Billu Barber

Yes, you read it right and no, this is not a joke -the scissorhand in the picture is indeed called Billu! When Billu was born his parents had a premonition that one day the greatest of great stars of Bollywood (so says Farrah Khan the bestest pal of the 'King') would make a jabardast fillum about their second born. Not having done much by way of 'lekha pora', (Who does, in our villages despite the tall claims splashed across state-sponsored banners? Half of the money goes into putting up the banners anyway!) poor Billu was packed off to serve as an apprentice to a barber of some repute in the village of Mohidaapur on the way to Sriniketan. He picked up the tricks of the trade in no time (also finding time to elope with the girl next door which led to a major showdown between the two families and an attempted suicide bid by the damsel, to boot!) and came back to nijo gram to set up shop. On this occasion Lal had taken 'malikke lal' for a not too needed haircut(Anok simply loves having his hair cut at Kamarpara, for reasons best known to him.) but seeing a big crowd had returned asking Billu to drop in at the farm on his way home. And thus history of sorts was made - Kamarpara saw its first Barber-on-Call..!!!

You Jane Me Tarzan!!

Here you see Anok trying his best to impress Titli, daughter of our regular guests Deep and Nilanjana, when they first met! Poor boy was reduced to swinging from a tree! Well, thank god for the banayans..atleast they are around when you are stuck in a village with no Pizza Hut or Baristaa to take your girl to!
Although they are of the same age, Titli is a propah and prime 'lady', very mature, very bookish. You could spend hours talking to her, and believe me, most of the time you would be the listener! Anok, on the other hand, has very little to do with books! ( except for the fact that he loves buying books!). Anok believes in hands-on experiences, as you can clearly see in the picture! He is completely at home in natural surroundings, among animals and insects.

Kaalbaisakhi Junkie!

This picture was taken one late afternoon last week, near the Lakhi Sayar, just before a violent Nor-wester hit Kamarpara and Dwaranda! The build-up to the storm was uncharacterestically quick and poor Suchandra, who was out for a leisurely stroll with Mowgli, was caught completely off-guard and had a harrowing time keeping her billowing wrap-around down!!!

Otherwise, ofcourse, both Suchandra and Anok are Kaalbaisakhi junkies! If black clouds appear in the North-West corner indicating an approaching storm mother and son simply go bonkers. They pick a vantage point, from where they can feel the full blast, and station themselves there much in advance. After the storm comes the rain and then comes the rain dance! My job is ofcourse to photograph the madness and also to make sure that a bucket full of hot water is ready in the toilet so that nobody catches cold! In the city Suchandra slaves it out while I relax. Here it's just the opposite.

The Botany Lesson

Here is Suchandra giving some botany lessons to little Anok! This picture was taken about a decade back. Way back then we still had plans of shifting base to Kamarpara, or atleast Shantiniketan, do some rural development work, start an organic farm, paint, build a crafts village, teach..in other words, add a little value to our otherwise miserable and meaningless life. But then man proposes and man disposes! I guess we did not have what it takes to be true adventurers. ( Ralph Waldo Emerson has said that it takes little more than a pair of shoes to be a true adventurer, but then I think he was talking about climbing hills and trudging along forest trails!)

In the end we panicked and stayed put where we were. Anok now goes to a posh school, Suchandra still teaches at CGHS, and I am still doing whatever I've always done for the last 25 years. People who visit our farm at Kamarpara often think of us as super achievers. That is not true at all. We are under-achievers par excellance. We have not fulfilled 10% of the promises we made to ourselves.

Anok's World

Anok is our son. I was going through some of our old Kamarpara albums today ( there are about a 100 of them) when I came across this photograph of Anok,( he is on the left) when he was about 4 years old, with some other kids. Anok has always had this thing about calves, and I am sure the conversation he seems to be having with his friends is directly related to the supine calf at his feet!

We have often offered to buy him a few calves, but he doesn't much care for the idea that calves grow into cows! Cows are trouble, especially when they run!

The Three Feathers

This picture features the troika of Lal, Basu and Aakash- the three 'kash phools' in our toka! No they are not performing a rain dance, nor are they dancing to our tunes. ( Lal can play the flute, Aakash can tune a radio,Basu-the least musically inclined-can honk his car, but none can shake his leg!). All they are doing here is trying to flatten the ground, after having laid some tiles under it, while it is still wet.
Jokes apart, do they ever dance to our tunes? Never. All three are proud individuals in their own right and although they work as a team with a considerable amount of sucesses, they seldom see eye to eye.
We've often been complimented by our guests about how smoothly everything runs at 'Aaro Aakash'.They congratulate us on our HRD skills. Oh boy, I wish it was true!
The best way to understand how 'Aaro Aakash' works is to observe a swimming duck (not a sitting duck, mind you!). A picture of serenity, the duck seems to glide effortlessly on the water. But take a peek under the surface and you'll see how frantically the duck paddles away! This frantic paddling is what is done by us behind the scene. And what you see is the synchronised choreography of Lal, Basu and Aakash! So now you know!!
We are not complaining- that is how it should be. If people are happy with LBA, it makes our day. We like it when people ask while making reservations -"Ora ache to?"( Are they still there?). For them it is not enough that the Aakash cottages are there but also the people who work there.That is value addition with a human angle! It is fantastic! Truly.
But sometimes,we've been told that we are 'lucky' to have found people like them. Hmmmm...not so fast gentlemen/ladies! 'Luck' dosen't fall like mana from heaven.'Luck' has to be acquired, achieved, with a lot of heart wrenching sacrifices ( monetary and otherwise) and back breaking hard work. The people of Kamarpara have a different take on this. "How lucky LBA are to have found 'babu's like Udayda and Chuadi", they say!
The truth,as always, lies somewhere in-between. Lucky us and lucky them. We are lucky to have found an honest employee in Lal and he is lucky to have found employers as easy with their purse strings as us. The list of debts we've written off would give long nightmares to a lot of people. Most people in the village would kill to have Lal's job any day. Such a heavily subsidised lifestyle doesn't come for the asking. Till about 5/6 years back we used to get offers, on the sly, from Lal's neighbours who promised to deliver more for less money! The offers dried up when they realised that Lal is an integral part of our project and will continue to remain so, till he pilfers money and gets caught, that is! And unless one fine day he loses his mind I don't see why he would do that. Over and above a fixed salary of Rs.1400/ and other perks such as unlimited use of electricity and half of all the paddy grown on our land, he takes home every paisa guests pay for their food. That includes us when we are there. Add to that the generous tips from guests, and you've got a completely new interpretation of 'luck'.
Basu, our Man Friday, is actually not on our pay-roll. He earns daily wages when he works on something at the farm, such as routine maintanence and repair work. And he drives the car and takes all the money guests pay for using it. No mark-up for us! Ofcourse he pays for the fuel and minor repair work. But we pay for the major repairs ( engine overhauling and other repairs cost us 20K last year) and we pay the road tax of Rs.2000/-per annum. At a modest estimate I'd put our investments to facilitate Basu's earnings at 100K so far.
Loyalty and luck both come for a steep price. John Kenneth Galbraith would not approve of our methods. Amartya Sen, with his left leanings, perhaps would!
Since Jan 2009, we've also been giving Basu a 5% cut from the cottage rentals, the only money we earn, which again is spent on LBA and the cottages anyway. It seems we are taking nothing home! Quick, Chua, where's my Chinese calculator? The one that never breaks down except when it dosen't work?
Aakash, the third man, takes home Rs.800/- and tips, which I am told doesn't add up to much for him. But then normally he works for half a day and takes French leave in pucca Birbhumi style quite frequently.
At the end of the day the question to ask is not what we have got but rather do we deserve what we have got. If you ask the first you'll forever be searching for an answer.If you ask the second the answer is always the same- a simple and resounding No.

Note this trivia: Aakash's real name is Bijoy but for some strange reason people call him either 'Kota' or 'Behai' which he hates. So we gave him this new name Aakash, after our farm! I believe he loves being called Aakash, but no one in Kamarpara is willing to do him this simple favour. Poor Aakash banks on Basu and our guests to spread his new nomenclature!

Aakash Resort? Oops,No!!!!

'Bhraman', the Bengali travel and tour magazine has taken upon itself the task of re-christening us!

In its January issue, at the end of a write-up on weekends at Shantiniketan, the writer, in his admirable magnanimity, has included us as one of the three good village resorts that have come up near Shantiniketan. As a result I get about 3 phone calls a day asking for reservations. Sounds like a good turn? No. Decidedly no! For one thing, the correspondent should have asked us wheather we are at all keen to promote our private cottages as a getaway place for the type that flocks to Tarapith and Bakreshwar. And for another, we are not Aakash Resorts! For god's sake, no! After having tried every trick in the book to steer clear of being labelled thus, all it takes is a careless hack to do you in! That is galling. We are not a commercial outfit( no commercial outfit would rent out a 5 bigha garden with only one cottage in it for the money we charge) and we have an issue with this word -resort. So everytime the person on the other side says (sometimes matter of factly, sometimes with a sweet sonorous tune), "Akash Resorts?" I , kind of, cringe, and there is a perceptible tightening of the jaw before I can reply..."Ah...yes..ah, but not quite..but what do you want to know..you see the Bhraman people..

Then the conversation goes like this:

"If this is not a resort, what is it?"

"It's a private guest house."

"So you don't rent it out?"

"People do go and stay there."

"So can we go and stay there?"

"Do you know us? Or do you know anyone who knows us?"

"No."

"Then, I am afraid, you cannot stay at Awnek or Aaro Aakash".

Hordes of Travel Agents have also called. But we have no desire to fill up Awnek and Aaro Aakash with tourists throughout the year. That would be easy. Spreading the word among the drivers at Bolpur station would do the trick. They are the best travel agents. But we are easy going, laid-back people, and we did not build these cottages to mint money. We are happy the way things are. We have a wonderful set of loyal clientele, that keeps growing by the day. What more could we ask for?

So no thanks, Bhraman!

Uday Hajra