It’s a romantic night by any standards. Even the air on the roof feels cool despite the high temperatures and humidity. Walking to and fro with my beautiful new bride, I am in heaven, happier than I have been in years. I keep an eye on the door as people are occasionally coming and going. When no one is present, I take Shilpi’s hand in my own and proclaim my undying love for her.

Stopping for a moment, she looks deeply into my eyes and assures me;

Tomar sate naroke zabo.

'I would follow you to hell.'

be advised that this story contains sexual content

please continue to
the story

Preface

Calcutta
November, 2005
Approximately 3:00 AM

“Hey, Mister.”

“Hey, Mister.”

I have only been asleep for an hour and with great effort I manage to raise my leaden eyelids. In the dim light filtering through my barred windows, I recognize my lover’s slim form standing in front of my bed.

Mosha kamra dichhe.*

“Mosquitoes are biting me.”

Wordlessly, I arise and follow my lover to the room where she is sleeping tonight. She complains about her pillow and I return to my room to give her my own, but she protests. She's had a bad dream in which her recently deceased mother-in-law had become a ghost. She and her husband have been separated for years but she still lives in his ancestral home. Never having had a comfortable relationship with her mother-in-law, I am not surprised that she should be haunted by the old lady.

After hanging her mosquito net, I lightly rub my lover’s forearm before finally tucking her in. Even in near darkness, my white hand contrasts greatly against her black skin.

Goomo.

“Go to sleep.”

As I turn to leave, she calls out to me in English:

“Good night.”

Back in my room, I lay on my bed with eyes wide open, knowing that sleep will elude me for the rest of the night.

I am happy that my lover is here. Slightly mad, alcoholic, and of questionable character, I have to love her just the way she is. Even if we can not sleep together (what would the maids say?), she has come and tonight that is enough.

How happy I am to see her bright smile and to look into her fathomless eyes. We always laugh together she enjoys my impersonations of her friends and family members. In turn, I giggle at her vulgar language. No one is spared. She even refers to her own father as a “son of a pig” and her daughter as an “illiterate bitch.” Another’s ears might burn from her onslaught of profanities, but I can only laugh.

Tonight she is curious about my relationship with my wife, so I produce a picture which she looks at briefly with a critical eye;

Mal’ta kothay payeccho?

“Where’d you find this trash?”

Excited by my descriptions of our intimate relations and lubricated by a bottle of cheap whisky, my lover stands before the bed and proudly removes her sari. Knowing well the effect she has upon me, she is strutting as her blouse, bra, and petticoat are thrown into a crumpled heap upon the floor. Together on my bed, she places her strong hands on my ears, lowering my head to her breasts. She whispers softly, barely parting her luscious lips. Less air is disturbed than a mosquito could manage with his minuscule wings flapping at half-speed:

Chosho

“Suck it.”

Slowly and softly I tease her with my tongue as she fondles my manhood. She enjoys hearing my exploits with other women and she is curious about my wife. She wants to know about her figure and how often we make love. I lift my head and tease her with details of our intimacies.

My lover’s roughened hand, with a black line across the fingers that I recognize as coming from the iron bars of an auto-rickshaw, casually strokes me as her anticipation grows.

Koro, koro!

“Do it!”

Although I enjoy making love to her, I am mostly happy to hold her in my arms and feel her cool skin against mine. I savor the touch of her cheek against my own and the taste of her skin as I nibble on her shoulder.

kamra debe na

“Don’t bite me.”

On the rare occasion that she touches me affectionately or simply when she looks at me with her kitty-cat eyes, my knees weaken. Now her eye-lids flutter as she wraps her arms tightly around my neck.

Chodo

“Fuck me.”

No matter that our evening of love-making is spoiled when my lover's cell phone rings. Hanging up, she excuses herself to use the bathroom. Just then she notices blood on her petticoat. Picking it up from the pile of garments and inspecting in the dim light, it is determined that her period has arrived early this month.

Even in silhouette, my lover’s naked figure is perfection. It could easily belong to a sixteen year-old. No one could guess that she had a daughter older than that by her physique alone. It stands in defiance of her blatant disregard for her diabetes and high cholesterol.

Despite my lover’s trim body, her age is truly showing on her face. Like the picture of Dorian Grey, her hard-knock days and nights of harder drinking had to make their mark somewhere - and that somewhere certainly isn‘t on her figure.

As I lay awaiting an uncooperative sleep, I bring my hands beneath my chin. The acrid scent of my lover’s womanhood still lingers on my fingers even after my shower. I had used prolific amounts of soap, polishing my hands like military cadet preparing his brass for the parade ground. Still, her fragrance remains and I wonder how I would offer my morning ablutions in such a state. The Bible tells us, “When ye make many prayers, I will not hear: your hands are full of blood.”

“Hey Mister,” she had called me. In this land of subtlety, this is a very significant gesture.

The traditional custom in Hindu India is that a woman should never call her husband by name. “Mister” was my lover’s amusing way of letting me know that she holds me in some regard. I know that she will never be my wife, nor the mother of my children, and never even a recognized girlfriend, so this is all I can expect from her. The platitudes I have become accustomed to hearing from my wife I will never hear from my lover. “Mister,” is as good as it will ever get, and I have to smile.

There are many trees outside my window. No drapes decorate the windows in my room and I can clearly see their trunks in the soft light of the street lamps. Thin betel nut trunks sway in the breeze while the thicker coconut trees refuse to dance as the wind commands. As I watch the silhouettes rock, casting shadows onto my wall, a long tail dangles from the awning over my window. It is fat, maybe two inches in diameter, and over two feet in length. I saw a langur, known here as a Hanuman monkey, the other day and maybe he was back.

Langurs are diurnal, I remember. What could it be? The serpentine tail moves with a peculiar motion, as if swaying to a snake-charmer‘s horn. Soon it curls up and swings upwards, back over the awning.

My lover is afraid to sleep in this room. She has already seen a bad dream this night and I hope that she sleeps well. When I am in America, I always dream of Calcutta. When I am in Calcutta, I rarely dream of America. Of what I will dream of when I return the States?

Would I dream of my wedding night and how beautiful my wife looked in her gold jewelry and burgundy sari? Would I dream of the soft kisses from her full lips? The times we sat at the Victoria Memorial and laughed at the young lovers shamelessly smooching under trees? The time we walked on the roof of our apartment building and watched the stars rise?

Would I dream of the grand festivals and the night we took our deity of Kali Ma to the Ganga to submerse her in the river’s cool waters? How the Victoria Memorial looked as brilliant as a gem, illuminated by thousands off watt-candles on that darkmoon night. How we rode by on the back of the lorry, long balloons stretched in our hands, whistling in the wind as we held them high above our heads.

Would I dream of my friends, neighbors, and relatives? The meals we shared, the laughs, the tears, and the memories?

Maybe I would dream of my lover; her eyes dark like onyx? The touch of her leathery hands? The salty taste of her skin?

Certainly I would dream of my beloved Calcutta. A city so few bidhesies [foreigners] have experienced and love the way I do. Once Calcutta grabs you in her lover’s embrace and digs her nails into your back, the scars remain forever.

Maybe I will be gone for another year, but I look forward to seeing Calcutta in my dreams. I close my eyes and wait for elusive sleep to finally make her appearance.

* All Bengali has been translated to conversational English, therefore the translations are not literal.

please continue to
chapter I

chapter I

Calcutta is my favorite city in the world.

Whenever I mention this fact to people, they are always shocked. They invariably look at me for a long while with the same blank stare. Once they have regained their composure, the same question never fails to follow;

“Calcutta?”

They spit the word as if it were a particularly salty wad of phlegm.

“W…W…Why?”

As is so often the case, the only answer I can give is so obvious as to appear flippant;

“Because it’s full of Calcuttans.”

Certainly Calcutta isn’t a city of great physical beauty. Once it was known as the City of Palaces, but many of those grand edifices have been razed with sanction from an unconcerned government [as pictured above], and most of the remaining buildings have been allowed to deteriorate terribly. Calcutta today certainly could not be mistaken for Paris or Rome.

For tourists, Calcutta is not exactly on par with Hong Kong or London. Shopping is indeed extraordinary in Calcutta, but the tourist areas are simply impossible. The hours spent haggling with shopkeepers for over-priced, poor-quality keepsakes and souvenirs is not my idea of relaxing vacation time. Add the greedy shopkeepers, beggars, pick-pockets, obsequious porters, rip-off taxi drivers, pimps, and teaming crowds of sweating, spitting, swearing locals and you’d be better off staying home watching the Travel Channel.

One would never boast that Calcutta is particularly clean city. I have heard that Singapore is so clean, one can eat off of the streets. Having never been there, I can’t even imagine what Singapore must look like. All I really know is Calcutta, which can be downright filthy.

I mean seriously filthy.

Let’s go a step further and define filthy. In some neighborhoods (though certainly not all) the overwhelming stench of shit, piss, and rotting garbage may well be classifiable by the Geneva convention as biological warfare. In the wrong area, if you are not stepping carefully, you are very likely to slip when your shoe finds itself in a particularly viscous divot of steaming shit. If the turd in question is from non-human origins, you consider yourself fortunate. Indeed, naked, dirt-encrusted, flea-garlanded children can often be found squatting on the sidewalk plopping anti-freeze green diarrhea onto the pavement.

Therefore, if you are in the habit of eating off of the street, buy a ticket for Singapore.

If your looking for amusements, you won’t find much in Calcutta. One theme park exists, but my single visit was enough to ever keep me from ever returning. My only memory was riding a peddle-boat, which was so rusty and in need of ball-bearings that an Olympian track-star would have trouble propelling it through a half-empty bath tub. Worse, once you begin the ride, you have no choice but to pedal all the way through the narrow course with other peddlers pushing you on, so there is no way to stop when you are tired. I felt like Sisyphus pushing his rock uphill for all of eternity. I swear that dingy nearly became a coffin that day. The end of the course could not have come sooner, and when I finally disembarked from that miserable fiberglass tub, I half-expected someone place a gold medal around my neck. My rubber-band legs seemed incapable of supporting my weight for the rest of the afternoon and to this very day, whenever I pass by that place I feel a distinct throb in my quadraceps.

Calcutta will never be a popular tourist city for the aforementioned reasons. But what makes a city great? Is it merely fine architecture? Is it the quantity of business transactions? The shopping opportunities? Flashy nightlife? Do the tourist attractions make a city special?

No, of course not; it is the people who make a city.

This story is attempt to recount a personal tale of love in the romantic city of Calcutta. Yes, despite all that has been said to humble this great city, it is a very romantic place and the Bengali people are known for their enthusiastic appreciation of bhalobasa [love]. If India were Europe, Bengal would be France and Calcutta would be no less than Paris itself. Certainly the poetic Bengali language is as appropriate for expressing amorous emotions as French. Moreover, like the French, Bengalis love their language, exercising every opportunity to wallow in it.

Perhaps my story could have happened anywhere; but it did not. It is, in many ways, a distinctly Calcuttan story and that is why I must tell you a bit about this great city. Indeed, one could never understand Calcutta without a love story.

Certainly it is more interesting than facts, figures, and dates that your Loney Planet guide book describes in such scandalous detail:

"...with an extended metropolitan population of over 14 million, making it the third-largest urban agglomeration and the fourth-largest city in India."

No, that won't do. That is like trying to learn to swim by reading a textbook. If you want to learn to swim, you must jump in the water. If you want to know Calcutta, you must love.

I should make an admission at this point. I have never been a tourist in Calcutta. Therefore, my viewpoint may not be fair to one who simply plans on buying a ticket, crashing at a local YMCA, and eating dubious curries and biryani at roadside stands. You won’t see Calcutta that way. In fact, that Calcutta - the Calcutta of the tourist - could not be further from the true city hiding from you. If you want to see Calcutta - indeed, if you wish to experience Calcutta - you cannot do that alone. You can’t do it with a tour group. You can’t do it with an organized outing from your local church or yoga club. And just forget about doing it with your back-pack toting, granola bar chewing, pot smoking, quinine-dosing hippie friends.

Calcutta is a VIP. If one is to have her audience, he must be properly introduced. One cannot simply barge in unannounced; he must make an appointment. Try to rush the door, and you risk being booted out by the security guards of malaria, jaundice, and dysentery.

In a rash attempt to recover some its original personality, three of India’s four major cities have officially changed their names. Bombay is now Mumbai, Madras is now Chennei, and Calcutta has become Kolkata. In practice, however, Bengalis have always called their capitol “Kolkata” while speaking their own language. While speaking English, it has always been “Calcutta.” I follow this system myself. When the holy Hindu city now known as “Allahabad” again becomes “Prayag,” I will reconsider my position. Until then, it’s Calcutta. My beloved Calcutta.

please continue to
chapter II

chapter II

I first came to Calcutta during the winter of 1990. As I was just passing through, I saw precious little of the city, yet I was immediately impressed by it and the people whom I had met.

Within seven months I was married to a Bengali girl whom I had met New York and emigrated to Calcutta two weeks after our wedding.

My wife [pictured at right] and I had, for all practical purposes, an arranged marriage. We had spoken to each other only twice or thrice before tying the knot, which nowadays counts as “arranged,” although in the old days the bride and groom would not see each other until the wedding ceremony was all but over.

My wife and I never hit it off and we quickly separated. We love each other to this day but never fell “in love.” Now we remain very much like brother and sister. Her parents have virtually adopted me and I have remained with them since that time. This trip, they promise me, I will be getting married again.

It’s been quite a few years since my wife and I separated and the loneliness I sometimes feel is almost unbearable. Although I spent some years as a strict celibate as part of my ashram training, I never became accustomed to the notion that I would be alone my whole life.

Sometimes the desire for companionship is so overwhelming that it is almost unbearable. Just a few days before leaving the States, I spent the better part of an afternoon at a mall in Atlanta occupied by Indian stores selling groceries, Indian clothes, Hindi cinemas, etc. After having some snacks at a stand selling South Indian dishes, we took our time walking around the mall enjoying the foreign atmosphere. It was like a appetizer for the trip that was to follow in a few days time.

At one point I passed a photography studio. Stopping to admire the artist’s work, I noticed a very large color print of a rather photogenic Indian family. They could have been from some Bollywood movie, they appeared so picture-perfect. The salt-and-pepper father beaming proudly, the kind looking mother in her silk sari, the sons handsome with gold-rimmed glasses, faces adorned with fashionable razor-stubble, and the daughters decked-out in their finest jewelry and salwaars. All looked so happy and confident, a magic moment captured for generations to enjoy again and again.

After having seen that happy family, what could I do but sit down on the nearest bench and cry?

Only a week before leaving Atlanta, where we have lived for the past decade, an acquaintance told us that she has an eligible niece whom we can see. We had lunch at the Aunt’s apartment one afternoon and were given several pictures of the girl. Attractive and fair-skinned, she looked well enough. From the description given by her Aunt, she seemed to be just about right.

The week before I left, I kept her photos in my room and looked at them constantly, wondering if she would one day be my wife.

please continue to
chapter III

chapter III

“You really have changed a lot, Paramseva Da,” Mini tells me, using my Sanskrit name along with "Da" - short for Dada, or “elder brother.”

“You’re not the same person you were when I first met you fifteen years ago.”

Mini lives one flight down from our Calcutta flat. She and her parents are great neighbors. We have just arrived in Calcutta and they have arranged maids to clean the apartment and had lunch waiting for us when we arrived. Mini and her mother both have garrulous natures and are well-known figures in our neighborhood.

Now taking time to talk with us in our flat, Mini has much to tell me. We discuss my plans for the future and the possibility of our respective marriages. Still, Mini is preoccupied with her psychoanalysis of me.

“You have almost become like our Bengali boys, not at all like other Americans,” she squints her eyes and looks at me askance; “But something is still missing.” Holding her chin, she ponders for a long moment.

“Hmmm…”

She is taking her time figuring it out and I hardly know what to do as she stares into my eyes.

“Do you cry?”

I tell her that yes, I do cry, but neglect to mention that I had done so only yesterday.

Again Mini ponders, looking at me inquisitively. Suddenly her eyes light up and I know she has found it; “But do you cry in front of others?” she asks knowingly.

“No,” I concede.

“Aha, there it is!”

please continue to
chapter IV

chapter IV

The monsoons seem to be lingering this year. Although it is September already, it is raining daily. Durga Puja, the largest festival in West Bengal, is coming in less than two weeks and the rains still continue. It is hot, but not unbearably so. The rains bring a relief from the humidity, which is welcome, but keep us from getting as much accomplished as we had hoped.

Resident Calcuttans don't seem to be too bothered by it and everyone seems ready for the impending holidays. Pandals, temporary bamboo and cloth temples for the puja, are already starting to be built despite the rain. Some [such as the one pictured right, from Mudiali] promise to be grand affairs and everyones' anticipation grows.

After several days spent arranging the help, greeting visiting family members, and getting the flat organized, we get a phone call. The acquaintance in Atlanta has arranged for us to visit her house and see her niece. We set a time for the following day to receive the girl’s uncle, who will take us to their residence.

Shyamal, the uncle, arrives on time and has his lunch with us. He is tall, medium complexioned, and smartly dressed in Western day wear. Every so often he excuses himself to answer his cell phone. I am unimpressed, but everyone seems to take a liking to him, so I keep my mouth shut. The entire family is here illegally as refugees from Bangladesh. They are staying at the residence of the aunt we know in America.

He tells us that he has a taxi waiting for us, so we prepare to leave. Time is short this trip, so I tag along, although normally the prospective groom would sit-out the first visit.

The taxi drive takes us through the outskirts of Calcutta. It is afternoon and the streets are busy. We pass a mosque surrounded by hundreds of men in their little round hats; it must be prayer time. Finally, after half an hour or so, we arrive at Sonarpur, the “Golden City.” I wonder if I will find my treasure here.

The area is quite attractive and the house is large with a small, well-kept garden. We meet the family members and have a small tour of the house. The view from the roof is lovely as the sun is just starting to set. Finally we are ushered into a large bedroom and are offered green coconuts to drink.

A brief explanation of how I came to be a member of the Mukherjee family begins the discussion. Baba, my father-in-law, sits quietly sipping on his coconut as Ma does the talking. She explains that I wish to return to India in the near future and if, God willing, I one day have children, I would like them to have a traditional Indian education. After a few minutes, Manju, the girl’s aunt, brings in plate after plate of dried fruits, nuts, and an assortment of exotic fresh fruits. She fills an entire small table with the serving plates. I eye them hungrily, but don’t make a move to eat any until it’s kosher to do so.

Again Manju leaves, only this time to bring her niece. When Shilpi finally arrives, it is a comically tense scene. Before I have the nerve to look at her, she is bent over, touching my feet. She is wearing a starched orange Sari that ruffles as she walks. It is clearly a sari that has come from Bangladesh. A trained eye can always tell from where a sari has originated.

Sitting on the bed next to my mother-in-law, whom I call Ma, Shilpi keeps her head lowered. I sneak a look at her and can not help but to be attracted. She is much more fair than her two uncles and one aunt who are also here tonight. I am pleased that she looks better in person than in her photos, yet I keep my poker face on. No one speaks. No one breathes. No one knows what to. Only Ma smiles. She is clearly amused by it all. It’s as if she has heard the funniest joke in the world and can’t keep it in, while the rest of us are sitting mute, staring at our shoes as if they had a small television screen mounted on top of them.

Finally, after a few agonizing moments of nerve-racking tension that hangs in the air like a cloud of tobacco smoke in a billiard hall, Ma asks us all to leave the room. I know that she is going to be tough on the girl and I feel sorry a bit for her. The examination begins, and it I know by the end of it, Shilpi might prefer to have sat for the SAT.

Outside I sit with the family around the dining table and they have many questions for me. Manju, who has on a small pair of reading glasses, looks just like her sister in Atlanta, but appears more serious and intellectual. “Why do you wish to return to India?” begins the session. I begin to wonder who is going to have it worse, Shilpi or me.

Maybe fifteen minutes later, I am called into the bedroom. Shilpi still sits with her head lowered as she was before. I notice that she has two beauty marks on her face. Large gold earrings swing from beneath her head cover. As she shyly answers my questions as translated by Ma, I can see that her teeth are somewhat crooked. No, they are seriously crooked. Even with her head down and her mouth only half-opening as she tersely answers our questions, I can see the dark spaces between them. In the photos I have of her back in Atlanta, she has her mouth closed in every one of them. No wonder why.

please continue to
chapter V

chapter V

“Do you booze?” our nineteen year-old cousin Babai asks me.

Of course I do not. “Well, we won’t be drinking until tonight, so why don’t you come out with us today?”

On the street where Baba, my ex-wife’s father was raised and where he met my Ma over forty years ago, we sit beneath the pandal. The pujari, or priest, is wearing the traditional white cloth that Gandhi would approve of, and is reading from Sanskrit scriptures in a deep voice over a loudspeaker system pushed to its maximum volume. His clipped voice broadcasting the prayers as his father recited them before him, and his father before him. After each extended Bengali mantra, he declares his devotion, by an even louder oblation.

To amuse myself, I make humorous translations of the mantras in my head:

doshta roshogulla ekhooni khete chai…

“I really want to eat ten roshogullas [a popular Bengali sweet] right about now…”

NAMO STU’ TE!

Ek paha mangsho-bhat khabo…

“I am going to eat a mountain of meat and rice…”

NAMO NAMAH!

Amar kaupin bicchu ke anek kaushto dicche…

“This loin cloth is giving my balls great trouble…”

SVAHA!

Durga puja is Calcutta’s largest festival of the year. It’s like Christmas, New Year’s Eve, and Independence Day all wrapped-up into one super-holiday. The city positively comes alive; masses of shoppers clear the shelves of sari shops, temporary temples to the Goddess are erected in every neighborhood, tailors fit men in colorful punjabis, and beauty parlors do a brisk business tweezing, peeling, plucking, snipping, filing, and exfoliating young ladies to perfection.

Today is ashtami, the eighth day of the month according to the lunar calander, and Puja is in full swing as of today. Anyone with the use of his two legs is out on the streets. The boys are all wearing their best panjabi shirts, this year most have Hindu symbols such as “Om” or Sanskrit mantras printed boldly on them. The girls are wearing their finest saris and many have mehendi [henna] decorations painted on their hands. An improbable number of colorful bangles hang loosely on their wrists. Everyone is out and about visiting the various pandals across the city. Now I have and invitation from Babai, so why not enjoy the celebration like everyone else?

“Sure, let‘s get out of here.”

Babis’ friend Mithun has an Ambassador car and a driver at his disposal, so this will be easy for us. He is likeable guy, short and fashionable in his faded jeans and squared off Geisha-looking sandals. He tells me his sad story of how he drank too much the other night and passed out on the street, while Babai went to call his parents for help getting him home.

“I had no idea what was going on around me, I was just completely out-of-it. Someone even stole my bracelet,” he informs me while displaying a bare wrist. The skin is a bit lighter where the bracelet had been. “I was in a pathetic state…”

“He puked in my hand,” Babai chimes in.

“…but I will never do it again. I am finished with drinking.” finishes Mithun.

Friends here are more true than any I have known in the States. They are more like brothers and sisters than friends. Closer than that even. They borrow each other’s clothes, share the contents of their tiffins [lunch-boxes] at school, eat from the same plate, and often remain friends for life. Parents of friends are always called “Auntie” and “Uncle.” Never Mr. and Mrs. So-and-So.

We pick up Chellu, another cousin [pictured above in the fancy panjabi with Babai on his left], and some more friends and pile them all into the back. Mithun and I squeeze in the front seat with the driver while Chellu sits on top of his friend’s lap. Chellu’s friend is a bit on the queer side, so I make him promise to deliver our cousin back home with his virginity intact.

Babai pulls out some cigarettes:

“Do you fag?”

Of course I do not, so he thoughtfully opens the window and is careful to blow his smoke outwards.

We hit several pandals to offer our respects to the various deities of Durga. Most often our attention is diverted by the attractive girls present. At one very popular pandal, a TV actress everyone immediately recognizes is clapping her hands while a Baul [holy man] pays his ektar [single stringed instrument] and dances in circles before her. The monk flashes me a smile that is either inspired by spiritual bliss or purely mundane lust. Plucking his instrument, he sways his hips while whirling like a drunken dervish. “How embarrassing,” I announce to everyone, “This so-called ascetic is dancing to the clapping of some woman’s hands.” Leaving such cheap entertainment aside, we look for a place to sit.

There are chairs scattered about the pandal set in circles where teenagers gossip good-naturedly. We all arrange some chairs and sit similarly in a circle. Indeed, such gossip groups are highly prized in this city. There is even a Bengali word for such a phenomena, adda. The closest English equivalent might be “coffee clutch.”

Before our adda even gets under way, a commotion catches everyone’s attention; a teenage boy wearing a long black panjabi printed with golden swastikas [symbol of peace in Asia - swasti means 'peace' in Sanskrit] enters with his friends. Unable to walk on his own accord, they half-carry him inside. A crowd of sympathetic youths arrive to help him lay down on some chairs. He looks skywards, but his eyes seem unable to focus. Soon the security guards inform his friends that they cannot keep him inside the pandal and they take him out as they brought him in. Undoubtedly his body would soon reject the poison within it and there would be more on the front of his Punjabi than just swastikas.

“That was me the other night,” declares Mithun. Babai slapped me so hard to wake me up that my face is still swollen.” Angling his face, I can see that his jaw is still puffy on one side.

Even more disturbing than the overwhelming presence of alcohol during Puja is the ubiquitous Hindi cinema music blaring from tin loudspeakers. Like Medieval gargoyles they sit perched on telephone poles and rooftops above the city, vomiting their aural bile at ear-splitting decibels throughout the day and night.

Personally I don’t care for Hindi cinema in general. Indeed, one could never separate the music from the movies. Every time I hear those tinny voices and disco beats immediately a mental picture pops up in my mind’s eye of a toothy Bollywood actor in bad need of a haircut dancing on a mountain top with a jiggling, slightly overweight actress who changes outfits faster than Superman could manage while Lois Lane was getting gang-raped by The Harlem Globetrotters.

I prefer Bhangra music from Punjab. It is much more amicable, being funky and danceable and most often bereft of those whiney female voices they love in Bollywood. Arguably macho by nature, it provides one with the far more satisfying - if somewhat homoerotic - mental image of bearded, burly Punjabi men banging drums and dancing in wheat fields while wearing colorful turbans upon their heads, circus-monkey vests on their ample torsos, and sheathed knifes dangling at their hips as an overt reminder of the manly bulges concealed beneath their baggy trousers.

Today we visit some more friends’ houses, do some shopping, and make even more new acquaintances. Mostly, we visit the beautiful pandals across the city. Many pandals are outrageous affairs, often based upon some current events. Charu Chandra Market, Mudiali, Siva Mandira, Kasbah.... the names become a blur as we visit one after the other. New Alipura is thronged with thousands of people and the streets surrounding the pandal are full of food stalls selling every imaginable snack available in Calcutta: phujka, chaat, ice cream, cold drinks, tea, samosas, pakoras, pau bhaji, egg rolls, and chow mein are all available for a price. The pandal proudly displays many awards but it takes me a minutes to figure out exactly what I am looking at. In a Balinese style, it is unlike any other pandal we have seen today and there is an enormous blue wall behind it cresting like a wave;

"I got it,” I declare; “It’s a Tsunami!”

please continue to
chapter VI

chapter VI

“It’s nothing but some acid,” declares our uncle Buddha [third from left with three of his brothers] .

He is sitting in the alleyway outside his small apartment with his head in his hand and eyes closed. I had left the guys to go around driving some more and wandered over from the pandal to my father-in-law’s ancestral flat, where several of his brothers still live. Their house is a short walk down the street from the pandal, but another uncle, Bhaiya kakku [father's brother], took a rickshaw over with me.

“Do you need a doctor?” I ask.

He declines and is content to be fed some medicine by his sister-in-law. Bhaiya kakku leaves us momentarily to step inside the flat where his estranged wife and eighteen year-old daughter still live. I can hear his daughter shouting at him from inside the room. Her parents have not been together in many years and she bears all the traits of a teenager from a dysfunctional family. His wife ignores him coldly, and his daughter bickers rudely with him. I start feeling sorry for both uncles simultaneously.

Emerging from the flat, Bhaiya kakku suggests we leave and reluctantly I say goodbye to Buddha kakku whose situation is worrying me. “It’s OK, just some acid,” he repeats, but by his appearance, I fear it is something more.

Putting his arms around my shoulders, I can smell the alcohol on Bhaiya kakku’s breath. In his BBC English, he slurs a grand suggestion:

“Come, Paramseva, let’s get away from these bloody fuckers.”

please continue to
chapter VII

chapter VII

Bhaiya kakku [pictured at right with a bucket of crabs ] takes me out for a walk. He wants to show me another pandal located nearby. The sun has gone down and he is clearly under the influence of some cheap liquor. I feel sad that his life has come to this.

When he stops and introduces me to a police man on traffic duty, I am worried. The cop probably knows him, but I can’t help feeling that it is a mistake for Bhaiya kakku to voluntarily gossip with a police officer in his condition. We’re standing in the middle of the avenue and the cop is obviously quite busy as the streets are bustling with traffic. Still, the cop seems unaffected and simply asks me, “Where are you from?” which diffuses the situation. Soon we are on our way to the pandal.

Just down the street from where the festivities are taking place, we arrive at an old Calcutta building, with a cement exterior offset by bas-relief columns. The windows have wooden shutters behind the metal grills installed for security. I am informed that this house belongs to a friend of Bhaiya Kakku.

Our Uncle’s friend answers the door and greets us warmly. In the front room, the entire family is seated around a coffee-table on which tea cups and sweets are neatly arranged. I feel terribly embarrassed to barge in on the family holiday, but everyone seems to take it well and their hospitality is evidence of their character.

Introductions are made and I am invited to sit. Immediately I am put at ease when our host puts his hand on our uncle’s shoulder and jokes, “I can see that Bhaiya is full of the holiday spirits.” I am offered some sweets and water. Naturally, polite conversation follows.

This is the real Calcutta. The one I told you that cannot be found in tour guides, hotels, and tourist traps.

Although a complete stranger to these people, they are perfect hosts and I am taken by their friendly natures as we exchange views and tell stories about the city we all love. They are happy to see that I am very fond of Calcutta and enjoy hearing my impressions of their city.

In the Bengali language, a guest is technically known as “Atithi Bhagavan.” Literally translated, it means “God, Who can arrive at any time.” In fact, the Vedic literatures are full of stories where some deva [a demigod, similar to an angel] shows up unexpectedly at someone’s house as a test. It’s usually at the worst time and in the most unusual manner; a beggar, an untouchable, or an enemy who must arrive during an important religious ceremony, or just after a month-long fast and requesting the host’s last morsel of food.

The moral of the story is always the same: receive any guests as if he is God, Himself.

Although our visit is a short one, I feel changed by the experience. I have learned how badhrolok (gentlepersons) receive unexpected guests and that knowledge is a far more valuable souvenir than anything one might buy at New Market. Moreover, it’s duty-free and you don’t have to worry about it fitting in the overhead luggage bin.

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chapterVIII

chapter VIII

Shilpi arrives at our apartment with her uncle Syamal. She is wearing a simple salwaar kamez that looks well-worn. She carries a small, rectangular blue bag that matches her nail-polish. It is only a few inches long and had a tiny strap which is nestled in Shilpi’s strong fingers.

While Ma leads the conversation, Shilpi and I furtively exchange glances. Syamal promises that his niece will be a perfect daughter-in-law. She apparently will do all of the cooking, cleaning, and sewing. Shilpi will even clean vomit from the floor and give Ma a kidney if she needs it.

“Shilpi can do everything in the house and she is also a very good cook. Only she doesn’t know how to use a ‘bee - lender’ and… what’s the name of that box that gets hot very quickly?”

“A microwave oven?”

Haa, shei jinish’ta

“Yeah, that thing.”

Excusing herself to check on the cook, Ma heads towards the kitchen.

Shilpi produces a folded blue handkerchief from the small bag. Cupping her mouth with it, she turns her head away from me and whispers to Syamal.

“Shilpi wants to hear you speak in Bengali,” he translates in broken English, which causes us to laugh together.

Shunbo.

“I’m going to hear it,” Shilpi says confidently and throws me another glance.

By the end of lunch glancing turns into staring. Afterwards we are alone in my bedroom. Sitting on the bed a few feet apart from each other, small talk comes more easily than I have expected. Shilpi’s questions revolve around my ex-wife, my temper, and my business. I learn that Shilpi has been in Calcutta several months, although her Bengali seems to suggest longer. I question Shilpi as to how a lovely thirty year-old Hindu girl could still be unmarried in Muslim-dominated Bangladesh. She informs me that her aunt in America had sent someone to see her a few years ago, but that he was unable to get a divorce from his first wife so he could not marry her. She doesn’t remember the suitor’s name, however.

Shilpi is very interested in my ex-wife and my current relationship with her. We discuss it for some time before moving on to us.

Amake shunben?

“Will you listen to me?”

Ma ke boloon na ami jigesh korsi.

“Don’t tell Ma that I am asking.”

In Bangladesh, her father, who is a school teacher, kept Shilpi very carefully protected at home. Naturally I ask why she doesn’t speak English if her father teaches it as part of his curriculum. I never really understand her explanation, chalking it up to being unfamiliar with Shilpi’s Bengali which is somewhat different from that which is spoken in Calcutta.

Phire ashbe?

“Will you return?” I wonder.

Biye agee, ki kore phire ashbo?

“How can I return before the wedding?”

Before she leaves, I take Shilpi into our temple room and we both bow together before the alter. I genuinely like the girl, so I pray that God blesses our union.

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chapter IX

chapter IX

Although her uncle is already out and about buying things for the wedding, we want to see Shilpi at least one more time before we commit ourselves. We invited her on a Sunday, but she never showed up and after calling her house and complaining, her uncle came alone and ate with us. We request that she come one day during the week.

She arrives in a pink salwaar which, I later learn, she sewed herself. Ma has asked her to take over in the kitchen since the cook is off and Ma had yet to finish making lunch. I use the opportunity to get to know Shilpi better. Joining her in the kitchen, I observed her cooking and made sure she has whatever she needs.

Amar katha’ta boosta parcen?

“Do you understand my language?” Shilpi asks. She comments on how surprised she is to be cooking in her in-laws’ house before marriage.

Shilpi asks for a picture of me to send to her family. I have only one good shot that was taken some time ago [above] and I am pleased that she likes it.

After a while, I noticed Shilpi’s smell. Although it isn’t overly hot in the kitchen as the fall weather was just about perfect, she is moving around a lot and obviously must be heating up.

Normally I would have found such a stench bothersome, but Shilpi’s odor does not affect me the same way. I had always heard that humans are attracted by scent the same as all other animals, but I had never experienced the power of sweat. It’s not like other Indians with whom I had been in contact, but more astringent, more raw and primal somehow. Indeed, Shilpi’s family is an odd class in Bangladesh. They are almost like tribals and they are well known for only marrying amongst their own caste.

Shilpi continued mashing dahl and adding spices to make a paste for bora [fritter]. Her odor is stronger now and I am surprised to find myself turned-on by it. Having visited the Caribbean many times as a youth, I know the smell. It is an exotic, African scent.

By Shilpi’s aroma alone I am transported to lavish Dominican estates where the dark-skinned help invariably had the same distinctive smell. I am reminded of the cobble-stone streets of bustling old Santo Domingo, the feel of cool sand beneath my bare feet as I munch on fried plantains in a thatched beachfront restaurant, the taste the pinacolada served in a prickly hollowed-out pineapple, the amplified meringue music late at night as I lay awake beneath a slow-moving ceiling fan, and the sweat on my back sticking to the car seat as mile upon mile of sugarcane plantations pass by my open window.

Shilpi smells of Port-au-Prince.

While waiting for her bora to fry, Shilpi is growing impatient and tries her hand at English;

“Many, many time.”

I suppress a laugh as I don’t wish to embarrass her. She picks up on her mistake and, coming close to me, looks right into my face and opens her eyes comically wide. Shilpi lets a out laugh that comes from deep inside.

And I am hers.

Before she leaves, I give a Shilpi small gift. It is an elaborate hair-clip of a silver butterfly covered with different colored stones. I bought it in America before I came, so that I wouldn’t be caught without a present to offer from my country. Ma instructs her to not to wear it until the wedding. The butterfly is the symbol of marriage in West Bengal.

“Beautiful,” she says in English, placing it along with my photo in her little blue bag.

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chapter X

chapter X

Now that I am part of the Mukherjee family, I have many relatives in Calcutta. I can’t say how they feel about me, but in my mind there is no difference between them and my biological family. After fifteen years, it’s hard to imagine my life without them.

Our aunt, Tutu pishi [father's sister], lives nearby and I stop by one morning to say hello. As she cooks for her family, I tell her how fortunate she is to have such a nice husband. In fact, my Ma always says that he is so good that he is just like the great demigod Mahadeva [a popular name for Siva].

Ami ke, Ma Kali?

“Then who am I, Ma Kali?” Tutu Pishi jokes, referring to the fierce form of Mahadeva's wife .

Our cousin Munia is on her way home and I am looking forward to talking with her again. She is twenty-two years old and one of the sweetest girls I have met in India. Cute and somewhat mousy, she has a charming, shy personality. Munia is not like a sister to me, she is my sister. Her brother and his wife recently moved to Bangalore and I am sorry that they are not here as well.

While waiting, her father offers me some freshly cut coconut. Seeing that I am appreciating it, he keeps offering more despite my refusals.

Munia finally enters dressed in blue-jeans and a white blouse. She looks subtly different than last time I saw her. A nose ring now adorns her face, but there is something more subtly different about her appearance. I comment that she now looks like a woman.

“Thank you!” she answers emphatically. It’s obvious that she doesn’t hear that often.

As we sit together on a large bed and talk, her mother sits with us and listens in although her English is very limited. I tell her about Shilpi, the girl to whom I am now engaged. Munia is very pleased and I appreciate her very genuine concern for my happiness. Both she and her mother encourage me to marry her if she is a such nice girl.

Yet I am still concerned. After one failed marriage to Bengali girl, could I do it again? I don’t like to think of marriage as something that should be done more than once. Could I start again and make it right this time? After 8 years of being alone am I prepared to enter into such a permanent relationship? It was a one-way ticket and although the price was high, the journey could be that of a lifetime.

As I explain to Munia that I feel so unqualified to be married to such a nice girl, I begin crying. I can’t help it. My voice chokes up and the tears come soon afterwards. Much to my surprise, Munia also begins crying and we sit together for awhile saying nothing, wiping our tears.

Munia’r hridoy’ta bishon norom.

“Munia’s heart is very soft,” her mother explains.

This morning I have finally passed the test my neighbor Mini gave me. If she is correct, I should now be a true Bengali at heart.

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chapter XI

chapter XI

Shilpi won’t stop crying. Our abbreviated wedding is taking forever as she simply cannot control her emotions. I know that at some point she’s going to vomit. What did I get myself into?

Our wedding is a very private affair and indeed it wasn’t very elaborate as far as Hindu ceremonies go. Shilpi’s family cannot spend much money and her parents and brothers are unable to attend as they are all in Bangladesh. For our part, only a few relatives as well as our neighbor, Mrs. Roy (Mini’s mother), have shown up. We don’t want Shilpi’s family to spend too much money, so we are not disappointed by the simplicity of the affair.

I must admit feeling somewhat unnerved. A man with a video camera keeps shining his blinding light into my face every few minutes. I occupy myself by taking in my surroundings and by making small talk with my uncles.

The apartment where we holding this evening’s ceremony belongs to Shilpi’s Aunt Manju and her family. The entire house belongs to her extended family and is called “Debnath Bari,” since they all have the same last name. Marrying outside their caste is highly unusual.

A good-sized lizard hovers near a tube-light waiting for a meal. I watch patiently until he finally snatches a meaty-looking dragonfly. I have to wonder if such a sight is inauspicious on one’s wedding night.

After finally arriving in her deep burgundy sari and the butterfly hair-clip I had given her, Shilpi sits next to me and the ceremony begins. We exchange garlands and I place the shidoor [vermilion] on her forehead, which is the equivalent of a wedding ring in the west. When the time comes for her to look into my eyes, she is completely unable to do so. Her aunt keeps placing her fingers under Shilpi’s chin to coax her head upwards. Finally, after a long while, she gazes upwards at me with heavy eyes.

Sitting down we receive the blessing of our elders and Shilpi’s Uncle approaches me with a small box. Afraid that he had brought some gift for me, I could feel my face flush with embarrassment. We had specifically requested that Shilpi’s family not buy anything for me as their situation in Bangladesh was precarious at best. Opening the box, the Uncle brings out a pitifully thin gold chain and places around my neck. It fits well and the slight weight feels foreign on my skin. I make a mental promise never to remove it so that I will never forget this night.

Picking up a sticky sweet-ball, I place it into Shilpi's mouth. With her mehendi-decorated fingers, she feeds me as well. Afterwards, we have our meal together. I eat heartily as everything is so delicious, but Shilpi can hardly stomach anything. I place a few bites into her mouth and that was all she would take. Finally, she excuses herself to wash and everyone is then served.

It takes some time before we manage to get Shilpi to leave her family’s house. As she walks out the door, her sobbing turns into hysterics. I can only imagine how overly dramatic it must look on the video.

As we pull away in the large jeep her uncle had rented, Shilpi cries uncontrollably as she cranes her head to look back until finally her family is out of sight.

After some time, Shilpi looks at me with the same heavy gaze. I don’t know what to read in those beautiful eyes, but I want to tell her so many things right then and there, although it was impossible to do in front of our elders. I place my hand on her forearm instead. Her skin felt cold beneath my fingertips. It only remains there a few minutes until she pushes my hand away. I am taken aback but I don’t say anything to her or even look at her for the rest of the night.

please continue to
chapter XII

chapter XII

Sleep is impossible. I lay awake and ask myself over and over, “What have I gotten myself into?” This must be an inauspicious start to a relationship. How could she treat me so coldly, pushing my hand aside as if it were a slimy insect crawling upon her skin.

I finally arise at 2:00 AM and walk out to the living room. A laundry line hangs through the middle of the large hall, as the clothes have been taking so long to dry in the high humidity. I stop where Shilpi’s burgundy colored sari is hanging and I bring it to my nose. It seems vaguely of perfume. I relish the luxuriant feel of silk against my face.

There is a window between our dining room and my bedroom, where Shilpi is sleeping. I can see the mosquito net hanging and want so badly to crawl under it and be with my wife.

Wife.

I have a wife now. That makes me a (gasp!) husband. The thought seems foreign to me.

I make my way to the verandah. Sitting with my prayer beads, I whisper the mantras I know so well and watch the quiet street. After some time, I see a gentleman across the way through his window standing erect, speaking to himself, and frantically bobbing his head like an amphetamine-popping hippie. Only after I saw him bring his hands together reverentially and touch his head to the floor did I realize that he was praying. Feeling inspired by his devotion, I renew my prayers with greater intensity.

please continue to
chapter XIII

chapter XIII

Shilpi looks beautiful in the morning. Her long, raven-black hair is still wet from her shower and I want little more in life this very moment than to run my fingers through it. The tight salwaar suit accents her full figure nicely and I feel a pang of raw lust run through me as I know it is just a matter of time before I will have her.

I take Shilpi out to the verandah and have her pose for me. Her hands are attractively decorated with henna and I want to record them on film before they fade away. While setting up my tripod she tries to make small talk with me. As I focus my camera on Shilpi‘s face, I notice that her lips are naturally more beautiful than any I have ever seen. I thought that she’d been wearing lipstick but I can see now that there is no need. Make-up would only destroy the natural beauty of what God had given her.

Shilpi breaks the ice by asking if I was angry because of what had happened last night. I respond by saying that I am only a little upset. She passes it off as amar dusthumi, “my naughtiness.”

After performing my morning puja, Shilpi and sit in the deities’ room and talk a bit. She tells me that she loves the sea but doesn‘t care for swimming. I tell her that I swim like a fish and have no fear of jumping off of a boat in the middle of the ocean. I try to relate a story of how my sister and I had been snorkeling in the Caribbean once when we saw a large jelly fish. My sister had panicked and while swimming away hurriedly, had knocked the fish into my face with her fins. Trying to explain what a jellyfish is in Bengali wasn’t easy and Shilpi misunderstood me;

Sei’to mach noi! Sei’to OCHTOPAS!

“That wasn’t a fish, that was an octopus!” she shouted excitedly, her whites of her eyes becoming so large they threatened to swallow the chocolate-brown centers.

Ma and Baba leave early this afternoon and won’t return until late in the evening. Soon, Shilpi and I are laying on the bed together kissing. Her strong arms are around my neck and her full lips are pressed hard against my own. Her scent is noticeable, but subdued. On any other day I would be excited past the point of no return, but this is the first day of our married life and there is much to consider.

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chapter XIV

chapter XIV

Our first day passes pleasantly and now the first night is at hand. Shilpi makes up our bed and then jumps on top to hang the mosquito net. With a large smile showing off her terrible teeth, she makes the nightly chore seem like fun.

Turning off the light and slipping into bed, we quickly find our way into each other’s arms. Holding her tightly, I tell her how blessed I feel to finally have such a wonderful wife. I promise her that I would die before I would be the cause of her unhappiness.

“I love you,” she pronounces in English.

I am somewhat shocked by her statement, as innocuous a sentiment as it may be. How can love spring so suddenly after we had only been married for 24 hours?

As a child, my friends and I used to sing “first comes love, then comes marriage, then comes a baby in a baby carriage.” In America these days, they seem to favor flat-out fucking, followed by several babies, finally getting married, and finishing up with a messy divorce - very likely to be followed by several months at the county jail for falling behind on child-support payments. Love never really seems to fit into the picture anywhere.

In India, one would traditionally marry first, then fall in love. Children come later. How Shilpi has managed to love me in 24 hours is a bit of a mystery, but I figured that it was something she had seen people say in movies, so she was just mimicking them.

Shilpi sings for me a lullaby that her mother used to sing for her when she was child. I swear that I have never heard such a sweet sound in all of my life. No angel in heaven even sang so beautifully. By comparison, I can only respond with the crude melodies and inane lyrics Burt Bacharach and Hal David:

“What do you get when you fall in love? Only lies, and pain, and sorrow. So for at least until tomorrow, I‘ll never fall in love again…”

Shilpi is visibly surprised by my offering and compliments me,

Tomar gan’ta bishon bhalo.

"Your song is very nice."

Climbing on top of me Shilpi engulfs me in her arms and bites my face.

Ochtopas ascche!

“The octopus is coming!”

She kisses me firmly with her luscious lips and soon her teeth are mashing against mine and her tongue is in my mouth. I ask where she has learned such things.

TV’te deklam

“I saw it on TV.”

I manage to slip off Shilpi’s nightgown until she is only wearing a pair of black panties and her tight-fitting bra. Her figure is pure perfection and the bright skin glows in the moonlight that filters though the window. I gently pull aside her bra and lift her ample breast to my mouth. Shilpi is silent although her breathing deepens as she enjoys the sensations my tongue is giving her. After a few minutes, she coyly pulls away, tucking in her breast;

Ama’ke ki koracho?

“What did you do to me?”

Amar sob rash pore galo!

“You’ve got all my juices flowing!”

Although visibly apprehensive, Shilpi’s panties are soon off. I playfully bite and kiss the tender skin inside her muscular thighs. Soon my tongue is inside her. As I pleasure her, Shilpi forcefully grabs hold of my hair with one hand. I sneak a look upward, over the smooth terrain of her belly, and see that she is biting her knuckle. As I continue for some time, Shilpi removes her hand from her mouth and tightly grabs hold of the bed sheets. Although her strong fists are pulling the thin cotton so much that the carefully tucked-in mosquito net is being disturbed, she never utters a sound.

Finished, we relax for minute not saying anything. Eventually curiosity gets the better of me;

Kamon legaccho?

“How did that feel?”

Matha pagol hoy gacche!

“I was going insane!”

As I lay next to Shilpi, We cuddle some more before I remove my clothes. Taking Shilpi’s hand in mine, I place it on my erect organ. Tentatively she touches it at first, but then grabs it firmly.

Atho Motha?!

“It’s that fat?!” she loudly exclaims, while springing-up to take a look.

Kautho dekaccho?

“How many have you seen?” I ask.

Shipli mumbles something about her ill grandfather and I leave it at that. The are more pressing issues at the moment.

Despite her feeble protests, I slip off Shilpi’s bra and her large breasts fall forth like a pair of ripe Bombay mangoes. Sitting upright and holding her arms demurely across her chest, Shilpi glances at me with those deep brown eyes that keep me hypnotized. In the moonlight, she is positively radiant. Her golden skin appears to glow from within.

Soon I am on top of Shilpi, with only the sound of our carefully drawn breaths breaking the night’s silence. I enter her and relish the tightness of her moist tabernacle as it engulfs me.

Despite the obvious pleasure I am experiencing, I have to admit that much is on my mind. As my first wife and I had shared such an experience together in this very apartment, it is hard for me to not feel guilty. After sharing the most intimate of encounters with one’s spouse, it is hard to reenact such an experience with anyone else.

I am slow and careful with Shilpi so that I won’t hurt her. It is the the most gentle and blissful lovemaking I have ever experienced; what could be more sublime than to make love with one's beloved wife? After some time, I withdraw and Shilpi finishes the job with her strong hands. As she expertly tugs on my member, my mind shuts down and the functioning of my brain is reduced to that of a slithering prehistoric amphibian crawling through Jurassic slime. I know nothing but the pleasure my wife is so deftly giving me. Not long afterwards, my body is jolted with powerful sensations as the Vesuvian eruption issues forth from deep within me.

Both of my hands cover my mouth to withhold my scream of delight as a tsunami of my essence splashes across Shilpi’s entire torso, from her navel to her neck.

“EEEEEEEESH! EEEEEEEEEESH!” Shilpi is shouting loud enough to wake the whole neighborhood, yet her hand doesn‘t let up for a second.

“EEEEEEEEEEEEESH!”

My body is trembling from the ecstatic reverberations and my brain is thoroughly scrambled yet simultaneously I want to laugh at Shilpi‘s exclamations which I find hilarious;

Amar gai oporay ki phelaccho!

“What did you spill all over my body?!”

When I am able to compose myself, I tell Shilpi to take a shower. She refuses, claiming that she will catch a cold showering so late at night and informs me that she will shower in the morning. Grabbing hold of my under-shirt, she cleans the sticky juice off of herself. I plead with her to at least wash her hands, but she flatly refuses. I excuse myself and head towards the shower.

please continue to
chapter XV

chapter XV

Since I am an American citizen and Shilpi is an illegal immigrant we can’t figure out how to register our marriage. Everyday Shilpi is bothering me about the fact that we aren’t “officially” married. She asks how I can go back to America and leave her here in Calcutta with no marriage paper? She also asks if I can send some money for her while I am home.

Beshi darkar nei, kintu dekte bhalo.

“I don’t require much, but it looks nice.”

She also reminds me that I should buy her some gold ornaments. Then she proceeds to ask how much money I have in my bank account in America and in whose name are the house and cars registered.

Ma and Baba have decided to check with our lawyer to see what can be done. When they return, Ma has a big smile on her face. Although there is really no way for us to get married legally in India, our lawyer has given a suggestion; we should get married in a church as the certificate from the church will be respected by the consulate when it is time to apply for Shilpi’s visa.

We make a few phone calls and set up a meeting with one priest. We have some other numbers as well and will follow up with those if this one doesn’t work out.

One morning, Shilpi removes her wrist bangles, neglects to wear the vermilion on her forehead, and wears a simple salwaar suit. We both remove our wooden necklaces and I run my fingers over my neck where my necklace has hung for years. My gold chain that Shilpi’s family is still there and I am always happy feel its weight around my neck. I may take off the neckbeads that represent our Hindu faith, but I would never take off my gold chain. It is as much a symbol of my marriage for me as Shipli’s bangles and vermilion are to her. We both look in the mirror and we are uncomfortable with our reflections. Convinced that we look vaguely Christian, and after taking a documentary photograph [see above], we head out to meet the good father.

Having never practiced Christianity, I am completely paranoid about by given the third degree by a priest. I was baptized as a protestant, as my mother wished, but my father is a Roman Catholic. I know nothing about either religion. What do I say to him? How can I lie to a priest?

The rest of the day was a scene from a comedy. We ended up at several churches, where I was interviewed by various priests and church officials:

“Are you a Roman Catholic?”

“Yes.”

Are you Protestant?”

“Certainly.”

Are you a Anglican?”

“Of course.”

At the end of the day, we gave up all hope. It would never work in India. I suggest that I fly to Bangladesh and meet Shilpi there where we can get married legally. Everyone, including Shilpi, discourages the idea. Naturally, I couldn’t care less about the stupid paper, but obviously it is important to my wife.

please continue to
chapter XVI

chapter XVI

Ma has bought a new harmonium for herself. Originally an English invention, the harmonium is like a small organ powered by air pumped through a bellows, not unlike an accordion, except stationary. In order to break it in, Shilpi exercises it by pushing air through its bellows while haphazardly pressing her hand on different parts of the keyboard. She does this every evening and the cacophonous drone becomes background music to our honeymoon.

Although I am having a grand time, no one else seems happy that Shilpi is here. Everyone complains about her strong body odor. Even Renu and Sefali, our cooks, don’t appreciate her coming to help in the kitchen.

Protima, our cleaning maid [pictured above], always complains about Shilpi’s long hairs which seem to be everywhere. Despite the hard work Protima performs for us, she normally wears an enthusiastic smile on her pleasant face but since Shilpi has arrived, her mood seems to have been put off permanently.

Protima is the most loyal and trustworthy servant we have ever had work for us and, admittedly, I enjoy gossiping with her more than I probably should. With the natural intuition God bestows upon all members of the fairer sex, she knows that I greatly enjoy her company and that I am very fond of her, even if she is "just a maid."

Since Shilpi has come, I have largely ignored our faithful servant. My heart belongs to Shilpi now and there is no room for anyone else.

More importantly, Baba keeps his distance from her and rarely even acknowledges her presence. Ma seems less impressed with her now and often berates her for every little infraction of her house rules. I repeatedly stand up for my new bride and hate to see her upset when she’s being chastised.

please continue to
chapter XVII

chapter XVII

On the Bengali calendar, Durga Puja is largest holiday, followed by Kali Puja. It usually appears in October and is somewhat analogous to Halloween in America. Kali is the dark goddess [“Kali,” with a long “a,” refers to a black woman and is distinct from Kali, short “a” - pronounced, “koli” - who is a black man that is said to be the evil force behind the degraded age in which we are currently living. Sort of a Hindu ‘Satan’] and she is quite fearsome to behold. Garlanded with skulls and torn limbs, carrying numerous weapons in her many hands, and accompanied by witches, she is said to be pacified by drinking blood.

Thousands of Ma Kali deities are found throughout the city during this time of year. They all are on display for Their worshipers in temporary bamboo and cloth pandals and then are taken to the Ganga to be submerged when the holiday is finished.

This year we are in for a treat; our youngest aunt, nicknamed Tumpa [pictured above cutting her chest], is throwing a big puja.

Dressed in our finest, we head outside and hop in a taxi. Shilpi looks positively radiant in her patterned sari. In fact, she looks better than on our wedding night. (The fact that she doesn’t look green with nausea tonight certainly helps.) I refuse to wear the beautiful Panjabi that Tumpa pishi so kindly gave to me because Baba is wearing his, which just happens to be identical. Figuring we’d look a too much like queers, I opt for a simple western-style shirt.

Tumpa Pishi greets us with her characteristic enthusiasm and presents Shilpi with a nice pink sari. She is fasting today but doesn’t seem to ever run of steam while supervising a flurry activities.

On the ground floor of Tumpa Pishi’s apartment there is a life-size deity of Ma Kali and the priest is quite busy chanting mantras and ringing bells. We are offered a vegetarian dinner from a table set up at the entrance to the building. Gathering seats into a circle, the adda begins.

Everyone has come. I mean everyone. Some friends that haven’t been seen in decades arrive and every time one appears, the joyous occasion is cranked up a notch. Just as we are as content as we can possibly be surrounded by our family enjoying good conversation with a plate of warm luchis [fried bread] and alu dum [a simple potato preparation] balanced on our laps, along comes a face that our eyes have not had the pleasure of beholding in many years and our satisfaction is elevated that extra bit which makes such a holiday so memorable.

“But these go to eleven,” I can hear Spinal Tap’s Nigel Tufnel declare as he gestures towards his 100-watt Marshall heads. Tonight I know what he means.

There are basically two groups present, the older crowd and the younger. I always prefer to hang with the younger crowd, although my age is somewhat in the middle. Many of our cousins are here including Tumpa Pishi’s elder son who has just arrived from New Delhi. Bittu is a great, level-headed kid whose company I truly appreciate. I am all too happy to see him. He has an endearing habit of calling everyone “Boss,” which, out of any other mouth, would annoy me to no end, but when Bittu calls me “Boss,” I somehow feel pleased. His younger brother, Babaji, has such a plethora of school friends parading in and out that I can barely keep up with all of their names.

Students of Calcutta’s famous South Point school, these are the cream of the City’s youth. None are from the serious money that sends its children to boarding schools in exotic locals, but all are excellent students whose parents prefer to keep them at home. Hundreds, if not thousands of these terrific kids are produced from South Point as if they have some kind of processing plant that churns them out of an iron mould. They refer to graduating classes as “batches,” which is all too fitting a name. I wonder if they are stamped “Made in Calcutta” somewhere on their bodies.

As the conversation comes around to the inevitable topic of sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll, I offer a story that takes place at a concert of a band with whom I am sure no one is familiar, so I am not sure if I will mention it, but decide to try anyway;

“Have you ever heard of…. the Grateful Dead?” I ask incredulously.

“JERRY!” comes the choral response. Fists are raised high into the air.

I take that as a “yes,” and finish my story.

Noticing that one boy, Subhaiyu, is wearing a t-shirt that simply says, “Rock and Roll” I strike up a conversation with him. His friend, Crispy - short for Krishnendra (“My name can be translated as “Dark Side of the Moon” he boats) is also seriously interested in rock music and the two are happy to have a old fan from America to gossip with tonight. I inform them that I am “Too old to Rock and Roll…”

“...and too young to die!” They respond in unison. They enjoy my stories about the many rock concerts I had attended in my youth.


“Oh my God!!!!” Subhaiyu would exclaim while holding his hands to his face like that annoying kid in “Home Alone.”

“I can’t believe you actually saw Black Sabbath!”

Although no alcohol is present, I can smell the liquor on his breath.

Shilpi is clearly uncomfortable in Bababji’s room with all of the South Point kids, so she excuses herself to sit downstairs next to Ma. Most of the weekend she keeps her mouth shut as her Bangladeshi accent is so out of place. Or maybe to hide her teeth. Either way it is for the best.

I have to admit that I am feeling some great affection for these kids. They are Calcutta’s finest. Polite, intelligent, fluent in English, and cultured, it’s hard to not to like them. To me they are exactly like my little brothers and sisters and we happily pass our time together. We head to the roof intermittently to blow off fireworks including home-made tubri, a kind of clay pot stuffed with gun powder that blows sparks high into the night.

Subhaiyu and Crispy attach themselves to me like leaches. Every so often Subhaiyu does his Home Alone impersonation (“Oh my God!”) and I wonder how he’s getting more and more drunk although I have yet to see so much as a drop of liquor anywhere.

Tonight’s program is somewhat unique as the main Puja is at midnight followed by another early morning one at 3:00 AM. We all have committed ourselves to staying for the complete line-up.

Around midnight, we all head upstairs. While the others blow off fireworks, Shilpi and stick to the other side of the roof and pace back and forth while talking, enjoying the sensations as our bare arms lightly rub against each other’s. Firecrackers, bottle-rockets, and chocolate bombs light up new moon sky as the sizzle of Babaji’s home-made tubris is clearly audible from our side of the roof.

It’s a romantic night by any standards. Even the air on the roof feels cool despite the high temperatures and humidity. Walking to and fro with my beautiful new bride, I am in heaven, happier than I have been in years. I keep an eye on the door as people are occasionally coming and going. When no one is present, I take Shilpi’s hand in my own and proclaim my undying love for her.

Stopping for a moment, she looks deeply into my eyes and assures me;

Tomar sate naroke zabo.

“I would follow you to hell,” she assures me.

I promise Shilpi that we will find a way to register our marriage soon. She seems pleased but I can see that she is still worried about it.

Boro bapar’ta ki? Amader biye hoy nei?

“What’s the big deal? Aren’t we married?”

Proman’ta ki?

“What’s the proof?” She asks while thrusting her hand out emphatically, her palm facing upwards as if the receive some document.

Not only has Tumpa Pishi’s elder son come from New Delhi but her ex-husband has also come from Bangladesh, where his job has taken him. He stands before us telling many stories late into the night about the customs of that Muslim-dominated country. He explains about Ramadan, the Muslim holy month and how everyone fasts the entire day, breaking fast at night fall. The restaurants are all closed and nothing is available to eat outside of a few hotels in the capitol which only serve tourists and non-Muslims.

After being married to Shilpi, I am so immersed in the Bengali language that I am no longer conscious of when the conversation changes from Bengali to English. Educated Bengalis mostly speak “Benglish” anyway. Tonight Shilpi is probably the only one here who doesn’t know any English at all, besides the hired help.

“Before sunrise, everyone has a light breakfast called suhoor in Arabic…”

“What do you eat?” His sister-in-law asks. She is married to his younger brother and has come tonight attractively dressed a beige sari and a large maroon bhindi on her forehead.

“A widow from down the hall brings suhoor to me every morning.”

Glancing sidelong at her friends and rocking her head side-to-side ever so slightly, she comments,

Bhusta parccho?

“Are you getting this?”

Haa, ekta Bobita payacche!”

“Yeah, he found himself one Bobita!” Comes the response, referring to a famous Bangladeshi actress.

Ekta! Keno char’te pabe na?

“One, why not four!”

By the three AM puja, Baba and one of his brothers both fall asleep on the mattress laid out by the puja area. As the priest begins chanting the myriad mantras necessary to appease the goddess, Baba and his brother’s snores are so loud that they threaten to drown out the Sanskrit incantations. A crowd of us watches, suppressing our laughs as the snoring seems to escalate along with the crescendo of the priest’s chanting.

At one point, Tumpa Pishi calls for her ex-husband to come and take the blessings of the goddess. Approaching the dais, he neglects to take off his shoes:

“Are you a Muslim now? Take off your shoes!” His ex-wife scolds good naturedly. Over and over again she berates him for his breeches of etiquette, repeatedly calling him a Muslim.

Coming up to the platform on which the deity is standing, he reverentially approaches with his hands together, raised high in salutation. His mood turns almost comically serene and with closed eyes, he offers his pranams…. in Arabic?

“as-salaam aleikum.”

At the end of the ceremony, Tumpa Pishi wants to offer some her own blood to the goddess, citing that her mother had done the same on many occasions. Unable to find a razor blade or pin anywhere, the priest removes the tin cutter from Ma Kali’s hand and Tumpa Pishi proceeds to cut her chest with it while barely grimacing. How she has managed to put on such a grand affair, fasting the entire time, and then cut her own flesh to offer her blood is beyond me.

After the puja has finished, I stayed behind for a minute while everyone else filed out. I notice a slip of paper on the platform that was written for the priest. It had the names of all of Tumpa Pishi’s family members listed so that they could be read out during the ceremony. Although my Bengali is not perfect, I easily note that at the top of the list is the name of Tumpa Pishi’s ex-husband.

After a light breakfast, we return home, sorry that such a blissful night has to end. Before leaving, I ask Shilpi if she likes our family. She answers positively, so I follow up by asking who is the best.

Shilpi motions towards Tumpa Pishi;

O bishon bhalo.

“She’s very nice.”

I collect Shipli’s new pink sari that Tumpa Pishi gave her and make my way over to our host. I thank her for such a wonderful evening and she humbly responds,

“Don’t thank me, thank God. She arranged everything.”

please continue to
chapter XVIII