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The Bitten Apple


The blast of air conditioning and murmur of well-behaved crowd of people greeted us as we entered the tiny reception cum waiting room of the service center. A well-modulated and pleasant voice greeted us, “HI! Please take a token and take a seat”. The room was stuffed with people; there were some ten seats which were already occupied. The tiny floor space was crammed with pairs of feet- where do we take a seat? I wondered. Fortunately number forty four was called and two seats fell vacant and we promptly took them without waiting for anyone else! (I justified it as being the only females, we had a right to getting the seat! ).

So far so good! I sighed with relief. I was unconsciously playing with my token when my TT* noticed that it had twenty seven written on it. We had a nice discussion on it about how we will ever be called from forty four to twenty seven! We decided it must be till fifty and then it starts again and we groaned! However poor both our math is we can count! The many numbers before us brought my morale down. We settled down to a long wait……..

My TT was messaging furiously on her I-phone so I decided to take out my non-I-phone in the hallowed sanctum and play on it! I played “Lep’s world” till I died and then decided to indulge in one of my favourite pastimes- observing people and passing sotto voice comments on them. There was a kitty party group of ladies waiting outside talking nineteen to a dozen, One young teenager holding on to a mac, and I pod and a phone (a normal phone thank God!) sitting slouched on a seat looking very depressed and holding token number twenty four. (I was assured then, that they would eventually get to my number!). The usual crowd of apple product owners were there- each vying for attention!

Then walked in Ms. Heroine with streaked hair, tight dress and pencil heels and started talking with one of the attendants in a loud voice. “Can you believe it?” she intoned, “I bought this Mac yesterday, it worked for six hours and then pfft! Shelled out two lakhs for such a cheap product!” I sympathized with her but having been “well brought up” I kept my mouth shut! She was of course asked to wait but she walked out in a huff and came back with her dark glasses on; hung around for some time (None of the chivalrous guys got up to give their seat!) then talked on her phone loudly for some time then walked out again!

I missed her! She had brought some colour and excitement into that “stiff upper lip” kind of environment. Now the only color was the depressed teenager in a pink color co-ordinated outfit. The boys were in their falling-down jeans and crumpled t-shirts and the men in their formal crumpled linen shirts and black pants!

I felt sorry for all the people there. They had bought the apple product thinking that they are paying premium price which would leave them hassle free. Like our elders tell us “money cannot buy happiness” or peace for that matter!

I soon noticed that the number calling had slowed down, it was still at forty six and we had been sitting there for at least one hour! I started paying more attention to the people around and I realized that many on the pretext of collecting their products were jumping the queue. Still I kept quiet…..till I saw this young man walking up to the pretty attendant and getting his problem sorted out. He was unfortunately toying with his token which had twenty eight written on it! Then I forgot all my convent school education and protested! The young lady had to pay attention as the other people looked at her accusingly and she reluctantly asked him to wait. 

Now it was my turn to be glared at by number twenty eight! After this our number was called within ten minutes of my protest (This should teach us that to be a gentleman, never pays in India!). Now a gentleman listened to our minor problem and assured us that we would get a replacement within three days. What were we supposed to do till three days? We asked. An elegant shrug of the shoulder and that was it! We walked back with the hope that the problem would be solved within three days. Sadder and wiser…..

When my TT was ten years I had bought a pair of earrings in the shape of the bitten apple and she had loved it and still wears them even now after six years! I don’t know whether it was a sign but she fell in love with all apple products and has slowly but surely buying them over the years. In fact she has refused new pair of earrings from her aunt because she doesn’t want to give them up. She has actually bitten the forbidden apple and cannot give it up!

But yesterday’s experience did what I have not been able to! She is slowly opening her eyes to the fact that Apple products like any other product in the market has its flaws only it is definitely at least thirty percent more expensive!

P.S. To clear one mystery, the tokens began from twenty five and ended at fifty! What the logic behind it is something I haven’t cared to find out…

P.S.2 – The depressed teenagers’ Mac had fallen in water and was a complete wash out and she would have to pay a lakh to get it working!

* Terrible Teenager

Ants go marching by……

“Boom, boom, boom, da dum” they went majestically. All in an orderly line, they marched to the unheard sounds. All the legs walked in tandem, the head was held high and they moved forward fearlessly. The finger of destiny hovered for a second over one head and crushed it ruthlessly. Did the army stop? Did the heads waver? Was there any discordance in the movement of the legs? A big “NO” to all the questions! The fallen soldier was carefully avoided and they marched by with the same discipline as before; as if nothing had happened!
I tried everything! Crushed as many as possible (destiny made me do it, I am not bloodthirsty as a rule!); wiped the whole area (top of my table!) with floor disinfectant (this by a self- confessed OCD patient!); sprayed the space with bug destroyers and as a last resort sprayed it with room fresheners! But they came one after the other, side stepping the dead, and marching on, on their path to progress! Soon they were followed by the hearse bearers who picked up the dead carefully (I counted up to four of them carrying the body carefully to some unknown destination!)

They just poured in and out of my laptop keyboard and drove my paranoia crazy- that my life saving machine would conk off! The room perfume made the room smell wonderful but maybe they did not like it, so they went a little haywire and their discipline was broken. Now instead of a single file there were at least five lines moving in various directions. I know that their composure was broken and it gave me some kind of vicarious satisfaction!

I followed the line to find their place of origin and I found they were coming from the balcony from a place called ‘Nowhere’ and travelling to a place called ‘somewhere’. But due to the massacre that I had indulged in, they were swarming all over my keyboard and peeping from under the ‘B’, ‘H’ and ‘S’ keys. I felt as if they were sending me tongue-in-cheek emoticons from there! Ultimately I won the battle (or so I thought!) they vanished just as they had appeared and I puffed into my keyboard hoping to dislodge the last few survivors, but none came! I was at peace!

The next morning too, the little red ants were nowhere to be seen, though I kept an eagle eye out for them! Just to be on the safe side I sprayed my table with the room freshener and gloated over my find of a new bug destroyer. My ‘Whatsapp’ ring tinkled and I looked at the icon indulgently- one of the kids must have sent me a ‘HI!’ I thought. I tapped on the necessary icon and I was assaulted with a lot of ‘OMG’s   a cry of help from my younger one at school that the red ants were coming out of her laptop! This was followed by lot of ‘puff’ emoticons from other family members!  (Did I tell you that she had gloated over the fact that my outdated laptop had lots of space on the keyboard for the ants to go in and that her latest one would not allow them to?) The wicked Machiavellian had crept into the unsecured ‘latest’ laptop to escape the heat and the smell of my room freshener!
The evening was filled with a lot of complaints- about how the horrendous insects would chew up the hard drive and the PCBs and how her life line would fall to pieces. Having won my own battle I wasn’t much too worried about others! But to buy peace I gave many suggestions like using the hair dryer to blow them out; heat it up using the keyboard light; blow on them etc. but my little one was suspicious of my advice and she went to the final frontier of getting good counsel – Google! She asked me whether I had a vacuum cleaner (I don’t!) and gave me a disgusted look at my reply but she realized that many people all over the world had been so attacked and had survived and this made her calm down. She fretted and followed all my advice and took it out from the ant infested room for the night.
I haven’t as yet got any SOS messages from that department. I hope the ants have abandoned their sanctuary and found another. I am guilty of homicide and genocide and other horrible crimes but my conscience isn’t troubling me too much! As I am writing I saw one little head peeping from under ‘w’ but I smiled indulgently and crushed it to death for having  bitten my little one  on her legs!

April



Google made a fool of me yesterday! I clicked on the smell tab and proceeded to try and smell many smells. (Thinking it’s some great technological advance!) I tried and tried; put my nose as close to the screen as I could but though my heart said “I can smell the rose” my cynical mind refused to accept my memory as the truth and refused to believe in Google!  When my teen came home and made me do it again – just to humor her I said I could smell the beach but when she went on to make me smell the rose I couldn’t lie and said I couldn’t  Only then did she tell me that it was an April fool joke!


In school, April first, was a fun day and most of us at one time or the other has indulged in them! It was fun when we started it and irritating when we had to bear the brunt of it! I remember a classmate whose birthday fell on first April. He had to listen to the clichéd jokes year after year….

There are many theories behind the April fool day’s origin but what seems most sensible to me is Boese’s belief- that April Fools’ Day simply grew out of age-old European spring festivals of renewal, in which pranks and camouflaging one’s identity are common.

April, all over the western world is seen as a new beginning, it normally ushers in Easter which is a festival of renewal. It brings in the warmth after a long winter and a short spring; it makes the flowers bloom; it brings out the fertility rites in the open- generally it is the month of rejoicing. Yet we have an ironic Eliot saying “April is the cruelest month”; as against Chaucer’s “When April with his showers so sweet….” Both poets have their own reasons for their statements but while Chaucer follows the prototype, we have Eliot going against the grain! If we were to go deep inside both the poems we would realize that both have a different viewpoint than what they are stating. Is that what April is all about?

Confusing us with warmth and sudden cold showers; sometimes snow and sometimes extreme heat, April, in India, is a busy month; it is a harbinger of the extreme heat and discomfort of summer; school children are restless, waiting for it to get over and then the long summer break; families are planning their holidays to cooler climes; the sense of renewal is replaced by a kind of suffocation from which we need to escape.

Think colour and you think of April. All the flowers bloom during this month. Green saplings and shoots are the symbols of spring but full bloomed blossoms, colourful and vibrant are the hues of April. The tangy strawberries leave and augur in the delicious smell of mangoes. The traffic light fruit sellers are the key to my season recognition! From December to mid-march I had been buying strawberries from them. They always start with sixty rupees for the box and end up giving me four boxes for hundred! I am sure they recognize me and play the same game every time. I have never given them more or less than hundred for the four boxes! I have yet to buy mangoes from them, but I shall plan out my bargain strategy after I see what the price of these nectarines is in the super markets!

I can see a lot of water tankers trundling along the dusty roads; so it is the time for water shortage; the maid complains of the long lines for getting drinking water; the small earthen pots with steel glasses are put up on each corner of the road by some good Samaritan. Some people leave bowls of water for the crows, sparrow and doves! The other day a hawk displaced all the birds to drink gulps after gulps of water. The sun is intense, bright and hot. The breeze though is still cool and walking under the shady trees is still a pleasure. I suppose April is blowing hot and blowing cold all the time. It is bipolar!

 Getting slightly baked in my own little glass house I see, hear and feel the joy of people who are  in places of rain and snow and the pain of people who are getting roasted in Hades like environment! I thank my stars that I am neither freezing nor roasting. This does not mean that I am not envious of the people of the rain kingdom or the snow Raj! I am jealous of all the people who have the ‘time and money’ to go for exotic cruises and maybe explore the moon; I envy all those who are ‘rich’ enough to have their own yachts and “me time”; I go green when I see mountaineers and hitch hikers for I know I will never indulge in these pursuits this life time!

When I enter April, my heart beats a wee bit faster; my breath fills in a tad bit swifter and my thoughts rise high into the unknown. It is as if I am behind the bend and something exciting is waiting for me! I am like a little child when it comes to my birth month. I am old and ‘wise’ now yet the excitement has never diminished. I keep threatening I want to die as soon as my responsibilities are over but I wonder if that is true. As the years pass I empathize with the will of living of dying patients. Is it the fear of death or the exhilaration of living that pushes this desire?

Is there anyone there who does not anticipate his birthday as a symbol of renewal and rejuvenation?

Rambling Along on the road of existence.

Looking at the “WhatsApp” pictures of a cow and calf, the green fields, the dusty roads, the sheep in the pen and the normally very busy man sitting on a bench and reading a book made me envious. He was in a faraway land and here I am in the midst of all the action and feeling down, tired and depressed!

The grass is always greener on the other side! At that moment in time I chose to ignore the fact that the busy man is away from home, lonesome and had been able to get away from what he called his “prison”! I chose to ignore that he has no one to share his day to day problems as soon as he faced with them, I also chose to ignore that he is a slave to time and that too in a foreign land!

I have so much to be thankful for; I am still able to see my baby growing up in front of me before she flies away and he is missing out on that; I am able to pick up the phone and talk to anyone I choose to without being worried about meetings and meeting deadlines and labour unrest; I have the time and the luxury of talking with my older “baby” about her daily challenges and (hopefully lessen her stress levels)!

Being a true blue confused person, I hate changes in my lifestyle but I need to move, after a maximum time of four years in one place! I move to a new place, appreciate its beauty and crib about all the adjustments I have to make, I also miss all the things in my last place of stay for the first year of my new place; then it’s time to enjoy the new place fully and cut my apron strings with the old. Alas! Two years go off very soon and it’s time for me to yearn for a new place and I blind myself to the good all-around and just want to move! Sometimes I think I need psychoanalysis!

The other day I was talking with a vegetable vendor near my house. After the police went on an active rampage and removed all the hawkers (Illegal) close by, the roads do not have the vegetable vendors but are filled with cars ( I wonder when they will be removed!). To get back to my conversation with the poor vendor- he had migrated from his native Bihar some twenty five years back and had set up this shop; just about managing to make ends meet as he had to pay the regular “hafta” (weekly payoffs!) to the police and the local “dada” (mafia?); now he had no shop; no regular income; but he still managed by selling during the dark and continues to pay hafta!

I asked him why he wouldn’t move to a new place. His answer was simple “it’s better to live with the devil you know rather than face an unknown one”. The maxim is so alien to my mental makeup that I walked off giving him a sympathetic look rather than empathizing with him!
When I look around, I see millions who would rather be unhappy than move from their status-quo lives, they would prefer to live within their comfort zone rather than venture out to improve their lives!

Someone told me that every time you move, you waste money, energy and resources. Well! I agree that money, energy and resources are utilized when you move but the money is used to enrich ourselves not wasted, energy is spent to carve out a sphere of experience and talking about resources – the point of the debate is we throw away or give away a lot of things when we move- I term it as Spring cleaning! Normally things that have not been used for years are labeled as “junk” and thrown away. These are actually worthless in terms of utility and only add to the clutter of a house. As feng- shui advises if you remove the physical clutter you remove the mental clutter and cleanse your environment.

After lots of retrospection, hurt (because I expect from other people) and conversation with the service people (read that as shopkeepers, sweepers and vendors!) and the cream of society (read that as the rich and famous) I realize that all of us are like the frog in the well. The size of the well differs but we think that the world that surrounds us is the real world, there is nothing beyond it. We have no right to berate anyone because his vision does not go beyond the gates of his living world just because we have seen the “world”; neither do we have the right to label someone as a show- off because he gives examples from all over the world!

“Live and let live” is the line for me today. Don’t know what tomorrow shall bring but criticizing people is a harmless pastime which actually is a lovely psychological medicine to keep our spirits up. Like KD in “Adalat” says “Am I right or am I right?” 

“Birds”



Have you seen the movie “Birds” by Alfred Hitchcock? If you have you will understand the creepy feeling that I get when I see a number of birds together! I saw the movie as a young child and they continue to haunt me in my nightmares even today!

I love to see birds flying in the far off sky, especially the eagles that glide around looking for prey. The freedom and grace that they symbolize is what makes them so attractive but ask me whether I would want to cuddle and caress them – it’s a big no-no from me. I mean why hold this great manifestation of freedom from freedom?

Pigeons have done nothing to endear themselves to me! They have been the bane of my existence from I don’t remember when. The grey red eyed ones are bad enough but the white ones are equally scary! In Delhi they had a habit of hopping into the house and pecking at the crumbs on the floor and the bird-brained creatures that they are, they could never find the exit to fly away! Their fluttering wings would fill me with terror and I would run out with my hands over my head.

For many years after that I had forgotten about them till we moved into an eighteenth floor apartment in Mumbai, it all started again….. The owner of the apartment had extended all the rooms into the balconies and we had only a tiny balcony in the front. I did wonder why but didn’t crib too much as it gave us bigger rooms.

An enthusiastic plant lover I have always filled my house with greenery, and this little balcony was ideal to keep my extra plants and I did so as soon as we settled down. It was a very windy area so I stopped wishing we had another balcony to dry the clothes as they would have all flown off, and instead used an extra room to dry them in.

One day after a leisurely bath, I sauntered into the living room to enjoy the winter sun and curl up with a book on the sofa. The heavenly bliss of having a cup of coffee in one hand, a book in the other and the plot unfolding in my imagination! The protagonist was running across the street to catch the villain when the traffic light changes and he is caught midst it! My attention too wavered at the cooing sounds… I looked out bemusedly expecting to see some doves flying by, but no, the blue sky was clear. My eyes adjusted to the relative darkness of the room and it rested on my lush green bushy ornamental plant and lo! And behold! My arch enemy of yore was going round and round and making herself comfortable on the warm mud at the root of the plant. The red eyes looked belligerently at me and dared me to do anything… I of course screamed and got the maid running in. I mutely pointed towards the bird and she laughed at me. Even the humiliation of being laughed at did nothing to reduce my terror. The maid just went close to the bird picked it up and threw it out shutting the sliding doors of the balcony behind her.

From then on I never opened the sliding doors if I wasn’t sitting there ready to shoo out my uninvited guests! But it was the beginning of my end. I waged a lone but losing battle against these feathery creatures. They took over my one and only balcony. They built nests in my pots, pooped all over the leaves of the beautiful plants. Their shit has so much of acid in it that the poor plants shriveled and slowly died. They laid eggs in their makeshift nests and fought with the crows to protect them! The balcony was always a mess of shit, dead leaves, mud, feather and sticks! Once a month the maid used to go and clean up the whole area, as I would sit doing watchman duty and hoping against hope that they wouldn’t come back again! My dreams were never fulfilled and I stopped keeping plants outside, not to be beaten they used the empty pots to lay eggs! (My maid used to steal them regularly). 

I saw generations of pigeons growing up in front of me. First the courtship, then the mating, resulting in eggs and then the hatching of ugly babies and soon they would grow up within months and the whole cycle would start all over again. If I hadn’t hated them so much I swear I could have named them and recognized them!

It was time to move for us. I thankfully saw the last of them (I hoped for ever) and our new house in Alex did not have the sound of anything else but the sea. Sometimes the loneliness of an alien land would get my guts and I wished I could at least see a few of my bête noires but it never happened though I could see a few seagulls far away in the horizon.

After a couple of years I again moved back to Mumbai. While house hunting I was thrilled to find a house which had all its balconies covered with bird net! I felt so happy and secure.

If you think I have won the battle you are highly mistaken! They come and sit on the edges and shit! Look at me victoriously and coo and romance in front of me. They are even trying to rip the bird net in the hope they will invade my space. One of them found a small opening and wriggled in and was trapped, I had to call the watchman to get rid of it. (My new maid is equally terrified of them!)

Now I have a paranoid maid who keeps pointing out weak spots in the net where they could invade my space and I have to take a needle and twine and make that place stronger. While I am doing that, the rascals flap around trying to distract me! God knows when this war between us will end but till now they are ones who have won all the battles. I am the one caged, while they fly free!

Our House (Hamara Ghar)

A pile of rubble, dirt and broken bricks came into view as we were walking the streets of Bandra at night.  During the day the tiled roads are so crowded that the only thing one does is to hop, skip and jump the various obstacles on the path and reach the destination as soon as possible.  Parking is a nightmare so I prefer walking everywhere within a radius of three kilometers. But night time walking is rare, specially the really late night ones!
Amidst all the noise and crowd of the day one can find the beauty of life on the streets. The tiny pictures that dot the travel path is like a frame in a motion picture. We have the poverty- ridden beggars with their pathetic expressions knocking on the car windows at the traffic signals (they are happily laughing and joking with each other the moment the light turns green); we have the vegetable sellers and the fruiters on the side walk painting a colourful picture; we also have the young men handing out leaflets to entice you into their clothes outlets, the piles of handbags, the racks of colourful shawls, the trollies filled with bangles, clips, rubber bands, hair bands of all possible colours; the delicious smell of all the eateries around; the happy chattering of all the people who are indulging themselves……..
At night it is more beautiful- All the dirt and grime is hidden, the bright lights are on and all the wares on display take on a new life under the glitter of neon lights. The crowds are there, the noise and bustle is there and if you are looking for peace and tranquility then its better you do not come out of the house! If you have the time and are feeling good and have no shopping to do then venture into the side lanes and take in the gaily decorated houses during Diwali and specially now, for Christmas is near. The old derelict buildings deck themselves up with bright twinkling lights which add to the glow and hide the faded paintwork and broken wood work! (During the day they wouldn’t merit a second glance!)
After a gap, a major part of the family was together and we were walking back home after a lovely dinner out. It was late, maybe almost twelve at night. The maximum city was still awake and alive but the shops were closed though the fairy lights still twinkled. We were taking a leisurely walk savoring the almost empty- of- auto roads and taking some unknown roads in search of ice cream …… when we came across the pile of rubble. It was an irritant. For a change we were not hopping skipping or jumping and here was something we would have to avoid…..
I looked at why it was there. The city is a growing organism, it is at all times dying and being born like all living organisms. If you look at the city as a macrocosm of a cell you will notice that at any given time on any road there will be at least one building being pulled down and at least one building under construction! So here the piece of land was encircled with ugly tin sheets (supposedly to shield our eyes from the ugly signs of construction!) The old boundary wall was still intact; it would most probably be taken down later. There were a few guards inside and outside. The faint street light fell on the yellow- brown bricks and lit up a small square of white marble and I looked curiously at it. In black was etched “Hamara Ghar” (Our Home) – I felt a lump rise in my throat as I resolutely pushed it down and I pointed it out to my small family.
This little symbol of happiness brought my feeling of satisfaction with life on its knees! My imagination went on a riot- who built this? For whom was this built for? Was it filled with love and laughter? Did happiness and joy resound within its walls? If all this was true, then why does it have to give way to destruction and then the rise of a multi-story building? Why does the old phoenix have to burn to give birth to a new one?   
I just felt in my bones that here had lived happiness. Whether the new building would have its share of joy is something I will never know (As I don’t know whether the old one had it or not!) But that is the rule of existence ……
“The old order changeth yielding place to new And God fulfills himself in many ways Lest one good custom should corrupt the world. Comfort thyself: what comfort is in me I have lived my life and that which I have done May he within himself make pure but thou If thou shouldst never see my face again Pray for my soul. More things are wrought by prayer than this world dreams of.”- Alfred Tennyson

Left Overs





The green lidded box opened to show an orange box then a red one and ………. Never ending boxes within boxes, a gift nightmare or simply everywoman’s existence?
Wake up and plan- breakfast, lunch, tea and dinner- four meals a day forever! ……
Starting your own kitchen was fun. It was like playing doll-doll! No worry about money, planning or taste, just having a lab to experiment in, life was hunky dory! If the experiment failed there was always bread and omelet or walk to the nearest cart food-wallah or in dire emergencies, a visit to auntie’s house at the right moment (Wicked!)
The basic stuff was made and stored in the tiny refrigerator and only the side dishes cooked fresh. Just the two of us and a limited menu and mostly two meals together (the first one was a hurried one anyway!)- Life was a bed of roses!
Much too soon the family grew. One more mouth to feed, one more set of meals to plan, a very demanding individual who had a different menu for different meals; Scouring magazines for baby meals; writing them down neatly in a note book (no internet and computer at home L). Now honest rejections overruled the early lovey- dovey acceptance of all the experiments! The main meals became monotonous; the only experiments were on the baby meals!
 Parents came as guests and took over the kitchen- what a break! Lots of housewifely tips- “no throwing away of left overs, keep it and serve it differently after a couple of days, use old curries for stuffed parathas or cutlets….”
Small little steel boxes popped all over the place; each having some leftover or the other. Now began classes on home managements! The ritual of planning began before you went to bed, with what would be for breakfast? Worry! Worry! Worry! Suggestions about having a set menu for a week taped on the refrigerator door was taken seriously; But Nah! It never worked out; this was no well-run hostel mess! Some days the poha would have peanuts, the other day it wouldn’t have the coriander for garnishing and as the cook was no automaton it would turn out a little too salty or a little less; a little too spicy or a little too bland!
Then the opening of the little steel boxes would begin and the planning of the rest of the day’s meals would ensue. All the boxes would have to be opened, as you never knew what was inside which box! The little left overs would be set aside and the meal planned around it (Bad management!). Some of it would be donated to the reluctant maid and some surreptitiously emptied in the dustbin!
This ceremony continued for years. The family grew larger, the variety of left-overs grew, the planning grew more complicated but life went on …..

Two new things happened on the way – one was the microwave and second was small plastic boxes (microwavable!), which took over from the steel ones. Life was simpler you just popped the plastic boxes into the microwave and presto! One small side dish was there! The fridge was more organized and colorful and the little housewife (now a large working woman) was very satisfied with her well run house hold!
The plastic boxes saved time as you could see what was inside, so did not have to be opened every day. The planning became faster though it’s questionable whether it became easier! The microwave saved on Gas and the washing of the myriad vessels required to heat the leftovers.
But remember, now there were four different people in the family, each with his/her demands (the maid too had her own preferences). Planning continued to be a tight-rope walk of trying not to disappoint anyone (impossible task!) The only time when we were all happy was when we went out to eat at our favourite restaurant (even that had its own potholes- Chinese or Indian; pizzas or burgers…..)
Life has almost taken a full circle and soon we will be back to the original two, but two more experienced and matured individuals. Will she go back to experimenting in her lab as her scavenger husband never says “no” to any kind of food? Or will she churn out gourmet dishes, following the recipes on the internet religiously to the spoon? Is something only time will tell…

PS: The family found a way to be totally happy when they go out for meals- the food court in malls- each with his/her desires fulfilled!

Vote to Change

Dr. Abdul Kalam in one of his speeches had said, that when we Indians go to Singapore, we exclaim over the cleanliness of the city; we do not spit or urinate on the roads; we pick up trash (if you are lucky to find any!) and put it tidily away in the numerous dustbins. When we get back to the home land, we forget all the lessons and don’t think twice about doing all the things which we would not have done there! We could also have lovely cities if each of us would do our bit.

People argue that it is impossible in India….. What is the use of one person trying when one million contribute to the dirtiness! But Rome was not built in a day and neither was Singapore! It might take another three generations to reach that status but we can if we try.

When we are abroad we make it a point to say a “thank you” for any service done, we wish the bell boy, the cab driver, the janitor et al a “good morning” yet we do not bother to look at these people in India. Come Diwali we give them Baksheesh and cleanse our conscience! I wonder why!

Men debate that our “service men” are uneducated and uncouth and do not deserve to be paid attention to. Is it their responsibility that they are so? Isn’t it a social responsibility? Is it just enough to pay taxes and wash our hands off this?

We are ready to pay one Euro to use a public toilet in Europe yet grumble when we need to pay two rupees here! How much can a government of the second most populated country in the world do?

Coming to government- All us “Educated individuals” crib that everything connected with the government is corrupt and the farther we stay away from them the safer we are. In a democracy the government is “of the people, by the people and for the people!” The government then is a mirror of our psyche…..

There are many (One of them being me!) who have never exercised their right to vote. If you do not do your duty then you cannot expect any rights. Have we ever thought that why most of our politicians are uneducated and corrupt? The simple answer is because the so called ‘elite’ feel politics is too dirty to be either a play-field or work field. As the arena is so inviting to the corrupt citizen as a means to make quick and easy money they are the ones who jump into the fray.

Which Hercules then is going to clean the Aegean stables?  If the dumb common man of R.K.Laxman will not pick up the dumb bells to build up his strength then who will? If we cannot build Utopia then shouldn’t we save our breath to try to do so, rather than cry ourselves hoarse about all what shouldn’t be done?

Isn’t it ironic that all the Indians who are in the US are voting with zeal and enthusiasm (I am not talking of only the citizens of Indian origin) the fervor of whether it will be Obama or Romney is really heart touching. If only we would glue ourselves to the TV sets to listen to the speeches of our politicians and then stir ourselves to vote like our compatriots in foreign worlds which they have adopted as their own (so what if they are psychologically foreigners to that country!)

Do not argue that our politicians are not worth it. As we have made them politicians it is we who are responsible and we do have a handful of great orators who are worthwhile to be listened to. How many of us bother to go to our embassies and cast our votes during elections? It is too much of a trouble to go to the embassy but not too much to cast a vote for a foreigner who has charisma!

It is heartening to see that the new generation is more aware of this and are trying to do their bit. Will they succeed or not, is not the question; what is important is they are aware and are trying….

I have seen one thing – I wish my maid good morning and get one in return, I have smiled at the unknown sweeper on the roads and have got a ‘salaam’ in return and I have said a thank you to the sales man and have got a ‘welcome’ as a response.

Whether I will ever be able to vote during this life time is another story all together…….

Lights, Colors and Darkness

It’s that time of the year again. The sun is bright yet mellow, the breeze is gentle and cool and the mind is peeling off its myriad layers of consciousness. After all its autumn in the northern hemisphere and mankind is celebrating many of its festivals- fall festival, Diwali and Halloween to name a few. In the western world you spring clean after a long tough winter, in India we autumn clean (pre Diwali) after a tough hot summer and a wet sludgy monsoon! We look forward to the coolness of winter; the dryness of it kills all the germs of monsoon and for once during the year we look forward to basking in the sun (time to harvest all the vitamin D for free!).

All cupboards to be emptied, their tops dusted, cobwebs to get rid of, old clothes to be thrown (new ones to be bought!) silver to be polished, glass panes to be cleaned…… the list is never ending ! We are all getting ready for Diwali. The good has won over the evil during Dusherra, now is the time to celebrate the coming home of Rama after fourteen years of exile and the triumph of Krishna over Narkaasura. Whatever the reason it is a time of joy and celebration. It’s a time for new beginnings; it is the time to harvest the fruits of our labour and rest; it is also the time to look back and savor our success and forget our failures.

Baskets of fresh green vegetables, rows of lovely red pomegranates, orange papayas, green apples, purple grapes, dappled custard apples and bristly kiwis… Such a lovely picture! Walking on the pit hole filled cobbled roads of Mumbai, this picture actually rejuvenates your mind. For a moment you forget the struggling rag pickers and the begging children and the vicious circle of problems and solutions that we face each day and the mind wallows lazily in this Utopia of colors and dreams of the tantalizing smell and flavors of these offerings!

I see two young rag pickers hauling a heavy bag filled with plastics laughing and playing with each other as they sludge their way through the overflowing garbage pits. I walk up to them and in my mellow mood I offer them ten rupees each. Instantly the expression of happiness is replaced with wariness – they look at me suspiciously and say “Kya Chahiye?” (What do you want?) Never for a moment have they put their hand forward to take the money. I realize that I was going to commit a crime. I was trying to give them something which they had not earned and I would have made them handicapped forever. Happiness is relative. For a moment I thought I would buy myself some righteous happiness by bribing them and they rightly rejected my gesture. They had never got anything for free and naturally they were suspicious.

I keep telling all the people I know that nothing in this world is free (the ‘buy one get one free’ is a myth meant to addle the brains of most homemakers in a net of greed!) These two rag pickers were not greedy; they wanted to give something to get something in return. In my moment of weakness I thought that I could give them happiness (indirectly giving myself some!) through this method. Well! We grow and learn!

The sweeper has a harassed look on his face as he sweeps the fallen leaves of autumn into piles and carefully uses two cardboard pieces to pick them up and put them in the bin. Lovely leaves- yellow, red, orange and golden – lovely for me; irritating for the sweeper. I wish I could go and explain to him that because the leaves are falling, he has a job of picking them up and he feeds his family using this job. How smug and self-righteous I sound! There have been many moments in my life when I have whined and cried at my state and condition without counting my blessings. How often I have blamed God and others for my frustrations.

I do have a few questions for the world- why do we have to grow old to grow wise? Why do we have to fall before we can walk forward? Why do we have to experience pain to appreciate pleasure? I wish we are born with pre- fed knowledge so that life would be a bed of roses… but then would it?

The lamp shines the brightest in the darkest of night, hope this Diwali makes all our senses receptive to the brightness of awareness, for at this time of my life I realize that there is no perfect good or ideal bad; no white right or black bad there are only the different shades of color. Whether they are faded or bright is up to us.  

To change or not to

Eighteen is a very vulnerable age, much more vulnerable than sixteen because you are starting all over again in a new world and in a new environment. You have seen college for one year by now and are still taking baby steps to adulthood.

Remember you were the ‘boss’ in high school- the juniors looked up at you in awe (specially the 6th graders!). Then here you are thrown into the deep end where you are supposed to have that awestruck expression on your face when your vision sweeps across the crowd of seniors that are approaching- man! Is it difficult!

Coming from a government run school I was quite insecure about everything- the way I talked, the way I walked and the way I dressed. I remember there were these smart girls in minis and stilettos who came in Chauffeur driven cars who thought that we (the normal jean clad girls) were the pits! The only thing I was confident about was my knowledge of my subject, but who wants the label of a nerd?

Five years of college made me grow up. I lost my ego but discovered my forte, I lost my insecurity but found my strength and the most important thing was my inhibitions disappeared and I found the confidence to be able to talk to anyone on anything. They were my years of self-discovery. At the end of this time I was a smug and  self-satisfied person who thought that I was a “been there and done that” kind of individual.

Years passed, I was now bringing up a family and working with young individuals, still thinking that whatever I had done ,was doing and will do is the right path. I remember giving lectures about this path to my students and later to my children. No one opposed my ideas and I grew into a small and benign megalomaniac!

The first intimation of my pedestal shaking was when I was teaching “The road not taken” to a group of young teens. I was always conscientious about my work and though I had done this in school I went over the poem again, trying to find meanings between the lines. I questioned myself about myself.

As my students grew up and went out into the world and my own children also grew up I was exposed to the wonderful new world of internet and I was virtually able to see so many lives grow and change before me. I realized that I could have and maybe would have (if I had not been blinded by self-righteousness!) changed quite a few things in college.

I wish I had bunked a few classes and seen a movie, (Now a days everyone does it without feeling the guilt!). I wish I had been more forceful about my ideas, (been heard more and seen less!), I wish I had not allowed my mind to follow the path which was laid out before me (the most obstacle free!) and taken ‘the road not taken’, I wish I had taken the time off to listen to a friend (maybe I could have stopped her from committing suicide) and finally I wish I had not allowed social pressures from letting me be ME.

It is not possible to go back to that time and that moment and that place again. I saw many dreams then and still see them. But I always used to postpone things (I will do this when things are right …..) searching for that elusive perfect time. I realize now that no time is perfect, there will always something a little less and a little more. It is important that we grab the bubble at the right moment, it will burst but those micro-seconds of happiness is worth it!

There are lot more things that I would change if I could but I realize now that it is no use looking back over my shoulder. I am who I am because of certain decisions and lifestyle and there is no going back. I have some years ahead. I have promised myself that I will not look back ten years hence and wish I had done something else……

Do what you want to as long it follows your limits of right and wrong. Regrets are painful bedfellows either you kick them out or never allow them to encroach into your sacred zone.