Friendship

This is our 99th story on the blog. Yes, we are just one away from the century. For today’s story we have picked a simple yet most dynamic of relationships to talk about. We often think children do not comprehend the meaning of friendship well. So we asked a twelve year old, what her understanding of friendship is. The story will tell you that like many other things, friendships in childhood is also simple and sans complications. 

The story of my life till now is not very long yet, saying that I am just about to turn 12. It’s not as exciting as I wish it would be, not filled with grand adventures and events. But it has been quite fun and great so far, I find it is worth living. Now, at this moment, I am not exactly sure what I am going to write about. So, I think I will talk about one of the most important things in life, or in my life at least. Friendship! 

Friends are always there for you, whether you need them or not. I have a six year old friend. She is cute and adorable and always very happy. She encourages me to do many things that I haven’t had a chance to do before. We made stepping stones and sat down in the middle of a stream, a thing I had never done before. I love her a lot! 

My brother is probably my closest friend. Although we argue and disagree on many things, we still do a lot of stuff together. We read many of the same books, draw, write, and plan and play pranks! I can always tell him anything, and we will always be friends, no matter what! 

My two closest besties I have know since fourth grade. We read many of the same books and go crazy fangirling over stuff! It’s  really fun with them. I always go to them to talk about awesome stuff that no one else would understand! 

My other two closest friends would be my parents. They are always there for anything and everything and always help me find the right path. I love them! 

I have many many friends, but they are all equal to me in my heart. Even if I had only one friend, I would still be very happy because I had a friend.

*Fangirl – noun
A girl (fanboy = boy) usually between the ages of 11 and 19 who is crazily obsessed with something such as a book or movie or an actor/character etc.

A Lesson to Drive, A Lesson for Life

Women are notorious for being bad behind the wheels. Is it a perception or a reality ? We say it is a perception most often created by men. Here is a story that will prove just that. A story of a woman who loves to drive, is passionate about it and was taught to drive by a man. Her father. Let’s hear it out from Ausmita Kaviraj in her own words. 

I love to drive. In fact, the part of the weekdays that I like most are the 30 minutes that I spend on the road driving to and from the office. I must admit that the city traffic plays dampener every once in a while but those 30 minutes behind the wheel with a nice tune playing on the radio and the open road in front of me are equivalent to 30 minutes spent in a spa for me.

The enjoyable part aside, in a country like India, where public transport is patchy in most places except for a few metros and safety in public transport is still a matter a concern for most women, being a woman who can drive and get around on her own is a very empowering thing. But talking about my love for driving and the empowering feeling will be incomplete if I don’t speak about the person who taught and germinated this love for the wheel in me, my father. In a society where jokes about the way women drive abound, every compliment from male friends and colleagues about the way I drive, puts a smile on my face and reminds me of the time when my father would religiously pull me and take me out for driving practice. So much so that even unsolicited comments such as, “So you can drive, but you can’t cook”, have put nothing but a wide grin on my face.

My father, for whom discipline is pretty much a way of life, was very strict about following the traffic rules and etiquettes even though most drivers in India seem to follow none. Always, turn on the indicator before making a turn, let the person on the inner lane go first etc etc. Most of our driving lessons would end with him angry and I irritated but we still persisted. But once I got my driving license, he promptly put the keys in my hands displaying more faith in my driving ability than I did at that moment. I remember after I got the first scratch on the car, I was dreading an angry outburst but he just took a look at it and coolly told me, “If you take the car out on the road, things like this are bound to happen. We will take the car to the garage tomorrow and get it fixed”. That went a long way in restoring my confidence and strengthening my resolve to drive responsibly. At the same time, he never let me take the car out on my own till I was able enough to at least pay for the fuel and maintenance on my own.

Although I have been driving for years now and proudly telling anyone complimenting my driving that it was my father who taught me how to drive, my biggest triumph came a few weeks ago when on returning home from a day out, I executed a reverse parking in one single turn. My father who was sitting beside me exclaimed, “Wow! Perfect Parking! Even I would have taken a couple of turns of back and forth to park the car here”. Bliss!

An Old Man’s Wisdom

Foreword by Soumi Haldar: This Father’s Day weekend we were very happy as the families were together after a long time. The children were having a blast with the fathers. And we had an abundance of stories for Father’s Day. Amidst all this, I kept thinking of the picture I had taken of Piya and her dad a few years ago and kept wondering why she was not writing anything for the occasion. Here is a post we want and need the world to read about.

It was a phenomenal week of storytelling at Chatoveracuppa last week. We heard from Dads. We heard about Dads. Raw emotions. Real stories. Life Lessons. Real Pictures. Memories. In all the stories there was one common aspect. We imbibe so much from just observing our parent in our growing up years. We may not have valued it then but we treasure it now.

I read, edited and published a few of those stories. Sadly, with a lump in my throat, all the while remembering my old man. It was not a super happy father’s day week or even a weekend for him. I drew a blank and did not know what to write about my own father. And then this morning, while going through some of my old posts on my personal blog, I stumbled upon this piece. This is for the man who taught me endurance in the face of adversity, who ingrained tolerance in me and who taught me to be content.

My Dad was the original author of my personal blog, the original storyteller. Throughout his life he has worked 6 days a week and 12 hours a day to generate zillions of megawatts of electricity to light up homes in India. We forced him to retire two years back. He is in his seventies and has survived three heart attacks (the last one nearly took his life).

He wears a couple of stents in his heart along with his salt and pepper hair, both very sportingly. He tells me often that he looks at least 10 years younger than his age. I kind of agree with him. A man of few words but of brilliant eloquence when he speaks. A man of principles and he is too rigid about them. Like Ma aptly says he cannot even lie to save his own life. Very true.

I inherited his looks, his voice (to an extent only), his handwriting, his mannerisms, his determination, his endurance, his sense of contentment and his nature to worry all the time (Yes my dad and I are enough to worry for an entire nation). My principles are not as strong as his and Ma taught me to lie enough to save my life.

I realized he had pampered me just too much when on my first day in the boarding school I realized I did not know how to tie my shoe laces. I was 12 years old then. I realized his sense of achievement when I got my first job while he was recuperating from one of the heart attacks. I realized he was too possessive about me the day I told him about the husband. I realized he believed in me the day he gave my hand off to the husband. And I realized I had to share his love for me the day my kids were born.

He also taught me the single most important lesson of my life – the difference between my needs and my wants. He sent me to a boarding school where kids generally came from very affluent families. We could just about afford it. He knew I would see some mismatch and told me this one thing that I still remember. “What you need I will provide that for you, but what you want (is not necessarily something that you may need) is something that you will have to create yourself.”

I lived through many such mismatches in the years that followed and that one statement stayed on with me. It enabled me to appreciate what I had. What I did not have didn’t disturb me. It kept me grounded. Looking back, I think he could have provided a little more. But he did not because he knew I will then forget to appreciate what I have. He instilled in me that belief that I could create things for myself. And today when I have much more I know it was all worth it.

The husband comes from an equally modest background and knows well what it means not to have it all. So now that we are attempting to instill that into our kids, we are also realizing it is not easy. As a parent you want to provide your children with everything that you have access to and in turn forget that it could be overwhelming for them. Or that they can take the provision for granted. How do you balance it? How do you provide such that it is just right? How do you draw the line? Isn’t it true that we, the new age parents, are the ones that introduce our children to the plethora of choices and then blame them for getting addicted to it?

I have seen so many homes with more toys than the child could play with, more gadgets than what is appropriate for the child’s age, more accessories than what a girl child can probably wear in her lifetime, more time on TV/ Laptop /IPAD than what is really required and more junk food than what the child should eat. Do children really need to be on social networking sites? Whatever just happened to playgrounds and classrooms? And this one irks the hell out of me – a house turned into a Disney Pixar or Nicklodeon museum with the amount of theme toys and stuff. The children did not make those choices, the parents did.

In attempting to be a good parent and making the right choices as a parent, we always remember our own parents. This post is my way of just doing that. I hope my old man is listening.

This post has been contributed by our one half of chatoveracuppa, Piya Mukherjee and has been specially written for her dad. 

The Prank

Summer vacations and grandparents almost sounds synonymous. You are entitled to a different degree of freedom and fun with grandparents because they have the patience to deal with all kinds of mischief’s, pranks and tantrums. In our story today, a young boy writes about the prank that he played on his grandpa. He requests us to publish this anonymous. We will honor the request of this little prankster. 

We are mighty impressed with how well young children express themselves. This post is witty and engaging, short and sweet. Enjoy ! 

Dadu (Grandpa) is sleeping in the middle of the day because he is jet-lagged after his trip to America the previous day. In my mind I think, “What a great time to do a prank!”

I approach the bed with a bag of tattoo pens. My P.I.P. (Partner In Pranks), my sister, walks over with her make-up box. I soon get to work. After a few minutes, I stop to admire my masterpiece. Dadu’s face is full of messages, such as, “Bob was here” or “Bob says Hi”. I also add a weird face with rabbit teeth, a gigantic nose, and a tiny body. I walk away to see what my sister is up to.I was happy to see pink nail polish brushed on his toes. 

When he wakes up he will be shocked to discover that he just had an extreme makeover. But as he is so sleepy, the only thing that would awaken him would be his weakness : A tickle!

Serendipity

My husband and I were on our way to a vacation in Langkawi, Malaysia. When we checked in at Kuala Lumpur airport, we could not get adjacent seats. So we took the only ones available in two separate rows with the intention of swapping them with someone after boarding the flight. 

As I approached my designated middle seat, I noticed that the seat adjacent to mine was occupied by an old Caucasian lady who looked all set for a beach vacation in her bright shorts and top. I politely asked her if she was traveling alone and if she would like to swap her seat with ours so that I and my husband could sit together. Much to our disappointment, she flatly refused. As I grudgingly took my seat next to her, with a child-like excitement she explained to me further that her son was taking her to Langkawi for her 72^nd birthday and he gave her his window seat so that she could see the islands and sea from the air. 

My disappointment did not hold for long in front of her glee and soon we got talking. She asked me where I was from. I said India. Her eyes lit up on hearing that and she said beaming from ear to ear, “I was born in India”. Seeing the confused look on my face, she explained further that she was born in Kolkata or Calcutta, the then capital of British India. Her father worked in the company that built the iconic Howrah Bridge of Kolkata but they left India to return to England when she was about 11 years old and she has never had the chance to go back after that. I quickly jumped up to tell her that I too was born in Kolkata and my family comes from there. 

So there we sat chatting, one bound to the city by birth and a childhood spent there and another bound to it by familial ties and deep curiosity about the city that she visits every year but never had a chance to live in. I was really amazed by how much and how clearly she remembered her childhood spent in Kolkata. She spoke about living in Alipur and horse rides near the Tolly Club pausing to ask me if the Tolly Club still existed. 

I of course, was completely clueless about where the Tolly Club was and made a mental note of finding it out on my next visit to Kolkata. When I said that I now live in Bangalore, she surprised me further by saying, “Bangalore! Oh yeah, I know Bangalore. We would pass through Bangalore on our way to catch our ship for England.” (Presumably from a port on the western coast of India)

To me she was she was like time machine that let me peek into a time many many years before I was born. We could have sat there unraveling more stories of the past, if only my husband had not managed to find someone willing to switch his seat with mine. Ironically, this time too I switched the seat grudgingly. 

Story Credit : Ausmita Kaviraj 

Ausmita, a management professional, is a story teller at heart. She lives in India and loves to travel. She is now a frequent story teller at Chatoveracuppa. When she wrote Summer Vacation, it evoked nostalgia uniformly across the globe. Serendipity is a story about one of those feel good conversations you have with a fellow traveler. 

My Daddy’s Day

My mobile phone screen flashed the sixteenth message declaring an unmissable offer for the Father’s day – a discount of ten per cent on a day spa, a free glass of wine, shirts, bags – you name it and I have it in the inbox. I just checked the latest one declaring a complimentary stay at a hotel exclusively for fathers and put the damn thing on silent mode. The screen continued to flash. Father’s day – one day marked on the calendar exclusively for dads. I peep into the boys’ room and I find them making greeting cards, evident from shreds of paper and open bottles of paint strewn all over the floor next to a sleeping dog with a tinge of blue in his fur. I quietly leave as I didn’t want to be flooded with requests for being their art critic of the day.

It is Saturday, and I have missed all last minute enticing offers for Father’s day tomorrow. I am not a cynic. I do not turn and scoff at all the days that have cropped up in our side of the world during the last two decades or so. In fact I think it is a nice idea to stop once in a while and thank the people who matter, make them feel loved and in case of Father’s Day, make them feel like the Marvel Superhero that they are.  As far as the discounted goods are concerned – I shall give it  a miss. Do fathers really need gifts? Of course not! A superhero just needs his cape. Gifts are to make sure a bunch of companies do not shut shop.

‘So what are you going to give nana, mum?’ Vivaan asked without looking up from the final piece of a quilted flower that he was sticking on to his card. ‘What do you think? Will papa like this?’ He didn’t wait for my answer and I ended up where I didn’t want to be – the critic who couldn’t truly be critical. As he ran off, I thought about his question – what was I going to give him? What could I give him? Can any discount coupon or a complimentary spa day really thank the one and only superman there is?

The proverbial ‘our times’ never had a special day designated to celebrate the man who mattered the most. Moms always got the cuddles but fathers mostly hid behind knitted brows and a bushy mustache. But every once in a while the cape showed and they saved the world – like the day I came back with all limbs scratched from a bicycle race that had happened too soon. The boys had sped past and jeered at my wobbly pedaling. Obviously I chased, sped past but couldn’t apply breaks. Papa’s favourite medicine for scrapes and cuts was the Old Spice After-shave. It stung. His remedy– he’d give us his hand to bite on. The more it stung, the harder we bit and he quietly dressed our wounds. As we grew older, he got many bites.

Having grown into an obnoxious teenager, birthdays were more resentful than fun. On one such birthday, mum and dad decided to take me shopping. Halfway through south extension market, mum and I were not talking since I couldn’t make up my mind about what I wanted and worse appeared mostly disinterested. The superman, however, believed (and still does) that birthdays are special days even for the kids who were bent upon being a pain in the backside. So from south ex we went to Karol Bagh and anyone who knows Delhi would understand that parking a car there required a particularly high level of commitment to the cause of shopping. That was equally disastrous and the two women bickered more but he very patiently drove us to Connaught Place. And the disgruntled teenager was suddenly transformed into a wide-eyed six year old. He bought me my first aquarium. That one smile on my face seemed to have erased all that I had put them through. So how do you thank the man for being so patient and resisting whacking me that day. I know now that I would have driven my boys back home from the first shop they acted like brat. But he didn’t – birthdays had to be truly special.

Last evening while driving back, Ishaan asked, ‘Mum who is going to teach me how to drive?’ He likes to have all things cleared way before hand.

‘I will or maybe papa can. Nana taught me, you know.’

His groans of disapproval were drowned by the smile that found its way on my face. Grand Trunk Road, twenty years ago, he sat beside me as I drove at barely thirty km/h . The honking from the cars behind me was making me nervous and he calmed me down. I still remember the confidence in his voice when he said , ‘Bebu, You keep driving, Whoever is in a hurry can always overtake.’ I will never know if he was freaking out on the inside, as at that moment all I could see was his cape.

All it takes to brighten up his face is his children. You need to see his eyes that easily brim over on hearing anyone mention how great his kids have turned out.  He’ll never admit it though. Supermen are tough that way. From baking a chocolate cake in a pan to buying the hottest trend of the times – a balloon skirt – he has done it all. He has never written elaborate cards and rarely reciprocated ‘I love you’s ’ with ‘me too’ – it is mostly a hesitant ‘thanks.’ Yet, I know that for him the only people that matter may be a tad bit more than his two kids are his grand-kids. Yeah, those four buggers are blatantly stealing our thunder now. Nevertheless, I remain his princess and bhaiya(brother) his shining star. The younger lot are more like the adorable pixies.

Then, is a day enough to thank the belief he has in us? We could fall, stumble, scrape our knees all over again but we will never be afraid for we know that there is a man standing behind us (with his cape flowing behind him) who believes we can reach the farthest star. No, a single day is not enough but it sure is a nice way of letting him know all over again that he is the best in the business.

So while the pixies are painting an elaborate card and planning an exquisite breakfast for their father, I am doing nothing. Like every year I will call him and wish him and he will say ,’ What Father’s day? It’s all a gimmick!’ followed by a whisper of a thanks when I tell him , ‘I love you papa.’

Story Credit And Photo Credit : Dr.Tanushree Singh. Tanushree is a frequent storyteller at Chatoveracuppa. She is a parent to two boys, a lecturer in Psychology and has a very interesting perspective on bringing up children and is a blogger herself. She blogs at tanushreesingh.wordpress.com.

Daddy’s Little Girl

 

Come “Poojor Chuti” – Puja Holidays(an annual festival celebrated in eastern states of India. The festivities are similar to those of Christmas in many parts of the world) and we were away from Calcutta every year to some new destination. This was almost the only time of year when my father – Baba as I called him, would give himself a long leave to be exclusively with us. Every morning we would wake up, get ready in a new dress and off we would go sightseeing – a passion among most Bengalis’!

This time it was Shimla, magnificent mountains, picturesque Gothic churches etc and my father clicking away pictures of us – it was fun. It was also the only time of the year when we could go shopping with him and knew that all our wishes would be granted!

I chose a lovely pair of white shoes but even before I could wear them, a huge monkey got in through the big window of the hotel room and right in front of our eyes disappeared with the box of shoes. I was about ten years old then, and the tears would not stop! My Ma, Dida, Dadu (my grandparents) all tried to console me but to no effect. Then a while later I saw my Baba entering with a similar pair of shoes – he had quietly gone out to the market, nobody knew when – that was my father. 

My growing up years had several such instances. So on Father’s Day – these sweet memories crop up and the girl in me lives once more.

Story Credit : Nandita Hazra 

If you were to meet Nandita in person, you will get to hear a new story every other minute as part of your conversation. She is just a natural storyteller and her style of storytelling is very engaging.So when we asked her to write down a story for us, it took her just a few minutes to write this story. She wrote this remembering her Dad on Father’s Day. 

The Chatoveracuppa team wishes all the Dads a very Happy Father’s Day.

Papa I Love You, My Son I Love You

During our growing up years, we tend to scrutinize our parents, we expect them to be the best at everything and have the answers for all our problems. When we become parents ourselves, this thought process makes a quick shift towards pragmatism. There is never a “perfect” parent. There is nothing called as “perfect” parenting. We simply learn from the small day to day things that we observe about our parents.

In today’s story, a son reflects back on his relationship with his Dad and his expectation from him. In doing so, he conveys an immensely important message to his son this Father’s Day. 

When I was asked to write a post on Father’s Day for the Chatoveracuppa blog, I got thinking what I should write. Shall I write about my dad or about my son, and then I penned down this based on first thoughts that came across my mind.

The first thought that came to my mind was the way I used to feel about my Dad during my growing up years and my thoughts amazed me. I usually focused on my Dad’s shortcomings and wished many a times if he can be like fathers of few of my friends.  But now when I am a father myself, I laugh at those thoughts of mine.

My dad was a man of few words; he never played many games with us (me & my brother) and never told us how we should lead our life. But everything he did was to make our lives better!

Vivek’s DAD

The other thing I realize now is children learn best from NOT what is told but what they see & experience. The BIGGEST lesson that I learnt from my Dad is how we should treat the people less fortunate compared to us, from rickshawallah to the cobbler. He used to treat them with great humility and that gave him a lot of joy. And very recently I discovered I had got this gift from him. I am a Dad myself now and my father’s shortcomings are not part of my memory. His lessons and examples of his life are. For that, this Father’s Day I just want to say “Papa, I love you.”

To my son, this is what I want to say. I know I am not the BEST Dad in the world and I have many shortcomings. But I only want & wish the BEST for you. I am very proud of you and I know that you would grow to be a lovely human being.  And “I love you so much”

Vivek And His Son

Story And Photo Credit : Vivek Kalra 

The Memory That Did Not Fade

The author of the story requested for a blank photo-frame to go with the picture.

Foreword By Soumi Haldar : Throughout the week we have heard stories that poured an overwhelming amount of emotions from Dads. Quite unexpectedly, my own father shared a personal memoir with us that took me unawares. Father’s Day held a different meaning for him than what I had always thought it did.

I never knew or heard of the phrase “Father’s Day” till I reached the age of 55. By that time my daughter was out of the university and had embarked on her professional career.  Since that time, she, and later my son-in-law wish me “Happy Father’s Day” on a particular day of the year. I often wondered what the theme behind this “aspiration” is. Because in my perception, my memory, my nearness and attachment with my “father and the word” is a blank slate.

In my life span only one day and one particular incidence about my father faintly peeps in my mind.

I spent my childhood with my grandmother in a remote village, few kilometers away from the new residing place of my parents, brothers and sisters. My father was a doctor. He had got his medical degree from Calcutta Medical Collage in those days. He was a successfully practicing doctor and I heard later that he was not in the best of health. I was told that the day I was born he treated a patient and received Rs 900 in a single day. Unbelievable in those days but it is true and it happened.

I was studying in the local “patshala” (village school) with all children of the village under a single thatched roof. I was seven or eight years old. I used to love swimming in the ponds and small rivers, playing with the children, plucking fruits from the orchards, acting out small plays in the evening. Grandma used to tell stories from Ramayana and Mahabharata at bedtime and I used to slip into deep sleep with lot of dreams.

One early morning grandma woke me up and told me not to attend school. She had got a message that we had to visit my parents. We walked a long way on narrow paths between the paddy fields. We reached by noon. I saw that a body was lying on the floor covered with a white cloth. All the family members and relatives were sitting around the body and crying. I also sat without any realization of the situation. The only photographer of the area came and took a picture. The faded picture is still hanging in the house and none of the people in it are recognizable. That is the only photograph of me with my father. Soon the elderly people left for cremation leaving us the youngsters. That is the only memory of me with my father.

Time passes in its own way. The Father’s Day comes every year. I remember him and wish that “his great eternal, all-pervading, stable, immovable and primeval soul may rests in peace in the eternity of God”. I believe that I am fortunate to have lived in his presence even if for little time. “Happy Father’s Day”.

Story Credit : Swapan Haldar