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| Medu vada wala |
Note: I wrote this on 9/11/21. Subbed and published it on the 10th. In case you were worried. The back pain incident is over.
I looked out of the windows yesterday morning and got the idea for a story from what I saw. Unfortunately the crushing back pain I’d gone to bed with the night before had stayed on the morning after. The thought of sitting at my desk, forget typing, was daunting. I had a session with my therapist scheduled at noon. Among various things, I mentioned this incident to her.
‘Your stories are not time contingent. Nor are they trend based. They are universal. You can write it later when you feel better. There is no need to feel bitter about it,’ she said. Or words to that effect
This made complete sense to me. Take the story that I wrote last week about my complicated relation with the city of Kolkata. The idea of writing it came to me when I went to Kolkata in August for my mom’s 75th birthday. I got busy when I returned and did not write it.
I returned to Kolkata this November. This time I wrote the story. Many of you wrote in saying you could relate to and was moved by what I had written. What could be more satisfying for a writer?
Yes, I guess it’s fine if I occasionally cannot write a story when I want to. As Scarlett said, ‘tomorrow is another day.’ And no, dear millenials and Gen Z folks, that’s not the name of my therapist!
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| Writer at ‘work’ |
I rested yesterday without making any ill advised Rocky Balboa inspired attempts to stagger to my desk and write. I did an hour long yoga nidra with the boys after lunch instead. Chanted. K iced my back and I used the heating pad after that. I planned, helped execute and enjoyed our meals. Went to sleep. The pain still by my side
I woke up to today to see that the pain had seen itself out at night without bothering me. I made had breakfast, showered and ‘came to work,’ pain free, Settled down at my desk and wrote what I wanted to write yesterday.
As a side note, I must add that incident is an example of why I cannot recommend having a therapist enough. I started therapy last November. Be it deeper issues of life, or more day to day situations like what I just described, therapy has really helped me get clarity, discard baggage and move ahead. I am lucky to have found a therapist I connected with right from the start.
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| Baby Loaf figures that I have back pain when I don’t bend to pat him and gets up beside me to make it easy |
What was it that I wanted to write about yesterday?
Well, I spotted a group of men standing in front of our building society gate when I looked out of the window yesterday morning. Our building has gone through major repairs. The repairs are now in their final stage with most of the ‘trauma’ over. The faces in the gathering looked familiar. They were the workers from the project.
I saw their manager walk in through the gate purposefully, head to the guard’s cabin, and sit down on a plastic chair inside. There was a paper plate in his hand. He begun to eat from it. I couldn’t make out what.
I saw a man cycle by with stainless steel canisters attached to the cycle. Samosa-wala. Then another cycle by with flasks attached to his cycle. Chai-wala. Neither stopped. So it must have been something else.
A third man stood outside our gate in front of a stationary cycle. The group consisted of those buying food from him. It was not just construction workers who were in the group. Some were drivers (chauffeurs) who worked in our building.
From a height it looked like they were eating round batata vadas. I knew that they were more likely to be eating crunchy deep fried medu vadas with coconut chutney. These are sold more often by the itinerant cycle-wallahs of Mumbai than vada pavs. As are samosas and chai. Batata vadas are more a street stall snack. Meant to be had fresh from the kadhai, tongue searingly hot, enveloped in a cuddly pav with a salted fried chilli stuck inside, along with of bit of granular lasan chutney for texture and chutzpah.
This was more medu than batata vada territory.
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| Chai-wala |
While the food items were not clearly visible, the smiles on the faces of those eating flashed big and bold. They greeted each other with warm hand shakes and hugs of camaraderie as they ate. One of the young workers carried a plate of food and handed it to the skinny elderly watchman with a white walrus-like moustache and he grinned bashfully like the retired teacher in the Raymond ad in response.
The crowd soon dispersed. The drivers went up to report for duty. Coming down with office bags and lunch boxes of their saabs and madams to place in the cars and to get the air-conditioning working to cool the cars (and themselves) to ambient temperatures. The construction workers went to the rear of the compound and shed their trendy tees, shirts and jeans into their work uniform of paint smeared ragged vests and shorts. Sporting a hard hat or a bandanna depending on whether one would be drilling or painting.
The manager, always in formals, went out and got another plate for himself and sat down in the guard’s cabin. He is on his feet all day.
Our neighbour from the ground floor, who has almost single handedly overseen all the work, stepped out of his house to discuss the plan of action and target for the day with the manager who hastily finished his snack.
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| Dal Puri at Zahury’s |
The tableaux that had just played out reminded me of the Bow Barracks walk I went on in Kolkata in early 2020 before the pandemic. It was conducted by the very talented fabulous Manjit Singh Hoonjan of Calcutta Photo Tours. He took us to a humble hole in the wall place called Zahury’s on Weston Street for breakfast during the walk. The menu? Nihari with bits and pieces of meat in a fiery gravy served with mind blowing freshly fried dal puri, with bharer cha (tea served in kulhars) to finish in the shop opposite.
While such places have become ‘Instagram famous’ in recent times, their core clientele consists of migrant workers from Bihar and eastern UP who work as labourers in the city on minimum wage. This breakfast served two purposes, said Manjit. It was the most affordable and substantial meal that the workers would have before they headed out to different parts of the city to work and till they returned at night. The world they worked in offered them no nourishment at the prices they could afford.
It also served as a meeting spot for people to trade stories about their lives and to get updates from back home before beginning the serious business of earning a living. A sort of Facebook without a wall.
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| With Sylvia in Candies two weekends back |
I do not know if the practise of socialising before the day begins exists in the corporate world. I barely made it in time for office to start and over the years, even later, when I worked in agencies. I have no first hand information on what happened earlier in the day.
The only time I enjoyed some sort of pre-workday warmth was when I worked out of cafes while writing my first book. I’d enter Candies to be welcomed by Sylvia at the counter. ‘How are you sir?’ ‘Fried eggs, toast and cappuccino sir?’ ‘Why are you looking so sad sir? Madam is not there, that’s why?’
And a more subdued, formal and yet equally warm welcome from the manager at Smoke House Deli, who would ensure that I got the table I liked and my eggs the way I like them, when I went there on Mondays when Candies was shut.
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| Stop writing Daddyyyyyyyyy |
Now that I work from home, my ‘pre-work’ interaction consists of briefing our morning cook #kaytiecooks on her job list for the day. And at times to play with little Nimki or cuddle Baby Loaf when they emerge intermittently to remind me to get up from my desk to stretch and breathe. Live the slow life. And pamper and pet them.
How’s it for you before you start your day’s work? Do you get to bond a bit before you start? Exchange a few smiles, jokes or chatter? Or is it a blue collar versus worker thing? Or migrant versus local thing? Man versus woman? I know that the data points are minimal but still.
Oh, and can it even be a pre-work huddle without some deep fried crunchy carby love to fuel it?
