Oh Calcutta!

Back in the ‘70s, Southern Avenue was a tree lined, quiet street. Jolkhabar was across the street, famous for its spongy rosogolla, divine lal-dhoi, and yummy dhakai porota. The pantu-da’ar chaa-aar-singara’ar dokan was diagonally opposite, sharing a wall with the panwallah who also made mouth-watering begun-bhaja; the puchka-wala sat right next to them at the corner of Southern Avenue and Lake Place. There was also the uniquely-Cal bhelpuri wallah who sat outside Mehta House, with just the 30-feet width of Lake Place separating him from the puchka-wallah. The bhelpuri-wallah had this gigantic, yellow, metal trunk with wheels. When he set up shop by opening the humungous lid, it exposed a massive tray with a million compartments. He would pull out two sheets from a glossy magazine tucked on the side, convert them into a short wide cone, put a handful of various lip-smacking stuff into the cone, toss in some gooey liquid, give it a nice swirl, garnish it with some sev and coriander, drop a couple of paapdis, and hand this humungous, scrumptiously delicious looking package to you. Watching this process was as much fun as the end product itself. Of course, since it cost 50p as opposed to the 10p for 6 puchkas, bhel was a rarity. And of course, one had to have puchkas, if not everyday, at least four times a week. Even if it meant one had to trudge back from school at Ballygunje Place and save the cost of a ticket, instead of taking Tram #24 or #29 to Lake Market.

Our puchka-wallah served some of the most delicious chur-mur, alur-dom, and aalu-kabli on the planet - I am drooling now as I write. And the days we felt rich, we went over to the Kali Bari puchka-wallah who was expensive, and only as good as the neighborhood fellow, but gave you bragging rights. "Aami aajkey kali bari puchka khelaam. Ki dharoon guru. Urey shaala...dhurdhaanto", with that tone that said "I am up there, dude".

Our neighbor, the Gangulys (did I get the name right?) were as bong as bong could get. My mother would be up by 4.30am, and be done with most of her cooking by 6am when she would leave for Shivanath Shastri College for her BA Honors program. Bro and I would be up around 6.30am, brush, shower, and head to the kitchen to grab whatever was breakfast for the day, look for the note from mom that would be tucked under the gas stove, follow the instructions to the T, and give the finishing touches to the meal that was almost done when she left. Dad would have been up sometime in between, stuck a cigarette to his lips, and a 78rpm record to the gramophone, and gotten busy.

And just as we would be ready to leave for school, we would hear our neighbor Ms. Ganguly scream long and slow “Tutooooool, Buboooool…ot tho taratari….deri hoi geche..chol chol chol”. There was of course no sense of urgency in her voice.. it only showed irritation…. Irritation, that another day had begun no sooner than the previous one had ended. Bubul and Tutul would be nowhere in sight anyway for quite some time; they probably were fast asleep in their gigantic cot on the first floor, the drone of their mother's voice no more a hindrance than the occasional fly that buzzed around. Kundu (or whatever her name was) the maid would have taken the 'chulo' out to the street to get it ready for the day. She would be followed by Mr. Ganguly, as he would slowly amble out of the house and into the street, stubble and all, in his striped 'paaayjama' and shaart' that was half unbuttoned, with a toothbrush stuck into his mouth, apparently with the intent to supervise Kundu. He would look like someone who just about managed to crawl out of a terrible train wreck, only to be directed to help the mortally wounded. Not surprisingly, Kundu needed no supervision, and so would barely pay any heed to the man of the house.

I was dead sure then and there that the English invented words like disheveled and bedraggled just to describe Mr. Ganguly. He woke up from slumber @8am, but probably got the first meaningful syllable out of his mouth many many hours later. Speed, urgency, sprightliness, and such words did not belong to his dictionary. And why would they be? He was subject to the utmost cruelty that any Bengali wife could deliver. She had no good word for him; she constantly berated him for sitting, eating, sleeping, walking, reading, resting, or working. But he was fine with all that abuse – he was used to her. And she to him. He never changed even an iota in all the years that I saw him, in spite of all that was dished out to him. And when she got really really angry, as opposed to 'just' angry, she put her belan to good use. He would howl in protest; there were times when she would  chase him around the house. But then, life got back to normal soon enough. He would even have a nice, smiling conversation with her, minutes after that "dharma adi", as the Tamilians call a bad beating. Weird.

Bubul the older fellow somehow graduated from school by the time he was a youthful 19, but Tutool never got beyond 8^th grade I think. He was probably autistic, or just a child with some development disorder. He was a nice friendly kid. He seldom went to school. His mom was very kind to him, but his older brother probably never even recognized him as kin.

When we would get back from school around 4.30pm, we would have just enough time to throw our bags on the bed, change, and rush out to play. When we returned home by 6.30pm, dad would be walking back from work, with a dozen small kids in tow, each looking forward to some magic from him, or to hear about/see the ferocious tiger that hid under our gramophone. On occasions, dad would set up the toy train and tracks, and let them watch it chug round and round. He was very possessive of 'his' toys - he would never allow anyone to play with him; he would play and we could watch - from a distance! 

We would of course head to the other room to finish our homework, and read our story-books, which dad ensured was never in short supply. Sometime during the day, Mom would have got back home, had a quick lunch, rested for 10 minutes, stepped out for her tuition classes, and returned home tired to the bone around 9pm, only to see the last of her students, Mala reluctantly and sleepily walk in for the last tuition class of the day. The Gangulys  of course would have retired by then, after their maacher-bhaja dinner, which would still be wafting into our house.

With Madurai Mani Iyer’s thaye-yashodha in the background, we would get down to a family dinner around 10pm, tired and happy to be done with yet another school day. But then, Calcutta HAD to dish out many many more days to us. And that would be another story for another day.