Return To Bondel Road
For many of us in the shifting community of people who keep coming back to Kolkata for the music, to participate as listeners, students and performers, one of the few constants has been Jon Barlow’s house on Bondel Road. Since the late 1970s the house has often been available for short and long-term stays, and many of us have spent weeks and even months there. The constant within the constant of Bondel Road has been Bablu, Jon’s servant and cook, who has taken care of us on a wide variety of levels. No one is staying at Bondel this year, but I found myself nearby on Tuesday, when I went by the Weavers Studio at the request of their staff to check the venue. I walked by to see if Bablu might be there, and as you can see he was quite happy to see a familiar face. With no one there he didn’t have anything to do, so I thought of having Bablu make lunch for a few of the people in town who were familiar with the Bondel Road House. That way he would have some work and some extra money and we would get a great meal. “What will you have? Fish? Chicken? Vegetable?” How about all of them! And so 6 of us came a couple of days later for some great home-cooked food. The fortunate in attendance that day: Steve Gorn, Ehren Hanson, Camilla, Andrew McLean, Anindya Banerjee, myself.
For many of us in the shifting community of people who keep coming back to Kolkata for the music, to participate as listeners, students and performers, one of the few constants has been Jon Barlow’s house on Bondel Road. Since the late 1970s the house has often been available for short and long-term stays, and many of us have spent weeks and even months there. The constant within the constant of Bondel Road has been Bablu, Jon’s servant and cook, who has taken care of us on a wide variety of levels. No one is staying at Bondel this year, but I found myself nearby on Tuesday, when I went by the Weavers Studio at the request of their staff to check the venue. I walked by to see if Bablu might be there, and as you can see he was quite happy to see a familiar face. With no one there he didn’t have anything to do, so I thought of having Bablu make lunch for a few of the people in town who were familiar with the Bondel Road House. That way he would have some work and some extra money and we would get a great meal. “What will you have? Fish? Chicken? Vegetable?” How about all of them! And so 6 of us came a couple of days later for some great home-cooked food. The fortunate in attendance that day: Steve Gorn, Ehren Hanson, Camilla, Andrew McLean, Anindya Banerjee, myself.
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