Fun ways to waste time!

Confession time - I'm as addicted as the next person to Facebook, particularly to the various apps (applications, for the uninitiated) they offer, despite K's amused disapproval and warnings on what great time sucks these are. But these apps are fun; they're relaxing; and there are times when you actually get to learn things about people you thought you knew - who's competitive, who's obsessive, who's bitchy, for instance.

Farmville, my favourite - and that, I suspect of thousands of others - is, as the name suggests, all about farming and the farm life. You have your own plot where you grow cereals, fruits, vegetables; plant all sorts of trees; and tend to your livestock. The trees and animals/birds mostly come as gifts from friends, who are your Farmville neighbours, while the seeds you buy from the market. You buy at lower rates and sell at market prices, thus increasing your store of FV coins and cash - with that money, you grow your farm, buy all sorts of essentials (like wells, hay wagons, fences, etc.) and buildings (like your own little cottage, or a barn for the cows), and steadily climb up levels (because all this activity rewards you with experience points). You work on your neighbours' farms for coins and XP, which is fun - and it also gives you an opportunity to see what they've been up to on their farms. It is competitive, since you are climbing levels, after all - and you can crow over each achievement on your home page - but on the whole, it is a peaceful, happy, friendly game. Unlike some other farming games (yes, there are more - many more!) where you can actually sabotage your neighbours' crops and steal their animals! (closes eyes in horror)

Sorority Life, on the other hand, is not so - well - friendly, or peaceful, or happy. As the name suggests, it is about joining sororities, and asking your friends to be your sisters - you can dress your avatar in cool clothes, get a cool job, and 'socialise' for money and influence points, which again helps you climb levels. But here's the flipside - it is fiercely competitive, and downright bitchy. You can 'fight' other girls - especially those with houses smaller than yours - and each win nets you cash and more influence. And, as my house is pitiably small, I tend to be 'fought' rather often, and 'destroyed' with dismal frequency. You learn some rather amusing details of American life - for instance, a waitress makes more money than a research assistant, and therefor is a more lucrative career option; and being an art gallery intern, however exciting that sounds, ranks way down than a wedding planner. The game cleverly stokes the competitiveness that's unfortunately inherent between women while harping, at the same time, on sisterhood and solidarity - and while Sorority Life is the only place where I (or my avatar, to be precise) can dress in Christian Dior, wear Manolo Blahnik sandals, carry a Prada bag and drive a Cadillac Escalade in this lifetime, this game is getting a tad too annoying - and boring - for me.

But why, as I was asking K recently, do resolutely urban people, who take pride in their country's rapid urbanisation, their mushrooming malls, branded clothes, pedigree dogs and fancy cars, get addicted to a game about farming and tending animals? Granted, you're not really expected to muck out or get down and dirty in real fields - everything's done with the click of the mouse in air-conditioned confines - but still, farming?? Seriously? Because it represents an idyll, K said, that we all secretly - and some of us not so secretly - long for; or is perhaps because you can be in total control of what goes on in your farm, without having to contend with, say, the vagaries of the monsoons, a control you cannot extend to any other aspect of your life; or perhaps because a gentle, friendly game like Farmville takes one away from the relentless competition and expectations that permeate most people's lives.

Or perhaps I'm reading way too much into an essentially mindless game that is, above all else, FUN! :D

A nightmare journey

After a recent visit to Darjeeling/Siliguri, K and I were returning home to Kolkata on the Darjeeling Mail, which leaves New Jalpaiguri at 8.05 PM and arrives at Sealdah station at 6.00 AM the next morning. My cousin, whose house we were staying at in Siliguri, had us dropped off at NJP station, and armed with our baggage and one rather fragile gift for a two dear friends, which I clutched to myself, we entered the train. The first sight that greeted me was that of a short, fat, pot-bellied man dressed in a tee and - get this - boxer shorts, performing some ablutions at the sink immediately before the door. I remember thinking vaguely how weird some people were - I mean, what's the point of getting into your night clothes in public on a train, for God's sake? - before following K in to find our seats.

Now, I hate trains. Always have. Being cooped up in a compartment with so many people makes me claustrophobic, and since I've never had much luck where co-passengers were concerned, the journey becomes, at best, tedious. Plus there's the close proximity of strangers in 3-tier coaches, which I find horribly intrusive. Planes might be just as bad at times, but at least it's all over in a few hours. So anyway, we find our seats, tuck our luggage away, I squirm my way into my window seat (luckily we had a lower and a middle berth) - not an easy task, since someone had helpfully wedged a suitcase right where I was supposed to keep my legs. K settles down next to me, we start talking, and then Mr Boxer Shorts comes in and plumps himself across from me. K's eyes widened, and we grinned at each other. And then arrived two other men, all clearly from someplace in UP, judging by the language they spoke - one in a loose white kurta pyjama, with hennaed hair and a tiki/choti at the back, marking him out as a Brahmin; and the other a huge fat man with a stomach to rival Boxer Shorts'. They plonked themselves down, began talking loudly, interspersed with loud chants of 'sri radhe radhe' every now and then. Across from us, on the two side seats, was a Marwari couple, who had begun eating their dinner quietly.

So far so annoying. But now, just a little while before the train was to depart, arrived another man, clearly of the 'sri radhe' party, completing the cosy foursome, again a potbellied, slightly seedy, but otherwise ordinary looking person. He stands there, talking as loudly as his pals, and then I notice him beginning to unbutton his shirt. 'Here's another about to wear his night-suit,' I remember thinking. Except he didn't. Wear anything fresh, that is - the disrobing, on the other hand, continued. While K and I watched aghast, this person calmly removed his shirt, sat himself down on the seat opposite, rucked up his undershirt almost to his shoulders, and, as if that wasn't enough, proceeded to unbutton and unzip his trousers. I shot one appalled look at K, who was staring expressionlessly at the man, dived into my bag, yanked out The Wizard of Earthsea, and stuck my nose resolutely into it. Bless Ursula le Guin for being brilliant enough to even engage my attention at that moment; and I came up for air only when K asked me, in perfectly normal tones, if he should 'tell that pig to wear some clothes and behave himself'. I asked him not to - I didn't think we could take on four enormous ruffians. Just then, a respectable-looking Bengali gentleman came in, and it turned out that his was one of the seats that one of the barbarians had occupied. There was a scramble to get his luggage out so he could go sit where he rightfully belonged - and I'm not usually so provincial, but I have to admit that the sight of a decent Bong man filled me with unutterable relief.

I didn't look up from my book even once since then except to talk to K, and then I didn't look ahead, pretending - and I can do that very well if I choose - that the people crowding my space didn't exist. Nauseous sounds of chomping, slurping, burping a while later told me the cave men had sat down to feed; Ged had just reached Roke, and I followed his efforts to find the Archmage with a desperation that rivalled his own. After a while K pokes me and says - again in his normal baritone - 'Look at that fat pig. He doesn't even know how to eat properly.' I refused. K continued staring, still without expression. Once the burp fest was over, loud post-dinner chatter ensued; the Marwari couple had settled down to sleep, but their noise disturbed the lady in the lower berth so that she sat up, looking at them - K tells me her look was one of horror, and then she apparently looked at us with much sympathy. At some point they clambered onto their respective berths and relative peace ensued. The Bong gentleman made his bed on the top berth with much apologies for taking up our space while doing so; and then he climbed up and firmly switched off the lights. The Marwari lady lay down in relief, I emerged from Earthsea, and we had a quiet dinner in the relative privacy afforded by the darkness.

The medley of snores kept me up all night, but I didn't care; and when the train pulled into the station, I leapt out almost before it stopped. White kurta Brahmin was still snoring, incidentally, regardless of his pals' attempts to wake him. The last thing I saw was a coolie poking him - hard, I hope.

So. WHY can Indian men not behave themselves in public? I mean, is that so hard to do? As K said, if a foreigner had seen these buffoons, would s/he not have been justified in believing that Indians are an uncivilised race? And, as K said later, that disgusting disrobing was, in a way, a complete denial of my existence in the same shared space - women, in their world, are clearly invisible, inconsequential entities. I think there was both a denial and an affirmation operating at the same time - the entire episode was also for my benefit, a form of sexual intimidation targeted towards the woman so far removed from their own social milieu. As a student of sociology, I am aware of culture-specific behaviour - but I fail to understand what role 'culture' has to play in the lives of people who know as little about the norms of public behaviour as a caged animal. And if it comes to that, give me a caged animal any day. Nor was this display about class/caste - in the minds of most people, even today, the people lower in the socio-economic hierarchy are the ones who're considered 'uncivilised', 'uneducated'. These people were middle-class, and of the Brahmin/Kayastha castes. How could they have been brought up - or not - so badly? And the scary part is that these aren't the only specimens - most Indian men are this disgusting. My paradigm and theirs are so far removed that we might be living on different planets - and our worlds collide only rarely, for which I am thankful. I'm glad I don't belong to their world, for - and I'm stereotyping, but I think this time it's justified - these men, without doubt, are chauvinistic, misogynistic, patriarchal tyrants.

I'm never travelling on a train again, unless accompanied by people - and then we can travel in the 2-tier coaches, and hopefully we'll fill up all the seats around. Oh, and here's another bit of irony - there they were, these right-wing, Hindu, crude specimens of humanity, with their sri radhes and their talk of 'Shri Krishna ki Janmashthami', and there I was, in my cool Tantra tee which said, 'God is too big to fit into one religion'.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

David Yates, I thought, did a fine job with the fifth film, The Order of the Phoenix, which is a difficult book to translate into film, being the largest and the most unwieldy of the lot - so it was with great expectations that I went to watch The Half-Blood Prince, which happens to be based on the book I love best in the series. Except - it turned out to be a big disappointment.

The first half wasn't too bad, really - the screenplay had been tweaked to open the film in a subway cafe, instead of Privet Drive - and I think a few, like me, might have been disappointed at the omission of Dumbledore's impromptu tea party with the Dursleys; but Jim Broadbent's Horace Slughorn more than made up for it in the very next sequence. The sixth story is really about the coming of age of three, not all that different in very many ways, teenagers - Harry himself; Tom Riddle (the future Lord Voldemort, whose story is told through Harry's forays into Dunbledore's memories through the Pensieve, lessons that Harry had to learn if he was to ever defeat him); and Draco Malfoy, who, while facing the task given him by Voldemort, discovers the great gulf that exists between aspiring to evil and the actual doing of it. It is also the last 'normal' year the Hogwarts students are to have, so the usual activities that make up a school - Quidditch, classes and, for the 16-year-old sixth-year students, teenage romances - abound.

And that last is where the problem lay. Because the - to use a rather reprehensible phrase - 'Hollywoodisation' of the Harry Potter series meant that a decision was taken to highlight the 'snogging', at the expense of more important matters. So half the film dealt with the Ron-Lavender, Ron-Hermione, Harry-Ginny sequences, some of them concocted for the audience's viewing pleasure, while grimmer, crucial details were unceremoniously cut.

The film had some great moments, though - as mentioned earlier, Jim Broadbent excelled as the bumbling, egoistic, well-meaning Slughorn; Alan Rickman's Snape was perhaps even more chilling; Helena Bonham Carter brought the evil, half-crazed Bellatrix Lestrange to life; and one could see very clearly just how comfortable Michael Gambon had grown in his role as Albus Dumbledore. The initial sequence with Narcissa Malfoy, Belltrix and Snape was beautifully done, with Helen McCrory managing to bring out a mother's desperation in the short time allotted to her. But outstanding were the two boys who played Tom Riddle at ages 11 and 16 - Hero Fiennes-Tiffin and Frank Dillane, respectively - as were those Pensieve sequences. The menace, evil, and quiet power that both boys brought to the screen were phenomenal - one only wished there could have been more of them, and less of, well, love potions!

But to my mind the actor who stood out was one who has, strangely enough, been written about the least, strange all the more when one thinks of the key role he plays - Tom Felton, as Draco Malfoy. Over the years, Tom Felton has grown into the role of Draco as surely as the three central characters have grown into theirs; and his portrayal as the increasingly unsure , vulnerable, and confused Draco was powerful, and entirely convincing. His racking sobs as he tried to come to terms with the depths to which he was being forced to sink; his contempt, that of one 'chosen', for his clueless classmates, a contempt laced with fear as he searches for the evil he hoped was within him, only to find it missing; his fury at Harry's discovering him at his most vulnerable - and, at the very end, the pleading in his voice and eyes as he tells Dumbledore, 'I have to do this. If I don't, he'll kill me' - all touch you in way that none of the other, more touted performances do. It's a shame that so fine an actor and so complicated a role has been allowed to get lost in the flurry of accolades heaped on less deserving ones.

While Yates captured the wild cliff face and the green cave where Harry and Dumbledore go to hunt for a Horcrux beautifully, complete with the terrifying Inferi, the climax, which never fails to move me to tears when I read the book, left me cold because of the ridiculous omissions - couldn't Yates have spent five minutes (cutting out the superfluous and entirely unnecessary scenes concerning the attack at the Burrow, for instance) showing how the students were taught to Apparate? How on earth is one to believe that Dumbledore, in his weakened state, could apparate Harry back to Hogwarts? And why, pray, did Dumbledore not stupefy Harry? Are we to believe that all Harry did through Dumbledore's final moments was gape open-mouthed at the proceedings, without even, at the very least, running for help? And speaking of help - where were the Aurors who were supposed to be patrolling the corridors and grounds, and who were shown at the beginning? Isn't it crazy that a group of Death Eaters could calmly kill Dumbledore, tear up the Great Hall, stride out of the front door, pursued by a lone Harry who had finally found his feet? David Yates' biggest mistake was doing away with the battle at the end, between Aurors and Death Eaters - the film leaves too many unanswered questions without it. And it's also sad that Dunbledore's death was not made more of - Hermione discussing Harry's snogging Ginny and whether Ron would approve bang in the middle of a talk about Horcruxes trivialised the gravity of the situation.

Given the hype that surrounds every major film release, it becomes very difficult to separate a film from its promotion, and to watch the characters on screen and not remember the actors. On reading the interviews, reviews, etc., one can forgiven for thinking that the films have just three actors - Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint (in that order of appearance). Too much rides on their shoulders, and here, at least, they fall woefully short - Daniel is, to quote the delightful Luna Lovegood (played to perfection by Evanna Lynch), 'exceptionally ordinary', Rupert clowns his way through, and Emma really hasn't much to do, except stare in a lovesick fashion at Ron and cry. Perhaps they have become a tad too confident of their ability to play these characters? Or perhaps the media conflation of these three with Harry, Ron and Hermione means they don't need to work too hard at their roles? Or perhaps they're plain bored. Any of these could explain the careless performances, made all the more apparent by the superb supporting cast, even those given very little screen time. Watch Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince only for these 'other' actors - both the established great actors and the younger, newer ones - and not for the three who usually hog the limelight.

The Harry Potter films are losing their charm. Or maybe it's my disillusionment with the whole series, brought on by the disastrous seventh book, speaking. Either way, give me Narnia or His Dark Materials any day.

Nostalgic for Rath

The Rath yatra festival came and went this year without most of us coming to know of it. My friends and I often talk of the happy childhoods we had, despite the absence - or perhaps because of it? - of cable TV, the Internet, reality shows and malls; and I realised sadly that the total disappearance of rath from the lives of people symbolises the passing of a way of life that was so much a part of our growing-up years.

As children, we didn't care much about the giant rath being pulled out of the Jagannath temple in Puri; what was important was us dragging our little rath models, with tiny idols of Jagannath, Balaram and Subhadra ensconced inside, down the rutted lanes of our neighbourhoods, a fun evening with friends and sweets and fried papad before us. The excitement began with the onset of the monsoons, and when the first delicate white flowers known as furush made their appearance in our garden, my happiness knew no bounds. And then the first rath models began to be seen in the market - they were rickety wooden affairs, hand-painted in bright colours, and in various sizes - little ones, almost as tall as I was when I got my first rath; others were taller, with two to four vertical compartments built into them. I still remember how proud I felt when I was considered old - and tall! - enough to be bought a 'three-storeyed' rath; and how carefully I placed my little idols, one in each compartment, with a tiny plate of sweets in the topmost 'storey'.

School gave over by 1 PM that day, after the morning classes; the pleasure of a half-day was heightened by the anticipation of decorating our raths at home, readying them to be taken out later, towards evening. I'd pester my mother and Didi to start helping me cover every inch of the rath, barring the front and the top, with strands of white furush and leafy stalks immediately after lunch; sweets would be bought from the closest shop and arranged on the tiny plates my mother had kept ready; and all the while I would be driving everyone crazy, blowing on the 'bhyapoo' - a long pipe-like object made of banana leaves with a plastic cone stuck at the top which, when blown into, made an infernal, ear-splitting noise, anathema to adult ears, but music to ours. By 4 PM my friends would be banging on our door, and out I'd scamper, the rope tied to the rath front clutched in my little hand, and off we'd go, importantly dragging our raths behind us, blowing on the bhyapoos and talking incessantly. Frequent stops had to be made to set our raths right - the ramshackle wooden structures and rutted roads meant that every five minutes, someone's rath would topple over. We'd meet other kids, look derisively at their raths and their decorations; neighbourhood adults would stop us to tell us how beautiful our structures looked; the older boys would find ways to distract us and steal the sweets so lovingly placed inside (running away before we could discover their perfidy, and before the consequent wails brought concerned, yet amused, parents out to refill those plates). By 5.30 it would start to get dark and we'd be called in - but then my father would carry my rath up to our large terrace, and I'd pull it around, with Sheru, our Alsatian, loping along, trying to get at the idols and sweets inside.

I always refused to take off the 'decorations' till the leaves and flowers had dried, clinging on to the festival for as long as I was able to; and then the rath and idols would be wrapped up carefully and stored in the loft, where it would remain for the next one year.

Children don't know what rath is any more - and I suspect that if they did, they'd find the idea of pulling a rickety wooden toy down the streets both embarrassing and ridiculous. Colourful raths are no longer to be seen in markets or on streets. The furush flowers sway gently in the breeze, but no one picks them any more to adorn little raths. The defeaning bhyapoos have fallen silent. And when they did, a part of childish innocence and fun was lost forever.

J.R.R. Tolkein, The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrun

This is the latest marvellous offering from Christopher Tolkein - two unpublished and unknown poems written by J.R.R. Tolkein sometime in the 1930s that were based on a corpus of poetry called the Poetic Edda, dealing with Nordic mythology. The poems are flanked by detailed commentaries written by Christopher Tolkein, and are preceded by an Introduction by J.R.R. Tolkein himself, taken from a lecture he delivered to the English faculty at Oxford University, titled 'The Elder Edda', which includes a fascinating discussion on how, as pagan religions in Scandinavia and Iceland gave way to Christianity, the wonderful world of old Norse mythology and folklore died out, coming to exist merely as disjointed fragments of what was once a rich oral tradition.

Lovers of fantasy fiction who are ardent admirers of Tolkein's works will love this, not least because it sheds a lot of light on the etymological and creative origins of Middle Earth, and some of it's much-loved characters. I just reviewed this book for BusinessWorld online, on their books site, so shall desist from rambling on here; but those interested in reading my review can visit the site at http://www.bwbooks.in/index.php/book_reviews/BOOK-REVIEW-The-Legend-Of-Sigurd-And-Gudrun.html.

And those of you nice enough to read the review, do come back and let me know what you thought!

On films

I must be among the very few not celebrating the return of Bollywood films to the multiplexes - I've been enjoying myself, actually, watching the good English films that the plexes were being forced to screen in the absence of suitable mindless fare - but now it'll be back to waiting impatiently for the odd good English film that pops in for about a week or so amid the gaggle of Hindi blockbusters. It wouldn't have been that big a deal had we still been in Delhi - most English films do make their way to the various PVRs, regardless of the presence of Bollywood; unfortunately, most Kolkata people, despite their many cultural and intellectual pretensions, are singularly unable to appreciate good films - for most, the 'best film' they have seen in 'a long time' is Dev D. English movies are, for most, merely an opportunity to make out in a semi-empty hall or, for those groups of badly-behaved, horny men so peculiar to Bengal, to catch sight of Kate Winslet's lovely legs.

But K and I've had a lovely time catching all the Oscar-nominated films, which begs the question - HOW did that very ordinary (at best) Slumdog Millionaire pip these fabulous films to the post? Granted, Danny Boyle did little else but lobby for nearly a year before the Academy Awards - but seriously, did everyone leave their brains behind when they cast their votes? Slumdog didn't have the depth, pathos, or the disturbing quality of The Reader; it had none of the joie de vivre, social relevance, energy or sheer brilliance that made up Milk; none of the slow narrative power, cinematography or wonder of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (and this despite Brad Pitt, who, despite special effects, resolutely remained Brad Pitt all the way through, allowing Benjamin not a chance to get under his skin); even Revolutionary Road, which proved disappointing (primarily because of all the expectations riding on it), had way more intensity and powerful moments than Slumdog could ever dream of. I guess all one can be thankful for is that they handed out the Oscars for acting to the people who truly deserved them.

But now it's back to sadly going over the movie listings and finding not a single one I'd like to see; growing ever more depressed at reviews of films that were long released but would never grace a theatre near me; asking hopefully for DVDs that take forever to appear in shops, if they ever do; and longing for that nice cheese popcorn that Inox serves.

But I suppose Star Trek will come to Cal theatres, right? I mean, even Cal people would want to catch Captain Kirk and Spock in action! And who doesn't love Wolverine?? And the Terminator - especially now that Christian Bale's playing John Connor? Right?

One can only hope.

The Delhi trip

After a gap of a year and half, I returned to Delhi for a short visit about a month ago. It had primarily to do with family matters, and was a whirlwind trip of a week, in which I had to pack spending time with family, catching up with a few friends, swatting off pesky work-related phone calls, getting a certain amount of work done, browsing at Midlands, and feeling incessantly homesick. I didn't, of course, manage to do quite a few things I had really, really wanted to - like eating loads of golgappas and plates of papri chaat, for instance - I didn't manage even one - and shoe shopping, and meeting or even talking to every friend of mine in the city, as a result of which at least one friend has stopped talking to me for what I fervently hope is the time being. But the net result is a feeling of utter relief at the knowledge that I no longer live in Delhi, that our decision to move out wasn't, after all, a mistake, in that we are definitely much happier at having moved out.

Most of south Delhi - which, being where I had lived for the last ten years, was where I confined myself - seemed to have become one large construction site; everywhere I went, roads were blocked off on both sides by PWD boards; the city seemed to be given over to the construction of flyovers or the extension of the Metro line - either way, it was a commuter's nightmare. There is frenzied building all over in an attempt to be ready for the 2010 Commonwealth Games - most residents, however, are pretty doubtful as to whether the city will be ready in time. Never a friendly city where pedestrians are concerned - after all, if you're so pathetic as to be walking on foot instead of driving or being driven in big, fancy cars, you may as well resign yourself to a life of invisibility, shorn of all humans rights - the blocked-off roads and deep trenches mean that it is well-nigh impossible to walk down some Delhi roads, even if there's an emergency. I was told that once all the construction is completed, Delhi will be a city to behold - an ariel view will show a cityscape akin to any mega city in the world, with beautifully laid-out roads and interconnecting flyovers, and gleaming malls boasting of every luxury brand imaginable. I think there must be something decidedly wrong with me - because at that image, I uttered a silent thank you to whatever powers-that-be do or do not exist that in that future, I will be living in chaotic, confusing Kolkata, teeming with people jostling for road space with rickshaws, rattly, noisy buses and cars - and little shops and dhabas lining the sides of nearly every street, selling you everything you would want, and a lot more you wouldn't.

I enjoyed my desultory amble down Green Park Market, though, and hanging out at Midlands, wishing I was a millionaire so I could buy up half the shop - but since I wasn't, I had to remain content with two books (Ian Rankin) and a graphic novel (Mauss) for K (after all, we had pretty much bankrupted ourselves at the Kolkata book fair, and it's not right to be too greedy, is it?) - followed by a fun afternoon at Dilli Haat with a friend, PD, where we ate our way through a couple of food stalls and wandered around in the misting rain (and, of course, it had to rain the one day I decided to spend outdoors, dressed in my summeriest best) - however, after the first couple of days of going out, while walking down the crowded Khan Market with its glitzy shops (but not a single decent shoe shop anywhere; I mean, seriously, what's gone wrong??), I realised that I was, quite unconsciously, comparing myself to the women around and coming up short, even in my mind - my hair looked stupid, my clothes were shabby and uncool, and I did need a pair of good shoes. I'm not sure if the first two were true, but that's how I felt - and I realised that just a couple of days in Delhi had reduced me to defining and judging others - and my own self - by my appearance; suddenly, what I was wearing, where I was wearing it to, and how I looked was so much more important, because that's how it is in Delhi - clothes and cars and shoes and hair and brands make you who you are, separate you from those who are with it and therefore worth it, and those who aren't. It's funny how I never think along those lines in Kolkata, no, not even if I'm going out to some so-called 'happening' place; but despite knowing where my insecurity stemmed from, I couldn't stop myself staring miserably at my hair and my supposedly pitiful collection of clothes all through the week.

And here's another thing about the visit - I was careful to make sure I was back home before dusk, unless we had a car or I was being dropped back, because I was told time and again that Delhi, never a 'safe' city for women, had grown worse over the last couple of years. There was a murder just a couple of days before I left - and the one evening I made my way back on my own somewhat late (after 8 PM) after meeting a couple of friends, I clutched at my pepper spray nervously through part of the auto ride that took me through a desolate stretch with a woody patch on either side, cars zooming by at full speed, and not a soul on foot - not that that would of any use, in a city like Delhi. Halfway through the journey, I received an anxious 'where are you, it's getting late' call from my aunts, and was greeted with 'we were getting a bit worried' once I returned home. I don't recall being this nervous in Kolkata, ever, not even later in the evening. It's sad that the capital of the country, the future mega-city, cannot assure its citizens the basic safety they're entitled to.

I miss my family - my granny, my aunts, my uncle - and my friends, and a few favourite places - but on the whole, as I told Mary, another friend, this return visit brought home to me all over again just how much I'd grown to dislike Delhi and everything it stood for, and how relieved I feel to no longer be living there. My apologies to those who love the city and cannot imagine living elsewhere - as far I'm concerned, home is where the heart is, and my heart is lodged firmly in Kolkata.