Fifteen Books Define My Life - Roughly

Cyclopic got me started on this idea. His post was the first one I read.

When I was growing up, we did not have TV or the Internet, TV started sometime in the eighties in India with only the National Channel. We got ours in 1984 so we could watch the Asiad Games that New Delhi hosted that year.

We were also growing up in the remote north eastern jungle regions, so we were not taken out for movies, there were no shopping malls. Children were not allowed to attend occasional Army/ Airforce parties.

Nature was our best friend and we lived vicariously through books, sixty percent of these impressionable years. Later, in my twenties too, life was limited to college, university, home, television (with one channel - Doordarshan) and BOOKs (the American Center Library Kolkata then had free membership - that is where I found books on AI and May Sarton and The Confederacy of Dunces by Toole)

And of course there was the British Council Division Library, expensive fees, but huge collection, more importantly, unlike in Indian college lib you could walk amidst the shelves, touch the books, settle down in a window seat in the airconditioned fragrant cozy redaing space and be lost - Keat's biography called ABBA ABBA is the first one I had picked up herealong with the biography of Coco Chanel and had learned she is the one who invented the color magenta - one color I love to wear and look at.

So here goes the list of fifteen I would choose if I could have only twenty.

The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran ("Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding" ,the Prophetsaid of Pain - isn't it lovely?)

Men and Women by Robert Browning (an old, old copy the leaves of which smell of far away places and distant times). I love the characters of Fra Lippo Lippi and sad, submitting artist Andrea del Sartoand their 'voices' mingle with my professors in my head when I read them and the drak mysterious corridors of Calcuttauniversity come alive in my mind, like you can step into that world any minute... my twenties are associated with these books in the first set -Horcruxes as it were of my twenties soul (I love Harry Potter :) don't laugh plesae)

The House on the Strand by Daphne Du Maurier about the surreal 'contact' between two worlds or perhaps the same one on two different dimensions in time? This shapes my mind for sc-fi to come.

Cannery Row by John Steinbeck.

Anandamath by Bamkim Chndra Chattopadhyay (a song from this book, Bande Mataram, became our National Song - not Anthem, which was by Tagore) , a classic tale of how fiercely she loves, how tenderly she hates and how creatively she can destroy - what a woman can do and be, given the opportunity.

Shoroshi by Sarat Ch Chattopadhyay, another classic novel about a powerful woman from rural Bengal who knows what she is and can be and fights the repressive bourgeoise world in her village all alone.

Pather Panchali by Bibhutibhushan Banerjee came to me when I was in class three, made me fall in love with the beauty of rural Bengal, its tender gentle loving ways. Later, this book gets made into a world famous film in the hands of Satyajit Ray. The author was a civil engineer by profession and you couldthink of him as the Thomas Hardy of Bengal. If you want access to the soul and spirit of my community, Bengal, then these are writers to read...,

Rajkahini by Abanindranath Tagore, same year another class book filled with beautiful drawings by the author in his inimitable style accompnying tales about the fierce warriers of the Bhil, Gond, Rajput Gehlot tribes of Western India, their lovely queens (Rani Padmini who was imported from Persia) that jumped into the fire and killed themselves when they perceived their honor was at stake (the famous Jawahar Vrat) or mounted on their Arab steeds drew a sword to give battle to the ambitious and mighty Mughal Emperors.

The Adventures of Professor Shanku by Satyjit Ray shaped my scientific temperament. The writer is the same one that won the lifetime achievement Oscar on his deathbed.

Ganodebata by Manik Banerjee was my first taste of what the dilemma of a man can be, when faced with choices between individual and community welfare, love and conventions, family and friends ... I consider this one to be the Steinbeck of our country.

The Adventures of Rijuda by Buddhodev Guha is responsibe for the love and understanding I developed of our jungles and nature. I travelled with Rijuda in my mind and learned about my country through his lens.

The Adventures of Tintin by Herge, in lovely Bangla translation in Anandamela one of the most popular children's mags in Bengal, is the medium of my first contact with the Picaros of South America, the American Indians and how they were exploited for their land and resources, about ancient Egyptian wealth and treasures, about life on the high Seas, about how the inside of a space research center could look like - I simply adore Herge's pictures. I can spend hours with a Tintin comics even now although they are so expensive I never owned any - I only own two, bought second hand, another one was a birthday gift. People do not realize the value of these books znd were reluctant tobuy them -it is for these books that I often wished - me and my bro, that we hda some benevolent uncle or aunt whom we could ask - to buy books for us.

Running From Safety and the Bridge Across Forever by Richard Bach arebooks that empowered me to strive to fulfill all those promises I had mdae to little wondering Nabina years ago - in fact everytime I read the Metaposts by Michael and Meliss, am reminded somehow of this author...

Jonathan Livingstone Sea Gull - and I read the edition with the blue cover, owned the one with violet cover but gave it away in afit of spontaneous generosity and regret it sorely because I cant find the same cover - by Richard Bach again - today if I could battle hostile waves to keep to the course of my dreams it is thanks to this one book.

The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho that taught me the whole conspires to get you going when you know your destiny and allow yourself to follow it...the actual lines say something else - it talks of love - but this is what stayed in my mind.

With that ends this journey. To, whoever actually started this meme, thank you, I enjoyed the trip - hope I didn't bore my blogmates too much with this. Would love to read your Fifteen - if you would care to give it a thought

Childhood - Rainy Days

Rolling spent her childhood days in the lush green North Eastern States of the Indian subcontinent.
Assam, Manipur, Agartala, Nagaland, Arunachal Pradesh.
The sheer fecundity of nature here and the breadth of eyespace she enjoyed, while growing up in these parts, affected her tiny impressionable mind deeply and left indelible impressions. Her mind and perspective on life is coloured by what she saw around her constantly as she slowly turned into a woman...

Heavy rainfall is a constant element of life in this part of India, as are snakes, insects, dark green, scary green, turquoise blue, electric blue, colours, thick undergrowth, dense forests, and deep growling silences of tropical jungles.

It rained here - incessantly, for days, in the monsoon season and even at other times. No water logging because this is hilly region. The sun shone immediately afterward, making everything look brighter, better, glowing with happy colours. It was then like eating ice-cream with your eyes. The coolness of the air you could breathe in and let your body savour its freshness. Growing up in the north east may have made this woman turn sensual, I think. With the way the weather and the terrain is in the north east, one’s faculties get naturally tuned to nearly every nuance of nature.

The days it rained, when she was seven or eight or nine or ten - were some of the happiest days of her life.

It didn’t rain there - it poured, like someone had turned a big bucket full of water upon your head. The drops of water felt heavy on soft skin. Temperature dropped. It felt cozy to curl up in a corner of the bed with her favourite fat Anandamela Puja edition book and wrapped in a kaantha - a Bengali quilt made of layers of old used handloom sarees, very soft and oozing with oomph. Usually, schools declared rainy days when it rained heavily. It became so dark in the morning that no one could tell it was only mid morning. You had to switch on the electric lights and look at the watch. Or switch on the radio.

A little later when mum finished with her cooking, she would come and join little bro bhai and little elder sis didi on the bed. They would play ludo or checkers together and after a few games, would watch the rain through the glass window - the lonely ghostly commuter on a cycle covered in transparent plastic sheet from head to foot, the local priest in his gumboots and black raincoat driving past in his faded green Bajaj scooter.

The dark green trees, the rain sleeked charcoal black street curving away in the east, the flaming orange red Krishnachura flowers framing the soggy blue of the sky above, hazy but glimmering shapes of people passing by outside the window pane - all of it looked like a sheet of oil pastel painting seen through a transparent grey plastic sheet. Mother and little daughter and tiny baby son all sat huddled together in a corner of the milk white bed near the picture window and watched all afternoon. Sometimes mum would break forth into a song - Doorey Kothaey Doorey doorey/ amar mon beraey go ghurey - ghureyyy/ Je baanshitey bataash kaandey/ shei baanshiro shoorey shooreyyy….far, far away in the distance/ my mind wanders/ to the tune of the bamboo flute that wails with the sound of the passing wind…

A tiny voice would join in too with the only rainy day song she knew how to sing: Boley re papiharaa, papiharaa/ Nit man pyasa, nit man tarasey….(she used to think back then it should be ‘Ek man pyasa, Ek man tarasey..’ some people are thirsty, some people are thirsting, that is what she thought the song meant )

Until it thundered and grew dirty dark outside. Then it was mid day - time to feed her ‘babies’. So mum would gather them up and put them down on the floor together - the children would squeal with laughter as the bundle hit the floor, scramblingly splitting into two sets of feet and hands. Sometimes the bundle collapsed in a heap on the mat on the floor and mum would laugh while she stooped to separate the tangled mass of flailing arms and feet and then they would all troop like a set of Motherduck-baby-duckling toy - baby boy holding on to mum’s saree pallu, didi sis following, teasingly holding on to the back of his little shirt - to the dark kitchen.

They would switch on the light. Then they would lay the table together, baby carrying the stainless steel baby glasses, which he could now hold one in each little hand, didi sis carrying the stainless steel plates - which she tried to beat together like cymbals in rhythm with the loud pattering outside - mummy brought the china bowls of curry. These were heavy. The children were not allowed to touch these. Last of all came the rice and the colourful salad with beet in it.

This was the only sore point of the day - when they had to eat raw beet with their salad. They hated it. The taste, the wild strong scent, the way it coloured everything else up. So very dominating! Junglee!

The hot shiny white rice looked beautiful - each grain perfectly shaped and separate, like fresh jasmine flowers plucked out with the dew still on it. This is the famous Joha rice of Assam - lovely, fragrant rice that made everything taste twenty times better. They would have their simple meal starting with the greens - spinach fried sauteed with a dash of garlic, followed by bitter gourd boiled in the rice and mixed with mashed potatoes to dull the shock of bitterness for sensitive baby tongues, followed by fragrant masoor dal soup, with fried eggplant finally ending with the royal treat - fish curry. All Bengalis have their food in that order by the way. Fish or egg or meat always comes in the end and is followed by some dessert - no matter how simple it is - there would be a dash of sweet in some form at the end of a meal in most ordinary Bengali homes.

In our household, if they could not get to the store, when rains continued for more than three days, it would be home made laddoos made of jaggery and puffed rice, or a dollop of jaggery made of date-palm juice, called Paataali and is considered a delicacy in Bengali homes. They buy it in winter and stock it for the year.

After a peaceful meal - if baby didn’t spit too much and didn’t fuss too much over his meal - if he did though, an added bonus would be a story - usually he liked monkey stories - he seemed to identify with monkeys better- it would be back at the window or on the bed.

Never on the floor, which would be cold despite grass matting or dhurries that covered it. Usually, these would become damp too and had to be sunned when it stopped raining. Often there would be millipedes and centipedes trapped under them or actually crawling over them, in their bid to get away from dampness outside, they would flock indoors in this season. Sharing space with them wasn’t such a pleasant idea so we left them the dark corners in the room and the shelves and the floor - we climbed up into the safety of the bed.

There were great big scorpions too and baby snakes that would blunder in - at least that’s what mummy taught the children to believe - “Ora path bhuley dhukey podechhey - mero na oder”. Meaning, please don’t think of killing them, they forgot where their house is and blundered in here cause they are babies too and don’t know better.

There was no TV - we had a lovely silver white Panasonic 2-in-1 sitting on a table behind a door in a corner. The family was very proud of this set and is still there. Mum would turn it on. Clear voice of Ritu Guha rang out rendering Rabindrasangeet lyrics like they were magic words that transported the little minds to a dream world where it was full of light and springfields swaying in the breeze.

When the father came home after the afternoon flight was safely on its way to homebase in Kolkata, he would find the children curled up like little fluffy lion cubs fast asleep, covered in their peach and offwhite flannels.

There would be Gautam uncle coming in to read the Bangla paper with Good Morning stamped on it in purple stamp pad ink slightly smudged at the edges, and his young wife Aditi aunty - the little girl would wake up at the noise and walk into the parlour to see what was going on and to get a hug from daddy. After a bit of washing the sleep out of the face and dressing up and the glass of milk with chanachur strewn over the top to liven it up - she would fish out her already battered (session started in July back then only a couple o months before Monsoon started) Geography book and get lost in the pictures of other lands and people. While the adults chatted on happily, the baby played with his mechano on the dining table, she curled up in her favourite little cane basket chair, which had been made too order for her specially and roved the world in her mind.

And another lovely, happy day would, a few hours later, end in sleep and tending to dreams that would someday shape the reality of her life.

RollingEblogging in Third Person

About happy things in her life.

This morning for instance. She woke up early. It is not usual for her. She sleeps late and wakes up late. So when she does wake up early, she feels happy. Soon as she was up, this morning, she remembered there is plenty to do. Work that is turning out to be
exploratory, interesting, addictive.

When there are things to look forward to in the course of the day, it makes her happy.She opened the front door - the light was soft, it felt cool - not cold - the tap water at the basin felt warm on her palm and on the skin of her cheeks. She took her time brushing her teeth, all the while staring out the hole in her makeshift kitchen window with the square glass panes missing in its frame.

She watched the white Suzuki of the Gupta's rev, back up and move out of the common frontyard in slow motion. Next, it was her Landlord's Honda bike that roared softly once and cleared the space between the house and the main gate in one swift leopard-like leap.

This morning her tea turned out fine too, aromatic with the sweetness just right.

While she made her tea, she made a mental plan of where she would begin work for the day.She decided to start with the mail as usual but also do the to-do list before she actually began. It relaxes her when she can physically tick off tasks completed from a checklist.She sleeps better. It also gives her more time to herself.

For breakfast this morning she didn't have to struggle either.She hates to have to plan a meal early in the morning. There was plenty of milk, plus plain dosas that she had fried for dinner last night but had forgotten to eat.

managed to find a vendor yesterday who agreed to deliver milk in at her doorstep every evening. She has had problems ever since she changed jobs. The former deliveryman refused to come in the evening. When she was ill a few days ago, and was laid up for four days, there was no milk in the house even for a cup of warm coffee! She must remember to get some Amul milk powder and stock it up.

She is happy that she had found this accommodating, soft spoken, polite milkman. One thing less to worry about. He even carries a mobile phone. At least now if she is ill and laid up, there would be some food in the house, and some human contact.

This morning ended with the work in hand taking its own course, which was good in the circumstances, she didn't have to worry about what to, how to - it fell in place - by lunch time she knew this evening would be nice and peaceful - with a sense of a day well spent.

Manish called from school asking if she could pitch in for Tees Ka Dum this afternoon - she had to refuse as she decided she would rather concentrate on her Feb12 deadline right now. Other than that, it has been a "yesss" day so far.She wanted to watch Lucky By Chance but she is happier writing this now, so would leave it for another day.

Hi

It is a beautiful morning here in Ahmedabad and I sit here with a handful of work, taking a short break. I ought to go get some lunch - instead, here I am, toying with this, fascinated with this new blog I just started.

I don't actually mean to 'live' here, if you know what I mean for 'home' is at WP at Rolling. I would use this space keep up with my friends on Eblogger.

And, since am a wanderer by instinct (Alok, should I use the word 'nature', here?), I would explore this place.

I guess, this is going to be like having two houses in two different States.

Would come back and finish this by and by...