Finding family

omg! i am a real estate developer!

finding my last name splashed in various corners of kolkata absolutely delighted me. i don't think i'm related to every single paul of "paul's hardware", "paul jewellers", "paul electronic supply" (and many more) fame, but the fact that there are so many of them -- of us -- is kind of overwhelming and wonderful and strange after living with just the three of us pauls -- me, my mom and my sister, a lonely little band of pauls -- all my life.

seeing your family name on a couple of dozen storefronts wouldn't be as thrilling i guess if you were a cruz or a reyes or a santos living in the philippines, but try being a paul in the philippines and you'll get the tingle i did.

so. it's time to meet the pauls.

tita nupur is the younger, and only sister of my dad. she's in her late forties, i guess, and never really said much when i was a kid, mostly because she doesn't speak a whole lot of english. my most vivid memories of her were her absolutely loving the kikay stuff we would bring from manila, and painting her toenails cherry red in bed. you could say i got my, er, languid gene from her.

tita nupur insisted on being the one to go inside the airport to come get me. she could barely speak when she saw me, but i received the warmest hug and the tightest squeeze on my arm. and she taught me how to wear a sari (hers are like, impeccably neat and prim), which i promptly, embarrassingly forgot.

uncle gautam is tita nupur's husband. for the life of me, i can't figure out why i call him "uncle" (english) and his wife "tita" (tagalog). i have absolutely zero memories of him speaking. so it was shocking to discover that he's actually so... madaldal.

he also looks really stern in the old pictures we have of him at home, so it was a pleasant surprise to find that he is actually very jolly.

game na game siya for me to try everything. thanks to him, i've tried every form of transport kolkata has to offer.

uncle gautam also makes our family's morning tea. :)

and this is muniya, my one and only first cousin. she's taken over the letter-writing duties from my grandmother, who i'd been corresponding with ever since i learned how to write. to her, i'm deepa didi (sister). she's seventeen and wants to become a doctor. tuwang-tuwa ako sa kanya. smart, matanong, mabait na bata, tahimik, poised pero full of spunk (watch her shush my grandmother in full reklamo mode).

she's got pretty reddish-brown hair which she wants to swap for my boring black-brown (why???). she enjoys long showers (the luxuries of being an only child!) and sings in the bathroom. haha! (plus, she reads this blog. hi muniya!)

dima is probably the most formidable old lady i'll ever know. i was kind of worried that i'd arrive in india to find her weak, sickly and uugod-ugod, no longer the ramrod-straight iron grandma i remember. her last few letters and phone calls were all "i can't walk" and "i can't write" and "i'm very weak" etc etc. i was elated to find out that she's just... well, ma-drama.

she takes two half-hour walks (one at the crack of dawn and one at sunset), walks from her house to uncle gautam's flat and goes up and down four flights of stairs daily. and she insists that she can't walk. hell, she probably walks more than i do. as you can see from her pic, she's still limber enough to swing her legs up on the bed and hug her knees, which her usual posture for chilling out.

marlon was thoroughly impressed. dima met him and gave him the third degree, which was fun. after overhearing their whole exchange, i'm inclined to believe you haven't gotten the third degree until you've gotten it from an indian grandmother.

dima's very single-minded. and at this point in time, she's all about marriage.

dima: how many brothers you have?
marlon: two brothers, one sister.
dima: older?
marlon: all older.
dima: and how many of them are married?
marlon: um. none.
dima: not married?!
marlon: not married.

dima smacks her lips, thinking.

dima: but how will you get married?
me: (quickly) it's ok, dima, we don't have any restrictions like that in the philippines.
dima: no restrictions?
me: no restrictions.
dima: oh. ok. good.

and this is dadu. he passed away a couple of years ago. of all my indian relatives, he was always the most enigmatic to me. he could usually be found sitting cross-legged by himself, observant, quiet. i've always found his name very beautiful. it's amarendra.

dadu had one brother, a younger one, whom he was very close to. they were so close that their children grew up as one set of siblings, of which my dad was the eldest.

among other things, dadu was a freedom fighter, which means his widow (dima) now gets to enjoy free utilities and a modest pension. (heck, she can even get unlimited broadband internet if she wants to.) his brother was a freedom fighter too.

so now you've met my family.

yes, i'm the only one who smiles

next up: the cricket connection!