Many hues of Calcutta – The Hindu

Calcutta, in the good old days, was a melting pot of many small communities. We as children took everything for granted not realising the privilege of serendipitously being thrown into contact with the various small populations of children in our school.

As I realised in my later years, it was an enrichment beyond words that made me at home anywhere. I remember my Chinese friends with dark eyes and straight braids without even a hint of a wave, and their flower-like grace, exuding good humour and bonhomie.

Most of them were excellent in maths, outstripping the rest of us, and good with language skills. Their tiffin boxes were overflowing with goodies we coveted such as chowmein and fried rice, bamboo shoots cooked in sauces, and their sweet and sour dishes, a welcome treat always on offer.

But our friendship was not limited to the classroom. They visited our homes and enjoyed with obvious relish the variety of Indian dishes, especially my mother’s crisp dosas and pesarattu. They were good in basketball and badminton and did our school proud in tournaments and matches.

Quite a few of our friends had homes doubling as restaurants and these were much like our middle class homes of those days with clutter, elders and children and extended family members bustling in and out among the furniture, with good cheer and hospitality. We ate in their drawing rooms and porticos in warmth and harmony. The whole ritual of eating, high on taste, was a soulful affair.

Festive days

And there were festive occasions at their homes when we were invited and fed sumptuously and seen off with little gifts. How we waited for these times! In fact, a friend of my brother’s would come round every Chinese New Year’s day in his rickety car carrying huge gleaming aluminium containers of chowmein and fried rice enough to share with our friends and neighbours down the whole street. Friends arrived armed with their plates and spoons and carried some goodies in their tiffin boxes. Food became a communal, celebratory, sanctified affair that day. I remember visiting their ornate temples and churches, most of all their streets brightened with colourful banners and inscriptions and their ever-smiling faces.

Such was our camaraderie that we enjoyed their hospitality, and bought shoes strong and sturdy from their shops. Their mothers and grandmothers gifted delicate exquisite lace that added a touch of fashion to our otherwise plain dresses. As we grew up and stepped into the big bad world pursuing our lives and aspirations and with many of them moving out of the country, we lost contact with them but sepia-tinted memories of those days visit us once in a while. I am back in the classroom, the play field, a drawing room with plates full of steaming, flavourful chowmein and a people who made a home for themselves away from home blending their lives with our own.

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