She is just 4 months old, and she is not yet dreaming of a white Christmas, but her mother is already making big plans for her when she grows up! Yes, this is what mommyhood has done to me!
Last Christmas, Joy and I were in Calcutta (it's still Calcutta for me, unless some political group starts to threaten and beat up people for calling Kolkata Calcutta). Getting back to last Christmas, both of us wanted to spend the evening on Park Street. I went to Park Street on Christmas Day after at least 11 years!
We first went to Music World and picked up a collection of Al Pacino movies, then strolled around Rippon Street, visited the Archies Gallery near New Market, and finally went to the Oxford Book Store; nothing that we hadn't done before, thought this time was laced with a lot of beautiful memories.
At the Oxford Book Store, we went through a lot of books and even bought a couple. Then we did something that we hadn't done ever before in Cal. We went to the cafe upstairs called Cha Bar for some tea. We are not tea drinkers at all, but the sheer excitement of drinking Darjeeling tea at the Cha Bar was something we didn't want to miss. We spent quite a bit of time there before we went to Roxy at The Park which was the main plan for the latter part of the evening.
Sumit and Rila were performing at Roxy. To our great fortune, the two of us were the only guests who stayed through their entire performance. It almost seemed that they were performing for us! From Brothers In Arms to Yesterday to The Winner Takes It All to many more, Rila's beautiful voice and Sumit's out of this world guitar playing left the two of us mesmerised. Needless to say that it was one of the beautiful Christmas evenings of our lives.
Looking back, Anushka was already in my womb, and she was as much a part of the entire evening as the two of us. Isn't that wonderful! And, as I write this, I am sitting with Anushka and Joy and sipping on my Bacardi. Merry Christmas!
