Happy anniversary Ma and Baba

To my beautiful parents and to my loveliest mother who made such a pretty bride. I’ve heard the story many times. My parents married each other without having seen each other ever.  The picture below is of the first night they met. My grandfather had one of Ma’s uncles "evaluate" Baba. The gentleman who was a kind soul, wrote back to Dadu, calling Baba, bright and fair. Imagine my grandfathers consternation when he saw that Baba was hardly light skinned. But I know that it was my fathers shining personality that impressed everyone so it wasn’t far from the truth! At the wedding, my mother’s youngest sister burst into the room when the groom arrived, to tell her that her prospective husband was dark and old! I believe my mother was in tears! I can’t imagine how scary it was for her to contemplate leaving her home and journey with this stranger to Bombay, a city as foreign as it could be. She neither spoke anything other than Bengali nor had she ever left West Bengal. I never asked her how she did it. She wasn’t one for reminiscing fondly. She would just snap back, oh I don’t remember all those old things. Well lucky for her but some of us can’t forget the old days. We live out her memories in those old days and I feast on every little one I can grasp at. Baba looks so happy here. Like a Bengali film hero from the 50s. She looks like Aparna Sen. 

We celebrated all their anniversaries with lots of dinner parties full of conversation and food that Ma would have cooked from scratch, toiling for days, pretty much with no help. The 7th of May was always a big deal - Baba would bring her fresh flowers. They would together plan the dinner party. The Roys, Sens, Mitras (x2) would join us. In later years as we grew up it was their friends only. The kids stopped attending. But I recall their 25th anniversary being a big deal. We had a big bash which was catered. That never usually happened because we never had that kind of money but I think they wanted to really celebrate the milestone. 

When she was in the hospital I would tell her how she needed to get better so we could celebrate Baba’s 80th. And that she needed to stick around for their 50th anniversary. And her own 75th birthday celebration. We hadn’t had a big do for her 70th and I knew she had wanted one because her friends had been having big bashes for theirs. Somehow I thought we would wait till her 75th. What a fool I was. 

She loved the parties. She loved to dress up in her weakness - saris! She would painstakingly recite to me the menu served at so-and-so’s party, from appetizers to dessert. Her best friend, Kumkum would sometimes get her to dance even. She would have loved to be there for these occasions which is why these are so painful. I miss her joy and ecstasy from these important days. I miss her calls or her reminders that I need to call. I miss her everyday but the 7th of May is the day I’ll miss her ever so much more.