Re : updates & a Birthday

It seems like ages since I've last posted. And indeed, so much has happened in between !

Bapi turned 60. For the first time, all the members of our apartment celebrated Saraswati Pujo together, as one big family. K and I participated in the Republic day annual sports at my baaper baarir para (the locality my parents reside in) and didn't fare as miserably as we thought we would. One particular Sunday, we survived a whole night of dirty abuse, brick and glass pelting precipitated by our attempt to get rid of some rowdy neighbourhood mischiefmakers and had TV channels and the police put us all under literal house arrest as they seemingly took action against the anti-social activities of the former. Our ancient (the style, I mean) windows are about to be replaced by aluminium sliding glass ones and the entire house painted. I'm back in academics, doing an evening course on Editing & Publishing at Jadavpur University. Rashi and I visited the Kolkata Book Fair after several years and found it as poorly managed as ever, probably just a wee bit less dusty. Yes, there's a lot that you guys have missed and which I hope to be able to update you about (well, not at one sitting perhaps, but soon).

Let's get started. Bapi turned 60 and we decided to host a party at our flat. It was on a relatively large scale, considering our flat isn't big enough to comfortably contain 30 plus people at any given moment. We decided to save ourselves from overexerting ourselves and so outsourced the food. The menu consisted of crispy chicken and vegetable pakoras from our local favourite GOCS, as starters, while dinner comprised chicken biriyani and chicken chnaap from Shiraz or veg pulao, dal makhani and matar paneer, home-made raita and payesh and store-bought nolen gurer (molasses) rosogolla. The highlight of the party, I personally think, were the cake itself and the decorations (the latter courtesy me). Each experience has its bitter side, though, and this was no exception. Some invitees showed their utter lack of social etiquette by trying to be forcibly didactic in the kitchen (which already contained too many kitchen paraphernalia and four very hard-working people, two of them by nature extremely antagonistic to any unwelcome intrusions). One (gentle)man unabashedly announced that chicken biriyani with chicken chnaap was a silly combination (we should have considered asking him to sponsor the event). Another (lady) behaved as if our kitchen was a public hotel,placing random demands for onions etc to the concerned staff. A few people claimed they were ill and yet, continued to talk into their cellphones nonstop, as if there was nothing called society to take into consideration. Somewhat miraculously, all these histrionics - besides my cutting my fingers on some shards of glass while cleaning our bathroom and taking a painful tetanus injection that very evening - did not result in impairing my mostly stoic appearance. Titai (my sister-in-law) was a revelation though, managing to manoeuvre all the tortuous challenges of entertaining with consummate and disarming ease. I must say that I was very glad when the rigmarole ended though. One can only put up with a circus for a limited amount of time.

The cake :

The gathering :

Dinner :

Adda :

Nicotine and alcohol :

I hope to be able to update you all about the other events too in equal detail. Next day ! :-)