One of our periodic trips to Calcutta when I was a kid happened to be around Saraswati Puja. The elders decided I was at the right age to do the “hatey khodi”, the tradition in which a child is ritually introduced to the world of learning. As was common in those days I got a new slate and pencil for this occasion. In those days slates were made of real slate framed in wood, not some cardboard coated with black rough plastic. And the pencil was a stick of some chalky white mineral with a crystalline structure. The priest held my hand, which held the pencil, and wrote the first two Bengali vowels and first two consonants on the slate, with the goddess witnessing.
On the short walk home I tripped and fell. The slate went flying out of my hand and broke in two. And there began my haphazard journey into the world of learning.
Stops along the way 