I think flat-hunting is one of those jobs that is most tedious, yet most adventurous, when done alone. After one year in Calcutta, armed with my knowledge of Bangla (largely restricted to daily words like clothes, dishes, wash, pillow, etc.), I decided to hunt for a flat. Approaching brokers made me realise that my vocabulary […]
Torre Pendente
We had just a few hours at Pisa, but we could not travel all over Italy and not visit the famous leaning tower. So we asked a lady on a train what to do, and she wrote for us the name of the bus stop to which we needed to go to see the leaning […]
Cut
My sister and I often got invited to the same parties. Once, when I was about seven, both of us received birthday invitations that had a fancy RSVP slip that had to be cut along the dotted line. Below the dotted line, it said: I can/ cannot attend your birthday party. (Please cut one) I […]
Ramayan in French
My association with France began with a French exchange programme in 2004. I was vegetarian, I barely spoke French, I had never heard the French accent, I was to live with a French family for three weeks and I was to attend French school in that time. And because I was 17, I was not […]
A Night in Florence
“Is the station open all night?” In Florence with no hostel to stay at and frightfully expensive hotel options, we had no choice but to stay at the station. “Yes,” replied the lady and walked away. I wonder if she even understood the question. We made ourselves comfortable in the waiting-room, as comfortable as we […]
Learning to Communicate
“Do you speak English?” we asked three police-people standing at a signal in Milan. The policewoman shook her head and turned to the men. “Just a leetle,” said one. Then began our attempt to tell them we were lost and looking for our hostel. The hostel had given us a map, but we had walked […]
Burggarten, bitte
A lovely lady on the train to Vienna told us we must go see the Burggarten, a rose garden. In our attempt to put to use our practically non-existent German, we greeted an old gentleman on the road and asked him sweetly, “Burggarten, bitte?” He launched into a long speech in German. We listened, nodded […]