We Are The World

 

A nostalgia video was doing rounds on WhatsApp showing the snippets of the original album, along with current images of the singers.

My daughters peeped in.

Oh, I know Michael Jackson!

Hmmm, I’ve heard this name too.

Oh! So this what Bruce Springsteen looked like!

And then the questions:

Wait, what are they singing about? 

Is this about 9-11? 

1980s…. was there a pandemic then also?

They were singing about making a brighter world in the 80s and then we went on further with the climate mess to generate more famines and floods, and then came global terrorism, and then the current pandemic.

Damn. What would they sing about the world today?

Going uphill and back in time...

After my enforced writing spree, I am off on a break again.


 This time it is a vacation. We are off to the land of Momos and Lamas. Will share the experience when I am back

We are also going to Kolkata, my summer home, for all the memorable, growing-up years.

It’s a city I have avoided for almost a decade-because for me, it was my grandparents’ home. Now they are no more, and even that home is not there anymore. I just didn’t feel like going back to the changed city.

Yet there was a lot to go back for. A big part of the family, who’ve always been a part of me. A bit of the heritage our children need to know of course, a whole lot of memories---the rolls and mogali porota at gariahat, the tram-n-metro rides to esplanade, shopping for junk jewellery in new market, alu-dom at the lake, spicy chinese in Tangra, and our all-night aadda sessions.

Can we go back in time to all of those?
I know we can’t.

I just hope we are able to build new bond and shore up new memories to bring back with us.

Wishing everyone a great time ahead.

Durga Puja countdown begins

I don’t like it.

I am trying my best to be logical, clinical, rational….

I can’t help feeling terribly mushy.

And to make it sillier, it’s about Durga Puja, a festival that I’ve been attending for all five days, with clockwork regularity, for every year of my life.

Yet, I miss each one of those moments.

The exchanging of parcels of new clothes between Jaipur-Siliguri-Kolkata-and where ever Boro Pishi happened to be.

Being emotionally blackmailed into a thorough spring cleaning before Mahalaya by Mom (To ensure each inch of the house was washed, each bit of well everything was kept in the sun for hours and arranged back, she would start the whole process, and end up looking so tired and frails that………u guessed it!)

Rushing away right in the morning for “pushpanjali”, preening up in all finery just to go and watch the cultural functions, the puja, and……… well everyone else. Having friends stay over just so that we all could spend hours at the puja. The Arti, the competitions, the bhog, the evenings-it was an unreal existence for five days, every year.

The best part for me used to be the Bhashan, the immersion procession, where I would always wrangle one of Durga Thakur’s weapons to keep until the next year…

The last “trishul” I kept was thrown away long ago.

High time I grew up. I know!

But I still think my kids are really missing something. 

Purani Jeans-addendum!

I may be a Mom in distress (at times) but I am certainly not alone.

My last post was more about nostalgia than loneliness. Got slightly carried away by the metaphors.

Why don’t I throw away my Purani Jeans? Or donate them to a museum?

I have got lots of new blue ones since then, along with lots of new memories and great hopes too.

Yet sometimes, I get a kick out of dragging out the decade old ones and wearing them around. When you are a Mom of two and have reached my age, these are the things that make your day!

P.S: For those who got concerned at my last post, I apologize for the dramatization and thank you for the support.

I do need that.