City Boy » Mi Famiglia

I’m probably going to lose my inheritance after my family reads this

Amortya Ray — Wed, 26 May 2010 16:08:28 +0000

Remember that one time when my mother was trying to find me a bride? Apparently it’s an inherited trait. She gets it from my grandmother, her mother.

My parents and sister are visiting my family in Calcutta, India. And obviously, since my grandma loves me so much that the topic of when I settle down is constantly on her mind. My cousin (who’s gonna get a massive ass whooping the next time I meet him), takes a picture of mine from my Facebook album, of when I took a vacation to San Francisco last November, prints and circulates it around Mommy’s side of the family. Harmless, non-scandalous picture of my friend KB and me standing in front of the Golden Gate Bridge. And I may or may not have had my arm around her shoulder. Or waist. I don’t remember. No biggie. Or so I thought.

Sunny California!

The second my 80 year old Grandma gets on the phone she starts with her third degree. She uses a really hard Bengali word, which I had no clue about. The conversation went somewhat like this:

Didu: So wh0 is that ?

Me: Huh? What?

Didu (yelling into the phone): Who is that ?

Me: Who what!?

Didu (clearing her throat and screaming out loud): WHO IS THAT ?

At this point, my never ending huh’s and what’s were starting to get awkward and I thought it was wise to change tactics.

Me: Yes yes Didu, you’re right.

Didu: You moron, I’m asking who that pretty girl with you is in the picture in front of the orange bridge.

Me: Aaaah.. that’s my friend KB.

And then starts her barrage of questions starting! What’s her name? Full name? What does she do? Where does she live? Is she Bengali? Can she cook? Can she cook well? Can she cook Bengali food? WHAT! She’s vegetarian!? OMGWTFNOWAI! GPA? What’s her sunsign? Is she Manglik? She better be, because you’re a Manglik. It was at this point that I stopped listening. I blurred out the sounds and went to my happy place. Kati Roll in New York. It was a few minutes later that I realized that the phone was now with my sister. She tells me that I can breathe easy. She’s all, “Didu took a closer look at one of the pictures and saw that KB’s left eye looked marginally smaller than the right one. And promptly rejected her as a potential bride.” I breathed a sigh of relief. But then again, I am her favorite grandson. Okay, second favorite grandson. (She has two grandsons). Abhishek Bachchan lookalike par excellence. Nothing less than the best for me.

Morty got game!

I’m glad she has no clue about the shenanigans from 25th birthday.

Update: I’ve been informed that is the Bengali word for a “female friend”. This is why I bring shame to Bong’s worldwide. Yay me!

Inappropriate Dinner Talk and Steaming Desserts

Amortya Ray — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 19:51:13 +0000

My wonderful parents, who have been blissfully married for 26 years, celebrated their anniversary today. And I, as the dutiful, financially independent, first-born, decided to take them to dinner. So we drive down to this really fancy Chinese restaurant in Bombay called Mainland China. And whilst waiting the appetizers to be served, Mommy decides to regale the crowd with some scintillating tales from their younger days. Now be warned, Momma Ray is a fabulous storyteller. Her educational background in literature and history, along with her innate talent for the gab, makes her one heck of a conversationalist. So as I wait for my pan fried dumplings, Ma tells the story of her’s and Baba’s wedding anniversary in Bangalore. Yes, the one where an overfed, 3-year old me decided to be a rather gracious guest at the restaurant and throw up all over the floor. In excruciatingly graphic detail. Now, as I have no recollection of the aforementioned incident ever taking place, it’s my word against her’s. Oh and yes, my parents were charged extra for the ‘cleaning up’ of the toddler’s puke. This story, however, pales in comparison to the next one where I pooped under the table at a restaurant. YES I DID! My childhood is full of such lovely anecdotes about shit and vomit. And about making a mess on the menu card when a daring stunt with chopsticks and oriental cabbage salad goes woefully wrong. YES I DID!

From stinky turds to the greatest dessert ever created, gentlemen, I give you, the sizzling brownie. And a shout out to Lil’ m, yes- it does sizzle!

Sizzling Brownie! from Amortya Ray on Vimeo.

Imminent nuptials and superstar lookalikes

Amortya Ray — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 20:13:52 +0000

Today my Mum was asked to be judge for a dance competition at the local Saraswati Pujo in Lokhandwala Complex, Bombay. And for some reason, she had been insisting all day that I accompany her to the event. And as much as I didn’t want to go, I decided to be a good son for once, and tag along. BIG MISTAKE!

Really? I don't think so!

It was only after I got to the ground that I realized the devious ways my Mum’s mind works in. Well, I shouldn’t have been surprised. She is after all MY mother! Mommy was totally pimping me out for all the eligible girls present there. Here’s how it worked. I was standing with my Dad on one side of the ground checking out the food stalls (obviously!). Ma goes about socializing and networking like she’s one of the girls from SATC. But truth be told, her hawk eyes were scouting for nubile, young women to pitch to me. And after she’s done with her recon mission, she calls me over and introduces me to her friends AND their daughters. She’s goes like, “Here is my son. Engineer. NRI. And doesn’t he look like Abhishek Bachchan?”. Obviously, she couldn’t tell me anything straight up, but one look in her eyes and I knew what her end game was. She’s cute na? She’s well educated, has a good job, comes from a good family and can cook! Why don’t you call her sometime? Of course, if she had it her way, she would have probably had me engaged then and there. Thankfully though, I managed to drag her by the hand away from all the madness. She was quiet, but her body language was yelling, “I AM NOT GETTING ANY YOUNGER. I WANT GRANDCHILDREN! AND I WANT THEM NOW! THIS IS GOING TO HAPPEN WHETHER YOU LIKE IT OR NOT, EVEN IF I HAVE TO KNOCK YOUR ASS UNCONSCIOUS AND MAKE YOU TAKE THE GODDAMN PHERAS”

Boss, Andheri kaunse side pe aayega?

Amortya Ray — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 03:23:20 +0000

For the clueless, the title of this post refers to the ubiquitous line every train traveler in Bombay should have uttered at least once in their lifetime. Roughly translated it means, “Dude, on what side of the train is the platform gonna be?”.

Yes, I’m visiting my parents, sister and grandmum in Bombay, India after nearly 2 years. And the experience has been, well, mixed. As I exited the airport after haggling with the customs officer, a ferocious blast of heat hits me. Ah! The advantages of living in a tropical country. I went from subzero temperatures to absolute sweltering heat. On the bright side, I had some delicious butter chicken awaiting me as I got home! Yum!

A few thoughts on my first day in the motherland.

A massive infrastructure project in the city has pretty much resulted in all of the suburb roads being dug up. Yes, ALL OF IT! A direct consequence of it is that it quadruples the time taken to travel any distance. The ride from my parents’ home to the train station, which typically takes less than half an hour, yesterday, took over an hour.
Which brings me to my second observation. Whoever thought that it was a brilliant idea to put LCD screens in the mass transit buses, needs to be strung up upside down and flogged to death. I was holding my throbbing head to stop the unbearable pain. And the producer who came up with the ridiculous programs/commercials that are aired, needs to be buried. Alive.
The general population seems to have a complete disregard for any kind of nasal hygiene. People simply stuck their index fingers into their noses and shagged it with the joy akin to jerking off.
I also visited the home of my most favorite person in the whole world. My drama teacher from when I was a kid. Unfortunately, she was out. So I had to contend with leaving a hastily scribbled note with my Mum’s telephone number, because as ridiculous as it sounds, I couldn’t remember my own phone number.
I have also started immunizing my body with a variety of scrumptious delicacies from the streets of Bombay. Nimbu pani, chicken frankie, samosa, vada pav, dabeli, roadside chinese food, topped with maaza. Slurp!

This was just day 1. Stay tuned for more of my India shenanigans.

Fobby Mommy

Amortya Ray — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 05:35:48 +0000

If my Mum was an immigrant to the US, she’d be the biggest FOB you’ll ever know. I speak to her once in about 2-3 weeks usually over chat. Now there are times when her lack of technology-awareness saves my ass and times when it makes me pull my hair out. God alone knows the number of times I’ve forgotten to clear history before logging out after surfing the back alleys of the Internets. Now you might ask- why not set the browser to clear the cache/history each time it opens? Because my Mum would go crazy when she discovers that Google no longer shows up in her address bar’s drop down list. I’d be accused of breaking her computer, not knowing what I’m doing (YES! This after having two degrees in Computer Science), be this close to being disowned, disavowed and disinherited.

Now those times when I’m chatting with my Mum, I find it rather amusing to find her invent her own quirky dialect for the web. Its a hybrid between the IM acronyms and texting, with its own distinct flavor of fobbiness. Over the past 3 years, since I moved to the US, I’ve noticed how my Mum’s chat language has evolved. A peculiarity I must mention is her ability to drop random letters from words, and expect me to fully understand her acronyms. Bking htl rms, cking dnr, eatng out, rdng email, lkng gifts, byng tkts and prprng dnr.

Indian parents also have a rather strange habit of dropping nouns, verbs and articles from sentences as they please. Not to mention asking the most random questions ever. My darling mother is no exception.

(My Google Talk status message is set to a sad smiley) Mum: Agni, what is that mess.? Change it. It looks like a sad face.

Mum: Don’t take too much coffee. I have heard too much cocaine is not good.

Mum: Hi Agni. Me: Hi. Mum: Where are you? Are you home? Me: Umm.. yeah?

Mum: Hi Agni. Are you thr? Me: (Not responding because I don’t want to talk) Mum: Helllllllllllooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Mum: Can you cum on mic? She means login on Skype.

Mum: My cellphone you send is gsm as well as cdma compatible? Me: I don’t know. Mum: Ok. It is written WCDMA.

Mum: something happened in our comp….skype icon has vanished!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Having said all of that, I must add that my Mum makes the meanest Biryani and Butter Chicken in all of the Indian Subcontinent. Regardless of how fobby she is, I love her.