Celebrating a 'Hashtagged' Mahalaya!

Dates always confused me, more so when it was the Bengali calendar. The reason is not too far to seek, as I come from a land where 13 festivals are celebrated in 12 months (baro mashe taro parbon). However, there were two occasions where I would be affirmative of my memory – my birthday and Pujo (a synonym for Durga Puja). The common factor majorly was buying new clothes and giving in to gluttony, by all means. The latter would mostly commence from Mahalaya...

While turning the pages of my diary, I get to smell the innocence and purity even now. Our puja vacations would usually start two days prior to Mahalaya, and we would end up calling each other, only to find out who was the first to wake up this morning!  because Mr. Bhadra's (Birendra Krishna Bhadra) voice was more of an emotion that stayed with you for a long time.

We would wake a little before 4 am, freshen up and turn on the radio, the faint sound of the conch shell felt so enchanting, that we never felt the tiredness of waking up in the morning at all! We (me and Baba) would go out for a stroll, where he often ended up meeting his school friends, and their tet-a-tets would last for 2 hours at least. Somehow, they never irked me, I would be an avid listener to their diverse topics…

They would mostly talk of cricket, more specifically of Ganguly, over infinite cups of milk teas and cigarettes. In case, you are presuming that I was the ‘calm kid’ like ‘Clay’ from ’13 Reasons Why’, you are highly mistaken. Baba used to bribe me to ‘Kochuris’ (Kachauri) and ‘Jilipis’ (Jalebis), and even ‘Metro’ ice-creams, so that I filtered out the ‘cigarette’ part before mom. Sometimes, I used to demand for a chocolate that arrived new to the market, and would get that too!

There is this ritual among the Bengalis ‘Tarpan’ – where one pays tribute to his ancestors who passed away, and seeks blessings from them. Baba used to take me with him every time there also. On our way back, we would stop by a distant grandfather’s house, whom I used to proudly call ‘Chordadu’ (youngest grandfather). Every year, Dadu would vouch that he got up at 3 am, and has been keeping a vigil on the house. We are yet to test the authenticity of Dadu’s statement!

Our evenings would be enlightened with the ‘Bhajjis’ that ‘Rita Pishi’ (our house help) would get along. Mostly they were ‘Begunis’(a fry made of brinjal), Peyaji (onion fries), and ‘Aloor Chop’ (a chop made of Aloo). All of us would literally dive into the delicacies, without anybody saying ‘ATTACK’...Mostly, my cousins would snatch the last piece of ‘Aloo Chop’, I had saved with great difficulty. Later, I would always discover that Pishi saved a piece for me. She would do that every time, every year...

As I pen down my thoughts now and compile them, I realize how far I have moved, from all of that. I no longer fight with Baba, Chordadu doesn’t root for himself anymore, and neither does Rita Pishi make efforts to feed us…

All I am left with is a grey matter full of memories and a few hashtags stating #ThrowBack or #MajorMissing!