The English Papers I

In the right spirit

The English Papers I

On 28^th April, an address I had been writing to in England came alive. It was an address, way out in Cornwall, at the Southern tip of England, where a lady I met in 1989 at the Osho Commune, Pune, lived. She and I had become friends instantly, while she was visiting India, both of us having common friends through whom we met. It is hard to bring back all the little things – and the big things we did for each other, during her stay in India. It is also impossible to describe the bonding we have between the two of us.

“I was probably the Maharaja of Kanker, married to an outrageous English lady, from the far west…” I had said once, ‘although you look much better in your own country than you look in mine!’

She had fallen into deep depression, there upon. India is so dear to her!

Jill Cadman and I are family. Over the seas and the air, the lands that part us, essentially we are deeply tied together as if we are sisters. The years between us, have never allowed the spirit that binds us, to come in between.

A little anxiety prone these days, she had waited long at the Heathrow Airport to pick me up, but was thrown in a fuzzy state of mind when she did not see me emerge even after half an hour had passed. I had walk out of the green channel, having nothing to declare, but got lost among the conveyer belts causing a delay in walking out of the airport. By the time we met, our nerves were a wreck but the sight of each other threw us both into each other’s arms and there we were off on the Underground, chatting away, as if there had not been a full ten years between us, when we had not met at all. We changed over to a bus, at some point and then, once again, we chatted and laughed so much, we missed our stop and had to walk back quite a distance, to arrive at Fiona’s where we were to spend two nights before we left for Cornwall. I had touched London in its raw at around 10 pm, that night of April, 25, 2014.

Jill’s life in Cornwall, is a busy one. Between her home, her children and her grandchildren, not to forget her friends, she has a hectic day, running around everywhere in her two-seater SMART Mercedes Benz. And in between she spends huge amount of time in what she calls her lifeline, her beautiful garden. 

Every one living in the countryside has a garden and this surely is the beauty of living where she does. As you enter, the garden smiles at you and the occasional guard at the garden, the lovely orange cat may throw herself over at your feet for a little scratch on the tummy.  

Our day ran like this: I woke at 5 am, did my meditation and had my coffee. Then I stared at nothing out of her window for long hours, till she woke, had a shower and a cuppa. By then, it was time for her daughter Suzie to call. A long conversation ensued, ending in a laugh and then a glutten free breakfast was on its way. I lay the table, while she prepared the protein rich breakfast, after which we set off sight seeing and meeting friends on the way. Sometimes we shopped at Tescos.

And on Wednesdays, we did something very special – we baby sat Elise, her youngest grand child.

I am so grateful for this time with Elise, who cried a little bit on her father’s shoulders, when she first met me, but soon overcame her shyness sharing with me games and stories we read together. Just four, delicate and pretty, she is now preparing to join in at the wedding of her parents, this September! 

“She too is getting married!” Suzie quipped, while I swallowed a laugh, well nigh a burst.

Indeed, three generations of women, one I had already met in India and followed to her country, the other two, the delightful little Elise, and her mother. I am so happy I went, because if I had not, I would not have met Suzie, about whom you will read in the soon to be published, The English Papers II.  

Some pictures from Windermere, Lake District

https://plus.google.com/u/0/photos/+JuliaDutta/albums/6014055339534497329

Some pictures from Jill’s garden

https://plus.google.com/u/0/photos?pid=6009295846412850434&oid=118112130944380341626

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.

Film Review: Ganashotru by Satyajit Ray

 “There is nothing quite so useless, as doing with great efficiency, something that should not be done at all.” - Peter Drucker

One of Satyajit Ray’s lesser known films was made after he had a heart attack on the sets of a hugely successful film, Ghare-Baire. One his doctor’s advice, the renowned film maker, was forced to make the film totally in the Studio.

The film is an adaptation of a play by Henrik Ibsen: An Enemy of the People. Set in a small Bengali town, Dr. Ashoke Gupta (Soumitra Chatterjee) who heads the town hospital finds that he is flooded by patients with jaundice. All these patients have been to the town’s largest temple and participated is drinking the holy water, called charanamitra, which is contaminated water from the river on which the temple stands. Dr Gupta's younger brother, Nisith (Dhritiman Chatterjee), is the head of the committees running the hospital and the temple, both of which were built by a local Industrialist. The temple is a big tourist attraction and quite naturally a cash-cow for the industrialist.

Convinced, after proper water testing, Dr. Gupta believes that the holy water of the temple is contaminated due to faulty pipe-laying, which is now causing an epidemic in the town. He warns his brother Nisith. However, Nisith and the Industrialist and other town officials reject the idea that holy water might be the cause of the epidemic. They refuse to close the temple to carry out the repairs, with the fear that if the public came to know about water contamination, the crowds may thin out. 

Obsessed with the town’s heath, Dr. Gupta wants to write an article in the newspaper to warn people. The enthusiastic Editor of the newspaper, however also comes under pressure and the article goes unpublished.

Left with no alternative, Dr. Gupta organises a public meeting that is also sabotaged. He is proclaimed a Ganashotru, enemy of the people.

The film moves on to show, how, one by one, the doctor’s wings are cut off – first, he is suspended from work, then his daughter loses her job and finally, his landlord asks him to leave his house. Left with little choice, the Doctor is preparing to leave, when finally from far, he hears the people’s voice, shouting slogans in support of him. The lone, crusader has won his battle against the industrialist and those who tried to malign his effort to save people.

Highly unlikely, a lone doctor’s fight against a money-spinning industry like a temple, the film is saved from utter rubbish, when one looks carefully at some other layers that intertwine to make it a watchable film.

First, it brings out the stark difference between religious beliefs and what is scientific. For example, the water report on the charanamitra, proves it is contaminated but the industrialist, tries to drill into the doctor’s mind, how a mere presence of the tulsi leaf in the charanamitra makes the liquid ‘pure’, free of all contamination.

Second, although it may have had no relevance then, when it was made, the clash of objectives between the religious bigots and the scientifically objective can at least be the central take-away from the film, now in India, especially if you consider that Satyajit Ray, is an Indian born international figure and film maker, unmatched so far. It is a film that warns public against religious bigot and the rise of people’s power to overthrow blind belief, against scientific evidence.

Third, who is the real enemy of the people, blind belief, religion or science? 

Indeed, as the film ends, with a bottle of charnamrita and a stethoscope lying side by side, we get the message loud and clear – blind belief of religion and science lie side by side and it is for us to choose what we want – one, or both, either/or. Whatever.

As for me, I am with Peter Ducker - “There is nothing quite so useless, as doing with great efficiency, something that should not be done at all.”

Film: Ganashatru  

Producer: NFDC, National Film Development Corporation of India

Screenplay & Direction: Satyajit Ray; Adapted from the play: 'An Enemy of the People' by Henrik Ibsen.

Cinematography: Barun Raha

Editing: Dulal Dutta

Art Direction: Ashoke Bose

Sound: Sujit Sarkar

Music: Satyajit Ray

Cast   

Character: Performer

Dr. Ashoke Gupta:Soumitra Chatterjee

Maya, Dr. Gupta's wife: Ruma Guha Thakurta

Indrani, Dr. Gupta's daughter: Mamata Shankar

Nisith: Dhritiman Chatterjee

Haridas Bagchi: Dipankar Dey

Biresh: Subhendu Chatterjee

Adhir:  Manoj Mitra

Ref: http://www.satyajitray.org/films/ganasha.htm

Why I won’t dine at Koshy’s again

We sat; our hands tightly held under the table, our hearts beating as one, this time not in love, but in grief common to both of us.

We had not sat, like this when in 2005, she and I made this journey together to meet what she called an integral part of her body, mind and soul. That day, at Koshy’s Bangalore, India, we had sat wide apart, because, I only needed to be around, but not right next to her.

The smoky, noisy restaurant was divided into two parts then. One side where people blew smoke in the air, shouted loudly and drank their Sunday Beer. On the other was a quiet space, quite like a fine dining space and we walked through the glass door and seated ourselves on different tables. I sat with my magazine and she sat calmly by the window at the far end of the room, strategically sitting in a spot that would make her visible to anyone coming in from the doorway.

Her looks were deceptive; inside she was trembling like a leaf in April, about to fall from a bel tree. After 17 long years she was going to see someone, who was the closest person she would ever have in her life. I was only a partner, not her child!

When the door opened, I saw a face, which was so close to my partners', I could have even identified him to be my partner’s son, in the middle of the most crowded street. He did not know, that his cousin, who was with him had hidden the fact that this lunch at Koshy’s was going to be with his mother.

I left the scene at that moment, taking my eyes off my partner and focusing on the magazine instead. The tremble of hearts caught in a twist of fate, that brought them willy-nilly face to face with each other, was not in my imagination, because a good two hours later, after much conversation and small morsels eaten, the young and handsome lad, now doing his Ph.D in Purdue University, USA, along with his mother, my partner, came forth. She looked happy but exhausted too emotionally.

“This is my partner,” she said simply. I stood up and shook his hands. Then, we raced off to FabIndia on M G Road and in the car he and I talked about Mood Indigo and IIT, Mumbai, where he had passed out from, before he left for the US. His mother would have bought him the whole shop, if he wanted that day!

The meeting ended after this and then, it picked up later, only to fizzle out again. Hers was a constant longing to connect; his was inability to face the real, when in his mind, he had constructed an ‘unreal’ picture of her and preferred to live with it.

He had emulated all his mother had and it made me think of all those people we love but cannot have – would we also not emulate someone, we loved and lost, unconsciously? Is that not a way to keep the memory of that person alive in us? Would we not have found a way to live and let go, if we could live with the unreal, because, the real was not a part of our lives any more.

Life is a creative force: What you cannot have, you never forget; what you will never have, you become that.

This is why, when she and I sat to watch, Philomena, the movie, we held our hands tightly and silently under the table, our hearts beating as one, this time not in love, but in grief common to both of us.  

“Based on the 2009 investigative book by BBC correspondent Martin Sixsmith, The Lost Child of Philomena Lee, PHILOMENA focuses on the efforts of Philomena Lee, mother to a boy conceived out of wedlock - something her Irish-Catholic community didn't have the highest opinion of - and given away for adoption in the United States. In following church doctrine, she was forced to sign a contract that wouldn't allow for any sort of inquiry into the son's whereabouts. After starting a family years later in England and, for the most part, moving on with her life, Lee meets Sixsmith, a BBC reporter with whom she decides to discover her long-lost son.” (From the web)

This is also why; I will not dine at Koshy’s again.

Film review: Blue Is The Warmest Color

I swung on either side of doubt – the side that tell you, all is good and the side that said that I was watching a porn film, made well with a story.

Blue Is The Warmest Color, is a film about discovering one’s sexuality.

The main protagonist, Adele, is in high school and is discovering her sexuality and her leaning. She is with a boyfriend but finds sex with him, missing in something; she can’t really place her finger on. But, quite by chance she meets Emma, the girl with the blue hair and between them a relationship takes birth. An older Emma is a painter and has had her share of girlfriends, is experienced and is able to handle and take our Adele through a road that makes the latter very sure that she is lesbian. Yet, when she is insecure or lonely, she finds herself in the arms and bed of a boyfriend. Naturally Emma is not happy about it. A fight ensures between the two and even as Emma is warming up to her ex-girlfriend, whom she will finally find a home with again, she throws Adele out of her life in an angry burst. Adele may have discovered her preference, by now, but she is unable to move on in her life with another woman. The two lovers meet again and although, Emma is not happy with her sex life with her present girlfriend and professes to have enjoyed the life with Adele, she too is stuck and does not break the relationship she is already in.

The film is graphic and visuals of love-making are real as real can be. So maybe children who need their own time to understand their leanings, need to be kept from seeing it.

The story focuses more on the sexual life of Adele and in that sense, I did feel at the end of the film a bit cheated, because, as a woman, my feelings were quite this: the Director, Abdellatif Kechiche had used Adele’s body a bit too much over the film. Also, he had made a film for men who are curious to know what goes on between lesbians, in intimate sexual relationship.

It would have been better to know that, perhaps discovering one’s sexual orientation is not only about sex. I did not see some tell tale signs like falling in love with a woman teacher, older aunt or some signs that are indicative of what is to come.

The story too, was sad. It did not end on a positive note. It did not bring Adele and Emma together; indeed, it helped the viewer reiterate the fact that Adele was used as an in-between, Emma’s ex and her return to her, after Adele was thrown out. So, it sent out a strong message of use-abuse scenario between the two, although it may be argued that Adele used Emma to discover her own sexuality. Well, the argument could go anyways, but the fact remains the same – the film made out in French with English subtitles, is worth seeing and talking about and both Adele and Emma were certainly in love. Their eyes said so, then what happened? Why did the Director not make a happy ending?

You will have to see the film to answer that question, but for now, let’s hear what Adele has to say about her role.

Download Film here:

http://www.movie4k.to/Blue-Is-the-Warmest-Color-watch-movie-4923378.html

Or watch online:

http://putlocker.bz/watch-blue-is-the-warmest-color-online-free-putlocker.html

Why I write - Guest post on Coffeebeanzone

Dear Reader,

Does the name Roasted Coffee Bean bring back memories of haunting smell of Coffee, freshly roasted and powdered to make a divine cup of coffee?

Well, here is a refreshing Roasted Coffee Bean, at her very best.

The highly talented girl/lady has a wonderful LinkedIn profile, a somehow active Twitter she owns a very interesting and engaging blog on Wordpress. She is a lyricist, painter, photographer and writer. The lady revealeth as much as you want to discover about her.

So start your journey of a million miles, on cyberspace, with one single step.

Enjoy! Spread the word around and Share. Click on: 

http://coffeebeanzone.wordpress.com/2014/03/23/why-i-write-guest-post-by-author-julia-dutta/

And hope you will visit Roasted Coffee Bean for more Guest posts on an amazing number of people. Indeed, hang out there and have a fill of many others, she has written about. 

See not; hear not; do not!

From the net 

See not; hear not; do not!

The three monkeys of the mind must of course do exactly the opposite of what they are asked not to do.

Take the example of Ms Polly Outrageous. Having lived a fairly open life, swing in the 60s and stretching it to the 90s, she has finally found her peace in a life of discipline and one-centeredness. She is presently involved with reviewing her colourful life in the past and drawing, painting and writing stories of that past. But lately, she has ventured on facebook, and the first thing that hits her is the picture of couples kissing each other, which has gone viral. Needless to say, Ms Polly Outrageous has unwittingly looked at that video with much interest. Yes, of course it is possible to kiss and even love strangers, just like it was possible and still is, to love many, like they did in the 60s. Ms Polly Outrageous is now engaged with her imagination and like a tourist in London, having left all their identity in India, may engage in indeed the very outrageous, because in London, nobody knows her, Ms Polly Outrageous is really living out her name on facebook, but with dire consequences.

Only the other night, in her dream, she has been kissing someone, trying very hard to avoid kissing the lips. Even in the dream, she is prompting herself to not venture into the absolutely real, which will then cause her to accept that the near flirtatious pastime is becoming a serious preoccupation. As long as her kisses land on cheeks, forehead and other so called safe places, at least she is ‘safe’. This, after all is not one of those nights she is alone, she knows in her dream.

All that we want, we deny first. All that shows up in the dreams is a reflection of a shade of reality, which could be exactly as the dream or something that has a hidden meaning. In the above case, at face value, Ms Polly Outrageous, is certainly flirting with an idea of including ‘someone’ else; of breaking the cast and expanding the parameters. On a deeper level, she is merely trying to ‘kiss’ something new. It might even be a new life, a new job, a new love, a new life she is seeing in the offing, with which she is toying in her mind, flirting with the idea, but not wanting to get too close to it. A deeper mouth to mouth kiss would shift the position in her mind totally.

On a philosophical level, there is too much ado about nothing! The picture of the kissing couples has excited the impressions left behind in her mind, by kisses in the past.

The real, is the experience of impressions, which in themselves are not identical in every case, even with the same thing. A kiss may cause my mind to retain some impressions which may not be identical to what is left in your mind of the same experience of kissing. Hence, the real, philosophically can only be called unreal, for impressions are not scientific residual matter that appear in the same way, every time. Yet, one cannot deny their existence, because, if they did not exist, they would not revisit.

Where psychology ends, philosophy begins. Where the desire dynamics is a source of perennial discourse, philosophy gives step-motherly treatment. Where desire is a life giving force, philosophy is quick to douse water saying, memory of impressions is not truth. Indeed, impressions are not real at all.

But the take home for Ms Polly Outrageous is only one, that being See not; hear not; do not!

Where are you?

Film review - Highway

Rorschach Test

Highway is not a film about being taken hostage. It is not about living with so called hardened criminals. It is about scars that never go away, with time. It is about being safe in unsafe places and being unsafe in safe places. It is about bonding of people with deep scars in their minds.

Director Imtiaz Ali has done a smart job of dramatizing a plot that is often not spoken about or dusted under the carpet.

Starring Randeep Hooda and Alia Bhatt, the movie begins when Alia Bhatt escapes for a breath of fresh air from her own wedding ceremony and is kidnapped by gangsters who go on the run with their captive in place. Alia begins to like her journey on the highways as they travel from place to place trying to escape the law. It is at some place in this journey that Alia, reveals the real story line of her life. Indeed, it is here among the so called unsafe people, that she recalls her abused childhood in the so called safety of her home.

As the story moves, Alia and Randeep get closer to each other. The love angle does develop, but there are no song and dance around the trees nor mushy whispers and passion play. There is only a very strong bonding which hovers around psychology where Alia develops love towards her captors. As they settle in a wooden cabin, in the midst of nature, Alia, does not want to return to her home. Indeed, she wants to make a home with Randeep. But the agitated parents have set the law to hound them and even before they have time to settle down, Randeep is killed in Police shoot out and Alia dragged back to her home. Here, she meets her uncle, the villain in the home and in wide public accuses him of the sexual abuse he had performed on her, when she was a child. The crowd is shocked but Alia has had her time to acuse and bring to the forefront a pain she has been guarding in her mind.

But will this revelation, save her? Will it ease the scar left behind in childhood? If Rarschach Test is correct, then the scar in the personality has made Alia a lover of the unknown, for the known is dangerous, like her uncle.

Imtaiz Ali is smart. He has packed in a more meaningful message into an otherwise, colourful but much overused theme of abduction of rich people’s children.

There is a solid message here, delivered in a way that is ingenuous. And brave.

Cast

Randeep Hooda as Mahabir Bhati

Alia Bhatt as Veera Tripathi

Saharsh Kumar Shukla as Goru

Pradeep Nagar as Tonk

Durgesh Kumar as Aadoo

Arjun Malhotra as Vinay

Hemant Mahaur as Kasana

Film review: HER – so painfully real!

From net India Today ePage, Film review. See below

Man’s sense of loneliness can be defined by not what he feels inside, but the environment in which he lives.

Born a social animal, the world he has inherited, is one where the term social has evolved to give new meanings. Be it machinery, technology or human beings, social interaction and communication has withstood time to make itself available to engage in new ways, one never thought one could.

‘Her’ is a story that lends itself to what urban human life has become, as the years go by. It builds on what has been happening in the last two or more decades, as the internet has grown to occupy our lives in more than hundred ways. Although the film, is a Science Fiction, and is set in 2025, the reel realities are real today.

Theodore Twombly, recently divorced from his long term relationship with his wife is coming to terms slowly with his life as a single man. For company he is naturally engaged with his handy, through which he is able to meet women, who are able to keep him entertained emotionally and sexually, as a pastime, until a very brilliant OS system takes over his life. The Smart Operating System is voice and emotion sensitive and responds to Theodore as Samantha. An inanimate OS, now speaking, talking, laughing, loving, indeed, even making love, to Theodore, slowly drives away the blues with constant company, sensitive care and being there all the time – only thing is, it is an Operating System and not a real girl of flesh and bone.

Theodore is rather adjusted now, but can happiness last for life? Sadly, the OS is soon outdated and is getting junked and hence, his companion, Samantha, too, will have to go.

Delivered a double whammy, Theodore turns to his real life friend, who has herself just been dumped by her boyfriend. The two rejected souls, both human, are now going to get together, thank god, in flesh and blood, with challenging emotions and real relationships.

On the one hand, ‘Her’, brings to reality, the condition of the human being. When family and friends have been replaced by virtual ones, the world of friends and acquaintances have truly grown large and yet, not one, is here to touch and feel; it is you and you alone, who has a relation with these virtual community and whatever emotions have to be exchanged, it is you and your imagination only that makes it possible.

Here lies a great barrenness of being – the loneliness of being one, you, yourself and your truth only. Nobody can challenge that; it is yours as long as you sustain it, it is gone when you don’t. No one will cajole you to stay, be there. No one will miss you; nor anyone think of you, except you, yourself.

But on the flip side, there is a story that fits our times, when human relationships have become like instant coffee. Once drained out, and the coffee finished, so is the relationship. The virtual world provides the only escape from the frequent gains and losses, the landscape of a life so hurried that even love, or love making at long languid afternoons, or through the night, is just not a luxury the fast moving, multi-tasking modern, masses in urban cities can afford any more.

So, is virtual, telephonic sex, the way forward? Like it or not, when time and space are not available, and the leisure of a slowly simmering love, warming up the heart and flesh is hard to come by, the sultry voice that guides you to your climax at the same time, filling your ears with the hard breathing of the sound of an orgasm, is far better than wallowing in a life all by yourself.

Director Spike Jones, has made a good attempt to bring out the acute loneliness of our times, at the same time, placing the possibilities before the viewer, but finishing with the triumph of the human spirit that bond in flesh and blood.

You are left with a choice; take what best suits you, naturally.

See it; feel it; do it!

Cast:
Joaquin Phoenix as Theodore Twombly
Amy Adams as Amy
Rooney Mara as Catherine
Olivia Wilde as Amelia
Scarlett Johansson as Samantha (voice)
Chris Pratt as Paul
Matt Letscher as Charles
Sam Jaeger as Dr. Johnson
Luka Jones as Mark Lewman
Kristen Wiig as Sexy Kitten (voice)
Bill Hader as Chat Room Friend #2 (voice)
Spike Jonze as Alien Child (voice, credited as Adam Spiegel)
Portia Doubleday as Surrogate Date Isabella
Soko as Isabella (voice)
Brian Cox as Alan Watts (voice)

Read another review written by Aekta Kapoor:

http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/queen-music-earthy-yet-peppy/1/344213.html

Book review: Time out with Teatime for the Firefly by Shona Patel

Shona Patel’s debut novel, Teatime with the Firefly, makes for an interesting read for die-hard fans of romance in 1940s, among elite, well educated, Oxford or Cambridge returned Bengalis.

Layla Deb, born under the unlucky star is orphaned early in life with the death of her parents. Her maternal aunt and uncle, Mima, takes Layla under her wing and Dadamoshai, who plays a pivotal role in the book, takes charge of Layla thereafter. Layla’s life finds wings as an able, educated girl, helping her, Dadamoshai, who is himself a London-returned, highly educated retired barrister, run, his village school, for girls in Silchar, a small town in the far northeast part of India.  In the meantime, Layla is has also received private tutorship from English teacher, Miss Thompson, who patiently tutors willing students, the Queen’s English, with all its emphasis on the where, when, what, why,  holding the palm, six inches away from the mouth. Needless to say, Layla has been a good student and even the English ladies she will meet in the tea gardens later on, are pleasantly surprised that Indians speak such good English!

Not so perfect, with her Ingliiish, Layla’s nieghbour, Konica, short name, Kona, is bigilee, tryiiinj, to brush up her English, in order to be ready to marry, the handsome, and of course, the Oxford returned Manik Deb who is going to join the upper crust Indian in British administrative services, after having been engaged to her, for six years.  That is of course, if cupid had not struck an arrow through two hearts – Laylas’ and Maniks’. Much to everyone’s surprise and the Kano family disgrace, our protagonist decides to join the tea garden working as assistant manager, instead of pursuing what he set out to do in the first place. A series of letters flow, between the two, lovers, Layla and Manik, over three years, a mandatory period to be observed without marital commitment, for all people, employed by British Tea Companies head quartered in Calcutta or England.

The letters get intimate even as, Kona’s father, distraught and angered and feeling betrayed, quickly manages to find her a good, affluent Bengali family to which he is happy to get his daughter married. Neither he, nor Dadamoshai are in the know as to why, a sane Manik Deb, Rhodes Scholar, Oxford, should take such an eccentric step as to go join a tea garden, Aynakhal T.E. The beautiful intellectual romance between the two, finally culminates into marriage and Layla joins her husband in the tea estate spending time among tea garden English ladies, Planter’s Club, evening high tea, needle work, knitting, gardening, baking, bearers, Ayahs and hoards of servants. She is happy to see her husband display his managerial qualities, but dreads the lust he has for her after marriage, fearing of course the first night! It takes a hornet’s bite between her breasts to initiate the sex between the couple. Thereafter, Layla joins her hungry husband to an assortment of surprising love-making in often unpredictable places, giving the romance a character of its own! Together with this, she however, has to cope with the world of bats, snakes, tigers, leopards, and all that comes with wildlife in the jungles of Assam. She lives and she learns.

In the background of all this, the slow growth of trade unionism, the oncoming Indian independence, the riots between Hindus and Muslims, Layla gives birth to their first child. Within days of her birth, Manik Deb nearly loses his life. It is at this moment, and as the book closes, that Layla, proves her love for her husband, over everything else.

The book fulfills another purpose for those with a leaning towards, anthropology. ‘Laahe – laahe,’ slowly, slowly, like a boat ferrying across the water of time, the reader is bound to love the experience of tea gardens in British India with time out with Teatime for the Firefly.

Publisher: Harlequin MIRA, 225, Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario M3B 3K9, Canada
Title: Teatime for the Firefly
Author: Shona Patel
Pages: 427
Price: Rs 299


About the author: Shona Patel, 52, did her English Honours from Kolkata University and lives in Arizona, US, with her husband. She is a trained graphic designer and has won several awards for creative writing. Teatime with the Firefly is her debut novel. Presently, she is working on her second novel.

First published in The Hindu Literary Riview

http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-features/tp-literaryreview/planters-clubs-and-high-teas/article5643829.ece

Author interview in The Shillong Times

http://www.theshillongtimes.com/2014/02/09/tea-tale/