The little ways in which I miss you

This write-up is dedicated to all those whose spouse has a travelling job or are staying in different cities/countries for some reason.


The kids are playing in the park. The little one is counting 1,2,3,4…20. While he covers his eyes with his small palms, he also peeps through the gaps between his fingers to see where his friends are hiding. Every time he peeps his naughty smile gives him away. All the other kids have run away to take shelter behind the bushes and pillars.

It’s beginning to get dark. I look at the time on my phone. It’s 6:50 PM. The mental calculation begins. Another 20 minutes at the most before taking the kids back home. Dinner will be at 7:30pm. They must be off to bed latest by 8:30pm. There is sanity in following a routine. It’s only after they sleep that the house will be quiet again. I can have some time to myself. Work, read, watch TV, or sleep.

I see a man stepping out of the basement parking. Crisp shirt, formal trousers, polished shoes. Laptop bag in hand. Is it you? My heart gets hopeful. Then my mind tells me, ‘No silly, it can’t be. He’s not here. Remember?’ Yes, I do remember. He’s travelling.

Once I clear the table and am ready to switch off the lights for the night, I notice a car from the window. I try to guess the make of the car from the shape of its glaring headlamps. It’s a Honda. Not yours. Then another car approaches. This one looks like yours. My heart leaps up in hope. Then my mind tells me, ‘No silly, it can’t be. He’s not here. Remember?’ Yes, I do remember. You are not going to be back for another few days.

I call you, hoping you are done for the day but we can’t speak just yet, you are surrounded by people.

Our bed has been occupied by the kids. They told me, ‘Tumhe darr lagega akele’. Well, it’s better than going to sleep in an empty bed and feel your absence. Now that you are not here to wake me up in the morning, I pick up my phone to set an alarm for myself but end up browsing through some useless posts on Instagram. In parallel, I think about how much time I end up wasting on the phone, I could do so much more with that time. I am so addicted!

You call, we speak for a few minutes. But, neither of us are good with spoken words. So, we just talk about the kids or what you ate for dinner. More than anything we talk about, I am just happy to hear your voice.

I read a book late into the night, then get hungry. I guiltily eat some ice-cream but tell myself I deserve it. I justify the need for it. I can’t sleep if I am hungry. I read till I can no longer keep my eyes open and then drop off to sleep. Had you been here we would have most likely watched something on Netflix together. I am saving it for when you return. Also, I know that watching TV would make me stay up even longer. I can’t sleep as peacefully when you are not around.

After the kids go to school, I put some clothes into the machine for washing. At the bottom of the washing pile is your off-white shirt. I pick it up and hold it close. It still smells of you. That familiar mix of your perfume and you that I know so well. I close my eyes and enjoy the heady mix for a few moments before putting it back in the basket. I won’t put it for washing before you return. Not for any reason, but only because there are not enough of your clothes to fill the machine.

Later in the day I find a picture of us from a few days ago. I smile. Well, at least in this photo we will always be together. I share it on social media. It makes me wonder how deceptive it can be. When we are apart, I am creating an impression as if we are together. Do people use the same logic when posting photos, it makes me wonder.

The Scent of Love

He came home smelling of perfume...I chose not to question him

The kids had fallen asleep. It was peaceful, dark and cosy in the bedroom. I like this time of the day when there are no more chores, the laptop has been put to rest and I can be ‘me’, relieved of my duties as ‘mother of two’. He was expected to come home late after a daylong conference and dinner at a hotel.

I was blissfully reading The Forty Rules of Love, a book so luxurious and elegant that your life melts as you enter into the lives of the characters, mainly, Shams of Tabriz (a dervish), Rumi the Sufi poet, writer Aziz and a wife and mother in the current day and age, Ella. Right from the beginning I could most clearly picture Ella, her life as a wife and mother of two. 

I had nodded off to sleep while reading about Ella finding out about her cheating husband and her not feeling the need to confront him, even after several hints about his promiscuity. Even without my realising I had drifted off somewhere between sleep and waking, where reality and dreams morph into a weird state of trance. 

I woke up to my reality with a start only when my phone rang and he was at the door. I opened the door with a smile and offered him a glass of water. 

There was a distinct and powerful smell of perfume, too flowery and sweet smelling for a man. It was definitely not what he usually wears. 

Not able to ignore it much longer, I asked “Perfume? This is not yours, right?”

He remained silent, hesitated, and finally said with a smile, “Secret, Secret.”

“This is not yours for sure. Where did this come from?”

“There was a display counter at the hotel and I just tried some on.” There was something about the way he said it. 

“Your story was good, but I can always tell when you lie.” I told him before going into the bathroom. After nine years of knowing him, I knew this was not the truth. It did bother me and I kept thinking about it as I brushed my teeth for the night. But, I was surely not going to ask him about it or argue. Definitely not at this time of the night.

When I stepped into the bedroom and my eyes adjusted to the dim lights, I saw a neatly wrapped pink package waiting on my pillow. 

“Happy Anniversary…in advance!” he said.

“It’s more than a month away…why now?”

“I wanted to keep it hidden and give it to you on our anniversary.”

“Then you should have kept it hidden and given it to me later.”

“No! I know you. You would keep thinking about the perfume on me.” He watched me closely as I unwrapped the package to reveal the exquisite bottle of perfume inside.

“The perfume store is right next to the hotel where we had the conference, so I took the opportunity to buy it today.” He smiled. I was smiling too. Not everything is spoken and words cannot convey everything either. 

I guess the beauty of a relationship is sometimes in knowing the other person better than they may know themselves. 

Feelings are somewhat like perfume, you don’t see them, and you can’t touch them, but only feel their presence and enjoy it while it lasts. 

First published on Bonobology.com. https://www.bonobology.com/marriage/the-married-couple/593-the-scent-of-love-and-the-beauty-of-a-relationship

Mystery of My Missing Husband

I woke up and with one eye still closed picked up my mobile phone to check the time. It was 6:50 AM. I would have probably rolled over and snoozed for ten more minutes had it not been for a Whatsapp message from my husband.

There was just one word, “Boarded”.

Boarded? Really? Where? I don’t remember him telling me about any trip. Did he send the message by mistake? By now my eyes were wide open and mind racing. I vaguely remembered him shaking me in my sleep and telling me that he was leaving. What time was that?  He did not mention anything about where he was going or when he was supposed to return. He must have gone to the gym.

I looked at the message again to check the time. It had been sent at 5:00 AM. I called his number. His phone was switched off. Where did he go?  Unable to believe that he could have flown away to some place I was unaware of, I started searching the rooms for evidence. What should I look for? His shoes? The usual travel bag? Oh! The laptop bag! I looked for it at its usual place. It was not there. Finally, it was confirmed, he had left. But Where?

He travels frequently, although I detest it, I am pretty used to it. But, this was a first. Never in all these years, had he left without telling me where he was going. Even if it was a day trip, I always knew where he was. As I washed my face, I felt the urge to cry. 

How could you forget to tell me about this? You could have told me last night! This is not done. I was already framing the angry sentences in my mind. A tiny voice inside my head smirked, “So, after two kids and 8 years, this is your marriage?” Na, this is just him and it’s a one-time thing.

Really? Was it just him? Or was it me too? Always with the kids or talking about the kids. Did I get so engrossed being a ‘Mom’ that I ceased to be a ‘Wife’? Did we become ‘parents’ and forget how to be a ‘couple’. Did I squeeze my ‘husband’ out of ‘family’? Did I give ‘us’ a fair share of time and attention? Was I really 'listening'?

When was the last time we really ‘talked’ to each other and not discuss the kids? Hmm, I could only remember talking about school, homework, dinner, classes, groceries, weekend activities etc. Somewhat like subsistence communication. Just getting things done and moving on, one day at a time. Well, that’s how real life is mostly. Maybe? 

I don't know the answers yet, but hopefully I am looking at the right places.

Do share your thoughts and experiences in the comments section.

P.S. Just in case you are wondering...he had gone for a short work trip which he had told me about weeks in advance (but wasn't sure of then). While I had forgotten about it completely, he did not mention it even the evening before leaving.

Kem Cho? Maja Ma!

A post on my second home and how Mr. Dutta doesn't cease to surprise. 

An integral part of being Mrs. Dutta is visiting Ahmedabad on a regular basis. It had been home to my hubby for several school and college years and still is home to his parents. Through these numerous visits over the years I have begun to love the city as a second home. Now, if you stay in Ahmedabad you may not notice it but for a person coming from outside there are certain things that stand out and I have liked every bit of it.

To me, Ahmedabad stands out for several things, its plethora of sweet and savory food (mostly homemade) including dhoklas, khaman, khakhra, fafda, kachoris, aamras, shrikhand, chunda and many more. I have found people to be much simpler in their food habits, dressing and lifestyle. Weekends are usually spent with family at the club that have excellent amenities yet an extremely affordable menu. No wonder, unlike Gurgaon, people don’t feel the need to hit the malls every weekend.

In the absence of pubs (yes, it’s a dry state) and ‘night life’ as we typically understand, there is a late night ice cream culture and owing to that the presence of an ice cream parlor at every nook and cranny. ‘Havmor’ is omnipresent, somewhat like Starbucks outlets in Manhattan. Also, the night market at Law Garden is worth a visit. I have enjoyed bargaining and shopping for knick-knacks from there.

To a Delhi NCR person, I appreciate the ease with which women are seen comfortably zipping past in scootys even late in the evening. During Navratris, women are seen freely roaming the streets in backless chaniya-cholis late into the night, without the threat of being teased or ogled at. This is so comforting to see. Doing the same in Delhi NCR would be considered as ‘asking for trouble’.

Gujarat is amazing when it comes to handicrafts and customized clothing. If you can dream it, the boutiques there can create it and improvise on it, even if you are on a budget. Every time, I go to Ahmedabad with some space in my suitcase for shopping, I have often come back with an additional new bag filled with a bit of Ahmedabad in them. I blame it on Gujrat being high on the creativity and entrepreneurship spirit.

In Ahmedabad, I have found the definition of ‘far’ laughable. Everyplace is about 15-20 minutes away at the most, if not less. The roads are better than Gurgaon’s and there is relatively lesser traffic (although this is getting a little like the bigger metros lately). However, driving can be a little scary with an abundance of two wheelers and a total disregard for the traffic signals.

During our last visit, my husband and I decided to venture out in my in-laws car. It was a Sunday with limited cars on the road and like law abiding citizens we stopped at the red light. Within seconds we heard a screeching halt behind us. It was the car immediately behind us. We had been saved from getting bumped by inches. Even with the red light still on, the driver of the car drove away while staring at us and muttering under his breath. It was at that moment we realized that no GJ car finds it important to stop at a red light!

The very next day, while hubby dearest was trying to reverse the car in a narrow lane, a speeding scooter decided to squeeze its way in from behind. While nothing happened, the guy riding pillion started shouting in Gujarati and to my surprise, even Mr. Dutta responded in flawless Gujarati. Words and phrases in a language I never knew he could speak so fluently in nine years of knowing him.

For me visiting Ahmedabad is Awesome, hearing Mr. Dutta arguing in impeccable Gujarati Super Awesome! 

What I Learnt From My Grandmother

In a home with working parents, my grandmother was my companion and caregiver from the day I was born. She did everything that a parent would and maybe even more. Apart from the usual things, she taught me Bengali poems, ensured I learnt dancing and singing and forever kept a watchful eye on me. As a little girl, I ran to her for comfort and every night I fell asleep with her hand on my back, breathing in her cool scent while listening to Bengali folk stories. With her passing away, I lost my childhood companion.

The day she passed away, my four year old son was miserably sick with dengue and I found myself torn between the ‘granddaughter’ and the ‘mother’ that I am. I felt as I could not even fully mourn her loss. As the days and weeks passed I kept thinking about her and even now sometimes it is hard to believe that she is not here with us in person. I also realize that her beliefs, teachings and blessings will always be with us. I can often recall her voice and even the phrases she would have used for certain situations.

From her, I learnt many things and here are a few I thought I will share with all my friends and family:

 Invest in your Health: Even up to her early eighties, my grandmother exercised every morning and strictly stuck to her routine meal timings. Even with age, she never gained any weight and maintained herself at 40kgs. She never suffered from diabetes or high blood pressure either. Her morning cup of tea included four teaspoons of sugar! 

Eat Well: Although she ate small portions and at fixed timings, she was particular about the food she ate. She was an excellent cook and prepared various delicacies and even her ‘khichdi’ tasted better than a lot of ‘biryanis’ available in the market. She had a special dish for every occasion and festival which she made herself till a few years ago.

The Fighting Spirit: She was strong willed and having single handedly brought up my father, she had learnt never to give up. She always encouraged everyone to work hard and move ahead in life.

Immense Love for your Children: Her love for her only child, my father was exemplary. Even when my father was turning sixty and she was over eighty, she went to sleep only after ensuring that he had returned home. To me, her primary parenting advice was, ‘Love your children whole heartedly’.

 
Speak Your Mind: She always expressed her thoughts openly. If she disliked something, she said it upfront. This sometimes made others unhappy or angry but her feelings were never hidden, be it praise or criticism. Sometimes, her words were bitter but at least she was not hiding behind a mask of falsehood.

I shall always feel my grandmother’s presence with me. Only the physical form wither, the person stays alive with us forever.

You may also enjoy reading another post on her I wrote earlier: Mother Extraordinaire

Forgotten Keys!

It’s happened many times in the past, so I wasn’t surprised. A few years ago, we reached the airport and found that the keys to the suitcase were at home (He stopped locking his suitcase since then). On another occasion, we reached the airport barely twenty minutes before take-off since he somehow saw 17:50 pm as 18:50 pm. Thankfully, the then new Indigo airlines let us board the plane (sans our check-in baggage). There’s more…After an offsite he forgot his new crocs at a resort; left the car unlocked overnight and went for a trip. Thankfully, the security guard called up to inform us and my Mom (custodian of the spare key) rushed to lock the car.

More recently, when he sold his car, he gifted a nice pair of shades with it (forgotten in the dashboard)…an expensive pair that had been his birthday present from me. No wonder, I could not stop myself from laughing out loud when our toddler threw out his next pair out of the moving car. Before hubby could retrieve it, it had been crushed by another car.

Last Friday, after I had gotten myself and our baby ready, picked up my bags, the baby and his paraphernalia I could not find the car keys. I was almost certain about what had happened but I called him to confirm.

“Hi! Can I call you later? I am in a meeting”, he whispered into the phone.

“Where are the car keys?”

After five long seconds, “In my pocket.”

I was surely mad at him. It was raining cats and dogs, we were all set to go, I was getting late for office, the car was right there, but the keys were not. He had made the same blunder earlier as well….a few years ago, when I wanted to take Mom-in-Law out for lunch, but discovered that he had conveniently taken the car keys with him. This time I felt extra frustrated for some reason. I called a cab and left home after some time. On the way, I thought about writing this post, intending to shame him maybe through it, but now that I am writing it, I feel none of the anger I felt then. I was definitely inconvenienced and his apologising over WhatsApp was not helping much, but, two other things that happened during the day made me think.

Later, the same afternoon, when I wanted to go back home, I asked my colleague if she wanted to share a cab with me on the way back. She readily agreed. I called for a cab and was waiting for it to arrive, when my colleague realized that she had her car in the office parking! She would have gone home with me, leaving the car behind in office! (Her husband works in the same office and they had driven-in together that morning. He had given her the keys to drive back home.) This was a déjà vu moment for me, almost.

At night while scrolling through my phone I chanced upon a blog post by someone who has a holiday cottage in the hills. She had written about the mental ordeal of realizing that she had left the keys to her cottage behind, after travelling 220 KMS away from her Gurgaon home. What were the chances of me reading about her post on the same day ? I was amazed. Maybe our state of mind attracts certain things to us, who knows! Was this God’s way of telling me “Shit happens!”?

Today, as I write about this, I am laughing about this incident. Such is life, full of human errors and strange happenings. You feel annoyed at the moment, you worry, you feel stressed, but later you laugh. Eventually, it becomes an interesting memory from our otherwise mundane life. As far as hubby is concerned, I guess this is what makes him the way he is. The way he forgets these things once in a while, he forgets the numerous faults in me too. He forgot about the keys, while I found something else.

Did this post make you think of a similar instance from your life? Share it in the comments section. I would love to hear from you.

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What's for Breakfast today?

When my mother asked the airhostess for a portion of Upma on the flight, I was surprised to hear the excitement in my husband’s voice about the dish. He even went on to request a bite from her and I noticed how happily he consumed a spoonful of it. He insisted it was yummy and that I will love it. I refused to spoil the taste of caramel popcorn in my mouth but finally took a bite on my mother’s insistence but immediately regretted it. After all, how tasty can Upma be on an Indigo flight? Definitely not more than the caramel popcorn.

As the Upma melted in my mouth and I popped in a few more popcorns to clean my palate, it transported me back to another time. I went back by about seven years, to a time when we were just the two of us. A newly married couple, both working, with no kids. We had a part time cleaner and a cook who made dinner for us in the evenings. So naturally, the task of making breakfast for us was on me. If hubby would have had his way, he would not have entered the kitchen at all in the morning.

I knew, that before I became his wife, he used to wake up at 7:45 AM, snooze till 7:50 AM, get ready in twenty minutes flat and be out of the door by 8:10 AM to make it in time for breakfast in his office cafeteria. He never even bothered to open the curtains or windows to let in some fresh air. His wet towel and dirty clothes were usually left on the bed and the floor respectively which dutifully waited for him to return in the evening. Oh! and the bed, never needed any making anyway. I learnt that bachelors are mostly notorious when it comes to changing bed sheets.

Unfortunately, my office was not so generous when it came to offering breakfast and I had grown up drinking milk and having breakfast at home before leaving. I needed some fresh morning air, a glass of milk and the newspaper to fully wake up and get started for the day. I felt the need to leave the home in a decent condition, to make the bed etc. so that I could return home to a neat and clean house. These were of course of no importance to hubby dearest. Those were the early days of marriage and I was slowly getting to know the man I had married and how different we really were. I was also painfully realizing the true value of my Mom (the hard way).

Every morning, I made breakfast for us, mostly consisting of fruits, some form of sandwich/ Maggi/ Pasta in white sauce and occasionally Upma. I had never really learnt cooking anything from my expert mom and usually made things based on the instructions off the back of food packets or online recipe pages. Now, Upma…the innocent little dish made of Suji is simple to make, but can be tricky in the hands of an amateur.

Every time I made it I missed something or the other, once I forgot to put salt, another time, I made it too dry and once too tastelessly gooey. The Upma on the flight reminded me of the several fiascos we had with it in the early days and how hubby would usually gulp it down with generous helpings of tomato ketchup and I could never take more than a bite or two. It finally ended up badly for Upma since it got permanently deleted from our breakfast menu and I developed a hatred for it, which is likely to stay for the rest of my life.

Thankfully for me, hubby was kind enough never to complain and gulped down whatever I made, even if it meant adding in some sauce, bhujia or crackers with it. Thankfully for him my culinary skills  improved over the years and the consumption of tomato sauce with breakfast gradually reduced.

Family Trademark!

It’s the Friday, the thirteenth, but the day began well for me with my post on parenting getting posted on the webpage for ParentEdge magazine. I proudly show the e-mail to my husband and he happily congratulates me. Soon after he leaves, it is time for me to give our one year old a bath. Like every day, he is playing a game with me while I try to massage him with oil. Every time I take my hands off him to get some oil, he crawls away from the mat and laughs when I struggle to reach out and catch him. The only difference today was that he seemed to a little more enthusiastic than usual. He giggled at me while rolling on the bed as I tried to grab his tiny little foot.

With tiny pink lips and curly locks of hair that hang on his face, he looks like a doll to me. He looks so cute that people often mistake him for a girl! It is such a joy watching him that sometimes I don’t want him to grow up. Once more, as I sit on one side of the bed and let go off him to pour some oil on my palm, he crawls away, smiling. He turns to see me and sneaks a mischievous look at me, waiting for me to reach out. I notice that he has reached the other extreme of the bed, I call out his name but before I can grab him, he rolls over, bumps his head on the side table before hitting the floor with a thud. He begins to cry in pain as I rush over and pick him up.

As I try to console him I feel like a failure as a mother. A mother who failed to protect her little one from getting hurt. I hold him close and as he calms down I find an ugly blue bump emerging on his forehead and a small cut at the outer corner of his right eye. Once he stops crying I take him to his bathtub and to my surprise he happily begins to play in the warm water, while a droplet of blood on the side of his eyelid mocks at me, leaving me feeling terrible. It is indeed amazing how soon kids get back to normal and forget their pain. I wish we adults could do the same. I begin to wonder if it is indeed something to do with Friday the 13^th.

I call up my husband to share my anguish. I narrate the whole incident and tell him how miserable I am feeling about the cut. Knowing that the skin near our eyelids is delicate, I fear that the mark would probably stay for a lifetime. He responds by telling me that it is our ‘family trademark’ since the three of us (My husband, elder son and I) already have it and our younger son just got his. I had not even thought about it like that and I realize it only when he says it. I feel a small hint of a smile emerging on my lips and fall in love with him a little more for diffusing my tension in the most unusual way possible. Interestingly, my mother too says the same thing when I tell her about it.

Later in the day I watch my brave little soldier play, smile and walk around the house as usual and I feel relieved. While he seems to have moved on and forgotten about the injury, I seemed to be hurting for much longer than him. I wish we adults too could put our hurt and pain (physical and emotional) behind us with the same ease as little children and move ahead in life with a carefree smile. We have so much to learn from them, to love wholeheartedly, forgive easily, make friends effortlessly, laugh freely, be surprised by small things, find joy in everything (except eating), jump without the fear of falling, forget pain quickly and focus all our energy in having fun all the time!


(Printed in the March Issue of the White Print Magazine)

Valentine’s Day and All That Jazz!

It’s the 14^th of February this Saturday! Isn’t it just wonderful that it falls on a Saturday this time?  For those wonderful couples who believe in celebrating the ‘Day of Love’, it’s simply perfect! You go to any market place or mall or even an online store and you shall see cute little hearts splashed all over. The shades of red and pink are peeking from everywhere. It’s all so sugary sweet, it makes me feel nauseous. No offense meant to those who have special plans for celebrating the day, cooing sweet nothings into your beloved’s ear, while holding hands through the day.

Sometimes, I feel as if celebrating Valentine’s Day is more of a thing for teenagers who believe that love is just like the way it is shown in romantic movies, expressed through cards, gifts and flowers. I see this as an excellent opportunity for many companies to make money by setting up a perfect honey trap for you. They all seem so eager to sell you something that’s perfect for your partner. Doesn’t it look like they are much too interested in improving your love life? Sorry if I am making you feel bad… maybe it’s just that I have been married too long to believe in these mushy things.

If we needed a brand ambassador for Valentine’s Day, then I can only picture one man, standing there, with his arms spread out, telling his senorita how much he loves her. No one other than Shahrukh Khan comes to my mind. Having grown up in the 90’s, my impressionable mind at that age made me believe that maybe love was like that. That the man who loves you understands your feelings and emotions just by looking into your eyes and conveys his love eloquently through words. His intense eyes and facial expression convey true eternal love etc. Somewhere in my mind I blame him for making us girls believe in these fairy stories and also increasing the burden on the guys to be like him. Have you really come across a real guy like that who is capable of mindreading their partner’s feelings when she clearly say she is ‘fine’?

While I don’t believe in celebrating Valentine’s Day, I am still a die-hard romantic. To me, the best gifts are those that can never be mass produced in a factory or bought at the Archie’s store nearby. Love need not be conveyed through that super expensive bouquet of red roses bought on Valentine’s Day. Love cannot be celebrated on fourteenth of February every year and forgotten the next day. The most romantic words are never the cliché ‘I Love You’. While I absolutely do believe in expressing love, it doesn't need to be in any prescribed format or on a particular date.

To me, it’s a part of our lives, it is transient and continuous. It needs nurturing and grows through the investment of time from both. Also, if things are not as you would desire them to be, then you yourself need to be the knight in shining armour and put in effort to get things back on track. Love doesn’t need to wait for Valentine’s Day to be celebrated and neither is it limited to one day. It something that you live, breathe and feel every day and it’s not just about loving your husband or boyfriend either. It may not even be expressed in words, but can be hidden in a million things we do for our loved ones everyday.


You may also enjoy reading A Quaint Love Story!

Uncanny Love!

There are many shades and flavours of love around us and it takes some patience and practice to truly recognize some. While some couples are visibly in love, made evident by the way they look at each other, hold hands or speak to each other, there are others who on the surface seem to be indifferent to each other or even happen to speak out against their spouse but there is an underlying layer of deep love under that façade of non-attachment. This type of love is not usually seen in couples of recent generations but is sometimes practiced in couples of a much older generation, the ones that have been together for over three or four decades now.

It took me years to notice and truly recognize this uncanny love shared by a beautiful couple, now married for close to thirty five years. As individuals, they have strikingly different personalities. Ma is dynamic, social, talkative and extremely stylish, while Baba chooses simplicity over style every single time. He is a keen observer, connoisseur of good food but a man of few words. With visibly opposing personalities combined with Ma’s occasional bickering about Baba coupled with complete absence of any PDA may make you think that they aren’t really compatible and to a stranger they would clearly look like a case of “opposites attract”.

However, when you watch them over time, you know that they are deeply in love, an unusual, uncanny love that is never expressed in words and barely visible to those around, but only felt by them. Their love is evident in small things which could be easily missed. It is seen in the shared teaspoon of rice, lovingly taken by Ma from her husband’s plate. It is in the complete acceptance of his opinion on everything from a saree to a career decision. It is seen in the quick sprint Ma gets into every time her name is called, so softly, that it is audible only to her. Hidden behind Ma’s everlasting complaint of how Baba drags her to all social engagements or trips against her will is evidence of how the they can never be apart for long, now, more than ever.

I sometimes look at them and wonder if this is how couples become after many decades of companionship. People change over time and every person has their flaws, being a couple for so long just makes a person acutely aware of their spouse’s habits, beliefs, practices, routine, even phrases. Not everything is loved, some of it is hated and even complained about. However, the beauty of love is, that it does not need to manifest itself in words always, shown through hugs, kisses, flowers or gifts like we often imagine it to be.

Watching them makes me believe that love can be obscure, unexpressed yet deep, much deeper than we can imagine. It can be the simple yet everlasting promise to be companions forever, to stick together irrespective of all the annoying habits and irritating disagreements. It is not only about appreciating the positives but also about embracing the imperfections. 

Cheers to Love!


You may also enjoy reading The Quaint Love Story!

Meri Sautan

No, I am not saying that my husband has another woman in his life or that he is promiscuous but I do believe that I have a Sautan. My sautan is his badminton buddy who he plays with every morning, the Gujju group of volleyball enthusiasts who take him away from me every Sunday morning, his office parties on Friday nights, his presentation decks that make him work through the night, his work requirements that make him travel for days and even Salman Khan who prefers to shoot for advertisements on weekends, leaving me alone, that too on a Saturday!

Everything that takes him away from me other than his long yet well accepted office hours pinches my heart and I feel envious, just like I would of my husband’s mistress. I am forever hungry for his time, attention and love. I want to grab every minute of him that I can get my hands on! I know, I know…we need space in our relationship, he has work commitments that he needs to fulfil, we need “me” time to stay sane, follow our passions and invest in our health. My brain understands and accepts it but my heart doesn’t.

Most times I let my mind rule over, even having encouraged him to go watch an IPL match at the stadium the day our first baby was born. But today morning watching him get ready to leave for the airport to interview students from IIM-L evoked a different emotion in me. My heart lovingly complained to him about how he had de-prioritized me over the students he was going to meet and his badminton buddy. I threatened to write an open letter to his buddy about the pains of watching my husband nodding off to sleep along with the kids, so he could be up for the game at six in the morning rather than play a different game with me. He burst out laughing listening to all my allegations.

While we all have this sautan taking away a little more of our spouse than we are willing to share, this sautan is a necessary evil and a part of our life. It makes our time together all the more precious. Things that are available in plenty are hardly sought after, those that are scarce are much more valued.

I admire the Ardhanarishwar painting in my mother’s drawing room. It depicts Shiva and Parvati together in one form, inseparable halves of the same body. The ideology behind it makes it more beautiful than the painting itself.

An Ice-Creamy Story!

This incident is from the time we had been married for a year or so. We were both working full time, leaving home in the morning and coming back only in the evening. Since we were just the two of us we lived in a simple house in a unique locality which had been built on land that originally belonged to a village. While the builder had managed to acquire most of it, some of the villagers had refused to give up their land and chose to continue living there with the result that the otherwise well planned locality with three storey houses all over had a village right at the heart of it.

Our house happened to face this walled village and large piece of fallow land which had not been used by the builder due to its uneven shape and probably with the hope of buying the remaining land from the villagers sometime in the future. Since this was next to a village we would sometimes find buffaloes, donkeys, pigs and dogs roaming around on this empty piece of land. I did not mind it since I preferred to see them instead of a concrete structure. In the monsoons it would turn green with wild grass and shrubs. It wasn’t a bad sight to wake up to except if you decided to go into the balcony, you may have to bear with the smell of dung occasionally.

Once it so happened that we had a huge brick of ice-cream sitting in our freezer for months. It had become so hard that it could compete with a brick used for construction purposes in its frozen form. It was way too old to be consumed and thus had to be discarded but I had to put some thought before simply chucking it into the dustbin. Had I thrown it into the dustbin in the evening there was a good chance that it would melt overnight and leak onto the kitchen floor by morning. The garbage collector usually came much after we had left for work and I could not leave it in the outdoor dustbin either again to avoid any mess outside.

 

After another few weeks of procrastination I finally decided to discard it and thought it would be best to leave it at one corner of the empty piece of land across the road from our house, where it could disintegrate into the soil. My mister felt he could do better and told me to stand back while he would toss it with all his strength far away and out of sight. He took the package into his hand and flung it like an expert shot put thrower. But, what happened next was not what we expected. He got the angle wrong and that brick of ice-cream landed with a huge thud in the backyard of a house in the village!

He and I looked at each other for two seconds. My face had the what-the-hell-did you-just-do expression on it. What if someone was to come out of the house to check what made such a loud landing into their house? I did not know what to expect from a native Haryanvi villager, what if they came out with a “Dando” (Haryanvi for stick). The next second I grabbed his hand and ran into our house. Once I bolted the door I burst out laughing at what he had done. I was thankful that it did not land on anybody’s head and laughed till my stomach hurt.

In retrospect I feel that it is sometimes these small insignificant incidents, random stupidities and emotional impulsive decisions that made us laugh or happy is what we remember for a much longer time compared to all those times we did the ideal things and walked the beaten path. So go ahead do something crazy. Make memories that will make you laugh for a long time. Have fun today, because it will be gone tomorrow.

Enjoy Life! Happy Weekend!

Mister of Spices!

It was the beginning of summer this year and I was learning to manage two kids, a toddler and a baby...learning on the job! It was a tough time for me since I was staying up nights and barely got to rest during the day too with a toddler running around the house. I was coping but small things could make me lose my cool and snap.

With the onset of summer I felt like having some Punjabi kadhi one day. It’s one of my favourite dishes, but it needs to be made well and with the right ingredients to bring out the intoxicating aroma and the flavours especially of Dhania and dried red chillies. With the right consistency and sourness of curd, it can be the best meal ever accompanied with rice. I realized I needed those key ingredients to get the right kadhi, the way I was imagining it to be and just thinking about it made my mouth water.

We were on our way back home from somewhere and I asked my husband to stop at the grocery store to get the ingredients. I just had to have the curry that day. Since our baby was sleeping in my lap I asked him to get sabut dhania and sukhi lal mirch. It had been a few minutes that I was waiting in the car when a private security guard came and asked me to park the car somewhere else. I told him that we would only be a few minutes and I could not move the car right away since the baby was in my lap. He did not seem to like the answer and continued to stare for a few seconds. It really irked me and I ended up arguing with him for staring at me like that.

Another few minutes passed and I was getting a little impatient wondering what was taking my mister so long to purchase two simple things. I finally wrapped our baby into a bundle and walked into the store to find my husband looking clueless as he looked up and down the shelves in the store. In his basket I saw a bunch of fresh coriander leaves and glossy red fresh fat chillies. These items were not what I expected to find in his basket and asked, "Why are you buying these?". He looked at me and confidently said, “Why, as you said, I got Dhania and Lal mirch.”

I was on the verge of having a meltdown at the store itself, cursing myself for not getting it myself and for believing that my husband could pick up these ingredients on his own in a jiffy and come back. I was really mad at him that evening. But, now whenever I think of it I laugh at how even simple things could be misunderstood and how unfamiliar Mr. Dutta is to kitchen ingredients.

I at times wonder how people think of comedy scenes in movies and I guess some do stem from real life instances like these. There was this another time he tried to show off his masculinity in the simple task of disposing off some ice-cream. I will tell you all about it, in another post.

Incase you are wondering...yes, we did have kadhi that day.

Want to read about the ice-cream incident? Here's the link: An Ice-Creamy Story!

A Quaint Love Story

During my teens, we lived next door to a couple deeply in Love. A love so unique that I enjoyed watching them when they were outdoors in the veranda or garden. An extraordinary flavour of love that I have not witnessed anywhere else and is very hard to come by in today’s day and age. Only when you watched them closely over time would you be able to gauge the depth of their love. It is nothing like the love we have grown up watching in movies, reading in books or the kind we usually imagine in our mind.

I am talking about the love shared by a couple who had lived together for more than sixty years as man and wife. They were parents of four, grandparents to several grandchildren and had recently become great grandparents too. I am talking about the time when Thatha (grandfather) was in his eighties and Paati (Grandmother) in her late seventees.

In spite of her age Paati was far better dressed than any other woman in the vicinity. She looked beautiful in her bright, colourful Kanjeevaram sarees. She would wear shades of bright yellow and scarlet reds that women half her age would shy away from. Her grey hair was usually tied up neatly in a bun, with sindoor and a red bindi in place. She loved jewellery and choose to adorn herself with several gold chains, mangal sutra and bangles even on a regular day at home. She even wore diamond nose pins on both sides of her nose. To me she looked gorgeous, a picture of beauty and grace. Paati could only speak in Tamil so I never really had a conversation with her but her cheerful smile was enough to warm anyone’s heart.

Thatha on the other hand was tall, lanky and forever dressed in a simple white shirt and a cotton dhoti, even during the winter months. He was simplicity personified. Instead of wearing sandals or shoes, he chose to wear a pair of rubber chappals and tied a string (nada) to the two rubber thongs to keep it from coming out of his foot. I found his “jugaadu” sandals amusing. He could speak fluently in English and possessed the memory of an elephant. He always had pearls of wisdom to share whenever you met him.

I would often see them sitting outside on the porch every morning. Thatha would read the English daily while Paati would enjoy the Tamil magazines. They would sit there for hours, have their coffee together and intermittently speak to each other. When Paati would get up to walk inside, Thatha would hold her hand delicately and help her, even though he himself could do with some help. When Paati would go to a doctor Thatha could not stay inside the house. He would sit in the porch with his head turned towards the road, restless, constantly on a watch out, patiently waiting for his beloved to return. As soon as she returned he would ask what the doctor said.

They, in their decades of companionship may never have said “I Love You” to each other but if you saw carefully you would see it in the their eyes when they looked at each other, the gentle holding of hands, the concern on their face for each other and the fact that they were never a few feet away.  They had been companions for so long that it’s hard to picture one without thinking about the other. The strength of their bond was such that even death could not keep them apart for too long. After Paati passed away, Thatha followed her within the year to join her in their heavenly abode.

This kind of quaint love is hard to come by, so I shall keep their memory etched in my mind, treasure it in my heart, cherish it forever and hope to come by another exceptional love story akin to theirs.

Of Tears and Laughter

In the months and weeks before our wedding, my mother had been completely occupied with the preparations, she took up the lion’s share of responsibilities to make sure everything was perfect. While she was very happy and enthusiastic (after all it was her dream coming true), she was fully aware that it was finally time for her daughter to leave behind the cocoon in which she had grown up, to move out and flap her wings.
 
Several times during this phase I found my mother crying at some random moment and the reason was that I was leaving. On the other hand, I never cried, I never felt like crying, firstly, because I was moving just 500 meters away, secondly, this was not the first time I was leaving home, I had previously left home to complete my master’s degree in the UK, which was half the world and time zones away and lastly because my hubby- to- be had always made me feel comfortable, leaving me with no anxiety about marrying him.
 
As per Bengali customs we were to leave post lunch on the day after the wedding. We had a house full of relatives from both sides, aunts, uncles and lots of cousins. The smell of Bengali delicacies and sound of cheer filled the air. My husband’s cousins were cracking jokes and playfully asking me to cover my head like a coy bride and I was playing along. I saw my father watching me from a distance. Observing, how his little girl had transformed into a married woman.
 
Once lunch was over, it was finally time to leave behind my paternal home to start a new life as Mrs Dutta. My father-in-law, a stickler for time was glancing at his watch. I could feel the lump in my throat growing at the same pace my family gathered in the drawing room. Soon, we realized that the groom was missing and everyone started looking for him. I took the opportunity to leave the room and go to my room.
 
I was surprised to find my husband there, sitting with his laptop in front of him. I told him that everyone was looking for him and that it was time. At that moment, I seemed to be more eager to leave my house than him. He turned around and asked me about wi-fi connections and internet connectivity in return. He had to send something urgent to his boss in office and had been unable to connect to the internet. He was tensed. I was amused.
 
Finally, he made it to the front room and my family was saying good bye to me and blessing us. My mother showed extraordinary strength and held back her tears but I could not hold back mine. The moment of my departure had arrived, I was leaving the home I had grown up in, my parents were parting with a part of their heart, their only child who they had loved and nurtured for over two decades.
 
I was leaving behind everyone and everything that was familiar to me, taking a leap of faith, taking up new responsibilities, new roles, new relationships and a new surname. As I was walking out the door, my father whispered into my ear, “Do us proud like you always have.” It was definitely a heavy moment for me, tears rolling down silently.
 
Two of my cousin sisters (around 10 years of age at that time) were coming along with me, to give me company. As we sat in the car and it started moving, I was trying to regain my composure, explaining to myself that I was still going to stay close-by. My little sisters continued to cry softly but audibly.
 
My husband who had been a silent spectator all along was surely feeling bad and gently asked my sisters to stop crying since watching them cry would make me feel worse. The moment he dropped those words, it seemed as if the laws of Physics had made themselves applicable there. My baby sisters gave an equal and opposite reaction, they started crying even more loudly.
 
I burst out laughing although my eyes were still wet. Never before had I gone from tears to laughter so quickly, it was a first, but not the last. I guess somewhere between the wedding vows, my hubby made a promise to make me laugh, always, even when I cried.

Our first day as Mr. and Mrs. Dutta

The day after we got married we all flew to Ahmedabad, to visit my hubby’s paternal home. A big reception party had been planned for the same evening to celebrate our wedding. It was a day of firsts for me. It was my first visit to his house and the first day of our life together as husband and wife.

Early in the morning I dressed up in the heavy red zari bordered banarasi silk saree which I had worn for our wedding and left for the airport. It felt weird to be at the airport in my wedding saree and as can be expected I was attracting more attention than I ever wanted to. After some flight overloading drama half the family managed to board the direct flight while the rest had to take a longer flight from Delhi to Mumbai and then to Ahmedabad.

 
A lot of guests were waiting to meet us at the house. My mother-in-law gave us a warm welcome, greeted us as per traditional customs. I still remember the cheerful voices, laughter, the fragrance of the flowers and us standing at the door with my feet soaked in alta (red liquid), holding a fish in one hand and my brother-in-law helping me with the saree. I found it funny standing at the entrance with a dead slimy fish in one hand. Although I had been a fish eater throughout my life, the look of the fish made me giggle and sensing my thoughts my mother-in-law started giggling too.

Close family and friends were invited for a special meeting with the ‘nayi bahu’, followed by lunch. “Boubhat” is of special significance for us Bengalis, which marks the first meal of the new bride at her in-laws house. From this day on the husband promises to take responsibility of his wife’s needs of food and clothing. As per the custom my husband gifted me a saree and offered my first rice at his house. My lunch included various Bengali delicacies but I could not eat much.

After lunch I got up to wash my hands and my husband was keen to escort me to the bathroom and in the process show me the room in he had occupied as a child. He was keenly describing each item present in the room and the modifications done to welcome me into his life. His single bed too had a partner now in the form on another single bed which were joined together to make a double bed.

 

He showed me his wooden study table, which he had used during his school years. He told me how he had once gathered a lot of stick on tattoos (the ones free with boomer chewing gum we bought as children) and instead of pasting it on himself, he had pasted them all to his study table which was fairly new at that time. Fearing that he would get scolded for doing so he tried to remove the tattoos by scratching them off with a sharp object but had failed miserably leaving behind ugly scratches. I noticed the scratches and a few colourful superhero tattoos which a lot of us had collected and boasted about when we were children. 

He was so engrossed in telling me about his childhood (and of course he could not take his eyes off me) that he never realized that he had actually walked into the bathroom with me. I washed my hands, still listening to his stories and we were about to step out when I heard voices from his bedroom. My side of the family including my parents, uncles, aunts and cousins who were expected to arrive had arrived and poured into the room to place all the wedding gifts from my family to his family. I could hear my family asking where I was (naturally curious to know how their newly married daughter was doing).

 

We looked at each other, standing still in front of the washbasin, now quiet and listening to the commotion outside the door and wondering what to do next. Stepping out of the bathroom together would have looked odd but hiding inside the bathroom was also not an option. So without wasting another moment we stepped out. To my husband’s disadvantage my father happened to be standing just outside the door and being the unabashed person that he is, he asked my husband what we were doing in the bathroom to which my embarrassed husband just replied that he had taken me to get my hands washed. My father did not look too convinced by the explanation since his daughter had been very independent and did not need anyone’s help to wash her hands.

 

Not only was it a day of firsts for me, but also for my husband, having become the son-in-law to a strict but loving father. It’s no easy joke to marry the only child of a fiercely protective father. Kudos to you Mr Dutta!

 

P.S. Till this day, whenever we get home from my parents place at night, my husband sends a text message to my father to inform him that we have reached home safely.

Some coffee for you?

I became Mrs Dutta in 2007 and embarked on a new journey, a journey of faith, companionship, petty arguments, fights, funny moments and most of all LOVE. In these beautiful years I have experienced countless shades of love, which I had never experienced before and don't think I can anywhere else.

I write this blog to capture some of the funny and beautiful moments I have experienced over the last seven years of being Mrs Dutta. Before I get into some of the details, let me fill you in on some background (if you don't know me personally). We live in Gurgaon, my husband works for an MNC, I also worked in the consulting space for 8 years before giving up my job to take care of our two lovely sons.

We got married in November 2007, after a short whirl-wind courtship of four months. Ours was an arranged marriage but believe you me, by the time we were getting married I was completely in love with my husband. We were constantly in touch with each other over sms (there was no whatsapp at that time), calls and caught up on coffee dates once or twice a week.

Coming from a conservative background I had to seek permission from my mother every time I wanted to step out with my hubby-to-be. At that point we used to look forward to catching up in person, I used to put some thought into what I would be wearing and thoroughly enjoyed our conversations over cups of coffee. He would expertly tell me to put brown sugar (instead of white) into my coffee to enhance the flavour. This was a regular affair and I loved the coffee and conversation combination.

Soon after we got married, I asked my hubby, "Would you like to have some coffee?" and he replied, "No, I don't like coffee". I was completely taken by surprise and enquired how he had managed to gulp down so many cups of coffee every time we met before we got married. He innocently replied, "To give you company". From that moment on I knew, there was more to him than I knew already and that I should expect more surprises from him.

Over the next few weeks I got to know him better and one of the pleasant surprises was that he could sing old romantic numbers very well, good enough to put a smile on any girl's face.

Thus, began my journey as Mrs Dutta!