Skip to main content

Not Bengali enough

Her dad was a Bengali but her mom hailed from Hyderabad. Theirs was a love marriage and she grew up seeing true love for her mom in her dad's eyes and true contempt for her in her grandmother's eyes. For some reason, her grandmother never found anything right in her mom. She could never cook the machher jhol properly, no matter how much she tried and how long she had been cooking. Her lal paad which she so loved would never look "properly draped" on her mom in her grandmother's opinion, no matter that she draped it on every auspicious occasion. In short, her mom could never become a proper Bengali in her grandmother's eyes, no matter how much she tried. But, it didn't matter because it never bothered her dad and he always found her perfect.

He also found their daughter perfect - a perfect amalgamation of two cultures. "Udi baba!" like her dad and "Nakko miyan" from her mom had both found their way in her tongue. She had the most gorgeous almond shaped eyes, so typical of Bengali women. They went perfectly with the dense curls in her hair, just like her mom's. But again, the offspring was also not Bengali enough for her grandmother and she worked day and night to make her one. Rabindra Sangeet was introduced at the age of 3, and she grew up on a daily dose of Bengali literature taught to her by umpteen tutors. Mishti Doi and puchkas was staple diet for her.

She grew up happy and then one day was ready to fly off to far away lands for higher studies. The stuff was being packed and a recipe book was added for her to use while cooking her favourite Bengali recipes. A box of her Bengali books was readied, for where would she get those in foreign lands. Her grandmother instructed her mom to get a "lal paar" from the market for her for the Durgashtami when she would be missing home. She jumped at the thought and went to the market with her mother.

What she came back with made her grandmother cringe and father laugh - She had bought a white and red classic pochampally, a perfect amalgamation of the two cultures, just like her.


© Nishtha Khurana, 2019. All rights reserved. The text as well as the pictures are both subject to copyright and are the property of the author. Please do not copy or reproduce without permission.



Comments

Popular posts from this blog

The Perfect Outfit

Her 4-year old loved imagining stories. His favourites included the ones in the jungle – with tigers and deer and parrots and peacocks. So, when it came to celebrating his birthday, she went looking for the perfect outfit. She looked on all online shops and couldn’t find anything that felt just right. The best she could manage was a leopard print dress. That wouldn’t do. So, she went hopping all the malls and markets, scanning all the shops. There was barely any improvement in the search as the only other option she came across was a zebra print shirt. More searches here and there, and she moved over to bird prints or butterflies. The dresses and shirts, they all looked alike.  What to do? The birthday celebration was just round the corner; and her extensive search yielded no result. Even the husband was fed-up of her obsession to get just the perfect outfit. “Just go for the leopard print – it’s in these days, I hear,” he said as he shook her head. She continued languishing i...

When The Saree Made Her Feel Free

There was a time when the saree signified Patriarchy for her. She used to detest the saree, for the sake of not using a stronger emotion. But now she felt exactly the opposite about it. This story is how that change came about in her and this one saree that was a symbol of that change. She was born and brought up in Delhi where she grew up with two sisters and they all were treated equally at home and had a very normal childhood where there was no partiality towards any single person. So, all the initial years of her life, she was never really taught that she was any less to the opposite gender. Unlike many girls her age, she never had restrictions about the time she could stay out or what she should wear or how she should behave. She had a blissful life until she got married.  Then, she got married… Just entering her 25th year, she walked into a Punjabi family decked up in a bright red chooda. Her parents thought they chose well for her… They had focused on marrying her off in an ...

Her Father's Heir

Chaudhary ji was a very well respected gentleman in this small village. He had huge lands and was reasonably well-off but he was a good man with a heart of gold who would genuinely help his fellow villagers whenever and howsoever he could. That's why they had chosen him as their sarpanch and they trusted his wisdom and relied on his decisions and vision for their village. Although having earned enough to be able to send the kids in his extended family to study at premier schools and colleges in the cities, he himself still worked at the grass root levels, highlighting problems with the authorities and taking initiatives for resolutions wherever he could. Chaudhary ji's only child, a daughter, had just landed in the village. It was an unusual sight as she alighted from the driver's seat of her car. All the men wearing white had lined up in front gate of the house as well as in the huge verandah of their house. The ladies were cramped at the back with their heads covered...