mach niye gelo chile

Fish!! It is the sign of prosperity and good luck for we east Indians. We even have to carry a big fish when the groom goes to the brides house for getting married. And a bride is judged for her skll by how expert she is in scaling and cutting a fish after she comes to the new house after her marriage.The word itself bring back so many related memories. Right from my childhood I have seen how fishermans used to catch fishes from our pond. Above that my dad is an expert of fishing using fish rod which we call 'borshi'. He used to take out some old bread from fridge, soak it and convert that into dough, mix ant eggs and etc to make it more delicious and catchy for fishes and then used to use that as a trap. I have seen my dad catching 'telapia' fish with his hand while swimming. And not only catching fishes, he loves feeding people with good sumtous meal having different fish preparations.
So every evening that was his favourite passtime to fish for sometime. Even I used to go and sit beside him and observe his fondness and dedication towards this game. I have heard from thakurma that when our economic condition was not very good, and if we used to get surprise guests like my pishos ( husbad of my father's sisters), thakurma used to go to the pond and keep a fishing rod or used to ask my dad to catch a fish and she used to make a feast for the guest with those fishes. I heard from my grandmother that fishing was his passion right from his childhood. When he was very young, he used to spend afternoons catching fishes. It seems once it happened so that while catching fishes with a rod, the sharp iron hook attached to the thread got fixed in the skin of his head. And while trying to take it out, it got fixed making the whole thing worse. So the only way remaining to take it out was to cut it. So he came to boro jethu and boro jethu ( fully nervouse and tensed looking at the blood flowing out of his head) took him to the doctor. While the doctor was about to operate it out, to everybodies surprise he told the doctor, to take out the hook intact so that he can use that again . He also assured the doctor that for that if he get more hurt it is not a problem and he is ready to bear that.
Sometimes, when baba used to call fihserman to catch fishes, it used to be real fun. There were different techniques for that. One was by using small nets and trap around 10-12 fishes out of which one or two used t be big. But the other type was by using a special net called 'bera Jal' that used to almost cover the whole pond and thats why huge number of fishes used to get trapped. I used to spend the whole morning watching the whole activity and enjoying every moment about that. specially the small mishes that used to get caught along with big fishes and the shells were my main object of interest. Those sells which I learnt during my graduation , called unio were used to feed the ducks we used to have as pet then in our house.

Hmm, to this I remember, even I used to love the ducks house that used to be there in our house. feeding the ducks, making there room with Hays to keep it warm, putting them in there house every evening, checking early in the morning if egg is there was fact of curiosity for me.And believe me the taste of those duck eggs were just amazing.

There were some rules in our house like to make children's healthy, we were served with fishes like 'magur' and 'singh' macher jhol. Those anaerobic fishes have loads of bloods and hence are very healthy. Since I was not very healthy in my childhood my diet mostly used to include those fishes.

Still now we have the pond as it is in gopinath's house but the duck house is not there. baba still take some out almost every evening to take a stroll to that house and spend some time catching fishes. Even though I am far away, I can visualize every moment of it.

eksho bar korbo, hazar bar korbo!!

Can you guess what I want to do by screaming out "eksho bar korbo, hazar baar korbo", which means " will do it hundred times , will do it thousand times"!!!The funny part is that till date I don't know what we wanted to do! I have already mentioned about tutudadu or Hiralal Chakroborty who was our next door neighbour and Sonama's uncle as well. My mom and dad used to call him 'Mejda' and thakurma used to call him 'kanu'. He was a very jolly person and more the just a neighbour. We used to play with him, and visit his quite a few time a day when we are together. Sometimes we used to have music adda's or just adda's in his house. He even used to enjoy cooking a lot. So all of a sudden I think we did some meschief and he scolded us. Just to irritate him we started telling eksho baar korbo, hazar baar korbo..and he became angry and pretended to chase us. So from then on, whenever we used to see tutudadu, we just used to tell eksho bar korbo, hazar baar korbo and he used pretend as if he is chasing us. The thrill, the escape..everything was just great.

There was another game that we used to play frequently. 'ami ja dekhi, tumi ta dekho'? and 'name, place,animal...'.All these might funny but those were what we used to wait eagerly for throughout the year so that we can play them when Dadabhai and boney dada comes during there long vacation. Right from the time I remember, jethu ( Debu) was posted in a place called Shapotgram in assam, then Guahati, Shilchar and finally he was in Shillong when we were already grown up.

Jethu used to be the jackpot of all games. He always used to thrill us with his new ideas of new games. When power used to go off, we all used to sit in the courtyard of Gopinath bari with a Hurican litted in the front Varandah in front of Gopinath Ghor. We used to do recitations and sing songs. I still remember few lines of 'Maharaja bhoye thake poolish er thanate, ain banae joto pare na ta manate, take take chore chore sadho jodi chara thake, rokhha korite tare rakhe jail khanate. ' Boe esheche Biyer chade' was again my favourite. But I really used to admire dadabhai reciting 'Birpurush'. He used to get into the peom and I used to feel the charm of 'tumi jachho palki te Ma chore!'...We all used to sing 'Klanti amar khoma koro prabhu'. Then I never knew what is klanti at all. But while doing my masters in college, I really used to get fed up of endless examintions, submission of assignmets , tensions of scoring high, college politics...I just used to sit alone, being tired of the situation and used to sing that song from the depth of my heart. I really used to apologise to God to forgive me for all those tirdness.

I still remember everyting boron jethu or jethun after coming to agartala used to go to there maternal uncles house , fulda jethu, ranga jethu and manju jethu's house in Ramnagar road number 9. There again it was real fine to get pampered by everybody. What was a routine snack served to us there was grated milky tender coconut, with deep fried 'chira' and sprinkle of sugar on that. That just taste yummy with hot tea. We all use to go to Misti pishi and Nini pishi's house at Krishnanagar. All those were some routine activities that we always used to do with other activites like taking bath in the pond, roaming around the pond side, picking up flower for Puja ini the moring and e.t.c.

I still remember one incident. One day me and Boney dada just entered home after playing around in the locality. Boney dada used to love home made curd with lots of sugar in it. So though basically I never used to like that, but still used to have that along with him always. That day 'thakurma scream out our name and told she has kept two 'patil' full of curd in her kitchen. Both of us ran towards that immediately. And immediately looking at those boney dada understod what is wrong. But Like a fool inspite of stopped by him I put that in my mouth. That was nothing but 'chun'. I started crying immediately and I understood what I did was really foolish.

Those were really amazing, carefree days which are never going to come back in the same form. I miss those days.

Tei ka tei

My mom wanted to see all her childhood wishes getting fulfilled by me. It seems it was her wish to learn singing and dance. But due to different reasons all those could not happen. As well one of her big dream was that her daughter should study in Shishu bihar school. So the first one took shape as soon I cleared the admissiono test of nursery. To her the others were also not that tough as she put me to a dance school and my cousin mani didi became my music teacher. And she also appointed a lady to teach me paintings. Little did she knew that to appoint teacher is not the end of everything. The most difficult job was to manage her own little daughter who was according to her dad ' nonir putul lotor potor'. I mean even if anybody used to touch me without my wish, I used to start crying. I was so moody that, if anybody used to take my pillow and it used to get warm by touch, I used to start crying ' gororm kore niyecho, thanda kore deo'. So whenever I used to feel, it is not very interesting for the day to go to the dance class, which was in our neighbour only, I used to go and complain thakurma, that my legs are paining ans still ma is asking me to go for dance classes. And if further Ma used to force me to go there, thakurma used to scold Ma.
I specially used to hate all those classes when Dadabhai and Boney dada, Sona all used to come to agartala for there vacations. I still remember, when boney dada used to come, once in a while we both used to steal money from thakurma's bag ( and ofcourse we used to tell everything to het later) which used be there in one korner of thakurrma's alna in the store room. The amount we scold never used to exceed one or two rupees. We used to start planning right from the noon, and we used to get our operation done before evening. Then evening we used to eagerly wait when amulya kaku will open his shop. That tong dokan in the corner of ramnagar, was nothing less then a place of delight. the sight of the jars full of orange chocolates, melody chocolate, poppins, chatpat, hajmola, packets of maggie what not. I used to dream what more one can dream in life if one get all those inside the shop together for oneself as a gift.
So one day we stole or got money from somebody and as usual I started telling ma I will bunk my dance class that day. But somehow she managed to send me for the class. Now what she din't noticed is that Boney dada also followed me for the class and he hide himself somewhere there itself in the dance school. That day while dancing I was facing the window and my teacher, Ajanta aunty was sitting keeping her back to that window. She was teaching me a typical bharat natyam dance called 'tei ka tei'. During the first 'tei' u have to move your hand inwards moving your hand nine degree down fromthe axis if you keep your fore arm straight folded towards your shoulder, during 'ka' it will make an angle of 180 degree and go outside and during the last 'tei' you will have to again move the hand inwards with a reverse 180 degree angle. the legs will have movemnet accordingle. So now comming to the funniest part, that day, as soon I started practising the dance, boney dada stood behind the window and he was showing me that one rupee note. I felt like taking that and I was streching my hands towards the window instead of moving it on the sides. Ajanta aunty could not understand what is happening as it is impossible to make same mistake repeatedly. And everytime she was looking outside , Boney dada was hiding himself sitting below the window level. Atlast she started scolding me and might be boney dada felt bad and he screamed, Dona dont worry, i wont use the money without you and he came back home. To my much reliefe Ajanta aunty understood what happened and I started practicing with a free mind. Though I attenede those classes not for long, but I still remember, I really picked up dance with one song very nicely..'sheether hawae laglo nachon amloki roi dale dale'. I continued with music classes till mani didi got married and then all of a sudden somebody inculcated in my mom's head that it is important to learn classical. So she forced me to join a classical class. Due to my heavy voice and lazy nature to practise and take my voice to those curves wha really a difficult task for me. I wrot and cleared several years until finally one day she really gave up forcing me further., But I really used to enjoy and still enjoy singing Rabindra sangeet, though I pick them up listening to songs and I enjoy singing them. I dont know if at all what i sing is at all audible or not, but it is true I enjoy singing atleast for my own delight. And I really enjoy when Anka is around as we both have some common numbers that we like to sing together like ' ei monihar amay nahi shaaaaje', ' tomar khola hawae' and Kusume kusume charan chinho diye jao, seshe daao dao muche, ohe choncholoooo, bela na jete, khela keno tobo jae ghuche..haeeeee'.
And among all the three what I thoroughly enjoyed was my drawing classes. As I was lucky enough to get an ofbeat teacher. My early days of painting started with pencil sketches..just drawing perfect circles and straight lines. Slowly towards pencil figures based on those shapes. With time and year I became the favourite student of my art er aunty , 'Reena Aunty'. She even became a tenant of our gopinath bari. She used to call me 'Dunny'. With time I even started dreaming of making art my passion and to become an artist. I used to draw whole day, sittingin class, home everywhere. I hardly used to draw with colours and I myself could observe the maturity in my paintings based on shades and everything. My mom always used to repent that inspite of learning art for almost 10 to 11 years I don have certification. But ma, the prizes that I have won wherever I have participated till date( I hardly used to participate in compitetions in school) , the way I have got introduced to how to use right colour in right form, every nitty griity of painting..I a really thankfull to ma for taking me to Reena aunty instead of any general art school. And thanks to 'Reena aunty ' as well for teaching art to me with passion and so much of care. I still miss those sunday classes and long chat while making sketeches. That too in the room in the back side of gopinath bari....

Dudher chachhi khaa sorger nagal pa

Dudh is a terrible word for most of the children. I was not an exception, and as usual forcing yourself to drink a HUGE glass full of milk, twice a day used to be a common torture for me. Right from my childhood I used to hate drinking milk and especially used puke it out immediately if the cream has not been removed completely. But one thing I surely used to enjoy is to take the milk from Saraswati Pishi who used to own a cow in our locality. She or her mom, Saraswati'r ma used to get the milk in a copper glass or sometime in a aluminium measuring can with a handle. pachsher, or adha litre, ek pa those were some terms used by them. And sometime when she used to get late I used to go to there house with some elders and she used to milk the cow. That milk used to worm. And everything related to those cows, there rooms were a amtter of delight for me.

Something I used to do without anybodies notice is to take milk in two small gasses and pou them together to unite. I used to think doing so will turn them into CADBARY chocolate as it used to come in the advertisement of dairy Milk chocolate.

And something I really used to enjoy is when thakurma used to make sondesh after thikenning and tightening the milk in the copper kadai ( malsha). Right from chilhood she made me an expert to pull out sandesh using saj ( stone blockes of diferent designs). The smell just used to be yummy..and in that form I think milk is also Yummy.

Chana or cottage cheese, that is another way I used to get tortured with. Ma and thakurma used to tell Baba is so strong because dadubhai used to feed him with a spoonfull of chana every evening. But I used to hate the smell. specially once when I caught Jaundice, ma replaced my glass of milk with chana.

But I still remember, that Ma and Rangama used to steal milk from thakurma's ranna ghor and sometimes batasha from thakurghor and have there great treat in afternoons. It seems I used to complain thakurma bout those as I used to keep an eye on everything and keep thakurma informed about everything going around.

The quality of that milk was gradually degrading. So finally didibhai ( sonama's ma) was al set give away her cow. and baba asked one of his worker Subhas kaku to take incharge of that. only he need to do is to give us a litre or so of nice pure milk and he can do anything with the rest. So we really enjoyed nice pure milk for sometime, but I really used to hate drinking that every evening. BUt what to do..dudher chachhi kha..sarger nagal pa..means if you drink milk, you can grow so tall that u will be able to touch heaven..and everybody dreams to be like that!!!

I really laugh at myself when I look back at those sweet milky days..after all the colour of my dreams were also white the..clouded with white wonders.