Slim Shady

During my growing up years in Calcutta we often visited my mama-bari in a narrow little lane in Kaiighat. My uncle (mama) and his wife (my mamima) were kind and big hearted people. Their children were our age group and many a summer holiday I spent in that old and sprawling Kalighat house with my cousins and also the children of the ground floor tenant (bhaarate in bengali parlance)

The bhaarate-babu on the ground floor was Haripada babu and his family.  Hari kaka worked in the Railways and was most often away. We did not know him too well, nor liked him much. However his children Priya and Poltu were good fun and specially good friends of mine. Their mother, Benu kakima was a mild and non interfering lady who I remember even now for her great cooking skills.

Like it always happens, I grew up. Left Calcutta to study in Bangalore. Every holiday would take me to my mamar-bari and more often than not there would be Priya and Poltu back home from their Universities in Delhi and Chandigarh. We would have great fun going for movies and go pubbing on Friday nights. Cricket matches and Book Fairs were a must  However Hari kaka was never around. I asked my aunt and she gave me the story of how  Hari kaka actually abandoned his family. In a slimey and underhand way he went back to his parent's house on the pretext of a death of an aunt. This story of an aunt passing away and subsequent period of mourning (prolonged period, I understand) went on for months. Hari kaka did not come back. He did not send money for house-rent or the children's school fees. Perhaps I was a poor observer. Perhaps pride did not allow Poltu and Priya to show their area of weakness. The bottom line however was there was no support from the father and Benu kakima ran the show on her very modest salary. The general impression I got was that Hari kaka had done a dastardly deed. Abandoning the family is looked-down-upon act in the middle class Bengali society.

A few more years passed and I took up a job in Mumbai. Poltu worked in an office nearby and for both of us going back to Calcutta was a once-a-year affair. We met in Mumbai bars and movie halls. Calcutta boys stick together when they are in a different town. Priya worked in Bangalore and earned enough to send money home to her mother. Poltu too would make a monthly money transfer and I was glad these two friends of mine took care of their mother. After a difficult period at home, at least things were better for them.

 My visits to my mamar baari grew few and far between. All the news I needed of Priya and Benu kakima could be had through Poltu. Not that I met Poltu very often, but we did keep in touch in a superficial way.

Last month I was in Daar-es-Salaam  and after a hard days work a few of us got together at the hotel  bar. The bar was crowded and there was a large ex-pat crowd along with some Indians. A girl looked vaguely familiar but I could not place her. I gave up the idea after a few minutes as a Daar-es-Salaam dance bar is not the the best place in the world to stage a pick up. Besides, I was not interested.The girl was not particularly pretty. In her thirties and looked somewhat careworn.

It was only when I was leaving and at the door that a chance glance at the girl caught my breath. The smile was ever so familiar. It was Priya. Something in me prevented me from rushing across the room. She was with a fun loving ex pat group. She had not recognised me. Perhaps I would not be welcome. Nevertheless I took courage in my hands and walked softly till I was quite close. She turned around and in one small second all the tenderness came back to her face. It was the same old vivacious Priya that I knew. The gentle submissive Priya of Calcutta. The second was only a second. The magic passed and it was lost. Immediately  her face became hard again. She seemed to be a tough young woman with  hard and shifty eyes. Yes, we spoke for a few minutes. We asked after our families. She offered no explanations as to what she was doing in Daae-es-Salaam and I did not like to pry. This hard and calculative young lady was not the Priya I knew.

I got back to India and decided to keep quiet about this meeting. There was something dodgy about Priya and it irked me. It was not something I understood.

I came to Calcutta soon after and made a trip to my my mamar baari and to Benu kakima. I heard from kakima how Priya had distanced herself from the family. Her exit from Bangalore was shoddy. She gave out she was going to Tanzania for a short 2 month stay, which became 3 months and then of course a few years. 

 "It was all  work related and of course no one minded a relocation, but it could have been done in a more straight forward way"  That is all Benu kakima
had to say. I once again drew back into my shell and could not get myself to tell kakima that I had met Priya a month back. I am a coward.

What struck me was the 'escape route' of both Harikaka and Priya being the same. After ten years the family trait resurfaces and both were rather slim-shady exists.

HIRAETH

Nostalgia is a peculiar feeling. It is more precisely a state of mind or a mood that stays with one for a while, and then goes away. It certainly should not be staying on. Missing home, missing a part of your life, missing a person is not quite nostalgia. It is not homesick-ness.

The English language has no clear word for this intense feeling of nostalgia that grips everybody once in a while.The Welsh however has a word that expresses this feeling. Hiraeth. The Turks say Hasret. The Portuguese have the word Saudade. All denote something that is now distant. Something that can not be got back. Something unreachable and unattainable in the present time frame. A longing, an yearning for the past (home, person, situation) with a great deal of love and affection. Memories that are treasured and held in high esteem.

All men (and I dare say animals too, because they are more human than most men) go through such Hiraeth phases, School children long for home specially those who go to boarding schools. I worried myself sick because I was away from home and my family for most of the year. Even in the University stage, the feeling of Hiraeth would not leave me. I still had this constant feeling of nostalgia and yearning for something that had gone by and was not attainable any longer.

There is little fundamental difference between Hiraeth (Weish) and Hasret (Turkish). Both the groups of people have strived hard to attain economic independence. They have fought for the freedom of their land. They travelled for long periods, they stayed away from home and family for long periods. They treasured the memories of times gone by. They valued this sentimental feeling of nostalgic longing.

I empathise with this feeling. School, home, family, our pets, friends and their company are memories I cherish I do not wish for these situations to return. I will probably hold them dear to me as 'memories' rather than 're-meets' Personally I do not have much faith on an 'Yarrow revisited' situation

I live in a social situation where most of the younger generation has moved away from our city in search of 'better career opportunities'. It is perhaps true that they need more freedom from social bindings. They need more money. They need, they want and they want and they want even more. They will get what they want. They are smart. However, they tend to lose out on the filial bindings. Home to many of these young migrants is some Utopian idea which is created and held tight. They left home in their teens. Got their degrees, got employed and moved on in life. Their visits to their old homes are formal visits. Parents do not matter much. The family circle is anyway small (nuclear families). They 'miss' home on Facebook and blogs, but take great care to limit any face-to-face social interaction. Of these young yuppies some are intelligent and therefore more thinking, Some are plain greedy. Some cut away from their roots to gain self-reliance and lose the sense of belonging (and of course absolve themselves of all responsibilities). They are the foolish souls who gain a little bit of short-term freedom and lose their identity and place in the land and people of their birth. No Hiraeth here. No Saudade either. 

They may 'miss' home, but are not of an intellectual status to comprehend that the 'home' has long been lost. A two-minute monthly phone call does not qualify as "I am phoning my folks". They come back to the long lost family and are treated as 'guests' (read 'strangers' instead). There remains a lack of warmth, from both sides. The ties have long since been severed. No fault on either side. Priorities are different. Ethics vary. Morals are rigid or eroded. And most important economic status is so very different that glitzyness takes priority over class. A jacuzzi or an air conditioner overtakes the old world red cemented floor and wide open windows. So there is no 'home' to go back to. No family to call their own. These rootless rolling stones perhaps should build new homes and adhere to them. Ditch the past. Carry no baggage. 

Is there any Hiraeth for them? For Hiraeth is too precious a feeling.

Belief

Some 50 years back my sweet old Catechism Teacher told me that Archangel Lucifer was annoyed with  whatever the system was in Heaven and Lucifer appeared before the throne of God with his legion of angels and declared "We are not going to serve you any longer" 

The thought of a rebellion in Heaven thrilled me no end. The least bit of impertinence about wet shoes or chilly rooms brought frowns from the nuns, and here was a war of sorts in Heaven !!! 

However, to continue the sermon, the All Mighty God (not willing to take such insolence) ordered Archangel Michael to throw Lucifer out of Heaven, along with all his rebellious followers. Michael with his flaming sword banished Lucifer and his gang to Hell. In Hell Lucifer became the Devil and his loyal gang members all burnt in Hell.

These stories fascinated me. My father being a strict non-believer, Mum had arranged a rigid religious instruction system for me. This resulted in the fact that I at once doubted and questioned Catechism. I loved the stories at age 5. They fascinated me. In the next five years I learnt  more about religion and completely ignored the fact that there could be a God. However, that Gods could fight and go into serious battle was always an interesting thought. How could conflicts occur in such paradisaical realms? How could there be quarrels and opposition in an area of oneness? I preferred to like the stories that religion taught me and leave them as stories. Not to put my faith in them.

Later when we were taught Latin I understood that the name Lucifer was derived out of two words. Lux (light) and ferre ('to carry' or  'to do'). Lucifer literally means Carrier or Bringer of Light.Was the Devil to carry the light to the poor heathens?Was he the Bringer of Light? My realisation based on my shcool-level Latin made the whole understanding more complex and bewildering.

In another ten years I thoroughly studied the Old Testament, the Vedas, the Egyptian Book of the Dead, Indian mythology, Greek mythology and Tibetan dzyans and came to a dead-certain conclusion that there were frequent battles in Heaven, amongst Gods in all these Holy Books. Interesting battles, delightfully thrilling issues, fire and flame, blood and gore all bristling with contradictions and horror stories. Some could be termed as offensive and demanded proof. I flatly refused to put my faith in any religion, and only because of my Mum at home I did not openly refute God. I was more than willing to go to Church or to attend the Puja, but only because it helped me to think while in Church and the Sanskrit sholkas made interesting translation pieces.

Reasoning comes more easily to me than blind acceptance. The fact that Dad and his strong teaching of Logic and Mathematics did not help the fact that I was a complete sceptic by the time I left school.

Space and Time theories learnt in school and later seemed that God is best left as a myth. The Christian Church, Hinduism and other religion taught us to concede to God. I conceded to Science. I was not irreligious. Never irreverent.It's just that my comfort zone was in what I could reason out in my mind.With my head.

In addition to the Theory of Relativity, Einstein formulated the lesser known theory of gravitation. Both explain macrocosm, our 'great universe' so to speak. Another all time favourite physicist of mine Werner Heisenberg proposed the formulas of quantam mechanics. The behaviour of the microcosm is very well explained by the theory of quantum mechanics.What happened to those hydrogen subatomic particles which set up our world. Fortunately enough both gravitation theory and quantum physics quite adequately explains the origin of the universe. Space and Time came into being simultaneously. Astrophysicists had a ball of a time. Tedious calculations were done by super-genius men. Plato's "Timaeus" was unearthed once again and dusted. The concept of God and Creation was openly being challenged. Theologians argued about the transformation of Godly creatures into Human bodies.Transposition of soul was being battled and debated. 

It was a wonderful period to grow up in. What with Dad at home  declaring that he had known Heisenberg at the Wilhelm Institute for Physics (later renamed Planck Institute for Physics). In college I was learning the hydrodynamics of turbulent flows and ferromagnetism. Einstein declaring "God does not play dice" as oppose to the omnipresence of the Almighty. There was little room for God.

I spent more than a lifetime adhering to my belief. Teaching a science that demanded a high level of deductive powers and total conceptual clarity  of Physics.

Now that I am so much older I have learnt to be less rigid. My analysis of my own theories I can now question  and also defend. Certain facts Science and Logic perhaps can not not explain. I have always treated religion with contempt, but age has taught me that there perhaps may be a Superior Being. A Maker. Just a small may be. Religion remains bunkum.

'Spiritualism' and 'Philosophy' are acutely powerful words. It all started with these two words.