Comedy of Manners

The Telegraph. 19^th August 2003.

Comedy of Manners.

I literally had to coerce my son to attend his classmate’s birthday party. ‘But Ma, I don’t play with Suhel…he’s not my friend…yesterday he bit my finger… here…see. I am katti with him and for life!’ wailed my six years old son. I had to explain politely yet firmly that it was bad manners to decline an invitation unless it was absolutely necessary. But he was firm in his stand. I tried another line ‘Well see, the fact that he’s invited you means you are his friend.’ My son lifted his sulky face and replied ‘No Mamma, that’s because you are friends with his Mamma.’  True. And for the first time in my life I felt guilty for having a friendly disposition.

Everyday, as I go over to pick up my son from school, I bump into mothers like me. And as we wait for the last bell to go, we chat. Initially, our conversations used to revolve around the children: classrooms, teachers, homework, and exams. But gradually as the daily interactions have become a well settled routine, we have veered towards the personal. Children have moved into the background as we explore everything – households, hairdressers, husbands, with each other. Little groups have been formed. Everyone wants to befriended Parikshit’s mom (‘He is the first boy after all’). While Prakash’ mom is persona non grata ( ‘Doesn’t she have a horrid dress sense! And Prakash is so wild. Why doesn’t she do something about it?’). mercifully, it’s a 15 minute a day bonding session, except for special occasions (like the above invitation) when they spill into ‘real time’.

The venue for that evening’s party was a posh city club. To save my son some heartache, I decided to go in rather late. The place was chock full of ‘school moms’. And it was pretty obvious that the mothers were having a wonderful time. They were dressed to the nines, shrieking with laughter and talking to each other like long lost friends. In total contrast to the frolicking mothers, however the children looked somber and forlorn. Though they studied in the same school, in the same class, they were hardly interacting with each other. Some even looked lost and out of place. I couldn’t help commenting on that. My friend, the hostess explained, ‘It’s quite natural you know… after all kids also have their own groups and they rarely play outside those. But honestly, if I had to invite all his friends along with mine (courtesy: son’s school) the guest list would be never ending.’

Fair enough. But as I continued to stare at the children, my friend went on to explain, ‘Actually, Suhel wanted to invite Harsh, his current best friend. But you know his mother, don’t you? She’s a perfect horror. Who’s going to invite her? That’s why Suhel is sulking.’

That was the beginning. A few days later, our small family of three was invited by another boy’s parents; this time to an up market and happening restaurant. I wondered about the occasion. My friend gushed, ‘you see, my husband hasn’t met his son’s friends’ parents. And I keep talking about you all. So we just planned this get together.’ The concept seemed to be an instant hot with other ‘moms’. There was a collective ‘Of course. We should all host such parties once a month. Next time it will be my turn.’ And after fountains of drinks and mountains of food were consumed, the guests thanked the hosts profusely, and the sleepy eyed jittery children followed their parents home.

Days passed by and the ‘mom’ sorority continued to flourish. But the more the friendships crossed the threshold of school and made inroads into our lives, the more uneasy I felt. It wasn’t as if it wasn’t a nice and pleasant lot. But the nagging feeling that the children were becoming peripheral in our concerns just wouldn’t leave me.

And just as I had managed to lull my conscience to sleep, it happened.  One afternoon my son returned from school, all excited and happy. ‘Ma, I’ll finish off my homework right now,’ he jumped up and down in excitement, ‘Jai has invited me to his Birthday in the evening.’ But when I asked him where his friend stayed, my son was taken aback ‘That I don’t know! He just said that his mom would not invite me but that he wanted me to be there. So he asked me to come on his own…so many people are going. And I am after all his best friend And Ma, his cake will look like a giant bike……’

I did not know how to explain the intricacies of the adult world to a six year old. I put in an alternative suggestion: ‘Why don’t we go to Nicco Park instead?’ My son looked puzzled-----‘But you said the other day that it was bad manners to refuse an invitation unless absolutely necessary?’

Nandini Basu

Some silly poems written in 1992.

The Oracle  ( After reading Yeats and the Greek classics. The oracle here is an imaginary amalgamated figure.Not just Tiresias)

Thus spake Apollo through
the lips of his devotee true.
The oracle of Delphi divine
the wisdom beyond homo-design.

The oracle father within his heart,
bore the lofty Aesculepian art,
condemned Oedipus when he came,
warned him of his fate of shame.

Sceptic Socrates challenged him
in Athens thus faith grew dim.
Great intellects of Attic thus
opposed Sophism and all the fuss,
of the hemlock man's  cult of doom,
that swept away Zeus soon.

Swept away is the base
of civilazation and human race.
The gods have died a premature death,
and so would happen, the oracle hath saith.

The oracle father was the bond
of earthly knowledge and that beyond
which lies in misty milky way,
without temporal night or day.
Where eternal mystery pervades all
and heaven is silent to human call.



Written in memory of Prof. Dr. A. W. Mahmood.


I recollect seeing him
from the eternity of
 my mother's womb.
I recollect the sombre hymn
he sang of wisdom's doom.
I recollect seeing his
silvery hair and I miss
his wrinkled loving face
in front of me - symbol
of a vanished race
of men of knowledge.
He has his ancestry 
back to the ancient tree.
The tree of Vedic Knowledge
the tree of an Aryan air.


I recollect seeing those faces
of men I think I knew
in my previous births.
Births of Neanderthal races
to Paleolithic ages
coming down to Cromagnon
and the grim faced Grimaldi,
that intermixed freely and 
transformed into the Mongoloid,
Caucasoid and Negroid,
preparing us for the eternal void,
soon to usurp the racial 'oid',
embracing creation in
 a passionate nothingness.
The virile love of destruction
for the beauty of creation.


Those creatures dwelling
in my grey cells
have begun singing and dancing
like primordial men-
uncontrolled, breathing life
and exuding life and
paralyzing senses
into a mere consciousness.
In a second the flame goes out.
What matters most?
To find it, do we roast
our knowledge or fry it?
or boil to the point
 where everything is ether lit.


It is the inevitability.
It is the last smile
of understanding futility.
La Gioconda knows it
Da Vinci taught it.
She smiles at him and at it.


 Grief


Something suffocating.
Something terrible.
Something inexplicable.
Something saddening.
Something sometimes troublesome.

Something sometimes tear some
to control.

Oh! The Pokemon!

Woman's Era. October (first) 2004

It is 10 pm but I cannot lay the table for dinner…its time for the great show. My 7 year old flung his hands in the air and explained how important it was for him to watch ‘Pokemon’! ‘Ma, the whole class watches this cartoon . If I don’t watch it how will I join their discussion tomorrow?’

I tried to be friendly, ‘So beta, on what lines do you discuss Pokemon?’

‘Oh that you wont understand Ma, you don’t watch it na!!’

I realized that watching this particular cartoon was the primary requirement of an advanced IQ! My husband, who for so long had been engrossed in memorizing the newspaper, sat up and looked at us and suddenly announced that he too would watch the cartoon show. He definitely did not want to be excluded from his son’s world so early in life.

We had initially mistaken the Pokemon for a Pokeman, a cousin of Batman or Spiderman. But our son enlightened us that Pokemon was the short form of pocket monsters, the hybrid animals with magical powers. The cartoon tells the story of their young trainer Ash Ketchum who dreamt of becoming the greatest Pokemon master in the world.

After half and hour of the show, my husband seemed to be a changed man… ‘Its all so innocently beautiful!’ he commented in a serene absent minded voice. ‘There were so many children with so many magical animals, creating an alternative world of their own. What strange names they have got, and some look so cute…Pikachu, Meowth, Charizard….’

‘And what’s new about hybrid animals? Didn’t the great Sukumar Ray write about all these…remember hasjaru, bokocchop and hatimi?’ I asked teasingly. He chuckled. ‘But did we go so crazy about Abol Tabol?’

We didn’t, but they do. They live and breathe Pokemon. They want Pokemon toys and Pokemon gifts and they all aspire to be Pokemon masters. Last Christmas I had a tough time looking for Pokemon toys. All the famous toy shops had a regret smile. ‘They are selling like hotcakes ma’m, here are only a few left.’ I, as the secret Santa was disappointed. The more favourite Pokemons were all sold out.

The trickier aspect of this all is that a food brand has started distributing free Pokemon tazos (whatever those circular discs are). So now it’s absolutely normal and cool for a child to get a packet of those chips on a daily basis. If old fashioned parental authority still exists in the household, then it can come down to twice or thrice a week. My son ruefully narrated the list of ‘affectionate’ moms who everyday gave their children, chips with free Pokemon tazos inside. I couldn’t help asking about the effect of this enormous junk consumption on the kid’s digestive system.

The answer I got was astounding. ‘No, they don’t get stomach problems, for they don’t have to eat the whole packet. Their mothers don’t keep other snacks items at home. Like you, they don't buy biscuits and mixtures…its only Cheetos. Rahul and Niraj and Sourav and…. Serve their guests Cheetos. Their parents too eat Cheetos when they come home from office. The ayah mashis also eat Cheetos in their house….’

I felt it was becoming a bit too much. Maybe I should contact some other hapless mom like me for more authentic information. I decided to call up Rohini. She was delighted to hear my voice but the moment she heard my real query she became gloomy. ‘Don’t ask me Nandini how I am coping with the crisis. Everyday the teacher is complaining in the diary. Rahul takes 10 rupees from home, buys the Cheetos, takes the tazo out from the packet and throws the entire packet in the dustbin. Imagine the waste and the attitude! His point is he must have the maximum number of tazos in his class. And when the teacher found the tazos, she threw them into the dustbin after school. But that didn’t stop Rahul! He dug his hands deep into the dustbin after school. So now the teacher breaks and then throws the tazos!’

I asked, ‘But Rohini why do you give him 10 rupees everyday? My son told me that you eat and serve only Cheetos as snacks nowadays?’

She was silent for sometime and then said cautiously…. ‘Er Nandini, my son Rahul told me the same thing about you people. I wanted to speak to you about it.’

I came down to Mother earth with a thump and did not know what to say. I was only grateful that Rohini could not see my embarrassed state over the phone. I fumed and brooded as I walked up and down my little flat. I imagined a thousand ways to confront the mischievous creature when he came home from school.

The culprit entered, washed and sat down for lunch. I looked for a suitable time to broach the topic but the look on his tired and innocent face made me melt a little. After all maybe he was only reporting what his more innovative friends fabricated. As he lifted the first morsel to his mouth, he shrieked in pain… ‘Its burning Ma. Today Ayan and Raj fought like hell. We went to separate them and we too got hurt badly….here see this finger, it is still bleding!’

‘Its high time you boys stopped this hooliganism during tiffin break!’ I reproached as I passed the spoon and stuck the band aid.

‘ But you should have seen them Ma. Ayan said he was Sunny Deol and Raj was Sunil Shetty. Raj hit Ayan so hard that he was bleeding from the nose. Ayan then gave a blow, Raj fell down and was bleeding from the forehead. And then Father Brian caught them by the ears and dragged them into his room!’

‘God knows why they are allowed to watch all that violence on TV!’ I said to myself. My son heard me… ‘No, not God only, I also know why…because they were watching too much Pokemon and their mothers stopped the cartoon channels. So now its only the dhisum dhisum channels and dance dance channels for them.!’

‘Oh Pikachu and Charizard, save me!’ I thought. Such insights on child rearing coming from the child himself.

Maybe the Pokemon is better, no violence, no sexual innuendo, but only a magical reality. What’s the harm if the children dream? As long as the chips and tazo menace is under control!! And that evening I served an early dinner. For the first time in his life my son ate within a reasonable 15 minutes! He had to watch the cartoon. Dinner table was no more a bargain centre for lesser food and more time!

‘But why so early today?’ asked both father and son as they got up to wash their hands. ‘Because I too shall watch Pokemon!’ I announced casually.

I heard giggles and some camouflaging coughs

Nandini Basu.

Lets Face it!

At one point of time the world seemed to be divided into just two classes of people, those who did Facebook and those who did not!! There was also an unspeakable class who had not heard of Facebook!! Life’s mission and the only philanthropic, proselytizing activity in my initial Facebook days, was inducting as many people I could into this networking site! After managing to create a profile page for my worse half, I inducted my son!! ‘Oh!’ gasped his school moms… ‘How could you do this? You don’t know how addicted he will be, I had to pull out my Rahul after there were remarks from school that he wasn’t doing his homework!’ I chuckled silently. Who will understand that the main reason for bringing my son into Facebook was that I needed a monitor to stop me when I was over indulging in it!! My heart filled with pride as my Homepage read ‘Thankyou Nandini, because of your effort many of your friends are in Facebook.’ I beamed and called my son to see that bit of notice and he nonchalantly replied that it was there in his homepage too. Disheartened I thought… ‘Okay no problems, we are into good deeds together!!’

Rediscovering old school and college friends and stumbling upon teenage crushes was another marvel of Facebook. Recognizing my school pals was undoubtedly difficult…the gawky girl had turned into a head turner…the slender school beauty queen into a matron and my handsome crush into a pot bellied bald!!
If I happened to get introduced to somebody, I would sooner or later ask, ‘are you into Facebook?’ and if the person had been agreeable my friend list would go up immediately. I also enjoyed the prophetic quizzes…that I am this and that, and it was so satisfying to feel that at least Facebook was realizing my true worth!!! …they predicted my soul was actually Golden, I was a Dreamer, I was Marie Curie in my last birth or I have the ‘Cleopatra element’, whatever that means.

There was also a time when I had a virtual household in Facebook, with two dogs and three cats and a rodent. I loved feeding, bathing and taking them to the vet and for all my caring gestures Facebook gave me points. I could also feed and care for other people’s pets to earn points. Good deeds have seldom been so rewarding in real life. But sadly with Facebook’s ever changing formats I soon lost interest in these virtual family members. Yet most of my waking hours were spent brain storming over a new status update…what shall I write this time? Something silly, witty, philosophical or contemporarily political?

But there is something about Facebook, I don’t know how to define it, that turns us into Voyeurs!! Most of the time my Homepage displays somebody else’s photo album on which one of my friends have commented. I am tempted to see these personal pictures of people I hardly know. I get a peep into their beautiful farm houses or lavish living rooms, or some wonderful scenic place they have visited, I guess and gather facts about their magical or mundane lives and I uncomfortably recall the ‘gaze’.

Facebook is a place where you can be friends even with Didi ( though I haven’t really checked whether she has a profile here), where a 50+ person is suddenly listed as ‘married now’ if he happens to create his profile page recently. Where fathers in law are friends with daughters in law and the Wall remains fresh even without Bergers and Nerolacs. This is really beautiful. You connect with like minded people you haven’t met and there are so many forums and pages of your interest….and you can do things in Facebook which you don’t do on a daily basis at home…like ‘smiling’ at your spouse only on Facebook (through ‘Send Smiles’). You can also drop elephants and break coconuts on friends who itch you, without any ‘real’ consequences, it’s just that the feeling counts!!

The fairytale queen had a mirror through which she entered a magical world…I am sure she was entering Facebook with a different nomenclature!! And I wouldn’t have been surprised if Carnavon and Carter found hieroglyphs that Champollion deciphered as Tut’s profile page!!

nandini basu

Bipin Babu and the Storytellers

"Stories"…the word evokes a magic spell of a gossamer nostalgia…of precious childhood Sunday afternoons, hearing stories from my father, stories which were deliciously absurd mixed with a childish mirth.

My favourite was the story of the talking skeleton, endearingly named Bipin babu by my father. Infact Bipin Babu was almost a part of the family since father had this skeleton from his Medical college days. Hung on a pole, my grandfather’s hat on his head, Bipin Babu grimaced at the ironies of life even after ‘death!’ ( I faintly recollect my innovative uncle lighting Bipin Babu's sockets with red bulbs).

Father’s stories had an unreal appeal (surreal was not born in my dictionary then!), innocently forging the fantastic and fearful with a lot of fun!! For example the story when my thakuma (grandma), the perfect matriarch, caught Bipin Babu red handed stealing rosogollas from the fridge and then his skeletal frame being chased out of the house by my authoritarian grandma.. How Bipin Babu reentered our household was an even funnier story. There were also anecdotes about the hair raising adventures Baba and Bipin Babu had together….but oh!! invariably at the high point of the story the storyteller fell silent….The restless audience comprising of me and my cousins wailed and howled desperately…but Baba was already snoring then, mumbling inaudibly that the next part of the story was to be continued on the coming Sunday!!

Stories told by Ma were more organized! After returning from school, it was my ritual to listen to a story from her every afternoon. She would diligently read up ‘Kishore Bharati’ and ‘Suktara’ or ‘Anandamela’ and as I lay in bed on those warm afternoons, she reproduced the stories with perfect expressions and dialogues till I went to sleep. This was the contrast between the two primary storytellers of my life...the story teller going to sleep and another putting the listener to sleep!! I often wonder why Ma, who has always been into creative writing, did not imagine stories for me and why Baba, a hard core doctor, let his pent up imagination run amock in the lanes and bylanes of enjoyable absurdity!!

But the best storyteller of all was my maternal grandma, my Didima. She had a vast stock of real life jokes, involving our family, friends and relatives, and I believe she had an immense talent to spot the comic in mundane situations. Her best ones were about the family Durga Puja in her ancestral village. In her childhood, during the Durga puja they had amateur Jatras in their ‘thakurdalan’. It was a family affair where mostly male members took part and since the whole thing was amateurish, there used to be a lot of comic confusion during make up. My Didima’s uncles and elder brothers, in wigs and saris suddenly forgot their dramatic roles and slipped into the role of the usual patriarch…so Sita was suddenly shouting hoarsely for a glass of water and Savitri ordering the old family servant for ‘her’ hookah!! When she told these stories to us, she giggled uncontrollably like a young girl, her grey hair shimmering in mirth and laughter!

My grandfather was a store house of stories of old Calcutta, the British times and how the city used to be then, the stories of the almost lost Armenians, Jews and Parsis who had thronged areas close to our locality. …how he had listened to speeches of Gandhiji and Netaji and how and what Sir Asutosh ate!! Why is the Bengali sweet called ‘ladycani’? well that’s because it was a favourite of Lady Canning, our very own ‘pantua’. Now we have so many erudite books on Colonial Calcutta, but sitting close to grandfather and sniffing his quaint talcum was experiencing old calcutta’s ‘chaekra gari’ at its utmost verbose speed!!

I end my story on ‘Stories’ with a slightly heavy heart. Some of my story tellers are no more, maybe they are telling their stories to the stars. Some are not keeping very well. Bipin Babu too is no more with us. (Thakuma was finally successful in driving him out of the house in one of her spring cleaning sprees!!) Infact just a few moments ago I asked Baba ‘do you remember Bipin Babu and the stories you told us?’ He looked up from his book and just smiled.
I miss those old days, the family get togethers and reunions when everybody just laughed and giggled and all family politics were laid to rest. And I am the only story teller now…waiting for the one who will listen, no not like the Ancient Mariner at all….

My son who is in class 8 , was reminiscencing the other day…'Ma, do you remember the funny stories you told me when I was small? Of how you went T Rex hunting on a stegosaurus’ back?’ 

I recalled those hard times as a new mother, trying to feed him Cerelac and fruit juices. 

‘ Yes I remember.’ I replied and added ‘ I forgot to tell you one thing in those stories….that I always had Bipin Babu with me during those hunts…'

Nandini Basu

06/06/ 2010

She

He thought she was too plain
And her ideas somewhat insane.
He made her understand she was not good enough.
Or maybe a bit too different!!!

But she was grateful to him
for letting her self esteem dim
Only a true friend can hold up a mirror like this!!
She thought, only he…

She tried to be best in his eyes
And told herself some utter lies
He still nodded in disdain, ‘not upto the mark!!’
His condescending smile.

Till one day, she fell in love with herself
Through the mirror she saw her own magic elf,
ruffled hair, crumpled sari, smoky imagination.
Her blissful smile…

nandini basu

Silly Thoughts

I have always loved the phoenix…
The fire and rebirth…
The victory.

I have always loved the storms…
The tumult and chaos…
The final calm.

I have always loved fairies…
In dreams and images…
Archetypes.

I have always loved these moments…
Magical and silly…
French fries.

nandini basu

The Rusty Porridge

Today is a yellow day,
Prolonged n gone astray.
Thoughts like an overturned porridge bowl….
Flowing into the sewer hole.
Is it easier to clean up the mess?
Or cover it up with Ma’s old sari?

I loved that sari very much
Gold and pink n colours such
And I waited for the sari to grow
Up n up till it reached my toe.