Of chance encounters and budding friendships

I met this young Bengali speaking French man in a village in the North of France during a music festival where I had gone to work as a translator cum facilitator for a group of singers from Bengal. One of the singers, Abbas fakir disgusted by the food that was being dished out in the canteen, (which was not that bad really but  just not cooked in the Bengali way, that is to say the chicken gravy did not have the shimmer of oil floating on top of a thick reddish-yellowish sauce,  fried aubergines and potatoes were replaced by grated carrots and boiled cauliflower with mayonnaise, and other items which were just not palatable to a seasoned Indian palate, fostered on spices and chillies and rich, thick gravies), pushed aside his plate and told me, "Didi, I cannot eat this food. Let's go to the Indian stand on the fair ground. There is dal and rice and papad.!" Abbas was the baby of the group; with a head full of dreadlocks and a luxuriant beard coming down to his chest,  he was thoroughly spoiled  by his mother and his  coterie of sister-in laws. Though everybody else in the group had eaten the same food and I was tired , I said, "Ok, come , let's go and see what we find." We walked down to the stall serving Indian food which was in full swing. I ready to translate Abbas' desire into French asked him in Bengali what he wanted to eat. Abbas regally  pointed out his choice and a handsome  young men noted down his order. Before handing him his plate heaped with rice and dal and pakodas he asked Abbas in perfect Bengali, "Ar kichu neben?" (Do you want anything else?) Abbas finding it quite natural at being spoken to in Bengali by a French man thousands of kilometers away from Bengal asked for some pickles and walked away to join some friends at a table nearby.  I ,  finding it delightfully unnatural was nicely flabbergasted and stuttered, "You speak Bengali?"

"Yes," he replied with a perfectly charming smile, "I am learning."

 "How come?"

" I spent my childhood in Bengal..",

 "Really," I said, and looking at him more closely spotted a necklace of wooden beads around his neck and a very discreet tuft of hair at the back of his head.  . I thought "the Hare Krishna movement" but did not delve into it further. In spite of the crowd milling around us we snatched a few moments  to converse  and I learnt that he played the khol. This enchanted me even further taking me back to my childhood in Bengal where each morning when the air was still cool and the sun barely up,  a group of vaishnavas winded down the streets chanting the name of Hari to the accompaniment of cymbals and khols. We exchanged names, addresses and to make the encounter even more marvellous I found that we both lived in the South of France at the foothills of the Pyrenees.

I got back home and like many addresses given and taken, it stayed in my notebook, a dormant potential. Then a couple of days ago when I was feeling ringed in by the mass of mountains, sinking into the torpor of summer heat and good food and empty days I called up Srimurti . He was as charming as ever and we decided to meet at his place in Mirepoix about 45 Km from  our house. It was also a nice opportunity for my friend and I to bike through the undulating countryside of vineyards and blue hills rearing in the distance and the solid battlements of Cathar fortresses etched against the sky. We stopped on the way in a little village to visit an old church and broke the silence by singing. Our hesitating voices  reflected and amplified by the  the ribbed vault, expanded to fill up the empty space. Then in about half an hour we were in Mirepoix at Srimurti's house.

Right from the beginning it was easy, familiar but also to a certain extent surreal because of the  unexpectedness of the situation. He introduced to his wife, a petite, charming young French woman who spoke fluent Oriya because she had  grown up in Bhuvaneshwar,  to his children who were called Vinod and Gauranga ( my cousin in Bengal is also called Gauranga ) and to  his elderly friend krishnamurti who though dressed in a shorts and a t-shirt had a  tilak  drawn on his forehead and a luxuriant tiki at the back of his head, both signs sported by Vaishnavites all over India. Though I was enchanted I must also say that I was a little wary.  I had seen quite a few films where westerners following any of the branches of Indian spirituality were portrayed as weirdos. But they were perfectly at ease and put us at ease too. We chatted and laughed and had couscous for lunch with a vegetarian stew where cubes  of paneer replaced  the usual   chunks of meat. When I laughingly pointed out that it was not very Indian Srimurti  replied that it was because his father was Kabil from Algeria and the blend of couscous with paneer gravy was his version of fusion food.   On seeing my expression of incredulity and to baffle me even further he added good-humouredly that his mother was Vietnamese. Since I went on looking at him, he  kindly explained  that his father who used to live in Paris had enlisted in the French army as a means of escaping from the narrow confines of his condition.  While he was posted in Australia he had met his mother and  come across the writings of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, a fifteenth century Bengali saint. The next step then had been to the saint's birthplace, a remote village in the north of Bengal.

 My journey from India to France which I have a tendency to make  much ado about now paled in comparison with the physical and spiritual journey of a man who had travelled across continents and cultures to embrace a way of life and thought so far removed from his own. I felt at home with my new friends, certainly because like me their reality consisted of reconciling vastly disparate worlds. I  also admired their courage in living according to their beliefs, and in the process being branded as freaks or marginals by many.

After lunch we spread a dhurrie in the living room, Srimurti brought out his khol and his book of Bengali songs, Krisnamurthy took up a pair of cymbals, my friend settled down comfortably in a corner to observe and take photos. Srimurti struck the first note on his khol, the cymbals joined in and we set sail on a musical journey swaying to the lilting rhythm of the khol and melodious voice of the singers    .  I could not help but join in. My friend got a few pictures of me eyes closed, grimacing like a monkey, hands raised in the air like a professional singer.

The afternoon  drew to a close, time to drive back home. We parted company joyously with the promise to meet again. 

Arunima Choudhury

Pondy Blues

I didn't know that you could miss a town like you miss your beloved: her scent, her voice, her hair, the texture of her skin, the contours of her body, the things she says and the things she doesn't. Yes, I am lovesick and I have left my dearest far behind me on the other side of the world.

Pondicherry, my love, how I miss being jolted out of my sleep at ungodly hours by the crowing of roosters,  then drifting back to sleep again, before being gently teased awake by the mouth-watering aroma of crisp dosas and spicy chutneys wafting in through the open window;  starting my scooter in the morning and riding out to the chai-shop with the breeze in my hair, the chai-master making me a cup of delicious, piping hot tea with kammi shakkara (less sugar) and the group of regulars, men mostly, tolerating my presence in their midst;  Laxmi, the temple elephant, sashaying down the wide, paved streets towards the Ganesh temple, her enormous bottom moving from side to side, keeping time with the bells jingling around her neck;  troops of school girls and boys streaming out of ugly, boxy buildings, giggling, chatting and merrily blocking the honking auto-rickshaws and motorbikes; biryani-sellers ladling out yellow rice with chunks of chicken from enormous black-bottomed pans, a dollop of fiery gravy, a scoop of chopped onions in yoghurt and presto another packet is ready for take-away; the long hot afternoons with dogs snoozing in shady corners, the sky a pitiless blue and the harsh cawing of crows shattering the drowsy silence; then come evening, a leisurely stroll down the beach road, the sky streaked with violets and pinks, the sweat dried by the cool breeze of the sea, stopping to say hello to friends and acquaintances, buying boiled peanuts sprinkled with salt and chilly powder and topped with thin slices of  raw mangoes till night falls and the street lamps are lit.

I know these are cliches. But far from my country I am like the tourist who only remembers the droll, the colorful, the touching, and whose memory has drawn a curtain over all that is dingy and unpleasant.Yet it was not always thus. In fact, when I first came to Pondy to study in 1979 from Bengal, I found it strange and disorienting after my childhood in Berhampore; an old town on the banks of the Ganges. Here, big crumbling houses and mossy terraces were packed in narrow, winding streets where men, cows, and rickshaws jostled with each other. Black-faced monkeys jumped from one terrace to another, swung dangerously from electric cables and sneaked into kitchens to steal food. In the evening, the acrid smoke rising from mud ovens caught at our throats and made our eyes water, while from all around the sound of conches being blown for the evening pooja rose in the air.

Pondicherry of wide streets, colonial houses with flowering gardens, and cyclists pedalling sedately down the road seemed too empty, too orderly, too impersonal. So it was over years that we fitted into each other; like two pieces of a jigsaw puzzle which do not initially go together, but whose contours have been smoothened by time and effort into the shape required. And now after thirty long years I have moved again, abandoned my love, wooed and won over with difficulty, for a new country, a new town. Perhaps it was time, because like an old couple we had grown too used to each other or, perhaps, it is I who had got jaded and let myself slip into a comfortable but uninspiring routine. So when, because of diverse circumstances, I had the option to move, move I did with a mixture of sadness and excitement, encouraged by the words of an acquaintance who said, “What? You have lived for thirty years in Pondicherry! You can move now because she will always be there in your heart.”

And from the South of India here I am in the South of France learning to adjust and appreciate another culture, another place, learning to make place in my heart and mind for new experiences. But to my delight I find that Pondicherry, Berhampore, India like strains of a favourite melody keep weaving in and out of my life, through chance encounters: a Bengali tabla player tucked away in a remote village near the Pyrenees; a Tamil bio-chemist from Ooty working as a researcher in Narbonne; a Delhiite come to present her publishing house in a literary event; through documentaries, festivals,  songs, through updates on Facebook telling me, “it’s terribly hot in Pondicherry and even hotter in Chennai.” 

Arunima Choudhury

A Musical Journey Through Eastern Europe appeared in ActuPondy. The songs were from Eastern Europe. They were sung in Pondicherry and the festival the link between the two.

 The songs of Edith Piaf were brought back to life by the singer Nathalie Mentha in Pondicherry. Entitled French Ballads on Indian Soil , this writeup also appeared in ActuPondy