Old wine tastes sweet, sometimes.

Visiting a place you have left behind or people you are no more in daily contact with, because they are no more a part of your life, causes both a feeling of happiness as well as sadness. Let me explain.

Many moons ago, I came to stay in a city which was buzzing with life. Over the years, it made me, molding me from raw and ready clay to a finished good ready to take on the world. The city was Bombay.

I can’t say I was ever in love with the city – who can really be, if you have come from the laid back life of a small town, picturesque and beautiful. Yet, the cement blocks of which I was going to see a lot in later years as well, grew in me and the people became my family. Yes, they say, in Bombay, you do not need your family; your neighbours make up for your family.

After thirteen years, I escaped to another place, close to Bombay, where the quality of life resembled what I had left behind, long ago. So, why did I return to Bombay after eight years out of it?

I longed to be in the hustle bustle of daily life, waking up at 5 am to take a train at 7 am to reach my work place at 9 am! Five years and I was done.

One day, I sat and calculated the number of hours I was on the road and it worked out to be like this: Out of 12 months in a year, I was only living 8, because the rest of the time I was travelling! It hit me like a bolt from the sky and I said to myself – Hey! I am not going to live like this anymore.

Just at that time, love came knocking at my door and I opened it to find that I was already flying out to another place, a place I was going to call my home.

Fifteen years in one place, changes you, for better or for worse. But it has contributed more to me than I can measure. Delhi is my jaan, my love, my life now.

Returning to Bombay, only recently, I realized that I was tremendously happy to be there and it almost seemed that I would return, just like I had many years ago, after living 8 years in a place which gave me, ease and a good lifestyle.  But early came a few warnings!

Friends and family I left behind years ago, were lukewarm.  They were also busy – Still! Even over the weekend, they did not have the time to meet. I understood! Isn't Bombay the place, where you promise to meet friends almost every week but can make it only once every other year? So why blame them; I am forgotten not because there is a problem with me, but because, life is so fast, it is like the old cassette we used to have, where you overwrite and everything is wiped out. So too me.

And there were a few new associations which were so warm and welcoming that I almost stayed behind. But good providence and past experience warned me of the devil within and the carrot that always hangs before a donkey, before it makes another enormous mistake!

I think that creative upheaval is a very positive thing and it pushes you beyond yourself to achieve new dimensions. This is exactly my point of view why I upturned my life so many times for a new place where I could start from scratch once again. But this time, I was shy of it.

It is indeed hard to create your stability with a city. It takes years to do it. And once it is cemented, then, it is foolish to ruffle up everything and start all over again.

There might be a home for me out there, but really Bombay, I am done with you and while I enjoyed my years with you, indeed, you are only old wine that tastes sweet, sometimes.

Photo credit HERE  

My family and other animals III

Just because he is cute does not mean Bagha was not a naughty boy!

Bagha was an individual by his own right. I remember he vanished for days and went to live with his lady, when she was in heat, over the hill on the other side of our house.

Just one fine day, he would take off and not return for days. While I cried endlessly, the entire family joined in a chorus calling out to him – Bagha! Come home! But there was no sight of him.

It was only once that he showed up at the top of the hill, while we called like people gone mad and wagged his tail. I was sure he was going to come down, but he actually didn’t! Having had a good view of all of us, he just went back to the house on top, whose roof is all we could see.

“Maybe you can take a half-day off at work,” we suggested to our cook, who worked in a government office and lived with us, “he is in that house, which can be approached easily from your Office.”

The cook agreed to go, but only after his work was over at 4pm.

We waited anxiously thinking that Bagha would return with him. We imagined that he would be very happy to see the cook and come with him, immediately.

He didn’t. The cook could not find him in the house. Nor could he find any other dog there. He returned without a smile on his face.  And just as he returned and we all weighed heavily with grief, we heard Bagha barking on the top of the hill, once again!

“Come home!” we wailed in unison, but he was his own man. He did what he wanted, at his time.

Then one day, he returned and was well received! There was joy and celebration in the house and he got a big bone to chew.

Shortly after that he was at his worse again. Chicken were being killed with jealousy. Really, we were desperate!

Then, the taxi driver gave us an idea. Two days later, Bagha was locked in the back-hold of the car and taken many kilometers away and left there. He would find his home there it was presumed by the elders of the family.

The stunned silence in the house was palpable. Nobody talked to each other during those days. People avoided each other’s eyes and they looked away when they spoke to each other. There was a shroud that covered the house we called our home. And the silence went on and on, its sound deafening as it were. Then one night, I woke to the sound of a whimper.

“Bagha is back!” I screamed. It was night and everyone was sleeping, but we all woke up and opened the door to find out if it was true. Indeed, it was!

And the morning rose next day with happy faces, laughter and joy. People chatted meaninglessly. The cloud which hung over our house had passed. Bagha had returned in the middle of the night, all the way from Upper Shillong, trailing back with the smell of the taxi in his nostril!

The strongest instinct in a dog is his sense of smell. He can smell his Master miles away from him. He may recognize you while he is standing 20 feet away from you, just because of the smell, he recognizes to be yours. He cannot see, over three feet away in front of him.

The return of Bagha also made me realize what I had gone through. It was my first experience of nights of light sleep. I had never known it before.

Giving away your pet or just leaving him in unknown territory can be life threatening for him. He may survive or he may perish. We as owners need to understand that the well-bred dog on the street is one that has survived the torture of the street, when its owner sent him out or began to disown it.

There is absolutely no reason to send a pet on the street, unless we as owners are ready to take to the streets ourselves. 

Indeed, they jolly well can survive on the streets and in the open, if we as humans did not desire to put them in a cage, we call our home.

Animals are born free!

Stories from childhood by Julia Dutta in anticipation of Terry and His Little Brothers

Photo credit: Unknown, via email share.

Goodbye England!

Goodbye England!

Across the seven seas

You influenced my thoughts

Even as a little girl in school.

Slightly built,

The prim and proper Head Mistress, Miss Thompson

Taught me first what discipline means

To human life

That strives to achieve goals

Within a lifetime,

Begotten, only once, in His image.

(Although, I have changed my mind since)

The little fables from her England

Stayed with me, until

I caught the wind to arrive

To her homeland.

And oh! What beauty

Steeped in history, culture

Music and dance, sweet England is!

And laughter smiles on every lip

Despite a moody sky!

Dear, dear England

It is hard to say goodbye!

But this life I chose

To be among people

Who find a way to laugh

Despite the empty basket of food.

Where there is abundance

Not in coins

That jingles in pockets.

I wanted to know a path

That goes beyond the material

And control coexists with chaos.

My spirit had longed

For a land whose peoples

Would be hospitable and willing to share

Even the bare minimum they had.

I wanted to know a hot and humid

Weather that burns the skin

Causing emotions to erupt without control

I wanted a land that promises me

Life, after life

Rebirth and Enlightenment.

Hence, goodbye England!

Across the seven seas

I take with me

Memories of your cheerful and chatty people

Your green stretches of desolate land

Which speak volumes in their silence;

Your flowers that play gaily on canvas

To paint pictures I will treasure

For the rest of my days.

And if we meet not again

Know this; I have taken you in my heart

As I have left behind

A little bit of my self in yours.

In your children, who will grow up to be you!

Live on! Thrive, England!

©Julia Dutta, May 2014

This poem is dedicated to the memory of my aunt, Dr Pratima Konar who left her body on 16th May, 2014.