Milwaukee Masala

 For Shejo Kaka Some uncles buy you toys. Mine smuggled me into theaters with leaky roofs, slipped me warm biscuits off conveyor belts, and re-routed grocery runs into full-blown snack pilgrimages. A few short months ago, he passed away. This is my tribute—part love letter, part food tour, part mischievous field guide. My Shejo Kaka didn’t just take me places. He revealed them. (For the uninitiated: Shejo Kaka was my father’s younger brother—the third of four sons. But no family chart could capture what he truly meant to me.) He opened doors into secret worlds. Picture a Bengali Willy Wonka—not in a purple coat, but in a soft white kurta, eyes twinkling, with a look that said, "Let’s make some trouble." And trouble? He understood it intimately—from both sides. He was, shall we say, an early adopter of creative asset management. Imagine a schoolboy in rural Bengal, cash-strapped, needing some pocket money... maybe for a kite or a mutton cutlet. There’s a big drum of rice in th...

Guava—that crunchy bite, the explosion of sweet-tangy flavor that lands somewhere between a pear and a strawberry. There’s just nothing like it. I haven’t had a proper one in over a decade, and maybe I’m romanticizing it by now—taste memories have a way of ripening over time. You don’t get that here in the Midwest. Not really. But when coworkers-turned-friends travel in from the southern neighbor to the U.S. of A., and they bring guava candies and spicy tamarind ones—the good kind, with just enough kick—it’s like a shortcut straight to your childhood. The kind of taste that says: hey, you’re not home, but you’re not entirely adrift either. Speaking of coworkers... I once worked with a brilliant young engineer—Berkeley grad, true-blue nerd. Let’s call him Mr. Q. One day, we were walking back from the cafeteria. Mostly me talking, him enduring. By the time I got back to my desk, my work laptop was lighting up. Messages from all corners of the office: “Wait, did Mr. Q just laugh?” “...

How a Lychee Tree, a Net, and My Mama’s Love Made Summers Unforgettable When you’re the firstborn of the next generation, you’re often laden with expectations — but on the flip side, you’re also lavished with love and attention. I was blessed with uncles on both sides of the family — my mama (maternal uncle) and kaka (paternal uncle) — who were more like friends than adults, and happily doubled as my babysitters. Even after I moved from Kolkata to Delhi, those bonds didn’t fade. In fact, they grew stronger every summer vacation, each trip back home a reaffirmation of their love. My mama in particular always wanted to share the summer bounty of Bengal with his poor, starved niece living so far away in heathen Delhi — aam (mango), jamrul (rose apple), lichu (lychee), kul (Indian jujube)... It was a constant battle with the bats and birds to keep the fruits on the trees long enough for them to ripen naturally. One summer, when we stepped into the courtyard, we saw mama’s handi...

A Croak of Wisdom: A Modern Aesop’s Fable Remember Aesop’s tales of clever animals teaching us life lessons? Well, nothing in those pages prepared me for frogs and toads hosting nightly symphonies right in my backyard. And you, dear reader, can share with me the life lesson once you discern it. Let me set the scene: the sun dips below the horizon, the pond across the way glints under a sliver of moonlight, and — BAM! — the air explodes with croaks and chirps so loud you’d think the amphibian world was plotting world domination. Honestly, these frogs must believe they’re the headliners at some exclusive pondside EDM festival. Frogs have been serenading me (needlessly, I might add) for a while now. Back in Kolkata, after a good rain, I’d hear them lulling me to sleep during summer vacations spent with family. I can still picture those big nights on the courtyard near the pond: my brother was persuaded to put on a full performance of Bengali folk songs (which, yes, I had helpfully trans...

I must’ve missed a step somewhere in raising my kids. I grew up on a steady diet of British and Indian literature — think Aesop’s Fables and the Panchatantra . Don’t ask me exactly where things went sideways, but somehow they made it through childhood without ever reading the story of the geese and the turtle. Poor things. Then again, my boys think I missed something in my childhood — I didn’t read The Hobbit or The Lord of the Rings until I was an adult, after I’d crossed the pond to the good ol’ US of A. So I guess it all depends on where you’re standing to decide what’s wrong with the picture. Let me set the scene for you: a lush green lawn edged by a runoff pond, beautiful reeds swaying in the breeze, and — oh yes — the incessant, honking cacophony of Canadian migratory geese, determined to ruin the peace. Honestly, these geese deserve a citation for disturbing the neighborhood. But I digress…  One night, after yet another bed-time symphony of honking echoing through the d...

College bunking — or as we liked to call it, “strategic absences” — might not be a staple of American college vocabulary, but if you haven’t skipped a few classes with friends, you’re missing a rite of passage. (Of course, this rule applies to everyone except my kids…and my friends’ kids. Naturally.) Whether it was a daring escape from canteen mystery meals in search of crispy masala dosas, a cup of kadak adrak chai that made us feel like rebels (pre-Starbucks, thank you very much), or a desperate attempt to catch the latest Bollywood heartthrob on the big screen, we had our priorities straight. First rule of the college hitchhiker’s club? Thumbs out. Hitch a ride. Safety in numbers — a giggling gaggle of friends is far less likely to be abducted, right? And honestly, if anyone stupid enough tried, they’d probably end up paying our families to take us back. Second rule? Plan your routes carefully. There’s no quicker way to end a bunking spree than bumping into your parents — or ...

  Ladies — when you’re of a certain age, home alone, and (most importantly) sporting a frozen shoulder, what must you absolutely not do? Well, no housework or chores, obviously — that doesn’t even need to be said. But here’s the one you won’t think of until it’s too late: do not try on rompers or jumpsuits — especially if they’re not the stretchy kind. Believe me, you do not want to find yourself half-in, half-out of a one-piece prison, contemplating whether to call your neighborhood friends (if you’re lucky enough to have friends you’d even consider calling) to come bail you out. Sure, it would make for great entertainment — and bringing laughter into your friends’ lives is a noble cause. But maybe, just maybe, there are less… compromising ways to achieve that. This serene Ghibli-style heroine is clearly just a dramatic re-enactment. AI flat-out refused to capture the actual scene, which involved curse words, contortions, and a level of shoulder mobility that would make Cir...