Food Glorious Food

Who would think that any sort of memory of Calcutta would have such a strong and intrinsic link to food. Every place, every time has its own flavour and its own strong memory link with that flavour; for example, walking beside the river in the late afternoon has to be a Kwality choc ice, getting the handicaps for the races on a Thursday - Flurys and chicken toast.


Bengali food is delicious as is most Indian food from biriani to daal. The thing about Calcutta food was its constant variety. Gregg, my American friend, said the other day that he never seemed to find Chinese food that tasted as good - and I would agree. From the Waldorf to Mamma Sung it was all memorable.  My best friend Annabel and I often torture ourselves with recitations of a week's menus - lobster Thermidor, Bekti Orly, Crumb steak, filet steak. We forget the lack of nice bacon - the idiosyncrasies of Amul butter and that both of us unpeeled apples were a novelty and a thrill.

We had a cook,  Bertie, who, on his day, would put most professional kitchens and chefs to shame. His pies and his desserts were scrumptious and even his alarming combination of Buddhism and Communism failed to put any of us off ploughing through his meals with attack and vigour.


Some of my earliest memories of Calcutta are related to food, in particular, the delight of Sunday lunch at Firpos. Firpos was the quintessential Calcutta restaurant - founded by an Italian before the Second World War - it remained open and popular right up to the late 60s. Sunday lunch there was a Calcutta tradition, for our parents it meant fabulous curry and several Gimlets, for us children always the same: Prawn Cocktail (no horrid limp green lettuce and real strong dash of Tabasco), Fried Chicken and to finish the best ice cream and chocolate sauce any of us ever tasted. While we eat our way through the menu the band would play and people dance, half way through the lunch time there would be a cabaret- exotic dances, magic or a ventriloquist. 


The maitre d, Mr David took over the catering at the Turf Club after Firpos closed and every Saturday I would recreate my childhood Sunday lunch, only now moving on to Chicken Kiev as the more sophisticated version of fried chicken. We would arrive at the races at about 12.30, always sit at the same table and eat and socialise in the way that one did in that  environment. Mum would be on the lookout for trainers and jockeys - looking for that elusive gift, the sure thing. Once Willy Carson came and sat with us for awhile before he went to change and ride - he wen through Mum's card and gave her 6 out of 7 winners. He was always revered in the Watkin household as a result.


Park Street was the main social thoroughfare with most of the upmarket restaurants situated in the fist half mile or so as you left Chowringhee. Trincas, hallowed home of the Jam Session, offered food that was not the best but also had delicious iced coffee with large dollops of cream and ice cream. Further down, Sky Room has no other claim to glory than its delectable Chicken Patties - wish I could get the recipe for them. My sister could often be found there with her friend Katie as they bunked off their shorthand/typing classes with the nuns at Loreto. Flurys, on the corner of Park St. and Middleton St., offered a range of chocolates and cakes that had us dropping in most days for a little snack. Chicken toast- liberally buttered, soft and salty, meringues that Annabel would try and eat in one go and then be stuck grimacing as she tried to work her jaw around an impossible obstacle. Round the corner from Flurys was the Kalimpong Homes shop that sold the cheese from the Swiss Fathers that Mum would sent to Freda Bedi and Hopela.






The oddest thing that we remember is the quality of the meat. Odd because Calcutta is predominately Hindu and that meat at all should be available was exceptional, Kathmandhu for example offered Buff Burgers: not nice, while we enjoyed undercut or filet as routine. We had the large Muslim population of the city to thank for that.  It certainly spoiled  you for steak as until I was 22 I didn't know there were other cuts of beef! Likewise the fish - fresh from the coast we had bekti, firm white fleshed fish that tastes of heaven - cod is a sad cousin. Lobster, plump and sweet  dressed a la Thermidor with mountains of melting cheese or in Newburg sauce rich with sherry and cream. Hilsa, the iconic Bengali river fish, cooked delicately so the many bones would not spoil its exquisite flavour.


Any ex Calcuttan will request the same dish if asked to choose for a desert island: Nizam's kathi rolls. How can they be described? Basically a kebab wrapped in a paratha but so much more than that. They were the food of late nights or a snack before going to the cinema or pretty much any time the hunger overtook us/ Rumours were always rife that the meat inside the roll was cat but if you didn't look too closely you could push that to the back of your mind as you allowed the flavours to overtake your fears of eating a moggy. As well as Nizams there was Teen Murthi where you could sit at a table and eat your roll - delicious but the brown paper bag and the eating in the car or as you walked were as much a part of the experience as the flavour.

There was an evening, not long before I left, when Harish phoned to see if I would like to go to the Royal for Friday night dinner. I naturally  assumed he meant the golf club, and, although thinking it was rather a long way for dinner, said yes and rushed off to get ready. I dressed up a bit - the Royal was a posh golf club - and we set off. We seemed to be going in the wrong direction - all the landmarks I could see pointed towards downtown Calcutta not Tollygunge but I held my peace thinking that Harish must surely know where he was going. We arrived at a place that was most definitely not a posh golf club and there raised eyebrows from my bejeaned friends at my long dress and make up. They were kind enough to say nothing and we went into the building. The restaurant was at the top of the rickety stairs and as we entered a hush fell briefly over the room. We were escorted to a enclosed booth and without consultation Chicken Biriani was ordered for all.


It turned out that the Royal was a restaurant that mainly catered for a Muslim clientele and the Friday nights were the time to eat there as the Biriani was cooked specially for an after prayer meal. It was superb, fluffy white rice mixed the with fluffy saffron rice hiding beneath it the secret of juicy chicken and new and exciting flavours. Better than anything a golf club could offer.


Two extremes will serve as my ending: both Friday lunchtime specials. The Bengal Club, holding firm to its past as it reinvented itself for the future would serve steak and kidney pudding. To eat something so quintessentially English in the heat of 102 with 90% humidity was to fully appreciate Noel Coward's genius in writing Mad Dogs and Englishmen. The other was favourite restaurant and I have spent years trying to recreate the meals I had there. Chicken Butter Masala, naan and cheese and peas - this is meal that will be served in heaven if I ever get there. Amber. Close to the Statesman offices this was a lunchtime treat as often as any of us could afford it or make the right excuse. Chicken Butter Masala has no relationship with Chicken Tikka Masala other than a vague similarity in the colour of their sauces. Chicken taken from the bone placed in a butter masala - sheer bliss.


I am going to have to stop - I am starving!

Winter Wonderland.

Winter or the cold weather was the time for visitors - down from the hills or exotically from far away Europe, Australia or the States. Looking back on it now there was a rhythm and pattern to it but as a small baba it just seemed like a dizzying whirlwind of new people and change.

The first arrival was usually Mig from San Francisco. A highly intelligent ex - diplomat who had links to the famous Schwartz toy store in New York. It was Mig who always bought the latest music and so it was that we were able to listen to Sergeant Pepper and Tommy in real time not Calcutta time. She was passionately attached to Desmond and constantly offered the security of an American passport if he would but marry her. There were some perilous times when my mother was called in to ensure his chastity. Despite this Mig and Mum were good friends - perhaps each recognised the other's hopeless obsession.

Mig would start her holiday with us in Calcutta, staying at the Grand and giving us all the chance to spend the evening there. She and Desmond would glide around the dance floor and, if she was lucky, the hold would be tightened and a light pinch of the bum would cause her to float, glassy eyed and helpless in his grasp. Do not for one minute think that my mother took this lying down - in fact there was,most evenings, a hissed row about leading the poor woman on. Her great moment of revenge came late one evening when Desla and Migla had spent a great deal of time swaying to Bessame Mucho - too much in her opinion - and she was bored and irritated.

Into the restaurant came the legendary figure of Boris from Kathmandhu. He was White Russian, had been a dancer in the Ballet Russe and set up Kathmandhu's must stay hotel, the Royal. There was much joy at meeting of old friends and he joined us for a drink. It wasn't long before Desmond led Mig back onto the floor and then Boris asked my mother to dance. Like a greyhound out of the traps she was on her feet and they soon were foxtrotting and quickstepping everyone else from the floor. Her teenage years had been during the war and her dancing was honed from endless nights when dancing was the only release from the fear of the war and the bombs. Boris just loved to move in time with the music and between them they created an atmosphere of wonder as we watched them slip and glide and run and turn in perfect synchronicity.

Needless to say someone got jealous and, when the music stopped, casually handed Mig to Boris and took Mum into hold - what followed still makes me smile with the sheer joy of it. They did their Calcutta Grind -  inspired by God knows what - but fabulous to watch. It involved legs entwined, slow pauses just behind the beat of the music followed by swift staccato movements to bring back to that rhythm. You would think it was something they had rehearsed for months but it was truly improvised and it was their being perfectly in tune with one another that allowed such risk taking. They were of course still involved in the hurling of epithets at each other, "Bitch," we heard as they passed one way, "Gigolo," as they returned. And when it was over and Begin the Beguine was  closing the night, they danced more normally and laughed and laughed.

Mig would leave us to go to Kalimpong and the aunties - usually following this up with a quick trip to Bhutan or Sikkim. Then, the next group of visitors would arrive. There were normally Desmond's friends, mountaineers or journalists. Ed Hillary and his wife Louise would always stop in Calcutta en route to Nepal. Ed was extremely fond of Desmond and always wanted a few days with his friend. Mum and Louise got on very well - two men's women who respected and liked each other. One year they arrives full of excitement; they were going tot spend the next year in Kathmandhu. Over dinner Louis invited Mum and me to come up and stay when they had found a house to rent. It was agreed and plans were made.

Some two weeks later we woke to the horrible news that Louise, on a visit to her charity, Schoolhouse in the Clouds, had become a victim of the very dangerous landing of a plane in the Kathmandhu valley. The Statesman carried a picture of Ed  looking up at the mountains that had made his fame, waiting for his wife to come back from them. It was an incredibly moving picture and one that Desmond branded as too intrusive.

The Hillarys would be followed by the French aristocrats - they would actually stay with us and so Janie and I were shipped off to friends or made to share a room. There would follow a week  of frantic activity, delicious food and sightseeing - a mutually beneficial arrangement that allowed both parties to bend the rules on the use of hard currency. Later in the year we would go to Paris and stay at the George V - be wined and dined by the creme de la creme. Sadly I missed the wining and dining, too young, but I was taken to Fouquets for petit fours and hot chocolate. It started a love affair with Pairs that continues to this day.

They too would disappear into the mountain to return three weeks later  remorselessly stripped of their Parisian chic and humbled into blue jeans and soft woolly sweaters. A few days recovery and then they would depart and we would await the next coming with anticipation and some unease.

Kalimpong. They would stay in a small hotel just off Chowringhee and attendance was mandatory both morning and  evening. Annie Perry's bath was full of bottles of Johnny Walker Red Lane and the talking. drinking and dancing would continue late into the night. Mum was expected, with car and driver, not later than nine in the mornings to chaperon and ferry the three on their annual shopping spree. People keep telling how Calcutta has changed and yet I look at videos and see little more than some building work that has altered the skyline. For the aunties this was also the case, they shopped at the same shops they had used as girls: linen was bought and glasses and crockery - all inspected with sharp eyes and bargained for intensely - even an eight anna reduction was seen as a triumph. Then to silk shops as bolt after bolt of raw silk and pure silk were spread out for their delight and then to Flurys or back to us in Alipore for lunch followed by a rest and preparation for the night's festivities.

It was normally at this point that we all decamp to Puri, Mum needing a rest from the frantic hospitality and Dad needing a rest from having to be so social. After ten day of sunshine and sea we would return eager to pick up the baton again. And still they came, journalists reporting on the Bangladesh war, many of them verterans of Vietnam, without fear of authority and without thought for the consequences of their actions. Desmond would be awoken at tow or three in the morning to come and get them out of custody after they had been caught trying to creep up to the border. Chogyal and Hope from Sikkim, lovely meals eaten with gold cutlery and off silver and gold plates. The Bhutanese - wild parties, that I was yet again too young for, where dancing was de rigeur and the alcohol flowed a little too freely. Jockeys out out for winter's working holiday - at any one time there would be Geoff Lewis, Walter Swinburn Senior and Rimp or Lenny Dorji playing pontoon while on the other side of the room a passing BBC wallah was engaged in hot debate abut China's intentions for India and Tibet.

By now Dad would admit Desmond to Woodlands for a few days citing angina and forbidding all but essential visitors. He would also put his foot down firmly about the constant parties and my mother, in a state very  close to total exhaustion, would submit joyously to his tyranny and we would slip gently and gratefully towards the hot weather and the slower pace of life this would demand.

View in the Mirror

After finishing yesterday's blog I felt great - as if I had achieved something and yet I really hadn't done anything different. So, being a little self analytical, I had a think about it and realised it marked a change. We see ourselves, to a greater or lesser extent , mirrored in the eyes of others. I f you have been a beloved top brick, as I was, then the lack of a loving reflection can cause a form of psychosis: a breakdown of the self image.

What yesterday's blog taught me was that for every one person that sees me a waste of space, shot away or just a whining pain, there is someone who sees me - the me I used to know. Gregg has messaged me and made me laugh and been so incredibly  thoughtful to someone he hasn't seen for  over thirty years that his constant positive take on things has begun to rub off a bit. Another old friend, who only has a distant memory of a female he used to try and teach Karom to, sends me articles and videos and talks of good things always.


All of my friends have lined up over the last year and provided such support and love. Not just the ones who I have stayed in touch with but those I have been able to find using this interweb thing. It is amazing to me that so many of you keep reminding me that I am loved - that you care enough to do it. I love all of you too and don't say it nearly enough.

I wish I could say that the worst is over - that this disease, mental health issue, whatever has gone. I don't think it has and I don't think it ever will.  That seems to be my journey now - to deal with it and, hardest of all, to live with it. So many of you who have written to me and told me of your journeys speak of learning to accept what we have and deal with it as best we can. You humble me because all I do is howl at the moon and thrash about in an orgy of self pity.


Those of you who don't know what this is like find it uncomfortable when I am too frank but those of you who do recognise the need to try and make people understand. The self harming thing is a physical manifestation of how awful we feel. The worse the cuts and bruises and burns the calmer we become because there is something concrete to show - look I bleed, I bruise, I hurt. Those who don't feel this are appalled - how can you slice your arms with a knife - you can, I can, we can, because in that moment the pain is real and visible and tangible and no longer needs to be explained by the euphemistic, ' bit down' or 'black dog'.

I suppose I am trying to say that I would like you to continue to be understanding or try to and bear with me. It is one hell of a battle and how it ends I don't know  but with your help and love I must stand a better chance than I would alone. If I can continue to see the image that so many of you reflect back at me, if I can try and believe that woman does still exist, then I have a chance.


And those of us who talk of these things in long emails to each other and are afraid to say out loud and in the open how shit it can be - we have each other to reflect in - and we are all worthy of loving and being loved. I can say this because I am in an'up' phase- lets all try and remember it when we are 'down'.

And finally - sorry, it's not a small baba day -  to those of you who say it is all in the mind -yeah we know that thanks - and go for a walk - you go for a bloody walk - and pull yourself together - do you know what? You do not reflect me. You reflect your own issues and they are not mine/ours. Those people who offer kindness and love reflect me because that is what I would offer back.

Oh You Pretty Things

!972 was a good year. There were quite a few reasons for this but I think the main one would be the arrival of the Allen boys in our midst. Now coming up to 17 I think I was beyond the adoration of Peter Yeti, still dotty yet realistic about John Brinnand and ready for something or somebody new.

Annabel's brother Tony was  spending an enforced year in Calcutta (some minor misunderstanding about herbal cigarettes at his school) and we already had formed a comfortable alliance. We were studying French together at the Alliance Francaise and Tony had pretty much decimated the female students there. We were both slightly bored and at that stage of adolescence when adulthood is not quite there but the child has gone forever.

Tony was wandering around taking photographs and exploring where his art would  take him. I was floating. I had. at last, put my foot down about school and I think everyone was relieved that the battle was finally over. I certainly was. I used Annabel as my link to the academic world as she struggled over her O and A levels: being lectured to as she fought the intracacies of Donne and Shakespeare. I would go away, quietly, and read what I could then return the next day to argue the point.

Life was quiet and a little dull and then into our lives like an explosion of the real world came Frank and Gregg Allen. We knew about hippies. My mother had rescued a few, rather as she later rescued dogs and horse, and they had on the, on the whole, been rather boring and unoriginal. You should remember that we were slightly retarded when it came current popular culture. Woodstock had only been shown for the first time some three months previously and we were still doing the Fish chant long after the rest of the world had moved on. Then suddenly there were two you see pictured above.  Imagine the novelty value if nothing else.




Frank and Gregg's parents were with USIS - not as as formal or as uptight as the consular people and the boys were spending their parents' last few months in India with them. Their sister Catherine was just finishing school at AIS in Delhi.


I started to write this a few weeks ago and shied away because I couldn't find the words to explain their exotic appeal. Then, last night Gregg posted this picture and, Marcel eat your heart out, I was 17 again and there they were. The wild men. And beautiful Cathy - the first girl I knew to ever keep Tony firmly in line. It was literally love at first sight - I saw Frank and something inside turned upside down. I don't think it was reciprocated - he was just patient and very, very laid back.


I was lucky in one sense: they were desperate for music and I had a portable record player and Tony and I between us had a reasonable record collection. At first Gregg was not disposed to approve of my Glam Rock fixation with Bowie but it didn't take long and it remains a shared love to this day. Tony had all the boys albums: Floyd and like which I endured out of love and affection for him. I think that they gave me my passion for Van Morrison but Gregg seemed a little hazy about that so maybe it just came through the ether.


I was always happiest in love: being able to follow devotedly, tongue tied as always - how is it that someone who talks nonstop most of the time, has only to fancy someone to become mute. We spent hours sitting on the floor of their room in Harington St./Ho Chi Minh Sarani/Shakepeare Sarani - think it must have been Ho Chi MInh because Vietnam had a year or so left to run. There were herbal cigarettes involved, a lot of herbal cigarettes - which was fine because I wasn't all that keen on them. 


Tony disappeared for awhile - I think to England - and I was left with the two of them until another friend, taking time out from school for those same herbal cigarettes, joined up with us. He was really an old enemy - someone I had fought bitterly with in the past - and, although a truce existed, the easy content and comfort of the time with Tony disappeared.


I know they all went to visit a brothel one night - Gregg said recently it was so full on that he was unwilling  to do more than look. It must have been Camac St. - can't imagine that they went to Bhowanipur.  I remember being livid - they had found somewhere I couldn't follow them and all three were not as adult or as cool as I had thought. This came mainly from knowing most of the working girls through Sunday afternoons at Trincas and dances at Christ the KIng. I knew their boyfriends and now they suffered because these girls really had very little choice.  I was, of course, spitting jealous that my hallowed Frank had been put in harm's way. Yes, I know now he was able to make his own decisions but then it seemed like part of monstrous conspircay,


The time they were there seems to ellipse into a series of images, of parents going away so having endless floating parties that went on for days - of washing Frank's hair - of making cinnamon and cardommun tea - of being jealous and hurt and ecstatic. Of Frank telling me I shouldn't wear shorts - have never worn anything above the knee since. Of  Gregg being pissed off because it must have felt like I was always there. Of falling for the pick a favourite star joke - "you picked Uranus!" - and being Joanus ever afterward  (yes that was hurtful). Of night after night in the IN and OUT (Calcutta's first discotheque at the Park Hotel). Of dancing to great music and feeling so cool because I was with these two.


It was the year LMOB won the All India rugby and they became fervent fans - the friendship group ebbed and flowed - now with  US marines and their Marine House bar with banana daiquiris and imported beer - now with Chandru and Joe Verghese  at the In and Out - now watching the rugby and seeing Frank smitten with an incredibly sexy Beverly Savedra - now seeing iron man Gregg cracking at the sight of my beautiful half Tibetan friend Lynette (on extended leave for smoking at school) - now Tony nursing a rare bruised heart from his encounter with Cathy -  meeting my friend Phoebe and seeing her head towards becoming another Duncan Smith casualty. Realising there was a world beyond mine and wanting to be part of it and being hopelessly, besottedly in love.


As with all friends it seemed their time was all too short with us and in May 1972 they left. I remember taking their  leaving presents to say goodbye and being in complete denial about their departure - I can't remember what I gave Frank - probably something hideously inappropriate with a long letter attached - but I do remember what i gave Gregg. On my sixteenth birthday the aunties had given a pair of brass bangles, "They should be gold dear but there will be so many handsome young men to buy you those." like those given to all Nepali girls as they matured. I gave Gregg one of them. How do I remember? I still wear the other.


They were gone and with them that aching joy of real first love - not obsession - but affection founded on knowing someone and enjoying their company, of the intimacy of washing their hair and making tea. A recently found ex love said in an email to me that I placed far too much importance on the feelings of the past and should look to the future. He may be right although I doubt it - Gregg is one of those people who , with gaps of five or ten years, still remains comfortably a special and loving friend. Frank had the most lovely partner who shares my passion for Cat Stevens and Farmville and he, bless him, seems still to be this lovely laid back person who does not get ruffled when the mad woman of twenty years earlier calls (this was awhile ago) but talks and laughs and is glad to be remembered.  Here's to the Allen boys and the great and very happy memories we share.










  

Odds and Sods

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I am useless at early mornings unless I have been up all night. Many is the time that I have found my way home only to pass my parents on their way out. In a hot climate activity has to operate around the day - avoiding that middle bit where the earth seems to hold its breath and all is sleepy and subdued.

Calcutta in the early morning was at her most enchanting. Never empty, for how could a city so large be empty, but still in the brief time after the sun had risen she had sparceness that allowed her well wrought bone structure to show. The maidan, that green space that makes us exiles sigh for the city, in the early morning would have a veil of mist through which would come boys herding goats to prime positions for the days' grazing, horses going to the track for exercise and the rumble of the city around as it awoke.

To ride the tram at that time was to see all this a slower pace than in a car and would give one the glorious sense of  being the first to see this unexpected beauty. All too quickly the traffic would start its daily intricate  dance: snarling and unsnarling, tooting and hooting, engines idling spilling out their fumes. But in the hour just after dawn all this was a vague memory and it seemed impossible that these open roads could be anything other than highways of delight.

Travelling in India was, for me. always a series of images: snapshots of passing villages, paddy fields and a life far removed from that of the city. As I think about it I realise that most of those images are framed by the windows of trains as we chugged through on our way to somewhere else. Those journeys are memories of delight at the passing landscape,  the excitement of each new stop and the thrill of reaching somewhere new and unexplored.

My longest journey was from Calcutta to Jammu - seemed to take a week but I think it was three days and two nights. for this was how the journey was counted - by the days and nights on the train. I went with my dearest friend Dubby, who you haven;t met yet but will learn to love as I do. We were going to his sister's wedding - her father the General of the North West Frontier - what a title to conjure with that was.  The concept of a simple backpack and maybe a foldaway sleeping bag was utterly alien. Instead we had suitcases, bedrolls, food and drink and changes of clothes.

Living on a train, even for a short time, requires an adjustment in attitude and mind set. You are enclosed and held hostage. The only way to survive is to let go - let the rhythm of the journey dictate the pace of the days. It almost becomes unbearable when you finally do leave to lose that sense of surrender.

That journey, across India from one side to the other allowed a vision of a country so disparate yet  linked, populous with acres of seeming space - in short the eternal dichotomy that is India. From Bengal's green fields of rice - through Bihar - the river beginning to be seen at ever closer quarters and then the realisation that our Hooghly, although superb, was but a tributary of this mighty artery of India the Ganges. Varanasi seen at sunrise, the sun huge, rising from the river like a god at the start of the day . Lucknow and chicken curry - the best ever. And on. And on.

Early morning in some unnamed station- the raucous call of, "Chai, garum chai!" and the sweet warmth of the clay cup, the ultimate recyclable container, and faint taste of cinnamon and sweet milk mingling with the tea to provide an early morning miracle of awakening. Again that pall of mist rising to reveal villages where chidlren stood to wave at the train as it passed and pi dogs and cows grazed anxiously for remnants.  It seemed like a whole world was passed by - lives we would never touch - stories we would never hear but for that brief second of waving as we passed through.

So many journeys are about arriving - my Indian journeys taught me to travel well - the destination having ultimately less impact than getting to it. Perhaps a lesson I should remember more often when the dark days come - the journey is everything and the early morning, whether found through lack of sleep or desire for solitude, often the best time to travel.

Five Things

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Hello again. Now I know I was mean and stroppy  a little while back and said that I had to be free to write what came to me: how about you help me out here? As I was trying to count sheep, do all the times tables, practice breathing - the common symptons of a bad insomniac night - it came to me that lists can be fun. It was two o'clock in the  morning. The one that I quite enjoyed making was this:

Five Things Our Mothers Never Told Us

• Gravity is an enemy as you get older
• The menopause sucks!
• You don't get wiser - you just get better at conning people
• Elasticated waistbands are bliss
• Spend as much as you can on a good night cream

You see - instant wakefulness of course -- but still more fun than sheep - unless you're Welsh! (I am so I can say that) What about you dear reader? What would be on your list?

So that got me to thinking - what else could there be?

Five Movies to See Before You Die

• Casablanca
• Dirty Dancing
• Pretty Woman
• Top Hat
• Mr Deeds Goes to Towm

I seem to have missed forty years of Hollywood greats here but nonetheless these are personal and eclectic - I would want to know that I had seen all of them at least twice.

Five Books to Read

• War and Peace
• The Bible
• The Koran
• Dante's Inferno
• Mahabharatta/Ramayana

I have tried War and Peace several times but find the characters confusing and the the breadth and scope overwhelming. The Bible and the Koran - I dip in and out - loving the langruage, thoroughly approving of the sentiment but never reading right the way through. You will notice that the perennial favourite of this sort of list is not there - Finnegan's Wake; life really is too short.

Five Things to Remember on a Bad Day

• It only lasts 24 hours
• No matter how bad - somebody, somewhere else is having a worse  one
• Chocolate was invented by God for moments like this
• There is nothing wrong with putting your head under the duvet
• Phone a friend

Five People to Have to Dinner

• Peter Mandlesohn
• Princess Diana

• John Donne
• Marilyn Monroe

• My mum

Are you asleep yet? No? Nor was I. 

Five Places to Visit 

• Argentina
• Taj Mahal (all those years and I never went)
• Florence
• Venice
• Lhasa

Five Pieces of Art to Go and See Again

• Guernica
• Mona Lisa
• Sistine Chapel
• Rothko - Four Seasons
• Degas - Ballerina

Five Things to Say to the People You Love

• I love you
• Forget about it
• How are you?
• Any random piece of gossip you will both enjoy
• Shit happens

So there you are - now its up to you to get back to me with what I have missed, what you would put up there - let's have a bit of dialogue here.


Oh yes - and finally:

Five Ways to Get to Sleep

• Count sheep
• Make silly lists
• Tell yourself a story
• Close your eyes
• Take a sleeping pill!

NAVEL GAZING AND WHY WE NEED TO

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So here's the thing - all of this roller coaster was to get back to where we started and understand it. There were aims and goals  - to find John Brinnand, to re-establish long starved roots, to remember who I was before this sense of self destruction overtook my rational brain.


I went back to the beginning - to the love affair with my beautiful, crumbling, vibrant city, to the loves of my  youth, to when my mother was at her most witty, vibrant and enchanting. I found that most of those I loved were still my friends, that we could gossip on the chat line as if yesterday wasn't thirty years away. I found that to write gave me a voice I had lost and gave voice to others who will not or cannot speak. I had to learn that there a real world outside of this cyber space I seem to have taken up residence in.


And it has been hard - two attempts to kill myself, a new found capacity for self harm that is alarming and painful. The sense that sometimes poetry offered the only vision that made sense and that most people don't get poetry. And the unlooked for, unexpected kindness and love that had come back and forth as the pages have rattled out.


So here I am, six weeks later - 45 blogs - 1500 readers - and someone in Russia and someone in Denmark know my name and some of the secrets of my heart. I lay under the duvet this afternoon trying to make sense of this life. Reader, it was touch and go. Do I stay and fight or fade - I fight. I fight for the student who so lovingly told me she felt 'safe' in my classes for the first time in school, for the bad boys who not only made me their Facebook friend but bothered to see what I was doing and how I was - and wanted to tell me how they had changed. I am not alone, not childless - I have hundreds of children and I love them all so very much. I fight.  For the young man who learned to have fun, for the members of my tutor group who write of their extraordinary achievements. For the memory of my mother and Desmond. For Katy Joy. I fight.


I may fall back and this is a long, long road. But my fellow drama queens out there, we know the heaving bosom moment and the subtle gulp of tears as we face our next ordeal. As Scarlett would say, "tomorrow is another day". It is the journey that teaches us and we learn the lesson or perish.


So tonight this is a declaration of war on depression, anxiety, suicide and self harm. You are not going to win. I am not going down without one last battle. So bring it on. I have you dear reader as my secret weapon. You shine a bright light into the darkness and allow me to see a possible exit. Thank you. You will be relieved to know there will be an intermission of a couple of days. Get your breath back and be prepared, Again I thank you, love you and Good Night.


xxx

For a special someone

Dear Katy Joy,

I am your great aunt Joanna. By the time you are old enough to read this I may well be rocking around on my zimmer frame and not able to remember all the things I want to say to you. Tomorrow you get christened and so officially protected from the devil and all his works - it seems like a good time to give you my gift. To quote the song, "it's only words, and words are all I have", but they are for you alone.

You will not know the two people who have been so important to your mummy and grandmother. They will tell you about Mike, your grandfather, and Gangi, my mummy and your great grandmother. I hope you have their capacity for life and for loving people. They were both great lovers of life and enjoyed every moment they could. Remember that - grasp it with both hands and smile and love each and every second.

Janie, your granny, will tell you all about Mike - she has so many stories to tell you - and so does your mummy. When she was born there was almost a bad falling out because we all wanted to love her the most! The same with you. There is a huge capacity for love in this family and we give it freely to those who ask but we guard our hearts. Remember that - give your love but have a care for your own heart. I think you will always have love.

Gangi and Mike sometimes took the unexpected path and enjoyed the adventures that came their way. Your Aunt Katie does that - she loves the journey as I do. Your life will be a journey and although we would all love to map it out for you = you must travel your own path. Remember that, the journey should as much fun as arriving. Keep a merry heart and your journeys will be swift and joyous.

Gangi had only one real rule - be kind. Never let the unkind word or thought hurt others however much it might make you feel better. Kindness is easily given and always remembered. So be kind, to your friends and your family and your animals - because there will be dogs and cats and hamsters - be kind.

My most important gift in this letter is this  - treat every minute as if it was a precious stone, look at these people who love you so well and treasure their hearts. There is a golden chain that links you to all of us, it will never break and never fade and our love for you will always be there if you look for it.

Tomorrow afternoon I will see you smile at the vicar and I will see the smiles on the faces of those people who are there to show their love for you. It will probably make us all a  bit tearful but we are so glad to have you in our lives. Remember this - you have been a gift for us and we love and cherish you. My gift to you then, is this; my love and my heart for always.

Love you so much
Jona
xxx

Confidentially...

"Confidentially," I said, as we sat at the oyster bar in Terminal One at Heathrow, "confidentially Lisa, I am a bit of a drama queen." We had just seen our flight to Athens delayed by another three hours, lost and found twelve Year Ten drama students and given in to lobster salad and a glass of wine. Her partner Rory was collapsed on a banquette with an evil sickness bug that had left him alone and forlorn on the coach to the airport with a paper bag and some wet wipes.


My darling mother had died the year before and, in that phase of grief that feels nothing at all. I had blithely suggested a school drama trip - to Greece in the summer. Like all things that should not be wished for this had come true; much to horror of the senior staff, who a week before we left, realised that we were taking the A list of 'difficult' students and the responsible adults were me and Lisa McPherson, in her second year of teaching.


Hasty negotiations took place and Rory was added to the list as the token male presence. Lisa was sent on a freezing July morning to learn how to be a lifeguard and I awoke from my grief to cold blooded fear that  I would lose someone or that we would all be arrested for plane spotting or some other innocuous activity.


It seemed, as we let go of our fears with the wine and lobster, that the safest place was after all, here in departures lounge. The worst that could happen was they got on the wrong plane and, as nothing was moving, that was unlikely. "Confidentially Jo," she said, " so am I."


It must be the nature of drama queens to look for  the unsettling, frightening and downright absurd tricks that life plays on us and then to take them on in full battledress in the most glaring of spotlights only to sink into a humble bow as the lights dim and all is well and the day is saved. I suppose that is what adrenaline junkies seek as well: that moment of release when instinct and sheer tenacity are all you can  rely on.


I look back at that woman and find her more alien than the small baba. At 55 I am still not ready to be a grownup and I find it so strange that some of my friends have done so. I always thought that because I was a certain way so everyone else would be too -not so. It seems that some of us were blessed enough not to have to grow up and some chose to do so. What am I trying to say here? Yes, I am sure you are asking that too. 


Last night I reached down into that dark place again - still there today - and posted on my Facebook wall my choice of song if it was the last one ever. Imagine, thank you for  asking. Someone I used to teach, tried to teach, picked up that this was perilously close to a final farewell and sent me a panicky message. He tried to make me see the value of this tattered life and the value I had given to him. He succeeded in making me feel very ashamed - I have no right to act out my private dramas on the Facebook stage - to look for validation where I should need none. He also paid me one of the most lovely compliments I have ever had, that I had taught him about fun and laughter. It was meant to be English but I would settle for fun and laughter any day. So I lived through the night thanks to DHL but I cannot keep hoping that someone or something will magically appear and make this nightmare stop.


Perhaps that is why the 'grownups' disturb me so much - they seem to not to find this all so dreary and drab - they are contented with their lot - have worked hard to make their lives as they want. Maybe I am jealous that my fatal flaw (you see, the drama queen again, has to be epically tragic) does not allow me their comfort.


So, in my dwindling spotlight, I am outing myself - I am a drama queen - and I am proud to be one. The cardinal sin as a child was to be boring and this rag tag life of mine is never that. I cannot and will not make promises about tomorrow but today I  will stay and see if the dark lifts and the light comes through. I am responsible for my actions and their consequences even if I try to avoid that fact. To have made a child see that laughter and fun were part of learning is no small thing. To take Year Ten to Greece was no small thing - and we had a lovely time. 


These are not the worst things that could be written of one so, confidentially, I don't want to be a grown up and I am a drama queen.

Martha jis and Mountain Men

Image via Wikipedia

That is a deliberate misspelling in the title. Started by Desmond - who else. My mother had a hankering for the occult and inexplicable that allowed many visits to fortune tellers and holy places. She would slowly take it all in and then with a slight wrinkle of her nose pronounce the fraud. I suspect, had she ever really found someone delving deep into Joe's 'massmarojum'  she would have run a mile.


Nevertheless, as evidenced by Auntie Annie's ghost experience, the occult and the spirit world were constant topics to be examined again and again. One friend of Desmond's absolutely terrified her. He had been a Gurkha officer with Desla and lived in a charming little cottage in Kalimpong. He had tutored the King of Bhutan and one of Calcutta's richest tea barons. He was ascetic and, I believe, had spent some time on the ghats in Varanasi and Calcutta as a practising sadhu. Called Uncle Joe (the extended family thing again) my most vivid memory of him was a single, curling, uncut little fingernail that twirled and curled away from his hand like a yellow shard of sugar cane. He did not like children, a rarity in my small baba world, and so we rarely came into contact. He also did not like women either sexually or for their companionship. He particularly did not like my mother and his cold weather visits were always fraught with icy angers and secret meetings at Flurys for Desla and Mum to catch up without him knowing.


He would however accept and eat the ubiquitous Flurys chocolates - they were called Mont Blanc and were delicious - that served as a  one size fits all diplomatic offering when going to the hills. His dinner parties were notoriously nasty and in a small hill town where few spoke really ill of their neighbours he was both feared and disliked. The rumour was that he had enchanted the old lady to whom the cottage belonged and moved in there with only his sadhu's loincloth. He stayed becoming better dressed and better fed and she, pachara, drowned in a tiny puddle in her driveway. It was said that he had been seen pushing something down in a saucer of water at the time. Needless to say she had left the cottage and all its contents to him.


Much of this is bazaar talk, gossip completely unsubstantiated by anyone but, as a child, it provided an agreeable frisson to be aware that we knew this man of evil repute. He was called back to Bhutan to tutor the young prince, the present king's father alongside a charming, extraordinarily good looking young Oxford graduate Michael Aris. He was loved in Bhutan but then as my mother said there was a great deal of Tantric Buddhism there and he probably felt more at home. Being a bitch was not confined solely to Uncle Joe.



I think to set herself up in competition Mum decided to explore the world of the holy women of the mountains. We duly set off each morning to meet a mataji, a holy mother, and to explore her beliefs and ... very much along the lines of, "My dear, what are you doing here?"


After a number of interviews two were selected for their holiness and general 'witchiness' and Desmond was invited to join us in paying a visit for some spiritual guidance. And of course be impressed by my mothers' ability to spot  the 'real thing'.
The first one was found by climbing up the hillside  thought the rhododendrons to a small clearing where an elderly, rather plump, saffron clad Nepali lady waited to receive  her followers. Alarm bells should have rung when the sotto voce comment was heard, "Obviously hasn't withdrawn from eating yet", but we sat at her feet regardless and listened to the translation of her words of wisdom. Deeply moved my mother the acolyte led us all down the mountain for a curry lunch, bloody marys and a  lengthly discussion of the merits of her new found guru.


Desla listened in rapt attention as she held forth, pausing only now and then to check a point or to ask a salient question. By the time we all went for the obligatory nap she was walking on air, convinced that she had been able to show the mountain man something new and exciting.










It was decided that as the day had been so successful we would repeat it the next morning with Mum's other candidate. They went to dinner with Uncle Joe that evening and of course told him about the day. He said very little only raising a somewhat quizzical eyebrow over Desmond's apparent enthusiasm. He was concerned however when she told him about the mataji they were to visit next. This was a very different woman, young, very pretty and with strong links to Shiva. He warned my mother that this was no party game but she blithely ignored him; she was, after all, an expert now.


The next day came and with it news that Desmond was needed back in Calcutta and so the second visit was made just by my mother, my sister and me. The girl, for she was very young, looked afraid and there was, even to me, a real atmosphere of discomfort and fear. My sister has been hoping to have her palm read but we soon realised that we were not really welcome, and as we left we could see fresh blood around the trident that stood outside her house. All in all it seemed a good idea to give up mataji hunting for a while and spend some time at the gompa turning the prayer wheels followed by visit for tea with Rani Chuni at Bhutan House.


The following Sunday, back in Calcutta, the Statesman was published and Desmond, as always had written his column for the back page. He had, as promised, written about my mother's extraordinary find of a holy woman in the mountains. It was wicked, unkind and so funny that even now, not having read it for decades, I chuckle. The tale of the devout memsahib with her supplicant children kneeling at the feet of a somewhat bemused Nepali housewife  called Martha was Desmond at his best, and worst. The anger went from icy to volcanic and for some reason Uncle Joe was blamed for the whole debacle. Mum went back to finding antiques, training her horses and plotting her revenge.


The following winter the hill people started to arrive for their Calcutta holidays and as usual Mum had everyone to dinner. The talk turned to how the British and American young were appearing in their droves following the path of the Beatles and their time in Rishikesh with the Maharishi. Desla slyly suggested that Mum could set up as an agent and help them find their gurus. She withered him with the look of a gorgon and my sister, sensing danger, asked the aunties if the other mataji was still there. Uncle Joe shook his head. "No," he said, " she had a lover and her husband found them and killed them both."

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Birthdays and Bibelots

Today, 15th August would have been my grandmother's hundredth birthday. It would also have been Desmond's but how old I do not know. Ninety, I have discovered since starting to write this. That was one his enduring mysteries, how old , where from: how and who developed that prodigious talent?

His birthday was always a great celebration even if the exact years were never mentioned or glossed over. I do remember helping my mother prepare his fortieth birthday card: a giant cardboard heart made into an advent card hiding hair dye and pep pills for the aging man. He of course took the pills and had to be admitted to Woodlands by my father for palpitations. Yet again my mother had to hang her head in shame as she was wrathfully told off. Only those who knew both of them would have seen her shoulders shaking with hidden laughter as she ruefully apologised for her thoughtlessness. An apology that had to be repeated when the hair dye turned Desla's hair a gentle shade of rosy pink! She did get the icy anger for that one.

It always seemed that he arrived fully formed as a young journalist after the war. But how? He had been Gurkha officer and fought with them up the spine of Italy. He had been at Monte Cassino. We knew that because he had an enduring and deep love of the Gurkhas and would at the drop of a hat dance through the night to Nepali songs sung by small, fierce soldiers far from their homelands. I suspect he would have entertained Ms Lumley royally in Khatmandhu and, whilst applauding her intentions, would have loved the inherent comedy of her "Ayo Ghurkhali!" quasi royal visit to Nepal.

We knew about the war, not from him, but another friend, another doctor, Maurice Shellim who had also been a part of that force. He must have been very young for I cannot imagine him as much older than my parents and my mother was only just 18 when the war ended.

We know that he and his dear friend Frank Baines came to work at the Statesman in 46/47. They had a rooftop flat on the paper's building and set about learning their craft.

My mother and I discovered Frank Baines and his childhood in Cornwall but apart from the odd throwaway comment about ruins in Delhi and the ghosts of Lucknow Desmond's childhood was almost non-existent. 

So, how do you arrive at this man my mother met in the early 60s, a Renaissance man, gifted, charming, erudite, witty and to all intents and purposes the product of a superb education and a typical specimen of a European in love with the East and despairing of the West. That  much was true. Desmond's visits to his brother and sister in Sidcup would have him returning with joy to the urban sprawl and chaos of Calcutta, A suburban life of nine to five would never have been his choice.

One of the things I have found about this 'interweb' is that no-one can truly hide or wander away to reinvent themselves anymore. We can all steal someone else's identity but we cannot be lost. We leave a trail that it is all too readily available at the click of the right button on the right search engine. An ex-colleague and friend of mine, so fiercely Luddite that I had to teach the IT elements demanded of his English classroom  by the Natioanl Curriculum, swore that the pen would be his only instrument and a stamp the only way to reach him now endures the misery of his email being readily available to all who know the school that he works at. Annonymity is a luxury of a bygone era.

Fifteen years ago when I achieved that pinnacle of success, my very own Mac and internet connection (Tesco - free) my first search was for anything on Desmond Doig. Very little came back and what there was seemed primarily concerned with his links ot Mother Theresa and Ed Hillary. Contrast that with today and a search on Amazon.com.


Mother Teresa: Her People and Her Work 
Look Back in Wonder 
In the Kingdom of the Gods
My kind of Kathmandu: 
High in the Thin Cold Air 1ST Edition 
Biography - Doig, Desmond (1921-1983): An article from: Contemporary AuthorsSikkim - Text by Desmond Doig and Jean Perrin 
Once Upon a Time Many Moons Ago (About 1898)

He is no longer a half forgotten hero but a expert on all things related to his beloved mountains. Much of this is due to his, and my, dear friend Dubby Bhagat who has worked tirelessly to see that his legacy is there for the world to find. Type his name into Google and you will find many more than the two or three entries I found some ten years after his death. 56,100 to be exact.


Maybe now then there is a chance to see where he came from and how all was achieved. Still not so easy, the flip bio on most article repeats what we already knew; father an officer in the British indian Army, mother Irish, grew up in and around army camps in Briitish India. His father died when he was quite young and yet the mother and the children seemed to stay in India: why? Between the wars was a not a time that women independently chose to live alone in India with a number of children. We don't know. I do know that Desmond's mother has a chorten 'high in the thin cold air' and that it also marks some form of memorial to him more fitting than the lost grave in the British graveyard in Kathmandhu.


So many questions and so few answers - how are we made into the people we are? What influences us, drives us and teaches us to be the adults and humans  of today. I still do not know about Desla: I suspect his mother to have been rather like my own, following the charm of the East with zest, living life to the full and making sure her children saw all life not simply some narrow view of it. I do know who helped shape me, this wonderful man, my second father, my Daddy Des.

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