Pujo is...
Often, I pride myself in not looking like a Bong. Or behaving like one. Seven years out of Kolkata, my love for Bengal is limited to cooking some authentic non-veg Bengali dishes over the weekend (more to make my hubby teach and appreciate Bengali cuisine), watching back-to-back Bengali movies while I am in Kolkata (and searching for Torrents while am not), reading up Bengali authors voraciously (this being my teenage love, more than anything else), visiting Oly, Flurys, and Peter Cat religiously every time I am in Kolkata (believe me when I say, I have never been to Kalighat temple all my life), and roaming (or loafing) around in the streets of Kolkata, around Maidan, at Metro stations, at Esplanade, and CCD hopping with friends. Which made me logically argue with myself – so what if I am working during Pujo? So what if I am not in Kolkata? So what if I miss the first ‘sindoor khela’ of my life in Kolkata? So what if I have to listen to Park Street and Maddox Square crowds over