My Sis: Through My Eyes (23)

Cometh the Hour, Cometh my Sister (23)

“Sir, for the to and fro journey back to Wangchuk, you’ll surely offer us some more, add on to it the money for the entertainment value we’ll provide you, so all in all, suffice it’ll if you kindly could part with some bucks from your purse…” Reshav Bhatta Rai, XI Sci B kidded with me enthusiastically, that’s when I learnt that today is Dewali, the Festival of Lights in India, and how can I forget my Sis, when there is anything important happening in my own native place?

Now the point I am trying to convey through the incomplete anecdote above, is that in order to shine in life we all have to make many calculations mentally. So do the more economically successful in life. Now let me share something very personal here:

After Baba’s demise in 1985, the task of carrying on the family tradition in the form of The Durga Puja, fell on Barda as the eldest son of my late father’s family, and Mejdi, who, in the eye of many of my siblings, occupies a place above Barda in this regard.

I’ll be happy if I come to know some day in the distant future that Barda didn’t have to bear the brunt of the expenses, so far as the Annual Puja in my ancestral at 41, Deblane is concerned. But Barda loved his siblings and other relatives including a cousin of mine who kicked the butcket last year – I have no doubt about that. I have seen him doing things in order to genuinely help them out of their pits with my own eyes. At a time, when we don’t even feel secure to ask someone close to us why his/her son or daughter is not getting married or what exactly is the nature of their job, Barda would ask questions. And one fine morning at least some of my relatives will wake up to the fact that he did it not for fun but out of genuine care and concern.

Sorry, I was nearly deviating. Mark the word ‘nearly’. So when It was the Puja time at 41 these days, in the fatal absence of the two stalwart offsprings of late J.C.Bhattacharjee, another brother of mine, who also left us untimely for his heavenly abode ( he was just 61!), had taken upon himself the onus of carrying on with the family tradition. He too had been doing a remarkable job until his death a couple of years back.The last two Pujas happened due to the sheer grace of Goddess Durga to the extended families which branched off of my late Baba’s family. 

Now conducting The Puja is a Herculean endeavour. People have to stay united, be smart enough to overlook minor misunderstandings, take or be assigned responsibilities and so on. The budget may get out of control, and with most of my siblings in the twilight of their lives and so on. The generation next has thought it best not to bother about this wearisome annual event for good or worse.

“We’re four. We’ll, I mean my whole family will go attend The Puja on such and such day. On rough calculations, that will amount to three meals, including the breakfast, for each of the four members for the day. That makes it twelve meals in total. If breakfast, consisting of puris and a curry along with that blacker than black tea, costs even 35/- rupees per head. The amount for four will be 140/- plus 400/- for lunch and 400/- more for dinner. How much does it total up to for a day? Let’s say 1000, add 500/- more for the actual Puja. How much does it come up to then? Not more than 1500/- right? So, considering the number of your family members, if you are contributing anything more than 6,000/- to 7,000/- for the four days of The Puja, you should be patting yourself on the back. Well done, Buddy. Keep up to your neat calculations for ever.

These kind of wild thoughts or rough calculations should not occur in any of the offsprings of my late father. For Baba was a true giver, a generous man to the core of his heart. My Sis, who left her husband at 52, got employed against all odds ( there is someone called God, after all) and tendered in her resignation at AA before time when she felt that she couldn’t stand up for Justice and Truth, has proved herself a true daughter of a charismatic father, despite what the critics may have to say. Such wild thoughts are alien to her nature. She worked for some seven years and this Puja, after she had relinquished her lucrative job, she contributed 12,000/- to the Family Puja Fund! Such has always been her attitude. She along with Mejdi, and here I’ll keep her above Mejdi for Mejdi was a working lady, has always thought the best of her late father’s family. And If there be God…

She couldn’t have thought of the fact that she was the only member of her estranged family attending The Puja, for a moment!

And she hasn’t changed a wee bit in the last 62 years that I’ve had the privilege of knowing her. Every time when I had started despairing of Sis, while serving the meal, for her not sitting at the table towards the end of lunch or dinner, she kept on hissing at me through clenched teeth:” My Ma taught me to serve the guests first. ‘Atithi sakshat Narayan’.” ( Guests are the embodiment of Lord Narayan) Sis’d try to remind me, as if I’d forgotten! Her intent and loyalty to our late Ma was brought home to me when the next night. I am beginning to think that the years of long distance (sometime Bhutan may seem further away from Kolkata than America!) have started building some walls between us. She calls me once in a blue moon nowadays, and I’m sure she does it to help maintain my family peace.

Anyway, let me conclude with what happened on the Night of The Astomi, the third day of The Durga Puja. Most of the siblings and guests were gone. Sis for some reasons, was hesitant to serve and distribute the menu to the guests this Puja around, something which was her sole prerogative even during the time of Mejdi and Barda! I’ve this feeling that some people have started talking behind her back, trying to disgrace her. And she is wisening up. There were rotis, egg curry and something else. As I had taken over, I noticed the empty curry pot with some 14 rotis left. I called my nephew, my eldest sister’s youngest son, and together we headed to the roti shop for the rotis being served straight from the blazing oven. There I’d another novel idea, and once back in 41, the empty, pathetic looking curry-pot got magically filled up again!

Now, let me tell you this – All three of my sisters were sent to this world with Goddess Lakshmi’s ( the Hindu Goddess of Wealth) blessings. The people they got married to became very prosperous after their marriages. Now my only surviving Sis has this quality. She cannot serve close-fisted, you got me? She will die before serving in a parcel, four eggs to a family of four. So, she will add a minimum of two more. If things are really tight indeed, Sis would at least try to serve five, the fifth one being her share, unbeknownst to her left hand! 

Therefore, when some seven or eight of us family members of The Bhattacharyyas of 41, Deblane sat down for dinner on the Astomi Night, having failed to persuade Sis to take her seat at the rented dining tables, I left it to her to do the serving, quite reluctantly though. 

We were gossiping and chit-chatting like in the glorious, old days of 41, when someone asked for one more roti. Only then the thought struck me. I’d seen her serving each one of us seated at the tables. If my suspicion was proved correct, there wouldn’t even be 1 roti left for her! The roti was promptly served without any facial expressions of inconvenience. Curious, I swiftly lept up from my chair, plunged at the big table containing the food items and removed the blackened lid of the dekchi (tumbler) as if my age old faith in my Sis hinged on this single act! I was surprised. A solitary, folded roti winked up from her loneliness of the murky pot. But where did this one come from? As per my calculations, there shouldn’t be even one roti left! I’ll never know how that happened. But this year at least Sis didn’t stay bukhaar (starved)! Most probably, Mother Annapurna (another name of Goddess Durga with a close affinity to such large/lion-hearted DAUGHTERS, decided to come to her rescue at the eleventh hour, for once! 

Sis criticized me for sharing some intimate family secrets like the above-stated with the rest of the world. But I believe that when you are tired of seeing my face and listening to my voice, the only way to finding a solution to a problem in its teething stage, is not through talk but through writing on a platform like this or in a book like “My Sis: Through My Eyes”. Even that Ashtomi Night, trying her best to keep things hidden from the diners that included her own bro, Sis had her late parents in mind and reestablished the truth that our late parents mightn’t have been rich but they didn’t fail to teach us some great values.

To be continued…