Kitchen

 

K is for...Keen

 

Yesterday we viewed the first property. In a gated compound, around 40-45 minutes’ commute. It had an open kitchen, fairly large garden both pot plants and uncontained. Nothing much was blooming, but very green. The masters, one floor up, had an open closet within the bathroom in the US style. The stairs was treads only no risers, with straight steel wire type railings. Also echoed in the balconies attached to the upstairs bedrooms. Contemporary light fixtures. Characteristic Fijian double height sloped ceiling with exposed palm wood beams over the living area. Altogether very modern and neat but also traditionally local.

 

The open kitchen and the open closet are vaguely freaking me out. Indian cooking is not kind to living spaces, to put it mildly. It’s all karahis and stovetop tempering and sizzling spices and ‘frying the masala till the oil separates’ - it deposits a fine film of condensed oil fumes on everything it can lay its hands on. How are those double height beams ever to be scrubbed clean of the oil residues? Similarly, unshuttered closets in the most humid area of a house in a humid climate doesn’t seem like a smart idea. Besides, it's not spacious enough to take both our clothes, meagre as my wardrobe may be. I’ve just got my most basic everyday casuals here, most of my clothes are mothballed back home. But even so.

 

House hunting is really my least favourite expat activity. Right now, I am feeling the lack of my own spaces keenly – over the last decade we have, bit by painstaking bit, renovated, refinished, added to that 50-year vintage, two generation family residence in Kolkata that my PIL built, for our own retired life. It’s been a weird, unprecedented kind of pang leaving it behind and grappling with the idea of making a home, pouring heart and soul into a different, short term building somewhere that we don't own and then having to gather it all up an instant later.

 

Because a kitchen can’t be run half-heartedly and a home cannot be made with zero emotional investment. However shallow and transplant-ready the roots, they must be sent inching down.  And when the time to uproot comes around again, as it will for sure in a year or two, it’s going to be a hard knock. I just wonder sometimes if I still have the strength, the insouciance, the knack of easy transplanting. Every skill, every talent, every ability wears out with age and repetition. All stores run out with constant use. Has mine?  

Nope, not yet. I'll do what I have to do and wring out, as best as I can, enjoyment and learning from this opportunity. It's not exactly a hardship. 

A-Z Challenge 2022

Juggled

 

J is for...Jetlagged

We reached Fiji yesterday just as dawn was breaking. Didn't sleep a wink on the ten-hour flight from Singapore in spite of the sleeper seat  reclining at multitudes of angles and in different dimensions. Immigration queue at the airport was formidable but it moved quite fast, we got through the formalities and baggage collection (and hubs managed a quick trip to the duty free too to stock up the bar, starting from a zero base here). We were stamped and custom checked out in less than two hours, not bad for a first trip in on work visa. 

The HR guys were outside the airport to receive us, whisked us into the hotel in no time. It's not far from the airport. Hubby had a quick coffee and went off at top speed to the workplace as is his usual practice. Doesn't believe in letting the grass grow under his feet, that man. Apparently the entire island is shut for 4 days beginning Good Friday for the Easter holidays, so he has to get the intros done and dusted before everyone disperses for the long weekend. 

 

I was so awfully jetlagged that all I managed to do was to shower and forthwith retire to bed. Unlike the husband, I do not have a workplace to get to. Also unlike the husband, I am quite content to let grass grow. Underfoot and elsewhere.  Much better today after sleeping it off, but I have now missed posting for J and K, and if I am to go by Fiji time, it’s onto L today. Flying east has gobbled up half a day and recovering has swallowed up a full one. Thankfully, I am doing my own version of the challenge and will join when and how I can - letters, dates and days are going to get juggled. 

Next week once Easter is over, we'll have to go on a house hunting jaunt...my usual policy, ever since Dubai and its terribly tangled traffic, has been to find the point of minimal commute. But this place is beautiful!  I am tempted to rethink...maybe an extra 15 minutes in the car isn't an exorbitant price to pay for beach access and gorgeous views. We shall see...

View from seat 2K. Btw, the Fiji Airways logo and uniform
designs are based on an indigenous motif. Created by a
locally renowned artist. Just loved the brand vibe! 

First sighting of landmass - Fiji. Also saw a
spectacular sunrise but wasn't able to get
a good shot.

Sunset shot from hotel balcony yesterday. Even more beautiful
viewed with naked eye than from behind camera lens.

A-Z Challenge 2022

Invitation

 

I is for...Imagine

I is an easy one, isn't it? - I, is, in, it, you can do anything with it, go anywhere you want to, imagine, dream up the most surreal scenarios. 

I'm logging in from Singapore, where we are spending a night with our niece and her family, flying onward tomorrow.  Here are some photos -  of the early dawn landing and of my immediate surroundings.  The tower blocks themselves mimic the letter of the day.

The exit out of India, well, it wasn't uneventful. We had four large cases and two cabin size. Hubby decided to pack one of the latter for the stopover with the things we would need for the night and the onward flight, which then got happily forgotten in some last minute confusion. 

We discovered that one of the small cases was missing after we reached the airport and of course there was no chance of going back and getting it - it'd take two hours for the round trip. So we stood there and took stock - tickets, vaccine certs, RT-PCR results, visa papers, passports, hubs' essential daily medications - all were with us in the hand baggage fortunately, phew! Nothing to stop us from taking the flight, so...in we went and here we are. 

What seems like a catastrophe at first sight might turn out a minor inconvenience on second glance.  I am minus a few items to get me through a year in Fiji. Some of my favourite loungewear/brushes have got left behind. Left behind, I remind myself, not lost forever. 

This too is a life lesson - not to overpack, to declutter, pare down, take only as much as I need. To get out of the habit of panic-grabbing more than strictly necessary. Can I make do with one less pair of PJ's for a year? Pooh! - of course.

The universe has sent me a timely reminder not to be silly and insatiable. It's inviting me to cut out the inessentials, to introspect and prioritise the important, forget the fluff. A change in focus to match the change in living quarters. For that too, I'm thankful.

A-Z Challenge 2022

Home

 

H is for ...Hefting

When I am away, I do not miss your charm

I don’t weep over the beards of banyan trees,
the spikes of straight, but profusely eccentric palms
or the way the paddies shiver in the breeze.

The desert has its bleakness, and its place.

Its magnificence spills over its bare flanks
its vastness controlled with an exact grace
that knows to stop just short of river banks.

So when I am away, I’ve learnt not to long

for your skies, still blue in the darkest night
for the conch shell’s deep-throated, tranquil song
that sets the dawn saffron hour alight.

I’ve learnt to find your face in all landforms

hefting this homelessness of two homes.

Today I'm sharing a truly ancient poem I wrote in 2012 when I was a resident of Egypt.

I'm in and out of airports till 13th, so I might or mightn't be able to post till I get to my final destination and sort out the brain, jet lag, wifi etc. But I'll be back here for the A-Z as soon as possible. 

A-Z Challenge 2022

Gobsmacked...

 

...at the way things are going...yes, the pandemic years have been rough, but things could have been much worse...shudder to think how much worse...so...

Grateful. 

The passports were delivered back today with the transit visa for Singapore, cutting it very fine. All morning we were on tenterhooks, because of course the deliveries are uncertain on a Saturday, so we'd be majorly stuck. But they came in well in time. Tomorrow we will take the RT-PCR tests required, I'm accustomed to this protocol now. We fly out on Sunday. There is a long layover at Singapore before we fly onward to Fiji. Scheduled to reach Wednesday morning. 

The flat is half dismantled, the dust covers are on, the kitchen stops tomorrow. I have to pop over to the tax accountant between packing up and shutting down to drop off some papers, not sure how I'm gouging out the time for that. I've ended up spending 8 months in India, that makes me legally resident for tax purposes. There are mountains of forms to be filled. For India, for Singapore (even though we're only transiting), for Fiji. Never ceases to amaze and exhaust me, the things that the governments require to know from me.

Growing up at such a distance from your own people is also an education. My father said that to me once - he had freshly moved abroad. I'm not done growing, Baba. Wherever I go, my education continues. Grateful.

A-Z Challenge 2022 

Far

 

F is for...Find

One of the things an expat must be good at is finding…When you live far away from home, you have to find ways to recreate the textures and meanings of it. Independent of geographical coordinates or familiar landmarks, smells, tastes, visual and emotional cues.  The farther you go, the more difficult it is to do that. 

Exactly fifty years ago, in April 1972 my father took a huge leap of faith and a Pan Am flight to Beirut and then onward to a small town on the fringes of the Sahara called Maiduguri in North Eastern Nigeria. Maiduguri has since become famous, or rather infamous, due to religious fundamentalist groups, but back then no-one in my large, extended family had even heard of the place. And Africa wasn't exactly a dream destination for middle class Indian professionals, they were far more drawn to UK and USA, the Mecca people flocked to for opportunities. Nigeria?! Africa?! Omg!

My father was forthright - don't know what we're going to find there, don't expect pucca houses, proper sanitation or taps in the toilet. My mother prepared me accordingly beforehand and packed two Bengali classics - a collection of fiction and another of poetry. All the raised eyebrows and headshaking of various relatives notwithstanding, we landed up there. And indeed, though the houses were concrete bungalows, sure enough there was no tap in the toilet. My mother calmly set up a large metal beaker there and kept it filled from the basin outside. She also discovered turmeric in the local departmental store and proceeded to teach her house help, a guy from neighbouring Cameroun who spoke not a word of English, to cook fish with it, Bengali style. 

My father got me subscriptions to Bengali and Hindi children's magazines. Over the years there he slowly built up a stack of Bengali music - records and cassettes which were copied and circulated among the Indian and Bangladeshi expats. In time my mother too grew her own bitter gourds and Indian squashes and cauliflowers and eggplants. And she got the must-have Bengali kitchen implements and cookpots on home leave and took them back. She also sewed me an elephant motif bedspread, 'oh that looks very Indian,' the fabric picked out from the local shops. And so - though the texture of my outer environment changed utterly and delightfully; in my inner world, the conversations, the stories, the food, the music, life generally remained tethered to Bengal. 

The first time I moved out of India as an adult in the mid nineties, the world had become much smaller. Communications had changed - mobile phones, internet, banking systems, budget airlines  -  all of them had combined to shrink perceived distances. The actual distance itself was much less of course. My father had travelled 8000 km from home to a different continent,  I'd gone to Bahrain, less than half that and within Asia. Nigeria was both geographically and culturally remote for us, whereas India and the Arablands have been dealing with each other for millennia. Apples and oranges. It wasn't difficult to feel at home in the Middle East.

But this time, it's truly far away, nearly 11,000 km. To Fiji. To a different continent in a different hemisphere. On the one hand, I'm super excited - whole different constellations, flipped seasons, water draining anticlockwise, all the things I've read about but never lived with at close quarters. (And gosh, Fiji's so beautiful!) On the other, I am super apprehensive - even though I know Fiji has a sizeable community of people of Indian origin. I am going to be 11,000 km away from home, and also 12,000 km away from my son in the USA. India is 61/2 hours behind Fiji, USA East Coast is 16 hours behind. Sixteen hours! The whole time difference management issue is seriously freaking me out. Will I ever be able to get all of us onto a video call?! But I also know this from previous experience, fear of a challenge is worse than actually facing it. Things will fall into place. They always do.

A-Z Challenge 2022 

Exciting

 

E is for ...Expats

 

At the beginning of this A-Z , I put down the relocation as an excuse for my haphazard participation in the challenge - and Alana from Rambling with AM wrote in the comments

" I've never even moved to another country, never mind a different hemisphere. That sounds like a challenge way beyond A to Z!" 

 

It made me wonder - how many people actually do move out of their country and why? What percentage of the global population are expats exactly ? Turns out it's really tiny. Estimates vary from less than 1% to around 3%. Much less than I thought. And here's a fascinating article on global migration patterns  that attempts to answer why.  

 

Personally, I'm okay with moving around, because that's what I'm used to. I have been moving since I was four.  I remember my mother explaining that very first move from Calcutta to Delhi - a thousand miles which may well have been a different hemisphere for a kindergartener. She was very matter-of-fact, no, grandmother isn't coming with us, your father has a new job there, no your friends aren't coming either, but don't worry, it's going to be fine, it'll be more than fine because there are new friends just waiting to be made in every place we go.  In time, Delhi became home. But just as I was getting used to that, my father moved to Africa. And so on and on. 

 

Moving is habit-forming. It's drudgery but it's also exciting, an adrenaline rush. It's a familiar comfort zone - the processes are the same but the end product is new. And moving keeps me focussed on the things that matter - both materially and otherwise. It declutters the home and the mind in one fell swoop, given that the baggage allowance both material and emotional is laughable, as I mentioned earlier.  Moving is also perspective. It's shown me that the world is truly round and small and vast and magnificent, superbly amazing beyond words at all times, never mind the meagre allowances and incomprehensible security rules. 

 

A-Z Challenge 2022 

Different

 

D is for... Direct

Today I am just going to direct you to the main A-Z blog...Drop by and see what my dear friends and I have devised together...you won't be disappointed, I do assure you.

A-Z Challenge 2022 

Collection

 

C is for... CCU

 

…which is the IATA code for Calcutta, unchanged through the name tweaking and the new town developments and swank new airport terminals. Today I am offering you a random collection of photos I’ve clicked at various times in and around the city.

Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose (no relation!!) International airport.

Currency Building, a Raj era heritage building.

Ravindra Sarovar, commonly called 'The Lake,' in South Calcutta.

Chowringhee skyline and Victoria Memorial from the Maidan.

Clay idol being transported by a 'cycle van' for

the main community festival. 

My grandfather's house and my permanent

address for half my life. Now in other hands and

converted to a children's preschool.

View of golf course from South Veranda, Tollygunge Club. 

C is for Chocolate, but of course! 

And also for coffee, both piping hot and iced... 

Calcutta has a total of 39,000 restaurants and cafes. The 4th major
foodie hub in India after Mumbai, Delhi and Bengaluru.  

Cumulus cloud cover over Bawali. A couple hours
from Calcutta. Originally the seat of azamindari
family, now converted to a boutique hotel.

A classic Cal middleclass residence, probably pre-Independence. Calcutta
has this wonderful architecture in ordinary houses built with art nouveau
and art deco details. 

And that makes it a complete dozen! 

Broken

B is for Baggage Allowance...

…which by definition is never enough.  It should really be called baggage pittance. Honestly. It doesn’t matter if you’re flying first class like my father did back in the 80’s, or the fancypants business class now. As for the allowance in cattle class, which I’ve flown for a good long part of my life, that’s just a joke. Whatever arbitrary number or weight is allocated, it is never enough.

 

Some employers will pay for x number of cubic meters or y number of kgs extra but still…it won’t be enough.  Not that I’m complaining, because hard experience has taught me to pack only as much as I can lift myself.

 

I have been packing and repacking my stuff since I was 8 years old. As a child it was easier because most airlines we travelled on had  limits only on the checked bags. Handbags weren’t weighed so heavier stuff like books could be heaved onto shoulders.

 

Over the years, baggage limits have got tighter. I can still remember a time when even in domestic economy the allowance was 20 kgs but now we’re allowed only 15. And hand baggage rules have gotten narrower and frankly, weirder. No knitting needles, no large size shampoo bottles, no pickles. Excuse me?  Are grandma’s pickles considered a weapon now?

I have had things like a child’s fork, a metal tape measure, a key chain with a toy kukri (Nepali dagger) all of one inch long, a teeny pair of round-ended scissors for trimming infant nails confiscated by airport security staff. You couldn’t kill a mosquito with any of them much less hijack a planeful of humans. But they broke some abstruse rule or other and so…I was particularly cut up about the tape measure, it originally belonged to my father and was over 40 years old. Also now they frown at me if my cabin bag tips the needle beyond 7 kgs. That’s basically two and half hardbacks and my bunch of keys. Like I said, the whole thing’s a joke.

 

What to take, what to leave behind? Should I take a favourite book or should I pack my trusty old rolling pin? Should I pack brands I’m comfortable with or should I explore new options?  Excitement of the unknowns or comfortable familiarity in a new place? Prioritise, pack, and then unpack half of it back again.  

 

 

A-Z Challenge

 

April...w/o the A-Z

 

A is for...As and when Able

It’s been a habit and therapy and sanity and camaraderie – I’ve been participating in the A-Z Challenge since 2014 and absolutely love the rigorous discipline of it. I have written poetry and prose, I’ve gone on amazing exploratory trips, I’ve fallen through rabbit holes, I‘ve limericked and panic-laughed and reflected and researched and paid tribute to places and people. I’ve signed up and I’ve stayed away from the master list, I’ve visited hundreds of blogs and also done return visits only. I’ve pantzed it and planned it through life changes -  bereavement, country/continent relocations and sundry other, less monumental issues. In short, an April without the A-Z doesn’t feel like my April at all.

 

And yet. This April I’m not taking the challenge, at least not every day. Life is a mixed bag of chaos at present.  Last year August, I came home to India and took off the dustcovers for the final time. I had initially thought of cannibalising them into dishcloths or something and then that got forgotten in the rush of refurbishing the home base to our current requirements. Turns out it was a nifty move not to, thank goodness! Only eight months after the relocation to end all relocations, after making what I thought was the final journey home, we’re moving again. We fly out in a few days. Life at present is all about dustcovers, sorting through and packing up at the moment.

 

So.  I will be participating as and when I am able. I’m staying off the master list this year as well, because I have no idea when and where I’ll get a connection or the time to write/blog or return visits.

 

We’re relocating this time farther than the Middle East, farther than I’ve ever been. A different continent, a different hemisphere. Excited and a tad apprehensive, but mostly grateful. Life is never easy but it’s also amazing in ways one cannot anticipate in a million years.

 

Happy April to you and happy A-Zing if you’re participating!

A-Z Challenge 2022

Atlas

 

You were the cardinal points, the belief

mere air could not mess my hair in mischief,

you were the map and compass, you were fair winds

and the calmest seas anyone imagined.

 

You were the deep woods, you were the sunshade,

you were the rare skyblue that did not fade

and the staunch white roof, also the winding route,

the known and the uncharted and its pursuit.

 

Now you walk among the stars, leave no mark

as you come to check on yours in the dark,

I grieve and I do not grieve that you are gone –

you are never far and I am not alone.

 

Something that’s faintly like a torn atlas

you’ve left behind on the shelf for all of us.

Holi 2022

 

They come and go, the yellow flowers

and the festivals of spring.

Grief is also a celebration

and colours everything.

How different we were before death bloomed! –

loss, in its season, brings

flowers, fruits, the sharp stalks of harvest.

Loss, too is a blossoming.

 

And I’ve grown my own carapace

then taken it apart,

as a seed must destroy its casing

before new life can start.

I’ve morphed to a shoot that carries

grief’s grey sap through its heart.

Holi is the Indian festival of colours observed to mark the beginning of spring. 

Refracted

 

A specific slant of sunlight, mangoes,

a vase of gerberas one afternoon,

a flute seller piping a marigold tune

above the traffic noise below these windows

 

all flash your smile back to me – this shade, this bloom

was a favourite, the slant reminiscent

of your knuckles, or the words you had sent

skimming across the oceans, or the room.

 

Is this how it’s going to be from now on? -

every trivial thing viewed against the light

of your refracted absence – dark to bright

fanned out in a spectrum, now that you’re gone.

 

How does this rainbow recombine and when

or won’t I see that white beam ever again?

In Memoriam

 

I forget to grieve some days because the wind

gently ruffles the curtains, their very drape

expectant, as if you’re about to step in;

the air, the entire room moulded to the shape

 

of your hands as they held the fabric aside;

slatted sunlight through the windows is your hand

on the armrest - I look  hard, mesmerised

till the curtain falls back  and I understand.

 

Some days I forget, as some part imagines

an amorphous smudge on the metal handrail

as if it recalls, recreates your thumbprint

effortlessly in gripping but blurred detail.

 

Your slippers with your toe marks on the shoe rack

disarranged - as if soon you’ll be coming back.