Motherhood/Fatherhood
I am not a mom so what would I know about being a mother, right? Oh loads because I have one right!
As life in a metro and its compounding pressures mount on us some people like me shy away from motherhood. But I still miss a truck load of things that I could do with my children. But am blessed in other ways as I have a whole bunch of neices and nephews.
Yesterday I was reading the final adventure the chosen one Harry Potter who vanquishes the evil Lord Voldemort. I was mesmerised as always but what I missed the most was reading out to my child. Thankfully though I share the joy with my better half who also likes to read Rowling. I was filled with nostalgia when Ma used to read Sukumar Ray's Aboltabol to me or Baba would read The Lord of the Rings to me. I would look all wide eyed and get transported to these wonder filled lands of magical mysteries. I still covet those hours spent with my parents, they are by far the best hours of my life.
It was manadatory for all of us cousins to be equally fluent in our mother tongue and our parents took special care to see to that. As I grew up in Baroda and Delhi, I learnt Bangla my mother tongue quite late in life. I remember suddenly I was shifted to a new school called the Lady Irwin Girls Senior Secondary School in Defence Colony in South Delhi when I was in standard 4. The reason being that they used to teach Bangal as a second language along with Hindi inthis school. The reason was that they received a small grant from West Bengal Government. No matter where we stayed in India we (all us cousins) needed to read and write Bangla apart from Hindi, English and Sanskrit.
My crash course in Bangla started when one day Baba took me to the Bal Pustak Mela, this is before Delhi had an assigned exhibition ground in Pragati Maidan. I don't remember exactly where was this, all I remember it was in a very dusty throughfare.
Anyway it was my first bookfair so I was completely enchanted, a land full of magical words. But Baba had a specific goal on his mind, he wanted the greenhorn me to get steeped into Bangaliana. For hours we roamed from stall to stall and ended up buying tomes of Bangla books ranging from the basic Prothom Bhaag to Satyajit Ray's adventures of the dynamic private investigator Feluda as well as Teni Da and Ghana Da. After we had finished the book hoarding excercise he took me this tent with temporary screening facilities where I saw my first Ray film Goopy Gyne Bagha Byne. What happemed thereafter was in true sense magic. Upendra Kishore's world of the happy go lucky Goopy Gyne Bagha Byne became my life's motto, go happily into the world with your innocence and you shall be embraced. I have even met the phenomenal bhooter raja not only in my dreams but several times in life. The only trick here is to recognise the soul.
The next enchantment came the following day when Baba started reading out Sahoj Path to me. The simple rhythm of the phrases of Tagore were like music to me. But first things first after getting my senses piqued he gave the Pratham Bhaag to learn the alphabets. In an hour I had mastered them, then we started scribbling all over the floor with coloured chalks my name, his name, my friends name and this went on for another hour or so. Then he gave the maestro's touch in avery Dumbledore ish fashion, he read out one page of Ray's Badshahi Aangti. He spelled out each word while he read so that that I learn how to spell Bangla words. And I was hooked totally and wanted to go to the next page.
But this time he said I needed to spell out and read it out to him as he had done for me. As I was already in this intriguing mystery I stumbled but overcame every step of the way as Baba was sitting patiently next to me correcting each nuance with unfaltering patience. In two hours I finished the second page and by the third page my speed had improved considerably. It took me less than a month to finish the tomes of books that we had bought, my crash course in Bangliana continued throughout my stay in Delhi and thereafter.
By the time I was 12 I had seen most of the Ray films and all Ritwick Ghatak classics. Last but not the least all Charles Chaplin. Somewhere my parents believed Chaplin too was a Bengali as his wit proved that fact! Till date they remain my favourite, whenever I am blue or feeling nostalgic all I have to do is to find either a Ray,Ghatak or Chaplin CD or DVD. Or just read a Feluda or pick up the beaten up Abol Tabol and I am with Baba and Ma in a magical world of words. This is probably what I miss the most of not being a parent.
As life in a metro and its compounding pressures mount on us some people like me shy away from motherhood. But I still miss a truck load of things that I could do with my children. But am blessed in other ways as I have a whole bunch of neices and nephews.
Yesterday I was reading the final adventure the chosen one Harry Potter who vanquishes the evil Lord Voldemort. I was mesmerised as always but what I missed the most was reading out to my child. Thankfully though I share the joy with my better half who also likes to read Rowling. I was filled with nostalgia when Ma used to read Sukumar Ray's Aboltabol to me or Baba would read The Lord of the Rings to me. I would look all wide eyed and get transported to these wonder filled lands of magical mysteries. I still covet those hours spent with my parents, they are by far the best hours of my life.
It was manadatory for all of us cousins to be equally fluent in our mother tongue and our parents took special care to see to that. As I grew up in Baroda and Delhi, I learnt Bangla my mother tongue quite late in life. I remember suddenly I was shifted to a new school called the Lady Irwin Girls Senior Secondary School in Defence Colony in South Delhi when I was in standard 4. The reason being that they used to teach Bangal as a second language along with Hindi inthis school. The reason was that they received a small grant from West Bengal Government. No matter where we stayed in India we (all us cousins) needed to read and write Bangla apart from Hindi, English and Sanskrit.
My crash course in Bangla started when one day Baba took me to the Bal Pustak Mela, this is before Delhi had an assigned exhibition ground in Pragati Maidan. I don't remember exactly where was this, all I remember it was in a very dusty throughfare.
Anyway it was my first bookfair so I was completely enchanted, a land full of magical words. But Baba had a specific goal on his mind, he wanted the greenhorn me to get steeped into Bangaliana. For hours we roamed from stall to stall and ended up buying tomes of Bangla books ranging from the basic Prothom Bhaag to Satyajit Ray's adventures of the dynamic private investigator Feluda as well as Teni Da and Ghana Da. After we had finished the book hoarding excercise he took me this tent with temporary screening facilities where I saw my first Ray film Goopy Gyne Bagha Byne. What happemed thereafter was in true sense magic. Upendra Kishore's world of the happy go lucky Goopy Gyne Bagha Byne became my life's motto, go happily into the world with your innocence and you shall be embraced. I have even met the phenomenal bhooter raja not only in my dreams but several times in life. The only trick here is to recognise the soul.
The next enchantment came the following day when Baba started reading out Sahoj Path to me. The simple rhythm of the phrases of Tagore were like music to me. But first things first after getting my senses piqued he gave the Pratham Bhaag to learn the alphabets. In an hour I had mastered them, then we started scribbling all over the floor with coloured chalks my name, his name, my friends name and this went on for another hour or so. Then he gave the maestro's touch in avery Dumbledore ish fashion, he read out one page of Ray's Badshahi Aangti. He spelled out each word while he read so that that I learn how to spell Bangla words. And I was hooked totally and wanted to go to the next page.
But this time he said I needed to spell out and read it out to him as he had done for me. As I was already in this intriguing mystery I stumbled but overcame every step of the way as Baba was sitting patiently next to me correcting each nuance with unfaltering patience. In two hours I finished the second page and by the third page my speed had improved considerably. It took me less than a month to finish the tomes of books that we had bought, my crash course in Bangliana continued throughout my stay in Delhi and thereafter.
By the time I was 12 I had seen most of the Ray films and all Ritwick Ghatak classics. Last but not the least all Charles Chaplin. Somewhere my parents believed Chaplin too was a Bengali as his wit proved that fact! Till date they remain my favourite, whenever I am blue or feeling nostalgic all I have to do is to find either a Ray,Ghatak or Chaplin CD or DVD. Or just read a Feluda or pick up the beaten up Abol Tabol and I am with Baba and Ma in a magical world of words. This is probably what I miss the most of not being a parent.
Comments
LIke Illusions, even I grew up outside the BEngali world. But unlike my siblings who studied in english schools, my dad shoved me in the vernacular because he thought at least one of us should be able to read and write the mother tongue. Downside, I became totally lazy about studying as these school rarely pressed for descipline. Good side I can read and write english (albeit my spelings are by now atrocious due to unuse)
Thanks Illusions for the nostalgic trip.