Loneliness... or Solitude...???

I noticed a while back how the state of our minds decide the language that we use.
I am tired, stressed, the world out there is waiting to get me, everyone expects from me blah blah blah...
So I need someone to share stuff with, I am in a terrible state of mind, I need a hug, the walls in the house are also staring at me... I am so lonely :-(
I wish I had someone to take care of me, a presence that would calm me but I am so lonely...
I just wish I could get away from this space, its scary and sad and overwhelming.


Oh!!!! look at how pretty the world is! Can you hear the chirping of the birds? The songs in the breeze? The silence that surrounds me and yet so musical? What would I not give to have this peace all by myself! If only I could let it seep in and revel in this happiness. I feel so complete, so light, life is so beautiful...
This solitude is all that I need, this space with myself, where all is me and I am in all. I could be in this space forever. So refreshing! It is indeed very good to be alive :-) 

I experienced both these states in the span of a very short time. Such a huge difference between what is and what can be. All that I did in this brief gap was meditation and I felt so alive. I knew I was taken care of. I am never alone. how could I be? I had my own company! That evening changed from being one of the loneliest to the most happiest in my life till now. I enjoyed time with my best friend, myself.

And what did i do for that?
I just closed my eyes and found me...:-)

UNFAIR TO THE FAIRER SEX?

Of all the things that are beautiful about our culture, one of those is the respect for women and the womenfolk and like all other things, there is adulteration and finally the whole purpose of the intended custom or tradition is defeated. Recently, I came across something similar that made me question the sensitivity and the integrity of one of these upheld customs.

A mother has a huge role to play in the lives of not just her children but also the other people who form a part of the family. She not just nourishes them with the food she  cooks, but also with her emotions and the moral support that she provides. I remember running to my mom for everything. The day started with her and ended with her and of course she was there in the middle in the night also, we never bothered to think as to when she would sleep and get up, all I remember is that I opened my eyes with her smile and slept seeing her smile.

So, why am I writing all this? It so happens that my maid’s daughter recently got married at the strike of 18 which is very nice. She lost her husband 8 yrs back and instantly was deemed inauspicious to an extent that she was held responsible for the loss of her husband. The loss of a partner is a huge trauma and then to handle insensitive and downright allegations like this is nothing short of ridiculous and unfair. With a long ailing husband for the past 30 odd years she was slogging herself working in 5 houses and then as a “bai” in an anganwadi nearby, not to mention that our house was the only place where my mom made sure she had her food, a cup of tea and also some rest. We went for the mourning over her husband’s death and I could not help but notice that there was absolutely no recognition for literally running the house and bringing up 5 kids, buying medicines and paying bills. Instead, she was responsible for everything because she had not taken enough care of her husband and not spent enough time with him.

From the time she joined for work in our house 12 years back, I saw her steadily deteriorating from health to sickness, first from carelessness, then overwork, loss of husband, grief and sheer desperation, finally into just more than a skeleton who still works like the Frankenstein. Every time I would load her on my bike to take to the hospital for a health and dental check up, she would jump off the bike and run away. Thank God my father is a doctor and took care of her sometimes when she agreed to take medicines. She almost felt guilty for taking any medicines and her logic never really made sense.

Why is suffering an integral part of a woman’s life in our society? Why can’t she deserve to live the way everyone does? Isn’t this what girls are taught in traditional conservative homes? That she has to be forbearing and patient and quiet and should not laugh loudly… and the list is endless. The husband, well most of them are allowed to marry even before the embers of the wife’s pyre haven’t cooled down, but the widow has to accept this as her destiny and live a fruitless suffering life for ever till she dies. In our community its crazy, she is not allowed to attend any functions, any naming ceremonies, weddings are out of the question till she has grayed and looks like someone’s great grandmom. Very very few people have done something about this and voiced their opinions. Isn’t this sad? How much worse could it get? They can’t attend their own daughter’s wedding, because she is inauspicious. And this is exactly what happened at the wedding. The wedding was financed by her, the jewels bought by her, I don’t even want to think what all she sold to get all that, the generous display of dowry was bought by her and where is she in the wedding? Far away in one of the dark corners of her house, where she stands and sees the wedding from one small opening in the window.

Someone else sent off the bride, someone else did the rituals, someone else sang, she just bled financially and stood alone in one dark corner of the house, looking from an opening in the window at her daughter being married off shedding tears of joy and sadness. How much worse could it get? The bride, her own daughter was not allowed to see her mother till the wedding got over lest something inauspicious and uncalled for event occurs.

In a society where a woman is worshipped as devi, this happens. We pulled her on the stage with the couple to take a picture and she walked with sheer terror, amongst venomous stares full of hatred and loathing from beings of the same sex, women of the same community condemning what she was doing. The worst enemy a woman can have is another woman, and the worst rituals come from the same society we live in. It is upto us to change it, the messiahs may come later, but the change starts from us. Let’s make an effort to change things, it is very much possible. And you know what? I did it and it wasn’t difficult either, just a little courage and a little faith.

                                  

                                       

           

AT THE AIRPORT...

So, how is it waiting at the airport? Salman Khan has suddenly made travel so much more economical the airplane way. There are also some real fab deals available for flight tickets, so everyone wants to travel by air.

You save travel time, the whole airport is air conditioned unlike the sultry and sometimes stinky railway stations, and of course everyone is looking their best strutting around like they are on the ramp, all prim and proper, so yes it is more civilized and last but not the least, every living person including the house keeping people are dead serious and committed, the epitome of service and customer care. Nobody is eating masala groundnuts from the trolleys like the railways, all are either reading novels, the bestsellers mind you, or reading the newspapers like the ideal educated community should. The sophistication of the travelers is almost contagious and suddenly everyone is elite. No one speaks loudly, forget screaming, all hush hush conversations are extremely delicate and important and no one should hear, so you are supposed to bend your head towards the other person and speak.

All the the televisions, sorry the LED screens would be telecasting the news channels or sports, so all that I can see now is NDTV or the IPL. You know I miss the railway stations, I remember Sridevi on TV's in the railway stations dancing to the nagin (snake) songs.  The smell of the railways is so known, its almost comforting like saying that go ahead, dirty the place, you wont be penalized, its already pretty dirty so there’s not much you can contribute too. The only fragarance would be the inviting filter coffee in the south and the kullad matka chai in the north. The railway staff would be pushing trolleys wearing the worn out grey outfits selling everything from chips and chai to bread and omelette. Its awesome you know. I used to wait for my parents to keep the baggage down on the railway platform and I would start jumping up and down to have a trip to the trolleys, and then to the higginbothams book stall for my quota of chandamama, tinkle or wisdom children’s issue. I think the maximum my parents would spend for me would not be more than forty rupees but it would make my  day. What an experience that was!

The bonding we would have over the journey was the best part I guess. 3 long days from Delhi’s Hazrat Nizamuddin junction to Hubli junction in Karnataka. Whether it was second class or air conditioned, the whole compartment was ours, me, amma, appa , and my elder brother anna. No sooner than we entered, amma would take out a spare bedsheet and appa would tie it to both the upper berths. With the body of the bedsheet hanging down, it was my swing and my domain. Anyone wanting to swing on it had to take my permission and bribe me with some food. Yeah, corruption is bad. It explained why I would be rounder and plumpier after my vacations than before.

The rest of the bogie was my brother’s domain including all the stunts you can pull off in between 4 berths. We would swing, hang, kick, fight, transfer ourselves from the upper left berth to the upper right berth and vice versa. The highlight of the journey would be me falling down at least one which was with a very loud thud, but not very painful considering the fat mass surrounding me all over. The loud thud and my louder wails would bring all the neighbouring passengers to our compartment and of course more bribing followed and I was happier before anyone new. Then of course there was making new friends. Me and my brother were in charge of the games section, so there would be cards, ludo, chess of which the pieces went missing before the end of the journey, and other knick knacks. The train peddlers would increase our stalk and my parent’s anger too.  

There was so much we did in those 3 days. The walks to the train pantry to pick up hot stuff, getting down at stations to eat the special food of that place, like dal vadas at Vijaywada, steaming hot puri bhaji at Jhansi, petha at Agra, kullad chai throughout, huge papads with chat masala at Hapud, near Bareilly and so on and so forth. I loved the bread crumbs in the tomato soup and the packed biryani  and cutlets and samosas… my God, as I write I remember more and more. Then there were the times when the train would start moving and appa would still not be on board, we would start crying, amma would look worried and suddenly our hero, appa would arrive with ice creams and newspaper in hand. What a  time that was!   Crossing from one bogie to the other  over those shaky metal boards, just checking people out in other bogies and making new friends. Those days were lovely and I enjoyed every iota of them.

Why am I writing all this? Because I am sitting at the Bangalore international airport amongst people who feel that looking like a stranger is the way to be hip. Every second person is buying newspapers maybe because it is actually the cheapest thing available at the terminal.  Sometimes I feel so out of place being at the airport, there are no silly conversations, no loud laughs, everyone is so busy and important and before I know it once I am on the plane and an hour later I am at Mumbai, a journey that takes 18 hours by train, will be over in an hour and a half max. agreed, it is the space age and we are busier and there’s just no time, just how much are we missing out on? How many cups of tea have we really enjoyed looking at the scenery outside from the train?

You know there was a fun and glee in the stink and dirt from the train journey and the smoke of the engine. Seeing the train turn around a bend, screaming through tunnels, laughing and counting the number of bogies in a passing train, cracking stupid jokes, opening the shutter of the reading light in the AC compartment and reading in it, getting up early and doing potty in steel toilets which kept moving with the rhythm of the train, Oh! The untidiness and the smiles of strangers and the sales people in the trains, paying money to the little kids who came and cleaned the compartments, and the blind ones who came and sang, being grateful for having parents and education and clean clothes and a respectable family. It’s all but a dream now.

Now, the airline company would message on your mobile and ask you to check in 2 hrs earlier, and make you wait at the boarding gate drinking in the AC and the cold stares of people. Its all  plastic, everything. I miss the homely railways and wish I had more time. I wish I was a kid again and travelled with my parents and brother all over. I wish I had taken more pictures and videos. I wish I could live that life all over again. But that won’t happen. Now, I don’t have time and I will pay more than thrice the rail fare to travel in one tenth the space of a train in an aeroplane, crammed with 2 more people in economy class. All this to save time,  one precious commodity we all wish we had more of. No wonder its is very true, old is gold.

And life goes on and on, careers, finances, family holidays if you have the time. The irony of it all?  Wishing that the old days come back and life becomes easy and relaxed, warm and comfortable once again.

Just like the legend  Jagjit Singh sang, one of my favourite lines:

Yeh daulat bhi le lo, yeh shohorat bhi le lo,

Bhale cheen lo mujh se meri jawaani,

Magar mujhko lauta do bachpan ka saawan,

Wo kaagaz ki kashti, wo bearish ka paani,

wo kaagaz ki kashti, wo baarish ka paani...

take away my wealth and fame, even take away my youth, but return me the monsoon of my childhood, those paper boats, the water of the rains, those paper boats, the drops of the rains... 

THE PIGGY WHO GOT PAINTED!

There was once a mould of clay waiting to be moulded by the potter in the far away land of Indonesia. The potter thought and thought and thought that what was it that he wanted to shape this lump of clay in.  Just then his eyes went to his pig in the pen oinking away to glory and he had reached a decision.

He painstakingly moulded his lump of clay into a pig and baked it and coloured it. The piggy looked pretty with a light pink round chubby body and cute little ears, a little tail, and a very piggy snout. He then wondered why not make it into a piggy bank and so he did. He created a tiny slit on the top where kids could slip in coins and a round opening under the belly covered by a knob from where coins could be taken out. He was so happy with the idea that he could not wait to put his piggy up for sale in his shop.

And so, the day arrived when the piggy proudly sat in the shop counter smiling at the people who looked at him and admired him and then my mom stopped upon him, looked at him, remembered me and picked him up:-) He was mine!!!!

It was a long long way back in the cargo and the travel, then till he was delivered to me, he was a little dusty.  For me, he was a dream come true. I had always dreamt of having a piggy bank of my own and I am sure everyone in my family remembers the endless painful family trips we have had together looking for a piggy bank for me in every mall and every shop. Even plastic looked pretty to me but the piggy banks just weren’t there.

The piggy has stayed loyal to me ever since and it has been nearing 5 years now. So, one fine day I decided to paint my piggy up. The colours used were water based poster colours and simple paint brushes from camlin you get in every stationary shop. The palette was also simple white plastic. The whole process took me less than 2 hrs. Lemme take you through with the steps I followed.

I started with just mixing the colours  red with lots of white till I got the cute pink I was looking for. I painted piggy completely pink and then the process of painting his snout, eyes, feet and the tail happened. I am sorry i don’t have the pics of all this, I was so excited to paint him and all, it completely slipped my mind. I have included the profile pics of piggy before and after being varnished. There are pics of me with the piggy also. I maintain that I am not the piggy but he is. The similarity is appreciable though. So here goes, view and go awwww, and ooooo chooo cute!!!. Oh! Oh! And I painted him a new tail too, a nice curly one too

NEWLY PAINTED AND PRETTY PINK, I WAS MORE EXCITED THAN HIM:-)

HEYYYY!!! HOW YOU DOIN? 

THE NEWLY PAINTED CURLY TAIL!

DOESN'T  PIGGY LOOK ADORABLE?

And so, after he was all nice and pretty and new, I varnished him and he looked really nice. Now, he sits all shiny and smiley, looking as glamorous and charismatic as he could.

So, there is one pic me varnishing him and then bonding and then of course, the profile pics again. 

The varnish used was simple Asian paints varnish and a synthetic brush, a narrow one ay hardware shop person would have.

So this is me varnishing him.

Me with my buddy, my first financial advisor.

A shiny hindside…

Notice the all round development?

One side…

And the other side too...

Best friends forever…

All shiny and dust free, he is just as happy as I am now.
Happily ever after...

The End.

CHAI PAKODE :-)

Its just the magic of this simple snack that takes people into old memories of rainy days, the pitter patter of the raindrops on the roof and windows, and the inviting aroma of mother making  pakodas and chai in the kitchen. Earlier, this was one of the many ways the family would come together leaving their busy work and sit down joking around, pulling each others legs, enjoying chai and pakode. Everytime  the bowl would seem to be running out of pakodas, the great fairy godmother amma would come and refill it and what fun it was! Pakodas of potatoes, onions, big fat chilies, spinach, cauliflower, raw bananas and so on and so forth, you name it and it can be converted into golden brown sizzling hot pakodas. 

Interestingly in the times yonder it was also one of the ways to test the culinary skills of the newly wed daughter in law. The better pakodas she makes, the better person she was by nature and by skill also. The enthusiastic shout of the children, parents all alike, just by seeing the clouds in the sky, the sermon would be served to have the delight served and the ever capable woman of the house would rise beautifully to the occasion proving her prowess again and again.

So… why am I telling all this? Because I recently hosted a chai pakoda party at my place. With approximately 20-25 people to enjoy the pakodas and everyone in the age group between 18 and 28, you can only imagine how much fun it all was. The initial idea was very nice and appealing to have a party, and then the shopping happened of 4 kilos of this and 2 kilos of that. The complete gravity of the situation sunk in only when I realized that there were 20 very hungry people coming home, that too belonging to an age group where eating is not just to satisfy the hunger but also to comfort the heart with the warmth of the food. With the majority of the janta being hostel dwellers missing home, it only got worse. And thus, began my stress levels. I have never thanked God enough for giving me the angel of a husband that I have. It’s a blessing to see him qualm my doubts about how things will turn out. I do thank dear lord nowJ .And so the huge army of hungry and happy people arrived and the mammoth task of peeling potatoes started. The frenzy that I was in an hour before is known only to my hubby and me. Right from running to the grocery store and picking groceries obviously to driving like a maniac to the vegetablewalla and buying loads of them to going home and putting all the stuff in the bottles and jars, cleaning the vegetables, followed by cleaning the bathrooms all over again because there were guests coming, and then taking a bath myself to re enter the kitchen, all this topped by my husband hooting every half an hour because I had asked him to, so that I can keep a track of time.

 By the time all was set, I myself was finished. My back was sore, I was hungry and I am sure even he was, every cell in my body wanted to crash into deep slumber for a couple of hours. You know there are times when we question if God really exists and then suddenly there is a miracle and you go whooopppiiieee!!!!! I love you God! Something very similar happened that day. As the people arrived, I realised that they really wanted to help. So the trays of potatoes and raw bananas arrived and everyone happily started peeling them. There were jokes, singing, laughter, leg pulling and so so much fun. But you know me being me, I now started worrying about how are we going to manage frying all those pakodas. Just then the bell rings and as I was expecting more people my maid makes an entry and she smiles, and what a smile it was. There are right now at my immediate help two angels who get me out of sticky situations, one as I told u is my husband and the second is my maid. She is so cute oh! My God! She loves cooking and she loves cooking for more people, so you can only imagine her delight when she saw 30 odd hungry people who needed to be fed, and just like Mrs. Weasley in the Harry Potter series, the kitchen started functioning on its own under her command and guidance and I became a combination of her assistant and a waiter.

The flow of pakodas that day was like pure classical music, like the melodious gurgling waters of a stream snuggled in the beauty of a lovely mountain and trees and birds and mother nature. Just like there is a variety in music, there were varieties in pakodas. There were pakodas of spinach, potatoes, raw bananas, onion, cauliflower, capsicum and so on and so forth. To sum it all up it was an extremely delicious. And the finale were the hot steamy cups of tea, the Indian chai with ginger, lemon grass, cardamom and other varieties. There was bitter kahawa also, traditionally the tea of Jammu and Kashmir which I completely killed because I boiled it too much, but I think the crushed  almonds in the tea made up for it :-)

So, all in all it was pretty much a day of fun, frolic, happiness and warmth. I am now slowly understanding that what is it that makes moms so happy to feed not only their babies but also the babies of other moms, just like their own. I will be a mom one day and I am sure I am going to love it. Its like mother nature you know, feeding and taking care of everyone just like her own little ones. I don’t know if my culinary skills were demonstrated well, but the bonding with everyone over food was beautiful. 

Its lovely isn’t it, how happiness in life is not costly at all! It’s the small little things that give happiness, the simplest ones, really. As simple as some chai and pakode, and they don’t even need to be perfectly doneJ and we still run after big things searching for a smile and being happy not realizing it lies right in us.

 See? See? A full stomach gives spiritual insights tooJ . Some food for thought…

Retro

urban life is cool! urban life is cool! and everyone moved to the city.
twenty years later.....
urban life sucks! urban life sucks! and now everyone is moving into the outskirts.

tell me one person who is advertising for their newly built apartments/houses saying it is right next to the main roads huh!
so, now suddenly all new places waiting to be occupied are surrounded by luscious forests, or trees, or huge areas of acres and acres of green fields. Ummmm... so what happened to the city stuff? oh! its there too. surprisingly, right next to the apparently advertised green jungle you are living in is the main road, or a college or a highway. so while driving from home to office its perfectly normal if you happen to run into sher khan, or mogli himself maybe.
how dumb could we get? really?
the greed to have more and more luxuries chased us into the city. but it came in with a price too. unplanned urbanisation. which pretty much means that you may get up in the morning drinking in the serene smell of the huge open drain right next to your window. and why? because what was supposed to be the rain water drain has sewage flowing through it now. allergies, stress, what not? name it.
but... but... people say, there are the malls and the multiplexes and the brands and the cool stuff.
Right! so whenever the going gets impossible, we spend the weekends at a village in a home stay, go boating in a river, check out some farms, experience the calm of the rural life and get back on monday morning for work and back to the city life.
the dream every urban dweller has today?
to have a house next to a farm, a river, on the outskirts, away from traffic, where you can sleep in peace. drive to work, come back home and enjoy nature.
and so, we come back full circle, back to our roots, eternally trying to amalgamate the rurals and the urbans hoping to live happily ever after in serenity and peace...
ha ha ha! what a joke!!!

The Late Night

oh look! the late night arrived,
asking me if yet another day i had survived,
sitting across, enquiring
So, how was the day?
easy or tiring?
i looked at the pile of work, and then at her and said,
don't tease me, i envy you and your freedom,
chuck the work, i wish i were in bed.
 she rolled her eyes, gave me a doleful look,
for a moment she let me read her like an open book,
what i saw startled me, and then she spoke,
she said : oh! you stupid bloke,
don't you realise what i go through?
to start with, there ain't any sunshine,
all i deal with is cigarette smoke and wine,
with every passing hour it just gets worse,
and i don't even have a voice to curse.
  for a little while, she kept silent,
then musing over what she just said,
she smiled over her own brief lament,
and then she spoke again,
you know, she started, my day isn't so bad,
except that mine is dark,
but the dark has a beauty of its own,
it witnesses the sleepless nights of the loving,
the hardworking hours of the persevering,
the creation of so many artists,
and the ambitions of the deserving.
the mothers slowly singing to their little ones,
the impatience of the buds to bloom to the first ray of the sun,
and then the best part is, she told me,
with a twinkle in her eye i had never seen,
to listen to the silence of the dark,
the perfection that it is! Tell me, she asked,
have you ever been?
to places where so much is happening,
without a sound or a tinkling?
i had to admit that i had underestimated her,
not realised that the night was as beautiful as the day,
it then dawned on me that they are two sides of the same coin,
where one ceases to exist without the other,
where one nourishes, the other flourishes,
i would have continued to get enlightened further,
when i saw her smiling at me,
happy that i realised her worth,
she came close to me and slowly kissed me,
disappearing the way she had come, the shadow that she was,
my eyes slowly drooped to a close,
and i drifted slowly into a deep slumber,
i opened them just in time at the crack of dawn,
to see the dark nite slowly change into a fairy in white,
she had turned into the bright sunshine!

she looked at me with the same smile that took my heart away,
see you at night, she whispered slowly,
work well during the day, i don't like being lonely,
 i shall take you on a new adventure tonight,
it's not too much fun during the daylight,
i had no words to say, and since then,
every night i wait for her to arrive,
and she takes me through something new till morning five,
then it is time for her to change,

and so, my affair with the late night began,
it continues till this day,
every night i am taught something new,
by someone so pretty, known only to a few...