Summer of ’69

The story starts in the Summer of ’79, actually, when My Beloved Bangalan and I were still unmarried but curious about each other. Mingling with the crowd just outside the Globe Cinema in Calcutta, I felt a tap on my shoulder and a female voice said, “Hi, how are you?”

A sort of weak and desultory conversation followed. I introduced My Beloved Bangalan to the girl who had tapped me on the shoulder. (more…)

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Boo arrives

In the autumn of 1994 we moved office to a friend’s flat ( apartment, if American ) about 5 minutes walk away from the house. The two rooms and separate entrance allowed us to host the expanded team and have a separate office for me and the Beloved Bangalan. Things had improved a…

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Sun-dried Underwear

It's a fact of life that as life goes on we change, we discover new things, try new food items and generally progress from sundried plums with tangy rock salt to gourmet sundried tomatoes. At this point you are wondering, aren't you, why this post is tagged "travel"? Well, maybe you're not or…

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The Date of the Jackal

Time to reblog an old(er) story. Since all my stories are (essentially) true, I have no qualms about recycling them every Thursday. I suspect some of my newer readers (Ha!) may have missed these gems and I cannot stand by and not bring some joy into their lives. Altruistic - that's the word.…

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Mishti Doi

Well - they asked me to. Ok, well, what actually happened was this. One of my friends, who writes poetry here and is also an artist, facts that I do not hold against her, posted an article on the benefits of bhindi, aka okra. For my benefit. Then another friend said "Please put…

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Peas and Paneer

So I'm back from Kolkata or Calcutta, as it used to be and will ever be for some, like me. It was a crowded trip, with remembrance services, weddings, school and college reunions interspersed with sporadic maintenance shopping. ( I'll have to explain that some other day, that "maintenance" thing.)  It was three…

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16.12.95

The phone rang in the very early morning hours of Dec 17th, a Sunday. In the USA it was still Saturday, Dec 16th. I rose from the warm bed and padded out into the cold hall to the phone. I heard the pips that foretold a transatlantic call, waited for my oldest brother's…

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5 Weeks

The title doesn't quite have the same sort of cachet of 9 and 1/2 weeks, I'm afraid. Certainly there were no strawberries or Joe Cocker singing Randy Newman's "You can leave your hat on". <Digression #1: I used to work with a guy who really, really wanted high heels on... on her. Not him;…

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