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

Sebastian

Sorry about the gap,though Im not sure if anything is being read.Hell so what???? the words will remain in e-space for posterity,maybe to be seen a thousand years ahead by a race of evolved beings clever enough to download the eternal ether swirling around us.Todays topic is Sebastian D'Lima,my erstwhile landlord of Victory Hotel.Tall,heavy set,oily would describe him physically.In his 40s,Sebastian had cultivated a personality which was both unctuous and, what I would term as avuncular.He wore his trousers high ,belted above his generous belly and would stride around managing the establishment with its staff of 3.First there were the 2 waiters, Joesph Santa Maria and Cajetan Fernandes both in their 70s.Joesph,in some ways reminded me of Peter Sellers in disguise and used to have a running battle with us,the lodgers,whom he looked down upon.Cajetan on the other hand was like a small shrivelled mummy,few strands of grey on his bald head.He perenially looked unwell and we wrongly believed that he wouldnt last the week.In fact we often thought he was dead when having a nap .The last was John the cook,a villanous Dickinsonian figure who spent long hours in a huge, dark ,smoky kitchen preparing the most awful food for us while cooking up the most tantalising dishes for the paying customers in the restaurant.He would come out now and then for a smoke,his apron dirty and face sweaty,survey the clientale and return again.Oh yes,he was assisted by Mrs D'Lima,a humourless lady who had a face like a ball of dough with spectacles planted on a potato baglike flowered dress.The D'Lima family was rounded off by 5 children.Agnelo the eldest,a pleasant guy who went in and out of the kitchen and managed the customers in his fathers absense.Unfortunately he looked a lot like his mother...not that looking like his father would have helped!!!! there were 3 younger boys,all quite pleasant, and finally there was Annie the 5 year old who looked so much like her father(without the mousch of course).More about Annie later.
What Sebastian lacked in education(he worked as a cook when younger),he made up in plain savvy.He kept the right people in good spirits and often we would see Police Officers or Municipal officials being entertained lavishly with booze and food.He had cultivated this humble, "I am a simple man" facade which saw him overcome any hiccups which he inevitably faced.Every day he would put on a solar hat, get on his 1955 model Lambretta scooter and zoom round the city,shopping,meeting people and going to church.Oh yes the D'Lima family were extremely "pious".With us,the younger ,student lot Sebastian was more like a not too liked Uncle.He would always complain about the noise or the fact that we had asked the waiters for better food.The food ,ah the food.Brings a smile to my face.It was more or less the same things every day..fried eggs and bread in the morning.The eggs sometimes were suspiciously short of the white which we felt the cook was keeping aside for other stuff he would make.For lunch and dinner we would get a plate of curried meat with rice or bread.And here is where the temperatures rose.The meat,the origins of which were unknown, was often tough enough to resole your shoes with.I would often try and chew on it and leave a pile of uneaten cud on the plate,infuriating our friend Sam who was older and who having lived there longer,knew the art of survival.Oh yes we did get bananas for dessert and tea at7AM and 4PM.Sebastian would try and restore order by telling us that he bought the best meats for the kitchen and Johns cooking was close to cordon bleau.To mollify us he would (rarely) ask Joesph to serve us the special stew being made for the Mayor or a slice of dessert baked for the Colonel.His favourite line was that"full full colonels come to eat here" so how come, we,(who are not even half half corporals) dont appreciate the dish.But there were other moments too with Sebastian like when he whipped out his trusty voilin after a few drinks...but thats another story.Will continue another day...