Balaka Basu's Blog, page 22

Self Love- My 20 Day Challenge

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Today is the second day of my 20 Day Challenge. The first day of my challenge was pretty good. I read a book, watched the movie Tamasha, played with my son and also told him the story of The Ramayana. Phew!!! Great achievement. I also ate no sugar but couldn’t manage to exercise as I am down with cold and cough.

Today as part of my challenge, I wish to write about self-love. Most of us are so busy loving others that we often forget to love ourselves. Many of us do not even know how to love ourselves. We were never taught to love us.

In our culture we are taught since childhood respect elders, love your neighbour as thyself, care for the poor, love your kids etc. However, are we ever taught to love our self? I do not know about others but I know that nobody ever taught me or told me to love myself and thus I grew up with absolutely no love for myself.

My biggest tutor in life was Bollywood movies and in those movies also I always saw the girls loving others more than herself. We grew up learning that we need to be selfless. Self-love was often equated with being selfish. However, being selfish and having love for self is a completely different thing. Selfish people are those who only care about their needs and demands, they are often narcissist and demanding but self-love is loving yourself for who you are without feeling guilty. To put it simply, loving yourself is when you create positive thoughts about yourself and those positive thoughts are also good for other people, being selfish is when you create negative thoughts, and they are good for yourself and bad for other people. A selfish person will always want others to appreciate them whereas self-love is appreciating yourself irrespective of what others think of you.

When I was diagnosed with interstitial cystitis at that time I interacted with naturopath doctor online. After examining me the doctor told me that the root of my disease was in my lack of self-love. At that moment I felt confused. I honestly could not understand what she meant by self-love. Don’t we all love ourselves? However much later I realized that I was too critical of myself. I had a lot of unaddressed issues that had created low self-esteem in me.

My mother was a sweet lady but in her parenting style, she believed that if she praised me too much then I would get spoilt. As a result, she never praised me and always pointed out my flaws. She did this with good intention, however, I grew up believing that I have no good quality and whatever happens is my fault. Many Indian parents of our generation did the same. What we think about ourselves gradually becomes a part of who we are, it becomes our personality.  Therefore the naturopath asked me to start unlearning. He asked me to make myself a priority, to start praising myself. In the last few years I have made quite a few changes and today I am more accepting of myself. I feel calmer and more satisfied. I have become more confident ever since I accepted myself for who I am. Today I preach the mantra of self-love to others with the hope that people will benefit from it and our society will become more acceptable.

 

My 20 Day Challenge

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I have become very irregular with blogging these days because I am going through a lazy phase. I wouldn’t call this ‘writer’s block’ because there is no dearth of ideas. I even managed to write a few posts however never posted them. Therefore, I have decided that I will post something daily on the remaining 20 days of this month. This is just a desperate attempt to revive my blogging and come out of this stupid shell that I have gone into.

Today morning I got shocking news that our fellow blogger Alok Singhal from The Learning Curve has left us forever. It was unbelievable. Alok was one of the first bloggers whom I had started following in the early days of my blogging career. His travel blogs always inspired me. He was a blogging senior whom I always looked up to. I cannot imagine how his lovely wife Saru must be coping. Saru herself is also an accomplished blogger. Her poems are sensitive and poignant. They were one of the great blogger couples. It is difficult to imagine how a lovely couple is torn apart.

In July, my husband lost his best friend. These days, we get to hear of so many young people dying that it scares me. Stress, unhealthy lifestyle, emotional issues are leading our generation to a dark hole. These days I do not find anyone who is genuinely happy. Whenever we gather for a friend’s meet, the only thing we discuss is office/business stress.  Even kids are stressed. I do not remember hearing the word ‘stress’ when I was growing up. My father used to have occasional stress in office yet most of the time he was happy. Most of them were happy, however, these days most of us are in pursuit of happiness. We should rethink the whole thing.

Now coming back to me, I am realizing that I am gradually becoming addicted to my mobile phone. Just like a typical addict I know I am wasting my time on social media yet I am unable to withdraw myself. Therefore as the saying goes ‘desperate times, desperate measures’, I took some drastic steps and deleted all social media apps on my mobile. I have only kept Whatsapp because these days most people use WhatsApp instead of email to send messages. I will strictly stop using social media on my mobile for 20 days. If I succeed then I am going to continue this forever. In the next 20 days, I wish to read more books.

The other thing that I wish to do is make phone calls. FYI, I am a person who hardly calls anybody. I am fine with sending messages but hardly make any effort to call people. I often get complains from my Aunt, Uncle, Mom-in-law that I never call them. Unlike other wives, I don’t even call my husband. Therefore if I ever call he immediately understands that there is some emergency. I admit I am bad at calling people. I even call my best friend once in two months. Therefore in the next 20 days, I plan to call up people. Today I already started and made the first call to my Masi. She was pleasantly surprised. Her first question was “are you okay?”

So to sum up…

Do

Post Daily
No Social Media usage from mobile
Call up people
No sugar (bonus resolution)
Exercise daily (bonus resolution)

So friends, stay tuned and check my progress…..

Thursday Tree Love- Gangtok

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“Living in a world that is full of busy people is like living in a world ALONE.”

― Heraline

Just like this tree are we also not alone in a crowd? I spotted this tree in the busy M.G. Road of Gangtok, my erstwhile hometown.

I am taking part in Parul’s #ThursdayTreeLove after a long time and honestly feeling good. Almost some sort of homecoming.

How Bengalis Speak Hindi

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This is not applicable to all Bengalis, however, a certain section, especially from the older generation are notorious Hindi speakers. We often accuse the South Indians particularly Tamilians for their refusal to learn our Rashtrabhasha Hindi, however, Bengalis are no better. Well, unlike the Tamilians, the Bengalis instead of reluctance show over-enthusiasm in speaking Hindi. Megalomaniac Bongs considers that if they warp and twist Bengali words and syllables then Hindi is conquered. As a result, most Bengali words are twisted and the emphasis on “o” is reduced to make it Hindi.

Bengali is a unique language which has no gender and the main conflict starts with the gender part in Hindi. Most Bongs are so engrossed in their Hindi speaking skills that they give a damn about gender and thus the Hindi sentences sound somewhat like “tum jab jata tha main tab aata tha” or “meri ladki bahut accha hain, woh bahar kuch nahin khata hain, aur jaata bhi nahin hain”.

Another ironical part is that in Bengali language nothing is there to drink, everything is eaten from water to cigarettes. Thus, we eat water, we eat cigarettes, we eat juice and we eat lassi. For a Bengali this rule does not change in Hindi either and thus they say “tum paani khayega?” or “mera beta bahut accha hain woh kabhi bhi cigarette nahin khata”.

To speak Hindi, Bengalis simply twist their words. So they often say “humko chair pe boshake tum kahan daurata hain?” or else “yeh baccha itna lafata hain, ki mera matha dhar giya”.

Bengalis love to travel, and all over India Bengali tourists are found in plenty. Their Hindi speaking skill is best exhibited during these travel excursions. Once my Aunt went to Rajasthan, she was too tired trekking forts, so in one Fort she decided to skip the trekking. The others in the group went up while she kept waiting down with the assistant of the Tour guide. After waiting for quite some time she grew impatient and requested the assistant to go up and call them. It was 1980, days before mobile phones came into existence. What she said in Hindi was “jaao unko daakke lao”. She repeated this few times and the poor assistant was unable to comprehend what she meant. He made a wild guess that daak (that means ‘to call’ in Bengali) could be daku (dacoits), something Rajasthan’s Aravalli was once notorious for, so he replied to her vehemently nodding his head “nahin maaji abhi Rajasthan mein daku nahin hain, pehle tha”.

My father was equally proficient in Hindi. He nonchalantly spoke Hindi and often considered the other person dumb for not understanding. He considered that Hindi is an easy language and he need not put any extra effort to learn the same. Once the doctor advised him to eat ridge gourd every day to keep his creatinine level under check. So daddy dear called up my local Gujrati vegetable vendor and asked “aapke paas jhingha hain?” In Bengali, we call ridge gourd jhinga whereas in Hindi jhinga means prawns. I can well imagine the shock and horror the strictly vegetarian Gujarati vegetable seller went through on being asked to deliver “jhinga”. He angrily retorted and said “hum jhinga nahin rakhte”. Likewise, my dad called few more vegetable sellers in the locality. Everyone said they don’t keep jhinga. Incidentally, all the vegetable stores are run by Gujaratis and why on earth would they keep prawns.  My father oblivious to the linguistic blasphemy he committed complained to me on my return that Bombay was a weird city because here ridge gourd was not available in any shop whereas in Kolkata every hawker sold it. So if he had to follow his doctor’s advice the only option was to shift back to Kolkata. It was futile to explain him his mistake.

We all remember the famous scene from my favourite movie “Sonar Kella” where Jatayu alias Lalmohan Ganguly speaks Hindi. That is a classic example of Bengali way of speaking Hindi. I often watch that scene on YouTube whenever I need to laugh a bit. Our reluctance to learn Hindi properly has no wonder given birth to a new version of Hindi which is Bengalised-hindi or “Bhindi”. Bhindi these days is heard all over India and also abroad. On that note “Abhi aapne post pora to comment karo aur abhi main jaata”.

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Linking this post to #MondayMusings hosted by dear Corinne.

How Bollywood Ruined Us

The other day I sat down to watch ‘Maine Pyar Kiya’. After precisely five minutes into the movie, I realized the movie is simply unwatchable. It appeared gross, grotesque and as Bongs would put ‘churanto nyaka’. However, ironically this is the same movie that ignited passion and romance in me 28 years back when I was at the onset of puberty. Like a typical ‘pichan paka’ (please refer to Bong dictionary) girl I had got tremendously inspired by this amazing ‘love story’.

Those who grew up in the 90s would remember VCR and VCP. In those days we used to hire videocassettes of movies from the local video parlour and binge-watch them-These were way before we got hooked to binge-watching Netflix- Special occasions like birthdays, weddings, and festivals like Mahashivratri or Holi used to be the coveted occasions for movie viewing when the entire family and neighbourhood used to gather around a box like ‘colour’ television set fitted with a VCP and watch movies, one after the other.

I put colour within quotes because back in those days having a ‘colour TV’ was part of the status symbol. And those who had a VCP/VCR were almost the likes of those who have personal movie theatres nowadays. Unfortunately, we had none. My puritan dad always felt that television was the root of all evil so after much argument, he brought home a small black and white portable TV. Younger readers wouldn’t know what a portable TV is. It was basically a smaller box with similar options. In those days even television sets with all options had only the liberty of watching Doordarshan and pirated Bangladeshi TV where you could watch CNN.

Back to Maine Pyar kiya, I watched this movie in VCP in one of my friends’ house. I told my mother that I was going to watch Sound of Music while secretly watched Maine Pyaar Kiya, exactly the way kids these days watch Sunny Leone. For my parents ‘Maine Pyar Kiya’ was blasphemous, especially for a pre-puberty child. They believed love stories spoil the kids and teach them to fall in love and do ‘dirty things’ (get the drift). Falling in love was equivalent to sinful act in those days.

Due to this holier than thou attitude of the society our generation eventually grew up with zero sex education in school and home. The word sex was a taboo and we were almost taught to pour gangajal into our ears the moment we heard the three lettered word. Our previous generation kept us away from sex as if it was plague till our wedding day but immediately after marriage, they started demanding grandkids. Now imagine, if you keep Calculus out of syllabus through the entire semester and never teach it and then suddenly on exam day want us to perform and score a perfect A+, how is it supposed to happen?

Have you ever wondered why there are so many IVF clinics these days? I tell you. It is because our generation has such a warped idea that many of us are probably clueless about the actual act.

Our only sex education came from Bollywood movies and Bollywood taught us how to kiss by using placeholders like two flowers nudging each other or two birds touching the beak of each other. How were we supposed to learn from this? Had we been allowed to watch Hollywood we would have still learned but Hollywood movies in most theatres were restricted for night shows and most scenes were deleted by Censor Board.

In movies like Maine Pyaaar kiya the love was so pure and clean that even Dettol would suffer an inferiority complex, absolutely 100% no germs. Hindi movies taught us that making love is equal to singing songs around the tree or in a mustard field. There was no concept of ‘making out’. All heroes and heroines of Hindi movies were so celibate that they could give Baba Ramdev a run for his money. The level of ignorance was so low that in Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam the character of Aishwarya felt that a kiss could get her pregnant.

Pre-marital anything was a strict no and all the female protagonists were direct descendants of Sati and Savitri. They were innocent, pure, virginal with zero libidos.   Think of the Sooraj Barjatiya brand of movies where the girls were either in the pooja room or kitchen. Their bedrooms were also so virtuous that all of them conceived like Virgin Mary. The movies were so sweet that India is today the number one country in diabetes.

I sincerely feel movies these days are much more realistic. Even though there is still some amount of prejudice involved yet they are far better than before. Yet most of us love watching those movies of the 90s for the sake of nostalgia. What do you feel? Do you agree or disagree? Please let me know.

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Linking this post to #MondayMusings hosted by dear Corinne.

Monday Funny Talk #MondayMusings

I was feeling lazy today and wanted to write something light for Monday Musings. So I thought of playing a question and answer game with myself and my readers. Here I have a set of 10 questions that I will answer in my post and would want you to answer in the comment box. Instead of answering all of them (If you are short of time or energy) you can also pick your favorite and answer. Hope this little stupid game spice up your Monday. Enjoy!!!

Which fictional character from movie/ books/shows would be the most boring to meet in real life?

Most romantic heroes of Bollywood movies would be extremely boring. Most of them do not read books and are obsessed with their muscles, many of them are a misogynist. I would go for Raj/Rahul/Prem.

What is something that is really popular now, but in 5 years everyone will look back on and be embarrassed by?

Snapchat photos.

What are some fun ways to answer everyday questions like “what do you do”?

I kill people.

What would some fairytales be like if they took place in the present and included modern technology and culture?

Hansel and Gratel using GPS, Rapunzel running a popular Youtube Channel on hairstyle, Snow White using Skype and Cinderella using Uber cabs to reach home faster.

If you were home on a rainy Sunday afternoon, what movie would you want to watch?

I am a diehard romantic and I would watch Roman Holiday or Pretty Woman or Notting Hill or Sleepless in Seattle or Gone with the Wind.

If you could be a member of any TV sitcom, which one would it be?

F.R.I.E.N.D.S

Do you dance like crazy when no one is looking?

Yes.

What is the dumbest way you’ve been injured?

I have a janam janam ka rishta with injury and have got hurt in the dumbest way possible. I once fell down while charging my phone. My mother-in-law was convinced that some bhooth pushed me or else falling like that was impossible.

If you could lock up one person in the mental home who would it be?

Only one would be an injustice, I can fill up one dozen mental homes.

What’s the most interesting thing you’ve read or seen this week?

My interview on Anshu’s blog

 

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Linking this post to #MondayMusings hosted by dear Corinne.

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There is Nothing ‘Romantic’ about Marriage #MondayMusings

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The day I went to give my wedding invitation, my then boss (a lady in her mid-fifties) commented sarcastically “So, now you will have two jobs.” Back then I was a naive young girl of 26 years, obviously, I didn’t understand the drift and even found her comment quite cynical. The old bit** that she was famous as I considered that as one of her negative comments. However, now I feel she was bang on.

Marriage is actually a job and there is indeed nothing romantic about it. Marriage is more like a start-up, where two people are trying hard enough to bring meaning to their dreams and aspirations. Just like a job, marriage is also a bundle of KRA (Key Responsibility Area).  The ‘common’ KRA of marriage include paying bills, buying grocery, buying utilities, buying a house, buying a car, taking care of ageing parents, tolerating tantrums of kids, putting up with ridiculous relatives, attending family gatherings, attending other social gatherings, entertaining guests AND if you manage some time, have sex. Well, sex is not mandatory. Post kids, marriage itself become the best contraceptive in most cases (exceptions are a rule).

Growing up in the 90s a whole generation of misguided kids started believing that marriage is all about hugging each other in the middle of a mustard field or making a makeshift house in the middle of a rocky desert or dancing in chiffon sarees in the Swiss Alps. They believed that ‘romance’ was the keyword in marriage and everything was hunky-dory. Thankfully, this new commitment phobic generation X are not as disillusioned as the 90s kids were. GenX does not buy the Yash Chopra crap so easily.

I often wonder that instead of making sequels of Houseful, Murder or Jannat they should make sequels to Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge, Qayamat se Qayamat tak, Dil to pagal hain, Kuch Kuch Hota hain, etc. I am sure in the sequel of DDLJ we will see Raj sitting in front of an HD TV with beer and popcorn, watching rugby while Simran would be shown making aloo parantha in her British kitchen and screaming at the kids to finish their assignment. In KKHH the scene would be no different, where we will see Anjali coming back from the summer camp and washing the dirty clothes of Rahul that he had left unwashed while she was away for a month. Maya from Dil to paagal hain would be also doing something similar, buying grocery and supervising her house staff. Definitely, they won’t be dancing and even if they did, I am sure Raj/Rahul wouldn’t care.

Think of the movies that actually showed marriage Chalte Chalte, Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna, Akele Hum Akele Tum, Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi, Dil Dhadakne Do, Ae Dil Hain Mushkil.. Even the production house famous for selling ‘romantic’ dreams couldn’t show marriage as romantic or without conflict. Hum to thehre mere mortals.

A friend of mine is not yet married because she is still waiting for her Mr Right. I felt like telling her, just like there is no ‘right’ job there is no ‘right’ man.  Even the most handsome, suave and romantic guy you marry will fart and snore in front of you after a certain time. You won’t see him in a tuxedo with champagne and orchids standing next to a candle-lit dinner table all the time but find him digging his nose, puking after a heavy drinking binge or leaving the wet towel on the bed. Trust me.

My grandmother always said that ‘love marriage’ is just an illusion, ultimately everything boils down to the same thing.  I guess she was true. Marriage as an institution is meant to maintain a balance in the society. It is a capitalist/bourgeois way of maintaining the harmony of society. And even though the modern age feminist would disagree, the fundamental aim of the institution of marriage is to create families. To hide this hard fact, through ages marriage has been coloured with ‘romanticism’ so that naive people could be trapped to fall into this system. I know, this comment may lead to me getting trolled but this is indeed what marriage is all about.

The other day at a party we were discussing the rise of extra-marital affairs. They believe that smartphone, Facebook, whatsapp and Tinder are the root cause of these affairs. However, I beg to disagree. Extra-marital affairs have been there ever since marriage came into existence. Since Mahabharata, we have had them. The entire story of the Iliad and Odyssey is based on extra-marital affairs. Shakespeare, Falubert, Leo Tolstoy,  Rabindranath, Saratchandra, you name them and they have written about extra-marital affairs. They have been there since ages then why blame technology? Extra-marital affairs are often like a breath of fresh air to escape the mundane routine of marriage and to find the missing ‘romance’. Just like many people take up a hobby class after their regular jobs to escape the boredom of their 9-5 job, few people take up extra-marital affairs to escape their marriage. Extra-marital affairs are not always only about lust as we generally perceive, in many cases, it is more about the emotional bonding that is lacking in a marriage. While marriage is the job that pays their bills and gives security, incentives and bonuses, and retirement benefits (applicable to both men and women), extra-marital affairs are something that fulfils their unfulfilled desires, be it sexual or emotional. Before you start trolling me for immoral values, let me clarify, by no means am I encouraging or justifying illicit affairs. I am merely trying to understand the context.

However, all said, I honestly do not want to paint a dark picture of marriage. There are great marriages where the couple has become each other’s best friends. In some cases, they have become like siblings, in some cases, the husband has become the father to the wife and vice versa (pun intended). However, in no case, they tend to stay ‘romantic’ the way books and Hindi movies would want us to believe, that is precisely the whole point of this article.

Do you agree with me that there is nothing ‘romantic’ about marriage or do you disagree? I would love to know your opinion. Please do leave a comment.

 

 

Review of Deal of Death by Sonia Chatterjee #Blogchatter

Sonia wrote this novel in one week and that is indeed a commendable job. Raya Ray reminds me of all the female detectives we grew up reading. From Miss Marple to Nancy Drew to the new age Bengali female detective Mitin Masi by late Suchitra Bhattacharya. In fact, Raya Ray was almost carrying forward the unfinished works of Mitin Masi. She can replace Mitin Masi literally, as Suchitra Bhattacharya is no more amongst us.

I liked Sonia’s layered approach to the novel. It starts ‘in medias res‘  and then takes us to Raya’s past. Her tragedy, her pain and how she found the motivation to become a detective. The character of Raya is very relatable. She is like any typical Bengali middle-class woman. Her bonding with her maid Sutapa is also relatable. Raya has been shown a woman who has her own vulnerabilities and I liked the bit where she cries in her sleep. This kind of gives a tender touch to her otherwise tough character.

I loved how Sonia also gave us a glimpse of the history of Munshigunj in her story. Funnily this historical bit brought me back memories of my puja vacations that I used to spend reading ‘Pandav Goenda’ the Bengali equivalent of Famous Five. In those stories there used to be lots of heavy historical facts. However, I felt that even though the historical trivia was interesting it kind of reduced the pace of the detective novel. As a reader, I like to read detective novels that are fast-paced. I agree Satyajit Ray often gave historical facts within his Feluda novels however he weaved it in such a manner that it never compromised with the pace of the novel.

Sonia is a great storyteller and the way she was narrating the whole story was commendable in itself. However, too much detailing has at times made the progress of the story slightly slow. Too many characters also made the novel less crispy. But I loved the premise of this story that deals with an extremely pertinent issue. I do not want to give a spoiler, therefore, I am not detailing the issue. As a debut detective novelist, I would give Sonia full marks for trying this genre and actually be able to write a novel in such a short time. This novel is promising and perhaps she should publish it soon. All the best.

 

 

 

 

When My House Flooded #writebravely #WTFOW2018

I was newly married and living abroad. One morning, I got a frantic call from my dad’s part-time maid. She said “Didi, there have been heavy rains and our neighbourhood flooded. Your dad has got a high fever. He is unable to get up from the bed and the whole house is filled with drain-water.”

It goes without saying that I was unable to sleep the whole night. My husband understood my anxiety and booked tickets. Next evening, I reached India.

The municipality had installed a pump and drained out the water but that was obviously not enough. When I entered the house 1 foot of mud, plastic and garbage greeted me. The whole house was in a mess would be an understatement.

My dad was lying on the bed semi-conscious. I did not understand how to start cleaning up. The whole house was stinking and everything was moist if not wet. I wasted no time. I kept my luggage and called the family doctor to come over. I took the broom and mop and started cleaning.

Water had entered even the cupboards; therefore everything inside it was wet. My dad was a bibliophile and our house used to be full of books. My regular readers would also remember how my dad inherited books from Mr.J.N.Bhattacharya. All those books lay wet on the bookshelf.

The worst was when I opened my mom’s cupboard- Ever since she died, Dad used to be possessive about that cupboard. He never allowed anyone to touch that. He used to not even allow me to wear the sarees of Mom. Once my mom’s sister had asked him to donate her belongings to the poor as it was of no use and only occupying space in the house. My dad got so angry that he stopped talking to her- However, that day, all of mom’s sarees were jumbled and wet inside the cupboard. They were old and had stayed locked inside the cupboard for long and therefore when I started pulling them out most of them started tearing into shreds of threads. My mom’s wedding benarasi saree was also now nothing more than a heap of threads. It was heartbreaking for me to see those lovely sarees in shreds.

Next, I tried to salvage the book almirah, however, the situation was no better there. All books were wet and pages were falling off. I brought them out and spread on the balcony.

The real shock was waiting inside my dad’s almirah. He had kept my wedding album in the bottom drawer and when I opened I saw my album was sinking like Titanic in it. I couldn’t control my tears. I had not even shown it to most of my friends and family and here it was sinking. All the photos were wet and within a week most of them wilted.

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The one that survived

The next day, while still reeling in shock of losing so many memorable things I opened my study table. When I opened it, suddenly an envelope fell from it. I picked it up and found few photos from our honeymoon inside. They were thankfully dry. We had gone to Shimla for our honeymoon and clicked some ‘stupid’ photos in local costumes.

 

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One of the Stupid Photos

Both of us had felt extremely embarrassed of those. Husband had asked me to not show it to anybody and throw it away but I had hidden it in a nook of my study table. Even through despair, those stupid photos brought a smile to my face. Those are the only memories of our newly married days that remain.

 

 

Write Tribe

Prompt: A dark and heavy storm suddenly takes over your neighborhood, dropping 6 feet of water so quickly that the storm drains can’t handle it. The water flooded your street and your basement, ruining many of your things. As you rummage through your stuff, you are filled with memories. Think about your…

Thank You BongMom #writebravely #WTFOW2018

Dear Bong Mom,

As you are also a blogger you would know how tedious blogging challenges are. My initial plan was to write on the prompt-“No matter how your heart is grieving, if you keep on believing, the dream that you wish will come true.” – Cinderella- however, I changed my mind and started writing a letter to you.

Bong Mom, you have no idea what a huge influence you have been in my blogging career. Back in 2008, I had no idea what blogging was-Thankfully those were the happy days of blogging when it was all about creativity and expressing oneself and not selling baby products – One day, I accidentally bumped into your blog. Ever since there have been no looking back. You came like a baton of light and initiated me to the mystical world of blogging.

I met you while looking for a recipe. As I grew up motherless and my dad never insisted to learn cooking, I never mastered the art of cooking. However, after marriage, I started feeling inadequate. The women in the new family were super-efficient in terms of cooking and domestic activities. They could cook for 30 people in a wink whereas I was struggling to make one omelette. A sense of inadequacy and inferiority started gripping me.

The worst day was when I invited few relatives for dinner. I toiled the whole day and cooked managing a baby on my lap yet in the evening when they sat down for dinner I heard not a single word of appreciation. In fact, one of them said: “We had made such an amazing chicken last week, it was A-plus.” I understood it was a polite way of telling me that my food was not good enough. That night I locked myself in the bathroom and cried a lot.

I called my dad, and he in his usual nonchalant tone said that cooking is not a difficult job and any Ina, Meena, Dika (Female version of Tom, Dick, Harry) can do it and I should not lose my heart. Energised by his pep talk, I started Googling for various Bengali recipes, I was determined to show the world that I can cook. While searching, I came across your blog Bong Mom’s CookBook. Any Bengali man or woman who has ever looked for Bengali recipes online would be familiar with your blog. This is so far the best Bengali recipe blog that I have come across in last 10 years.

Let me confess I learnt most of my recipes from you, however, what I also learnt was the art of storytelling. The way you narrated stories from your childhood, or the way you used humour to express yourself always kept me hooked till the end. Your stories inspired me to tell my own stories.

Encouraged by you, I took a baby step and started my first blog. It was a recipe blog (ROFL!!!). When I look back at that blog I often feel like spanking myself. Why on earth did I start a recipe blog? It was almost like Mamata Banerjee starting a Spoken Hindi class or Rahul Gandhi starting a class on ‘how to improve IQ’.

Thankfully, I got bored and stopped posting. However, I was still itching to blog but was not sure what or how to. Finally, I realised that I want to do blogging but that need not be a food blog. There are other genres too. Thus my first blog Wanderful was born. I successfully blogged there for 6 years and then shifted to WordPress, as I was having issues with Blogger.

Today, after successfully and consistently blogging for 8 years I think I deserve to give you a Guru Dakshina. You are my Dronacharya and I am your Ekalavya. You couldn’t teach me cooking but you taught me blogging and I shall always remain grateful. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. You gave me a dream, and even though I was grieving I kept believing in my dream and my wish to become a blogger came true.

Regards

Trina

Write Tribe

Prompt 1: Write a letter to a person who supported your writing career, whether that be a friend, a family member, a teacher (even one that supported you at a very young age before you knew that it would blossom into a writing career), an author you’ve never met but have been inspired…

Prompt 2:“No matter how your heart is grieving, if you keep on believing, the dream that you wish will come true.” – Cinderella