My Indian Childhood

Prothom Pujo Calcutta, mid-fifties.   The house was set back amid trees. I remember large rooms, high thresholds, windows overlooking a quiet street, a little shop selling essentials. A high wide bed, my parents lifting me onto and off. My father and I calling to the shopkeeper whose helper would run across to make immediate deliveries. My father handing me coins to place on the boy’s outstretched palm.  We went often to shops, parks, the zoo. Early one morning, we went farther to a busy place with heaps of bright flowers. My father held me high above the crowd, amid deafening drumbeats and ringing of bells, we saw a goat sacrificed. I sensed consternation on my mother’s face as she turned me away.  Years later, she told me that it had been a trip to Kali Bari. We strolled outside late to look at glittering idols festooned with flowers as people sang and beat on drums. My mother often looked exhausted and my father called me to him whenever I clambered onto her lap. I was often

A Smile for Chacha Nehru The year 1960 began with the Indian Science Congress session taking place in Bombay. I had turned five and started in elementary school soon after my sister was born, the previous year. Juggling the simultaneous and sometimes-conflicting demands of two young children, my family had gradually regained its equilibrium and now our lives were slowly returning to a more predictable pattern. A couple of times a month, my parents would plan a special outing towards the late afternoon or evening in which I was often included. My mother and I sometimes would catch a train downtown to Churchgate Station and walk or ride a cab to wherever we were headed – a movie theatre, a departmental store, a restaurant, someone’s home. A little later, my father would join us there and we would spend the evening doing whatever we had planned. As the sun began setting beyond the waters of the Arabian Sea, casting magnificent golden-orange and purple streaks across the