Illish-maacch and Chicago Cops – a Fishy Tale!

You folks may not be aware of it but 1992 was a life-changing, monumental year for all of us Bengalis living abroad. Before 1992, we were merely  another group of NRI’s - trudging along, making money, raising kids, disagreeing with spouses and such.

Then came 1992, and  a golden opportunity opened up to transform ourselves from a group of mere generic NRI’s to a cackle of the happiest people in the entire universe!

Now that you are totally clueless about this, let’s give you a little background.

The Japanese, who eat tons of sushi, were always obsessed about freshness of their fish. They are the ones that developed the technique of flash-freezing fish right on the fishing boats.  Frozen instantly, the fish retain their original taste.

Our friends in  Bangladesh adopted this technology and  decided to  start selling flash-frozen Illish and other delicious fish. The premiere was in 1992, in a handful of  selected big cities in America.

We lived  in a little town about five hundred miles south of Chicago.

 As the Bangladeshis embarked on this monumental fishy endeavor, the local press, the national press, and world press totally ignored them.

 Fortunately for us, a little blurb appeared in India abroad, read by a few, and resulted in an  avalanche of excitement throughout North America. Saliva drooled from our lips as we picked up the phone.

“Boleesh ki? Paddar illish? Sottee? Tatka?  Yaarki koreesh na!

Liberally translated, this was one  Bengali exclaiming to another “ Really,  fresh  illish from Padma (Ganga becomes Padma in Bangladesh), are you serious?”

We had a great plan. Four of us left at 6 am on a Saturday morning, intending to drive continuously by taking turns. We will arrive at Chicago at around 6 pm or so, pack our cooler with a ton of frozen illish and drive back continuously, getting back sometime Sunday morning. The cooler was packed with high-tech “lab ice” –it would keep the fish frozen for many hours.

Like any sound plan, things went wrong. The van broke down in the middle of nowhere. By the time it was fixed, it was around 8 pm Saturday evening. We figured we would continue driving to Chicago, getting there around 8:30 or so in the morning.

We got to the Devon Street area in Chicago  around 5 am in the morning, much  earlier,  partly because of our miscalculation and partly  because there was very little traffic on Chicago highways during early morning. It was still pitch dark.

The store opened  at 9 am.

There was no point going to a motel for four hours. Some restaurants appeared to be open for breakfast. But  we could not possibly spend four  hours in a restaurant.

 Binoy suggested that we go to three separate restaurants, and spend about an hour at each of them, and then wait in front of the store until it opens. His suggestion was summarily dismissed as childish and needlessly expensive.

 At Chinmoy’s suggestion, we found a half-empty parking lot right next to a gas station close to Devon street, parked our van and  promptly fell asleep.

This was a very bad idea..

I woke up, startled at a clicking noise. As I opened my eyes, there was this barrel of a gun pointed at my face. Just like in the movies! Except this was  a real gun and I was not watching TV!

A harsh voice announced crisply

“Put your hands up and slowly walk out of the vehicle , now, please”.

There were six cops with  their guns pointed at our heads,  and a snarling German Shepherd dog. I have never been so scared in my life.  They immediately separated us and started asking questions.

 Of course, we perfectly fit the profile of drug dealers, making deliveries in the early morning  hours.  

I was the lucky one. I got to sit in the passenger seat of the police car with the dog. The bitch (excuse my profanity, she was  one) was fortunately separated from us, behind heavy steel mesh in the back seat. The cop politely questioned me  for about twenty minutes. Every five minutes, he will leave the vehicle to confer with his colleagues. At that point,   the b**ch would start  howling  at the top her voice, her paws on the mesh,  her saliva hitting  my body.  I could see her fangs and smell canine morning breath. Only the very durable steel mesh saved my life that day!.

 Then the cop would return,  politely tell the dog, “Shut up, Susan”, and  Susan would immediately pretend to fall asleep. Questioning by the cop will resume again, followed by another round of vicious barking.    The cycle repeated itself three or four times. Susan was the wrong name for her, of course.  Cujo (or Saalee)   fit her a lot better.

The cops absolutely refused to believe that we came from five hundred miles away to buy fish (and I kind of don’t blame them).

 They questioned us about our past and present, , searched our van from top to bottom, patted us down, searched our personal items,  checked our ID’s, crosschecked our ID”S with their office computers, and finally, disdainfully, let us go.

One of them  contemptuously  told us at the end “Sir, this was not a very smart thing to do. You could have been robbed by local criminals, or assaulted or even killed  by real drug dealers.  You are lucky that we spotted you first.  Next time you come to buy fish here, please arrive during normal business hours.”

 No kidding!

There were still two hours left before the store opened. We went to a breakfast place, and crashed with our shaken bodies and souls.  Fortunately none of us needed to change our underpants, although I came pretty close owing to my encounter with lovely Susan .

The drive back was routine. I did my three hours of driving first and then went to the back seat, fell asleep  soundly,  hugging the cooler full of fish.

No, we were not selfish. Everyone was invited to the ensuing illish-fest, where Jhal, jhol, mustard-illish, sour-illish, steamed illish and even fried illish roe  flowed freely. (If  are not a Bengali,  wondering what these are, you could probably find  pics  on the internet!)  And we had a story to tell as well.

In a couple of years, almost all Indian stores started carrying illish  and other fish in their freezer. Today, no matter where you are in America, you can get this stuff pretty easy.

But we were the pioneers!  We beat everyone else by two years!

I still wake up at night dreaming about Susan, though. Can’t get her out of my mind!

The Winsome Brahmin Critters!

Years ago, I befriended a feisty, liberal American woman. She was a strong defender of human rights, women’s rights, animal rights, and a champion of  many other  important social issues.. Very cute,  but very opinionated. My own views were not much different from hers, but my debating capabilities were limited, nor was I nearly as strident as she was.

She was always testing me, trying to get me in trouble.

One evening, she dropped a bombshell.

“Hey, what if your son turns out to be gay?”

I tried the obvious.

“No way, he is about ten years old, he already checks out girls. He won’t be gay, I am sure”

She was persistent

“His orientation is not properly developed yet, he may very well turn out to be gay. How would you handle it?”

I thought for a while. Divorced about five years before I met her, my only son’s welfare was a touchy subject for me.  Hmmm…, dealing with this required some advanced strategic maneuvers.  I  finally said,

“Frankly, I will  be devastated.”

“Really?” She did not expect this reaction.

“You would not understand. This is kind of complicated. Please listen carefully:

My great-great grandfather was a Sanskrit scholar, a  pundit, a priest,  a man of letters indeed. He lived in a small village but  obviously had critters that were of  A++ grade, if not better.”

“Critters?” She was frowning.

“Yeah.  Some men have high grade critters, others don’t. It is as simple as that”. I stated my case.

“So, this is about your ancestors’ …ummm… critters?” She was incredulous at this point.

“Of course. No ordinary critters, madam, they were pure Brahmin critters, the best of the best.  His eldest son, my great grandfather,  was the first  in his family to have gone to college. He actually moved to Kolkata to work. Unfortunately, he passed away at a very young age. However, he obviously carried the high grade critters and passed them on to my grandfather, his only son.

My grandfather, bearer of these high grade critters, was raised by my great grandmother , a young widow. What a magnificent lady she was. Her goal, obviously, was to cherish my grandpa, so that the high grade critters may flourish.

 In time, my grandpa grew up to be a successful attorney, and got married to my grandma and had nine beautiful children. See what these high grade critters can do if given half  a chance?

However, the high grade critters were only passed on to my father, the eldest son, who, while leading an exemplary life, passed the aforementioned critters to me, his eldest son.”

“So it is the eldest son who inherits them? What about the other male children?” She was inquisitive.

“They don’t get the real stuff. Not a chance. This is a Hindu thing. But the geneticists all over the world have proved this beyond any doubt.” I cleared this up.

“Really?” She was skeptical

“Of course. Read the research. Do you know, Chenghis Khan, the infamous Mongol emperor, had about a thousand children?”

“He and his army also killed  millions of  people and raped and killed women and small children.  Why is this relevant?” She was annoyed.

“Awww, the poor fellow didn’t know about women’s  rights. In fact he had no idea that anyone else besides him had any rights whatsoever. But, notice the incredible success rate of  his critters. Remarkable, isn’t it?”

“ I see. So what did you do with the exemplary critters? Did you have a thousand children? At least  nine children like your grandpa? She was taunting me at this point.

“My critters wanted to, for sure. However, there were other constraints, like financial limitations, my ex-spouse’s lack of total devotion to the critters and such. However, I did manage to pass them on to my exemplary progeny.

Now if he turns out to be gay, I can not expect  him to pass on the exemplary critters. Gay men occasionally have children, but it is relatively rare. This would be the end of the line, I guess. A monumental loss to mankind in general and a devastating blow to my ancestors, indeed.”

I noticed she was smiling at this point,

“You are pulling my leg, aren’t you?” She asked.

“No, I am dead serious” I tried to keep a straight face.

“You are funny. A funny Hindu guy”  I noticed that she has lost her aggression at this point and had a broad smile on her face.

Our conversation, after that,  turned to more pleasant topics.

The critters won this one!

ABCD : A Vanishing Breed!

The ABCD phenomenon started in the 70’s and kind of petered out by the early  years of 2000.

We don’t see True ABCD’s anymore. While someone could apply for a research grant to delve into the  causes of their apparent disappearance, I will refrain from speculation in this regard.

In the 80’s and 90’s, America was teeming with ABCD’s.  Indeed, that was the golden age of ABCD’s

Some Desi’s loved them.

“See,  they are the true descendants of Mother India”, they would point to a nerdy 25-year old accountant touching the feet of some old geezer in a Hindu temple. “What cultural awareness! What spontaneous show of respect! And he was born and brought up right here  in America. Bravo betha, bravo!

Most of us that hardly go  to the temples and such   would hear about this young man and wonder about his true status.

 Skeptics like me would follow him around for days, finding him on a Saturday morning in a Bhagawat-Gita reading class, trying to hit on the priest’s toothy teenage daughter.

 The same Saturday evening, he  would furtively drive  fifty miles to a topless bar in another town,  drinking coke there,   not beer, because mom would smell alcohol on his breath and disapprove. He would ogle at the strippers but decline any lapdances because that  would cost too much money.

 Now the skeptic would smile broadly – that’s an aasli ABCD – a true specimen right there!

Alright, alright, I just made that one up.  I never actually met such an accountant,  he  was merely   the prototype. But some others that I did meet definitely qualified for a true ABCD status. 

ABCDs in love

Imran is the first one that comes to mind. He went to the college where I teach, had a serious American girlfriend, but broke up with her because his  parents would not approve of her.   

Next, he went  on a nationwide mate search through classified ads, matchmaking agencies  and such. (hey, there was no  serious internet in mid nineties!)

As luck would have it, he hooked up with Asha, a Bengali girl in Dallas. The lovebirds  cooed over long distance phone calls for a while.  His parents grudgingly agreed to a match with a hindu girl, while her parents viciously objected to a muslim boy, so Imran went to Dallas where they eloped and started living together.

Pretty normal stuff up to here, but it gets weird after this.

Imran called me  two weeks  after he eloped.

“Things are very weird,  Pronto”

“Really?”

“We found a nice apartment, and I wanted to get married right away. But Asha says we should get married only after both of us find good jobs, so that we are financially secure”

“Have you found a job yet?”

“I found a job as a bank teller, pays the bills for now, but it will take a while before I  get a real job. Asha is still looking, but not very seriously.”

“A little strange, yes.” I said

“But listen, meanwhile, our relationship is purely platonic, Asha wants to wait until we actually get married. She said she loves me more than anything else, though! Tell me, what should I do?”

“Hmmmm.. .., run away, scram!” I said “This is not gonna work”.

Obviously, Imran could not abandon the love of his life. Two weeks later, Asha’s parents found out where she lived. They came to visit, and Asha’s mom started sobbing

“Come back home, little girl!” she kept on crying.

A teary Asha went back home.

Incredibly, the fiasco continued for the next six months.

 Asha continued writing long passionate letters to Imran about how   much she loves him and how she is gonna leave her parents soon to be with him.

Imran kind of went crazy. His parents finally sent him home to  Hyderabad , their home town, for recuperation and a forced negotiated marriage. I have no idea what happened to Asha.

  ABCD ^ ^N

Sita’s parents came from Medinpur, a rural district in West Bengal, way  back  late 1950’s and settled in Chicago. Sita lived   in Chicago since she was born.   An old-fashioned negotiated marriage hooked her up with my friend’s brother, Chhote, who migrated from India in late seventies.  I first went to visit them in the late eighties, five years after they were married. An hour after I arrived, I took Chhote aside

“Hey, why is Sita speaking like that? She was born here, wasn’t she?”

“You mean the thick Bengali Accent? Her parents taught her to speak with all Indians like that. It’s a sign of respect, apparently.”

“You are kidding me, right? Heck, she’s  got  this perfect. She even said deenar taybool  back there. Wow! Did you ever tell her that some people may actually be offended?

Chhote smiled, “like a hundred times.”

When we went back inside, she was talking to her colleague on the phone, a school teacher, in impeccable American English.

It was early evening. Soon, she showered, put on a clean sari and sequestered herself in the puja room for the next three hours

Chhote shrugged. “She does puja every evening for three hours, very religious you know”.

We had a late dinner, and she excused herself immediately. She was a very conscientious teacher in the Chicago public schools, worked till late at night preparing lesson plans and such.

“What about weekends? Do you get to spend any  time with her?

Chhote shrugged again. He was shrugging a lot.

“Yes,  every Saturday,  we drive out of town, to find a new temple, or a new Hare Krishna group, or some other religious gathering.  The whole day is spent on prayers, bhajans and such. The praasad  that I eat is usually pretty good though. And Sundays, she has special puja followed by lesson plans, homework-grading and all that.

“And she is only thirty years old!  Well, at least you are eating well every Saturday. ” I said

Chhote laughed. He had a lot of patience.

For two days I listened to Sita speaking  to me in the most comical Bengali accent . I left very baffled, to say the least.

Now, apart from professional and religious pursuits, young married  couples  also engage in some other pleasant  activities,  enthusiastically endorsed by all sorts of Hindu Gods, that usually result  in the expansion of a nuclear family.

I never dared  ask  Chhote and Sita about this part of  their married life.

Their childless marriage ended in a divorce after ten years. Like I said, Chhote had a lot of patience.

Well, these are the true ABCD’s. I met many others over the years as well.

So, to the hordes of self-proclaimed ABCD men and women  of today, I have this message:

-          You guys don’t stand a chance!  You have been smoked already!.

-           You are merely  a group  of fairly well-adjusted children  of  professional Indian folks that migrated here during the last twenty –five years.  

-          Sorry kids, you are not the true ABCD’s

However, should your profile fit the prototype of the  accountant above, shoot me an e-mail.

I will first post a retraction of this blog, and then meet you in a  bar where you prefer to drink coke.

I will buy you a coke and will gladly pay for a dance or two as well!

Ashokbabu's Gosht-lust (or Goat-lust)!

We Bengalis love goats. We don’t raise them as pets, we like to eat them.  On Sundays in Kolkata, lots of poor goats’ lives come to a tragic end , so that  middle-class Bongs have a festive midday meal. 

Unfortunately, in America,  goat meat is not sold in grocery stores. They eat a lot of beef around here. In big cities like NY or LA or Chicago, there would be Indian or Puerto Rican or other ethnic stores that will sell goat, but you are out of luck if you are in  a small town. This is true even  today, it was definitely true twenty-five years ago, when I met Ashokbabu with his lust for kids (no, not the human kind, but of the four-legged variety!)

Ashok was an older PH.D. student in his mid-thirties. Had some serious  work experience in India before coming here.  A nice guy, apparently with a mission.

“Dada, my parents are visiting. I want to give them Desi food. There is no Illish maach around here. Can we try to get some goat meat?”

I was not  very  keen on it.

“You can get, chicken , lamb, mutton, and all kinds of veggies. The Indian store in town sells all kinds of Indian spices. I am sure your parents are eating well. Where would you find goat meat here?”

“Dada, in Desoto, a little town about fifteen miles from here, there is a specialty meat and butcher shop that sells goat meat occasionally. Can we try on Sunday morning?”

We were off to Desoto in my car the following Sunday. The butcher shop had no goat meat. As I was ready to come back, a persistent Ashok asked the employees about the possibility of getting goat meat around here.

One of the employees suggested that there is a livestock auction back  on the other side of our town and sometimes farmers bring goats there.

 Slightly suspicious, I  reminded him that we don’t want a live goat in our backyard.

“I will take care of it” Ashok assured me.

I was curious, and I agreed to drive Ashok there.

Now,  my occupation does not involve contact with domesticated  animals, dead or alive, so I have never been to a livestock auction before (and never since then!). The parking lot looked like a mini-zoo!  Local farmers brought their choice steer or heifer  to be sold for breeding, of course, but apparently farmers also vigorously traded other animals that they keep as pets or raise on the side. I walked by three peacocks, two emus (nasty spitting birds),   cute little lambs,  a couple of weird-looking iguanas  - you get the idea.

Yes, there were two goats.  Lovely , woolly creatures, all dazzling  white! The farmer told us they are Angora  goats.

Ashok’s eyes lit up. “We can buy one of these!”

“Are you kidding?” I objected loudly. “ They are raised for wool! Each one would probably sell for at least a hundred dollars. And why would you want to kill such beautiful animals, anyways?”

“I won’t mind”, Ashok smacked his lips, “I wish they were cheaper. I bet they would taste good.”

In a  minute, two small trucks entered the parking lot.  From one of them,  three young  goats leaped to the asphalt as they were released. No wool on these critters, either!

Ashok’s eyes lit up, again! “Let’s go inside” He prodded me along. At the entrance to the tent- like structure where the auction were supposed to be held, as we paid 50 cents each to register for the auction, the farmers  gave us very surprised (and amused) looks. Clearly, we were not farmers, we were not even Americans, they had no idea what we were doing at a livestock auction.

Anyway, soon the bidding began and one after another, animals were bought to the podium and auctioned off.

The first goat was brought in and Ashok  was all excited .

“20 dollars”. He bid loudly.

Alas, his cry fell on deaf years. The auction guy was not paying attention to us, assuming we were mere spectators.

Agitated beyond belief, Ashok approached the auctioneer, and gave him a piece of his mind.

“The next goat  is all mine”, He lustily insisted.

Indeed, he bid $23 on the next goat, an young adult male, no one else showed much interest and in a few minutes, we were in the parking lot again – Ashok with a  live goat on a leash, and me with the car keys.

“Ummmm…..   Acchah, bolcchi ki, , can we take the goat in your car to the butcher shop? It is only ten miles, it will be fine in the back seat” Ashok  pleaded with me.

It was my turn to get excited.

“I SHALL not accept any damn goat in my car. The goat will pee in a minute. Goat pee smells bad, in case you don’t know, and my car smells good, and I wanna keep it that way.”

“Please, just one time. I will clean up the car” Ashok was persistent

“Baaah” said the goat, seconding the motion, I guess.

I was persistent too.

“You have the following options. One, walk with your goat to the butcher shop ten miles away. Two, walk home with your goat for about five miles. Three, I will drive home while you wait here and ask my neighbors if anyone with a pickup truck wants to help us out.

Not liking any of the options, a desperate Ashok started walking around the parking lot with the goat on his heels.  Went from truck to truck and asked:

“Excuse me, sir, would you give a ride to my goat to the butcher shop?”

At this point , I was LMAO or ROFL or whatever  you guys call it nowadays. Just imagine the scene: an overweight  Desi guy with a goat desperately  walking around among a group of American farmers, asking for a goat ride.

Before my sides would split from laughter, incredulously, a farmer agreed. He was going to the butcher shop anyway. He generously provided limo service to our goat for $3.

Our adventure had a sweet ending, the goat was butchered, I got  half of about twenty  pounds of fresh meat, and both our families had many festive meaty meals in the following weeks.

From an accounting point of view, adding the auction price of $23, the goat taxifare of $3, our auction tickets of $1, and the butchering fee of $10, we did pretty good for about twenty  pounds of meat.( Not counting an entire Sunday morning spent on goat pursuit).

After  a couple of months, when the goat-lust struck again, Ashok wanted  a repeat. Needless to say, I politely declined.

A Bad Girl Grows Up

This certainly is not your standard “mothers’ day” story, and I wondered about whether to submit this for the contest. Finally I decided to go for it because ultimately it is the story of a mother’s love for her child.

This  girl I met in America  is so bad that I could not possibly tell you her true life story – you will think I made it all up. So I will tell you just a little bit, because truth, in this case, will definitely  be less credible than fiction.

Misty was, and still is, a very pretty girl. Dark brown curly hair, piercing eyes, a classic Durga face and a million dollar smile. Wait, she has many laughs, one for seduction that will blow you away, another one is a joyous laughter that will make you fall in love with her in a second.

She ran away from home when she was fourteen.  A pimp hooked up with her and she sold her body to old men in a far away city for a while.

Her mom could not handle her after she came back. She lived with foster parents.

During her first year in the foster home, she fell in love for the first time. With an older man.  She always liked older men, the bad girl!

She had a daughter. Named her Summer Love.  She was fifteen when Summer was born. Misty loved her more than anything else.

When Summer was two years old, Misty left her foster home with   another female friend. Went to a big city with a fake ID to dance as a stripper. The cops came and arrested her, and took Summer away. She was seventeen. That’s the last time she saw Summer.

Let’s fast forward fifteen years. Misty has lived a fast life, indeed. Burglar, thief, hustler, con-artist, stripper, part-time hooker – she has done it all, with an off and on drug-addiction.  And lots of men, mostly older men - her boyfriends, sex buddies, men she conned, men she robbed, men she blackmailed, men who gave her money and men who gave her drugs.

She had three more children from three different men.  Miraculously, as the children grew older, she came to her senses. The hard drugs stopped. She started working regular jobs.

I got involved a few years ago, one of the older men in her life. I didn’t know about her past, I just succumbed to her beauty as a lonely middle-aged  Desi fool.

Sometimes, after our wild sexual encounters, there were tender moments when she would tell me bits and pieces of her life. That’s when I found out how much she loved Summer.

“I would do anything to hold my baby girl just one time” Misty has told me many times.

During late night, when she is alone, her children asleep, she lays awake, thinking about her beautiful Summer Love, now a big girl. Does she think about her mom?  What does she look like?

Misty would never know.

Or so she thought.

Right after New Year, Angela and David, her younger children, found Summer Love on the web. Misty and the kids looked at her picture for a long time. There she was, on Facebook, her profile reeking of solid middle-class ambience. Her adoptive parents must be very well-off. And, she is as beautiful as her mom was as a teenager, with the same dazzling smile!

Tears welled up in Misty’s piercing eyes. She never thought she would see her again.

Her children contacted Summer, and now she wants to talk to her mom, meet her mom.

But wait! This is complicated!

If Misty meets Summer, Summer will ask questions. A lot of them. She will meet her rainbow siblings – a black boy, a white boy and a Hispanic girl. It would be hard to hide a lifetime of debauchery, promiscuity and drug addiction from a seventeen year old and very curious teenage girl.

If Misty tries to lie through her teeth, Summer will know in a minute.

In any case, she will likely bolt from her trashy mom and go back to her middle class cocoon.

If Misty does not want to meet Summer, she will be so hurt that she probably will never contact her mom again.

Misty texts me. Yesterday.

“What should I do? I am crying. A lot!”

 I am in India now, where   twenty-five year old virgins swoon at their first kiss.  In a few weeks, I will be back with her. A different  world, indeed.

“Welcome to life, girl” I text back to her.

She will get to hug her daughter, finally.  And she probably will lose her again. Forever.

The bad girl will grow up now. It’s about time.

Charu Majumdar and my Ill-fated Romance

Charu Majumdar and my Ill-fated Romance

“During the mid 1960's Charu Majumdar and Kanu Sanyal organized a leftist faction in CPI(M) in northern Bengal. In 1967 a militant peasant uprising took place in Naxalbari, led by the Majumdar-Sanyal group. The same year Majumdar and Sanyal broke away and formed the All India Coordination Committee of Communist Revolutionaries. AICCCR founded Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) in 1969, with Majumdar as its secretary.” 

The intro above is for the youngsters who may have  erroneously assumed that Charu Majumdar was my  neighborhood uncle. No, young readers, we are talking about the real deal, the fire-eating revolutionary, the father of the  Naxalite movement. No, the great Marxist-Leninist leader was never any  part of a love triangle involving  me and my sweetheart!

In 1970, just out of college, and  on a very tight budget, Uday and  I took off to good  old Darjeeling for a little R&R.

We checked into  a cheap hotel. Fifteen  rupees per person, including three meals a day - you get the idea.- crummy and a little dirty as well.

Darjeeling was probably prettier then, without  the new box-like hotels and apartment buildings. The mountains, the charming locals, and the bottles of booze we had in our hotel room made us happy. My young heart ached for a little romance. A little encounter, I thought, will make this into a perfect vacation.

Well, instead of  young maidens, we  met Baccha and Khokan from Behala, where I grew up. The middle-class suburbs of Calcutta were a fertile breeding ground for the Naxalite cadre. Since my father passed away in my early teens,  my petit-bourgeois attachment to my mother and siblings overpowered my political aspirations. But I had  a ton of Naxal friends, some really dedicated. Bachha was one of them. Khokan was the ruffian type.

Bachha was an affluent kid in our middle-class neighborhood. He used to be my close childhood friend. He went to an English-medium school. Spoke fluent English. Unlike the halting, broken Benglish that we could barely manage.

 My friend had  changed a lot after joining the Naxals. He was not the same person I grew up with.  

There were a lot of private rental houses in Darjeeling then. They were not very cheap. I was kind of surprised that Bachha and  Khokan were staying in a nice rental house  near the mall. Three rooms with nice furniture. The living room had Communist literature all over the place. Books, journals, pamphlets, they had it all.

We talked politics for awhile.

“Aren’t you going to see the sights?”  I asked after a while “This place is great!”

“Not really” He said “This is our Maoist retreat! We came here to study his teachings without any interruptions. There is so much to learn.”

“Drop by anytime” He said “We can form a study group.”

I kept wandering around this charming town. Then I ran into Sukanta at the mall.

Sukanta  Kumar  NondiChoudhry reeked of old Kolkata money. Lived in a big house  near my grandpa’s neighborhood in North Calcutta; studied Philosophy in Presidency College. Usually dressed like a classic Bengali bridegroom, a style that was  totally obsolete among young men even in 1970. Not only that, he was arrogant and obnoxious! I only befriended him because in spite of his hopeless demeanor, he was indeed a very good chess player.

Sukanta revealed that he was on a field trip with his college group. I accepted his invitation for a game of chess.

Walking along the hallway of  his hotel, Ashok Nivas,  I almost fainted!

There were dozens of  young women all over the place. Laughing, giggling, chatting,  snacking,  and just lounging around! These were, of course, his classmates studying philiosophy. Apparently, there were thirty-four of these heavenly bodies, accompanied by four  male philosophy students  and a balding college prof.

Ordinarily, this Sukanta creature with his see-through dhoti and silk Kurta  will be completely invisible to our crowd. But  right now, he was the king of the hill.

“Guru, can you introduce me to some of your female friends?

“Nope”

“Why?”

“I don’t’ want to”

After a long pause, he finally came clean.

 “You don’t deserve to talk to these women. They are from Presidency college. You are from nowhere. Want to play chess or not?”

I stormed out. I probably would have strangled him if I stayed.

Didn’t I tell you this guy was obnoxious?

Next morning, I counted my cash carefully. I was going to leave Uday  and  get a room at Ashok Nivas by myself. Right next to the Presidency girls. With grim determination, I walked to the hotel office.

My Behala connection came through again. There was Bishu da, our one time neighbor back from the suburbs, toiling in the hotel office. I knew there was a God!

Some serious embarrassment followed. Bishu da pointed me out to the entire office staff  and loudly remarked

“Look at this boy! I used to watch  him drinking milk , sitting on his mother’s lap (he did not!). Now he has  a moustache! Wants to pick up chicks!” A lot of hysterical guffaw ensued.

I saved my dough, however. A kind soul, Bishu da  introduced me to several young women during that day.

Ratna, with curly hair, full lips and  fancy eye-glasses, was the one I started talking to. The first day, I talked about anything I could think of. She mainly listened, slightly amused. The next day, she started talking. Turned out that she read a lot of poetry. Me, I only read Jibananda Das. She covered the whole spectrum, from Tagore to the recent mini-mags published in Kolkata.

On the third day, standing before a certain well-known waterfall together, I  held her hand. Then I kissed her fingers.

She was frowning, “Why are you kissing my hand?”

I looked at her.

“Because I like you. I like you a lot. And  I wanna kiss you for real”.

She turned her face away.

“I don’t want to kiss you. At all”

Well, I tried.

I randomly picked another topic. Told her how Uday and I have been imbibing some cool brandy every evening.

“How does brandy taste?”

“I like it more than whiskey. It goes down smooth.” I bragged

“I wanna drink brandy. I never tried it before.”

Whoa! I didn’t see that coming!

“Are you sure you can handle it?”

“Of course! I will just drink a little bit!”

“I can’t take you to a bar” I said “I am broke.”

“But wait a minute” I suddenly had an idea. “ We can go to Bachha’s place in the evening. Those Naxals read Mao all the time, they won’t even notice us. They have a really nice place, three big rooms.”

“ I will give you just a little bit of brandy if you read a lot of poetry for me”

 I said seriously, as if poetry’s all I cared about.

“Ok”, said my fair friend. Then she raised her index finger and told me clearly “But no kissing! None at all.”

“Of course.” I totally agreed  with a sad  bechari face. “Of course”

Finally, looking at my bechari face, she broke into a smile. Poked  at my chest and said sweetly.

“Bhishon Dushtoo Tumi!” (You are very naughty!)

I felt pretty good. No, I was ecstatic!”

( In Bengali chick talk, “you are very naughty” used to be a very encouraging sign for the courting male! I guess it still does. Courting males, when you hear this, stick around! Good things are likely to happen!)

Early in the  evening, with a lot of  after-shave on my face  and a bottle of brandy in a bag, I went to see Baccha. The idea was to  alert him about my plan, then go get my friend  from Ashok Nivas. Little did I know about what was awaiting me!

Baccha  was standing in front of the house. Instead of reading Maoist literature inside. Something was up!

“This is no  bullshit”  Baccha said in English. “you can’t go in.”

“Why?”

“Look behind the house. We have tried to cover it with tarp, but you can still see it”

Sure enough, there was the  black Ambassador half covered with tarp.

“You mean, you guys…” I was stammering now.

“Yes, we were sent by the  Committee to keep a.safe house here” He said “You know, they are all wanted by the police. This is the way they meet with the locals  in different cities every few weeks. We were waiting for them to show up.”

“You mean,  he is here right now! With his associate, Kanu…”

He grabbed my shoulder. Hard. “No names, you idiot. Yes, everyone is here. Even the  “uncle” guy.  We are standing around the house as  sentries. I got a gun  in my pocket right now.”

“Scram. Get lost.” Baccha said “Don’t come back here. I will see you in Kolkata.”

Back at my hotel room, I closed the door first before I started talking.

“Gentlemen!” I announced  “The Central Committee of CPI (M-L) is meeting with the Darjeeling local committee at Bachha’s place, even as we speak.”

There was a long silence. “That’s why ….,” Uday  murmured.

I  had a crazy idea “Look! I can go to the police! They will arrest the whole Central Committee in one swoop! I will get a big cash reward! I will get a suite in Oberoi Darj.

 I am sure Ratna wouldn’t mind visiting me there”

“Great idea, moron” Uday said “By the time you go back home, your mom and sister will be dead.”

He had a very valid point. I guess it was time to suppress my romantic desires!

So there you have it! The great  comrade irrevocably  interfered with my romantic tryst in Darjeeling. Yet another  young man’s quest for brandy, poetry and hopefully a little romance was nipped in the bud!

Oh, about the  object of  my affection. Ratna gave me the cold shoulder when we went back to Kolkata. Apparently, some Presidency dada caught her fancy. Grrrr!

Sukanta became an obnoxious rich capitalist. How predictable!

Bachha, on the other hand,  was destined to become  a dead Naxalite. Fortunately, his shrewd dad sent his inquisitve son to Jawaharlal Nehru University, a hotbed of leftist discourse. Bachha gave up gun-toting and became a  fire-breathing leftist intellectual instead!  I don’t like his politics, but a live leftist friend is better than a dead one!

Charu Majumdar did a lot of damage to my generation. My loss was really minimal. I am glad we somehow survived the Naxalite Twilight Zone!