The Village & The Bubble - Part IV

Dawa Wala Dabba
(The Medicine Chest)

© 𝕾𝖆𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖍 𝕮𝖍𝖆𝖓𝖉𝖗𝖆

The summer we moved into our current home, some of the neighbors got together and decided to throw an outdoor party. Most of our neighbors were younger couples in their own family Bubbles with toddlers. One of the toddlers was "Sticky" Ryan, so named by our daughter who babysat for him and his older brother occasionally. No matter how often his parents bathed him or changed him into fresh clothes, he always smelled syrupy and felt sticky with his love for tactile, intimate, full-body interaction with everything gooey. Sticky food, sticky candy, sticky mud, sticky glue, you name it. 

The adults were enjoying themselves with freshly grilled burgers, hot dogs, etc. and typical adult beverages. The toddlers were toddling around in the unfenced backyards in the warm summer evening. At one point, the adults all moved to one side to watch one of the other adorable kids doing something adorable. And Sticky Ryan used the opportunity to find a tumbler half-full of red liquid with alcohol in it. True to his reputation, he was found being his usual babbling, sticky self with a huge grin, red liquid all over his face, on his clothes, his bare feet having successfully shed his footwear earlier. Probably most of the content of that tumbler on the outside rather than inside him. He wasn't slurring his words or unstable on his feet any more than his usual toddling self. 

His parents were quite concerned, of course, quietly but fiercely debating if they needed to rush him to ER (Emergency Room) or induce vomiting, etc. I spoke up and said that we had Ipecac syrup, an emetic, in our first-aid kit but would not recommend using it. His speech seemed no more incoherent than his usual doo doo gaa gaa. I told them not to panic, we just all keep an eye on Sticky Ryan as the evening wore on, and they check up on him occasionally after he went to sleep. We shared tales from our grandma's times as to how, back in her day, they cured colds, tummy troubles, toothaches and most other typical childhood problems with shots of brandy in milk. During the good ole days. Our neighbors later told us that the little boozer woke up the next morning with no hangovers whatsoever and resumed his sticky pursuits. His mom wasn't so fortunate. 

I was reminded of this episode and more while looking into our medicine cabinet for a Band-aid recently. Our childhood medicine chest was no ordinary place, it was an old aluminum school-box, repurposed and resting proudly on the top shelf of the Godrej almirah. To us children, it was the chest of forbidden treasures, a mini mystery apothecary miracle perched high, filled with the secret world of cures. Every squeak of the lid, every rattle of bottles, it was summoned due to some misadventure… or, more accurately, a summons to relief from some minor childhood disaster.

Inside that dabba, little bottles and tubes stood or lay in a haphazard manner like tiny soldiers, resting after the previous battle with our family ailments. 

First and foremost, Dettol. Brown, antiseptic, ready to disinfect the daily occurrences of scraped knees and skinned elbows from of the wounded warriors from the battlefields also know as playgrounds. For the more serious cuts, Mercurochrome, red as a cardinal, turning minor cuts into badges of courage as you couldn’t tell the blood smear from the smear of the red liquid.  

And of course, the dreaded sting, that sharp burning that followed which every child feared. Every mother insisted the sting was the proof positive that it was “working.” You’d whine, squirm, and swear never to play so rough outside again, but she’d only smile knowingly and you believed her without questioning the wisdom of such information: “The more it stings, the more it’s working, killing those nasty germs!” Pain, apparently, was part of the prescription.

Sometimes one feigned a tummy-ache to try to get out of going to school. Moms had an instant remedy, the clear bottle of (Mr. William) Woodward's Gripe Water, sweet and syrupy, whispering promises of “no more gripes, no more tummy aches!” Or the notorious blue bottle of (Mr. Charles Henry) Phillips's Milk of Magnesia, white, chalky, sticky sweet liquid, often followed by the big burps and exaggerated belches. Made its appearance regularly, deployed by moms, ensuring "regularity." 

Then came the wonder-pills: Saridon & Anacin, the latter with four fingers displayed, for its fourfold properties (chaar faayadé), with its way too cheerful jingle still echoing somewhere up there. And for sticky situations, chapped lips, mysterious rashes, pierced ears for my sisters, any and all wounds needing extra love during the healing process, Mr. Gour Mohan Dutta's ubiquitous cream Boroline, the thick, magical ointment, dabbed in generous swipes by hands that would soothe and scold at once. Khusboodaar Antiseptic Cream, Boroline! 

And there was more. There was good old Band-aid, the sticky-strip supposed to protect any cuts and help them heal. Whatever glue was used in those days on those strips, the darn item somehow managed to stick forever, thus providing the vaunted "protection", refusing to let go of your skin long after the wound had healed and the memory had faded as to its existence. It's removal was usually accompanied with a layer of outer skin, some hair and lots of yelling. 

There was fitkari, the cool, translucent bar of alum that sat with my dad's shaving tackle, sharp, stinging, and strangely satisfying, also used for everything from shaving cuts to swollen gums. And how we loved the unique bottle of Eau de Cologne, too, which sometimes joined forces for fevers with the rest of dawa wala dabba, its citrusy, assertive aroma mingling with Dettol’s sharpness, each marking its territory like a flag of bravery after occasional shaving mishap. 

Our dabba also sported an old-fashioned mercury thermometer, the only one in The Village. One watched with fascination how the opaque, shiny thread shot up in the tiny capillary channel. And after its use, the adults carefully shaking it vigorously in the air guiding the mercury back to its bulbous home. That instrument was borrowed by all in The Village whenever the need arose. The superstition was quite strong among the other households - against owning such an instrument, with a strong belief that the ownership of such an instruments would basically be and open invitation to sickness and disease into the household. Besides, The Village already had a shared one, right?

And when all else failed, there was the ultimate refrain: Mom's kisses fixed it all. Any mom in The Village would do. And they did. When our faith in a mother’s palm was unshakeable, sometimes a soothing caress, sometimes a stinging slap, with a generous dab of Boroline, a good night’s sleep could fix nearly anything. When the sting of Dettol and the scent of Old Spice were rites of resilience, not reasons for alarm.

Today, The Village seems to have been replaced by many Bubbles. Minor issues? Off to Dr. Google, Miss Chatty Patty, LLMD, or other dubious online sources, frenzied and confusing chaos, the conflicting opinions resulting in frequent parental panics of the century. A scratch? Out comes the sterile, ouch-less, non-sting spray, the hypoallergenic plaster with cute and cuddly cartoon characters, the antibiotic cream with lavender extract, guaranteed to kill 99.9999% of the germs, vermin and rodents. Every cough, every runny nose, every sneeze is a crisis, every fever, every rash a potential medical emergency. Parents hover like noisy drones, armed with digital multimeters and holistic wellness apps, oximeters, sprays, OTC elixirs, potions and pills, "essential oil" diffusers (as one child put it recently, a "confuser")... and parental agita. The Bubble's medicine cabinet glows with sterile precision, yet feels oddly soulless without The Village's input. The Bubble often ignores the medical professional's advice to let the child's body fight off the problem and build immunity, demanding antibiotics from the pediatricians whether the kids have a viral infection or a bacterial one. The Bubble is often skeptical, deeply suspicious of the Big Pharma-led cabal. The TikTok videos by "concerned moms" are more convincing that "you should do your own research." After all, what do those so-called experts who spent years in these medical school really know? 

Maybe that’s what the old Dawa Wala Dabba really held, not just soothing ointments and stinging potions, but the quiet courage of a simpler world. A world where a little sting was the proof that healing had begun. Lots of sting meant it was really really working. And every cure came with a jingle, delivered by Dr. Mom, firmly, patiently, with equal parts of love and just a hint of irritation, singularly well-informed by generations of folklore of The Village. Dadi amma ké gharélu nuskhé (grandma's home remedies).

After his boozy adventurous evening and following our neighborly advice, Sticky Ryan's parents embraced the advice from The Village a bit more and invested in their own version of Dawa Wala Dabba, a combination of the first aid kit with neighborly advice. I know that their dabba has been used quite regularly since that summer evening, with "Sticky" Ryan getting into many, many more adventures while growing up. He has now turned into a hulking teenager with apparently hollow legs (his mom does grocery shopping at least twice a week.) The boys "cat sit" our furry boys when we are out of town. We do the same for their pet hamsters. Mrs. YT is well-informed about Ryan's (and other kids') activities and keeps track of their birthdays, their grades, their allergies and their after-school shenanigans. 

Sticky Ryan and his brother occasionally stop by for some ice-cream and are quite familiar with all the locations in our pantry where Mrs. YT keeps the "good" stuff, much better than myself. The contents of Mr. YT's goodie bags bulging with Halloween candy for the kids on our street is a neighborhood legend; our house is a "MUST" stop for all Trick or Treaters. I keep a watchful eye out on them while sipping coffee on my front porch, as these kids shoot hoops on one of their driveways, shouting with joyful abandon late into the summer and fall evenings. I do want to make sure that Sticky Ryan and his cohort, still toddlers in my mind, look both ways before crossing the street while pedaling their fancy bikes at breakneck speed to cruise the neighborhood. On our street at least, things have evolved a bit. The Bubbles have morphed and melded quietly into The Village.

The Village & The Bubble - Part III

Old Spice, in New Bottle

© 𝕾𝖆𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖍 𝕮𝖍𝖆𝖓𝖉𝖗𝖆

In my cluttered cranium, the lightbulb is getting dimmer by the minute. There are jingles, those ear-worms that vex me to no end ("Daddy has a frightful cold, dear, dear me!" "Lifebuoy hai jahan tandurusti hai wahan...") There are some dramatic scenes from life, probably more vividly imagined now than when they actually happened. Those fierce debates, the war of words, sharp and intense hurt, are dull aches now, mostly forgotten as to why we had them in the first place. But the one thing that that lingers on is that fragrance, long after the bottle is gone. Never forgotten. You probably know it well, too.

For many of us who grew up in The Village in the 1960s and 70s, that was the scent was Old Spice Aftershave. The fragrance of fathers, uncles, and older cousins who carried themselves like the heroes from a different age, as in those black and white pictures looking sideways, upwards, not directly at the camera. The headshots without smiles, often in formal western suits or traditional ceremonial attires. Surely you get that whiff emanating from those dusty, old, faded pictures.

I can still visualize that unique bottle as clearly, the old mirror above the Hindustan Sanitaryware washbasin. Heavy, ceramic, solid and cool to the touch, the color of pale ivory, smooth conical shape on the smooth cylindrical body. It had a quiet dignity that no cheap plastic can ever imitate. On its top sat a hexagonal blue-grey stopper, slightly sticky from use, guarding that mysterious potion within. And on the front, a blue sailing ship with many sails proudly full as if it were catching the wind straight from the Arabian Sea, and beneath it, Old Spice written in bold red ornate font, both foreign and familiar at once.

This wasn’t just aftershave, it was a symbol of achievement. In The Village, few luxuries made their way past the acceptance criteria for respectable men. At one time early in my childhood, this potion as not available in the local shops in our town. Most men who shaved themselves just used fitkari, so the local shops probably didn't see the need to carry it on their shelves. But somehow every household in my memory seemed to have an Old Spice bottle, usually brought home by an uncle who worked in Bombay. Or an older cousin returning from some exotic location after their post-graduate studies. They would regale the adults with tales of those uncultured phoren wala's exhibiting uncouth behaviors. And those mem sahibs, who had no inhibition shedding their clothes, donning something that sounded like zucchini wukini in hot weather and, oh, those ladies who smoked openly and brazenly. The only woman that I ever knew who smoked in those days was an ancient, wrinkled old lady who helped my mom do the household chores. She would puff on a bidi sometimes, and dozed often huddled up in a corner. None of it was of slightest interest to me compared to the box of chocolate that the cousin had brought. It said Cadbury's, but was darker in color, not as sweet, not as sticky.

The Old Spice bottle stood on the bathroom shelf beside the tin of Godrej shaving cream, fitkari and the ceramic mug for rinsing the razor. And the Lifebuoy soap. The morning ritual was always the same. The men would finish their shave with a flourish, a few brisk strokes, a rinse of the safety-razor, and then the moment of bravery: the splash of Old Spice. You could hear the "oooh ahhh" before you smelled it, that sharp intake of breath, the hiss of a man pretending to enjoy it, pretending it didn’t sting. And then the air would fill with that unmistakable aroma: spicy, cool, a little sharp, and completely confident.

The fragrance would drift out of the bathroom and into the morning, mingling with the smell of chai, coconut oil in hair, and the faint smoke from the coal-fired chulha working overtime, with moms and household help preparing breakfast. It was the reassuring sign of normalcy of our weekday mornings, of clean white shirts hung out to dry, of the fathers and uncles heading out to sabji mandi for the freshest vegetable of the season with freshly combed hair, parted sharp and clean and a sense of purpose. Us kids mostly kept busy avoiding adult attention, pretending to finish homework, pretending to be taking baths on cold winter morning, desperately looking for opportunity to sneak out for some quality play time before heading off to schools.

For us children, that bottle had a kind of magic. We weren’t allowed to touch it, of course. It belonged to the grown-ups, to that mysterious brotherhood of men who shaved every morning and spoke of things we didn’t quite understand. About non-alignment with phoren camps whatever that was, the constant threat of atomic bombs vaporizing us all, and so on. Sometimes, when no one was watching, I would sneak into the bathroom and lift the bottle of Old Spice, its cool ceramic weight transforming me instantly. It was a fleeting brush with coveted adulthood, that stage in life that seemed to be freedom, without any restrictions, without the annoying, relentless interference from The Village. Little did we know. I would pull out the stopper, breathe in deeply, and for a moment I too was ready to take on the world like my father and other adults.

Today, Old Spice comes in plastic bottles, apparently competing with thousands of other choices, domestic and phoren in The Bubble. Most have unfamiliar fragrances with unfamiliar names that sound like jungle safari, dreamt up by smart young lads on crack Marketing teams who can break out the demographic data in nauseating detail... but are not old enough to shave yet themselves. None of them seem to smell quite like that Classic, from the old ceramic bottle, the one that carried not just a scent, but a story. Because Old Spice, wasn’t just about grooming. It was about aspiration. It was the aroma of the modern world arriving in The Village, a whiff of confidence acquired from Bombay, or some place beyond the horizon with an exotic name, brought home in a battered leather suitcase with many stickers slapped on it. Wrapped in newspaper and in a rolled-up white banyan. To protect it from the bumps, shakes and rattles during the journey from its original destination to the shelf in our bathroom. It was the fragrance of fathers and uncles who believed that looking sharp was not about vanity, it was just part of being respectable. That a man’s scent should say something about his place among the bhadralok of the society but quietly. For men with gravitas who exuded subtle personal aroma, armed with weighty opinions. Old Spice aroma without the correct worldviews lacked class. Worldviews without the Old Spice aroma were considered mere hot air.

These days, I don't catch that familiar whiff in the air in The Bubbles around me. Only in my mind, and I’m instantly back in that bathroom with marble floors, with the sun streaming through the window up high, watching my father slap on his aftershave, wincing, peering, smiling into the mirror, and starting his day with the quiet assurance that comes from smelling like the very best version of oneself. Many other gents in The Village stepped out from their homes in a similar fashion. The Village was all that - shared words, shared newspapers, shared jingles. Shared incidents and interactions, shared opinions about the price and quality of the freshest daily produce, the shared views of national and international geopolitics of the day, the shared concern about the shape of the world that their children would be unprepared and ill-equipped to navigate. And the shared odor of Old Spice. I am not sure if any of the modern-day competing pretenders in new, sleek, plastic bottles in The Bubble will ever evoke the same feeling in today's young'uns.

The Village & The Bubble - Part II

... and the Pursuit of Happiness

© 𝕾𝖆𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖍 𝕮𝖍𝖆𝖓𝖉𝖗𝖆

Part I of The Village & The Bubble elicited a lot of feedback from friends and family. A couple of them below inspired Part II following it. 🙏🏻due credit to them, blame to me.

"...we spent endless hours running gleefully across the lush greens, barefoot, wet under bright blue skies, carefree... they grew up glued to TV , eyes glazed at the computer or hunched over mobiles and Playstations (sadly, enabled by us)."

And an elegant phrase that really resonated, summing up our chat. "Same Village, Cuz." 🙏🏻

---

I remember The Village of our childhood as a landscape of dust and cobbled lanes. Our feet were sometimes bare, running out the door in our haste to join our friends, sometimes clad in threadbare slippers if Moms intervened in time and prevailed. Our knees and elbows were almost always scraped, caked with the stubborn brown of earth. We didn’t notice any the pain right away. It arrived quietly, only when a mother’s voice asked, “Why is your shirt torn? Why is there blood?” That’s when we realized that our day's adventures, our games, had left their mark. And tears once repressed rushed out. We had washed our hands and drank from that leaky public faucet out there at the corner, the water cold and tasted metallic. Thirst trumped caution as we drank eagerly, sipping along with whoever was next in line. Whatever lining we had in our tummies overcame any bacteria. Mostly. 

Our little town was slow and mostly sunlit with quick downpours most of the year. The cobbled lanes reflected the afternoon heat, temple bells mingled with rickshaw bells, waking up the neighborhood canine sentries and the bovine population ruminating contentedly. Every wall, every alley, held promise of a secret game waiting to be re-invented. We fell, we skinned ourselves, scabs on scabs, we laughed, we learned to stand again. Pain and joy were inseparable companions. Resilience was not something to be taught, it was absorbed, like dust in our hair, winter freckles on our faces or sunburn on our shoulders.

We never looked towards our parents for providing entertainment. From early on, we realized that any whining like "I'm bored, there's nothing to do" was swiftly followed by  extra math problems, spelling sheets to memorize and two-page essays to complete in both Hindi & English on assorted topics.

When the weather was nice outside (most of the year), we were running around, shouting, chasing each other, climbing walls and trees, conquering the world. There was marbles and cricket with tennis balls. Hiding and Seeking, debating the fairness and hoarse from screaming. A little drenching from a sudden downpour was never a reason to leave our outdoor adventures. We took a break sometimes for meals at any one of the homes in The Village. All were welcome. And until Moms had shouted at least three times sounding really irritated, there was no reason to go home, was there?

When the weather was too hot, too cold or too wet to be outside, there were board games. Ludo with specific rules, some rules around the "Six" roll of the dice, made up on the spur of the moment, hotly disputed by the affected participants. Snakes & Ladders (not any Chutes to slide down, thank you, instead of Serpents). That one long, big, fat, slithering reptile with a forked tongue, the one up in the "90s" seemed to always find me. You probably know it as well. Arghh, to this day. And the endless games of Carrom. With all the black and white pieces, the red Queen and the pale blue Striker all worn smooth from usage. The board, its lines fading, already quite frictionless, still got a liberal dusting of talcum powder surreptitiously swiped from Mom's dressing table. World Champions were crowned daily. Our sisters played more quietly, sometimes joining us for board games, but mostly by themselves - swapping stories, singing songs with made-up lyrics during antakshari,  playing hopscotch, skipping ropes, etc. Lots of giggles from that crowd.

Now, I watch our children play in The Bubble, in a world we have consciously shaped for them. Convinced ourselves that it is better than The Village of our generation. Their play is scheduled, carefully planned, sterilized. Playgrounds are padded, color-coded, age appropriate and carefully supervised. A local children's play area boasts "recycled and triple-washed chips from tires" to cushion any falls. No grass, no dirt, no rocks in sight. The slides, the jungle gyms, the merry-go-rounds are all pleasantly colored soft plastic, not metallic with sharp edges and rusting handles, no surfaces that would grill your rear end on a scorching summer day. 

Every scrape, every tumble is preempted or padded over. Play dates are orchestrated, with adults hovering on the edges, ready to intervene. Learning is measured in activities, lessons, portals and Apps. Our children’s laughter is sanitized, clean, safe, and contained. More colorful toys but seems soulless. 

We had no idea of anything called a video game. Nothing buzzing, beeping or otherwise mind-numbing. Electronic gizmos were on nobody's distant radar. The only soundtrack in our lives was carefree laughter, the loud debates, those fierce and intense arguments, forgotten in a few seconds, Mothers calling us for food or to get home before it got pitch dark. Howzzat!

I tell myself it is out of an abundance of love of our children, out of how much we have learned from the self-anointed InstaCram experts on childhood development since our own upbringing. That our desire to protect them is valid. And yet, I can’t shake the sense that in our quest for child-rearing perfection, we may have traded the development of their resilience for comfort - ours and theirs. When every fall is softened, every risk eliminated, what do children learn about themselves? About limits, boundaries, or the thrill of testing them, transcending them, discovering new horizons?

Where are those dusty lanes, the scrapes that stung and water that tasted of iron and adventure. The freedom to play carelessly again, to discover that hurt is temporary and courage is built slowly, one fall at a time. There is beauty in vulnerability, and I fear we have packaged it away in The Bubble.

"We don't stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing." -George Bernard Shaw

Perhaps the truest gift, the gift of play, we can give our children is not a life without bruises, but the chance to earn them, to stub their toes, to stumble, to rise, and to know, in their own small bodies, that they are stronger than they ever imagined. In that dust, with scraped knees, and  the sting of a sudden fall, to learn to get up, not just to survive, but to come alive and thrive. For a chance to continue playing, not to grow old too quickly. Perhaps what is really needed is a splash of The Village in The Bubble. And a dash of The Bubble in The Village. We need The Village of Bubbles.

The Village & The Bubble - Part I

Life, Liberty...

© 𝕾𝖆𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖍 𝕮𝖍𝖆𝖓𝖉𝖗𝖆

(inspired by a recent chat with a friend 🙏🏻)

Like most of our generation, I was truly raised by The Village. Not in the poetic sense people use it now, nor an actual place, but in the raw, unfiltered version where everyone had a say in how you turned out. Parents, uncles, aunties, teachers (a few brilliant, many mediocre, some truly awful), neighbors who knew your full name and your family history of many generations,  they all claimed partial ownership and actively participated in the shaping of your destiny.

There was no concept of privacy, no liberty, no “safe space,” no bubble wrap. You belonged to everyone, not just your family. You got fed along with others by your mom or a neighbor auntie, all  keeping an eye out that all the kids running around in your para, mohalla or society. The Village was watchful and noisy, shouting unsolicited advice and admonitions, mostly ignored by us but not resented. Parenting was a collective effort from the sidelines more than hands-on, delivering life lessons disguised as scolding, warnings of doom if you didn’t study, behave, or respect your elders. They said it out of love, mostly. Out of fear, too, fear that we’d turn out worse, lazier, softer than them.

We didn’t know words like "childhood trauma," "dysfunctional family," or "emotional boundaries." All families were the same. If someone had used those phrases, we’d have stared blankly and gone back to our endless games of cricket, marbles, or tag. Life was what it was, soft and tough, perfectly imperfect, unfairly fair, and you learned to swim in it. The Village made sure you didn't get swept away, with hushed tales of those few wayward and errant youngsters with long sideburns, smoking on the street corners, aka The Road Inspectors. There simply was no other choice. There was no App for food delivery. If you didn't like what was on the table, you went hungry. 

I suppose being a boy in The Village had its perks: more freedom, fewer restrictions. But it came with invisible and heavy weights, expectations you felt instinctively but couldn’t name, the constant hum of “be strong,” “don’t cry,” “make us proud.” Excelling in academics perhaps seemed the expected way to show it. Our sisters in The Village were expected to be "lady-like," learn "traditional values" and absorb skills needed to "run a household" as well. 

Now, years later, I look at our children. We as parents were soft-spoken. No yelling, the Childhood Experts expertly warned us. Surround them with gentle words and gentle hands. Built them cocoons made of love, empathy and understanding. We listened, we embraced, we reasoned, we cajoled, we protected. We called it nurturing, and maybe it is. But sometimes, I wonder if we’ve gone too far, if our constant cushioning has made the children allergic to the rough edges of the real world out there.

They seem to be hypersensitive, bruise too easily now. A bad grade feels like a mortal wound. A disagreement among friends, a full-blown crisis with tears, unsocial media drama. Too often, parents jump in. We rush to smooth it all out, fixing their problems, patting their backs, drying their tears, terrified that a scratch on the heart will leave a permanent scar. We call it love. And it is love, but also fear. The same fear our parents had, just dressed differently.

The world hasn’t softened with time. It’s louder, faster, crueler in subtle, quieter ways, in glaring, blaring ways. With harsh, jagged edges, not the rounded, soft Bubble. And our children, fragile, tender,  articulate, sensitive, are rushing into it, wanting to grow up with open hearts but thin armor. With lots of information literally at their fingertips, mostly garbage but no life experience to sort the wheat from the chaff, the pure metal from the slag, the wisp of truth hidden by smoke and mirrors. Listening to their equals, their peers around the world mostly, their teachers only occasionally and to the parents rarely. Maybe they’ll all learn to build their strength later, through gentleness rather than struggle. Maybe they’ll redefine resilience entirely. I certainly and fervently hope so.

Still, I sometimes miss The Village of our generation, flawed as it was. The noise, the blunt honesty, the unspoken resilience we absorbed just by surviving it. We grew up in the wild and we called it normal. They grow up in carefully curated gardens crafted by us.

Maybe both are right for their eras. Maybe both are wrong. Maybe our generation simply overcorrected for the perceived shortcomings of our parents' generation, trying to love better, hurting differently, always hoping, despite it all that our children will turn out okay.

Given a choice, I would consider The Village over The Bubble for myself again.

Patjhad पतझड़

A beautiful poem by a dear friend. Thank you, Nilabh Narayan, and with my poor translation following. 

बीते पल फिर से आयेंगे 

- नीलाभ नारायण

मधुबन की रौनक उमंग

खींच रहीं सबकी नज़र 

हर पत्ती सज धज जश्न मनाती  

रंगीन, रूमानी, इतराती 

थिरक उठती हर झोंके पर 

रोमांच जश्न मनाने को 

कुछ आपा भूल चल पड़ीं हवा संग

कुछ यूँही उड़ चलीं मद मस्त

कुछ देखा देखी, कुछ कौतुकी में 

कुछ गलती से सखी को रोकन में 

पेड़ों के बंधन छोड़ सभी 

फैली घासों पर कर चिंतन 

तय कीं औरों को मदद करेंगे 

नव जीवन सबको वरदान करने 

मिलजुल रंग बीरंगी कालीन बन ख़ुद 

बनने लग गईं मिट्टी परत 

सम भाव शाख़, समाधिष्ट बाग 

मौसम परिवर्तन तो होती ही है 

नव किसलय पत्तों का इंतज़ार  

विश्वास समित करें मुदित मन

पेड़ों पर बचे चंद पत्ते थे जो वो 

देख अनंत वसुधा, आकाश, समय 

चिंतन विचार कर बोल उठे 

कितना सटीक यह सृष्टि नियम

अगले झोंके में चलो हम भी 

इसी कालीन में लोट जाते हैं

Those Moments Will Be Back Again

© 𝕾𝖆𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖍 𝕮𝖍𝖆𝖓𝖉𝖗𝖆

The garden glows in joyful grace,

It draws all eyes towards its face.

Each leaf adorned, so richly dressed,

Rejoices fragrant, colorful, blessed.

They sway and twirl with every breeze,

Thrilled, they play, they dance, they tease.

Some, losing self, adrift in the air,

Some soar aloft with joyous flair.

Many follow others, curious, bright,

Faltering, calling friends in flight.

Free from the trees that once confined,

Rest on grass, in a pensive mind.

Vowing to give, to heal, to share 

The gift of new life with tender care.

Their mingled hues, a living thread,

A magical rug of gold and red.

Layer by layer, soft they stay,

Becoming one with earth’s own way.

The boughs calm, the garden still,

Accept the turn of season’s will.

Awaiting buds of green, rebirth,

They trust the ever-changing earth.

The few leaves left upon the trees

Reflect at the sky, at time, at breeze.

And whisper deep, in hushed esteem,

“How flawless is Mother Nature’s dream.”

“With the next gust of wind, let’s all hug,

And gently lay down on this plush, thick rug.”

Memories Not Erased

© 𝕾𝖆𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖍 𝕮𝖍𝖆𝖓𝖉𝖗𝖆

A recent exchange with a classmate took me swiftly back to the heady days of late-70s IIT KGP, when bell-bottoms roamed free, the sideburns were thick and long, where scraggly mustaches were sported with pride, and the shirt collars resembled floppy beagle ears. The greasy smell of fresh samosas shingaras & vegetable chops chaaps hung thick over Tech Market. The two ME classmates, myself and AT, had lived parallel lives, were now united by the shared struggle of Lab reports, ET Tutorials, slinging those 20-lb sledgehammers in Forging workshop, the endless home-works, etc. Filling those brown PT files with acceptable 3B (Blah Blah Blah) stretching over multiple PT sheets was the goal. The eternal paper chase was familiar from early childhood to both of us, and with that, the unending hunt for the right stationery that didn't make ink-stains spread, nor cause perforations instead of punctuations from sharp pencils and nibs, the main weapons of our generation prior to the arrival of ball-point pens. I recall the grave and disapproving look from my teacher, Sri H.N. (Aichan) Singh bemoaning about how it would ruin our penmamship. Content quality took apparently a secondary spot for him, content quantity and appearance were primary and paramount. 

AT, a bona fide campus kid, knew KGP like the handlebars of his new Hercules. From the faculty quarters, he had the sort of insider knowledge that made him the de facto guru to all things Tech Market. He had grown up on Thackers. The legendary shack, part shop, part archaeological dig, stacked to the ceiling and lit by a flickering tubelight, had been his go-to since childhood. It stocked everything from books to PT files to notebooks, even those mysterious  grey market, "Parker" jotter refills that leaked with a sense of purpose. Mr. Thacker knew their family well. They were steady customers and accorded due courtesy, unlike the curt nods to any on-campus students visiting his store.

I hailed from a distant town where Kailash Stores reigned supreme, a magical establishment that sold dreams. The owner, Mr. Sharma Sr. always greeted my father warmly and personally attended to us during our visits, leaving other customers to his son, literally Sharmaji ka beta, and the other staff. Besides the textbooks and other school supplies of minor importance, my most coveted possessions in those early years were a Koh-i-Noor pencil, a shiny Camlin geometry box, and the stuff of legends: a fragrant green'n'white eraser with a cartoon character.

It wasn’t just any eraser. It was The Eraser. It smelled heavenly. A treasure that evoked raw envious looks from other kids during those salad days. Like from Samir "Scooter" Singh, the bounder. The rotter was fast and agile on the football field, hence the moniker Scooter or SS. The utter cad. Yes, most likely, you also an SS character menacing your life on and off the football field,  arch-nemesis since Grade 4, LLB, the Lord of the Last Bench. 

AT had paid a visit to KGP in Dec 2013. Thackers, in a  testament to its location and longevity, were still there! Same shack, same location, same size, same layers of dust. Tech Market always had a chaotic village sabji mandi feel, with those little tin-roofed shacks. Apparently, it still retained that post-apocalyptic rustic charm in 2013. Like every shop was built using leftover workshop scraps from the Institute. Thackers looked untouched since ’60s. Same faded "CAMLIN" poster. Even the cobwebs seemed original. Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.  With all the e-books and online material, they probably didn’t sell half the stuff they used to. But both the store and the Tech Market seem to continue to survive.

I only ever went to Thackers in full-blown panic mode, adrenaline pumping, pedaling his rattling chariot, a Rayleigh. For those "Oh, $hit, is it due tomorrow?!" assignments needing PT file fillers, graph papers, and those oversized, infernal large white sheets needed during those 5 long semesters of ME Drawing misery. Oh man, those sheets! Never once did any of them roll up properly. You’d put rubber bands around them, secure them, and the dang sheets would wiggle free and spill out of your shoulder bag, taking the ungainly T-square along as you were merrily tooling down on Scholars Ave, halfway to the Institute. Sigh.

Back home for me, Kailash Stores was THE store. It had everything. My entire early academic career could have been sponsored by them. Oh, the joy of buying that one new Koh-i-Noor pencil, and, mmmm, yes… that eraser. 

It had a two-tone look, green at one end, white at the other, and the feel of opulence. Scented. Pure luxury. Until SS stole it. I fumed and burned at the devastating loss. But Sr Carmella wouldn't entertain any complaints just with circumstantial evidence.  Gut-feelings and anecdotes of SS's prior perfidy and assorted villainous behavior weren't enough. A stolen eraser and a lifetime of trauma. Some wounds never heal.

Those were the Glory Days of Analog Survival. AT swore by Thackers. I romanticized Kailash Stores. Both AT and myself, I suspect, knew well the feeling of sheepishly following out fathers to these stationery stores, him muttering some dire admonition barely suppressed, five minutes before it closed, desperate for that single last-minute item that could prevent academic annihilation.

And somehow, mysteriously, Thackers / Kailash Stores always had that one item in stock. Usually hidden under a decade-old invoice pad and a dusty bottle of glue, Mr. Thacker / Mr. Sharma managed to hunt it down and brandish it with a dramatic flourish of a magician.

On AT's last visit, he stood fascinated by the seeming permanence of Thackers. Same chipped faux wooden counter. Same sleepy setting, perhaps with Thacker Jr. in-charge. Same ghost of a stapler sitting proudly in the glass case like a museum artifact.

An acquaintance wrote back recently that Kailash Stores is still in existence, too. But now they sell selfie sticks and phone covers also. Childhood’s officially over, man. 

Fifty years later, those ME drawings, the hatches of Sections, and 3rd angle projections of weird 3D industrial shapes have blurred. The dusty piles of PT files with the yellowed, crumbling PT sheets have long been discarded. But in the corners of their minds, both of us still carry the heady scent of new books, notebooks & other supplies at Thackers / Kailash Stores... and of that one unfair eraser heist that shaped someone's lifetime. Five decades later, I can't look at a scented eraser without muttering, “Bloody SS…”

Scenes of life lived long ago now bubble up infrequently, scripted by shared laughter and formed over collective trauma. A few memories surface unexpectedly from casual text exchanges between classmates, one a native Kgpian & an adoptive Nehruite, the other a native Nehruite & an adoptive Kgpian, over the bittersweet recollections of the special ambiance of special bookstore treasure troves and... the sweet, fresh fragrance of that special eraser still vivid amidst the rapidly dimming fog of  fading memories.

Yaa Devii Sarva-Bhuutessu Smrti-Ruupenna Samsthitaa...

या देवी सर्वभूतेषु स्मृतिरूपेण संस्थिता...

(The Devi who resides in all creatures in the form of Memories)

© 𝕾𝖆𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖍 𝕮𝖍𝖆𝖓𝖉𝖗𝖆

That email reminder landed in my Spam folder about **TSDP (Tri-State Durga Puja 2025) Book Your Passes Now!"** with many emojis, few punctuations but liberally sprinkled with exclamations, like a brass band at midnight. Ready to take a chunk of my ever-shrinking wallet (now to the tune of $500 for a family of four!), and that’s before any kids whine if Uber Eats can deliver biryani or pizza to the venue because the prasad is "too meh." I guess I missed out on the 'early bird' discount of $25 offered previously, which came among the multiple personal appeals from the widows / barristers / heirs of deceased Nigerian tycoons / Arab oil ministers / Hong Kong bankers with a promise of enriching me to a $35 millions guaranteed, waiting for me at a well-known international Bank in an account with no other known claimants.

The moment I saw this latest email, I was yanked back in time. Like a well-worn cassette tape played too many times, now being rewound with a pencil.

First, the Mahalaya! How could one forget that sacred annual rite, the descent of Durga ma from heaven. Mahishasura Mardini broadcast by AIR Calcutta, the gravelly, goosebump-inducing voice of Birendra Krishna Bhadra. That one broadcast had more gravitas than all the local pandits of combined, even if they were chanting from atop the shikhar of Baidyanath Dham with a harmonium and tabla accompaniment.

Let’s be honest: no household in our lane worth its hot jhalmuri fame would ever start the Pujo season listening to some upstart Akashvani Patna version, however well-meaning. It was simply not done. We all may have lived hundreds of kilometers away in a dusty lane where cows outnumbered cars and the power outage every time you so much as looked at the ceiling fan switch, but come 4:00 AM on Mahalaya, the antenna was positioned like a NASA satellite pointing toward Calcutta. Radio Ceylon wasn't on the air at that hour, not that it could hold a candle to the Mahalaya.

I still remember our hulking Bush radio, a temperamental beast that only worked if you smacked it just right and held the dial about halfway between two stations. Only occasional adjustment of the antenna on the rooftop (don't ask why, it just worked) needed. My dad would begin "prepping the radio” the night before, with warning to anyone not to touch any knobs before the event.

And then it would begin. That first slow gong, the WouuuuWoooooooOOOOOOOOOOOHHHHH the shankhnaad, followed by that unmistakable, otherworldly voice:

"Ya Devi Sarvabhuteshu..."

Shivers. Literal shivers. We may not have known Sanskrit, but we mumbled all the words the best we could and hummed along with sleepy but reverent confusion.

No matter how sleepy you were, how cold the floor tiles felt under your bare feet, or how grim the prospect of "back to school" loomed for later that week. When Sri Bhadra began to chant, everything else stopped. Even the canine sentries outside seemed to pause and listen quietly, only adding awooooo, their bovine colleagues  lowing bwannnnn occasionally along with the shankhanaad.

Us kids from the neighborhood, even the ones who would spend the rest of the year chanting only cricket scores, would  show up early, hair slicked back hastily, eyes groggy, reporting for their cultural duty. To us, AIR Calcutta was the voice of the goddess. Everything else was… background noise.

Even now, decades later, in the age of Spotify playlists and Dolby surround sound systems, I wake up on Mahalaya mornings, plug in my headphones, and find the original broadcast with all the hisses and crackles, not the remastered version, nor the “modernistic reinterpretation” with techno beats and celebrity narrators of dubious fame. Just the hiss, crackle, the gong, and the ancient voice that has announced Durga’s arrival for generations. Because some things, my friends, just can’t be improved upon. Just like second helpings of prasad.

Back to our sleepy little town, a place so unhurried, even the cows looked like they were on permanent sabbatical. The Durga Puja then wasn't just a festival, it was the social event of the year, a kind of the annual meet of Oscars and the Olympics, all wrapped in the holy scent of incense, the blowing of conch shells, the piercing peals of big brass bells, the reverberations of the gong that you felt in your bones, the beats of dholkaks, garlands of fresh marigolds, and a little whiff of... Old Monk furtively hidden under Old Spice.

The ladies, my God, the ladies! They dressed like the warrior deity herself, going into spiritual battle to slay the buffalo demon. Crimson and gold saris, sindoor applied to their top with the precision of snipers, bangles clanking, armpits dusted with talcum powder, dressed to slay, ready to summon the divine goddess in unison. Their makeup? Let's just say there were contouring techniques resulting in gleaming faces with layers of Lakmé, Nivea or Ponds creams and other secret cosmetic concoctions with homemade kajol sharpened eyelashes. Modern-day fashionistas are only now barely beginning to fathom the art and science and magic from that era's beauty secrets.

The men? They played their part with dhoti-kurtas that looked recently ironed by resentful household help. But the moment the pushpanjali was done and the priest turned his back, you’d see them edging toward the back gate, one by one, with the stealth of teenage boys sneaking into an A-rated movie. A cough, a nod, a furtive rustling, and out came the Charminars and the hip flask of Old Monk, passed around like contraband joy it was. The smoke of sin mixed freely with the fragrance of  devotion.

Meanwhile, the neighborhood girls, Rimi, Jhuma, Bibui, Pinki, etc. transformed overnight into ethereal beings in their mothers’ borrowed saris and clunky nagra juti's, glowing cheeks, walking around like they were floating on a cloud of faint jasmine perfume, upturned noses in the universal pose of teen indifference. Babul took one look at his younger sister and expressed all the brotherly love he could muster with an explosive "ewwww." Suddenly, these girls whom we’d previously seen with dirt on their faces, skinned knees and sharp elbows flying in the neighborhood games were now transformed into mini-me versions of their moms, the stuff of adolescent dreams and future heartbreaks.

My friend Babul and I, blissfully unencumbered by fashion or hormones (those would hit later, like an overdue freight train), had only two goals: scoring extra prasad without being caught in the act, and, glaring with naked envy at the richer kids whose parents had armed them with actual money to spend at the pop-up shops, patakha hawkers and food stalls.

We’d try everything, wearing our shirts inside out, changed hairstyles from meticulously combed to unkempt, invented names (“No, uncle, I’m Boolu from 4A, not Babul of 4B!”), all to get our grubby little paws on another ladle of prasad. Mostly, it worked if you were polite and put on an Oliver Twist act. Aunties, volunteers at prasad tables, were our favorite targets. We had learned quickly that these ladies with the ladles were kinder than others and would let us have seconds with an amused half-frown half-twinkle in their eyes.

Even back then, the men sat in huddles, whisper-shouting about "international politics" in between puffs, nodding gravely about "global gondogol", of a secret See Eye Eh active in what was called a cold bar or coal war between the Ouesht and the Commies, of nuclear tests in faraway lands causing scorching summers in our once-cool hilly town, and someone whose name sounded like Mousey Dung. They would subtly eye the fares from the samosa stall. Never mind that half of them probably thought NATO was a new detergent powder competing with Nirma.

Attendance was free. Free! As in zero rupees, zero guilt. You didn’t need to mortgage your house to attend Durga Puja. You just needed a relatively clean shirt and a love for the goddess (or at least for the prasad).

Now, flash forward to TSDP 2025, a gathering, the tri-states of IN, KY, OH in the Midwest. There are online ticketing portals, apps, wristbands, QR codes, VIP darshan queues, catered meals with “gluten-free” options, and kids who ask if there’s WiFi at the mandap. The prasad comes in sealed plastic containers with their own QR codes detailing all nut-free, dairy-free ingredients, purity guaranteed, sodium levels specified, added sugar quantity and calories accounted for, duly sanctified by the pandits. And don't even get me started on the bhadralok (nothing to do with Sri Bhadra, though), still discussing global goondagardi or was it gandogol. Now armed with smartphones, fully informed with the latest WhatsCrapp forwards, sipping single malt, gathered around ugly Tesla trucks.

Somehow, the soul of Puja remains intact. The smell of incense. The first beat of the dhak. The droopy eyes of men and women in a trance, young and old, as they dance the Dhunuchi naach, all their bones still believe in the goddess. The kids running around these days wear Hoka sneakers, impossibly clean, that could not have survived a single day in such pristine conditions during our younger days like those Bata ones. The aunties who still scream names across the crowd like it’s a hostage negotiation.

Somewhere in the shadows, maybe behind the food trucks, there’s still a group of men, quietly lighting up a cig. Pouring a discreet nip of Kentucky Bourbon. Generous splashing of Old Spice for an ineffective mask. For old times’ sake.

May your personal demons be vanquished and discarded with the sandals outside Durga ma's pandals. May you  find the true spirit of Puja being not a Shibboleth of any narrow vision of being a part of any community, heritage or "-ism."

May your prasad be plentiful, your nostalgia poignant. May the joyful memories of your childhoods make you tingly and warm like a blanket in wintertime, now perhaps only in the mandaps of your minds. May the AIR Calcutta of your inner Mahalaya always come in classic, pure, with all the original static, electrifying, wherever you are.

Shubho Pujo, friends.

The Masla of Masala Chai

© 𝕾𝖆𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖍 𝕮𝖍𝖆𝖓𝖉𝖗𝖆

by Ms Chai “Tea” Patti, with Ms Chaiwali Ka Pati

They say brewing masala chai is an ancient, sacred ritual, passed down like temple secrets from mothers to daughters over eons. But when any hapless husband, especially an IITian, dares to “reverse engineer” the process, the outcome is less “ancestral wisdom” and more “abstract modern art”: baffling, messy, and entirely subject to the Ms. Always Right’s (AR) gleeful, unrelenting peer review.

The saga begins with the Right Utensil Selection. Unsuspecting IITian Husband (IH) proudly pulls out a pan from an impressive collection of pots & pans, chest swelling with the confidence of a man who once cracked JEE. Wrong! “Why this one?” The Cucina Queen (CQ) sniffs. “It’s too small, it’ll boil over.” No problem. IH upsizes to a larger one. CQ narrows her eyes: “Why waste gas, heating all that empty steel?” Congratulations, Sri JEE topper jee , crash and burn, even before ignition. Apparently, tucked in a remote dark place, there was the Goldilocks size pan, in between Too Small & Too Big. Mysteries of life!

Next, the Water-to-Milk ratio. IH pours water in the Right pan, adding milk, eyeballing the fascinating mixing phenomenon with the bravado of the one who had once mastered second integrals. “Aha,” the Culinary Empress (CE) pounces. “Too much water! This isn’t sherbet. And why did you add milk now? Why?? That comes only after two (or is it three) boils of water & chai... do you ever listen to me?"

"And the wrong milk! Skim only! Not 2%! Not full-fat!!” CE sputters and shudders. “Instant obesity, lifelong guilt, and a nasty film at the bottom of the pan that would need much scrubbing." SYSTEM ERROR starts flashing in IH's brain like the malfunctioning VTVMs of ET Labs with no "Voltage Tapping" Hammer in sight.

Then comes the Main Ingredient, the tea. IH, showing off his refined taste (from vague recollection of the late night Hall Canteen sessions), reaches for the finest loose-leaf Darjeeling (or was it Wagh Bakri?) in the pantry. Fatal mistake. Kitchen Goddess (KG) gasps as if he just drizzled ketchup on biryani. “Darjeeling? For masala chai? Didn’t they teach you the most basic life skills? Did you learn anything at that place… this Kgp?!” The undisputed and unwritten rule of masala chai is crystal clear to everyone else but IH: true masala chai requires a sacred dust-and-leaf blend in secret proportions, known only to wives, daughters, MiL's, and nosy aunties who appear uninvited to dispense unsolicited advice. The right color, heady aroma, and tantalizing taste can not be achieved through ordinary powers, only mystic kitchen calibration. And measurement? Forget it. The gold standard is three (or four?) of KG’s precise fingertip pinches, not found in any Metrology textbooks.

On to the Masala. IH sprinkles ginger powder, cardamom seeds, and cloves with the dramatic flourish of a man staging a TED Talk. She recoils in horror. “Ai yai yaeee! Fresh ginger nahin dala? Elaichi aur lavang ke sath, freshly crushed, woh flavor & fragrance, dry powder mé nahin hota! Who makes masala chai like this!? You’ve turned it into an IIT chem lab demo. Chai should whisper... masala, not scream like a teenage boy's body spray.” IH dials back the spice, she sighs: “Then why even call it masala chai? This is just hot milky ditchwater cosplaying as chai.”

Then the Boil. IH watches, proud of the bubbling brew, like  Nehru Ka Tempo High Hai, reverberating on Scholars Ave. Easy peasy, muses the ex-IITian. The Social Director (SD) hovers nearby, eyes narrowed. “Don’t you dare let it spill,” she warns, as one rogue bubble apparently can trigger global collapse. If he lowers the flame too early: “This is not how you extract flavor. Tsk.” Too late? “Congratulations, you’ve murdered the tea leaves. May their soul rest in peace.” Apparently, two and a half or three-quarters (!?) boils (who else here knows about this "fractional" boil concept, chaps?!) with dynamic, real-time control of the flame on the second from the largest size burner.

Finally, the Pour. IH strains with surgeon-like focus. Domestic Diva (DD) tut tuts. “Too fast, it splashes. Too slow, it dies a bitter death before the cup. Do  you even know how to pour properly?”

At last, steaming cups are presented. IH beams, expecting applause, confetti, fireworks. Maybe a ticker-tape parade. Da Boss sips, she pauses for maximum drama, then delivers the verdict:

“Well, not bad… for an IITian. But Mrs. Sharma’s husband down the street, he's a non-IITian, mind you, ummm... You should ask him for his secret.”

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the eternal truth: no matter how many degrees an IH might collect, engineering, economics,  astrophysics, from any and all academic institutions including WhatsCrapp U, when it comes to chai, they will forever remain a dazed and confused fresher stuck in remedial training, under the tart-tongued professor. All the while, the "Samosé garam nahin kiya?" question hangs in the air unanswered...

Notes:

I was told to assure everyone that "this doesn't reflect our personal relationship" and is "entirely fictional." Any resemblance to a real-life IITian-non IITian couple is purely coincidental. No IH egos were (permanently) bruised during this episode.

MY FORGETTER IS JUST GETTING STRONGER

(With due apologies to MY REMEMBERER IS BROKE by Author Unknown)

© 𝕾𝖆𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖍 𝕮𝖍𝖆𝖓𝖉𝖗𝖆

The textbook author’s name went poof,

Long after its content vaporized through the roof.

The graphs spilled on Scholars’ Ave,

That agnipath of the once truly brave.

Equations that jousted at mid-sem in a snap?

Completely vanished off the map.

Laplace and Fourier, gone on a break?

Permanently chilling near Chilka Lake.

My neurons? Fried. Out on long-term leave.

Hanging out at Chhedi’s, I believe.

Slurping Far East thukpa with smug delight,

Debating Waldies fare, skipping WhatsCrapp food fight.

I meet a face, ah yes, (I think) I know!

Was (s)he Archie, ME, Ghasi or Aero?

EE, CheE, CE, Geo?

Memory... is it the first thing to go?

We grinned and laughed, reliving the scenes,

Then whispered, “Bud, which Hall were you in?”

Hall ka tempo? Still high, my friend.

Even if our knees won’t bend.

Nehru, RP, Patel, Azad.

Lallu, RK, SN - all zindabad

Creak, leaky, fading yaad

All things considered, not half bad!

The LGBs swarm, still menace in Fall,

Legends whisper through every hall.

Quizzes, SpringFest, intellectual high,

Castles of dreams, no molehill of outrage, no hai hai

I have stowed my phone in a “safe place,”

Then, I searched all over, just in case.

Finally, I found it in the loo,

Classic. Currently, the 81Kgpian déjà vu.

At 3 a.m., I wake up to whee guess,

“Who the @#$% was that TSG Pres?”

By the time Sundar bhai finds the name,

I’ve forgotten why I came.

Yet when the moon by Scholars’ Ave glows,

A quiet pride within me grows.

For though our memory’s highly bent,

And our minds are... not as magnificent.

Here’s to us, the Kgp Eighty One,

Embrace the brainfog as the new endless fun!

We’ve lost some RAM, misplaced our CPUs,

But Kgp ka tempo, still tugs me, pulls you.

So shout with me, friends, once more.

Yes! We've been lost here before!

Uncle Sam(osa)

on World Samosa Day (Sep 5 2025)

© 𝕾𝖆𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖍 𝕮𝖍𝖆𝖓𝖉𝖗𝖆

Some memories are now unraveling and disappearing like threads of well-worn garments but the aroma of deep frying oil, the crunch of crispest bites, and the melting sting of eagerly bitten over-hot potato filling burning both the tongue and the roof of your mouth... That memory begins with Bhola halwai’s steaming masterpieces from the corner shop in my childhood mohalla. 

Bhola (single name only) himself was a character you couldn’t forget if you tried. Mustachioed, unshaven, and portly, he had the look of weary patience stored in his huge pot-belly, the air of a man who had wrestled with hot oil and dough since the dawn of time. A smear of reddish ashy tilak always glistened on his forehead, standing out against skin shiny with sweat from the kadhai. Around his right wrist dangled layers of red and yellow threads, some faded, some fresh, each tied by a different passing priest or hopeful relative, marking the festivals and pujas, absorbed into his daily grind. His uniform was simple: a sleeveless baniyan that was probably clean in the early morning clinging to his top, and a lungi, raised and folded at knee level for ease of movement, airy, practical, as he waded into the daily culinary battle. His bare midriff protruded in between the two strips of clothing, an impressive sight by itself.

Bhola’s shop wasn’t just a shop, it was The Center of a complete ecosystem. Outside, on one side was a chaiwala, clattering aluminum tumblers on grubby tables, steam rising like incense competing with the oily fumes from Bhola’s kadhai. On the other side, a paanwallah, who folded his little betel leaf parcels with the dexterity of a magician, while an old radio croaked Radio Ceylon at full volume competing with crackling static. He stocked bidis and Charminar also, one could buy them singly or in a pack. But he was famous for his Benarasi paan as evidenced by the expressions of reddish delight from his appreciative customers, adorning the otherwise bare, dusty walls of the nearby courthouse building. A row of rickshaw-wallahs parked under an ancient neem tree, puffing bidis, debating lowly fares and local politics in gravelly voices, their eyes darting toward the samosa pile as though willing Bhola to finish faster. And there we  stood, a few coins sweaty in our palms, performing that peculiar dance of impatience, half bouncing on toes, half craning our necks to see if our batch of samosas was finally ready!

When Bhola dropped those pyramidal pastries into hot oil, the whole street seemed to pause. The hiss of frying dough and filling masala overpowered the tring tring of bicycles, the honks of passing trucks, and the loud buzz of the nearby sabji bazar. Each samosa emerged perfectly golden, flaky, fragrant, little  trophies conjured by the master chef. The moment the first batch was laid out on a large metallic platter, chaos erupted. Arms thrust forward, orders shouted, brown tangy imli chutney splashed. Triumph was measured in whether you could snag two fresh samosas before they vanished. Or wait forever for the next batch.

The first bite was pure reckless joy. The crisp shell shattered in the mouth, the filling scalded the tongue, the chutney trickled down fingers, and still we lunged for more. The inevitable burn on the roof of the mouth was accepted as the price of devotion.

Somewhere in mid-teens came the strange, alien world of IIT Kgp. Our NH mess also served “samosa,” occasionally but only in the sense that a chalk sketch is technically a “portrait.” The shell resembled the wrinkled chin of old Chinaiyya, the perpetually grumbling, toothless mess-worker. He was rumored to be among the very first employees ever hired at Kgp, creased, sagging, and weary. The filling was no better: sad, pasty goop that tasted suspiciously like yesterday's aaloo sabji, mashed together with raw spices and repurposed with neither shame nor skill. These samosas were eaten not out of desire but sheer hunger and necessity of survival with the afternoon chai and banter, in between shouting "kappu, Chinaiyya!" as soon as we returned from the Institute and before any evening activities commenced with the Flight of the Bumblebee Swarm of the LGBs. It was more like one might swallow bitter medicine, but was necessary to cleanse the palate from the lunchtime chemicals of sambar & rasam. Yet in those dreary dining halls, the golden memory of Bhola’s samosas persisted, untarnished, undimmed,  unshakable.

Kgp was the prelude to the coming exile, the decades in the US in grad school and beyond during the 80s and 90s. No samosas were to be found in this cultural wasteland. Just imagine the forlorn longing in a landscape of greasy hamburgers and frozen TV dinners. The illegal local desi grocery in the basement of a residential home, run by a resourceful Gujju, sold pickle jars, some repackaged spices, a few other suspicious packets of food and Parle-G biscuits way past expiry dates. Later, he added fading, homemade copies of contraband Bollywood VHS tapes rented to desperate desis for a dollar. But a fryer was too much to risk for the owner fearing an imminent visit from the fire marshal. 

Enter Mrs. YT into the fray, intrepid, undaunted, adventurous. First, with dough made from scratch, later with puff-pastry sheets, she fashioned samosa shells and conjured up the peas and potato filling that were quite good, even admirable. But something, the intoxicating whiff of Bhola’s sweat, that  smoke, and street dust, was always missing.

We moved to Chicago mid-2000s, and much changed on this front. Samosas became plentiful, available at every desi store or restaurant - there were several within easy drive. We were spoiled with options. Yet there were moments of heartbreak. At one gathering, a visiting teenager perhaps driven by greed more than hunger, dropped five samosas he had piled on his plate, right onto the the red brick patio floor in our backyard. Five from a platter of twelve. Pandemonium, and trauma, borne out of the recent samosa scarcity! Some scars do not heal easily. Everyone froze. Someone coughed, someone sighed, and then, at the decisive moment, invoking the sacred "five-second rule," the fallen soldiers were discreetly retrieved, brushed, placed back on the platter, to be consumed by the guests with gusto and some guilty relish.

And now, on this World Samosa Day 2025 today, I sit in this quiet Midwestern kitchen, a steaming chai mug, remembering Bhola but now living in a different world of samosa abundance. Our samosas come from Apna Bazar these days, a strip-mall store wedged between a pizza place, a car wash, and a gas station, thirty-five miles away. The parking lot smells of gasoline and garlic knots, but step inside, and you’re back in the familiar subcontinental chaos. Bhangra beats thrum from a speaker perched in a corner precariously, aunties haggle over methi & mithai prices, sniff at the greens to figure out the freshness. The kids running around, sneaking Good Time biscuits into shopping carts while parents pretend not to notice.

The real power, though, lies in its kitchen. It is ruled firmly by an elderly Sikh lady, her dupatta pinned firmly, her face lined with the authority of someone who has said NO more times than Bhola ever said haan ji. Ask her timidly, “Samosé miléngé? ” and her first response is always the same, stern and unyielding: “Samosé nahin hain, khatam ho gayé.” Door closed, case shut. But then Mrs. YT leans in, switches to Punjabi, and the lady softens, her eyes twinkling as if recognizing long-lost kin. Within minutes, the fryer roars and a dozen golden samosas are produced, crisp and fragrant, wrapped in brown paper bags that begin to spot with grease before we even reach our car.

Not Bhola’s, no. But when we bite into these, still hot, still dangerous to the tongue, the years fade away. I am back at Bhola’s, clutching my coins in my sweaty palm. The taste carries echoes of laughter from NH Mess, sans the visual of Chinaiyya’s wrinkled chin. The reminders of Mrs. YT’s valiant kitchen experiments. The suppressed grief soothed using five-second rule judiciously applied to all trauma and tragedies. And somewhere, I imagine Bhola himself is nodding from his smoky corner shop in the sky, mustache twitching in approval. Haan bhai, yéh lo, pachees paisé mé do samosé.