Pujo ramblings.
Bangalis from all over the world are posting pictures of Ma Durga from their respective locations on Facebook. I go through all of them diligently. IK also sent me an email with info on a cricket tournament to be held at the Bangalee Samitee of NSW. I look at everything in a strange form of detachment. It’s my second year in Sydney, and I haven’t really made an attempt to socialise. I’m not complaining here. Just wondering at my lack of enthusiasm to embrace the new. I bet, had I been in Hyderabad I’d be cribbing to Ma come Saptami - ‘ma, do I need to go to the Pujobari on all days, and that too both the times?’ But as the day progressed I’d give in to an unknown energy that would have me dressed in minutes in a new cotton saree, which would always be Ma’s, akin to how Cinderallas’ mice and birds get her dressed.
Aimlessly I strolled about the Pujo Pandal looking for known faces and waving to Kakimas and Kakus, acknowledging the older with a polite, ‘Kemon acho jethi? ‘, and finally attacking bhog.
Its almost 2 years now, and I know more than ever, that my heart lies back home..and that its a matter of time before I head back. I know I just speak for myself here, perhaps because the other two in my family seem comfy amidst the green, clean, antiseptic surroundings of Sydney.
And as I type this I wonder if I’ll ever have to eat my words, once the festivities are over and all go back to their normal lives and I begin enjoying summer, down under.
BTW, the exhibition wasn’t the best. Some politely stopped by, some said encouraging words, one even said- ooorebabare kee daaam (Oh my goodness, how expensive! ), some pretended I wasn’t there, a lovely girl eyed a pair of earrings and kept hovering around my stall, but her mother had other ideas (she whispered something in her daughter’s ears and both looked at me very very accusingly [:D] and away they went from my stall- faaar away!); a friend or two I knew passed by without so much as to even look at the stuff on display. :D :D. (But at least I sold a few – thank God for people with an eye for the good stuff [:D :D ] pieces that helped me get back my stall fee). So yes, I’M LEARNING THE HARD WAY. And I’ve noted one more thing- I’m vastly misunderstood.
On the bright side online business is picking up, and well.
So much for now.
Comments
Cheer up! :)
Sulagna: yes!! thanks much for your wishes. Wishing you and yours the same too!
As for 'over priced', I guess it is a very 'Indian' thing, to look at a fellow Indian's work, and ensure to underprofile it, or atleast make it a point to accuse one of overpricing!! I bet the same people will be willing to spend the same amount of money on the same piece, if it were exhibited in a high-street 'phoren' brand store!
Keep creating your pieces... they are really beautiful.
Let me share my experiences of a long time ago, if it will help you to reflect.
Twenty years ago, when I was 39 years old, I accompanied my wife and three year-old daughter to Leeds, England. My wife had won an open merit scholarship to do a PhD in Electrical Engg -- a great opportunity NOT to be turned down.
I took three years leave without pay to take care of our daughter, Pallavi, who was three years old then. (She's a lovely 23 year-old working woman now.)
I remember the deep resentment at having to tear myself away from all that I loved in India -- the hot sun; the gorgeous life outdoors on the streets; mynahs chattering at dawn on the parapet of our window in a one-bedroom flat in housing board colony; editing 'middles' in Maharashtra Herald, Pune's only local English daily, and so on.
I also remember hating the cold, the wet, the damp and the grey of Leeds. Worse, we arrived when the free-marketeering squanderer Maggie had nearly completed gutting industrial Britain.
But gradually I found a haven in the warm, heated, public libraries of Leeds; magpies chattering on the grass outside the back-to-back terraces; old persons waving, Tra-la, love" as they glided by with their trollies.
Taking my daughter to Rosebank School in Burley and passing by the "lollipop ladies" who stopped the traffic on the roads to let us cross, revived my enthusiasm for the land of Red Shelley, Dickens, the anti-monarchist Hazlitt, the Priestleys (both the chemist and the novelist) and the Tolpuddle Martyrs.
I soon learned that peace-loving human beings are to be found everywhere on our beautiful earth. Slowly my open resentment subsided into a grudging acceptance of the positive side of life.
And then we discovered the non-resident Indians who were putting up a brave fight in the face of a racist Britain, which had not forgotten its centuries of imperial plunder.
They got together in their wonderful associations, helping one another in a thousand small ways to stand up to the cold weather and resist the hostile racists.
Peace and love,
- Joe.