Balaka Basu's Blog, page 18

Review of Ikigai #ReadBravely #ReadingChallenge

Ikigai is the first book that I read in February and the fifth book that I read in 2019 after Poonachi, The Girl on the Train, Norwegian Woods and Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows. Ikigai is a book that talks about the Japanese secret to a Long and Happy life. This is a self-help motivational book that encourages the reader to find the ‘purpose’ of their lives. Most motivational or spiritual books ask us to find the ‘meaning’ of life but this book emphasizes that the ‘purpose’ of our lives is more important as it keeps us motivated, happy and alive. Ikigai is not a complicated thing but a simple ‘purpose’ that is unique to each of us. Ikigai is basically finding happiness in simple things that we love doing, be it painting, singing, dancing, cooking or gardening.

Ikigai is equivalent to the French raison de etre but the Japanese would simply put it as the reason we love to get up every morning. Japan as a country has always emphasized on the importance of happiness in everyday life. Japanese people love to work. They work not for the sake of fame or money only, they work for the sake of love for work and that is the reason their workmanship has attained a unique finesse.

This book is divided into chapters where anti-aging secrets are revealed by Centenarians. It is seen that these secrets are often simple things like smiling and staying happy with friends and family and staying active all the time. This book discusses how to find ‘flow’ in everything and grow spiritually without growing old.

This book also delves into the theoretical aspect of Ikigai in the context of Buddhism, Stoicism, and  Consumerism. As I am a practicing Buddhist I could see the connection between Buddhist philosophy and Ikigai. As Buddhists, we are also trained to attain ‘happiness’ through simplicity, compassion, and discipline.

A large section of the book deals with contemporary issues like stress, excessive usage of smartphone, the lure of social media and helps the reader see how these things are distracting us from finding our Ikigai and ‘flow’. In this book, Ikigai diet and eastern exercises like yoga and tai chi are also discussed. I found this book extremely relevant and would recommend others to read and find their unique Ikigai. The next book that I am reading is The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.

The prompts this book adheres to from #WriteTribeReadingChallenge2019 are

# A book written by someone of a different nationality/color/ethnic group than you

# A book written by an author who is new to you

# A book you bought just because of its cover/a book with a beautiful cover

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Pisa- The First Glimpse of Tuscany

I fell in love with Italy when I was a student of class VII. My geography teacher Mrs. Banerjee was a beautiful lady who had visited Italy. During her class, she used to narrate us stories from her visit. She narrated the story so beautifully that I could almost visualize the lanes and canals of Venice. At the end of her lecture, she had said ‘When you grow up you should visit Italy’. Back in those days, it was a distant dream, nevertheless, the dream stayed on with me and almost 20 years later I was standing beneath the ‘Leaning Tower of Pisa‘ fulfilling my dream.

 

Italy conquered my dream not only because of my Geography teacher but also because of all the movies that I watched with my parents. Later on, Italian football team and its Roman godlike handsome footballers Maldini, Roberto Baggio, and Alessandro Del Piero just added more fuel to my dream.

I fell in love with Tuscany after watching my hero Anthony Bourdain meandering through the cobbled lanes of a small Tuscan village. Later on, when I watched the movie ‘Under the Tuscan Sun‘ I knew I have to visit Tuscany. Therefore, my first destination in Italy was Pisa that is located in the heart of Tuscany.

When my plane was circling above Tuscany just before landing I could see how serene and picturesque Tuscany is quietly nestled amidst green hills with the Mediterranean washing the edges of this small Italian district. Tuscany is exactly as pretty as we see in pictures. It has a lazy pace and everything seems ethereal.

When we landed in Pisa it was almost time for the sun to set. We took the Pisa Mover shuttle train from Pisa airport and went to Pisa Central Station. There is a luggage locker at Pisa station where one can keep luggage for the whole day for five euros. We kept our luggage and then took the orange bus to reach the Leaning Tower. It takes around 15 minutes to reach. However, it would have been better if we could have walked through the small town as it would have given us the opportunity to soak in the flavours of Tuscany but time constraint did not allow us that luxury.

When we entered the premise of Leaning Tower it was almost dark and we wasted no time and started clicking photos. There was a huge group of over-enthusiastic Chinese tourists who were posing to click a wierd selfie with the tower. Their enthusiasm almost made me forget the tower as I was more engrossed in their antics. Sorry, for the distraction in the flow of the article but I had to vent out.

Looking at the Leaning Tower I felt a strange calmness. The sun was setting against the white tower and the orange glow made the tower look like something from a different world. The manicured lawn, the sparkly white cathedrals, the setting sun, the orange hue dusk added a strange mysticism. Initially, I was regretting that we were late and should have come earlier to get a better view but then I realized that Pisa has a unique charm in the evening that not many tourists are fortunate to experience. In Pisa, I also enjoyed my first authentic Italian aubergine pizza and Italian freshly brewed coffee.

 

On our way back we bought souvenirs from my Bangladeshi brothers about whom I wrote in my earlier post. We again took the orange bus. Pisa gets quite deserted after sunset and almost appears like a ghost town. Most tourists in Pisa are day-trippers who visit Pisa from nearby Florence or other towns and therefore finding anything after sunset is difficult. We took our train to Florence from an almost empty Pisa station and left this small Tuscan town with lovely memories.

Review of Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows #ReadBravely #ReadingChallenge2019

Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows is the fourth book that I read in January 2019. The first three books are Poonachi, The Girl on the Train and Norwegian Woods respectively. The title of this book intrigued me. I had also read a few reviews and most readers had praised it. This book was also picked up by Reese Witherspoon in her Reese’s Book Club. Honestly, I had great expectations from this book. However, when I started reading this book it felt more like an Ekta Kapoor mega soap opera where there are too many characters and the writer forgets what she/he was writing and the narrative goes all over the places. I had expected that this story would be about the widows however this story is not about them. This story is about a British-Punjabi girl called Nikki and how she solves the murder mystery of two Punjabi girls called Maya and Karina Kaur. The erotic stories of widows are thrown into this book exactly the way ‘item songs’ are thrown in Bollywood movies. The erotic stories are nothing poetic rather they are sexual fantasies of these middle-aged women that I found raunchy and titillating. These women are apparently shown getting empowered by talking about their sexual fantasies as if only way middle-aged women can get empowered is by talking about raunchy sex. Why would they want to come to a class only to talk about sex was beyond my understanding. The logic of this book is as logical as “Saans bhi kabhi bahu thi.”

The premise of the story had potential but the author was not able to exploit it to full potential. This story is the East meets West but it fails to talk about the Indian diaspora. If you have read Jhumpa Lahiri you would know how beautifully she had treated the East-West dilemma but this book deals the dilemma exactly the way Karan Johar deals in his movies. After the first 200 pages, the book became extremely boring and repetitive. The narrative was not moving forward and only new characters with little contribution to the storyline were getting added. In this book, the author tried to deal with a lot of issues that the diaspora population faces like xenophobia, immigrant status etc. It also talks about honor killing, arranged marriages, Izzat and everything that is associated. The author tried to deal with too many things in the scope of one book making it a bit hotch-potch. It could have been an excellent read if the focus would have been on the widows rather than a murder mystery. I would rate this book 2/5.

The prompts this book adheres to from #WriteTribeReadingChallenge2019 are

# Book written by a female author

# A book set in a country that you visited/want to visit

# A book recommended by a celebrity

# A book on crime-solving

# A book written by an author who is new to you

The prompts this book adheres to from #PopsugarReadingChallenge are

# A book you think should be turned into a movie (ideal masala film for Bollywood)

# A book recommended by a celebrity

# A book featuring an amateur detective (co-incidental rather than amateur)

# A book written by an author from Asia

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Gratitude List January 2019

Midnight Faluda: The year 2019 began with midnight faluda. Once upon a time, we used to welcome the new year while dancing to Bailamos at New Year’s party, but now we have grown old and our knee hurts to dance therefore this year we had no plans of partying. I was planning to fall asleep at my usual time but the better half decided to take us on a long drive. When the clock struck 12 am 2019 we decided to treat ourselves to faluda from a food truck. It was the best faluda I ever had.

Reading: This month I finished reading four books. I finished reading Poonachi, The Girl on the train, Norwegian wood and Erotic stories for Punjabi widows. Books are my best friend and it felt great spending time with my best friend.

Meeting Cousins: I have two cousin brothers from my paternal side but hardly three of us get together. Last time three of us met was at my wedding, but this time during our trip to Ahmedabad, we got the golden opportunity to meet. It was such a joyful meeting when all three of us met. The entire day went in a jiffy.

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Statue of unity: On our way to Ahmedabad we took a detour and visited the statue of unity, apparently the tallest statue in the world. Honestly speaking I was not quite impressed, especially considering the fact that 35000 crores of the taxpayer’s money were spent on it.

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Indroda Dinosaur park: My son used to dream of becoming a paleontologist when he was a kid, however, he outgrew that dream but this time when we visited the Indroda Natural Park in Gandhinagar, I could see glimpses of that small boy of mine. He was super excited after seeing dinosaur fossils, eggs and statues.

Nephew got a Job: my husband’s nephew was struggling to get a job in Kolkata. I usually never request anybody for jobs but this time I made an exception and called up almost all my friends and family in Kolkata for this boy. Thankfully, he got not only one but four jobs. I am grateful to all who helped me with this task.

Son’s Sports Day: My son got selected for the final race in his school’s annual sports day but unfortunately he did not win the race but the good part is his defeat taught him the lesson of how to become a true sportsman. I even taught him about Ubuntu and how it is important to be compassionate.

Blog Birthday: My blog Trina Looks Back turned two. It feels great to see my blog baby grow.

Books and more books: The better half gifted me a bunch of books that were in my TBR. He is not himself much of a reader yet he was thoughtful enough to bring me books that I love. Thank god for small pleasures.

Netflix and other movies: I watched Uri at the theatre with my bestie. This month I binge-watched Netflix a lot and watched a few beautiful movies. The movie that I particularly loved was Roma, Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, Macher JHol and Mayurakshi.

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Linking this post to #MondayMusings hosted by dear Corinne.

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Happy to join Vidya Sury and her Gratitude Circle

How Bengali helped me in Europe

Ahead of my Europe trip, I downloaded a language learning app called Duolingo and started learning Italian and French. In Europe, I observed from my previous trips that it becomes extremely difficult without knowing the local dialect, I was especially worried about France because the French are well known for their aversion to speaking English. Learning Italian was relatively easy as in college I had studied Spanish and Italian proved to be a close cousin of Spanish. However, French was difficult, especially the pronunciation. Each time I practiced French words in my Bengali accent, my son and his father burst out into giggles and even started mimicking me. I became the French version of Sashi from English Vinglish. They could probably make a movie on my French tutorials and name it French Wench.

Finally, the D-day arrived and I landed at Charles De Gaulle airport. Strangely I saw that the signages were written in French, English, and Chinese. I was outraged. The patriot in me almost started an Indo-Sino war protesting this. Why Chinese and not Hindi?? Kya hain China mein jo hum mein nahi hai?  Anyways, I moved ahead and found that thankfully everyone understood English and I also found a fellow Indian. I wrote about that episode in an earlier post.

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Next day, after our walking tour of Paris from Champs de Elysses to Shakespeare and Company, we were tired, exhausted and famished. We were looking for a cheaper place to eat out and had no mood to enter Macdonald or Burger King. We found a small lane full of small restaurants, they looked reasonable. We started scanning the menu of each hotel. I heard someone calling out from one of the restaurants “Madam, idhar aao, accha khana milega”. It is always great to hear your own language in a foreign country. The place looked clean and had reasonable prices so we accepted his invitation and entered.

I am not really great at small talks but I am a curious person therefore whenever I travel abroad I end up talking to a lot of people, only to know them better. This man was no exception and I started talking to him. I asked “aap kahan se ho?”

He replied “Bangladesh se”

I immediately switched to my mother tongue Bengali and asked: “From which part of Bangladesh?” Bengali is spoken in both Bangladesh and the Indian state of West Bengal and I hail from the later.

“Dhaka” He replied.

“Dhaka is also our erstwhile native place,” I said.

There was a prominent excitement in his voice and he kept asking me a lot about my erstwhile home. I noticed, he shifted from Madam to Aapa (sister). He told me a lot about himself. He came to France 17 years back and had no idea about France or French but now he can fluently speak French, thanks to his African-French wife with whom he has two children. Every year he visits his parents in Dhaka. He recently bought a new restaurant and that was about to open in January. When I was leaving he said “Aapa, porer bar apni r Dulabhai amar dokane asben kintu” (next time when you come please come and visit my shop with your husband). The warmth in his voice melted my heart and I literally felt that he was a brother who wanted his sister to share his happiness.

Next day we were in Pisa. After sunset, we were loitering aimlessly inside the Leaning Tower complex. We had our train at 9pm and we had nothing to do so we started looking through the souvenir shops. The salesmen looked Asian; to be more precise they looked like Bangladeshis. I started talking to them in Bengali and soon the conversation steered towards which part of Bangladesh they came from. This time when they asked me where I hail from my prompt reply was Dhaka.

My Canadian friend wanted to buy some souvenirs. They gave a 50% discount saying “Aapa uni apnar bandhobi, onake kena damei dimu” (sister, she is your friend so we are selling her at cost price). We got this privilege only due to our common roots.

When we reached Rome, we were searching for our hotel. It was late in the night and my mobile was not working, therefore, couldn’t use GPS. As usual, I spotted a Bangladeshi face amidst the Italian crowd. He not only gave us the direction but also accompanied us to the hotel. All through the way he was cautioning us about speeding cars, pickpockets, late night drunkards. He made us feel safe in a foreign country. On my last day in Rome, I was extremely tired and the Bangladeshi fruitseller opposite my hotel noticed that and said “Aapa, you look so tired, go and take rest” I really appreciated his friendly concern.

Wherever I went in Italy, I found Bangladeshis and I started speaking to them in Bengali. Some sold me stuff at a cheaper rate, few of them gave me good food but mostly what we shared was a connection to a common land where Bengali is spoken. I found a longing in them for a country they have left behind. In me, they found a fragment of their home and thus for some I became Aapa (sister) and for others, I became Bhabhi (sister-in-law). In Bengali we use a word called “antorikota” that means “familiarity and love” while speaking to them I found that antorikota. I told my friend that it was useless to learn Italian because all over Italy the only language I spoke was Bengali, in fact, I never speak so much Bengali even in Mumbai.

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Linking this post to #MondayMusings hosted by dear Corinne.

 

 

Review of Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami #ReadingChallenge2019

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I once read a review of Norwegian Wood where the reviewer wrote:

“It’s like travelling up a mountainside on a dark gray day. Yes, the beauty is still there, but you have to look for it. You don’t even notice the beauty before you because of the overcast skies. The higher up you go, the more drained you feel. At the very end, as you reach the top, you’re bone weary and exhausted, both mentally and physically, but suddenly you can see above the clouds and it’s so bright that your eyes hurt and the whole mountain suddenly looks different…you suddenly feel renewed…the world you thought was gloomy and gray is suddenly bright and new….and beautiful”—Connie, Goodreads reviewer.

I couldn’t agree more with the reviewer; this is exactly how one would feel while reading Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami. This is a book that will evoke pain in you. It will make you think and at times it will churn your heart so much that you will have to put it down, only to feel compelled to start reading again after a while. It can be compared to a song that is melancholic yet melodious.

This is my third book in 2019. I finished the first two books Poonachi and Girl on the Train in three and four days respectively. However, it took me 16 days to finish Norwegian Wood. I agree that work, traveling and Netflix contributed to this delay, nevertheless, I read this book at a slower pace because I wanted to cherish this book exactly the way I cherish Darjeeling tea on a rain-soaked afternoon, sipping slowly to let the taste and warmth of tea linger in my mouth for long.

I loved this book also from a personal point of view as I could relate to it a lot. Firstly the song ‘Norwegian Wood‘ by the Beatles is my all time favorite and secondly the character of Midori reminded me of myself. Midori is a 20-year-old girl who tends to her dying father, she misses her lectures to go to the hospital, she is used to death and sickness, she doesn’t cry after her father dies, she is strong yet needs comfort, the student revolution appears hypocritical to her, she realises that those who talk about revolution do it as a status symbol and not because they mean it, she has a boyfriend who doesn’t really understand her and then she falls for another boy who has commitment issues. She almost eerily went through the same turmoil as me.

Death and unrequited love are almost two protagonists in this story. A major part of the book deals with death and how it affects the living. Most characters in this book kill themselves and that makes the book so gloomy. Kizuku, Naoko, Naoko’s sister, Hatsumi all kill themselves. Grief kills Midori’s father and lecherous lifestyle kill the soul of Nagasawa. I loved the portrayal of Nagasawa, he is the one who finds himself from the bed of one woman to the other yet he is the one who is the most emotionally volatile character. He almost appears emotionally sick. Everyone in this book is unable to find love, be it Toru, Naoko, Reiko, Hatsumi or Midori. Finally, Toru, the protagonist survives all the ordeals to tell the story after 20 years. The narrative style of this novel is lucid and seamlessly goes from one to the other. This book is often referred to as autobiographical and it certainly has that biographical element and style.

The prompts this book adheres to from #WriteTribeReadingChallenge2019 are

A book that is a Translation
A book written by someone of a different nationality/color/ethnic group than you
A book set in a country that you visited
A book written by an author who is new to you
A book made into a movie

The prompts this book adheres to from #PopsugarReadingChallenge are

A book that makes you nostalgic
A book set on a college or University campus
A book written by an author from Asia
A book with a two-word title

The book that I am reading now is Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows by Balli Kaur Jaswal.

 

 

 

The Autumn Tree #ThursdayTreeLove

“How beautiful the leaves grow old. How full of light and color are their last days.”- John Burroughs

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Last weekend I was in Ahmedabad. I spotted this tree in the premise of the Adalaj Stepwell. The tree with the autumn leaves caught my fancy and I had to click it for Parul’s #ThursdayTreeLove. If you look carefully, the smaller trees are all green and only this tall tree has yellow leaves. It is distinctly different from the others but undoubtedly the most beautiful one. The leaves will soon shed but even in their last hour they look so stunning.

Winning or Ubuntu?

The other day, my son had his annual sports day in school. He had won the heat and was selected for the final race. However, he was unable to secure any position and stood fourth (or maybe fifth, sixth, seventh) in the final tally. Obviously, he couldn’t step up on the victory stand and wear a medal. While coming back home he started crying that his friends won and he didn’t.  I tried to console him a lot but nothing worked and he kept crying and cribbing. My husband heard this and started motivating my son to work harder the next time, put more dedication and the usual pep talks that we give to those who do not win. Exactly then I realized that we put so much emphasis on winning. I tried to give my son examples from movies on sports but saw that probably with the sole exception of Creed starring Sylvester Stallone in all sports movies it is ultimately about winning. Our entire concept of sports is based on Jo Jeeta wohi Sikander.

Not only sports but in every sphere of life, there is literally no space for losers in our society. Be it our family, our workspace, our relationships, and everything. Homo sapiens are competitive and even Darwin said Survival of the Fittest. If anyone is aware of the writings of Michel Foucault they would know how he talked about the marginalization of the non-winners in our society.

Honestly I wouldn’t have thought about all these if my son had won, instead like a typical proud mother, I would have been busy putting up photos of him with his medals on social media with the hashtag #myheroisawinner or something similar because all of us are guilty of inculcating this winner-loser theory and boasting about our victories. At the end, all of us want to win because since childhood we have been trained and programmed by the society that winning is good and losing is bad and therefore at any cost, we have to win. We have to win a promotion, a lover, a house, a lottery, a game of ludo, Instagram followers, awards, trophies, medals, projects, blah blah blah. Our entire life revolves around winning. An entire industry of self-help books exists cultivating this tendency and desire of human nature to win.

However, think of a world without competition for a moment. Think of a life where we do not want to win. Think of a sport where there is no winning. Don’t you think life would have been simpler and stress-free if there was no competition? Don’t you think the world would have been free of jealousy and would have been so much more harmonious? Have you ever heard of the story of Ubuntu?

In an African village, a white man kept candies in a basket and asked few kids from the tribe to race. He said whoever reached the basket first would get all the candies. These kids were malnourished with hardly any good food to eat yet to his surprise the white man saw that all the kids held each other’s hands and formed a chain and moved forward towards the basket together. Then they all shared the candies happily with each other. When the white man asked them why they did not race and win all the candies. Then the kids replied ‘how could one be happy if all the others were unhappy’. They said that in their tribe they believe in the happiness of all instead of happiness of one.

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However, in our society, we believe that the fun in a sport is by deciding one ‘happy’ winner at the cost of seven or more ‘unhappy’ losers. We focus on competition and not harmony, we teach our kids to leave others behind and move forward. No wonder we are such an unhappy society by and large.  I wish I could have taught my son to practice the concept of ubuntu but unfortunately, I do not belong to the Zulu tribe and my society demands me to raise a ‘trophy kid’ who wins medals and not a happy kid who believes in sharing, compassion, and empathy. For now, let me go back and tend to my sour loser and stop daydreaming about a utopian world that is free of competition, jealousy, and stress.

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Linking this post to #MondayMusings hosted by dear Corinne.

Parisian Tree- #ThursdayTreeLove

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I clicked this tree in Paris, France. The tree is so huge that my camera was not able to capture it entirely. This lonely tree was next to a bridge and cars were parked beneath. I somehow found the tree lonely even though it was right there on a busy street.

Linking with Parul for #ThursdayTreeLove.

Catacombs- Secret Treasure of Paris

***Alert*** Images in the post can be disturbing, reader’s discretion is advised.

I had never visited a Catacomb. To be honest, I hardly knew about their existence, it was only while researching for my upcoming Paris trip that I came across the term Catacombs. Not that I was very keen to visit, I kind of found the whole concept macabre and creepy but I have friends who literally love these places and they almost threatened me that I shouldn’t come back from Paris without visiting the Catacombs. I still had hoped to skip citing time constraint but life seriously had other plans for me and I found myself getting creepy goosebumps inside the catacombs of Paris. Thanks to R whom I befriended in Charles de Gaulle airport. He is a young man who was hellbent on taking me to the catacombs and he succeeded.

Our walking tour of Paris from Champs de Elysses to Notre Dame ended around lunch time. We had a beautiful meal of Falafel and Fries at an eatery owned by a Bangladeshi man. While eating lunch I also started a conversation with the man about Bangladesh. As my family originally hails from Bangladesh we developed an instant camaraderie. This man guided us to a shorter way to reach the catacombs. It took us a 20 minutes train ride on an RER line to reach the place.

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Our lunch

The tickets to the catacombs are 13 euros and it takes around 45 minutes to see the place. Be prepared for a long queue at the entrance as they allow only 200 people inside at a time. Once I started climbing down the stairs I was feeling an eerie sensation. I am not brave heart when it comes to graves and cemeteries and more than scary, I find them macabre and perhaps grotesque. Just to think of a person who was alive one day and then see him only as a skull and bone makes me feel uncomfortable.

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Nevertheless, I completed the walk, even though there were moments when I felt like going back. The initial 15 minutes of the walk was boring and uneventful with nothing in sight. It was just walking inside a cramped and dimly lit tunnel but then the ossuary started. There are no railings or anything and if you wish you can actually touch the bones. At one point while clicking a picture we almost tumbled a stack of bones.

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The history of the catacombs is written on the walls and one can also buy an audio guide for 3 euros. The entire catacomb is not open for public display only a portion with the relatively younger collection is open. A part of the catacomb has also turned into huge rocks of calcium deposit. Even though, initially I was apprehensive but once completing the tour I felt it was a completely new experience worth my time and money.

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Once we came out of the Catacombs we went to the store where stuffs related to the catacombs are on display. The catacombs were our last destination in Paris and the next morning we left for Pisa, Italy.

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