| Published on 27-11-2007 In General | | Viewed 2679 times | | Written by
T. S. V. Hari | 
I must say that in retrospect, there was something odd about Giri. He was always quiet, seemingly lost in thought and forever looked as though someone was bothering him.
Like all of us, Giri was obviously new to London. He hung out with all of us - fresh students at the London School of Economics. But there was a look about him that made all the other seniors and the ragging lot keep away from him. Giri was tall, heavy and built like a prize fighter.
Like some of us, Giri had come all the way from India – from Kolkata to be precise. I remember him vaguely telling us that his mother lived in the southern part of the City of Hope .
"It is called Lake Area," Giri explained during one of those brief exposures about himself. "We used to live in a big flat – surrounded by the snobbish Bhadralok or upper class Bengalis," he said.
For some strange reason, he never revealed where he lived in London .
LSE offers quarters for all students but Giri lived elsewhere. In the beginning of his life in London, occasionally we spotted him walking out of Holborn Tube Station on Kingsway with a stride light enough to make us suspect that he had done military training.
Somehow I felt safe when he was around.
Once while we were walking along the bank of the Thames just behind the LSE, three skinheads threatened us.
"Go home, curry terrorists," one of them said. Another produced a nasty looking flick knife. "You need to be scarred for life, you bitch," a bad looking man with a bald pate sneered at me.
It was the first time Giri addressed me by name and said softly, "Filomena, you stay behind me. There is no need for a nice girl like you to come in contact with trash."
"Now," he addressed the attackers, "which one of you wants to spend a few nights in a hospital?"
The man with the knife thought he could win the argument.
In a swift move, Giri unarmed the assailant and twisted his elbow in such a way that his forearm was broken and probably dislocated his shoulder. All the three of them ran away.
"Didn't know you were a martial arts expert," I said.
"We live and learn," Giri said cryptically. "These gangs move in packs. Some of their pals might be lurking. It would be better to get into the train at Embankment," Giri said referring to the nearby Underground Tube station.
From that moment onwards, I began adoring him.
I was onto a post graduate course in economics while Giri was doing his masters in political science. He seemed to know about every good Indian restaurant in London and had a near encyclopaedic knowledge of various Indian and continental cuisine.
But after every outing, he somehow managed to take an underground train in the exactly opposite direction from all of us.
A casual look of the London Underground map would confuse any tourist. There are 13 lines crisscrossing the city and its outskirts plus the main British Rail connections. But upon closer examination during the first few trips, one would always find commuting wonderfully easy because there are arrow marks to show the way out in every station, for connections in every train and helpful audio visual announcements during every journey. Plus, every time one buys a ticket, the clerk would hand over a journey planner thoughtfully. It is part of the London Underground (also called the "Tube") culture. This is true even for those who do not have a working knowledge in English. Of course, one needs a sense of direction. With that, moving around London is one of the easiest things to do.
Criminals are found everywhere on this planet. London is no exception. But if one has stayed there for more than a month, one would know that the Metropolitan Police is one of the most thoroughly efficient outfits – generally geared to help out people unless there are sudden attacks from terrorists. Being a Mumbai born girl, I knew what it was to feel fear from terrorists.
There are a number of websites in the UK that publish good amateur literature – be it fiction or poems. From a very young age, I was fascinated with words. My mother wanted me to be an upmarket economist since that would open the doors in major corporations. But I spent every second of my spare time to surf the net searching for poetry.
As was my practice always, I typed google.com into my laptop to look for new poems. In a crazy moment, I simply typed the Giri + Bannerjee into the slot for just the heck of it. Surprisingly, I found nearly 70 entries – carrying short stories and poems – all of which were intense. I simply couldn't stop reading before till I completed them all. His site had his email - something none of us possessed. I sent a simple polite message.
"We share a love for the written word. I am appending something I wrote sometime ago. Hope you like it. Regards, Filo Fernandes," I said.
Whose arrival do you await
With an angle and much more
There is silence all round
Besides all pervading loneliness…
This was one of my best modern sonnets. I liked Thomas Hardy and Wilfred Owen a lot. A lot of my writings always were affected by their style. I did a copy, cut and paste job of my poem on my browser and sent it to Giri.
He must have been online. The reply was almost instantaneous.
"Can we meet at The Krishna Restaurant in Tooting in two hours as it is a Sunday and the evening has just begun? It is no sweat for me because I live nearby. Kindly confirm. Cheers! Giri."
The suddenness of the reply completely floored me. So, the mysterious Giri was living in south London! I immediately responded and confirmed the appointment.
When I reached Krishna after walking close to two furlongs from Tooting Broadway tube station, I saw Giri waiting outside smoking a cigarette. Though it was early September, there was a nip in the air.
"I didn't know you smoked," I said, wrinkling my nose.
"Now you do," he said quietly. Stubbing it out, he added, "you want to taste the combination of steam cooked rice, Avial, (a delightful south Indian dish cooked the Keralite way with coconut paste and a dash of turmeric as I found out much later) pickles, Pappadams and a beer to go with it here, or do you wish to sample lentils cooked in the Punjabi style, with Pittha Bread, Sri Lankan style pickles and a dash of curd at my place in Collier's Wood nearby? I have a small
collection of wines, Remy Martin Champagne Cognac and Famous Grouse Scotch. As you eat, you can hear my poems at home. I have recorded them," Giri said with a smile.
For a few moments, I couldn't believe I had heard him right. He had never invited any of us home during these six months and always preferred to avoid any conversation about his residence.
Giri mistook my silence.
"Don't worry. I won't paw you before, during or after dinner. That is a promise."
"Don't be silly. Of course I will come home and take a chance with your cooking."
College Road in Collier's Wood was a mere stone's throw away. I was surprised to see that he lived in a Maisonette. For a Bohemian bachelor like Giri, it had a complicated alarm system and was neatly furnished. There were a few framed reproductions of paintings – all Renoirs – on the walls. One of the bedrooms was converted into an altar with pictures of Hindu deities and a lamp. I also noticed that all the windows were double glazed. Somehow, it reminded me of home in central Mumbai. The large, double-door fridge was well stocked with vegetables, milk, yoghurt, different varieties of pickles and beer. Astonishingly, there was no fish, meat or even eggs.
"You are a Bengali and yet you don't have fish?"
"I am a strict vegetarian. I follow the teachings of Raghuram Swami, who has a scientific explanation to everything. The only places one takes a dead body – if it is a human – are a cemetery or a crematorium, he says. So, why eat other dead bodies? Animal tissue was never part of the human food chain. Absorbed and already digested proteins bring their own illnesses along," Giri said.
"So you are one of those saffron communalists. I don't agree with your analogy, Giri," I said. "Don't animals eat animals or sometimes human beings as well?"
"Those animals which eat others die lonely deaths. You can know about this if you watch the National Geographic or Discovery Channels. This happens to lions, tigers, leopards and other carnivorous hunters when they are longer able to hunt. Much bigger carnivores – dinosaurs – have already become extinct. Other wild animals that have turned man eaters are locked behind bars. Since I believe in reincarnation, I do not wish to be born as an animal which will have such a life. On the other hand, herbivores die a quick death at the hands of a butcher – who will not only get the sin of killing another being but also will spread its diseases to himself and others."
"Aren't food grains themselves dead bodies of plants?" I demanded growing hot under my collar.
"Food grains are staple, global food in some form or the other. Though I haven't progressed to the level of eating raw seeds that can be sown and mere fruits, I know that some of what we eat contains life even when we do so and also after we do so. They go back to the soil and support life."
"You win, as always, Giri," I said and added, "I am famished."
"Food coming up in four minutes – just the time required for the microwave," he announced and disappeared into the kitchen.
I began looking at the collection of his books. Most of them were on Indian philosophy, authored by Dr. S Radhakrishnan (a former President of India) yoga, meditation, herbs and recipes. Four books stood out – like outsiders in a crowd. One said "I am That!" The second was "A Search In Secret Egypt," the third's title read "A Search In Secret India" and the fourth – the intriguing "In God's Name."
I picked up the last one – IGN – penned by one David Yallop. I vaguely remembered that he was an investigative journalist. The blurb interested me immensely.
"After almost three years of research, David Yallop wrote, in his book In God's Name (1984), that the precise circumstances attending the discovery of the body of John Paul I 'eloquently demonstrate that the Vatican practiced a disinformation campaign.' The Vatican told one lie after another: 'Lies about little things, lies about big things. All these lies had but one purpose: to disguise the fact that Albino Luciani, Pope John Paul I, had been assassinated.' Pope Luciani
received the palm of martyrdom because of his convictions."
"Can I borrow this book, Giri?"
Without answering my question, he began setting up the table for us. Food smelled good and I was hungry. But I was more interested in the book.
"Please have food before it gets cold," Giri said, gently taking the book out of my hands and placed it on the corner of the dining table.
Unable to bear the pangs of hunger I began to eat quickly. The food was delicious. Giri quickly placed a glass of plain water next to my plate and started eating.
"One's religion is never due to one's choice, Filo. I was born a Hindu and for all I know, I will die one, someday. You were born a Christian and feel that all those who have strong views of Hinduism as saffron terrorists. That was how you were brought up. But you must remember that there cannot be wars in heaven. This very concept of your God being stronger than my God isn't the correct dichotomy. Every religion whose origin has been defined – are what they are today thanks to conversions. In all forms of Hinduism – call it idol worship, call it animism, call it by any name you want – every known prayer – including those of the Christians and Muslims – are acceptable so far as one accepts the fact that we are created by an Omnipotent super power. You call such a power God, we him Iswara, others call it Allah. I call my mother "Ma" while you might call yours "mummy" but it is also a fact that each one of us has an origin of love."
"Were you always like this Giri, intense, philosophical and all that? If philosophy is so important to you, why come to LSE for a post graduate degree in political science?"
"Learning never harmed anybody. Imperfect learning does. I am here doing a course whose subject is as old as time – right from the days of Ramayana, Mahabharata and the Ten Commandments. In India, our juniors in school still learn that there was an Aryan invasion, whereas we have given up that pretence in the west. When India was given its independence, a nation called Pakistan was carved out solely on the basis of hatred towards Hindus. Today the same set of people are peddling hatred throughout the world – not only killing their own brethren in their own country but also creating and smuggling bombs into India and the rest of the free world.
That is what imperfect knowledge does to people. In short, I am here to solve a geopolitical puzzle."
We finished dinner.
"Can I borrow this book please Giri? I promise that I will return it to you once I finish it."
"Okay."
"Tell me more about yourself, Giri. Nobody at the LSE seems to know anything about you. You are a secretive person. At least now I know where you live..."
"Do you? I have just shown you a flat has served as a rendezvous. We had dinner – which could have been arranged. The flat could belong to someone else whom you don't know."
I was shocked.
"Are you serious?"
"Owning a piece of real estate is like a train stopping at a railway station. Passengers get in and off. The journey itself and its destination are important, not the stations or junctions that come in between. They are merely incidental."
"If I stay here – in this station for more time – I will be shunted like an unwanted coach. I will leave."
"I was just joking."
Giri laughed out loud.
"This is indeed my flat. I like your sad expressions. We will keep in touch. If you wish to come here, just call me – my number is 0207-7372531. Else you can inform me at the LSE so that I can be prepared with good food. Now, I will walk you to Collier's Wood tube station."
"Thanks for the really tasty dinner."
"Next time, I will use a Tamil recipe. It will even more be tasty because of the spices used in their preparation."
Having decided to take a brisk walk after the heavy dinner, I got off at Embankment. I was all the while thinking about the enigma called Giri. Maybe, I should meet him at his place more often and sample his food to understand him, I reckoned.
I did not want others in LSE to know where Giri lived – especially the girls – because I knew they would go gaga over him. Since he smoked and enjoyed the occasional drink, the boys would use his house for parties. So I didn't tell them either.
As I read the book and learnt the strange things about the mysterious ways of the Vatican, in more ways than one, I felt possessive about Giri.
Was it love or infatuation? Or was it mere admiration?
Within a span of the next three months, I had sampled many of Giri's cooking efforts and was overawed by them. Despite being a Bengali, his Gujarati and Punjabi preparations were equally tasty as his south Indian stuff. Sometimes he prepared a completely continental dinner – a vegetarian preparation consisting of Broccoli, cauliflowers, tomatoes, onions and mashed potatoes with garlic bread. He called it pot luck.
By then, we were on to first name terms – he calling me Mena, because it sounded like a Hindu name. I liked it because I was madly in love with him.
I began wondering whether he would agree to an inter-religious marriage because I didn't want to convert him and in spite of what I read, I still believed in Jesus Christ. But I was worried as to how his people would take it. I knew zilch about his family, while I had revealed to him all about mine.
I am an only child. My mother had passed away three years ago and Pa, who ran a major advertising company in Mumbai, lived alone in UnionPark, Bandra. We were Roman Catholics. Pa had had his education in St. Stephens, New Delhi and had worked for Hindustan Thompson Associates till it was taken over by a bigger company. Pa, whose name is Ferdinand Fernandes created Double 'F' Media Ltd in 1987 – the very year I was born. Like all his friends, I too call him Freddie affectionately.
My education in LSE was to prepare me for a career in Double F.
Whenever I talked about my side, Giri would listen intently and make a few polite comments and softly ask for a few clarifications. But on his part, he never talked about his mom, siblings and his father.
It was a sore point for me, but I let it go, because I didn't want to upset him.
He had invited me home again today for a typical Bengali meal – which included a vegetable mishmash called Sukhto. And he had somehow managed to make Rasagollas (a milk and flour based sweet balls which are suspended in a sugar solution) a sweet rice preparation which he called Payas but known to me as a variant of Kheer.
Having lived in Mumbai – surrounded by Maharashtrian families, I know that the sweet rice preparation is made only on special occasions. It was delicious. Having become accustomed to his food, I had almost given up meat and fish.
"What is the big occasion, Giri?"
"Will you marry me, Mena? You don't have to change your religion and you don't have to forgo your eating habits for me. Just say yes. We will manage the rest."
"You are proposing to me just like that? I hardly know anything about you except that you cook very well, fight like Bruce Lee and have an occasional smoke. What about your family?"
"I just have a mother who lives in Kolkata. My father used to part own a big coal mine, but all of that was gone long before my father passed away. He managed to convert most of his business into cash before the nationalisation crash. I wasn't even born then. You don't have to take a quick decision. You can think about it as long as you want and then come to a decision. But I want the answer to be yes!"
Giri was saying these exciting things but his voice was flat. He lit up a cigarette and suddenly looked away.
Despite the nagging feeling that there was more to this, I shouted at the top of my voice, "of course I will marry you, Giri. I don't mind forgoing the chicken, egg, meat and fish. After reading the book, I am not much of a churchgoer anyway these days. What about the future? What do you intend to do after your post graduation which is still some time away?"
"I am planning to start a banking organisation – which will lend money to poor farmers at interest rates that may be slightly higher than the nationalised banks in India – but in the end, all of the borrowers will become shareholders in the company in a few years' time. For capital I have my father's money – some half a billion rupees and change. I have the papers with me. You can go through them. And I want you to join me in this endeavour."
"Okay, Giri. You have just found yourself a wife. But I don't want to live in sin. Before you touch me, you will have to marry me. And I will have to intimate Freddie first."
"You can call him from my phone, Mena. I know you have a mobile phone – but it is cheaper to call from a fixed land line. It will be late at night in India, but what the hell, today is Saturday."
"Okay, Giri."
I dialled Freddie's mobile number. He was obviously in the middle of a party.
"Freddie, it is me, Filo!"
"You seem excited. And whose number is this?"
"I am in love, Freddie. And I am calling you from my beau's residence."
"Hold on. I will come out of the flat," Pa said. I could overhear him saying, "Please wait for a few moments, Mahua. My daughter's calling me."
The volume of the bedlam was suddenly reduced. Probably Freddie had walked out to the balcony.
"You can talk to me freely now, Filo! Go on darling, talk to Pa!"
"First tell me who this Mahua is! It sounds like a female Bengali name."
"It is actually. We were in St. Stephens together. I never managed to say the three words to her when I was young and we drifted away. We met at a party in Kolkata where she lives and I invited her home. Never mind all that. It is your big day now. Tell Pa all about it."
"I am in love and I have decided to marry Giri Bannerjee. He is tall, handsome and has some money as well. He too hails from Kolkata and is presently doing a post graduation course in political science at the LSE."
"Giri Bannerjee, you said?"
"Yes Freddie."
"Can I call you back, darling? Give your pa just two minutes."
"Okay."
I turned to Giri after I disconnected.
"What sort a name in Bengali is Mahua, Giri?"
"It is a tree of deciduous nature that grows in a dry tropical and sub-tropical climate. As a plantation tree, Mahua is an important plant having vital socio-economic value. Mahua trees can be planted virtually anywhere - on roadsides, canal banks etc., and also on a commercial scale and in social forestry programmes, especially in tribal areas. Its wood can be used as timber for making pulp and paper. Mahua flowers are rich in sugar, minerals, vitamins and calcium. If cooked with rice the nutrient value is enriched. Next to sugarcane, Mahua flowers and its wood pulp are the most important sources of raw materials for fermentation and production of alcohol and vinegar in eastern India. It is also used as feed for livestock. The flowers and fruits are eaten traditionally by tribal people. Its seeds can be used for the manufacture of soap. Mahua oil seed cake can be used as manure. The smoke generated from Mahua cake is believed to drive away snakes and insects. Tribes in eastern India use Mahua cake for killing fish as well as in treatment of snakebites. Its oil is used in medicine as an ointment to cure skin diseases, rheumatism, headache, as laxative, in piles and haemorrhoids. Mahua husk can be used in the preparation of active carbon. All in all, a very useful plant."
"But why do upper class Bengalis give the name Mahua to their female offspring?"
"In Bihar, a lot of tribal or women from Other Backward Castes are given that name. But in Bengal it is a very common name."
"How come you know so much about it?"
"Can I tell you the real reason?"
"Sure."
"I researched on the name because it was given to my mother. She is a tribal from north Bengal. But when she married my father Aritrojeet Bannerjee – there was a huge outcry. Our family was ostracised and my father had to sell his business to my uncles. It was a good bargain because, he got something substantial. My uncles lost everything a little later."
"When did all this happen?"
"Much before I was born. In fact, my parents picked me up from an orphanage because my mom couldn't conceive – a fact she came to know when my father was being examined in hospital. She discovered two things – my father had cancer and she was sterile. She wanted a son to complete the funeral rites. So they adopted me."
My cell phone rang. It was Freddie.
"Okay Filo! You have given me a big surprise. I had invited my classmate Mahua from St. Stephens. Know what? She is your future husband's mother! It is a bloody small world! Mahua would like to speak to Giri too. Just give the phone to him."
I was shell shocked.
Giri spoke in monosyllables, in a matter-of-fact-tone. For a man who had just proposed to a girl, he didn't seem excited at all. Maybe that was his style.
When he handed the phone back to me I began talking excitedly.
"You know what, Filo darling? Your pa was getting lonely and all that. I had invited Mahua home to propose to her! Now I can't because you are marrying Giri. Both of us will fly to London in a couple of days – Mahua will meet you and I will meet Giri. Now I will go back to the party and announce the good news to all my friends. Have a nice time."
He rang off.
I was overjoyed, but I had a small nagging feeling.
"Tell me the truth, Giri. Did you know that your mother was meeting my pa today?"
"I didn't know that. But I knew from the very first day I started preparing for LSE entrance test that Amma had a classmate called Ferdinand Fernandes on whom she had a crush while she was in college. I also knew that he had a beautiful daughter. When I met you here, thanks to all my research, I knew I hadn't wasted my time. I was instantly in love with you. The rest just worked itself out."
"So it was by design, you big, scheming man," I said.
"It was not by design, but a nice coincidence. It is any day a better proposition."
"What do you mean?"
"Let me put it this way. I didn't exactly dig the idea of being introduced to an elderly man I never met before as my foster father. It had already happened to me once in life, and I lost him. It was a culture shock during my childhood because I was already six years old when I was adopted. I didn't want it to happen a second time at the age of 22."
"You conspiring, cagey rascal! I will love you all my life for this," I said as I began going through the motions of kissing a man for the first time in my life.
|
|
|
|
|
| Social Web |  |
| |
|
|
| |
|
|
Processing please wait ...
Top Stories
