Kolkata Kalling

I know you’ve all been waiting with bated breath for our report on our Indian adventure and I’m sorry it’s taken us so very long, but you can breathe easy now, because we are over the jetlag and earache and various other hurdles, and ready to delight you with details of our derring do!

Let me tell you all about our first week there, culminating in the wonderful party our family threw for us, and then my big bro will pick up the thread of the narrative and run with it, all the way home.

Do, also check out our new slideshow (on the right hand side of this blog page), so you can see for yourselves how much fun we had!

I haven’t used the phrase ‘derring do’ lightly. It was incredibly brave of us (some may call it foolhardy) to attempt to travel the 5000 miles to my Mommy’s home, with people of a certain age. No, I don’t mean me and my bro, at 4 and 21 months respectively, but my parents who are now in their mid-thirties and have begun to feel their (dot)age.

Luckily, the day-long journey was relatively smooth with my parents on their best behaviour, though my mommy did get rather upset when they refused to serve my brother food on the flight claiming he wasn’t entitled to any! As it turned out he was supposed to get a hot meal but the airlines had messed up, so my bro had to make do with the crisps and chocolates and jammy dodgers which we had with us. Even co-passengers felt sorry for him and chipped in with yummy snacks from their stash - poor Syon!!

I have to commend him for his hardiness though, while I was carried everywhere (well, you can hardly expect me to walk at 4 months!), he gamely covered long stretches of airport on his little toddler legs as Mommy and Daddy tottered under the weight of bags full of baby paraphernalia!

Kolkata airport was a bit of a nightmare too and Mommy gave the masked man at the Swine Flu checkpoint a piece of her mind (but he wasn’t havin’ any)! I can see why he was so keen on concealing his identity as he made us wait a whole hour in a mosquito-infested hall and got us all in a lather! Talking of soap, it was a steamy journey home as Kolkata was experiencing an unseasonably hot spring (hot spring-ha ha!) and Syon and I jumped into a big blue tub of refreshingly cold water the minute we got to Dida and Dadu’s.

It was great to be in Mommy’s home city though, because the weather only accounted for 10% of the warmth we experienced. The rest came from the interest taken in us by family, friends and sometimes total strangers!

From the great big bear hug that Dadu’s best friend gave us at the airport, to the smiles and helloos of strangers along the way, to the welcoming cuddles and kisses from Budida and Pishidida when we finally arrived at our destination, we got VIP treatment all the way!

The best bit for me was, of course, meeting Dadu and Dida for the first time, being scooped into their arms and cuddled. Syon got cuddled too but as he’d met them before, he was a bit more blasé about it.

The most exciting thing for him, I think, were the many different types of colourful and noisy vehicles along the way. He must have shouted ‘cah’ a thousand times in my ear on the way to our Kolkata home (I have to hear that word so often I have a good mind to expunge it from my vocabulary altogether when I start speaking)!

The super-high point of his ride from the airport was the policeman who drew up his car with flashing lights alongside us and waved to Syon. Syon was really tickled; he continued waving to the policeman long after the latter had disappeared in the distance, in a cloud of dust. And then we were there- at D&D’s.

My first week ever in Kolkata was wonderful- getting to know people, playing in the sun, and basking in the admiration of the many who came to see us.

Mommy and Daddy enjoyed catching up on their sleep (I don’t know why they don’t sleep at home, it isn’t as if we ever disturb them!) and eating lots of yummy Indian food (Not even a morsel came my way, despite making it as clear as day that that was what I wanted)!

We stirred ourselves occasionally to prepare for my Annaprashan. Our strenuous bouts of shopping at the shiny, new South City Mall left us too sapped to do much else (luckily there’s never any housework to be done in Kolkata)!

Mommy and Daddy got us some lovely clothes from the mall with the gifts of money we received from our family, the rest of the time they just chilled. My parents claim that it takes a whole village to look after us and they had to do plenty for us even if they didn’t have the mountain of chores they usually have at home, but as far as I could see Mommy’s most pressing task in Kolkata was chattering away with friends on the phone and inviting them to my Annaprashan.

Then, finally, my Big Day dawned bright and clear, and I couldn’t wait to sink my gums (I don’t have teeth yet though they are on their way and oh, how they irritate me; but that’s another story!) into my first solid food. It was the Saturday of my Annaprashan and what a day it turned out to be...

(Please come back for the next installment of ‘Kolkata Kalling’ from Syon’s perspective)