And Then…God Created…Indian Men!

Oh Yeah…They Can Do That!

Related article. — Free Idiots: An Indian Amir’s New Stooges. Please read it here. Click on this link.

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On the 13th day, God created Indian men.

Or, He did it on a day around that time, when He was exhausted and did not really want to do anything. He should’ve taken some rest at that time after all the major work He did before that. But He thought, well, I am God, ain’t I? I can handle it: I can do some more creationism.

And so He did not take the rest He should have taken. And then He created something only He knows why. Honestly, and I’m truly sorry to say it, with due apologies to Him, it was not His best creation at all.

He created Indian men.

We shall explain.

See, Indian men — Hindu, Muslim, Buddhist or Christian — are lifelong kids. When they are very small and very young, they get too much attention and pampered to an extreme. In an Indian family — rural or urban, low caste or high, middle class or poor, a little boy is always treated like a little prince — a Raj Kumar; the same family would treat a little girl very differently (even though she might be called a little princess — a Raj Kumari). Boys get the best food, best dresses, best toys, and best lullabies. Girls get the leftover food, leftover dresses, leftover toys, and no lullabies.

(And in many cases, a girl child would not even see her mother — live; chances are, society would force the mother to abort her. India has perhaps the highest number of such abortions; but we’re not going to talk about that violence here.)

Then, Indian boys — if their families can afford it — get “education.” For those families who can afford it, boys always get to go to better schools and get new school uniforms and new books — if their families can afford it. Girls — even if their families can afford it — may not be sent to the best possible schools even when the girl is smart and able to pass the entry exam. They will not get the best books; they will not get the newest uniforms.

Now, at this point, there would be some readers vehemently opposing my narration. If they are women, they would say, no it did not happen to me; my father sent me to the best possible school all along, and I also got the newest uniforms and new books. If these protesting readers are men, they would say, look, the situation has improved a lot; your tale is totally outdated. They would say, look, I had a sister, and my father found the best schools, best uniforms and best books for both us — with no discrimination.

Well, I’m happy for you. I’m only talking about my personal experience — with people I have seen in my life. I guess, I’m talking about a particular class or variety of Indians (note: by Indians, I also mean Pakistanis and Bangladeshis). And by the way, oh dear protesting reader, look, you’re drawing my attention to your father who did it for you and your sister. I guess, you mom did not play a significant role in the decision-making process, did she?

Bangladesh. This Girl is Lucky…She Escaped with a Tease!
(btw, I saw taunts hurled by American men…here in Brooklyn. And by Bangladeshi men…around the same spot!)

Anyway…on with our story. Then, the boy grows up (or so they say) and becomes a teenager. Remember, in India, there is practically no sex education: even now, talking about sexual development and sexual relationship either at home or in school is practically a taboo. Co-ed schools are still relatively rare, and even the few and far between co-ed schools do not have a modern and transparent and age-appropriate sex education curriculum. The society is largely feudal. Gandhi’s feudalism did not help to bring up a modern nation at all.

In this pervasive climate, the sex-education-less growing man knows he is strong and his hormones are acting up. He realizes he can start flirting young women and perhaps, with some indulging friends, taunt and tease neighborhood girls passing by (see picture: we shall save some real-life, graphic descriptions for later). If the girl is  self-righteous and has some guts to not accept the taunts and teases passively (and speaks up!), the boy and his male-hormone friends know it’s about time to teach the insolent, audacious girl some lesson she can remember. Just like my teenager friend Subh did in North Calcutta, there would be some verbal and physical boundary crossing — shaming her and traumatizing her in public.

Of course, if the girl comes from a rich or powerful family and/or has a number of muscular brothers or uncles, it’s going to be a completely different story: the girl can walk freely anywhere, with her head up. Nobody would touch her; in fact, the same boys would now retreat back home with their tails tucked between their hind legs, and have wet dreams, dreaming about her over and over again.

Pardon my explicit word choice here. Again, this is my life’s experience, and that too, from twenty or thirty years ago. I have left India ever since; I wish the situation had changed (and I know, apart from some cosmetic changes, it has not — much).

[Update 1: The Delhi gang rape case, December 2012. -- A young woman was gang raped and violently beaten to near death on a moving bus. Perhaps for the first time in modern Indian history, the entire country exploded against rampant, all-pervasive violence on women. Now, as of December 29 India time, she has died. You can read more on the latest development here.]

[Update 2: Very recently, there were two gruesome "honor killings" in West Bengal where a father and a brother hacked two young women to death in broad daylight because in both instances, the girls married their boyfriends without consent of the families. The so-called honor killing NEVER happened in the state of West Bengal before.]

Honor in Killing? Ask Orwell.

Anyway, enough digression. On with our story.

Then, the Indian boy becomes a man (or so they say), and marries. He now owns a real woman to toy with. He can do anything he wants with her, with active indulgence from his parents (here, the mother in-law also becomes a big part of the oppressive patriarchy, for reasons social scientists could explain). The eternal boy child, now a husband, may love his new bride, or he may not love her depending upon the day, time, whim, mood, status of the bride’s family, or his own parental instructions, likes or dislikes. He may ridicule her, throw acid-like sarcasm at her. The Indian man has special expertise in ridiculing the Indian woman; or for that matter, anyone who he considers inferior (a teenage son quickly learns and follows his father: now he starts throwing sarcasm at mom — I have real-life examples if you need them).

The man may make her woman cook and clean (depending on his economic status and affordability), or he may put her in charge of the cook and clean maids (with his secret, sporadic examination of their bodies if the maids are young), forcing the wife to stay at home to perform her “traditional, social, religious” Indian duties.

Such duties often forces even a brilliant woman to sacrifice her brilliant student- or professional career; I personally know scores of Indian women who after marriage had to give up their singing career, medical practice, teaching job or employment as an entrepreneur. The husband — the Indian man God created on the 13th or some day — with help from his family or himself, would not allow it.

They say it’s too un-Indian for a married woman to work outside. Well…maybe…if I’m liberal…I’d let you do some part-time job…close to home…and you’d be ready to quit and move with me if I have to move. My career comes first: that’s what he says.

(Gist: It doesn’t make a difference if the family supports liberal or conservative politics. But the husband or in-laws would bend the rules — and bend them a lot — if the men in the family are jobless or incapable of making money.)

Life is Very Stressful for Them…Until Dinner is Ready! (Note: I do not know these two men: I’m only generalizing)

Then, the Indian boy child, now a full-grown man (or so they say), becomes a father and does his sacred fatherly duties by touching the cheeks or hands of the sleeping child. He even smiles at the child or may I dare to say, sometimes sings! Then, he leaves for work or to meet friends or relatives. Or, he resigns back into the living room, where he draws his favorite chair and cushion, and watches his favorite Bollywood movie, cricket, soccer, cooking, wrestling, fashion or talk show. Bollywood is traditionally ultra-patriarchal; fake wrestling is…ah well…we all know.

(Why does he watch the cooking show? Ask him: I have no idea.)

These days, he would even bring a friend or two (male friends, that is), close the living room door, drink beer, whiskey or smoke a cigarette or two, and have a serious, stressful debate on terrorism, politics or the collapse of American capitalism. (Or, they would watch the cooking show together.)

Then, a servant (or his mother) comes in and informs that dinner is ready. They flock at the dinner table and devour the meal, without any curiosity whatsoever as to how it was made.

If the wife is allowed to work outside, she would also finish her “womanly duties” at home returning from work (or even before going to work, waking up very early in the morning) — while the man would hardly lift a finger and help the wife do household chores. Or, in 2012, a well-to-do he might phone-order in Domino’s Pizza or KFC’s spicy chicken: he would not waste time in the kitchen at all. He would not waste time to do the dishes either; either the women would do it, or the dishes would be left unwashed til the next morning for the part-time cleaning maid to show up and do it. If the maid fails to show up the next morning, the women would do it, with the man watching the TV or reading the newspaper in the living room, cursing the maid for her “frequent” absences and the “flowing-like-water” money spent on her.

In fact, today, well-to-do visitors come from India and stay over at our place in New York: we observe them closely. We observe that the female visitor would almost always volunteer to help with the cooking and cleaning during their stay (they know we have no domestic help here in the U.S.), while the male visitor would almost always stay back in the living room watching TV or get engaged in various intelligent debates — on all possible and impossible subjects including Bollywood, cricket, soccer, terrorism, politics, capitalism and stock market.

I could keep going for ever, and express a lifetime of irk and annoyance on God’s one of the weirdest creationism — Indian men — but friends and well-wishers tell me not to lose my head. They ask me to keep my calm and poise. So, I shall stop now and keep my calm and poise. I just want to tell a story — in fact, a fact — we saw here in the U.S. In a way, it summarizes my tale.

[Update: A Facebook friend from Arizona just wrote to me that she had exactly the same type of experience in her own Indian life; I can't thank her enough for her invaluable candor and support.]

Superstar, Billionaire Cricketers. Now, That’s Indian Men Alright!

An Indian man who is now an immigrant-turned-U.S. citizen is a brilliant graduate from Indian Institute of Technology — one of the best-known schools India can brag about (PBS did a show on IIT a few years ago). He is a “success story” for an Indian immigrant. He started working for an American engineering company somewhere in the South, and slowly moved up the corporate ladder (think about him as a Bobby Jindal in the field of engineering). Now he makes millions, has a number of nice houses, fancy cars, and a big sail boat. He travels worldwide. His kids went to Ivy League schools and are now employed with renowned companies.

It is his wife who told us this story — in a “funny” way. She said (I’m only paraphrasing):

“I had a C-Section when I gave birth to my first child. I came back home a few days later with the baby. I had severe pain: they still hadn’t cut my stitches. Suddenly, on the first weekend after I returned from the hospital, my husband announced that he’d invited a number of friends over for dinner to celebrate the birth of our child. I was mad like hell. I said: ‘Are you kidding me? I can’t even move I have so much pain, and you already invited your friends for dinner? Like, who’s going to cook and clean — you? Have you ever stepped inside the kitchen, do you know what it looks like?’ So, my husband said, ‘Honey, don’t worry, these are our close friends, I only invited a few people maybe six or seven of them. You don’t need to do much. Just make some fried rice or biryani and make some chicken curry, that’s all. I’ll get the beer.’ So, what could I do? He’d already invited them and I had no choice. I had to cook and clean that weekend with my stitches on.”

See, this man is not abusive or anything. He is actually a very nice man: soft-spoken, educated and highly placed. He is not one of those wife-beaters, dowry-bride-burners or acid throwers. Although he’d once told me he was not too worried about his daughter’s education because she was going to get married anyways, but he indeed sent her to a good school here in the U.S. He is a jovial, warm, helpful guy. He doesn’t drink much. He doesn’t gamble or do drugs. He is faithful to his wife.

We must forgive him for inviting his friends over for dinner when his wife just delivered a C-Section baby and had her stitches on. Right? Like, those things happen in real life: an Indian man’s real life.

Right?

Any comments?

Sincerely Writing,

Partha

Brooklyn, New York

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Any Comments?

This Democracy Thingy…It Aint Workin’ Man!

Yeah, right!

By the way, I am not a Marxist. I just used the Scholars and Rogues cartoon because it’s nice. I mean, telling. I mean, it’s pretty close to what I’ve been trying to tell you here.

By the way, Scholars and Rogues? Who in the world did come up with such an insulting name? I mean, come on, man, couldn’t you find something respectful?

Anyway, I have something to say here. Would you care to listen?

See, this democracy thingy, like, the business of voting and all — aint workin’ for me. And I’m gettin’ f… tired of it. Honest to God, I swear it.

Is it working for you? It is? Well, I am glad. Good for you. It aint, for me.

I mean, the business of voting and the electing. The big parties and their big partying — Democrats, Republicans here in the U.S. Or, like, Congress and BJP and the hundreds of crooks and liars over there in India. Or, Liberals and Conservatives in the good-ole Kueen’s Kountry. Their confettis and their carnivals. their festoons and frolics. And their fat fame too.

Their sweet smiles and sweet talks — especially a few times every four or five years depending on how frequently you vote and flex your democratic muscle. You vote for them: you get awed, inspired and even teary-eyed at their firm handshakes and fancy suits and fine speeches. Their bow ties and BMWs. The massive money raising and jaw-droppin’ spending. The big email barrage from their big, undisclosed garage. The phony euphemism of one candidate and the trashy trash of the other make you non-utterly un-confused. The third candidate is always absent.

Neighborhood kid Joe the Schmo runs against neighborhood kid Jane the Jolly — By Golly — people who their own people tell us grew up in your neighborhood even though you never saw them, and those who dress up and look and talk and act and not act and play and go hidin’ exactly the same way, but just not your way, or for that matter, your neighborhood’s way.

Family Film Flashes Flesh for “Fun.”

Then, the non-issue made a big issue, and the real issue made a non-issue. The exclusion, half-exclusion, distortion, frontpaging of no-news and backpaging of frontpage news. A crazy head of state in India bans newspapers she don’t like. Baseball, golf and cricket become larger than life — at least, larger than your TV screen. Foul-addict footballers and phony-filmsy film stars…get covered for what you and I want to keep covered, like, in shyness and in shame. We do one thing and teach our children to follow it. They do something radically different — like, flash their thighs in front of millions of people and their children across the world, and get prime time praise too. Nobody calls them radical. You and I protest their obscenity and rip off the paper on the subway. You and I are called people to suspect. We get watched.

Now, just this week, U.S. Supreme Court said the watch-men and watch-women can hold you for any goddamn reason and strip search you. Wow, baby, that’s real privacy. It tickles me, man! Like, prying your private parts. This land of privacy keeps surprising me all the time!

It all sounds like cliché, right? Well, that’s a part of the game too. You say the same-old, stupid things over and over again. Like, things I’m saying here now. It becomes cliché. You put it in a non-commercial blog. Very few read it. You walk an extra mile and make it a YouTube. Nobody watches. Even your own family members and close friends laugh at you. Or, worse, they say, “It’s nice.” That’s sad.

Meanwhile, the international bank criminals and international war criminals walk free (the Supreme Court could pry their privacy open too, but they didn’t). The little criminals and the totally innocent get life in privately-owned prison without parole. Or, they get shot and killed by gun-toting police and self-appointed, crazy neighborhood watch guys.

The 24/7 war game goes on. They find WMD in Iraq; at least, New York Times and Judith Miller find them. Then, they find nu nukes in a nu Goddamn country. The propaganda…I mean expert opinions…work. The 24/7 fear game comes back live on TV. The visible, lethal tanks and guns and the invisible, lethal gun lobby take over. They bring back the orange and semi-orange and red terror alerts. You don’t want to open your mouth. I try. My family members and close friends forbid me. They say, didn’t you hear on TV the urgent, state-of-the-estate…I mean, state-of-the-state press conference? Our elected president and popular prime minister asked the nation to show patriotism, patience and sacrifice. They say, we must sacrifice at this urgent hour. They say, it’s not normal time. We must be more patriotic and patient now than ever before.

Then, sandwiched between two such abnormal, patriotic, orange-alert, more-sacrificing, patient times, there is a small window of normal, peace time. I keep sacrificing. I keep patience’ing. I lost my old house because I lost my job and then I lost my health care and could not pay the medical bills and could not pay the mortgage bills. We now live in a small apartment in East Brooklyn. Patiently.

My twenty-year-old son dropped out of college because I could not pay his college bills. My thirty-year-old, married daughter returns home to live with us with her two children because her husband lost his job and he said they shipped his factory out to China for good and that there’s no way he could work at McDonald’s, flipping burgers. Three months later, he starts working at McDonald’s. They still live with us.

I however get just a tiny-winy impatient that the visible, killing inflation and price gouging and the invisible, killing lobbyists, pushers and price gougers do not share our sacrifice — whether it’s abnormal war time or patient peace time. Oil companies, food companies, seed companies, milk companies, drug companies, tree-turned-toilet-paper companies, computer chip and hightech companies, the bank and money companies, and companies who play companies like a Las Vegas casino do not sacrifice either. They get themselves hefty bonuses. I heard they also bought big houses and went to Bali for one of their recent vacations. Or, was it Bermuda they went?

These Occupy kids are so violent I can’t believe it!

My son got a little impatient too — dumb kid. He went to protest on Wall Street. He came back home two days later with his face swollen, one broken tooth and right arm in a sling. My wife is treating him now. She is his home-based doctor.

The patient guy who’s resting in the hammock and complaining about the Goddamn Marxists seems he’s having a swell time, and peace time. For the others who’re working for him as a tree…well…I forgot to ask them their feelings. Maybe, you can do that. Please. Would you?

I mean, this democracy thingy was supposed to be something simple — something you and I could see with our own simple eyes in our own simple life…before death. Right? I always thought democracy and voting and electing our leaders would lead us out of this misery and mess…before death. I always believed democratically elected leaders would find jobs, provide health care and education, and lead us into a world free of violence, prison camps, drugs and gun killings.

Now, where are the people we elected the last time? Do you see them way up there — like, how do they do their democracy? You do? Well, I am glad. Good for you. I don’t. Maybe, I should see an eye doctor.

As soon as I get my eye insurance, I’ll see a good opthalmokocist…or, whatever that is. Optrimician.

By the way, this blog is not about sarcasm. This is about circus.

No…wait…it’s about democracy, and voting.

Yeah, right.

Sincerely Writing,

Partha

Brooklyn, New York

The Death Bomb Now Exploded

–Tick Tock…Strike Two–

Yama Strikes Again!

I hope you did not un-like what I had to say yesterday about my distant-uncle Death. I mean, I know you could not particularly like it. But could you really un-like it?

Read the previous episode if you haven’t. My infamous Lord Yama Uncle decided that it was time to show us how long he could stick around with us…uninvited, unwelcome, dis-un-disliked.

In Ma’s painful cancer death at the age of forty-two, he saw there was a gold mine to mine in this poor, God-forsaken, North Calcutta mezzanine household. He grinned, and he grimaced, and he growled.

And then he howled.

That evening, Ma came out of her home one last time. I didn’t cry, and I’m positive father didn’t either; but everybody else did. Poorna, my sister (whose Tagore songs you’ve perhaps heard here on my blog), wept hard, and Sova, my aunt, cried out loud. Kakima, our next-door neighbor, wept too. All our previous domestic maids over the years, who came to see Ma one last time, inconsolably sobbed. Slowly, with extreme care, we carried Ma and put her on the flower-adorned cot sitting on the earthen alley. “Bolo Hari, Hari Bol,” they all chanted out Lord Vishnu’s name in a familiar way, one I had heard numerous times in Calcutta ever since I remembered. Four of us hoisted the four corners of the cot up on our shoulders now cushioned with a cotton towel. In a few moments, all the male members of the family and friends, in the midst of the loud and subdued cries, set out on the final procession on foot to the Ganges, about five miles away to the West side of the city.

I believe about a hundred people came along with us.

Hindu Crematorium, before the Electric Pyre Era

But Subrato, my best friend didn’t show; he’d later said he didn’t because he couldn’t take it; my mother’s death was too much pain for him to bear. He came from a solvent family with both parents working and a reasonably affluent lifestyle. He was a very bright student, yet a very weak man – so much so that many years later, when his father suddenly died, he couldn’t take it either, and in a matter of days, during the obligatory bereavement period, he walked out of his house in his mourning garb leaving a mother, a sister, a wife and two young sons behind, and stood on the tracks of a speeding commuter train. He was killed instantly.

Somebody emailed us here in New York about his violent death. Not an agreeable way to deal with the sudden death of your best friend.

But much before that, in quick succession of Ma’s death, came small and big bolts from the blue. Uncle Yama had warned me long ago that I was going to see him frequently once I grew up. Now I knew I had grown up.

Just the next Sunday, about the same time in the evening, Jethu, father’s oldest brother who lived only walks away, died of a prolonged oral cancer. A chain smoker, he had been suffering for nearly two years, and got the disease way before Ma fell sick; in fact, it was Ma who first told me that Jethu got cancer. This is a man who lived with us for years before finding his own apartment, played the flute sitting on our narrow veranda in the evening, and took him out on leisurely spring-night tram rides. He bought me my first (and last) pair of cricket gloves.

In less than a year, my oldest maternal uncle Bishwanath died of a stroke; he couldn’t handle the enormous financial mess he got himself in by playing the Indian stock market, got bankrupt, and left four small children and a widow behind. I went to see him in his final hours at the Calcutta Medical College emergency. I remember he lay on a narrow bed in a very small room, eyes closed, and his upper body was all hooked up with pipes, monitors and tubes; his mouth was wide open, and he was fiercely and noisily gasping for breath like a big fish out of water. I saw his chest pumping like a balloon inhaling and exhaling air; I knew just by looking at his terrible suffering that he was not going to make it. This is an uncle who was a soft-nature man, a singer. He was a champion carrom player too. What niyati Lord Yama had set aside for him!

Two years later, when the men were not home, my middle maternal uncle Madhu’s wife Amita – a schizophrenic woman who angrily refused any basic medical help – screamed about her poverty and distress, poured kerosene on her body, and lighted herself up. Then, she ran fiercely up and down the narrow, dark, dingy alley next to their bedroom, shrieked violently in extreme fear and pain, tried to tear off her burning sari and blouse, and my poor grandmother and Sova ran back and forth to rescue her and away, and cried out and begged to everyone for help. In half hour, in front of practically all the helplessly onlooking residents of their neighborhood who did all they could to save her including a last-ditch attempt to blanket out the fire, a charcoal-black Amita got a heart attack, and dropped dead.

Madhu and Amita had been married for only two years, and she left a six-month old child behind. Sova now became the mother of that child.

And then the final blow came five years after Ma’s death, just two weeks before I was scheduled to take my TOEFL to come to study in the U.S., when on a Friday Christmas-eve night, Buddha, an Indira Gandhi Congress rising star, was found in his State Electricity Board office room in Central Calcutta, shot in the head to death.

The gun was never found. The assassins were never found either. In India, law enforcement and administration do not work for you unless you can force or bribe them. We could not force or bribe them: we were too poor and powerless to do it.

To me, Buddha was more like a big brother than an uncle, just like Sova was always more like a big sister than an aunt; when I was very young, I saw Buddha playing alley marble, street football and strike-day cricket; and I saw Sova playing jump rope, hide and seek and rhyme games with her teen friends. I accompanied them to their simple, frugal but fun winter picnics – on rooftops and at school compounds. I saw Buddha’s ambitious ascent, slowly assuming leadership in his friends’ circle and then in politics. I went to hear his speeches at political rallies; I went to hear him recite Tagore and Sukanto poetry at cultural events. And I unknowingly emulated him in my own political and cultural performances. I helped him write New Year greetings cards he’d send out to numerous friends and followers. I followed him on, and I followed him often.

Buddha’s death was a huge blow to us – our entire family. Even the entire neighborhood of that long, narrow alley behind the vegetable and fish market was completely shocked and frozen. The final ray of hope for my poor grandmother was gone.

It was as if as soon as Ma left, the force of love that held the family together melted away, and everything fell apart. And my grandmother had to go through it all, one tragedy at a time.

Before my grandma died, she had lost five children.

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Enough for now. (By the way, this is all from my memoir I’m slowly putting together. Any takers? Let me know.)

You might ask, why in the world am I writing about it, especially when it is so personal and so painful? Am I trying to self-inflict pain into those covered-over wounds?

No. Seriously. I’m not trying to draw your sympathy and consolation — believe me. It’s been quite a while. I’m out of it…you know…sorta. You feel bad? Thank you. I appreciate. But that’s about it.

I’m telling you these stories because this is the India that you probably do not know or hear about, especially in today’s media glitz and superpower blitz. I know for sure many of you did not hear these stories from someone like me who actually lived them.

Lord Uncle Yama has been playing his cunning death games on us — the poor and the vulnerable in that little corner of the world — for eternity.

I feel I’m still a small pawn in his game.

(come back for more, if you still not completely un-like it.)

Sincerely Writing,

Partha

Brooklyn, New York

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The Empty Mezzanine in North Calcutta

Durga Puja? That’s Great! What is It?

Our Demon-Slayer Goddess.

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So, a couple of days ago, I had a chat with my friends and colleagues here in New York. It went something like this.

Me: I’m going take this weekend off. I can’t teach the weekend workshop. I found someone who’s going to do it for me.

They: Yeah, sure. You deserve a break, man! So, what’s goin’ on this weekend? Mukti’s Kitchen got some cooking? (affectionate laugh…they know about my wife’s little home-based Indian cooking class and catering; Mukti has quickly got some reputation.)

Me: No, this weekend is our religious holiday. I’m going to spend time with my family.

They: What’s the name of it?

Me: You wouldn’t get it.

They: Try.

Me: It’s called Durga Puja.

They: Durago…Puza…that’s great! What is it? (NOTE: my American friend was NOT being disrespectful; he was trying to pronounce it the best possible way.)

Me: (don’t know how to react) It’s our Hindu religious festival. You heard about Diwali? Dusserah?

They: Ha, ha, I’m just kiddin’. You guys have fun…alright? Don’t worry about the class. We’ll take care of it.

(another friend nodded at this time positively; she heard about Diwali.)

Now, this little interaction is nothing new. We’ve been here in America for twenty-five years now. Durga Puja comes and goes once a year — mostly in October. We cannot go to India because it’s in the middle of the school year and it’s not easy to take a few weeks off at this time, dropping everything.

There…Thousands Throng…Here…the Line’s Not Long.

So, we never go to see our family and friends in India at this fun and festive time. And what fun that is! I mean, the one back there.

It’s fascinating, it’s fabulous, it’s folk art, and it’s full of people…millions of people freely frolicking. But we can’t be a part of it. In a quarter of a century, we’ve managed to go there only twice to lick that fun up; in fact, I managed to go only once. I actually did a photo story on my once-in-a-quarter-century revisit experience. If you’re interested, you can look it up here. You’ll get a taste of that incredible, electrifying environment, I promise.

The first few years of our new immigrant life here in America, we completely missed it. We lived in an isolated, small-town, Midwestern place in Illinois back then; the nearest city that had a Bengali-Indian association hosting the puja was Chicago or St. Louis. We didn’t have a car to drive to either place. I remember the first time we went to the St. Louis Bengali association Durga Puja was the third year after coming to America; a Bengali colleague and her husband who liked to hear my Tagore songs drove us down there. And there we sang and we danced. And we ate at the community feast.

The first two years, however, we just looked at the calendar, and called our families a couple of times on those auspicious days (couldn’t call much: international calls were $3.50 per minute).

We put the phone very tight to our earlobe and tried hard to hear the huge noise and big drum (Dhak) play rising up from the streets of Calcutta. Here’s my very short YouTube clip on Dhak.

But thanks to Indian and Bengali media’s “reporting” what I frequently call “Journalism of Exclusion,” people back there have no clue about what emotional roller coaster we go through. It’s not easy to do it every year. And we’re not even that religious.

I shall come back and write more on this very real, very raw emotion. I hope you come back too.

Sincerely Writing,

Partha

Brooklyn, New York

Durga Puja in Albany, New York. We were organizers when we lived up there.

The Way Women Touch Me…It’s Foretalk

A very personal confession.

I can actually smile!

I could’ve titled it My Personal Women’s Studies Program. Or, perhaps, romantically, The Women I Loved. Yes, here’s a more exciting one: My Secret Sex Life (ooo!). You can imagine more.

(Just don’t tell my wife. Let there be some secret only between you and me. Okay?)

I settled on The Way Women Touch Me. I wanted to emphasize…er…you know…on the element of…touching (here’s an uptalk…up-talk the word touching at the end of the sentence…you know uptalking, right?). You might say, to spice it up a little…to invite my fabulous readers to imagine or un-imagine about *my* sex life, etc. (*my* in asterisks…because there are a lot of controversies surrounding it out there…I hear). That’s the emphasis. Otherwise, who’s going to read my mundane chronicling of human rights abuse in the U.S., India’s finance minister’s dubious connection with the devilish IMF, if the British would apologize for their two centuries of lynching and looting in India, or my personal post-9/11 brushes with bigotry and racism? Come on…let there be some fun! Life is too boring anyways…let’s laugh a little…and relax. Let me buy you a soft drink…maybe…a glass of champagne? Yeah?

In fact, a very attractive, sophisticated and smart friend recently suggested that I showed people that I could actually do funny. She said, make it fun, Partha, and people will read your serious social and political messages too. Didn’t I say she was brilliant?

Know what? I sorta always knew it, but then sorta didn’t do it…in the midst of this Troy Davis murder and Obama’s total, disastrous letdown and the rise of  a bunch of Neo-Nazis in the U.S., and all. But now that she gave me that little, ear-pullin’ spark, I thought I should use it and even my wet match box would fire up. It has done it a number of times before…don’t believe it…just look at my photo…don’t I look fabulous? That’s serious proof…like Obama’s birth certificate…that I can laugh too!

(My Columbia Journalism School friends and some other peers often call me a wet blanket…but I really think I’m more like a soggy match box, given the size of my brain and body — ask my buddy Michael. I totally appreciate those little, magical sparks that come along from heaven once in a while. Like my ever-fleeting emotions, those few fun flowery fragrant fleetin’ frolic friends come along, touch me with their surreal magic, lighten me up, and then disappear in thin air. For the rest of my life, I remember those few, soft, sweet-sultry touches, and heave and sigh…and sigh and heave…)

But I can laugh, swear to God. In fact, any weekends, between eight and ten in the evening, you come over to our house for some out-of-the-world Indian food my wife makes (call first, please — she is busy). You’ll hear laughs even from the subway station on your walk over to ours…make no mistakes…we laugh hard…and guess what, I’m the epicenter of it (now, don’t twist the meaning — I saw your eyes twitch.).

Sophia Loren's grandmother enjoyed her sex life at 80. That's good karma!

Anyways. What was the topic of this conversation? Oh yes, women…and the way they touch me. Ooo! Let’s see (rubbing my palms together). Now, remember, you promised not to tell my wife.

In fact, I need a must-do digression, with your kind permission. The Way Women Touch Me could be the title of my next novel…I mean…my first novel. And if this blog becomes the publisher’s promo on the web, there will be serious questions, concerns and raised brows from diverse corners of my so-far well-kempt married life. In fact, some of these questioners, concerners and raised-browers are on my Facebook. And then, they have their Facebook friends and then their friends…and poor wifey and I are connected with all of them directly or indirectly…like a Venn Diagram. But now that I’ve taken this subject on, and by default, it’s kinda sexy and salacious, I think I would not mind being slobbered over by some gossiping drool. Wifey though…for her…that’s not funny at all. That’s the reason I said you better keep her out.

Or we can’t scramble and get to the bottom of it (no pun intended).

[not bored yet? come back. i will.]

Sincerely Writing,

Partha

Brooklyn, New York