Hunger Games-II

From ‘Current Noon’ to ‘Colitis’

He would first take the reddish-black balls. The half-marble size globules would then be bathed in two different kinds of salt. A reddish salt that had a milder, sweet taste. Followed by a blackish salt that we called ‘current noon’ (current salt). One had to just take a dot of the black salt and touch it at the tip of the tongue. A severe acidic current used to pass through the tongue and then the entire mouth. What lent it the severe acidity or what really was the composition no one knew, but the salt had some kind of orgasmic pleasure to all of us girls standing in the queue. The reddish-black pellets called “Hojmi” are normally meant to ease a troubled digestive system but loaded with suspicious-looking salts they hardly had any good properties left except to add to the glitter of hungry pairs of eyes surrounding the “Hojmiwala” (Hojmiseller).  Post-school hours and just before the school-bus would ‘pom-pom’ their horns for the final call, we girls would surround the ‘best man in town’ – the Hojmiwala, clutching our little coins. Popping a ‘Hojmi’ in my mouth I would momentarily transcend to a different world which was sweet and sour and more sour and more sweet. The malice of the school hours – the punishment for undone homework, the incomplete class-work, the little tiff with best friend – would all be over with the divine tangy touch!

There was another hawker who used to sit within the school premises during tiffin hours. He had a black tin trunk where his wares used to lay assembled – sugar candies resembling cigarettes; multicoloured sugar candies that used to pop-out of the little opening in the mouth of the Joker drawn on the cover, black colored ginger candies and then he had his special ‘home-made’ chips. I am not sure how the chips laden with salt and generous sprinkling of red chilly powder could catch the fancy of little girls but it was the super-selling item of the vendor!

Being on the costlier side, I would venture to buy from him only on special occasions like a birthday or a friend’s birthday. For me, the ‘Hojmiwala’ was the guardian angel in disguise who would generously supply umpteen quantities of Manna at a mere cost of a one or a two rupee note.

It was for him that my love affair began with the food sold on the ‘other side of the gate’. What began with ‘Hojmi’ and ‘Current Noon’ gradually transformed into umpteen number of items. After college hours I would drag my friends to taste the variety of items outside the college gate. So one day it would be the sweet mango pickle, the other day it would be a special mixture of potatoes and boiled peas tossed in tamarind sauce. The ‘Fuchka’ (‘Golgappa’ /’Panipuri’ as it is normally called in the other parts of India) was my Marijuana; the cheap ice-creams made of coconut and milk was my Hashish…..My love affair with food multiplied over time. The day time used to be spent sampling food items, the nights were spent in food-blabbers while deep in sleep. “Somme morrre salt pleaaaasee”….”Mmmm…niccceee….sommeee morrree tamarind wattterr”.

My friends – Panchali, Paromita, Manasi, Madhurima, Aniyanta- were my compatriots – a few willing; the rest unwilling. By the time I completed my college I had tried out every kind of items – from junk food to healthy green-coconut juice- in and around the vicinity. Many a times I had chosen to walk a few extra miles just because I had invested my bus fare on food!

And all this without giving a thought to the junkyard where I was dumping my junk…..till the junkyard was overloaded. It was a day towards the end of the final year of my college. I hadn’t attended college that day. The day had begun with a severe stomach ache so I had decided to skip college. In the evening I made a phone call to my friend Panchali – only to know that she too was suffering from a similar stomach ache. All along the rest of the call we only discussed about the possible culprit for our ache. Timid and soft that she was, she was one of those who was always unwillingly dragged into my food experiments!

What began as a day’s call continued for three long months! The pain wouldn’t subside, neither would the phone calls.

“Today I was alright in the morning hours and then around afternoon ‘it’ began again”

“Yeah, yeah…same here.”

“A bit towards the right. Like a screw being pushed within”

“Yeah, yeah…same here…same here…only towards the left”.

No doctor, no medicines, no home-made remedies would work for us.

We would miss classes, be depressed most of the time and wait for each other’s phone call to discuss about ‘it’ – the stubborn tummy ache.

With passing days the level of our imagination crossed every limit possible – from ulcers to tumours – we had every range of discussion possible.

All the doctors would look at our tummy – press here, press there but not be able to identify the disease at all.

Being already engaged to be married, I even wrote a ‘goodbye note’ to by fiancé and kept it with my friend – to be handed over to him ‘in case of an eventuality’.

I do not know how long this mortal suffering would have continued till my mother decided that enough was enough. And so did my friend’s mother. All they did was to chalk out a diet plan and force it upon us. So, the tangy sauce was replaced with a near-transparent fish cooked in as less oil as possible. The variety of fried goodies were replaced with boiled veggies. And a total curfew was installed on our ‘just trying out some snacks’. What the doctors couldn’t do in three mon ths, they nearly managed in three weeks. And the doctors ultimately concluded that all that I had was a case of mild Colitis.

My ‘goodbye note’ was finally replaced with my wedding card and our phone bills became lesser. But if you feel it was a lesson well learnt towards healthy eating then ha ha ha ha. My friend Panchali and I still call each other pretty often and the discussion mostly veers towards either of the two topics – food or tummy ache!!!

PhotoSource: Wikipedia

 

The Medal

She had the queer habit of paying our school fees first day of every month. If it was school fees, it had to be paid on the 1^st. Groceries would wait, electric bills would be kept in the queue, but school fees were ticked off earliest. Even today, my mother ensures that our children’s fees are paid on the 1^st of every month. For many minutes she would longingly look at the ‘Paid’ stamp and then tuck away the fee cards in the safety of her cupboard. At times it irritated me, it still does. To which she had just a one line answer, “You wouldn’t ever understand the pain a child undergoes when the parents cannot afford to pay”.

Being the youngest of her sisters and having a paralytic father, she had a very disturbed childhood. While her sisters managed a decent education, she had to struggle with lack of school dresses, books and even school fees.  But she was immensely passionate about her school and studies. She had a single set of school dress which she would wash every evening so that she could wear it to the school the next day.  A lone one that it was, the dress would undergo immense wear and tear. With her small little fingers she would stitch it every now and then, only to discover a new tear somewhere else. But her hard work did pay off. When in her ninth class, she enrolled for the NCC course of her school. Those days they paid a token laundry fee each month to the best cadet. Surprisingly she won the Best Cadet’s award and thus could receive a token ‘laundry allowance’.

“So, you didn’t have to wash your clothes on your own then?”, we asked her once.

She had a smile tinted with sorrow as she answered us. “That was the little contribution I could make towards the family expenses each month. With hardly anything to eat, would I have the luxury of a laundry service?”

Every morning she had the task of washing two bucket full of soiled dresses and bed sheet of her paralysed father, as her mother cleaned the rooms. By the time she finished the washing, it was time to go to school. So more often than not, she would reach her school with incomplete homework and a tired body. But she wouldn’t give up.

It was during an argument with her regarding her nagging habit about paying the fees on time, did she explain why she does what she does.

“Those days my two working sisters could hardly pay my fees along with my brother’s fees. Every month they would call out the names of the students who were defaulters. We were expected to stand for two periods altogether as a punishment. This, alongside the verbal abuses. Some teachers called us ‘shameless’, some called us ‘beggars’. The girls giggled. We stood with downcast eyes. The list of girls who were defaulters changed every month. My name remained constant. That ‘shame’ stings me till date”.

I’ve never questioned her again.

Somehow the hurt of not being able to study as she should have was so huge that she always placed ‘education’ as the top priority for her children.

Just to teach me and my brother, she would take out time from her immensely stressful work and read through our school lessons before we arrived from school. She would then teach us. Due to my father’s erratic nature of job, we had to change about six schools in different states and with different languages. So, just to help us out she learnt various languages – Kannada, Hindi, English, Bengali. Having had her education in a Bengali medium, it was immensely tough for her to teach us convent English. But she did. She kept her own home copy where she practised Hindi before teaching me.She would read aloud English lessons in her faulty pronunciation, urging father to correct her.

While it was easier teaching me, it was immensely challenging teaching my brother. He was a hyperactive, super-intelligent brat who would never sit quiet. So, my mother made ‘special set-ups’ for him. She fixed a bulb in the terrace and converted that to an open air class-room. She danced, made actions, funny faces and resorted to every trick while teaching him.

She would wake me up at 4:00 am every morning during my exams and ensure a hot glass of health drink and warm toasts as soon as I woke up. And all this after going to bed at 11:30 in the night.

Every star marks that we got, every appreciation that we received was her glory. And every failure of ours would result in a stream of tears from her eyes. Every morning before going to school , she would passionately pray for us and scribble God’s name on our palms so that we may be able to write our best.

“You are overly protective about your children. Why do you spend so much of your energy behind them?”, my grandma would reprimand her.

Quiet that she always is, she would just smile helplessly.

“ One day my children would succeed. And that day would be my success”, she would whisper when alone with us.

**        **      **      **     **    **        **      **      **     **

The banquet hall was packed to the core. The lights beamed from every corner. But I was nervous and hungry. I wanted to go home. The series of lectures by the professors wouldn’t just end. One by one, they would wax eloquent about the institution and the merit of the students. I became restless. I made a quick visit to the washroom. By the time I returned the announcement had begun.

They began from the third position. One of my classmates walked up to the podium to collect his bronze medal. With a black suit, he looked dapper. The second position followed. He was a very dear friend of mine. On his way to the podium he did a ‘high-five’ with me.

The old professor adjusted his spectacles as he read out the name.

“S..Sri..Srichandra Mukherjee…topper of the year. Winner of the Gold Medal ”.

The hall burst into applause. I stood up and walked towards the podium.

As I bent my head a little lower to receive my medal, the five month old foetus inside my stomach wriggled.

“Now turn towards the audience and bow”, my professor whispered.

As I turned towards the audience, I could see my mother in very single corner – occupying every single seat – clapping wildly.

“Only and only for you Ma”, I told myself and my baby.

For some strange reason she didn’t want to come for the award ceremony. She bought a new dress for me to wear to the ceremony, she put her pearl string around my neck but she wouldn’t come.

As I stormed back home with my medal. She clapped, cried, wiped her red nose a thousand times and even took it to every household in the neighbourhood to show them ‘her’ glory.

For all her torn school dresses, unpaid fees, lack of books, she had the medal as an answer.

For her comfort, her son too has climbed the ladder of success one step at a time. Today, not only is he employed with a reputable company as an IT specialist; he is an immensely successful and renowned photographer and blogger.

Each of our success has been her success. And whatever I am or he is , is because of the determination of one hurt school child decades ago.

On my part, frankly, I couldn’t give her anything I wanted to give her. I am too small in front of her immense love and hard work. Only, inspite of much coaxing, I haven’t taken the medal with me to my house. It is still in the locker of her cupboard. It is hers.

Image Courtesy:Pixabay