Summer vacation in our days back in home was from mid- May and that would last for 6-7 weeks. Calcutta is extremely hot during summers. Like children these days, I wasn't fortunate enough to holiday abroad, playing with blue waters and canoeing the island waters. I belong to a middle class Bengali family, rich in culture and heritage and arts. My mother sang, danced , my father wrote scripts, and he was good in recitation and playing tabla. My grandfather was an engineer in British army then and later Indian army.He too supported us at large to perform. Summer vacation was a lot of time, to perform a dance drama at the courtyard in our house.
The whole neighborhood rose to excitement to make this event happen successfully. Afternoons were too hot to begin with any rehearsals, hence we reserved our rehearsal for the evenings. Cool breeze accompanied us to perform "chitrangada" or "Shyama" ( Tagore dance dramas). We chose our expanded terrace, where the women assembled to sing and dance and make merry to the good times.
Men helped us narrating and providing cues. These days neighbors turned to one big family, helping each other with logistics and supplies. We ate together over lentil soup and rice with potato fries, and pointed gourds. The very Bengali lunch and dinner. During the rains, we would go to the fish market and buy the best Hilsa and ma would make the best hilsa curry with white mustard seeds and a sumptuous fish-eggs fry. Only a Bengali would relate to the taste of this dish during the rains. We gossiped about the lad and the lass hooking up over the practice and laughed our heart out to the melodramatic love story that wouldn't last long.
The final day of program, we would dress up, paint our faces with cosmetics and "alta" on our palms and feet. the hard work would be paid off with a platter of kachori and aloo curry, that tasted heaven after the performance. We didn't have social media then to upload the pictures that we clicked. The prints would have to wait for a week's time, till the camera person provide us the hard copies of the beautiful memories.
Life was ecstasy around the cultural bringing up that happened to us. I owe a lot to the family that I belonged to, especially my mother , who would take initiative at large for make such events happen.
The whole neighborhood rose to excitement to make this event happen successfully. Afternoons were too hot to begin with any rehearsals, hence we reserved our rehearsal for the evenings. Cool breeze accompanied us to perform "chitrangada" or "Shyama" ( Tagore dance dramas). We chose our expanded terrace, where the women assembled to sing and dance and make merry to the good times.
Men helped us narrating and providing cues. These days neighbors turned to one big family, helping each other with logistics and supplies. We ate together over lentil soup and rice with potato fries, and pointed gourds. The very Bengali lunch and dinner. During the rains, we would go to the fish market and buy the best Hilsa and ma would make the best hilsa curry with white mustard seeds and a sumptuous fish-eggs fry. Only a Bengali would relate to the taste of this dish during the rains. We gossiped about the lad and the lass hooking up over the practice and laughed our heart out to the melodramatic love story that wouldn't last long.
The final day of program, we would dress up, paint our faces with cosmetics and "alta" on our palms and feet. the hard work would be paid off with a platter of kachori and aloo curry, that tasted heaven after the performance. We didn't have social media then to upload the pictures that we clicked. The prints would have to wait for a week's time, till the camera person provide us the hard copies of the beautiful memories.
Life was ecstasy around the cultural bringing up that happened to us. I owe a lot to the family that I belonged to, especially my mother , who would take initiative at large for make such events happen.
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