The background music begins with a familiar sound of Christmas carols playing the “silent night and a holy night…all is calm all is bright, round the virgin mother and child..and Aparna Sen focuses the camera on the Anglo Saxon Park Street of the very bohemian Kolkata and its ostentatious opulence with huge Christmas icing cakes being served in the magnanimous “The Grand” ( fondly remembered as “Hotel Shah Jahan” of the famous book called “Chowronghee” by captivating author Shankar). Eventually the camera moves it to the flamboyant Anglos driving in the streets with balloon laden Standard Heralds, Austin Cambridge and all that’s vintage and grandeur to a dingy, dark railway bridge where a beggar women in torn clothes sits clinging and shivering with her child and the music in the background grows louder and piercing “round the virgin mother and child”. This was a small clipping from 36 Chowronghee Lane, much too now people’s delight, Aparna is known more for her placid plots and unconventional thinking in 15 Park Avenue, Titli, Sati, Unishe April, Paromitar Ek Din. Precisely, Chowronghee Lane with Jennifer Kendall (“Prithvi Theatres her brainchild”) was the beginning for her…and later won a national award in the early eighties of the modern century.
A divine 31st afternoon when I visited a salon, where a typically shallow, flashy Punjabi lady (‘no offences to Punjab , just that most of them are rowdy”) sitting and doing her make-up and my attendant doing my hair spa. At the stroke of seven, everyone was rushing to their respective homes and the staff of the salon too waiting to leave for their houses. The owner of the shop was also Punjabi lady all dressed in black, wearing a micro mini dress, flaunting a loose cleavage with black stockings and boots (“giving me silent heart attack coz she was in her late fifties). One of the female staff members said “you are looking like a doll madam”, to which she gave a snooty and unpleasant forced smile showing as if this comment was not required from you. A young lady was swabbing the floor and looked at me with a smile on her face. I smiled back and she replied, “Didi the haircut is suiting you, I said thank you and Happy New Year in advance”. After a while she came again and gave a watch that was lying at the massage room saying “I think you missed it there”, I said thank you so much. I asked her what she was doing on the New Years Eve, to change her mind. She said “Mam I do not have friends, neither can I afford to go to the dance parties” and looked at her colleagues who were also leaving. I said, “ok wish you all a very happy new year and no worries”, I am also staying home this eve so eat well, sleep well, love your family and begin your new year tomorrow.
And believe me that you all are going to celebrate the best New Year, take it from me. I am also staying home…tell me isn’t it better to watch television shows inside a warm blanket and eat home cooked food. The staff members greeted me with a smile and agreed. “One of them said, who kya hai na didi…hum se koi customer ache se baat nahin karta hai and jo karta hai hum unse wafadar ho jaate hai..aapko naya saal mubarak ho”. I had to slip away quickly from there before the owner would come and hang me somewhere on the wall on the grounds of infuriating her staff.
I was driving down in my car, buying few things from the market and had to stop to wish another one a new year wish. No no…this time it was the smallest black and white stray puppy on the planet lying around a municipal dustbin and poor children hovering around it. I stopped my car and realized that the puppy was bleeding and had got hurt. I had to pick up the dirty little thing in my car and rush to the nearest chemist shop. The chemist guy wondering what on earth I was doing asking for cotton and antiseptic cream on a new year’s eve. I tied a white bandage around its little foot and dropped it back near the dustbin where it was lying before. Fortunately its mother had arrived and I was relaxed and saved from adopting him (“though I know I cannot forget its docile face and contrarily the aggressive face of my landlord who would not have allowed a dog to stay in my paying guest accommodation).
My food arrives in the night, brought by a tiffin chappy whose a teenager. I opened the door and realized the chilly winter breeze and there he stood shivering and holding my tiffin box. I asked him as usual “ki korchish” he said..nothing didi, kichui na”, after a while he said…” tumi party teh jacho didi”, I said na re. Amio aajke tor moton badee teh thakbo, I’ll be staying home like you. I gave him some money and said do you like the hot chilly chaat of Noida. He said yes didi, then go for it tomorrow. He looked at me with a dazzling smile and believe me all of you readers, nothing in this world can replace the smile on that child’s face.He said “Thank you very much didi”, I said “Tui Engriji janish”, you know English. He said yes, I used to go to school. I said, what happened now? He said, well you know it I would not have been giving Tiffin
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