Swiss Masala

By Brindarica Bose

'Swiss Masala' is a compilation of 15 short stories of expat Indians living abroad (Switzerland). These stories are grouped under different flavours or spices. From melancholia to euphoria these stories may attempt to touch your taste buds with pungent, or sweet emotions. The protagonists range from a housewife labelled as a 'drama queen' to a migrant who came to work as a nanny, to an entrepreneur, to a couple coping with loss of work and small children, all walking their separate lives yet coming together with their experiences as an immigrant in a foreign country.

Events picked up from daily life, these stories revolve around characters that we all know too well. These stories are stories of migration, families and relationships. This is a work of fiction.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Brindarica Bose
• Release date: Jul 15, 2018
• ISBN: 9781386363491

Brindarica Bose

Brindarica Bose, lives in Switzerland and this book is her first attempt to narrate stories of expats living abroad. Born in Mumbai, she lived in India before coming to Switzerland. After completing her B.Sc. and MBA, Brindarica worked for a leading English daily newspaper in Mumbai for two years and later joined an international association in Zurich as their Publications Manager. She is also an artist and works as an Art teacher part-time.  She lives in Switzerland with her husband and two sons.  www.brindarica.com

Book preview

For my parents, family, friends and Tatu—my first storyteller.

WITH SPECIAL THANKS TO

BABA, MA, FOR ALWAYS encouraging me to write. Adhrit and Jeet, for your genuine happiness when I told you that I was working on a book. Srijit, for giving me the title and for being my Swiss guru. Titir, for your valuable suggestions based on which I restructured the sequence. Nayana, for your helpful comments, corrections and encouragement and my online editors—who helped pick typos and errors.

INTRODUCTION

This book is a compilation of 15 short stories written over 15 years’ time, after my arrival in Switzerland. When I decided to publish them I had to first find them—scattered in notebooks or WORD files saved in different places. With kids, job and engagements, it took up all my spare time and energy to get this published and I sincerely hope that you will like reading this book. The stories are grouped under different flavours or masalas (spices). The protagonists range from a housewife labelled as a ‘drama queen’ to a migrant who started working as a nanny, to an entrepreneur visiting Switzerland to meet his long lost friend—to couples who are trying to spice up their lives with a trip to the Alps, to a woman entering a poetic trance in her garden of Basil and much more. From melancholia to euphoria, these stories may attempt to touch your taste buds and give you a taste of pungent, sweet or hot spices. Events picked up from daily life—these stories revolve around characters that we all know too well. Most of the protagonists are expat Indians living in Switzerland.

TURMERIC

TURMERIC IS THE BOILED, dried, cleaned and polished rhizomes of Curcuma longa. Turmeric is used to flavour and to colour foodstuffs. It is a principal ingredient in curry powder. It is used in the preparation of medicinal oils and ointments. It is a blood purifier and an antiseptic and is the most common masala used in Indian food, which gives curry its yellow colour.

drama queen

THE DOORS SLID AND closed with a distinct click as the train slipped out of Aarau, slowly gathering speed.

Chitra placed her handbag next to her, and unzipped her jacket.

It was warm inside the train.

She did not know where to look. A boy and a girl sitting in the next cubicle were kissing. It was dark outside, so there was not much to watch outside either. Chitra dropped her gaze to her hands. She stared at her palms absentmindedly, joining both fate lines into an arch—while studying the frail branches stemming out from both sides.

As the 46-year-old mother of a teenager and the wife of a busy executive—she knew that her fate line carried no special destiny for her. Embroiled in domestic activities, she also had no spare time.

She turned her hands over to inspect the half-moons on each thumbnail, which had turned pale yellow from repeated use of turmeric while marinating fish with garlic, turmeric, and salt almost every other day. Her husband couldn’t eat dinner without rice and fish, so she prepared an item of fish almost every evening, supplemented by pasta or Rösti for her daughter.

Chitra’s life was primarily focused on cooking these meals, with utmost care and precision. The fish had to be scaled, marinated with turmeric, garlic, ginger and mustard oil and then fried or steamed as per the recipe. 

She made frequent trips to the Indian grocery store in Oerlikon and Baden, to buy Hilsa, Pabda or Rohu—as her husband found the local fish fillets tasteless. A simple meal was rarely thought of.

Chitra shifted her thoughts from cooking, back to her hands.

A red coral as large as a pebble on her middle finger was the only prominent object of colour to adorn her hands. It had been a gift from her maternal uncle, an astrologer, on the occasion of her marriage.

The coral stone turned a deep tomato red whenever sunlight passed over it. The ring’s coral stone also had a namesake, a person whom Chitra had admired when she was younger—Probal da.

Probal was the name given to coral stones in Bengali.

It was a Friday evening, and the train was full of young people. Some stood near the doors, holding M-budget cans of beer; others sat on steps. Chitra felt a bit unsure about her own plans. What would her husband say? Not that she admitted to fearing him, but still.

She had never done a single thing without informing her husband and taking his active; or a passive permission, granted either with a dismissive nod or a "Thik ache, dekhe nao tumi (fine, it’s your decision)". Financially as well as emotionally, Chitra was dependent on him for almost everything. Even which dish was good or tasteless—her husband decided.

Her husband was content to have a subjugated wife.

Sometimes Chitra felt that she was gradually becoming transparent, like a plastic sheet with no decision making skills of her own. No one was to blame for that, except her own passive way of dealing with life and an overwhelming urge to conform to the status quo. It wasn’t just her family, outsiders too barely noticed her. If she was in a room full of people, no one would care to start a conversation, or even turn towards her.

The previous Saturday, some guests had come for dinner at her home. One of them—Bimal da, held some naan, inspecting its texture.

Chitra, is this a Lebanese naan?

Bimal da, Chitra doesn’t even know where Lebanon is located, much less how to prepare Lebanese naan! Her husband hadn’t even cared to ask her before responding.

He shared a round of well-meaning humour with Bimal-da. Chitra had smiled and slipped into the kitchen without a single word of protest.

She still felt a burning flush of humiliation at the thought. What her husband had said was true!

She didn’t know where Lebanon was—somewhere in Europe, but next to which country? She didn’t have a clue.

When she emerged twenty minutes later from the kitchen, no one noticed her. She quickly checked if there were enough pakoras in the porcelain bowl and if the rice was still warm on the table before returning to her kitchen.

It was the same even when she went to India. She remained an outsider there as well. Her in-laws always managed to convey an unspoken thought: Chitra, you don’t deserve this good fortune of staying abroad with our son. It dripped through their actions and gestures. She felt like an imposter amongst them.

Years before, when she used to sing Najrulgeeti in her classically trained voice, they would show off her skill whenever guests came. But now, since she sang no more, she had no special status in the Bhattacharya household. In fact, they paid more attention to the cosmetics she brought from Switzerland. She would always leave her cosmetics behind, for either her sister-in-law or some other grasping relative. But the truth remained the same—a deluge of foreign cosmetics would not change their opinion of her.

If she ever mentioned her work to them and how hard it was for her to maintain a two-storied house without any help at her age, her sister-in-law would promptly wrinkle her nose and tell her upfront, Don’t be such a drama queen Boudi. You live in luxury. Look at me! I’m Dada’s own sister and I cannot even think of indulging in such luxury. All we get is second-hand goods.

All her in-laws and their sundry relatives sitting on the bed, observing Chitra and her belongings—foreign bags, creams and lotions—would nod their heads in unison. For them, Chitra had no right to complain. She was indeed a drama queen.

Chitra often saw in herself, the reflection of her own aunt, Chotopishi, who had developed a mental illness in her late forties. Chotopishi, her father’s youngest sister, was married to a doctor. Yet, when she became quiet and depressed over the duration of a couple of years, no one noticed or cared enough to have her symptoms diagnosed. On the face of it, Chotopishi kept the house clean, provided timely meals and was always nice and polite when guests came to visit their Bhagalpur residence.

Then one afternoon, during their summer vacation when Chotopishi was visiting Chitra’s home with her son, she fell ill. Her husband was a busy doctor and wasn’t able to leave his practise in order to come immediately. Besides, in those days, flying was still not common, unless one was travelling abroad. Bhagalpur didn’t even have an airport.

Chotopishi started mumbling first, initially it was sporadic. Then it increased to a couple of hours each day until her condition escalated and she became violent. She began to throw pots and pans, books, sweaters—whatever was within her reach. These episodes would be followed by debilitating migraines. Whenever Chitra’s father would try to calm her down, she would plead with him with folded hands, Dada, please don’t send me back to that man-eater. He and his house are monsters. I know they are conspiring to poison me!

Chotopishi’s son, who was a teenager then, stayed away from this commotion, and Chitra was asked to keep an eye on him so that he would not see his mother in this condition—with her Saree’s pallu falling off her, smeared sindur on her forehead and possessed of a wild rage Chotopishi had never been known to be capable of.

After several days of this incessant mumbling, their family doctor prescribed strong sedatives and confined Chotopishi to bed for two weeks. Slowly her condition stabilised, and she was returned to her home in Bhagalpur.  Soon after, Chitra’s father received a telephone call from Chotopishi’s husband saying that she’d been diagnosed with depression and mental illness.

Pishemoshai, her husband, was a hardworking but a stern man, who could be brusque and impatient. He was also a miser, so it came as a surprise for everyone when he called to inform Chitra’s father that he had hired a cook and a full-time maid for Chotopishi. Every morning he gave Chotopishi red and blue capsules, explaining that they were for her high blood pressure. She took them dutifully from his extended palm and popped them into her mouth with a gulp of water.

Chotopishi was used to following him. She was the traditional, reticent Indian wife.

She settled into this routine without complaint.

Two years later, she died.

They’d been planning to visit Chitra’s family that summer, but Chotopishi had apparently taken a cocktail of the wrong medicines and had fallen unconscious on the terrace. She passed away silently, as silently as she had lived. Perhaps she had whimpered when she had the supposed stroke, but no one had heard her last cry for help. She was discovered only after her son returned from college. The main door was opened by the maid, who had been taking a midday nap while the cook was on holidays.

Chotopishi left a deep impact on Chitra. During her childhood, their relatives would often compare her to Chotopishi—her quiet disposition and her tranquil looks, her long lustrous hair and big soft eyes.

Chitra was in class twelve when Chotopishi died. She still harboured memories of how her father and grandma reacted to the news, first received in a phone call, then with an invitation card sent by Blue Dart to attend her cremation followed by the ritualistic shraddho in Bhagalpur. Grandma developed a fever and didn’t go, but Chitra’s father went. His face reflected his guilt more than pain from the loss, as if he knew that Chotopishi had suffered