Oh Calcutta!!!!

Sorry about the gap in posting.Had to rush to Kolkata to meet my aunty Karuna.After her husband died over a year ago shes been living alone in her large South Kolkata flat with a host of servants and Moti.But its been a lonely grind even though her daughters have been coming down pretty frequently from the USA and I have been seeing her on and off.Afraid this ,and even the daily phone calls were not enough to ward off the demons of a suffocating solitude.Therefore I decided to get her back to Bombay and take it from there.Easier said than done though.Shutting down there was a tedious process and bringing her physically I called Operation HuffnPuff.She has difficulty walking because of bad knees and her 3rd floor flat inKolkata proved a huge barrier.Anyway in short, she was carried down in a chair,carried up to the plane,carried down and wheeled to car and carried up by elevator at my place.Moti her faithful man friday for 40 years followed by train and arrived 2 days later and duly got ripped off by a Mumbai cab driver.How predictable is that? Moti is a small bald man with a tiny moustache who is ageless.I remember him when I was in college and he was exactly the same.Estimates of his age have ranged from 65 to 100.No one knows.He had to come too because he has really no other family and he helps my aunty in 100s of different ways.The bad news is that Moti has views about food,shopping and eating which are almost impossible to change.For example send him to buy some vegetables from the coner shop,he will come back with that along with a bagful of fried fast food and soda which he will insist everyone eats.BTW my aunty is four feet ten in height and weighs 200 pounds.I know she has put on a good 10-15 pounds in the past year and counting.With her knees and high BP she needs to cut back some.But theres Moti to overcome.He reminds me of a Gnome who is terribly useful and at the same time horrendously frustrating.Maybe he is one.Hes a great cook of Bengali food and makes the most moutwatering fish with mustard.But woe betide you if u try and restrain his quantities or ingredients.Oh yes,he himself eats some weird stuff which is the wonderment of our Sunanda bai.Every day he mixes a chick pea powder called Chattu in Bengal,with water and drinks it.Then he has a spoonful of a herbal sweet sour mixture called Chawanprayash which promotes good health.After all that he consumes a big bowl of fried potato chips or something similar.So thats Moti.More of him later.Will sign off now and catch up later.Cheers