My Ramble Scramble Pujo Post-3

As I serve food, arrange the pandal, rehearse, make friends, celebrate, have deep discussions and silly conversations, I realize how transient it all is. That, if all goes well, next year, I may not come back. Next year, there may not be a puja for me. That, next year, I will not wonder about why pandals are dressed with skulls and crossbones. Next year, I will not be goading elderly people into dancing on the streets. Next year, there will not be giddy women singing, "Chacha ki chae pila du" to surprised cab drivers. There will be no mass bawling sessions when sisters and friends come back for fleeting visits. There will not be any more foolish haircuts which make one look like a pirate, no more rush of new clothes, no more coming to pandals dressed up in college T shirt because one can not bother about looking presentable. No more minor jealousies and major heartbreaks, no more friends coming in to surprise and delight, no more scuffles behind banners, no more conversations under stars, no more just lying down on the grass and ordering guys about for cold drinks. No more fasting, no more anjali, no more shantirjol. A world devoid of long walks through slushy roads to see uninspiring and often mystifying pandals. A world devoid of comparison of hours spent at Maddox Square to prove how popular one is. No more squealing babies and their squalling parents squeezing through crowds for a better look at an idol who looks the same everywhere. No more horrified sights of a dancing Father. No more obsessed purchases of shoes. No more ramble scramble puja posts. No more home.

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My Ramble- Scramble Pujo Post-II

What should have made me suspect the plot in the first place was the delighted smile with which my mother welcomed me. My mother and I share an unusual relationship where she greets my homecoming with a sepulchral, "Oh, there you are" and I make for the kitchen. Hence, as I said, the delighted smile should have made me suspicious. However, what with being the owner of a pair of spectacles whose lens keep on popping out due to, I like to believe, the intensity of my gaze, but mostly due to the fact that I went and sat upon them once, I failed to notice it completely and walked upon a multitude of the neighbourhood women.

"Oh, good," said one, as she pounced upon me, " we want someone to operate the CD player," and before I knew it, there I was, starting and stopping instrumental music they were singing to. Pujo rehearsals have come to town, and this time, they have selected my house.

It was while I was dozing off to the fifteenth rendition of Aguner poroshmoni, when everyone suddenly stopped singing and asked innocuously, "So what will you people be performing?"

Rather surprised by the sudden change in the lyrics, I managed a "Huh?' before the implication of the question struck me. "Which people?"

"You kids, of course,"said Mrs. M (bless her golden heart, it does do me good to be addressed as a kid at this age). "You will be putting up something right? We have kept the Ashtami slot aside for you people."

"But what people? Everyone has left the city. We are barely a handful. Maybe four, definitely not more than four people. Who will teach us? What could we put up?"

"Excuses," said the lady with the iron resolve, " Set your mind to it and you will manage it."

Thus, three days later, three girls and a piece of paper sat broodingly on a parapet, wondering how to entertain a hundred or so people without sharing any talent between them.

"We have to dance. It is the only thing we all know a bare minimum of," suggested the economist (no, not me, do you think I am the only economist around anywhere?)

"We have three weeks. We are four people and we need to keep dancing for an hour. This better be one of those brilliant brain storming sessions. Think of a theme," said the oldest among us.

"Oh, oh, I know, I know, trance-classical-fusion," I exclaimed.

"Eh? That does not even mean anything!"

"Precisely, so we can do anything and they will think we are doing it!"

"Doing what?"

"It! What we are supposed to be doing. Trance classical Fusion!!"

So we had a theme, which purported to mean nothing absolutely and thus, got us nowhere when it was time to zero in on the music. That was when the economist had the idea to rummage around my playlist.

"But what are you looking for exactly," I asked, much affronted at this invasion of my privacy.

"Oh, you know, the sort of music you weep to. The kind of music no one ever hears of unless you make sure they do."

"New age electronica!! Mostly trance or fusion. Or both. I am not even clear about the genre myself. As about the weeping, I do not weep. The music I listen to is soul searching and my soul just does not happen to be a very happy one."

So we found a few songs which seemed suitable enough to start a programme with. Then, the economist came up with the new idea of doing a Kathak-Bharatnatyam duet. Considering none of us knew anything regarding Kathak, we took up the idea with great fervour and alacrity. We all have flat feet now. But that is not the story.

Looking for the teacher was slightly more difficult. We dared not compose anything ourselves, what with each suffering from a hint of an insecurity complex. Hence, I was packed off to a school friend to make her compose some of the dances. That evening, Jadavpur received a fine sight of me dancing all the way on the roads, trying to remember the steps, with Sru's dictums following them, "Smile more broadly, oh do not, you look like a wolf. Do not look as if you are flirting, look as if you are already in love. You do not have a bun, you have a flower. Pretend you are Ma Durga. Open your eyes. Do not eye that guy. Do not eye any guy. Move your neck, stretch your arm more, try seeing whether there are people around when you stretch your arms next."

"So you are doing something? Should I contact the dressers? Would you like to wear proper costumes," asked the lady with the vampire smile.

"Umm, Bharatnatyam costumes?" I gulped.

"Yes, of course. Since you are doing what is, hopefully, a semblance, that should be appropriate."

"Oh, dear," remarked two of us.

"Eh, why do you not want it," asked the other to me.

"Mumble-wumble," I replied.

"Eh?"

"It makes my hips look large," I replied, less incoherently, blushing a pale crimson.

"Oh, ok, I was concerned with quite another part of my anatomy," said the other one.

"Very well, Bharatnatyam costumes it is," said the lady with the iron resolve and that was that.

The last two weeks, I have found myself either sitting on my toes or balancing myself on one leg, all in the name of dancing. And Pujo. There is no body part which has not hurt. I have discovered muscles I never thought I had, and definitely never expected to pain. However, things are not over yet. As I walked in tonight, the entire battalion smiled at me and asked me how my day was. As I blinked in response, the lady with the sugary sweet voice asked if we would not like to perform to their Rabindra sangeet on Saptami too.

Pujo has arrived. Painful, busy, and entirely delightful.

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My Ramble-Scramble Pujo Post-I

Five Rather Weird Pujo Occurences 2007

• Even at 4:30 a.m. at Maddox Square, it is perfectly possible to meet someone you know, complete with additional props like drunken stupor . Our group had 9 girls and had the innate power to wake up around 73 guys, all resplendent with their cameras and weird hairstyles, which, as everyone knows, is the mating call of our generation. The presence of 7 boys with us could not defeat their purpose. The spirit of Maddox Square glows splendidly in these 73 men.
  

• Houses actually have signs stating "Ei gate-r shamne roll ba Pepsi jatiyo khaddyo grohon korben na (Do not consume eatables like Pepsi and roll in front of this gate)". I still don't see why. Pepsi is possibly the least likely thing one would spill. Unless they used is as an example of the genre it belongs to, alluding to tequilas or beers. Though I do not see people trying to have tequilas on a corner plot at God knows where, where everyone in the world, specially relatives, are liable to see them. But why rolls? I like rolls. Long live rolls. I do not like cockroaches.

• At Ekdalia and Singhi Park, they cordon off people like cows (not people who look like cows, but the act of cordoning them was similar to putting cows in sheds. No, I do not look like a cow). Though I have been told its quite an usual phenomena during pujo. However, what was more creepy was the fact that just a few hours before, I had watched a friend being turned into a cow in a play. Coincidence? I think not. Our existence is an illusion which is preventing us from realizing that we are all cows and after the famed nuclear holocaust, cows will be the only living creatures left for they are actually cockroaches in disguise. What we call cockroaches now are actually the real human beings. For do not they outnumber us all and behave as if they are planning a devious attack to wipe us from the face of earth?

• The major Pujo headlines this year was the fact that both Rani Mukherji and Kajol wore sunglasses on Ashtami. Half of the world was scandalized at this apparent blasphemy in the name of Ashtami Anjali, the other half was busy admiring them. Of course, there is one section left, who do not belong to the world, mainly because of the fact that they do not really understand why it is news. Why is it news? Someone's hair got stuck in the blades of a table fan during Anjali last year at our para. Where were the scandal mongering journalists, I prithee? Does not this incident count as profanity?

• They had a Pandal based on Central Jail. Durga, I am assuming is the warden. Unless it is Durga who is the innocent victim accused of some heinous crime she did not commit, Shiva is her lawyer, Ganesha and all her prison mates and the Asura is therefore either the true perpetrator of the crime or the warden. Unless it was the warden who did it. Damn. Why can't butlers be wardens? Then the butler could do it. Butlers always do it. That is what butlers are for. It justifies their existence.

A lot happened these Pujas. Most importantly, I fell in love. Some people do it madly, some idiotically, some precipitately. I? I do it in all three ways. For I went and fell in love with Gregory Peck. He is dead. But he is gorgeous. He has that aquiline nose I could kill to get into the genes of my future generations. For I have one which would put Indira Gandhi to shame. Does he have a son? A grandson? Does he look like him? I solemnly believe people as good looking as that should reproduce like crazy so that at least one kid turns out exactly like him. Though how Rakesh Roshan begat Hrithik Roshan remains a standing mystery, right after the great question of Who funds Dev Anand movies?


I also broke up with my long standing boyfriend of one year, who turned all of five this year. Reason being he prefers being carried around by my sister rather than me. Any person who prefers my sister to me has absolutely no taste at all. So we decided to end it this year. (I am not a pedophile. I would have waited for him to turn 21 before we got married. Its just that he was not maturing fast enough to realize the enormity of our relationship. Plus, he has a crush on this four year old. I can fight tooth and nail for my man but I cannot defy age. Youth calls to youth. I am nineteen, going on forty, with mid life crisis fast looming. I had no hope.)

Pujo this year was not only about failed romances with deceased men and alliances with babies. It was not only about Pandal hopping either. I hope to write more about it in my next post. Until then
Shubo Bijoya.

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