Home?

I have been off the net for a while. Having a whale of a good time generally. Let me define a good time, to make things clear. Yes, climbing mountains, looking at beautiful sights makes me happy, yes. However, I correspond to the description of ‘Ghorer Chele’, which means, I am happiest at home. And where is home? Home is centered in and around Calcutta, where my parents live. Calcutta was once somewhat unpoetically described as the ‘armpit of the world’. Calcutta is a gigantic swarming mass of people, mostly brown in colour, and speaking pretty much every language spoken on the subcontinent. It is home to the Communist Party of India (Marxist), Presidency College, Calcutta University, College Street, Chouringhee Lane, Rabindrasangeet and NazrulGeeti (two schools of music), Muslim leatherworkers, Hindu clothworkers, Jain businessmen, itinerant foreigners, the ubiquitous ‘bhodrolok’, the ‘jhola’ wielding ‘antelectual’ or intellectual, some of the best theorists in this part of the world, Flury’s, Mongini’s, Lord’s and other bakeries, Bedwin, Shiraz and other Biriyani places, Bihari rickshaw pullers, Oriya cooks, Bengali everymen, crazies of every description. Calcutta carries within its sweating ‘gallis’ and ‘paras’, a population greater than half of Sri Lanka.

Home is also at Bangalore, the city I was born and spent some rather raucous years in. Some of the raucous years were spent at the Institute, where I completed my MS (much to my shock and the dismay of some of my instructors). I believe that I am the only person in the illustrious history of the physics dept. who actually traced the entire grading curve from S (highest possible) to F (fail).


Home is also at Ann Arbor, a pretty little university town in Michigan where I have been working towards a PhD. (I use the word ‘working’ rather loosely). At the current moment, home is also where my Didi is. This happens to be Mainz, a town in Germany which I have never had the good fortune to visit. But Didi being there, that is also home.

Home is also Shillong, a really beautiful town in the foothills of the Himalayas. Shillong is the capital of the state of Meghalaya. Meghalaya literally translates to ‘abode of the clouds’, and it is indeed such; Meghalaya is the rainiest place in the world. Well, to be specific, the two rainiest places in the world at Mausinram and Cherrapunjee in Meghalaya which are completely undistinguished places, which are just really, really wet. Shillong was where I grew up and turned into the bitter person that I am. I blame the climate for it.