Ma and Dada
This is one of my favourite photos, and just one of many baby pictures we have of Bozo... he was a cute kid after all. I, on the other hand, must have been a supremely ugly baby, because apart from one lone photo of Bozo and me when I was a few months old, all other pictures of me are age 3 or so upwards, which I assume is when my loving parents thought I was cute enough. Bah!
great pics.. :) didu recently informed me (quite rude of her i thought) that i was a very ugly baby.. both grandmothers recoiled in horror apparently.. its a superficial world..
ReplyDeleteHaw... that IS very rude indeed... these relatives of ours have a lot to answer for... I know I thought you were cute as a button myself... in any case, look how u turned out, pretty young lady and photogenic too ... u showed them, didn't you :)
ReplyDeleteNo Way! You were lovely! And I took the greatest joy in dressing you up. Well, yes, we weren't the kind that'd spend big bucks on kiddies clothes, but Pishi'd make these cute little dresses for you in her tailoring classes and you always looked terrific in whatever you wore.
ReplyDeleteOf course I'm biased. Of course mine is the most beautiful girl in the world! But you were far from UGLY!
There IS proof. Why else do you think you were so popular as a baby in Dunlop? No one wants an ugly baby to cuddle, if they're someone else's, do they? But you? You were hardly ever home! If Subir Kaku didn't take you away for the WHOLE DAY, his Mom would send Bhiku to fetch you! And if you cried, Bhiku would be banging on the door within seconds: "Mashi-ma wants to know why Mini is crying!"
Now you tell me: Isn't that better proof than any photos?
Well, yes, I feel guilty about that as well! There's a reason for that...It was your Ba that was the one with the camera in those days, and it was one of those high-tech thingies that I hardly dared to look at, even!
In Madras, we had a lot more time together and there was a lot less stress as he was just a small-fry-shift-engineer, I s'pose. Hence the numerous Baby Bozo pictures.
We moved to Sahaganj when you were barely 2 months old, and he seemed to forget he had a camera - a family?!! - lying around. Hence the scant number of Baby Mini photos.
It all as simple as that!
Heh, Heh, heh! SO I've laid the blame squarely at his door yet again!
ReplyDeleteMa - ok, ok I am convinced, I accept I was a cute baby. Since you insist! Sheesh! I was just joking anyway. I mean, look at me, how could I possibly have been an ugly baby!! heh heh.
ReplyDeleteSubir Kaka... actually that one baby picture of me that we do have, has him in it. I must see if I can find it. It is the cutest photo (no, not just because I am in it)... Bozo is sitting in a pram, and I am on his lap, and he is looking down at me with a completely fascinated smile on his face, and Subir Kaka is sitting next to the pram looking at both of us. Now he is one with loads of classic Bozo-stories. Must see if I can ask him to contribute too.
Hi minidi,
ReplyDeleteBozoda's Blog is perhaps the most beautiful thing you could have ever done for him and everyone who loved him. i have never spoken to you about bozoda since so many years, maybe because sometimes reasons fail you and anything you would say wouldn't add meaning to the already messed up meanings we all have to deal with. And maybe also because I don't have very thought through memories of him. Just passing incidents (the typical Dunlop-y ones with crazy kids around) in glimpses and heaps of stories of the Dunlop days heard from ma and baba!!!
But the last time I saw him, when he came to Calcutta, at our place....he was narrating hilarious tales of a trip they had, travelling on tops of buses...if I remember correctly, he was in Rajasthan then.
I have got hazy memories of him. But the pictures and the narratives from baba quite establish the facts that you two were the cutest kids around....i will see if i find any picture from among the Dunlop Albums, will post it to you so that you can put it on the blog.....
And ofcourse minidi, you are as sweet looking as you were as a kid................!!!!no doubts about that!!!
I just couldn't bring myself to post in the blog, because there are so many with real good memories of bozoda..and mine is just a collage made up of pictures, stories, imaginings, with bits and pieces of reality here and there.
But I am sure the blog will help in continuing a story that ended all of a sudden without a reason.....and wherever he is, lets all remember the smile he had. And the smiles he gave to all.
Piya - Thank you for the lovely email, and for letting me add it to the comments :)
ReplyDeleteWill wait for the promised posts from you and Kaku n Kaki.
The pic on the top page of the blog..is my favorite picture of Bozo Dada...I had thought that when I go to India...I will post that here...but Mini didi, good you had put it up already...
ReplyDeleteMala - really? it's probably my favourite one too. I took it, after all :-) This was on that last trip to Cal in 1993. We were walking down some street and he was in front of me (he had one of those blue Sabro bags on his shoulder)... I called out to him and he looked back; that's when I took the picture. That's how I remember it anyway.
ReplyDeleteI used to carry it in my purse always, but then I lost it when my bag got stolen in 2005. Luckily I had also taken a picture of it on my phone camera, so this is actually a photo of the photo :-)
So if you do have a copy back home, do post it on the blog.
I remember we have it in our album...and I also remember this was taken in Cal in that trip...Before u guys left..u gave some copies of pics taken during that trip...so there should be a couple more...I'll definitely post some next month..and send them to you also so u can take prints of those...
ReplyDeleteactually when I saw the picture..it struck me at once..why does it look blurred?coz..i remember it so well...but anyway...good that u had it in your phone camera...
Hello Deb Mam,
ReplyDeleteThis is vidya Sutar/Dixit.
Your student from Kv Karanja.
Vidya
Happy New year Mam.
ReplyDeleteVidya
Hello Deb Mam,
ReplyDeleteMy email Id is vidsan02@hotmail.com