School days

I've been looking for art to hang alongside the two Indian miniature paintings that Marlon and I bought on our honeymoon in Rajasthan. We've already put up most of our art, and none of them seemed to go with those two paintings in particular, either in style or in theme. 

Then I realized I had just the thing to go with the Indian miniatures: a family album of old photographs of India from the 1950s and 1960s. I first discovered this album in my mom's drawer back in high school. It was packed with some things of my dad's, like old passports. I'm guessing either he owned it or my Dima, his mother, kept it for him as a chronicle of his school days.

A little bit about my dad: he was named Amitabha, but known to family and friends as Gandhi because he was born on the date of Gandhi's death. (Nicknames are a big thing in Bengali culture.) At the age of 5, he won a huge regional quiz contest where the prize was a coveted scholarship to a British-run boarding school in the Himalayas, where India's elite sent their children to study.

This was a major deal. It made him something of a golden boy among his clan, the best and brightest, the family's pride. This sort of hero status surrounded him his whole life and extended to my mom, sister and me. I really feel it whenever I go to Calcutta; as Gandhi's daughter, I get the star treatment. My dad's boarding school education led to a scholarship at AIM, and eventually to a career in trading, banking and finance in Hong Kong and Manila, then the financial capitals of Asia.

Not bad for a young boy from a simple family from Calcutta. Dima was always so proud of him. Here is Dima in her younger days. Something about this photo reminds me of my sister.

Out of all the photos in the album, it was the glimpses of my dad's boarding school life in 1950s India that really captivated me.

 I think my dad's the one on the top left, in the singlet and sailor hat.

 Second row, second from left. I've had that same expression in class pictures.

Swimming lesson.

 Military training. We had that too.

 School dance. Already happening in India in the 1950s, 

but forbidden in my high school in the 1990s. WTF.

 Sometime close to graduation, I'm guessing. My dad is seated, on the right.

There are also some beautiful vignettes of India. These pictures are so small and delicate—some are just half the size of my iPhone. This is one of the larger, sharper ones.

I've decided that my new project will be to hunt for vintage frames for my favorite photos from this album. It will be hard to choose just a few... I might end up filling an entire wall!

The sari that launched a template

The sari that started it all

update: is it just me, or has everything on this page -- except this post -- gone italic? is it a firefox thing? gaaah!

back to our regular programming.

the inspiration for my spanking new template (care of the supertalented rina) came to me amidst a flurry of gorgeous silks and a hum of rapid bengali. that december afternoon, my indian relatives were taking me shopping for indian wedding garb, and my still-jetlagged head was a-spin traipsing about the crowded intersections and buzzing sidestreets of gariahat market.

there i was, sitting disoriented in a shop called “the silk house”, while aunts gabbered on about fabrics and colors (well that was my guess—it was all greek to me), the shopkeepers pulling out ream after ream of richly colored fabrics for my perusal.

then a flash of chameleon shimmer caught me. it makes me chuckle to remember muniya being taken by it too, and helping me protest against more silks being piled in front of me. “you like this one, right?” she asked me conspiratorially. after receiving a dazed nod from me, she erupted into a stream of tart bengali that ended in my lovely, pink-chameleon sari being rung up at the register and packed neatly into a long, flat box.

then we tumbled out into gariahat again, this time in search of sparkling goodies to drape my lobes, neck and wrists with – all matching, of course, the shining colored green-and-pink sari i held in my arms.

i’ve wanted to turn my blog green and pink since coming home from india with the sari tucked safely into my suitcase. it’s a reminder of the part of me i found there, among my family. i can still remember my grandmother saying, with unabashed pride and pleasure, “you look like a bengali girl”, the first time i modeled a sari for her.

it’s also a reminder of one of the most memorable times marlon and i have shared together. i will never forget the first christmas we spent on our own, or discovering my family with him by my side…
...or the panic that rose up in me as i realized, on the day of the wedding, that i had completely forgotten how to make the series of deft folds and tucks my aunt taught me. my mind was an utter blank, and i honestly thought i would not make it to the wedding. after over an hour of twirling futilely in yards of silk, i gave up. we called upon our resourceful muchachos to get a local girl from next door to do up my sari for me. marlon made sure to document the whole affair on video, should i be called upon to wear a sari again sometime in the future.

… or the first time i stepped out of the house swathed in all that silk. it was, to say the least, an interesting play of contrasts. the slightly unreal feeling of being utterly beautiful and regal was by the gripping paranoia that the sari would tumble around my ankles at any moment and leave me stark freaking naked. i glided down to the street only to tumble gracelessly into the four-wheel drive sent to pick us up.
so here it is, my newly sari-fied blog. eye candy (i hope) for you, and wonderful memories for me.

By the river Ganges

...i sat down and ate.

paubhaji is a mumbai specialty, a tasty snack of vegetables and spices all smooshed up into a paste and sopped up with warm bread. fortunately, as i found out, you don't have to be in mumbai to enjoy it.

with two uncles, one aunt, one cousin, a family friend and a clunky jeep (there seems to be no other kind in kolkata), a chilly evening tour of the city was capped with several helpings of this delicacy.

we drove to strand road and took a short walk along the banks of the ganges, india's most sacred and longest river (after crossing it twice, via the massive hooghly bridge, earlier in the evening). a section of the riverbanks are dotted with stalls offering snacks, among which paubhaji was my uncles' unanimous choice that i try.

good thing mr. paubhaji was game. :-) he let me step up beside him on his little platform and click away as he splashed a large, round griddle with water. he then ground up a steady stream of nuts, vegetables and spices with a metal spatula, which blurred and flashed as he worked. (uncle gautam named the ingredients for me should i want to try it at home, but i forget them now.)

he topped the mush up with a final dash of fresh-squeezed lemon juice and coriander leaves, before heaping some into a shallow paper dish for me to taste.

the verdict: earthy, spicy, with a burst of warmth from the coriander -- perfect for a chilly evening. i scarfed down the contents of the dish even before the rolls could be set down in front of me. (i was like, "ay. may bread pala. ehehe")

uncle gautam encouraged me and marlon to try making paubhaji at home. after he named all the vegetables in it, marlon was almost sold. "it sounds very healthy!" he said.

uncle gautam nodded. "yes. and then you fry the bread in butter..."

ay. yun na.


--

a shot of the river that i really like.

crossing the ganga (taken from a cab ride with marlon)

The bangketas of Bengal

these, my friends, are pictures of me in heaven hard at work glassy-eyed scaring marlon in the process of amassing 9 pairs of sandals, roughly 40 bangles, about 15 pairs of earrings, 2 pure silk sarees, 2 saree petticoats/skirts, 3 saree blouses, 1 salwar (dress-pants-dupatta set), 3 necklaces, 6 hair clips, 2 dresses, 6 tops, 4 bags, 1 shawl, 250g of tea leaves, and 1 ring (to rule them all).

my hoard in its infancy

in case you think i'm a total freak, this inventory already includes christmas presents for people back home, plus a few presents i received in india.

oh gawd, what am i saying? i'm a shopaholic who went mad, mad, mad! kasi naman e. kapag ganito ang mga nakita mo sa bangketa, how can you resist?

dibidi dibidi? i think not

gariahat market was my first foray into the wonderland of indian shopping. gariahat is kind of like divisoria, except there are no mass-produced, cheap-ass chinese goods and everyone is really, really good at deflecting bargains. but that's okay, since the prices are so fabulously reasonable (for such unique items) that eventually you feel guilty for even trying to bargain.

muniya, tita nupur, auntie kohlani and uncle sujit took me to buy a saree on my very first day. what i took to be one saree turned out to be two, complete with matching blouses, petticoats, an armful of churi (bangles), bindi (forehead decorations), sandals, earrings and necklaces. whew.

uncle sujit absolutely refused to let me pay for anything. i puffed my thanks after him as we wove through the crowded sidewalks of gariahat. "it is my moral duty," he replied, smiling. i was like, omg this is wild! i've discovered relatives who think it's their moral duty to take me shopping!

it created an interesting dilemma. my eyes were popping out of their sockets at all the great stuff i wanted to buy, but i was deathly afraid of showing interest in anything because i knew my aunt and uncle would snap it up and buy it for me. so i decided to postpone shopping until i was relative-free.

which was at new market, in central kolkata. but i'll save that for another day.

Alin, alin, alin ang naiba?

isiping mabuti
isipin kung alin
isipin kung alin
ang naiba!

i guess they really have this thing about not smiling.
but trust me, they're all very warm, happy, effusive people. bengalis are more like filipinos than i ever imagined.
christmas day with more cousins -- my dad's (uncle avijit, in the blue striped polo, and tita tupur, in the red sari) and my own (tita tupur's daughters and uncle avijit's son, nony, in the peach turtleneck).
trekking to tita tupur's house made me realize what a huge, huge, HUGE city kolkata is. parang ang layo-layo na namin, may mga baka nang gumagala-gala sa kalsada, tapos kolkata pa rin? naknampucha.
i brought marlon with me, and they were absolutely delighted him because a) he looks indian, and b) he shoveled down at least three helpings of all the food they plunked down on the table (not very hard to do -- it was all great.) he hit it off very well with nony, too, when they got to talking about kung fu and WWF. boys -- they're the same the world over. *sigh*

The cricket connection

i have an uncle who's the head of a high school p.e. department. and i have a cousin who plays cricket for india. and they're both pauls! so that's where the sports gene went! 'cause it definitely ain't here. right ate?

from a not-so-recent magazine article about my cousin's *ehem* athletic prowess

uncle sujit's family was half the reason why my arrival in kolkata was happy, rip-roaring chaos. three of them (minus subho) plus three people from my family (minus dima) went to pick me up and carted me off to santoshpur in a clunky jeep, talking a mile a minute in bengali. it was a bit like being on tour with the glee club except mag-isa lang ako!

at some point during that rollicking ride, a phone got pressed to my ear (presumably for me to speak into. when i asked who was on the phone, the reply was: "your brother!"

eh? ang alam ko kaming dalawa lang ni ate a. i was so disoriented. it was crazy. fun, but crazy. it turns out that in bengal, cousins are considered siblings. that was when i "met" subho, my closest male cousin (his dad, uncle sujit, is my dad's first cousin) and the one closest to my age (he's 22).

anyway, subho was off playing cricket in australia, scheduled to fly home that weekend. "i'll take you for a ride around calcutta, sister," he said cheerily. "i should be calling you sister, huh?"

"um. okay. i guess" was my feeble response. god, i was so out of it, i could've unknowingly agreed to an afternoon of torturing newborn bunny rabbits.

subho ended up not arriving due to some change or other in his cricket tourney. which was a real shame. i would've liked to meet him. kasi putang ina, ang guwapo pala niya.

itatagalog ko kasi nababasa 'to ng pinsan kong buo. pero pucha. nagpakita sa aking ng letrato niya ang kanyang ina. mga letrato na nakapambahay siya at walang pantaas. nanghina talaga ako.

kinunan ko ng letrato ang kanyang mga letrato, pwera yung mga halos hubad siya siyempre. sasampalin ako ng aking tiyahin kung ganun. kaya eto lang ang maipapakita ko.

pero pucha talaga. may kamag-anak pala akong laglag-panti. siya na yata ang pinaka-guwapong taga-roon na nakita ko sa aking tanambuhay. natuwa naman ako at nanggaling ako sa lahi ng mga magaganda't guwapo.

that aside, though, subho is quite obviously their pride and joy, what with the national obsession with cricket. uncle sujit coaches a cricket team, and even priyanka (mile-long legs, soft voice, mischievous smile) used to play cricket. over dinner at their flat, uncle sujit proudly carted out a fat file of certificates, awards and articles with headlines like "subhojit leads bengal to victory" and "subhojit shines". out of family's giant closet came the gold medal subho once received as the telegraph's sportsman of the year.

flashback to years of trying to weasel my way out of high school p.e. haaay.

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!

Revisiting India

i can hardly believe that i'm actually going to be in india this sunday.

the last time i went to india was . i celebrated my seventh birthday there. the visit was basically a flurry of relatives' houses and dusty streets. my one and only first cousin, muniya, was just a baby. my dadu (grandfather) was still alive, and i spent most of my time with my mom and my sister, still very wary of unfamiliar things. i barely bought anything, except a miniature plaster figurine of lakshmi, which i begged my mom to buy for me from a street vendor. i turned up my nose at the food, particularly dal, which was served with every meal.

things are so different now. calcutta is gone, and kolkata stands in its place. muniya is seventeen and getting ready for medical school, and i know i'm just going to be so shocked when i see her. dadu passed away several years ago, and i worry that my dima (grandmother) is no longer the stalwart that she once was. i'll be traveling alone, at least until marlon arrives next tuesday. until then i don't know who i'll be spending time with. i'm guessing muniya, but i'm also guessing she has school. (i wonder if i'll get to meet the indian girls i used to play with.) i am soooo dying to hit the markets.

and i can't wait for honest-to-goodness indian food, whether it be home fare or the three-day feast laid out for shivaani's wedding -- yes, dal and all. they'll have to roll me home.

the fact that it's winter (14 degrees to 25 degrees celsius) isn't sinking in, either. how cold can it possibly be? india is still a tropical country, right?