When my husband of nine (almost 10) years (and friend for 14) stopped lending me an ear, I decided it was time to start blogging… which anyway is like a one-way conversation! Plus, you know if people are indeed reading you or just pretending to.

I primarily love literature and made a deliberate choice of career as it pays me to do what I love to do. The decision to start blogging was tough:

a) it meant commitment (not that I'm shying off but the life of a mom can be trying at most times);

b) it meant being open to judgement (often by strangers, which actually is a comforting thought on reflection);

and c) is the problem of how to preserve a degree of anonymity.

I hope to vent my thoughts here, frequently, and hope you'll feel free to do the same, without either of us being nasty that is.

No more goodbyes

When we met him, after a three-year gap in 2007, I was surprised to see how small he actually was. When you hear someone, at least someone who can claim to have been his friend, talk about Govind, you will be impressed by the person being spoken of. And over time, you also start seeing a bigger man, literally.
I had not known him for that long, now I wish I had. But then seven years are good enough to develop an itch.
How many of us have friends on our Facebook who are not living anymore? Not many, I guess. I do. Govind Mishra. And every time I see him there, sitting with his little son in the green environs of a Kathmandu garden, I am reminded that he is not there.
So what all can I recall of Govind, the person? That note he left scribbled on a chit on my desk saying, 'Jhalmuri koi?' (jhalmuri is a Bengali snack made of puffed rice.) Though a UP Brahmin, he had better claims to being a Bengali than I, brought up as he was in austere Shantiniketan (incidentally he also knew the Bengali for oxidation – chhadan. Impressive because I being a Delhi Bengali had no clue).
Or him exclaiming, “Bhagoban, shakti dao, naholey mukti dao” (God, give me courage or relieve me), just as everyone was getting into the groove of the evening shift.
He cribbed and complained, groused and griped – food or the lack of it, work, people, it could be anything – but didn't give up smiling.
The first time we met him was in Kathmandu, on his first visit, just after he'd lost his bag containing his passport and all his money in a taxi. But he was smiling, bothered yes, but smiling. And how he regaled us with stories, popular, I'm sure, from his adda days at Shantiniketan and Delhi.
The man also cooked, and superbly, taking all the pains that a fussy housewife would. So we dined at his place or raided his mini 'kitchen'-in-office-drawer frequently, Prijit even took an oil massage on his terrace once. Govind, so typically, had found this local masseur who agreed to come to his Jawlakhel home.
I'm waiting for Chiku, his son, to grow up so I can tell him all this because I'm sure he misses his dad. For wasn't he the one who kept Chiku busy at home till afternoon, when Sumati came back from her job at the Kendriya Vidyalaya? Till then, my eyes will just cloud over at the thought and Govind's stature will only increase with time.