SETTLING IN

The Lodz we arrived in has till recently looked like one continuous layer of icing on a cake and I remember getting down from the train at the terminal and instantly turning blue. It was five-thirtyish in the evening and it was snowing hard. I don’t remember having even smiled at Guardian Angel who had come to receive us. It was only after sitting in the taxi that I had kind of recovered myself. We were taken to our modest two-room apartment in Sarnia and after a ten-minute break, taken to the nearest supermarket for our first adventure in Poland. This one looked like any other supermarket in the world (not that we were expecting anything different) but the fun part was that everything—including what was written on tins and packets—was in Polish. My congratulations to all those who are hard-core nationalists at heart!

We have survived here for nearly a month, speaking broken and accented Polish. Of course Darby insisted that I use ‘we’ in the previous sentence. The fact is that on my arrival in Warszawa, Asia complimented me on my perfect Polish accent, adding that Darby’s sounded like a foreigner’s. However, there has been a truce. Darby and I have agreed that we both speak Bengali in standard and impeccable accent.

Darby’s professional life began almost immediately after his arrival and I have for the first time since our marriage, kept his home for him entirely on my own. I do not quite hate the arrangement as it leaves me time to look around, breathe in, observe, listen, laze around quite a bit, read, write, get distracted and then laze some more. Ah, what luxury! I have started working out, eating less, drinking more, studying and teaching and let’s see where life takes me eventually. I am in no hurry. Any guesses what song is playing in my mind, right now? It is Van Morrison’s ‘I don’t want much…’