The Beat Report: Work, family, and the festival blues

Good morning!

It is 8am on a Sunday, the first day of Durga Puja, which we call Shoshti. Mumbai’s skies are pouring down as if they will never rain again. I haven’t made my usual morning call to my home in Kolkata because I am under strict instructions from my mother that, for the next five days, she will not be “always available”.

In the Sengupta household, this translates to “Do Not Disturb”. It is an annual ritual where we—the children who left home turf—are reminded that Durga Puja festivities triumph over filial bonds every single year.

I left home when I was 18, and I am 41 now, so this is certainly not my first Durga Puja away from home. In fact, I deliberately visit Kolkata during non-puja times so that I can give my undivided attention to my family and get the same in return. Besides, work in the second half of the year always feels heavier in journalism, as corporates develop inertia and the usual news flow ebbs.

Anyway, one can barely hear over the beat of the dhaak (drum), so the twice-a-day calls back home seem futile. That is what I tell myself.

The morning and evening editorial calls mostly clash with anjali (prayer) timings, so going out to pandals, especially if you’re working outside Kolkata—say in Mumbai—is tough. You can’t dress up and head to official meetings because you don’t want to invite attention, questions, or sympathy about why you’re missing the puja.

If you call home during your lunch hour, you realize that the time you’ve chosen is exactly when everyone back home is sitting down for the bhog (a traditional meal offered to the Goddess). If they do pick up, the phone, with its video camera on, is passed around from building kakimas and jethimas (different nomenclatures for aunts) to the many Dutta jethus (an uncle older than one’s father) and Majumdars or Banerjees . Each one of them will ask, “Why are you not here with us?” You hem and haw, saying, “I had work, or the boss didn’t grant leave, or sudden meetings came up.” Long ago, I made a mental note never to call during the bhog time again.

Work is worship

Work. Over the years, it has become the preferred tool of engagement, of excuses, of hiding. And then comes a day when you realize that your sense of belonging may be worryingly tied to the workplace. The childhood joy of receiving 10 new clothes to be worn over the five days of puja (which then had to last the entire year) has faded into faint memories, especially when you haven’t had the time to buy even one new dress for the festival.

Or maybe the time was always there, but working through pujas was simply a way to overcome homesickness. So, I have made a truce with myself: I will either take a couple of days’ leave to spend with friends and visit a puja pandal, or I will treat it as a regular workday and celebrate the way many of us Bengalis do—by ordering traditional food.

But this pining for the festive season wasn’t always appreciated in my early working years. You were unofficially expected to show up for work, especially when a larger section of employees had taken leave. It signalled that you were putting work above everything else. It was taken to mean you had your priorities "straight", though unfortunately, it was also assumed that work was your only priority.

Whether it's Durga Puja, Diwali, Christmas, Eid, or any other festival, newcomers who went home during the festive period gave the impression that they had buckled down at least a bit.

Promises of going home “next puja” rolled into Diwali, then into the New Year, and then the cycle began again. Those spontaneous trips you see in advertisements rarely happen in reality. Airfares make it impossible to just book and fly down. Even parents advise against spending so much money, telling you to wait for better rates. Logically, they make sense. But deep down you know, it means another year is gone.

New generation, new priorities

Times are different now, and often rightfully so.

The younger lot have their holiday calendars carefully chalked out and blocked. However, pages still need to be filled, exclusive stories need to be filed, and teams often end up frazzled. During the festive season, bosses deal with two sets of employees, the absent ones and the disgruntled ones. Neither set is at its productive best, but the next day’s edition must still come out.

So, when leave requests come in, after a quick mental calculation and a deep sigh, you either say “OK” or ask them to remain available in case of an emergency. But you know, getting the work done will be daunting.

I continue my usual work mode during the festive period, but there are trigger points that get to me—the sound of a dhaaki, or the scent of gondhoraj lebu (a large lime with a distinct fragrance) that signals the start of a good meal. The videos of Kolkata’s artistically designed pandals don’t make me homesick, but a photo of the children in our building painting the red-and-white alpona (decorative ground patterns) does. That excitement—that flutter in the stomach that the next few days will be special—gets me every time.

But it’s not all forlorn either. There are colleagues who will brave the crowds with you. A bunch of us went down Mohammad Ali Road during Ramzan after office hours, queued up in the middle of a busy weekday because no one should eat Onam Sadya alone, and opened Christmas cakes and rose cookies in the office that always tasted more rummy and delicious.

So, if you are in the office working late, look around. You are not alone. Head home to celebrate next year.

Note: As I finished this newsletter, my brother sent me a photo from his station in another country. “Shubho Shoshti,” he messaged. I did the same. Perhaps next year, we won’t just wish each other over a message.

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