Dida's Stilettos

Dida had busy mornings. She would wake up early in the morning, take bath, wash her clothes, spend the greater part of the morning in thakurghor praying. She loved spending time in the kitchen. So mornings were mostly spent in chopping vegetables and then cooking them. She would grab a bite in between. One would never find her sitting still in the morning. She would always find something or the other to do. I loved trailing behind her as she would keep hopping from one part of the house to another.

Afternoons used to be idyllic. Dida and I would lie down on her bed and I would ask her about random things. I was particularly interested in her childhood. I used to be very curious of her life as a child. I loved listening to the things she did when she was young. More so probably because it was difficult for a 6-7 years old to imagine that her grandmother was a girl like her at some point of her life.

On one such winter afternoon, she was telling me about her life after she had shifted to Kolkata from East Pakistan (now Bangladesh). She used to live with her uncle and aunt here. Her parents, however, continued living in Bangladesh. In her new neighborhood in Kolkata, lived a Memsahib. Dida and she had exchanged smiles on few occassions. She would mostly wear dresses but what caught my Dida's fancy was the tie up stiletto heels that she would wear. Dida dreamed of owning a pair. She enquired about the price from somewhere and decided to write to her mother about it. She wrote how stylish those shoes look like and would like to buy one of those. After few weeks, to her delight, Dida's mother replied to her letter with the money enclosed inside so that she could buy those heels. Dida's joy knew no bounds and immediately she handed over the money to her aunt and told her about the shoes she wanted to buy. Her aunt measured her sole and went to the market in search of those most coveted pair of heels. When she came back, she handed over a pair of flat sandals to Dida. My Dida, to say the least, was very disappointed. Her aunt reasoned saying how was she going to walk in those high heels. She would end up hurting her ankles. And then further, the price of those flats was almost one-eighth the price of those heels. She could buy more shoes or whatever she wanted to with the left over money, advised her aunt.

Completing the story, Dida started laughing about her naive wish and how it remained unfulfilled. I laughed my heart out too, imagining what would have happened if Dida's aunt had bought those pair of stilettos! It was so difficult to imagine 'young' Dida, in her teens, walking on the streets wearing those heels. I was more amused to think of  the reaction of that Memsahib had she discovered Dida's stilettos!

SoRry!! I dOn'T hAVe TimE..

Instant noodles, instant photos, instant fairness, instant likes, instant bookings, instant fame.. you name it and there are ways of doing it or getting it instantly. I am not sure if I get any extra time for myself after “saving” some of it by getting things done instantly! At the end of the day I still wish if I had some more extra hours to prevent some of the things, in my mental to-do list, from spilling over to the next day.

These instant solutions to everything have made life so very mundane! This is my personal opinion though. There are bots which help you garner followers on social media, bots which autolike stuffs for you based on the hashtags you feed into them, bots that advocate ideas, send bulk messages, vote online and what not. And all these things …done instantly! The world is becoming very intolerant to the idea of being slow. Not that I am advocating against it but just that the idea of things progressing not so organically is a bit intimidating. Noodles, money-transfer, to a large extent…regret can gleefully be preceded by instant. But some things are just not meant to be instant! Some things take time and it’s okay I guess. By the way, how does instant happiness sound? 😜

RaNdOmnEsS

Today while returning from lab I longed for a fish cutlet served with kasundi (a type of mustard sauce) and generous helping of finely chopped onions and cucumber. The craving was so strong that it took me back 7-8 years in time and I imagined myself standing in front of Kalika. Situated in Surya Sen Street, Kalika never disappointed me on my way back home from college. From mango to prawns, it offers a variety of fritters not just on the menu board hung in the shop but actually on the plate, fried freshly out of their wok. Usually I preferred taking the metro from Central for coming back home because that was the fastest route but sometimes just for the love of those chops I used to walk till Kalika from Presi and then catch a crowded 3A/1 bus near Sudhanand Park in Raja Ram Mohan Sarani.

I miss those days. I loved travelling to college. I loved the journey to and fro. Standing in the long serpentine line for the bus in the morning was something I hated and couldn't do away with. I would always aim for the first class in the college but usually would not compromise my seat in the bus for it. Sometimes I would let buses go by just because I wouldn't get a window side towards the shade! I am usually never in hurry. I strongly believe in Murphy's Law, however I try keeping my aims 'high' just to balance my beliefs out 😀 . Anyway, but there have also been days...I mean quite a lot actually.... when I had no choice but to board a bus where I wouldn't have an inch to stand and by the time I reached college it would feel like I was just back from the battlefield. With cool breeze, a soothing song playing on my phone, a place to sit and some altercation perpetually occurring in the background, my favourite part of the journey was undoubtedly the Princep Ghat stretch (except during the Gangasagar mela time for obvious reasons!!).

While returning, I and Poorna used to walk till Central metro station by walking through the Medical College campus. Sometimes there would be ghugni giving us company on our way to the station. While returning, I would often try to match time with Sauvik so that we could return together from Tollygunge to Behala. We would then roam around in Behala before heading home.

Life then seems so fun to me now. But I am sure that if I am made to travel 7-8 years back I would still call it mundane. I don't know. I am just assuming. As for today's evening snacks, I had to console myself with ginger tea and Tasty Nuts by Haldiram's.

WhEn MonEy caN'T BuY YoU ThiNgS...

Nothing comes free in this world. There’s a price for everything. A well known fact! But what I have realised lately is that just paying the price doesn’t suffice nowadays. Ability to pay the price along with your proficiency in complaining would get you ‘closer’ to your temporal goal. The probability of things going in the right direction at the first go is almost nil. The level of expertise or flair you have in grumbling, will determine how close you are in getting things done!

I never had the luck of seeing things fall into place by themselves. Be it ordering food or ordering something from online shopping sites, buying some reagent for my work and sometimes even for availing services, life hasn’t been very kind. As soon as you find that things are not going as expected, the primary step is to call the customer care. Chances of your problem being solved aren’t that great at this step but at least it would get you going. Most likely your unsolved complaint would be escalated to the higher authorities, followed by a series of fake assurances. The next step, if the matter is not resolved, is to write mails. The initial ones would essentially have the description of the problem along with the other details of your order and how the customer care executives were incompetent to solve the same. The prospects of your problem being solved with just one mail are slim since if it was that simple, the requirement of sending a mail wouldn’t arise in the first place. So what follows is a string of mails, the contents of which would clearly reflect your rising agitation! A number of phone calls from the vendor’s side are in line after the mails. This is the most frustrating part as you would have a new caller calling you everyday asking about the problem. They wouldn’t read the email trail and ask you to explain from scratch. And what I find really funny is that in spite of asking if it is a good time to talk they don’t care what your answer is. Once I remember I didn’t have the luxury to spend 10-15mins to explain my problem, so I asked the person to call me later. I had to repeat this twice or thrice because the person didn’t bother to listen to me and started with his questionnaire!

After spending quite a lot of time and energy your problem might get solved. And if not you can always go back to square one by asking for the refund. Things aren’t that easy as it may sound but then after a few cases you wouldn’t need to think on your next set of action. I am sure many of us have gone through this and would continue to go through the ordeal! Losing hope or patience isn’t an option my friend. After all if you are ready to pay you SHOULD be ready to fight for it!! 

pLaN Z

I am very fond of alternate strategies. So much so that I feel being swallowed up by an unfailing pessimism. The idea of taking any kind of risk simply freaks me out. I always have this feeling that the idea of doing something which I look forward to might never work out or turn out as I expect it to, thereby ending up making thousands of  subsidary plans. On several occassions how I had wished to let go of a failed attempt instead of jumping to plan B, if not B then plan C and so on. I wonder how different would that life have been! The mere thought of idling makes me sad. I hate floating on an  oarless boat. Not that I am good at rowing. I just end up propelling the boat in the direction of the wind, which is as good as an oarless boat I guess. The thought of undirected propelling apparently being better than floating aimlessly, I realise, is the root of the problem. It gives you a superficial impression of being engaged. Propelling or floating is all the same if the motion is Brownian!
I so envy people who can take decision on spot. And here I am.. unable to decide what to choose for lunch! I have to make my mind up on the way to the canteen to save myself some extra time at the counter! Having said that I think Plan b isn't that bad. It just saves you from being reckless. But what are dangerous I guess are plans C-Z! Always being on the safer side just makes you miss the mini adventures in life.. :)

wHen To dO oR nOt tO Do iS tHE QueSTioN!!

The transition from being a child to a grown up is complete when the decision of sharing the chocolate you have in hand doesn't bother you so much as the dilemma of whether you should say or do something.. somewhere.. infront of somebody.. in that situation... given the weather conditions..

..the lunch you ate... the dinner you are going to have ...and other mundane factors that must be taken into serious consideration before you end up doing something... somewhere... and the cycle continues!!

Have you ever been trapped in this cycle?? Then my dear friend you have come of age... Congratulations!! If you think that you can escape this ordeal of making the "right decision", then you are on the wrong side of the fence.  There's nothing called "right"!! Right has always been relative... It has always been playing safe avoiding anything thats absolute.. No matter what,you are going to be judged. Theres no escaping...You have to face it... Yeah one of the biggest cons of being a grown up!

People suddenly become so judgemental around you and so do you. People start giving internal grades irrespective of whether you talk or don't, you dance or sing, sleep or eat, run or laugh... nothing really matters..and the biggest problem being you are not even handed the report card. All you have to do is grind your head thinking if you really ended up offending or annoying someone. Yes you can bypass all these if you are least interested to what grades you are going to get from someone. But thats quite difficult because at a certain point of  time even you would be confused thinking what exactly do you want and what gives you peace of mind! As has been rightly said you can love or hate certain things but you can't ignore them.. neither can you decide what to do about them nor can you infer anything from them .. :D

a DeLicACy cALleD "DhOP eR cHoP"

"Dhoper Chop" is a common recipe with divine Bengali cuisine flavours. Chop is hindi means 'pakoda'. I am sure "dhoper chop" is quite famous in other places as well since the process of making it is universal. Just that it is known by different names according to its place of origin with some subtle differences which might have evolved over the years. Anyway my post today mainly focuses on the preparation of this famous dish and then you might be able to guess its name in your mother tongue. For Bengalis reading this post, theres no suspense left since the title suggests it all..but as you have already started reading it, sparing two more minutes might make a little more sense as opposed to the one minute already wasted in reading up to this point.


So before describing the recipe for "dhoper chop" in details let me give you all an analogy. I am sure most of us like to indulge in biriyani once in a while. But making biriyani is an art. You just can't come up with biriyani by putting rice and chicken together. The reason why we prefer fried rice over biriyani in a random restaurant (no offence to fried rice though!!). So you see just like biriyani, making dhoper chop is also an art. Most of the people are just average in making this. The problem with chop is that if you are not good at it, it might crack while deep frying it and the oil seeps inside. And the real problem starts when a gastronomically challenged person is forced to eat it.

"Dhoper chop" should ideally involve doing some small research about the topic on which your dhop revolves. Making dhops is far more diffucult than catching an imperfect one. And thinking that the person on the other side will not be able to see through your "dhop" is another big mistake. So if you dont have the time to do your homework (which is quite obvious considering how busy we are), refraining from making up any "dhops" is the best option. People who are blunt are actually the respected ones at the end of the day. But then if one lacks the expertise, will he/she just give up on making dhoper chop?? NO WAY...practice is waiting for its turn :D ....Practise making up your own small harmless dhops and serve it to your near and close ones. Check their reaction. If they are not able to make out..then come next day and tell them that you had made things up...so that next time they might become a little seasoned when you serve them "dhoper chop". In the end, you eventually train both your friend and yourself. Mutual benefit you see :D ...But then after a certain point of time they might stop believing you. So a little discretion is required from the chef's side.

Anyway the aim is to make the batter thick. A runny batter wouldn't give you a strong hold. Work on the batter. Even I am working on it :D . And refraining from serving people average dhoper chop and waiting till you master the art is a better option than you know what...