20 Signs That You Don't Give A Hoot About Fashion

[Originally published on The Huffington Post, 29.05.2016]

[Image via Getty Images]

To a woman who is a fashionista, my wardrobe might look a tad boring. That does not mean that my lifestyle is! In my growing up years, between books, hobbies, friends, family, a budding career and carefree chortles, everything else seemed to get into order except a stylish closet. Here's a teeny-weeny list of 20 things that indicate you might, like me, be a person with a "minimalist" taste in fashion.

1) You think a low-maintenance hairstyle is the best and anything else is a waste of time. Letting tresses fall loose, a ponytail or a bun is enough to last a lifetime. Curlers, straighteners, chic hairpins or bands are unearthed from the depths of your bottom drawer only as emergency measures for situations where decking up is compulsory.

2) Wearing glasses is just simpler than putting on contact lenses every morning, unless perhaps it's your wedding and the frames clash with the Kundan jewellery foisted on you lovingly by your mother. Why the heck must anyone trade comfort for style?

3) Your head spins at the thought of matching handbags with outfits. Two or three bags in safe colours and in a couple of styles are more than enough to fit at least 90% of occasions, thank you very much.

"Wearing glasses is just simpler than putting on contact lenses every morning, unless perhaps it's your wedding and the frames clash with the Kundan jewellery..."

4) High heels sound fascinating but despite owning a pair or two of them, there's nothing like slipping into comfortable shoes or slippers.

5) When you do decide put on high heels for a party, you end up regretting it within an hour or so as you totter and teeter around the room. Back at home, the first thing you do is toss them aside and thank the stars for the wonderful floaters you have waiting by your bed.

6) Your wardrobe is dominated by jeans (often in similar shades of blue) and ordinary t-shirts, with perhaps a few stylish dresses weeping with loneliness in a couple of hangers pushed to the side. Dressing up for an outing with friends means a loose shrug and a pair of sunglasses to add to the everyday ensemble, while a coat thrown on top comprises semi-formal wear.

7) Earrings, rings and neck pieces look best in a locker that you open up not more than once or twice in a year. On a regular day, a wristwatch (or maybe a bracelet coupled with your much-guarded wedding ring) is your only adornment.

8) But you aren't completely hopeless. Since wristwatches make it to your list, you might just have a collection of interesting dials!

9) Most of the accessories you've got in your treasure trove are gifts from family or friends. You think it's wasteful to spend money on trinkets.

"If some women paint their faces with all the precision of a Japanese miniaturist, you're more of a Jackson Pollock yourself."

10) A shopping expedition may include a long list of things, ranging from gourmet items to the latest bestsellers. But you'll be giving the make-up counter and trendy boutiques a pass.

11) You can just about figure out how to apply lipstick and eyeliner. You hear friends and magazines rave about various mousses and gels and concealers and primers but you're not so sure you could identify them in a line-up.

12) What's it with all those gazillion types of make-up brushes? If some women paint their faces with all the precision of a Japanese miniaturist, you're more of a Jackson Pollock yourself.

13) Oh, when you say an eye-liner, it's black you are talking about and when you say lipstick, you mean about three shades total in your vanity box.

14) Yes, you did watch a magical YouTube tutorial on make-up and decided to try it out. You didn't transform into Aishwarya Rai, but turns out you might have career prospects as the make-up technician for the local circus.

15) Soap and moisturizer are quite enough for your beauty regimen. Tonics, lotions, potions, eaus and parfums make you giddy, and not in a good way.

16) You're a nail nudist - no array of colours for you. And you can't be bothered to maintain long talons, even if you do admire them on other people.

17) Packing for a holiday is easy-peasy. You have a short and sweet list of items to carry which can be packed in minutes.

"You may have considered colouring your hair on occasion, but you've likely decided that a natural progression to salt-and-pepper in the right look for you."

18) You give blank looks to people talking about fashion brands like Prada, Louis Vuitton, Gucci, Chanel and likewise. This is the kind of conversation you have nothing to contribute to.

19) You may have considered colouring your hair on occasion, but you've likely decided that a natural progression to salt-and-pepper in the right look for you.

20) "Who has time for all this?" is your favourite justification for eschewing fashionable things you can't handle dexterously. Saying this makes you feel less guilty about thumbing your nose at fashion. Besides, you love that you can be so carefree

“Hush, Hush! She Is Back At Cannes.”

For the last one decade, like dedicated patriots of the country, this year again we chased the newspaper’s international section to follow the fancy dresses Aishwarya Rai, Sonam Kapoor or Mallika Sherawat flaunted at the mighty 69^th Cannes’ red carpet. Though we may or may not have a minuscule idea of fashion trending around the globe but opinionated that we are, we didn't let go of a single opportunity to discuss, praise and criticize the dressing sense of our Bollywood ladies at Cannes.

So much that conversations on Cannes Film Festival has almost begun to sound as drab and boring as the ensembles and make-ups of celebrities, barring a few.

[Picture courtesy: The Indian Express newspaper]

Recently when Sonam Kapoor wore a white gown by Ralph and Russo making the fashion analysts gawky with praise, somewhere a geeky scientist may have sat wondering how interesting a mopping invention it could have otherwise made? If Sonam was to walk around in my apartment corridors just once in a day wearing the mop, she’d have sent the entire team of sweepers for a ride. Alas! The pretty mopping device in white turned out to be a one-time wonder for cleaning up just the Red Carpet.

Suddenly, we saw entire Twitterati going crazy with amazing analogies. From dosa, to rumali roti, to waking up from bed with the bedsheet wrapped around, to  milk spilled on the carpet, her dress kept social media amusingly busy for days. As Sonam and her bandwagon heroines with flowing attires attended to Swachh Cannes campaign, I leave you to figure out how these ladies must have used rest rooms to relieve themselves? 

                                                                      [Picture courtesy: The Indian Express newspaper]

Meanwhile, our forever favourite Aishwarya Rai Bachchan once again grabbed the eye balls with her purple lipstick leaving us to wonder what breakfast was she served at the Cannes – maybe, a plateful of jamun or an overdose of black currant ice cream? Or maybe, she mistook her daughter’s colour palette for a lip tint? Or maybe, the fan inside her couldn’t resist trying out Japanese purple lipstick Joey used in the classic scene from one of Friends episodes? Some even believed she may have got kissed by a smurf a night before!!! Whatever the reason be, our queen of all things nice and beautiful, with her cool looks managed to get the nation’s attention distracted from summer’s soaring temperature yet again.

                                                                   [Picture courtesy: The Indian Express newspaper]

Somewhere in the hullaballoo of fashion madness, emerged a face that we’d almost forgotten to bits. Mallika Sherawat! Blue, white, plain, bare, bold or wear whatever, the nation wants to know her secret hideout for last one year? Without any single decent movie in her kitty or a fashion brand to brag about, she must be a superwoman to have cracked a meaty deal landing her to the prestigious glitterati of the Cannes.

And who wouldn’t? Isn’t Cannes the hottest selling cupcake for celebrities who wants to show their inevitable presence in the fashion world at a time when all eyes across the globe is set upon it? Deals, endorsements, connections and publicity are just bonuses in addition to a splendidly paid French vacation, near picturesque beaches, restaurants, cafés and boutiques of the Riviera.

Besides, everything that Cannes Red Carpet has to offer is little compared to the mystery and cheesy gossips that go behind making ones appearance at the red carpet become a subject of everyone’s talk for long time. When “Hush, hush, the girl is back!” is so worth the Cannes, why even think of the Can-nots!! 

Dancing Away The Blues

Attending an Indian Hindu wedding is like being a part of cast of a fully fledged Bollywood blockbuster. The show begins with thumping sound of loud music and ends with baraatis burning the dance floor hot. Who cares for the half bald men with fat tummies doing a belly move on a Katrina Kaif number or the overly dressed aunties (sometimes even more decked up than the bride herself) shaking their booties to a Daler Mehndi Bhangra rap. As long as songs keep playing one after the other, the entire floor…err…. roadside follows the musical command of the band, baja and baraat.

However, when you have a life partner who is not only coy about dancing publicly but is also unfortunately blessed with two left feet, all you are left is to either keep cheering the already half-crazy crowd with your claps or join them all alone while your poor ol’ man stares you from a distance returning unpromising smiles.

Well, by now you may have guessed that the discreditable dancing couple would be ‘us’. And this how our dancing-saga started some fourteen years ago.

While dating each other as fresh and young love-birds, soon to get married, we were offered to participate in a couple dancing contest at the district level. I haven’t still been able to figure out whether it was out of sheer excitement or out of sheer mockery of our inabilities to dance together that few of our seriously- thoughtful friends got our names registered without seeking our prior permission. When the idea was brought before us, we had but two choices. Either quit fearing a face-loss or face ignoring hoots and eggs!!

Attending an Indian Hindu wedding is like being a part of cast of a fully fledged Bollywood blockbuster. The show begins with thumping sound of loud music and ends with baraatis burning the dance floor hot. Who cares for the half bald men with fat tummies doing a belly move on a Katrina Kaif number or the overly dressed aunties (sometimes even more decked up than the bride herself) shaking their booties to a Daler Mehndi Bhangra rap. As long as songs keep playing one after the other, the entire floor…err…. roadside follows the musical command of the band, baja and baraat.

However, when you have a life partner who is not only coy about dancing publicly but is also unfortunately blessed with two left feet, all you are left is to either keep cheering the already half-crazy crowd with your claps or join them all alone while your poor ol’ man stares you from a distance returning unpromising smiles.

Well, by now you may have guessed that the discreditable dancing couple would be ‘us’. And this how our dancing-saga started some fourteen years ago.

While dating each other as fresh and young love-birds, soon to get married, we were offered to participate in a couple dancing contest at the district level. I haven’t still been able to figure out whether it was out of sheer excitement or out of sheer mockery of our inabilities to dance together that few of our seriously- thoughtful friends got our names registered without seeking our prior permission. When the idea was brought before us, we had but two choices. Either quit fearing a face-loss or face ignoring hoots and eggs!!

Without much mulling over, it was obviously was a big ‘No’ from my side until my partner, strangely the weaker of the two dancers, insisted that we take up the challenge. Not just the challenge of dancing but also the challenge to begin doing difficult and funny tasks together. After what he said with a charming smile, one and one was no longer two but eleven!!

As least that is what I’d thought until the time we began rehearsing. Despite meticulous planning, help from a trained jive performer and step-by-step demonstration like kindergartners on the song was “Itna na mujhse tu pyaar badha…” what seemed to turn out was anything but a perfect ballroom happy and boppy dance. Right in the first move trying to swing across, we bumped our heads into each other and in no seconds, he managed to knock me off giving me a swollen lump on my forehead. 

Love-birds don’t quit! Gathering my broken hopes and wearing the madly-in-love gleeful smile back, we continued rehearsing subsequent steps, only to end it up even more grouse. With every heroic knee lift that my man did, he ended up passionately stomping with all his might on my tender feet. The lyrics of the romantic number kept getting punctuated with moans, grumbles and oops-and-ouches!

By now, all my patient nerves were giving away and I couldn’t bear it continuing even few hours longer. Nevertheless, before we would start rehearsing the finale steps, I like a cautious wise girl, forewarned him about the “really serious” implications on our relationship that could follow, thus, dropping a hint for him to catch!

As the music rolled-on, there he moved towards me, in a poised and gentlemanly gait, neatly lifting me up in both his arms, looking right into my eyes, rocking me from one side to other on the beautiful, romantic lyrics of the old world and just when I was ready to tuck myself closer to him, suddenly his grip weakened, he stumbled and dropped me on the floor with a loud thud!!! In a flash of a nanosecond, there I was, the heroine of the show, lying flat on the ground and half-wet having dashed myself on a water jug kept nearby.

Before I could even gather up my lost embarrassment, I saw my partner dropping himself on ground next to me to give company and pouring the remaining water from the jug on himself to match my wet looks. He looked silly but funnily cute trying to make up for the heinous mistake he’d committed.

Our neatly planned out dance act had turned into a crazy fiasco, albeit a delightful one.  All my anger vanished with whoosh and we sat on floor laughing out loud for many cosy minutes, holding hand-in-hand and cracking-up at what had happened. Those few hours of happy moments were worth living a thousand years.

What followed for the next few days were rigorous rehearsals, sequential bumping, stomping and repeated falling down but laughing away our follies in each other’s joyous company. By the end of the week, we had prepared before us an imperfect but effortless ballroom dance. It may be called nothing if compared to the skills of dancing but an amazing experience of a free-spirited and doppy couple ready to take the world in their jumping shoes.

Unfortunately, the dancing contest was called off by the Organizers at the eleventh hour, thus, bringing our short stint to dancing at an abrupt end.

However, life had something even more beautiful in store for us. We got married soon after and for fourteen consecutive years down the line, we would jump in to be a part of dance in any and every of the cultural functions in our family or friend circle. Our close few know about the ‘few’ amateur steps that we’d together picked years ago and would not leave a stone unturned to rope us in.

Last night, when we were impromptu dragged on to a Wedding Sangeet stage by a distant relative, we unhesitatingly donned the floor with our half-forgotten jive moves, sometimes bumping and sometimes stomping but all in good taste. Burning the floor hot with dance is now just a matter of little laughter and of lots of love!

Difficult times, TV jokes, magazine clippings, social gossips or even routine arguments, it’s comforting to know that we can stay unpretentiously silly and happily maladjusted to each other’s weakness.

We learnt to dance like nobody’s watching and laugh like nobody’s holding!

_________________________________________________________

[This post is a part of #LoveAndLaughter activity at BlogAdda in association with Caratlane.]

How I Happily Grew Up With Glasses

“Twinkle twinkle little star, how I wonder what you are…” Brilliant nursery rhyme to begin with pre-school toddlers telling them that there are millions of tiny little stars up in the sky above that glitter on a clear night, making acrobatic constellations around a pretty ombre ball of moon. However, the much talented poet failed to imagine a large number of young readers who would be reading his poem with utter curiosity, but from behind thick concave or convex lenses resting on their nose and wondering why the stars twinkled less and spread more like a fearful patch of spread-out rays straining their poor eyes. I was one such reader. Welcome to the hazy world of the myopic few for whom stars twinkle either in a poem or through power glasses on the nose.

Why just stars? Wearing glasses ever since I started going to school, I can vouch how in absence of a pair, a dog looks similar to a pig, a donkey to a horse, a car to a jeep and one man to another. Let’s not even get down to birds. They all look like small black dots moving in the sky like a statistician’s colourless frequency polygon plotted on blank paper. Leave alone flying a kite which looks no different from a kite flying in the sky!

When in school, no matter how much I would squeeze my eyes or crease my nose, I would fail to read what the teacher put on blackboard and be easily be categorized either as a slow reader committing disastrous spelling mistakes, or as the Peeping Tom of the class whose one glance perpetually rested on the neighbour’s notebook. Every second adult I met, like an ophthalmologist, claimed to know the reason for my poor sight. Either I watched a lot of television or did not eat leafy green vegetables or was a studious bookworm! The reason would be anything crazy under the sun but that I was born with it.

Whether anyone liked it or not, I soon realized that glasses are like dresses. Wearing one all the time, except to bed, is mandatory.

History, however, has been particularly cruel to ones wearing spectacles. Isn’t it almost established by now that the loveliest of idols, Gods, actors, superheroes and famous paintings to admire have all been of characters who had a perfect six by six vision? In no possible way could Ram, Rahim or Christ be bespectacled, let alone their female counterparts? Even the fictitious Spiderman and Superman turned into their heroic avatar only when a poor sickly Peter Parker or Clark Kent did away with his thick black glasses. As if wearing one would have robbed them of machismo or have tattered their intelligence level? Sadly, in the mathematics of spectacles, wearing one is inversely proportional to looking hot or sexy. The calculation is easy. Thicker the lenses, uglier you may look!

Quite ironically, the life savior weapon of spectacles does not fail to invite nastily spectacular comments from few courteous nobles amongst us. Most bespectacled people in India would know what ‘chashmish’, ‘chaar aankh’ or ‘laaltain’ means despite these words figuring nowhere in the decency of Hindi dictionary. For those who didn’t get it right, the words are often commonly mistaken for a hello or hand shake with a friend in glasses! Besides, in every such prominent gathering there would be family or friends getting hugely attracted to glasses, so much that their overflowing love unabashedly makes them propose for your dearest spectacles, “Can I try yours? Just once.” Before you even nod your head in consent, they would have already moved a step ahead snatching it off your eyes and putting them onto theirs, only to return it the next moment with a whine, ‘Ooh! These are heavy. Gives me a headache.” How you wish you had said to them, “So do you!”

If only you could make them understand that the story of growing up with glasses is very personal and dear to our heart! It is about the umpteen numbers of times when you would forget where you last kept your specs and would run crazily to look for it in every nook and corner of the house until you got it back, and got it safe! It is about those fine moments of photography when sheepishly you would take them off to slide into your skirt pocket for one click and put it on again the very second it was over. And how sometimes there would be terrifically difficult moments of indecisiveness when you’d have to choose between getting out in the rains without glasses or keep standing under a shelter putting them on?

Nevertheless, changing times redefined the definition of carrying glasses, much to the respite of millions across the globe. Gone are the days when people gave serious consideration to laser surgeries for vision correction just to look good. With so many shades, frames and style to choose from the market, spectacles are no longer eye-gears but accessories making a crafty fashion statement. Full rim, half-rim, rimless, wayfarer, rectangle, cat eye or aviator, there could be one for every occasion. The old age plastic or metal have conveniently been replaced by light carbon fibre, titanium monel metal. Contact lenses of various varieties to choose from like soft, toric, hard, and daily, monthly, annually disposable, have sky-rocketed the eye business. The child of yesteryear who was taken to the local optician year after year to get a frame that looked tad boring and heavy, now hops from one Titan Eye Plus joint to some Lawrence & Mayo showroom to sitting at home PC browsing lenskart.com hunting for the latest trend and getting a pair customized.

Thankfully, not only things have grossly improved for the bespectacled but there has also emerged for them a vision beyond just the vision.

By the time I’d be wrapping up this article, it would be late up in the night and time for me to part with my most loyal friend. Before I jump into my bed, I make sure it lies within an arm’s reach, stays safe in the dark and is swathed in a cosy satin whole night long. And why not? Isn’t our relationship very precious, private and forever?

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[This post was originally published in the Women's Web.]

30 Things That Indicate You Are Woman In Her 30s

Cutting a 30s birthday cake gives a very mushy feeling. The size of cake gets smaller to hold a big bunch of candles; the guest list is strictly filtered to rope in a close few (shouldn't sound shocking if 'close few' conspires to just the husband and children); loud bhangra numbers get replaced with soft romantic salsa to dance on and at the end, spending cosy, precious time with oneself sounds a much dearer option to playing silly party games.

If you could relate to half the way I have felt in my recent last birthdays; Lady, you bet you have entered your 30s!! Trying to figure out my mid-age frets, frights and favourites, I landed up jotting thirty things that indicated I had pretty much arrived there - in my "thunderous thirties"! Have you too? Try ticking this checklist -

1) Your hair has begun to gray but you are wise enough to have found a way out to camouflage it by now. Quite likely, your hairline has also receded by a centimeter or more but you've deftly picked up a hairstyle to hide the pull back.

2) You have developed a paunch which you badly want to burn away, but the worry of which you would not exhibit in public. Rather, like a prudent lady, you gracefully choose to speak of it as an inevitable symbol of a beautiful growing up process.

3) You know the importance of black, dark colours and flowing fabrics in your life. And if you happen to be slightly style-conscious also, in most probability you would also know which stripes to pick from - longitudinal or across!?

4) You have at hand a pill to pop-in for some or the other medical reason - thyroid, calcium, iron, a nutritional supplement or a precautional sugar-free!

5) You are considering cornflakes, oats, muesli or daliya as replacement of one of your meals.

6) You've arranged for tracksuit, walking shoes, a treadmill/cycle (maybe) or have decided to hit the gym more than once but most always have failed to stick to the regime, and which you promise rework on the next week onwards.

7) Justin Beiber maybe a heart-throb of millions but makes a hopeless bachelor. George Clooney may be quondam and taken, but then 'old is gold'.

8) You are under a loan, mortgage or paying EMI that just doesn't seem to get close to ending.

9) Your cherished dream-destination is no longer an exotic land across seas but a quiet revisit to the place where you spent precious time of your childhood.

10) The scariest thing to think of is not ghosts, thieves or calamities but a call in the middle of the night from your parents who stay far away from your place.

11) It is embarrassing but delightfully silly to find younger boys going gaga over you. In such a case, age is seriously just a number!

12) You have considered supporting a charity, a cause or an NGO.

13) You have revived an old-forgotten childhood interest or hobby and are working towards it with child-like passion.

14) Things which you had always thought of as looking dreadful in your vanity are now must-haves - like deep red lipstick, indigo nail paint or neon slippers.

15) Your sex life is happier than ever. By now, the experimenting phase is almost over and you know what you want, from whom you want and how you want it.

16) By far, you have had at least one dental-filling or root-canal treatment done.

17) The honey-coated glorifying words which once were 'thank you' or 'please' are now replaced with 'it's benign' or 'normal report'.

18) Your book-shelf has at least one bestseller on optimism or inspiration.

19) Your children think of your dresses and head-gears from schooldays (in photographs) as a vintage collection of antiques.

20) You hardly recognize new celebrities and faces on the block except the ones whose parents were once your favourites. For the rest of the crowd, you seek your children's help.

21) You have learnt to take vitriolic comments from others with a pinch of salt, and use it as an appetizer like a pickle. Keep bringing them over dear in-laws, over concerned neighbours or corny bosses!

22) You've decided to do away with silly but precious belongings which you'd treasured in secret chamber of your wardrobe for years.

23) You let your children follow their heart and fight the world if they try stopping them.

24) Your personal diary has more of mini interrogative sentences that simple statements. Why me? What now? How far? Which way? Will they? Won't it? Who next?

25) Strangely, when everyone else's best time to work is day long; your precious me-time is either the wee hours of day-break or past-midnight.

26) You have developed zero tolerance for eve-teasers who you are no longer hesitant to grab the collar of, give back a cold stare or punch nose in public. The dude must be fixed, is all what runs in your head.

27) You are desperately trying to be able to learn the art of weeding out people from your life who pull you down, leave you with negativity or get nagging. Life, you realize, is too short to spend with morons.

28) Away from the real-time buddies available on facebook or whatsapp, you consider looking for and reconnecting with true old friends, who you have let vanish in thin air, racing against time.

29) You style your way! Even if the entire world is going nuts about some crazy fashion statement, you decide to follow your own. Those who do not appreciate are free to tread different way.

30) Marriage and children may be important but nothing is as important as time-for-yourself, looking for which you are on a perpetual hunt.

Looking back to my recent past years, I have come to believe in the old age tenet - 'growing old is a choice - either get better like wine or fret with a whine!' However, when in 30s, the choice is easy - it depends on who is asking.

Happy Growing-up, fellow dames-in-thirties!

_ ________________________________________________________________________

[This post by the author was first published on The Women's Web and later republished on The Huffington Post.]

Durga Pujo Memoir Of A Non-Bengali

Come October and arrive nine days festival and six days holidays! Getting a break as long as one full week from routine humdrums of boring daily life! I would be crazy if that wasn’t a reason good enough for me to rejoice during my schooldays! Growing up in the northern plains of Allahabad and almost having zero connection with Bengali tradition, the only enchanting part was to make the most out of Durga Puja holidays, which usually came after harrowing half-yearly examinations.

While few non-Bengali parents sat zeroing upon some exotic travel destination to hit during this rewarding week, mine wisely made it a point to make us experience every bit of the festival, year after year, in a manner no lesser than a Bengali would. My allegiance to the festival thus started.

The visuals of the Pujo times during those days stand crystal clear in memory. Our good old small city stood decked up with Puja Pandals at every second open clearance. I was told each Pandal was endorsed by a core committee of Bengalis who worked for months to bring out the best out of Pandals, embellishing it with vivid architectural styles, breathtaking creativity and scheduling daily events with fun-filled programmes comprising of contests, quizzes, Robindra-shongeet and showcasing talents that lasted entire nine days. The nag to put up the best show was driven by motivation to win the rolling trophy for 'Best Pandal' in the city.

While some Pandals were aesthetically crafted with customary Bengal motifs and designs, many were innovatively inspired from current happenings around the world.  It didn't surprise me to note new additions almost every next year, like Pandal themes on ‘Tribal Welfare’ in which Devi Durga wore the Garo mini skirt, one supporting ‘Mission Go-Green’ donning Devi’s dress in leaves and shoots, a Pandal displaying life-size cut-outs of freedom fighters and one even flaunting Bollywood  with Shahrukh Khan and Aishwarya Rai’s posters all over the marquee. 

As night fell on the Pujo Pandal, it incarnated to a literal cultural hotspot. Full of energy, high-end fashion, food-fiesta, music, late-night fun mood, jabbering and gossips, our otherwise complacent city jostled with joy all night long.  It is hard to believe that with overcrowded venue bumming with high spirited people, how a sense of discipline always took over and there was hardly any pushing or manhandling while trying to catch a glimpse of Maa Durga’s protimaa.

From my back to back visits to Durga Puja functions, I have come to deduce that food is central to a Bengali as much as dressing-sense is. Visiting a Puja Venue and coming back without having popped in paani puri or jhaal-muri or Indo-Chinese chowmein from the street vendors queuing the roadside, meant a disgrace to the Bengali tradition of ‘must-have reech phood’! Whenever I bumped into a Bengali friend who would have made her temporary home for six days in one of these Pandals, the first question she’d ask was  not how fascinating did I find the Puja but whether I had tried the famous phish chop, roshogulla and bhishon bhalo coffee from one of the stalls?

Nevertheless, while most Bengalis in the Puja venue were found chatting and gossiping about their ‘Baadi’ and ‘Saree’, my eyes enduringly came to rest on the beautiful ladies and girls around. Each one glowed with the precisionist perfection of draping a sari, putting on big bindi, wearing ethnic pieces of enviable jewelry and eyes highlighted with kohl, yet the most outstanding piece of their look would be a spark of grace, punctuated with spasms of boisterous laughter. Bengali women may not be the most beautiful on earth but they are certainly endowed with hypnotic looks which usually brims over during the Puja period. Of course, all this apart from the month long preparation by them which includes an exhaustive day and night  therapeutic shopping done for themselves and the whole bunch of family.

Though the occasion would be deeply religious, the Puja Pandals offered the best meeting places for would-be couples and dating pairs, sometimes even sparking matrimonial connections. Is it difficult to guess that where young girls and boys looking their best get together for nine days and nights, it will be just about the Puja part?

On the sixth day of the festival, when the public would get to see Goddess Durga get unveiled the first time, a strange excitement took over. Suddenly the frivolous fun and merry making changed to a deeply devout and gratifying experience. My favourite part of the Pujo was always eating bhog served at noon and watching the dhakis beat their drums and do dhunuchhir naach with  torch lit with a frgrant dhun that filled us all with mystical aroma. The rhythmic beating that gradually rose to a high crescendo filled me with immense powerfulness, bountiful love and ecstasy. A kind of pleasure that can only be best felt! Six days slipped like sand from the hand as if we lost touch with time, immersing ourselves in joyful days, wishing it never got over.

Alas! Amidst pompous fanfare and women playing sindoor, suddenly came Doshomi, the time to let the Goddess go. When I sat on the ghats of river Ganges watching the last rites of Visarjan, my attention stopped at the beautifully sculpted face of Goddess Durga. How behind the drums beaten by dhakis, her beautiful big eyes, wavy black hair and crafted lips gradually sank under water to melt into a muddy mesh, leaving behind everyone somber in goose-flesh. There on the banks of river Ganga, were hundreds of teary-eyed worshippers half drenched in the holy mud, bonding with each other through strings of rich cultural unity, hardly caring who was a Bengali or non-Bengali!

_____________________________________________________________________________ [Originally published on The Huffington Post].

Why I Am Proud To Be A Tea Addict

There is something typical about early mornings in most Indian households. A little before dawn sets in, the lady of the house jumps out of bed, slips her feet into her chappals and immediately rushes into the kitchen to begin her daily warming-up ritual: put the water in a kettle to boil, sprinkle in some black tea, pour milk, add sugar (and perhaps some ginger or cardamom for extra flavour) and let the dance of cha-cha-chai begin. While she may then choose to brush, wash, bathe, walk, jog or pray, the tea continues to brew slyly in the pot, losing its virgin golden colour to turn copper black and then blending with other ingredients to assume the burlywood hues of typical Indian masala-chai. She pours it into cups, ready to greet her loved ones with a good morning and a cup of tea, either in bed or at the dining table.

For some, the most magical properties of the drink appear in its perfect timing and temperature. I remember my grandmother driving the whole house crazy if she wasn't served tea on time and piping hot, along with a Hindi national daily. If this ritual failed, her bowels would revolt and she'd be quite incapable of producing a satisfactory movement. Tea was probably the only laxative she knew of in her entire life.

As little kids, tea made us furious. We'd watch in envy as the adults sat together at dawn, chatting about their plans for their day, sipping their tea and occasionally dunking Marie arrowroot biscuits into the brew. We youngsters had to make do with some distasteful health drink with hot milk, signed off with an elder's instruction: "You can have tea only once you're grown up." We'd lay out our sour grapes on the table: "It'll ruin their complexion," or "It tastes so bitter," or even virtuously proclaim "Good children don't." This, when a rebellious few of us had already made a secret promise to ourselves to adopt the forbidden drink as early as we could.

Today, my love of tea extends beyond the taste and ritual of it. It is as much about the magical stories and memories that get spun around cups of tea.

Our numerous train journeys invariably began with a tea vendor on the railway platform shouting in one particular musical note, "Chai, garam chai!" He'd serve the chai in a piping hotkulhar (clay cup); the man was always in such a hurry that he would often run parallel to a moving train, literally snatching change from our hands and hopping like Spiderman from one bogie to another. I can almost smell the aroma coming from that clay pot. It was a constant companion to the friendly gossip, conversations with strangers and offerings of snacks that were such a staple of train journeys.

The other day in office, a friend who happens to be tea-hater, picked an argument with me over my habit of downing five cups of cha a day. She was horrified! She probably thought I was trying to battle depression with my addiction to tea. And perhaps, yes, tea did serve an emotional purpose, connected as it is to so many memories and narratives.

Narratives of bonds getting stronger during preparations for competitive entrance exams in which a few of us would study the whole night, protected from exhaustion by countless tea breaks. Like the maddening rehearsal days of campus theatre in which we spent weeks learning dialogues, making props and marketing our 'play' in the city suburbs, over sips of warm cutting chai with samosas. Of those endless chat (read gossip) sessions in our college canteen.

Narratives of my drawing room in which guests are allowed to pop in at any time, day or night, for a cup of tea to ease them into venting bottled-up feelings. How about the métier of a smart deal sealed between corporate executives over high tea over days and weeks? How can I not see the priceless guffaws of granny and her friends who sit sipping sugar-free (or sugarless) tea in our colony's park on a sunny winter day, cracking juvenile jokes? Or those tears of joy that well up in a mother's eye who when returns fagged from office is greeted by her child asking, "You look tired! Want some tea?"

Green for slimming, herbal for health, white for gourmets, Oolong for burning fat,black for caffeine, lemon ginger for immunity, 'kadha' for de-congestion, chamomile-jasmine for flavours. I didn't even realise when the regular tea transformed itself from beverage to medicine to health supplement.

While I sit here on a spring day - when there is summer in the light and winter in the shade -- to write about my trysts with tea, the mountains of Munnar and Darjeeling are covered with a green carpet of tea plants basking to beauty under the sun, getting caressed by the gentle winds and glistening with dew drops every morning. One day, these tea leaves from the hills will make their way to countless homes, become a part of so many people's memories. 

So while our Hon'ble Prime Minister chooses chai pe charcha as part of his foreign policy arsenal, I choose to enjoy sips in solitude with my fountain pen and paper. Yet, we both, like so many other Indians, are bound by a common elixir.

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This article was originally published on "The Huffington Post" and republished in "Chai Wallahs Of India"