Homecoming Symphony

These days I wake to the quiet embrace of unusual winter mornings in Kolkata. For the first time in years, the city is likely to bid a warm send-off to 2023 with the missing chill only slated to emerge with Janus’ grand return in 4 days from now. Despite the absence of north westerly winds, I find myself immersed in the symphony of homecoming. The air, still crisp and shrouded in fog, carries whispers of nostalgia that weave through the familiar streets I miss when I am away, and grumble about when I return.

At dawn, the first rays of the sun stream through mum’s white lace curtains, casting a patterned glow upon the familiar corners of our home. My father, a silhouette against the early light, rolls back the large brown sliding glass windows of our living room and tends to his Bougainvillea with a devotion that mirrors the roots he’s planted in soil. The kettle whistles, and the clinking of cutlery signals his initiation of the morning tea ritual—the first of many cups he’ll enjoy throughout the day. Maa’s movements begin to echo in the kitchen, accompanied by the faint backdrop of the Facebook reels they’re watching and the familiar acoustics of a city stretching and stirring back to life. These sounds reach me, nestled in bed in that dreamy half-awake, half-asleep state, as I absorb the soothing symphony of home.

I have a feeling that the sounds of maa’s kitchen are more intentional than coincidental. They serve as the day’s starting gun, akin to a flag unfurling at the beginning of a race—a subtle cue for my brother and me to rise and begin our day. Initially disregarded, the race master’s voice suddenly reverberates through the air, and in seconds, sleep dissipates as our feet hasten to kickstart morning chores and rituals. Maa’s hands move with a rhythm born out of years of practice. The clang of utensils, sizzling egg whites or spices in hot oil – each sound tells a story of comfort, of meals shared and traditions upheld. The aroma of masalas surrendering their scents and flavors, expertly tossed and blended by the hands of Maa (and occasionally Papa) delicately matching powders and pastes, will always bring me back to the warmth of home.

Papa’s Spotify plays an old Christmas hymn by The Imperials , a tune that has accompanied countless December mornings in the three homes we have all shared. Its nostalgic notes form a backdrop to the familiar sounds of a neighborhood in slow motion. Children’s voices, the calls of street vendors, and the intermittent honking of passing vehicles compose a cacophony of life that is uniquely Kolkata.

As I wash the breakfast dishes, the rhythmic flow of water turns into a kind of meditation. The clinking of plates and the running water create a calming melody that echoes the essence of home life. The wooden floor boards beneath my feet, cool to the touch, ground me in a reality that transcends borders and reminds me of the warmth of belonging. In the distance, the neighborhood church bells chime, and the syncopated chaos of another winter morning fills the air. In these quiet moments of housework and everyday life, Kolkata becomes more than a city; it is a living, breathing memoir of familial ties and the richness of relationships. I am reminded that for me the heart of Kolkata is not in her famous landmarks or culinary delights but in the everyday, the mundane, and my favorite – the satisfaction that comes from an ordinary day at home.

A Tale of Two Homes

It’s that time of year again.

As the summer sun casts its golden glow over Dubai, my heart has begun to yearn for the distant monsoon-laden skies of my beloved home, Calcutta. Having spent fifteen years in Dubai, my vibrant desert city, I have grown to appreciate its grandeur and cosmopolitan charm. Yet, there remains an indescribable longing that draws me back to the city of my roots, where memories intertwine with rain-soaked streets and the nostalgia and familiar comforts of home.

Dubai, continues to captivate my heart and imagination. The city thrives on the relentless pulse of ambition, each day bustling with a mosaic of cultures and dreams. A symphony of languages fills the air, blending seamlessly with the rhythmic hum of motor vehicles and the occasional calls to prayer. In Dubai, life is a fusion of the past and future, a glittering tapestry woven with dreams and aspirations.

Yet, as the summer holidays beckon, my thoughts drift across the vast expanse of the Arabian Sea to Calcutta, where, as I type this, the monsoon is transforming the landscape into a canvas of verdant hues and swirling mists. The raindrops, breathe life into the earth, unveiling a mystical beauty amidst the sense of decay, that only the rains can evoke. In Calcutta, history permeates every corner, leaving a mark on the city’s spirit. Narrow lanes wind through neighborhoods, revealing crumbling colonial buildings adorned with intricate ironwork balconies. The aroma of street food wafts through the air, mingling with the heady scent of damp earth. The Howrah Bridge, a behemoth of steel, stands proudly, connecting the pulse of the city across the mighty Ganges.

Despite its many drawbacks, I find solace and simplicity at home, in the warmth of family and the familiarity of tradition. The monsoon becomes a symphony of emotions, streets come alive with children splashing in rain-filled puddles, their laughter echoing through the narrow alleyways up to my room on the fourth floor. In the streets, sarees drenched in rainwater create a vibrant kaleidoscope of colors, reflecting the resilience and beauty of the city’s people.

As I prepare to embark on another summer journey back to Kolkata, I am torn between two homes, two worlds that have shaped me in unique ways. Dubai, with its modernity and ambition, offers endless opportunities for growth and adventure. Kolkata, with its nostalgic charm and monsoon-drenched soul, reminds me of the simplicity and profound beauty of life. I hate leaving Dubai, and when the time comes, I will hate to leave Calcutta too.

In this clash of cultures and landscapes, I find myself suspended, belonging to both cities yet truly belonging to neither. It is in this liminal space that I discover the true essence of my identity—a confluence of two homes, two cities that will forever resonate within my being.

In a few days, my plane will soar above the desert dunes, I will close my eyes and savor the anticipation of Kolkata’s embrace and in this interplay of memories and aspirations, I find solace. For I carry within me the spirit of two homes, forever intertwined like the threads of a vibrant tapestry.

The Sounds of Home

Yesterday’s newspaper bore the gut-wrenching headline, “Monsoons delayed by a week to nine days”, … but they’re wrong, as usual. Morning’s sunny skies are long gone, and above us, the heavens are painted in an apocalyptic palette as voluminous charcoal clouds glide gently overhead threatening imminent torrential release.

Picture taken by my father at 5:45 pm, 7.7.2022.

Around me, housewives scurry to bring in their laundry from balconies, rooftops and makeshift hangers, tarpaulin curtains are being strung by shopkeepers, and little children are screaming out to each other from windows and rooftops, as paper kites in freefall land on random terraces around the neighbourhood.

The scene around me has changed in a matter of moments. As thunder begins to rumble in the heavenly corridors overhead, July breezes carry the sounds of the city into every open casement.

A nearby temple has come alive with the blowing of the conch shell. The bells from the church behind my home seem to be ringing in unison as the strong updrafts rock the clappers from side to side. Bells from the anklets of young women tinkle and cyclists announce their approach as they all scurry to find cover.

Returning home is always an assault on the senses. Calcutta is teeming with life, it’s townships dense with people, buildings, flower markets and vendors. The city smells of camphor, dried leaves burning, pungent smog and delectable street food. And since the sights and scents are so compelling, I realise that I’ve rarely ever stopped to listen to and reminisce over the soundtrack of my formative years.

An airplane flying overhead punctuates my reverie and I lean over my terrace to listen to the sounds emanating from the street below. I hear crows hailing the coming deluge , the tinkling from a passing cycle rickshaw, a satsang of ladies in the distance and a damaru player in one desperate attempt to sell his remaining ware – but all of these seem to harmonise spontaneously and add to the lively soundscape of my home.

While I live and work abroad and watch the world whizz by me, ever changing, ever evolving, returning home is to come face to face with a city ageing gracefully and choosing to remain unchanged, immortal even. The sights don’t necessarily make for picture perfect memories if you’re looking for those, but there’s a warmth in the city  not to be found in many modern day Shangri-la’s beyond her borders.  And despite the plethora of reverberations, there is still a charming unison in the tsunami of sounds.

This is not a cacophony of disjointed melodies but a blend  of sound bytes etched permanently in my memory, in fact they are memories in and of themselves that fill my heart with nostalgia and the “bliss of solitude”. These are the sounds of home.

Sounds of Christmas Day

There’s a satsang happening somewhere on our street this evening. Scattered minds united by music and meditation are singing rhythmically and only stopping occasionally between bhajans.

I imagine them sitting on the floor of someone’s apartment, catching up on unfinished conversations or swallowing cups of cardamom tea between verses and reverberations, as the host makes trips to and from the kitchen; her lips only joining in on the beginning and ending of the verses.

Inside my home the scene is quite different. The lights from our six foot Christmas tree have bathed our living room in a soft peach glow. Pa’s Spotify is playing an Elvis styled remix of the traditional “Born in Bethlehm”, and my dog Skippy, has been wandering around the house, looking for a spot to lie down away from footfall of the four serial huggers he shares his space with. He just needs a vantage point that works for him, but also allows him to watch everyone else surreptitiously.

Today is Christmas.

I could reflect on the theology of what Christmas signifies.  But brighter minds than mine have tried to demystify the concept of God, a higher power, a presence that unites all life.  They have read the sacred scriptures of their faiths, written books, and given sermons inspired by what they found. 

But the whole idea of believing in something beyond what our five senses tell us, is because we *know deep within* that it’s right, not because we can prove it.

People of good will, of many faiths, or of no particular faith, feel something different at this time of year. Incomplete as it is by itself, out of the much bigger context in which it belongs, Christmas nevertheless offers us one succinct and valuable insight. It’s humility made human.

Someone much greater than us humbled himself to become like us, for the purpose of showing us how to be happy. He lived and taught us that we should recognize the worth of other people, and not insist on our own greatness. In that way, we can transcend the limits placed on us by our five senses – and touch the eternal.

So today, whether you’re sitting in a Satsang, unwrapping gifts at the foot of your tree, riding an uber to the hottest party in your city or sipping on mulled wine at home with family, Christmas is for you. If you choose love, humility and to belive that He came, so we could live in Hope, you’re celebrating Christmas the way it’s meant to be celebrated.

That’s it. Merry Christmas and a happy, humble New Year to you and your loved ones.

Rainy Day Daydream

Morning did not arrive with the usual chirping of birds, the whistle of the garbage collector or someone in the neighborhood blowing their conch shell. The rain has been relentless and has muted every other sound since late last evening. After days of looking skywards and asking, ‘when will it rain?’, the rain Gods have responded generously with the downpour now even settling into a bit of a rhythm.

My mind goes back to last evening when I spent nearly four hours sitting outdoors listening to the sheets on rain washing over our complex, the acrylic panels that cover the windows of neighboring homes and the leafy overgrown foliage that falls lazily over our compound wall. At peace and reading my Joel Rosenberg novel to nature’s background score could be what ‘bliss’ feels like, I think to myself.

Engrossed by the characters I have been reading about, a strange realization punctuates my thoughts – I think we are the stories we tell ourselves; a little bit of fact, a whole lot of fiction to feel good and even a bit of fantasy to escape from reality. We see ourselves like characters don’t we, ever trying to fine tune the plot, the narration, the reality. I’ve seen some villains and monsters in my life, leaders, and visionaries too and a few jesters here and there. They’re all the protagonist in their own tales. I am too, in mine.

Do seasons have an unsettling impact on you, year after year? It’s not always the disturbing kind of effect, rather some inexplicable transition in the overall mood and essence of living. It might not happen to everyone, but I’d like to believe that seasons and climates stir and muddle a lot of emotions in me as evidenced by this very stream of consciousness reflection.

We are already more than halfway through 2021 and I have experienced two seasons – the extreme summer of the Emirates and the monsoon in Calcutta. I’d love to spend the autumn somewhere in Europe and the winter in the UK with endless opportunities to admire nature’s beauty.

As I type this, my dog sniffs at my ankles, he’s letting me know his water bowl needs to be refilled and that reality doesn’t care about my daydreams. I may never have that European autumn experience or Christmas on a snow lined Oxford Street, but luxuriating in just the though of it was a perfect start to my day.

Legacy

Family faces are magic mirrors. Looking at people who belong to us, we see the past, present and future.

Gail Lumet Buckley

• 

  Marie Amelia Atkins (Age 17)

For the last few days, I’ve been staring at this photograph of my grandma from her wedding day. I wonder if she had any idea how simple, yet profoundly impactful her 82 years would be. I remember her stoking my early love of travel by telling me she was the first in our family to fly on an airplane, travelling from Burma to Bengal, where she met and married her husband at the age of 17!

The short answer is that I can’t quantify her life because her legacy is a living, breathing thing. It resides in her children, grandchildren, and even friends in modest places whom she considered family. Her legacy is alive in the things that we say, and the mannerisms with which we say them, and the glimmers of her physical appearance reflected on all our faces.

There are so many things that grandma taught me directly, and even more things that she has passed on to me indirectly by teaching Pa (who in turn taught me). Grandma at 17 was beautiful, grandma at 82 was picture of life lived bravely, faithfully and resolutely.

Reflecting on this picture of grandma I’m reminded that family is the greatest gift I have received, because from it, I’ve got values that bleed into everything I do. That to me is my grandma’s greatest legacy. Ten years after she left us, life goes on without her, but not a day passes without her far reaching impact touching someone else through us all.

Lights in the Distance

Each year I look forward to traveling back to Calcutta. I will confess, I cringe at the decaying buildings, I grumble until the gurgling carousel at the airport spits out my luggage after an eternity.  I sigh when I see that while I’ve changed, the city has not – she’s still stuck in that characteristic inertia. In spite of all this, the best part of making the journey home is the open arms of family (and snuggles from our fur baby). No other feeling comes close.

I haven’t been home since 2019 and the opening and closing of borders in a Covid world continue to fill me with anxiety and dread. What if…. I stop myself. I don’t even want to put the thought out into the ether.

This weekend the lights in the distance lit up the magnificent #Atlantis as I watched from the sidelines of The Pointe. They glistened and danced in the inky waters that reflected back their luminosity. What a spectacular sight, such a grand reminder of the Shangri-la they welcome us into.

I think it was Aristotle who said that it is during our darkest moments that we must focus on the light. Light belongs to the heart and spirit. It attracts people, it shows the way, and when we see it in the distance, we follow.

I’m not sure what you’re experiencing as you read this but my heart is 3367 kms away, at home. There’s no shame in feeling homesick, it means you come from a happy home and that while things and experiences change us, we begin and end with family.

Walking out of #ThePointe I thought about the future. And, I thought about the last two years, maybe the longest years of my life, maybe the worst. Going forward I guess faith and gratitude matter more. After all the madness, after all the loss, there is still more hope than despair. We’re still here, we’re safe and we’ve been given a new lease on life, literally. We are stronger, we went through a year like we had and somehow came out on the other side more or less, intact. We’ve changed, and we’ve been reminded of what is important. What really matters.

Light is precious in our dark times. No matter what you’re going through, look to the light and whenever it’s possible, be the light. God knows, we all need more of it!

Teachers Learn

This article apprears in the June 2020 edition of Grazia India. In it, I reflect very briefly on my journey with #EdTech and about how important digital competence will be for teachers post #Covid19.

As a student in Kolkata, the only technology I used in my lessons was a calculator, and man would I have been lost without it! There aren’t enough digits and limbs on the human body to help someone calculate, who doesn’t have a mathematical bent of mind. Circa 2006 I was finishing my graduation and B.Ed degree and still spending hours in the college’s dimly-lit library, making copious notes of everything that I would later integrate into my essay type answers. There was an unsaid rule back then, the more you wrote, the more knowledgeable you would seem. So I wrote, and wrote. There was no question of photocopying anything, which self-respecting college student did that?

Cut to 2009, two years into my move to the UAE; I am standing in the centre of a cavernous hall at EdEX MENA, the region’s largest education conference and the focus of the year is educational technology. It was as if someone had flipped a switch and education as I knew it had transformed. I was surrounded by teachers geeking out over gadgets, apps, LEGO, Minecraft, augmented reality and robots. The keynote speakers were erudite educationists who claimed the landscape of education was changing and technology was one catalyst. I felt so intimidated as I realized my skillset paled in comparison to the more cutting-edge practitioners.

With the sudden upheaval of education post the Covid19 outbreak, teachers may find themselves intimidated again. I am conscious that not all countries have kept pace with the changing times, and not all teachers are able to adapt as smoothly as they are expected to. Let’s face it, so many of us were taught under a 19th century model, grew up in 20th century classrooms and are still expected to be a modern-day McGonagall or Dumbledore; as the world grapples with unprecedented disruption.

If 2020 has cemented anything for teacher’s it is this – the landscape of education has undergone another paradigm shift. Successfully balancing work and life, keeping abreast of evolving policies and technologies and dealing with children is akin to ‘survival of the fittest’. I hate that old adage ‘those who can’t, teach’. Nothing could be further from the truth. Teachers today are/need to be consummate professionals with skills in technology, data-analysis, modern pedagogies, medical and life saving skills and they have to teach too!

It’s easy to get caught up in the buzzwords and evolving philosophies, but one thing remains unchanged – children still need teachers who can inspire them, individuals who care about them and also about how they learn. But teachers need to accept reality too, while tech may never really replace teachers, teachers who use tech, might. The burden is on us to either upscale our skills or risk gradual extinction post Covid. It is important to understand is that this is a new experience for us – both students and teachers and so it is imperative that we treat this as a learning experience. Every day, something changes and we need to be patient and gentle with each other as we acclimatize.

It isn’t all doom and gloom though, teachers continue to orchestrate fun learning experiences whether online or in a face to face setting, that being said, always remember to check yourself, your pyjamas and your background before turning on that camera. The last thing we need is another teacher becoming a viral meme sensation.