Life is easy kya karein

I knew a girl Julie at my first job at a travel agency. She was the receptionist and the only sane one around. I met her again when I started working at Nariman point. Now she was the receptionist at a petrochemicals firm. One day when I visited her office, she introduced me to all her colleagues and boss. All were young and very jovial. So unlike the earlier place where Julie and me had met. The boss was young and dashing. I thought only fuddie duddies got a chance to head an office. Then came the invitation to have dinner with their office colleagues. Julie was all excited and said all of them want me to join. We went to the Garden Cafe at The Ambassador hotel. I had changed from my work clothes. I was excited to be in Garden cafe though I had been there earlier. I didn't understand much about office politics those days. This looked like one small happy family. All were cracking jokes and most were related to their office which I did not follow. I tried to give a few witty ones m...

I have a strong opinion on divorce. I am always pro the ditched party. For me, the one ditched is always the first wife. The bad one is almost always the man and not the other woman. This is the case even if I read of Mona kapoor, Boney Kapoor's wife passing away. I am writing a very filmy example as by the grace of God, amongst the people I know there are not many divorces. God help me. These days I am scared to utter a good thing with the fear that it may soon become untrue for me.I thought that a certain film actress took away the producer husband from his wife. I thought of the children from the first wife. Even after her death, I think and feel bad for the children. I am not linked to films in any way except being an occasional film viewer. I do read a lot of Mid Day and Bombay Times. In case of Dharmendra and Hema Malini, I always felt she was short changed. He married her but he was always with his first family at all public functions. I have no business of judging people ...

Since my maternal instincts are n a high, let me share the kind of mistakes moms make. this is after having two children and making my own mistakes. I have always written grudgingly about the force feeding parents do to their children. Each Mom thinks, the more my child eats the healthier or stronger he will be. I think more food will make my child grow faster is what the moms are thinking. These new age Moms are so happy that they can make cakes and tarts and pizzas at home. So this is what the child eats...everything with high sugar and fat content. We as children did not know what is fat and sugar content. That's also because in small towns we played a lot and ran around. There was enough physical exercise. If you wanted potato chips, Mom fried them at home. Each family made their own potato chips for the year by washing, peeling,slicing potatoes and then soaking them in salt water, washing it and drying them in the sun. You could store it for a year. Actually in our town Jhar...

The swimming pool at Shivaji Park which I go during ladies time has an interesting mix of people. The ladies timing is 3.30pm to5.30pm. The pool is near the sea on the western side. The sun sets in the west and it is hottest at the ladies time. What the people at the BMC were thinking when they decide these kind of timings. Even twelve noon as ladies time would be cooler. So now with the sun up, there are some women who dont care much about tanning and come to swim. I am one of the few exposed bodies at the pool in the water. Most women have swimsuits with half sleeves and frills covering the bum. Then some wear cycling shorts inside their swimsuits. Almost all women wear their undergarments along with the swimsuit. Some have suits matching with their daughters so it is easy to locate each other in the pool. They do not have the rubber swim caps but the fabric ones made of the swimsuit fabric. There was no coach for the last two months. The mothers and kids did whatever in the pool aft...

What is this Me time all the women keep talking about? The working women talk about it and the new mothers also. There are reams of paper spent on this Me time. I think the spas are churning out lot of this Me time thing to increase their business. Its become like a movie promotion. First they will talk about an alleged affair, then an alleged showdown. Earlier it would be how the actor shared his ghar ka khaana with the whole unit and now it will be how the actor cooked for the whole unit. Then there will be those accidents and how the stars shot in spite of a crack in the bone and high fever. Can't the PR companies come up with some innovative stuff? All these promotions are so cliched. Now the star just picks up a fight in a five star hotel or a pub and gets the required mileage. Its become boring reading this kind of stuff. They say paparazzi and in India that's a joke. These people clicking are paid by the star's PR machine. If a poor photographer tries a personal pi...

There seems no connect between the topics I write. I cannot follow one trend of thought and hold on to it. Its like we do different activities and think of different things and people all the time. My writing follows my thoughts. My commitment to you is that I write truthfully from my heart.I write to you and I write for you and me. The shops opposite Kasarwadi have their own peculiar way of functioning. Every evening when the working mothers return home to Kasarwadi, they give their kids five or ten rupees. They are tired from their work and have no energy to produce an evening snack as the house work is pending. So all kids buy a lot of junk food. The water comes in the area after 7.30pm and then start the washing of vessels, clothes, sweeping swopping and cooking. Dinner is around !! pm in most households and then utensils to be washed. The women then come out of their households and sit on the pavement opposite. They are chatting till one am or more. The shopkeeprs sell the wors...

There is a chawl opposite our building and today I am very tempted to call it a slum. The people work for the Municipal Corporation. They are garbage cleaners or garbage pickers. They get this house by the BMC. Once the person working for BMC retires, he gives the job to one of his chosen sons. They do have more than two children. The boys or sons are jobless. The father supports them till he dies. The sons wait for the job.The father can give the job to any son and most likely it is the youngest son. Till then the mothers work as house maids. These sons hang around the full day. They do not study and they do not want to take up a peon s job. They will not work as waiters. Lots of them are good musicians so they get orders to play in the weddings. Each wedding baraat earns them around three hundred Rupees. They are very happy with that money. This business is seasonal. They get the festivals and the visarjan band bajaa too. Lot of these boys are alcoholics. The parents do not consider ...

Just switched from Surf Excel to Ariel for my washing machine detergent and I dont like the smell. Have grown up on Surf ads and that being the only detergent brand we knew of as children. I made this switch for a ten rupee price difference as the new budget has arrived. The Ariel smell lingers on clothes and I dont like it. They say every house has a smell but we cannot smell our own house. The other day I had been to Oberoi and I realised they had changed the cleaning agents they used. It all smelt so floral.Even Intercontinental smelt the same . After working at the Oberoi, I knew how the lobby smelt for four and half years. That time they did not serve food at the old Oberoi lobby. Now this strong artificial floral smell exists in the three hotels on Marine Drive and that's not so welcoming. Bournvita has increased their sugar content. Earlier to drink Bournvita with milk, we had to add sugar to the milk as we were not accustomed to the taste of bitter chocolate. Now the ch...

Am just back from catching the afternoon show of a film called Kahaani. Went for the film alone after a lot of encouragement from the husband. Not that I have not seen films on my own. I don't like to watch sad films alone. I went feeling all Bold and Beautiful. Courtesy the multiplexes,the single theater near our house was a quarter full. I knew Sujoy, the writer director and more of the film when I was working at The Oberoi group of hotels. He was working for Reuters and I would be visiting his office for business. They did generate a lot of hotel business. He was this suave cool young looking man, who was absolutely cool. He treated people with respect and casualness which was an amazing combination. He grew very fast in the organization. When the company moved to a larger office at Ballard pier, he had a nice large cabin to himself. I remember seeing a Stardust magazine once on his desk and asking him about it. Men reading a film magazine, that too corporate yuppies, was not...

The day after Holi, there was Shivaji Jayanti being celebrated in Maharashtra according to the lunar calendar. The city was full of orange flags. Shiv Sena and MNS were celebrating it in a big way. So if the candidate had won BMC elections in that area, that party would spend lavishly with a live band or dinner or lights crackers n sweets. Basically this was Mumbai s second Diwali of 2012 and the year has barely started. The first was as BMC election results were announced and the burst of crackers for the winning candidates. Our driver had a different take on this. He said that "Rashtrawadi waalon ne date badal diya." Later I could figure that he meant that the Congress party at the centre declared a date which doesn't match with what a Maharastrian thought of the date of Shivaji s birth for years. He said it so passionately that I realised how so many must be feeling about this change of date. The cab driver was so upset the day there were raids at ...

I cant understand friends who do not call back. I cant understand friends who do not respond to messages. I have friends in my life who return a call with an sms which says they are busy. The call is never returned. Some give wise crack answers that we never took your call , so where is the question of returning it. I am stuck with a whole lot of friends who just want to give their story. They do not want to listen to mine or for that matter even bother to know about me. I have friends on my Blackberry contacts who have never even responded with a smiley to anything I have broadcast or written to them. I CANNOT BELIEVE PEOPLE CAN BE SO COLD. I have had friends trying to tell me to get a job if I have sent them two jokes in a day. Nobody gets that they are in my thoughts, hence the communication even if it is a joke. I feel very hurt with negligence or indifference. I am embarrassed to say this but I have a whole lot of friends like this. I don't know they are busy doing what. I h...

All movies these days come with this funny U A certification.Which means you can take your child at your own discretion. At my discretion, I do not want to show my child any kind of violence or abuse. I dont mind the love scenes which parents in India have objections too. Almost all are okay with the violence in the films. They are very happy when the child is not scared and is watching these films with the violence. For them it is about how strong their child is. Some are not okay with kissing scenes. SO you can go for films and if a scene like that comes, the parents will close their child eyes or instruct the child not to watch. If its an item number, no one tells their children to not watch it. So all the gyrating movements are fine with all the not so subtle connotation but a simple kiss portraying love is a big no no. Similarly in the so called family serials being watched at home, all are okay with the killings,the slapping and the poisoning. People are okay with all this a...

What do you write when you loose a person who is a close friend, childhood pal and a cousin? Nothing comes to this numb mind. Everything I do is in auto mode. When the person is alive and kicking, I did not think of him so much. Now he is no more in the physical world, he has started living in my mind every single moment. His going away has left a deep gash and all is bullshit. I know I grew for 40 years with him. Writing about him in past tense doesn't feel good. I did not see him for three years and yet we lived thru our words. I just know he almost read all that I wrote and he would discuss that with me. He liked me to write and had big dreams for me. He wanted me to pursue them. His going away and I was not willing to write at all. How strange the human mind or heart works. This is as close as I have come to share a thing so close and so current in my life. Most things I write about is after I have achieved a closure in my mind. I can share when I am complete about the emoti...