alice's peephole

A Biye really brings out the Bangali in me. Someone who generally doesn’t spare a second look for sweets, and is ostracized from the community due to my lack of ability to not sound like a dying hyena when I sing, it’s difficult to find a common topic of interest when I bump into fellow Bongs. But there’s nothing like a Biye to bridge all those barriers. Because a Bangali Biye is all about 2 of my favourite things – food and presents! The eating traditionally begins with “Aiyibudobhath”. Or as it’s called in Marathi, “Kelwan”, with extra emphasis on the ‘l’ and ‘n’. This is where your close friends and family invite the bride/groom (along with their families =D) over for a meal. The parents of the bride/groom, also host one, and their favourite food is cooked! Luckily, the brother’s fave food is my fave – namely Mangsher jhol – bhath. Since it is impossible for me to describe how incredibly delicious it is, this is how it looks. For those of you who would like to make it – please fo...

We present them like roses, to our friends, families and lovers.  Roses aren’t meant to last forever, they prick you more often than not, they are only a momentary passing pleasure.  We begin each day with promises. Today, I promise myself – I won’t give up on my dreams, I’ll even eat my greens. I’ll pick up a new hobby, Maybe I’ll even make some extra money. I could learn to mime…? At any rate I should learn to write better rhymes. I will curb my inner devil, Suppress all the bubbling evil, Mask sarcasm beneath a patient smile, Even when the conversation makes me want to run a mile I won’t be lazy, I won’t order in, I’ll take the stairs and fix that broken heel. I won’t drink more than 2 cups of coffee a day, I won’t waste time on facebook and trimming my grays. I’ll moisturize and deodorize, Clean my nails and comb my hair, I’ll iron my clothes and return borrowed books, And when all else fails I’ll even admit I don’t ha...

2 Moves and a Wedding On 10 th December I felt as if I had lost so much. It turns out that I gained so much more than any thankless job could have ever given me. The last 2 months have been full of paradoxes – broken up into 3 parts. SHIFTING Once my parents came back into town, loaded with curtains (purple for my room!) and light fittings for our lovely new house, I threw myself fully into the preparations.   The crazy days began. Days filled with discussions about bathroom lights, towel rods, dining table tops, shoe-rack purchases. Every alternate day we visited the construction site – to keep a tab on the progress so as to ensure the builder sticks to his very tight deadline for delivering the house – a week before the wedding. We climbed 10 flights of stairs and spent hours supervising the work, till the point where we began to feel like we should be paid for doing the site engineers’ work. After the workers took off for lunch, we would harass the site supervisor...

Every few years something happens in our lives that makes us lose hope completely. And I don’t mean something like a Lance Armstrong drug scam story – this is something that wrenches our heart apart. Something that you hold so dear suddenly disappears in a cloud of black smoke. You realize it was never even yours to hold. You were the fool, to think you belonged, that you owned it. That it was yours. You come home, looking for solace, and you find it. But you have failed in the outside world. You forget all the great things lined up for you – with a shadow looming like a raincloud over everything you touch. As the candle is snubbed out, you are left groping in the darkness, for hope. In my teen years I had no doubts about how to handle this - a good amount of self-pitying punk music, crying and leaning shamelessly on friends for support. I guess I wallowed, and that worked. Everything seems so different a few years later. Music doesn’t seem to help the case, there’s only...

It was the only time of the year when exams were not important to my parents. As soon as the answer paper was submitted, I’d run to the ‘Main Gate’ of my school, and wait to be picked up by my parents and be taken to Congress Bhavan. After the customary respects were paid to Ma, I would be left free to wander around the ‘Pujo Pandal’ and look for my friends. Some days there were drawing or essay contests.  Atleast one morning was spent sitting on the edge of the stage and distributing ‘Proshad’ to people, or if your luck ran dry, you could be roped in for behind the scenes work like helping to assemble the 3 or so fruits and a Padha for the Proshad.   Lunchtime was heralded by the youngsters (I was still in the kids category) pushing aside the scattered chairs to make way for the long rows of tables and chairs, on which batches and batches of Bangalis would be fed. This was the cue to run to the kitchen area to volunteer for the days Poribeshon. The pecking order f...

A wise person once told me that it’s important to spread confusion, not to eliminate it. That’s why I decided to write this post, instead of doing some real investigation about what’s confusing me. Happiness is confusing. And a little scary. Especially when you can’t pinpoint the exact source, and the shelf life is longer than a few beer infested hours, you begin to wonder what’s brought on this unfamiliar feeling – where even the bitch of a ride to work doesn’t get you down. And you spend the entire day staring at a beat up old computer screen doing something not very phenomenal, go home to an empty house and eat a vegetarian dinner alone in front of a non flat screen TV watching reruns of Grey’s Anatomy. And still feel optimistic while climbing into bed. And though my state doesn’t quantify as ‘euphoric’, I’m still pretty worried about this needless, causeless positivity. It’s most unlike me. I’m someone who loves to fret – about the future, and getting fat, and losing my ...

One day I decided I was being ill-treated, and I decided to do something about it. So I opened my front door, announced to anyone within hearing distance my decision to run away from home, and stepped out into the big bad world. I reached my Society’s gate, and was confronted by a dilemma. What if I ran left, and my dad right, and then he couldn’t ‘catch’ me? So I stopped and quickly changed tactics. I started bawling loudly and was soon gathered into the comforting embrace of my father. I don’t remember what my primary motive was, and whether I had achieved it, but I know I felt warn and loved and all was right with the world again. Another day not too long ago at work, I messed up. So I resorted to my age old ally in times of duress and dashed to the bathroom to have a good cry. But I had to keep my voice down, and sneak out when I was done. I also had to creep out like a jewel thief, wash my face subtly and saunter back to my desk and pretend like I had gone out to whisper sweet ...