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The Girl In Red.
I saw her for the first time, when I, in a grumpy mood exited our car and waited nervously, twisting my pyjamas pocket fibres inside out for no particular reason whatsoever, while my mother and my elder sister, whom I respectfully call as ‘Didi’, that denotes elder sister in the tongues of both the Bengali and Hindi languages.
I was 15 then, a few months short of completing my state board exams. Even that excuse no longer works with my family to escape from the yearly outings to the Puja. So the idea of me enjoying, with my friends in the ground back home, while the rest of my family went to the puja, without the only son of their house was definitely not acceptable. At least for them.
So I was dragged against my wishes and brought here for the umpteenth time. A very regular person to visit here, with my family of course, every year. I could go around anywhere and not be lost, even if blindfolded.
We, that means my father, my mother, didi and me, were all gathered here for the annual Durga Puja festival, that occurs every year on the month of October, at the end of the holy month of Navaratri. Dad was from Bengal and my mom hails from the southern part of India. The very concept of getting to glimpse the huge pomp and festive gusto of the Dasara pooja, excited her and the same even applied to Didi, who seemed to enjoy it for her own reasons.
I, on the other hand was determined that I’d be anywhere else but here. This place didn’t agree very much with me for several reasons. One, that I’d completely lost my touch of the Bengali tongue which I’d to wriggle out uncomfortably, every time someone I knew or was supposed to know, for that matter, came up to me to asked me about my hal-chal, that is basically to poke their nose into my life in a more sociable manner. Those usually resulted in deeply embarrassing moments.
My sister managed somehow, but I, with my now completely changed colloquial Tamil tongue, a result of staying put in Chennai for nearly 12 years, managed somehow not to laugh at my own bad pronunciation of that language.
Another one was the endless number of relations who were, for some forgotten reason, connected to either my father or my mother or sometimes even my mother’s mother. Typical Bengali behaviour you can call it.
That sudden look of recognition largely written on their faces as they see us getting down and removing our slippers, as per the Hindu custom before entering any place of worship. They’d come and hug me, making me think hard to remember who these people were, as I tried to escape their over zealous perfumery display on their larger-than-necessary selves.
Sometimes I’d recognize and smile too, on very rare occasions, stealthily looking for cameras around me. Sometimes even my sister would look puzzled at me and gesturing to one of the unidentifiables, who were hugging her with great fervour and ask me who they were, to which I’d mostly reply as no idea and we’d laugh at each other in silence as we survived their onslaught.
So finally, after my usual escapade from the clutches of the maddening relatives crowd and freeing my legs of my chappals, just as I had entered the Community Hall, I saw her.
I was 15 then, a few months short of completing my state board exams. Even that excuse no longer works with my family to escape from the yearly outings to the Puja. So the idea of me enjoying, with my friends in the ground back home, while the rest of my family went to the puja, without the only son of their house was definitely not acceptable. At least for them.
So I was dragged against my wishes and brought here for the umpteenth time. A very regular person to visit here, with my family of course, every year. I could go around anywhere and not be lost, even if blindfolded.
We, that means my father, my mother, didi and me, were all gathered here for the annual Durga Puja festival, that occurs every year on the month of October, at the end of the holy month of Navaratri. Dad was from Bengal and my mom hails from the southern part of India. The very concept of getting to glimpse the huge pomp and festive gusto of the Dasara pooja, excited her and the same even applied to Didi, who seemed to enjoy it for her own reasons.
I, on the other hand was determined that I’d be anywhere else but here. This place didn’t agree very much with me for several reasons. One, that I’d completely lost my touch of the Bengali tongue which I’d to wriggle out uncomfortably, every time someone I knew or was supposed to know, for that matter, came up to me to asked me about my hal-chal, that is basically to poke their nose into my life in a more sociable manner. Those usually resulted in deeply embarrassing moments.
My sister managed somehow, but I, with my now completely changed colloquial Tamil tongue, a result of staying put in Chennai for nearly 12 years, managed somehow not to laugh at my own bad pronunciation of that language.
Another one was the endless number of relations who were, for some forgotten reason, connected to either my father or my mother or sometimes even my mother’s mother. Typical Bengali behaviour you can call it.
That sudden look of recognition largely written on their faces as they see us getting down and removing our slippers, as per the Hindu custom before entering any place of worship. They’d come and hug me, making me think hard to remember who these people were, as I tried to escape their over zealous perfumery display on their larger-than-necessary selves.
Sometimes I’d recognize and smile too, on very rare occasions, stealthily looking for cameras around me. Sometimes even my sister would look puzzled at me and gesturing to one of the unidentifiables, who were hugging her with great fervour and ask me who they were, to which I’d mostly reply as no idea and we’d laugh at each other in silence as we survived their onslaught.
So finally, after my usual escapade from the clutches of the maddening relatives crowd and freeing my legs of my chappals, just as I had entered the Community Hall, I saw her.
