Dear Friends,
If I had to describe 2021 in two words, I would say “Only Tension.” Health tension, lockdown tension, work from home tension, no maid tension, what to cook tension, fight for working desk tension, zoom zombie tension and all other kinds of kantravi tension.
So I say to Das, “why not go on a vacation to release the tension?” Easier said than done, because then started vacation tension – where to go confusion, costly tickets tension, getting hotel booking tension, packing tension etc. etc. Anyways to cut a long story short, we were finally off to a hotel near the briny blue sea where for a few days we did nothing but eat, watch the sea and sleep. All zero tension activities. At least for the initial few days till a new tension came to my mind.
It was the – what will I show off, talk and write about the vacation tension. No fancy pics, no exotic places, no adventures. People will think that we have gone back to Nehruvian times and forgotten we are living in achche times!
As always, Googleababa came to the rescue and one morning we found ourselves in a heritage village. Supposedly, all the villagers and their forefathers here have been painting since the times of the Guptas. It was like walking through the Gariahat bazaar. Every person would call out asking us to step into their homes and only hear them out, no pressure at all to buy anything. After an hour of seeing more paintings than we have in our entire lifetime and listening to their stories of struggle, with watering eyes I remembered our social obligations. We had to do something to support the villagers become atmanirbhar right. So what do we do? End up buying a patachitra painting of Sri Rama and his story, fully framed and weighing 7 kg. Of course we could have had it taken out of the frame, but that would have been such an avashagunam no?
Thus started another tension. How do we carry the picture back in flight? It was too big for the cabin luggage and too delicate for the check in luggage. No worries, I told Das. We can have it couriered back. After all, people are buying all kinds of things only online now. Surely, it should not be too difficult to send this from Bhubaneshwar to Bangalore.
Thus first thing to do when we landed in Bhubaneshwar, was to have a courierwala come to the hotel. As soon as he saw the picture, he gushed, “amazing, such a work of art. Jai Shri Ram!” and my heart swelled with pride. “Madam, such a masterpiece needs extra special packing and care. Rest assured we will take care.”
All very good, except that after getting the cost estimate Das nearly turned into a grizzly bear. After shooing away the courier fellow, he exclaimed “enough is enough. You forget I was the fevicol champion at school. Jagannath is in my own hands. We will pack it ourselves and take it back.” Great! Problem solved or so I thought. Then began our search for bubble wrapping paper in the beautiful city of Bhubaneshwar. As we took an auto tour of the city and passed through beautiful 12th century temples, all we had eyes was for that elusive shop with a roll of bubble wrapping paper. Our travels took us to small and big markets with all kinds of shops. One such market was named after the father of our nation. Here we found everything possible – electronic items, clothing, furniture, hardware, software and all kinds of kucha mucha items. But NO bubble wrapping paper. After doing a serpentine round the market till it closed, we headed back to the hotel with a hitherto unheard of tension – bubble wrapping paper tension.
Next day morning was the final day of our trip. “Let us first go to the Hanuman temple and take some divine blessings,” I said to Das. “After all, he had carried mountains and crossed oceans for Ram. Surely he will give you the strength to find bubble wrapping paper for me,” I sweetly said to Das.
Bas, that was it. Das burst out like a pressure cooker that had not been switched off even after 10 whistles. “It is all your Ram’s fault in the first place. Why did he have to go after the golden deer in the first place? What would they have done with a golden deer in a jungle? Could not have eaten it nor could he have afforded to maintain it. If he had not gone after it, then Ravana could not have kidnapped Sita and everyone would have been happy and tension free. There would have been no Ramayana or this Ramayana picture. No bamboo, then no flute playing!”
Ok, so poor guy does not know about the Karma theory. It was Rama’s karma that made him chase the deer and it was our karma to chase bubble wrapping paper while on vacation. Anyways, better to keep silent for now, I thought. We still had one last market to cover. There too, one shopkeeper pointed to the other. A game we were pretty familiar with by now. Finally we arrived at a store which was supposed to have everything under the sky. This was our last chance, so Das decided not to leave anything to chance.
He explained animatedly to the shopkeeper, “We are looking for those big plastic sheets with small small round bubbles delicately filled with air, which look like tapioca pearls and go pop-pop-pop when you press them.” There was a moment of poignant silence when the shopkeeper measured him up before saying, “You need bubble wrapping paper? Why can’t you just say that? Yes we have it.”
Then what to say, immediately tears of joy started to flow out of Das’s eyes as though 100% of the board exam questions had come from the 10% syllabus that he had studied. “How can we buy only 2 metres of bubble wrapping paper from this greatest shopkeeper on earth? We should give him more business” Das exclaimed. His eyes then fell on a traditional gherua coloured dhoti gamucha of Odisha and he asked the shopkeeper to pack that for him. “Where on earth will you get to wear that?” I asked him incredulously.
“That’s for our next trip to Rameshwaram. So that I can dress the part when we go on the next wild goose chase. Jai Shri Ram!” replied Das.
Yours finally without tension,
Mrs. Bhagambhaag
Vijaya Das 