages simultaneously till the age of six. If you don’t do this now, it will be too late and you will never forgive yourselves”.

We made sure that we didn’t have reason to. And while, they did speak the language with errors in syntax, grammer and with the most violent cockney accent that you can imagine, the fact is that they grew up knowing that Bengali was very much a part of their being. Would this hold them in goodstead when they prepared to step into the limelight? Only time would tell. But for the moment we were happy.

Soumya and I beamed as the gathering stood up and applauded our young boys, who dressed in starched white dhotis and kurtas, had just finished singing their first-ever Bengali song. The evergreen ‘Dhitang Dhitang Bole’ had once again proved to be a hit. They had instantly gained many fans. And we even more recognition as their parents.

]]> http://theinconsolabletruth.wordpress.com/2010/02/06/limelight/feed/ 2 The Inconsolable Truth http://theinconsolabletruth.wordpress.com/2010/01/26/rite-of-passage/ http://theinconsolabletruth.wordpress.com/2010/01/26/rite-of-passage/#comments Tue, 26 Jan 2010 02:17:05 +0000 The Inconsolable Truth http://theinconsolabletruth.wordpress.com/?p=146 ]]> “It’s called ‘A-n-n-a-p-r-a-s-h-a-n’,  Alison!”, I laughed as I spelt out the letters to my British friend who was still struggling to learn the nuances of the Bengali language. “The Annaprashan is a ritual that all Hindu children have to go through when they are six months old. It’s something like the baptism. The ceremony is a rite-of-passing that marks the first time that a child is given solid food.  What makes things even more fascinating is the ceremony also gives you an indication of the priorities that a child will possibly display when he or she grows up.”

“How so?” asked Alison, as she sat near the fireplace in our living room and struggled to fit the words and meanings together in her head.

“Let me explain”, chipped in Pratima, “at the end of the little ceremony the child is given a set of four items to choose from on a tray -  a book, that signifies knowledge, money or a jewel, that symbolizes wealth, some clay, the stands for land and property and a pen, that represents one’s career.  We believe that whichever  item the child chooses first, and the order in which he chooses the following items, gives you a fair indication of what the child will be interested in pursuing when growing up.”

“But will Dr Bose agree, Pratima?” I asked changing the focus of our discussion to where we had started, “Do you think he will agree to be the Tot’s Mama for the day?”

“Mama? How can Subimal be Tot’s Mama? Aren’t you his Mama?”, Alison asked, her curiousity once more aroused. As someone who had decided to marry a Bengali she was determined to try and understand as much as she could of the Bengali language and culture, often at the chagrin of people around her…

” ‘Mama’ in Bengali means Uncle, silly, haven’t I explained this will you earlier?” I said, as we all burst into laughter. “The Mama or maternal Uncle conducts the whole ceremony, as it is he who feeds the child, before everyone else, and later offer the child his choices. Can you imagine what it feels like to taste fish curry and dal for the first time after growing up on milk and custard apple?”

“Your fish curry and dal, Manjula? Simply divine!”, Irene exclaimed, as she remembered the sumptuous meal that we had all just tucked away.

“Since I don’t have my brother here, I thought I could ask Dr Bose to fill in the role”, I continued. Of course, there was another reason: it was believed that the  child would follow in the Mama’s footsteps and Dr Subimal Bose was among the most accomplished professionals we knew in the UK. But this was a ‘minor’ detail that I chose not to share with my friends.

“Pratima?” I asked.

“I really don’t see why he wouldn’t agree, Manjula. You know Subimal loves children and is especially attached to Tot. I have seen his eye’s light up every time we talk about coming over here. And while Tim is an angel, I think he sees in Tot the picture of the son we haven’t had as yet”, she said tugging at her saree to cover the little bump on her belly that had just started to appear. “I am sure he will be very happy to play the part if you ask him.”

And so he was. Dr Bose – I still hadn’t gotten round to calling Soumya’s friends by their first names despite spending the better part of a decade now in the UK – gladly agreed to be my brother and Tot’s Mama on the eventful day.

I spent the next the fortnight and a half preparing for what was to be the biggest ceremony my son had seen or would see for the next couple of years. There was an outfit that had to be stitched. I measured, procured, cut, sewed and fitted the shiny red fabric that Tot would don on his special day. Tim, my elder son, and Saumya, watched on in amazement as the clothes fell into place, as did the elaborate bill of fare. Rice, dal, a sabzi, five kinds of fries, two kinds of fish curry, payesh, mishti the works! And that too, all for a six month old!!

“Aren’t you worrying about this a bit too much?” Irene asked, having dropped in one afternoon and finding me completely at sixes and sevens, “I don’t remember you making such a fuss about this when Tim was born”.

“You are right, Irene”, I sighed as I sank back into the comfort of our living room sofa, “I don’t quite understand it myself, but with every passing day I feel the urge to make that extra effort to do things in exactly the same manner that they had been done for us when we were growing up; to do things exactly as my mother or your father would have done when we were young. Is it because these memories mean so much to us or because we are trying desperately to cling to on the past? I can’t help but wonder…”

“Does it really matter?” said Irene shrugging her shoulders, “will our children ever understand these ceremonies or appreciate the way we feel about them? Will they ever see India? Or know that they are Indian? For that matter, will we ever get to go home…?” A touch of sadness and pain creeping into her voice.

It was my turn to shrug my shoulders nonchalantly, as I refused to be drawn into this  deep discussion now,”I don’t know. I really don’t know Irene. What I do know is that this is important to me. And while my son is young, he doesn’t have a choice but to be a part of everything that I believe is good for him.  Everything we have grown up to believe in and respect. Both Saumya and I want our sons to know their identity, their roots, their culture, themselves. What happens later is not something any of us have control over or have knowledge of. It is for us to keep doing what is right and let the future take care of itself”.

Forty people came home to witness Tot’s Annaprashan that Sunday.  Tot, who would grow up to be better known as Sumanto, went through his rite-of-passage successfully and entered into this world of boundless tastes, smells, desires and fantasies.

As Dr Bose cradled him in his arms and fed him his first spoon of real food, Tot looked at him slightly bewildered. “What on earth is this?”, he seemed to ask as he looked up at his Mama and rolled around the morsel in his mouth. “A bit salty, slightly sharp, but yes, it’s different!”

As all of us looked on in earnest, Tot reached out across the tray, “he’s picked up the pen and then in close succession, touched the book, the money and then the clay!! Look, he won’t let go of anything”, Dr Bose laughed as he tried to pry the things out of Tot’s hand. “Your younger son, Manjula, sure has a strong grip. You can be sure he won’t let go of anything or anyone that he decides to take hold of when he grows up”.

Our son had taken his first step towards manhood.

There is something magical about having a child. A mystery that you clinically learn about in the text books, as we indeed all have, but one which baffles you just the same. Where exactly does this germ of life come from? What defines it character? Its being? Its form? What for that matter defines its life and ultimately, its passing? And where does the same germ go to once it has lived its course? These questions and many others coursed through my mind as I stepped out of Dr Goodburn’s chamber at Women’s Hospital. Angela Goodburn had stayed a friend and doctor – through the years that had elapsed between Timmy’s coming – Sushanto that is – and today.

This is a rare bond that women share: the knowledge that they have been part of and more importantly lived through a miracle. As over a period of 40 weeks this little spec of dust within us grows and blossoms to become someone we will love and treasure for the rest of our lives. And so it was once again. Sumanto was born to Soumya and me on the 23rd of January the following year. A bonny baby with bright eyes and a well-defined grasp.

Soumya prayers for a baby girl had not been answered. But our prayer to make up for Baba’s loss, to once more bring into the universe one of God’s finest creations had been. We were the medium, Sumanto – who we nicknamed Tot – was the message.

It’s strange but the coming of Tot seemed to blow the dark clouds that had almost engulfed our lives and very existence. Life had given us a renewed sense of direction; a renewed sense of purpose; and we were more than happy to be nudged along by the strong tailwind that was the result of our new found passion.  Can one fall deeper in love when one is married for several years? Yes. We had. Soumya and I felt a much stronger bond between us.

While one could always question whether this was a function of the time that had elapsed since we were married or that we had both lived through the painful demise of a parent or the boundless intimacy we now shared in our personal lives, the fact remains we had. Soumya’s pain in the days immediately after Baba’s demise was palpable; unbearable. And I was determined to do everything within my power to heal his hurt. To use my love as a balm to softly sooth the wounds that had suddenly emerged.

Soumya had been very close to his father. Much closer than I could tell through the first years of our marriage or people would believe, given the fact that they had lived apart so many years. Perhaps it was this chasm – of time and space – that brought them closer together in their mind and hearts. It is a myth that you care less or feel less since you are not a part and parcel of the humdrum of one’s daily life. Soumya cared. Soumya cried. Soumya…

That was not all we created in the days that followed. I remember a discussion I had had with my friends – Pratima, Irene, Alison, Barrol and several others – about our identity as an organization. The ‘West Midland’s Bengali Association’, I opined, was too restrictive; too parochial and a pure misnomer given the fact that two of the organization’s key committee members were women of English origin and several other members, non Bengali. The ‘West Midland’s Indian Association’ was far more appropriate. Our caucasian friends agreed. They had after all decided to marry Bengali gentlemen, often wore a sari – in which they looked ravishing – celebrated most of our festivals in addition to their own, and relished my chicken curry!

When we put forward our suggestion at the next committee dinner – which now took place once a month – there was hardly any opposition to our proposal. And so, the West Midland’s Indian Association was born.

It was still some months to the Puja. But our count down had begun. The Indian diaspora is an interesting phenomenon. We may live and breathe in a different country, but most of us are extremely aware of our identity. Of our being Indian and our Indianness. Aware, indulgent and clingy.

Irrespective of our regional leanings, we come together on the common grounds of religion and culture, politics and sport. Then we are no different. There are no barriers between us. We are, what we’re born as – Indian – and often proud to be so. Did this create barriers in our attempts to integrate with the local community in which we now lived, perhaps. What Soumya and I were to realize much later in our lives however, was that the barriers this created at home were far more intense and difficult to negotiate. In our attempt to retain our identity we had all chosen to stand still in time. To hold on to that one memory that we held dear to our hearts, which we felt defined our persona. Our Indianness. Our religious festivals. Our art and culture. Our dress. Our cuisine. And in many ways, our language.

Are our children a creation of our conscious and unconscious efforts? I believe so.

We would have to wait to see if Sushanto and Sumanto would turn out to embody everything that Soumya and I believed in. Whether we had been successful in passing on the best of our knowledge and wisdom to their young impressionable minds and hold back the inherrent bias and prejudice that we had embraced as we passed through life and its portals remained to be seen.

Creation is part of a continuum. One that we live through every day of our lives.

My father had died.

When the telegram had arrived, I was busy at work and Manjula had just gotten back home with Tim from school.

“Momma, is everything okay?” he asked as he saw Manjula’s cheerful face suddenly turn ashen.

“Yes dear, you go along and have your food and watch your favourite programme.”

For the past couple of days, I had felt a strange kind of uneasiness that I couldn’t put into words and couldn’t get my head around. A feeling of discomfort and despondency that had continued to hang like a dark dull pall in the air on a  cold winter’s afternoon, in spite of everything I tried or did.

When James – the office assistant – came to me and said that there was an urgent telephone call from home, I knew something was amiss. Manjula would not call me otherwise. I could hear the  pain in her voice when she said:

“Saumya, I want you to come home, now..”

“Manjula?” I had asked, “is everything okay?”

“It’s Baba.”

“What about Baba? Is he okay? Has he hurt himself?!”

She refused to say more on the phone. But insisted in her quiet but firm way that I should drop everything that I was doing and head home. I did. It wasn’t often that I had heard the strain in Manjula’s carefree voice, which always seemed to mirror the clarity and boundless happiness in her heart. Something had clouded over her bright blue sky. And I wanted to know what.

That afternoon, the three buses didn’t seem to take that long or perhaps, they took forever. I don’t remember. What I do remember was my mind filled with possibilities; with concerns; with images of what could have happened. My mind kept on going back to the last conversation I had had with my father before I had come away to the United Kingdom many years ago, and then again after Manjula and I had got married:

“Saumyabrata”, he had said the first time around “before you take this final step and go overseas, I would like you to  remember a couple of things: life is a journey that will take you far from where you were born. Never forget your values, your principles and your ethics. These are the three pillars that will help see you through the most difficult crises of your life. Conversely, these are the three pillars that will provide you with the greatest obstacles because they are what define who you are. Lose any of them and you start losing yourself. Lose all of them and you will lose your identity.”

“Thank you for sharing this Baba, but why are you telling me this now?” I had replied.

“Because, when you are on your own, there will be times when you will be forced to make a choice between what is right and what is wrong. Your mother and I won’t be there for you to turn to us and ask whether you should go ahead or turn back. There will also be times when your friends will not know better or may purposefully egg you on to do something they would not do themselves. The only true touchstone you will have in many such situations is your conscience; your inner being; that has been shaped and burnished through the  formative years of your childhood. It is those principles, values and ethics that have over time come to define the little voice in your head that urges you or stops you from doing something. Listen to it. Use it as your lodestone. You won’t ever go wrong.”

Isn’t it strange how we often take age and experience for granted? That we believe we know better than our parents and are better equipped to take on the challenges that life throws and will throw at us? I too had fallen prey to the the bravado of youth then. But had I listened more carefully, I am sure I wouldn’t have wasted so much of my time and money on many of the youthful vices that I had gladly embraced along with my ‘mates’ during my first decade in the UK. It was the realization of these mistakes that had convinced me over time that I should heed the little voice in my head and head back  home to marry an Indian girl with whom I had much in common, who perhaps, in her own little way could help me regain even keel and put stability back into my life.

The next time Baba and I had a conversation like this was on the eve of my departure to the UK after Manjula and I were married.

“Saumyabrata, a young girl’s heart is as impressionable as a soft mound of clay. It will take on the shape you wish to give it. Care for it. Nurture it. Love it. Respect it. Never hurt it. Never leave it. And it will love you back with bountiful abandon.  Mistreat it and you will lose it forever. Manjula is a wonderful girl. Perhaps, slightly better than what you deserved. Definitely, better than what we had hoped for. Never lose sight of the fact that she is abandoning everything that she has known and held dear all these years to be with you. You are all she has from this day on. And she, you.

“There will be a day when your mother and I are no longer here, but she will be there beside you. Give her that place; that strength; that security and that respect will give her the confidence to become your shield and your sword. She will be your new identity as you will be hers. Place your trust in her and never do anything to shake her trust.”

An endless torrent of thoughts, images, sounds and memories rushed through my mind as I headed home. All I could do was stare out of the window and watch the suburban streets of England rush by.

I hadn’t ever thought I would never see him again. I hadn’t ever wondered how he would manage without me at his side. I hadn’t ever realized what my leaving would mean to him.

As I knocked on the door and waited for Manjula to confirm what I instinctively knew already, I could feel the sense of loss that had been coursing through my veins deepening within me.  The tightness around my chest and the burning in my eyes becoming unbearable. I had found the source of my uneasiness. The reason for my discomfort. The secret that the little voice in my head had shared with me many times over. Baba’s time had come. He was no more.

Manjula cradled me in her arms and I sobbed like a baby.

I am not sure whether it was Manjula or Pratima, Subir’s wife, who had had this brain wave when we were wondering how to rally the troops: look in the telephone directory, wouldn’t that be the most obvious place where we would find the details of Bengali’s or Indian’s resident in and around Wolverhampton? Wouldn’t they be the obvious choice for us to reach out to in search of donations, volunteers, attendees and ambassadors of our programme?

To our surprise there were details of close to a hundred gentlemen and ladies who were hiding within the pages of the local telephone directory. The majority of whom, we didn’t know existed despite our longish stint in Wolverhampton. Presumably, they hadn’t bothered looking into this treasure trove either and had also so far spent their time hoping they would bump into someone the next time they went out shopping.

In the days that followed, we collectively assigned responsibilities to ‘couples” – committees did no work – that would help us further understand the feasibility of bringing our dream to fruition. ‘You are responsible for finding a hall’; ‘the two of you are responsible for checking with the Police and Fire brigade to see if they have an issue with a lot of people congregating in the same place over a five-day period’; ‘Can you check with relatives or friends in Kolkata how much an idol would cost? And whether Air India would bring it across to us at a discounted rate?’; ‘Will you please try to look up the telephone directory and see if we can find more people to help us?’.

The list of associated chores went on and on. We didn’t mind. Hopefully, at the end of the entire proceedings we would have brought a bit our culture and religion on to the English shores. That is not to say that the United Kingdom didn’t have a temple in those days, it did. It was rumoured that there were a couple of temples, one in the North of the country, another in Southhall – close to London – which we later discovered was a Gurdwara and not a temple – and another toward Liverpool. All of which were too far for us to take a stroll or a weekend drive to. This would be our initiative. Much closer at hand and far more personal.

Of course, we also had our fair share of hiccups along the way.

“Mr Bandopadhyay?” I asked, as the Indian looking gentleman opened the door, “My name is Soumya, Soumyabrata Ghosh and this is my wife, Manjula Ghose we live down the road. Could we speak to you for a moment?”

“Sure”, Mr Bandopadhyay said, still refusing to invite us in or holding the door open an inch more than was necessary to accommodate his somewhat robust frame.

“Mr Bandopadhyay”, I said quickly changing to Bengali, “we are part of the West Midland’s Bengali Association and would like to inform you that we are planning to organize a Durga Puja this year. This ,we hope, will bring comfort to many like us who are now residing in the UK”.

“So, how does that affect me?”, he replied – in English – with his head slightly tilted on one side and a ‘why on earth are you disturbing me?’ look on his face.

“Well, we were hoping we could ask you to join us in our endeavour – either by way of making a generous donation to the cause or by helping us with your presence in the run up to the Puja. This will lend us immense moral support, and you could possibly even take on certain responsibilities in and around the Puja…” I continued in our mother tongue, hoping to clutch at a straw that would ring an emotional chord with the gentleman before me.

“I am not interested in your Puja!”, Mr Bandopadhyay said, as he started to shut the door on us.

“But aren’t you a Bengali? Doesn’t the Puja mean something to you?” I asked placing a hand on the door, “Couldn’t we at least expect you to make a donation?”

“Please do not disturb me any more. Yes, I was born an Indian. But I am no longer so. Unlike you, I am British. I am now a Christian and I am not interested in you or your religion!” and he slammed the door on our upturned faces.

There were many such incidents we had to contend with over the weeks that followed. People who were no longer interested in being Indian; people who were no longer believers in the faith; people who had forgotten our native language; people who were going away; whose wives were pregnant and would continue to be through the Pujas; or those who were simply too busy to be so disturbed. We often felt like salesmen and women trying to peddle our wares. But for every one person who shut their doors on us there were two, or possibly three, who welcomed us with open arms. Be it on the phone or in person.

Much like the Pied Piper walking through the Streets of Hamelin, the Bengali’s came walking, dancing, tripping to the still imaginary beat of the dhak that was wafting through the air.

Durga was no doubt on our side. Our weekend meetings were no longer filled with news from home or how Wolverhampton Wonderers had fared or how Manchester United was trying to recover from the loss of its celebrated football team and piece its act together. We had now all found a new sense of purpose. A new goal. And all of us were eager to share the week’s developments with the rest of the group and the new ‘members’, who had come forward to join us.

Durga was a reality. She had charmed the Mayor’s office, the Police, the Fire Brigade, the Express & Star, Air India, a Priest and everyone else who mattered into allowing us to work toward the realization of our collective dream and desire.

Ten and a half weeks from the day we had first talked about the possibility, we all stood in front of a replica of our beloved Goddress who looked down upon us with a slightly bemused smile. “All of you really wanted me to be here, didn’t you?” She seemed to say, “How could I not be here then? Does a mother ever forsake her children?”

Our prayers had been answered. The Puja was to start tomorrow.

I still rode three buses to Woden Transformers – my place of work - every morning with a fair amount of brisk walking in between. While this was fine in summer, through the better part of the English Spring, Autumn and Winter this ordeal was painful. Most of the time, I would leave home at 5.00am in the morning, when it was still dark and bitingly cold, only to return at 9.00pm at night, when it was very much the same. The hours in between were consumed in my tedious travel to and from work and with work itself. The hours after, with Tim and Manjula, both of whom would be asleep when I left every morning, and at times, in the evening had I missed one of my scheduled buses coming home.

As a nuclear family living away from home, we only had ourselves to lean on in sickness and cheer. Us and of course, our friends - those like us who had come away to foreign shores in search of their destiny and were today trying their best to fend for themselves, and in many ways, their families back home. Our gathering of ‘friends’ had grown in ones and twos and had now become, ‘The West Midlands Bengali Association’. 

Subliminally, the  ’association‘, we all felt, gave us a sense of identity; of belonging; of purpose; and most importantly, an excuse to meet, which we did once every week in spite of the fact that there were hardly ten families in our association. It was at one of our weekly meetings that Manjula came up with a thought provoking idea:

“Jim”, she said, “can we start a Puja?”

“Manjula!?”, Parimal  – one of our newest ‘recruits’ – asked. “Did you say a Puja?”

“Yes she did, Parimal”, I said. Parimal and I had met at our neighbourhood pub – The Old Oak – a couple of months before. He and his wife Irene, had quickly become a part and parcel of many of our weekends – and several weekdays – when he and I would swig a pint before we headed back home to our respective families.

Dr Subir Bose, our most accomplished ‘friend’, in whose house most of our meetings – including this one – was held, looked at his wife, “Pratima, what do you feel?”

“Subir, I think it would be wonderful if we could pull it off. Manjula, what exactly did you have in mind?”, she asked even as she carried a steaming hot bowl of chicken curry to the 12- seater dining table that already boasted of an elaborate bill of fare.

“Well, over the past two years we have had a wonderful series of meetings, dinners and picnics between us. But then, our association has hardly grown. We  only get new members if we bump into someone at the shopping centre, at the doctors chamber or at our places of work. If we could organize a Puja and have it written about in the Express & Star, I am sure many more Bengali’s from in and around Wolverhampton would get to know of our association and come forward to join us. Besides, I do really miss Durga.”

As Manjula’s eyes misted over and she swallowed the lump in her throat that had emerged with her last sentence, we were transported back to a vision of resplendent glory. Durga, the Goddess who epitomised the triumph of good over evil, had been an essential part of all of our lives before we travelled overseas. The coming of Autumn, the soft chill in the air, the Shiuli on the trees, the gifting of clothes and then, four days of endless festivities as Durga would descend from her heavenly abode along with her family to rid the world of evil and fill our lives with joy and hopes of a new beginning.

But a Durga Puja here? I wondered, even as the beat of the dhak rang in my ears.

“Impossible!” said Parimal ”how on earth will you get anything done here! Where will you get the idol, the necessary Puja material, the sweetmeats or for that matter, the priest who will perform the ceremony?! And even if we do – by some unbelievable stroke of magic - get all of this arranged, how on earth do we get permission from the Mayor’s office to go ahead? Do you think the Mayor would give us permission to celebrate a festival of another faith? And what do you do with the idol after the Puja? Where do you think you will immerse it? There is no neighbourhood pond or the Ganges here!”

“We can do it”, I said jumping in to support Manjula. “Bimal and I had started a Puja during our stay at Shibpur many years ago. We had run it for close to 5-years. Isn’t that correct, Bimal?”

“Yes, Soumya, we had”, Bimal affirmed. “Over the years, the Puja grew from a small initiative in a garage to a grand festival in a huge pandal, which struggled to accommodate all the devotees. I handed down the legacy of the Puja to a group of enthusiastic residents before coming away here.”

“But that was in Shibpur. In Kolkata. In India. This is England. We are all thousands of miles away from home in a Christian country - despite their Protestant leanings  – how on earth do you think you can pull it off here?” Parimal demanded.

“Parimal”, said Subir softly, “you are absolutely right. That’s where the challenge lies. But think for a moment, if we can pull this off, what it will do to our lives and the lives of many others like us here who have nowhere to turn when they seek  religious or emotional solace? Think of what it will do for us socially. For us as a community. For our children. A Puja will give us all a reason to celebrate. To come together. To draw in our fellow Bengalis and Indians from around the country. And give our children a taste of their own culture, their identity. Don’t we owe that to them?”

“I am willing to give it my best shot!”, I exclaimed, quite fired up by Subir’s arguments. “If I have done it once, I can do it again. Besides, we used to have one of the oldest and largest Durga Puja’s at home in Bangladesh. A Puja that would attract people to our house  a week before the actual celebrations and end a couple of days after. I know how a Puja needs to be put together and the challenges that we will face, but with Durga’s blessings, there is nothing that is impossible. We can and we will do it.”

The next few hours and weekends were filled with excited chatter, debates, deliberations and discussions as we put the naysayers among us to rest and focussed on achieving what many of us believed was impossible: bringing Durga once more into our lives.

“Happy New Year!!”, they exclaimed.

Looking around, they saw their friends Alice and Sudhanshu and Barol and Ronen still locked in each others arms, their lips softly pressed against each other. The only other couple that had reacted in much the same way as Manjula and Soumyabrata was Bimal and Geeta, their friends who had recently moved to the UK.

Despite being in the UK for the past two years, Manjula and Soumya, were still not comfortable with public shows of emotion, even if it were before close friends. Perhaps it was a cultural thing. The farthest they could go was to hold hands. Like they continued to do even now.

A whole year had fled in the instance between the countdown to the New Year and the lights coming on again, and suddenly it was 1964. As they looked around the room waiting for the moment to pass and their friends to rejoin them, they noticed the dancing fairy lights on the Christmas tree in their hallway, felt the welcoming warmth of the electric fireplace, and saw the mistletoe that they had struggled to put up a couple of days before hanging under the doorway. They wondered when their day would come when they too could unabashedly stand under its bowers with their lips in a clinch.

Over the past two years, they had adopted many of the things that were distinctly ‘English’ – the Easter egg and the Easter bunny; the Whitsun holiday; the Christmas tree in the corner; the sumptuous Turkey repast; mince pies, the glass of wine, the pint of lager, the occasional visit to Church and the night out with friends on New Year’s eve. Even their daily bill of fare had changed to include fish and chips, black pudding, pies, bacon, sausages, eggs and several cups of ‘weak tea’. They even enjoyed Shepherd’s pie, Lemon tarts and Yorkshire pudding.

But there were parts of them that still remained true to their past; which took longer to change. This was one of them. They looked on part in embarrassment and part in awe at their friends still intertwined in each others arms, and quickly looked away.

Sudhanshu was a doctor from Kolkata who had recently moved to the UK and in a short span of 6-months seemed to have settled in rather well. He now only wore a suit; had an English girlfriend; spoke the black country brogue like any man on the street and drove a fancy car. Ronen and Carol, on the other hand, were Research Scholars at Oxford. The spoke the Queen’s English. And Ronen, by his own admission, had for some time now even started dreaming in English.

“That, Jim”, he had whispered in a conspiratorial tone, “is when you know that you have got a fair grasp of the language and are well on the way to becoming an Englishman”.

They had become fast friends within months of meeting each other at a shopping centre over two Sunday afternoons.

“Soumya”, Manjula had said pointing toward Sudhanshu, “doesn’t that man look like a Bengali? Why don’t you go over and ask? We could do with some friends”. And Soumya did. First on one Sunday and then another.

Bimal and Soumya, on the other hand, went back a very long way. Back to the days of Soumya’s struggle to find a foothold in Kolkata. He had met Bimal outside the portals of Shibpur Engineering College and they had over a couple of years shared many a youthful adventure together. And when Soumya found that their was a ‘suitable vacancy’ at his work place,  he didn’t hesitate to recommend his old friend, who promptly came across to see what fortune had in store.

Like Soumya, Bimal had also ‘gone back’ home to marry a good Indian girl. And though he hadn’t spent the kind of time that Soumya had spent in the UK before his marriage, he had had made up for it with a rare gusto that found many takers from among those who were fascinated by India and anyone Indian in those day. But times had changed. Post marriage, he seemed to have regressed from his willful, cavalier ways. And when the lights came on, he too had taken a step away from his young newly-wedded wife.

As the moment passed and everyone came into the present, Sudhanshu turned to Alice and said, “Shouldn’t we sing Auld Lang Syne?”

“Sure, Sudha. Come everyone,  let’s sing”, said Alice.

As the four couples intertwined their arms and danced round in a circle ‘remembering old acquaintances and friends forgot, who were never brought to mind’, Manjula and Soumya’s couldn’t help themselves but to drift back to India as the full import of the lyrics sank in. Days filled with carefree laughter. Of simple pass times. Of warm embraces. Soft caresses. And poignant memories.

As their eyes misted over, a soft wail came through from the bedroom. “Our singing must have wakened Tim”, said Alice to Manjula. Tim, short for Timothy aka Tultu aka Sushanto, was Jim and Manjula’s son who had come into this world a month before.

Lying on the hospital bed with her small bundle of joy in her arms, Manjula had looked up at Dr Goodburn and said, “Angela, thank you for bringing my son into this world”. And though Soumya had been disappointed that his prayers had not been answered. He was happy for them. Tim was a healthy 9 and a half pounds. And Manjula had battled through the pregnancy with a rare display of strength and fortitude.

As he embraced his wife and child he had said to himself, “its okay, there’s always a next time. Then I will have a girl”.

Looking at our harried faces, she came around the desk and put an arm around each one of us and said, “this is normal Jim, Manjula. Nuclear families are prone to an increase in the number of squabbles they get into during a pregnancy, despite their obvious love for each other; blame it on the hormones”.

After a pause, she continued, “And the phenonmenon that you are referring to Jim, of you continuing to put on weight while Manjula is pregnant, is something we commonly refer to as ‘sympathetic pregnancy’, where the caring husband eats to give his wife company, and in the process continues to gain weight as well. However, let me warn you Jim that you need to be careful. Otherwise, at the end of term, Manjula will deliver and almost immediately lose a significant part of the weight that she has put on. You on the other hand, will not. The reason why I am sharing this with you, is that I see a number of cases where this leads to even more misunderstandings and differences later on.”

After a while, we stood up, bade our good byes and walked out. On our way home, as advised by Dr Goodburn, we stopped by at West Park. Dr Goodburn had said, “whenever possible, take a stroll in the park. It will relax you”. And so, we were here. We were good patients, Manjula and I. Of course we had had no option but to.

Early on in the pregnancy both of us had realised that while we had seen many babies being born and growing up around us when we were young, we really knew nothing about pregnancy and childbirth. Even more alarming to us was that there was no mother, aunt, sister or family midwife to turn to with our questions or even for emotional support. All these roles and more had to be taken up by the good Dr Goodburn as Manjula passed through – as we were later told - a rather difficult pregnancy.

Where she couldn’t help however was in helping us resolve an ongoing debate and subject of deliberation through most of the 10-months that we waited for our first born to appear. Out identity. And what would be his / hers.

“I want a boy, not a girl”, said Manjula vehemently. “Girls, my mother always would share, are like treasures that families nurture and hold in their custody for someone else to enjoy. A son, on the other hand, never goes away. He stays yours forever.”

“That doesn’t really make sense, Manjula. Besides, I am really not interested in having a son who will carry forward the family name. Look at yourself, haven’t you chosen to continue to carry your maiden name even after you have gotten married? Have I ever complained about that? Besides, I have always dreamt of having a little girl who I could call my own. Doesn’t that mean anything to you?”

“I haven’t chosen to keep  my maiden name, it’s just that your family has decided to change the spelling of Ghose to Ghosh, which linguistically and culturally is incorrect. While the former is a Kulin Kayatha, the second is used by people who are engaged in the sweat-meat selling business. I don’t see why I should embrace something that you are not, and which I definitely will not be!”, Manjula affirmed.

However, it ran somewhat deeper than that. The reasons given by her not to have a girl were closer to her reality and understanding of the truth than to anything else. Manjula silently but resolutely held on to her past. Her reality. Her maiden name. And the fact that, 19 Baithukhanna 2nd lane, now a far off place, in a far off land, continued to be her home in every discussion we had, and would have in the future.

For now, what followed, was two parallel sets of purchases for almost everything we considered necessary as we prepared for the new member of our family: bedspreads, pillows, clothes, diapers, dolls, rattles, even a pram. Everything I would buy was pink. Everything she would buy was blue. We even had a list of 20 alternative name between us, 10 of either gender. Everything I would put up over the weekend in what would become our child’s room would by Friday, change completely in colour scheme and decor. In this one instance, neither of us heeded the advice given to us by Dr Goodburn, “Don’t be in a rush. You should wait for the child to come, and then decide on these things. You should thank God that all the tests have so far shown that the child is perfectly normal”.

That wasn’t the only thing that came between us. It was toward the end of the eighth month, when Manjula and I were everyday counting moments, hours and days toward holding our newborn in our arms that she said, “Soumya” – the fact that the rest of the world called me Jim, didn’t really matter to her – “will our child really know that he is an Indian? Will he learn to speak Bengali like we do or will he grow up to be someone who will never know that he is an Indian? Someone who has never been to India, never known our culture, our religion, our festivals, our relationships, out ties…will we never go home?”

“She, Manjula, she not he”, I said referrring to our longstanding debate. “Our daughter will be British. She will carry a British passport, receive the finest English education and grow up to study at Oxford or Cambridge. Our daughter will be a lady”, I beamed.

“But what about my other questions, Soumya? What about India?”, she said, with her eyes filling up with tears as she looked up and searched my face for an answer.

I didn’t really have a convincing answer then, and I don’t think I have one now, after Manjula has gone. The question of our roots, of our identity as people, as members of a family and as Indians continued to lie unanswered between us for many, many years. And when we did think we found the answer, we realised that it was as far from the truth as when we started on our quest. But for more of that later.

For the moment, I gently wrapped my arms around them and softly carressing her hair, kissed her tears away. “Shush, or our baby will be sad. Remember what Dr Goodburn says, ‘She can now feel your hunger, taste your happiness and wallow in your pain and sadness’. Now, we don’t want our daughter to be unhappy do we? We will worry about such things as her identity later. There’s plenty of time. Besides, her first and foremost identity will always be that she is our daughter. Manjula and Soumybrata Ghosh’s daughter. Everything else is secondary.”