Life is easy kya karein

 We had iron buckets in the bathrooms at our home in Jharia. Plastic buckets were not used as they broke easily. We had aluminium buckets which were lighter. We used them to carry water up the staircase from the chamber on the ground floor. Our kitchen had a steel bucket, which was precious. Some people  used an iron rod as a heater for water, and they had one plastic bucket to heat the water. We had a geyser and that too not the instant one. We used to keep the geyser on for a few hours at night, as we were six children bathing at five a.m. before leaving for school. Winters electricity used to go in the night. Some times water was kept in an old aluminium pot on the Chulha, which was dying. Usually the custom was to cool the fire in the Chula at night. We did not keep the fire burning. Everyone and everything was put to rest at night. In our wooden Mandir at home, there was a custom to put our Gods to sleep and wake them up in the morning.  Flowers were removed and Mom'...

 Pratapgad is a fort in the Sahyadris, near Mahabaleshwar, built by Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj. 'Pratap' is a Hindi word and it means victory, light, power n majestic all rolled into one. Our idea of victory is not to make a pile of skulls or collect Janeu from the killed people and make a bonfire. The fort is not controlled or run by ASI. It is on the top of the hills with dense forests all around even now. It has a bird's eye view of the whole area, the hill tops, the plains, the valley, the villages beneath n the rivers. It has access to three districts of Maharshtra. Shivaji commissioned the fort in 1655. It was ready in 1657. In 1659, Ahmed Shah Abdali sent Afzal Khan with a huge army to kill Shivaji Maharaj.  Then the story some of us  studied in our History books,  Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj and Afzal Khan had a meeting near Pratapgad and Shivaji killed him with tiger claws. Shivaji Maharaj's army defeated Abdali's army in the Battle of Pratapgad. Garh or G...

 Lonavla, Khandala, Matheran and Mahabaleshwar.... four places where Mumbaikars head for weekends. They are popular and close by. These four places are on the hills of Sahyadri. Alibaug is another preferred place which has a beach and good coastal cuisine. Lonavla and Khandala are twin towns and sound like sisters too. For years, I used to think Matheran and Mahabaleshwar are also twin towns. I never knew they are in totally different directions. When I was younger, Foreign trips meant Singapore and Bangkok. Later European trips meant London, Paris or Switzerland. No one differentiated between cities and countries. Some countries like Switzerland was more famous than its cities. And when one thought of London, England did not come into the picture. Like Paris was an entity in itself. There was no  difference between Bangkok, Hong Kong or Singapore. Manila and Malaysia were places you learnt to mark on a map during your Geography class. Life was lost between Grasslands, Steppes...

 All the idea of men and romance came from the books I read from the school library. Nancy Drew, Famous Five, The Scarlett Pimpernel, Pride and Prejudice, Black Beauty, D. H. Laurence etc. I used to love the books by Daphne Du Maurier. The setting for love was always European. Further in Mumbai, I started reading Mills and Boon, after eleventh grade. All men and women fought. Man was always tall, dark and piercing eyes. The Man always spoke less. He always had a huge house called some Windermere or Aberdeen or some such British name. All houses had huge gardens, view of the sea or on banks of a lake. There were beautiful flowers in the garden. There was a distance between the hero and heroine. I referred to the lead characters like that, courtesy Bollywood. The girl was always alone or in need or in some dire circumstances . But her spirit was intact.The Man was always a man and never a boy.  The fights and the sarcasm between the boy n the girl was the best part about reading...

 Making people laugh is a huge skill or a big art. I do not know how people manage that. I consider myself as someone who can laugh at jokes but not make people laugh. Is it an acquired skill? Does one learn it from family or from friends? Are loners good in humour or are gregarious people best at it? My mindless TV watching is about stand up comedy. Do I laugh about anything and  everything? No way! I have set up boundaries even there. I can create boundaries where none exist. That is the power of our mind. We think we are breaking boundaries or making our circle bigger? Is it about making more concentric circles? Do Venn diagrams still exist in my life?  Being liberal is one more such farce which I keep insisting on. I am open to what I think is good and right whether for me or for society or for the world. Life is always about me except that I am able to con a few into agreeing to my views or telling them mine are better than yours.  'I am better than you' is the ...

In Jharia, whenever we went out and came home, my grandmother had only one question for us. It was " "Majja aavi  aney su khaadhu?" Two questions, actually.  It means Did you enjoy and what did you eat? As a child, this was an irritating. Everything was fun when we went out and food was not important. I thought her only question was to know the menu. Gauri Bai did not eat from restaurants, she did not eat breads or cakes. She did not eat onion and garlic, so restaurant food was a big No for her. Dhanbad did not have the option of Jain food in restaurants which is without even potatoes. There was no concept of take-away foods and delivery boys. We all went out to eat. The "Double Gupchup" from Rameshwar came at home packed in a steel Dibba. It tasted delicious. Sitting in a restaurant and eating was a joy.  I used to think that  because Bai doesn't eat out, she wants to know what we eat. Now when my children go out and come home, my first question is "W...