Didn't We Have a Lovely Time ... ?

Firstly my apologies - I have been absent from my computer and writing this, what would you call it, epic, memoir, blog, self obsessed confessional? My reasons are twofold and have absolutely nothing to do with tonight's main theme - but they need to be revealed: firstly my ongoing battle with the bitter black dog has been very hard of late and finally some stronger medication was prescribed - don't know how long it will take to work but my God, did I sleep - twelve hours at the last count. The other is far more selfish - I have been reading the most wonderful book, absorbing, enthralling and beautifully written. If my aspiration is now to write then to write a book like this would be a gift - certainly reading it was. And yes, here is the title: The Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver. Don't be put off if you tried and disliked the Poisonwood Bible - I loathed it and am so thrilled to have found this.I do realise that it must look a little odd to have these Amazon links but if you click on them I get a whole penny and we all know that from little acorns grow big oaks.

For those who are not sure - the story tells of young man's life in Mexico with the painter Diego Rivera and his wife Frida Kahlo. The main part of story and the turning point for the young man comes when Trotsky arrives in Mexico City as a refugee and Rivera sends Shepherd to work for him.



Now to days out, although I must confess to a longing to write of the Aztecs and Maya and  surrealist painting and McCarthy but I can't - someone else has filled my head with all of that and those are her stories and words. These now, are mine.

A day in out in England is a day spent  in a strange town or forest or National Park or by the sea. We live in such a tiny island that most places are accessible for a day. Not so in Calcutta; a massive city where to drive from Tolllygunge to Ballygunge could take twenty minutes or three hours depending on traffic, the weather or the season. Days out in Calcutta (yes I know it is non PC - but I also know the entymology of the name and it comes from one of three villages Job Charnock  found as he sailed up the Hooghly - Cali Cat or Kali Ghat - but NOT Kolkatta!) were therefore events, planned or spontaneous they involved travel, the need for food and water and some knowledge of where you were going.

My days fell into three categories, Mum and Desmond, school and days when I was old enough to brave the world with just my friends for company. Mum and Des were certainly the most informative and exciting. We would drive into North Calcutta looking for old houses or gates - one such day he found the Marble Palace and made it famous and eternal through his sketch and article in The Statesman. Another time we had use of the municipal boat and sailed up river to look for old houses at Garden Reach: we got sidetracked to looking at the magnificent new temple at Dakineshwar and he spent the day drawing sadhus as they sat at water's edge, ash stained smoking chillums and very frightening until suddenly the face would crack into an enormous grin and the monster became a man of humour and humanity. I missed countless days from school but the excitement - to go along the Dum Dum road looking for Clive's house, finding the mess, with Bangladeshi refugees encamped on the sprung ballroom floor and then walking around  a ruin with him and his citing rose bushes as a sure sign that this was certainly where Clive must have lived. We never find any proof of that but it made us all laugh some fifteen later when a young descendant of Clive's was taken to the house with absolute certainty that this was the residence of Clive of India. Only because of the rose bushes!

School outings were varied - there were the traditional trips to the mint, the Metal Box factory and to see my friends Ule and Desrirees' father's computerised factory. We were always little strips of card punched with indecipherable holes and told this was our name and all our names would be be stored thus in the future. They became bookmarks, or gathered dust in a drawer. How could I know that now I can find my friends all over the world at the touch of a button or that plump Mr Sponner was in his own way, a revolutionary.

Other school outings were more interesting; my favourite always being to Kumar Tuli to see the statues being prepared for the pujas. My favourites, Durga and Sarawati, beautiful and learned, being crafted from the river clay that they would return to so that their souls could flow through the river to the sea and be taken into the air to return to their homes in the high mountains. Kali always frightened me - perhaps because  my most vivid memory of Kalighat was seeing a kid sacrificed, the blood spurting, the animal squealing. And then I read of the Mutiny and the Black Hole of Calcutta, and the Thugs and the phrase a goat for Kali, and I decided she probably didn't like English children as much as Durga and Saraswati who always smiled and looked beautiful. I was a child, what did I know? It was like a fairyland: a teasing promise of what was to come, Diwali and all the pujas and the lights and the excitement and the joy. For a child here this comes when the Christmas lights are turned on and lasts only briefly before it becomes tawdry and rather dull. Imagine days of different displays, different characters in the pandals and the sweets and the sheer joy of celebrating that is done nowhere so well as Calcutta. To look at some of these beauties go to http://www.kumartuli.com/photo_gallery.php

I am going to leave the last outings group for another day - I need to check on some names and places before I get hammered for getting them wrong - as I did the other day when I said we played Hearts in Puri - we didn't, as Harish and then Annabel both told me - it was Spades! Apparently there is a difference. C'est la guerre.

One last image - Diamond Harbour - a great day out! River, mud, empty. We went there a lot - I have no real idea why.