Life is easy kya karein

I am unable to form an opinion on a political party in India. Just when I think one party is good, I hear some bad things about it. Heard lot of stuff in the elections and its results in Delhi. The research showed something and the results are not that at all. If people say AAP won due to social media, then is every auto driver in India net savvy? We believe only what we are fed. As a child, I thought Indira gandhi was such powerful lady Prime Minister. I thought the same about her sons. Wonder who is taint free? Every ideal gets shattered as I grow older. May be there is something wrong with the ideals I look up to. Or it is just times which move and every great man is bad too. I have friends who are not fond of the Father of the Nation. My friends have a completely convent school view of the political parties and for them, all that we have been fed for generations against India and Indians is true. There is a small shop of a book seller which sells old books and fakes. By Fake boo

  I  grew up reading books written by English authors. School books n library ones had foreign authors writing in English. There were not too many fiction books for us in English written by Indian authors.  We called all fictional books ' Novels' and all school text books were 'Books'.   I started reading Mills & Boon after my eleventh grade. The authors were UK , USA and Australia based. Read about moors, cold weather with the dark ocean and the hills around. The fog on the sea or the mountains with biting cold is what romance was all about. Men were dark with blue grey eyes n long hair till the nape of the neck. In those books, the guy always took the girl to an isolated log cabin or a castle in the vineyards. In those places, there were hardly any people around. For miles, no one and not even a passing car. This was not a wilderness I knew of in India. In this foreign isolation, the couple was busy fighting or smouldering with passion.   Recently I  read a M

What do I do with the gifts I get? My first memory of a gift is my father getting me a doll from Delhi. Her blue eyes used to open and shut and she had short hair. Next time he got me a black train engine which worked with battery and had a red light on top. It was made of metal and had great finish when I compare it to the China Made toys we get nowadays. Then Dad got me books like The Ugly Duckling by Hans Christian Andersen and some small children's encyclopaedia. I cherished these gifts. My Mom must have bought me all the daily necessities and more,which I have no memory of. The earliest I remember is some relative visiting us in Jharia and giving me money. Relatives did not get gifts, they always gave money to the children. I happily took the cash and my Mother told me to give it back. This scene was happening at the red cemented circular staircase we had at the main entrance of our house. I do not remember the amount or what I would have done with the money. I have no memor

I am unable to write about harsh realities of life. I cringe to write about all the atrocities on women. I am uncomfortable reading about it. I also feel anything I write will sound preachy or judgemental. Judgements start from the time I wake up. I judge myself if I wake up quick with the alarm clock then I am happy with myself. The day I want to laze in bed, I blame myself for not being punctual or I blame the dinner I attended the previous night and so on. With Tarun Tejpal episode, it is like one more of my idol/ ideal broken. When 'Tehelka' started doing their first explosive expose, I though this was a team of amazing people. I held on to my beliefs though his partner and him parted ways, other corruption issues were coming against them and his political connections. Now the fairy tale gets shattered one final time. I try to remember my years of working and can not think of a single time experiencing any kind of assault verbal or physical. In fact, safety was a norm th

I did not like the film 'Ek Duje ke Liye' aka 'Made for each other' because the Hero and Heroine die in the end. Same for the first Amir Khan Juhi  film, where they die. But I loved Ram Leela. Ranveer has surrendered to the director and turned out even done better than Sanjay Leela Bhansali's vision of Ram.The background score is so soothing, not melodramatic at all. It is Ghant naad i.e. bells of a temple ringing, in a very daily regular routine Puja way. The cinematography and the sets are 'kamaal' and the riot of colours on the screen are a delight to the naked eye. In spite of changing some words like the town and the community's names, the essence is intact. The dialogue writers have done a fantastic job with the play of words. The authenticity is unbeatable in that typical Gujarati humour and the words used. Ranveer acts and how. Whereas Deepika is so stunning that who will look at her acting. The music is fabulous. Priyanka Chopra s item number

Today I had a hair cut at home. This is the first for me. The hair stylist is an old friend who now works on his own. He is not attached to a salon. He is brilliant. I never called him home as for me all the stuff of the parlour, had to be done there. Here people call the 'parlour wali' home for waxing, hair colour, facial etc. I have tried it a few times when my child was an infant. I hated it. The women are nice ladies who come through word of mouth reference. They charge less than the beauty salon rates. But your house is a mess after they leave. There is wax on the floor inspite of them picking up all the wax strips. The bed sheet stinks of a funny parlour smell. In fact, even your own gown appears dirty.  For me, pedicure is about putting my feet up and relaxing. Its not about dipping your feet in your bucket in hot water with a little shampoo from your own bathroom. You provide clean napkins and the towels for the feet and yet it is not the same clean feel which one gets

Our family Doctor is this sweet old gentleman with a quirky sense of humour. Waiting for him at the clinic is an experience in itself. There is no appointment system. People just come and sit on the benches provided. You observe who all are there and do not let anyone who walks in after you, visit the Doc before you. An old lady walked in wearing a red skirt and a floral top. There was bright  orange neon colour on her toe nails.With complete fondness, She told me that her grandchild who is twenty one had put it for her. Her daughter had accompanied her and wanted to know about my stiff neck. The lady advised me not to waste money on a doctor. I should rest and take hot water fermentation and I shall be fine. She further added that today's phone generation is getting the neck problem and I felt guilty as charged. She mentioned that she lives abroad and does not want to get on to Whatsapp and Facebook with all her people in India. She said she is never going to need all that. Peopl

The festivities are still on at my house front. We celebrate most festivals which happen between Eastern and Western parts of India. I have added one from North India this year to my list of traditions. Karwa Chauth, done not the 'nirjal'(without drinking water) way but with fluids, was fun. I find all celebrations interesting. I never get tired of attending parties and weddings. And the reason is simple. I am not required to be at any function. My attendance is not mandatory and all events will happen as well without me. Just knowing this is so freeing and so depressing. I see my friends working and running their homes as well. I wonder what is my goal in life. Do I have a purpose in life? Will I die for a cause I believe in? Really, does everyone have a place they want to reach in life? My children want to know what I will become when I am big. I say "Beta , I want to become a Gardener", considering I have no green fingers. Your children make you aware about the

Some of my relatives want to know if I do Diwali Puja. When my reply is affirmative, they are shocked. Any guesses why? Gujaratis are business families. They feel only people who have their own business can do Lakshmi Puja. Lakshmi is the Goddess of Wealth in Hindu mythology. The reaction for them is natural as we are 'service class' and then how can we pray to the Goddess.I am ashamed to share this but this is how some Mumbai relatives relate to me. And here we are not talking about caste system or middle/upper class values. I am talking about so called normal loving people in my life. Do they believe the Gods are rigid about who can pray to them? Is it that they feel, people who work for an organisation  cannot earn enough money, hence they have no business of praying to Goddess Laxmi. Am I sounding like a hurt person, who will soon be categorised as "Right Wing" by the secular lot? Why are we so fussy about who prays to whom and why. I know this question was not

I do not remember owning rubber slippers in my childhood. Mom believed that wearing chappals or slippers, where the big toe was on one side, made the child's feet broad. I only had shoes and sandals. We never wore footwear in the house. Even our guests removed the shoes at the entrance. As children we all ran around 'nange paaon'. Our grandmom believed that children can slip with slippers. We had an aangan and tanks all around the big house. Walking from one room to another involved walking through the red cemented aangan. Bai, my Grandmom, had given up wearing footwear at the age of 21 when she became a widow. In summers, we just ran across the aangan on our toes. The floor would be scorching when we went to the terrace to bring down the clothes at four pm. Without looking at the clock, all housework happened by clockwork. The servant got clothes down at four after his post lunch nap. Mom and Aunt folded clothes while their tea was being made. When they sipped tea in the

I feel like a queen when I have the whole swimming pool to myself. I enjoy my afternoon swim in the scorching heat. The joy to have the entire pool to one's self in this crowded city, is unbeatable. Today for the first time, I went for a swim in the morning, as I have to go out in the afternoon. Morning hours are General swimming timings. Like Mumbai local trains, where we have General and Ladies compartments. Women all go into Ladies compartments and General is treated like an all men compartment. Swimming pool scenario is similar. A couple of small kids were swimming with their fathers and the rest were men in all the 5 pools. I think I swim pretty well. This is the observation I have made of my swimming in the afternoons. Today was an eye opener. I walked into the pool with ease. Men of all age groups were chatting, diving, swimming or lazing around. After my first lap, the elderly gentleman next to me said that my hand is not moving in the correct fashion. He said it should g

The Aangan or the 'Chok' where we played Garba in Jharia and Dhanbad was actually someone's big  central courtyard with houses on three sides. Never noticed how generous those people were to allow all of us to dance for nine nights in their Chok till the wee hours of the morning. Am sure some families had old people, sick members or small children. For all the years we went for Garba, we never heard any resident complaining why so many people are there playing Garba who do not belong to this compound. In fact, arrangements were made for all women to sit around the Chok on the floor. Sand was brought in before Durga puja and mixed with little dry loose soil and spread all over the Chok. This was for the comfort of the feet of all Garba players. Every evening by four pm, water was sprinkled on this sand to keep it cool and moist. When we started the first round of the Garba, many of us would remember the wet Chok always. Some things go in your muscle memory, a 'Bheeno Ch

A visit to Kasarwadi has changed quite a lot of my thoughts and perceptions. I went for Devi Darshan three days in a row. I was noticed as I was the only odd one out in that place and one who did not belong to them or their area. Some young guy had died , so there was no Garba. All were wearing white as that was the colour of the day. Not for mourning. In Maharashtra, each day of Navratri belongs to a Goddess form, thus She is known as Nav Durga. There is a colour for each Goddess which men and women who believe in traditions follow. This day the colour was white and it went in with the sombre mood there. The time was 9.40 pm. Children were playing badminton with table tennis bats. Young boys were hanging around in their crisp white shirts. But the girls were wearing different colours. The lights were all lit up in the lane and in the Pandal. The people near the Pandal were hunting for Prasad for me. I got two bananas in a plastic bag.  I started walking back, wondering about the bo

The city has moved to a festive mode. The gears have been shifted. I experience all this as I am a Stay at Home Mom. Also I enjoy celebrating and I do not have major issues with noise or traffic. I understand people want to get out and shop for festivities. The traffic increase is due to the rich people and their chauffers who double park on the roads with the car engine running. Some of them are asked to keep taking rounds in the area till Madam finishes her shopping. These kind of people have no responsibility to the environment. Same goes for the temple trust owners. We have a small temple in a decrepit bylane in Matunga hidden from the market eye. It is near the Kashi Vishwanath temple. It was built in the 1800s. This temple still has those big pillars with holes to put diyas and light them up. Now the temple has the funny artificial floor tiles. There is a bust of the person who made the temple which has now moved into the temple courtyard. They have made a terrace over the bus

Kellogs in India is now advertising how it is 'anaaj', the Hindi word for Grains and food. Earlier when they came to India, they wanted to change how India eats breakfast. Not to mention the high sugar ,  salt and preservatives in all these packaged products. Mothers have switched to stories like Cindrella and Red Riding Hood. No mention of the stories from Panchtantra, Ramayan and Mahabharat. Mcdonalds is Indianising its menu further and so are lot of Pizza joints. The Udupis are secure that people will keep coming back for more. The are concentrating on hygiene and consistency. Mumbai being the second honest city in the world included the Marathi, the non Marathi and the North Indian migrant population. I am sounding such a fascist when I talk like this. The festivities have put me in a space where I am okay with the way things are and the way they are not. The priest or the Pandit is called Bhattji in Marathi. The priest who washes and cleans the small temple un

Gaud Saraswat Brahmin community organises a Ganpati at King's Circle and Ram Mandir, Wadala. Its a close knit community which has business people and educated people. I go for darshan to both the places. Am sharing about the GSB Sewa Mandal, King's Circle/ Sion.The festival is celebrated with lot of Puja, Seva and Archana. People assiting take five to seven days leave to be at the venue/ Pandal full time. The food is cooked there all meals for the community. The Gan Hom is the Ganesh Yajna which happens during the day and all people who register for it can participate with their spouse . The Tula -Bhaar is a daan, one does when a mannat is accomplished. Mannat is a wish asked from the Lord. There are huge weighing scales at the Pandal facing the Ganpati. A person can donate coconuts, bananas or grains worth his weight. He/she sits on one side of the scale and they fill the other side with the donation of your choice. Equal to your weight , the stuff is donated and used by the

The Janmashtmi festival is a big one in Mumbai. The shopping season starts from Raksha Bandhan. By shopping, I do not mean a mall kind of shopping but small shops which cater to Puja stuff needed for the festival. The music is in the air. Govindas or people who break the Dahi Handis consist of young children in their late teens or early twenties living in one Chawl. They hire a truck for the day and go to various places to break Dahi handis. This is a very Mumbai phenomena. The Govindas will wear same coloured t-shirts with the name of their Chawl/ colony/ compound written on it. The handis are now sponsored by political parties. There is a stage and DJ music along with live performances.Its a good opportunity to promote films, so the film actors have started visiting these Dahi handis. So there is political muscle, Filmy tussle and live act promotions. It mixes the Lavani with the Govinda music. The politico message with what's wrong with Mumbai. Each one ends their speech with w

Attended a friend's father's uthamna. This is like wake and usually happens three days after a person's demise. It is called Uthhala, Besna or Chautha in Hindi. The family gets together at a hall/auditorium. Relatives, friends and business associates come and pay their condolence to the family. In Mumbai, they get professional singers to sing Bhajan/ soulful songs/hymns. The late person's photo is kept facing the audience. Incense sticks are burning and some flowers are kept around. The bhajan singers and musicians sit on a stage. The close family sits on white plastic chairs with their backs to the stage. The visitors sit in the audience. The timings are usually 4-6pm. The visitors come in and sit. The Bhajans/ religious hymns are being sung. They sit for two or four songs and leave. While leaving they fold their hands in Namaskar to the entire family. The entire family does Namaskar to the guests who are leaving. All this communication is without any words. The famil

When I was young, soaps were not used to wash vessels. Coal and wood fire cooked our food. The ash from this fire was used to scrub dishes. Most eco-friendly options, India has. Now we get eco-friendly non polluting soaps abroad. But any soap or detergent is full of chemicals and bad for the soil and rivers and seas , that our drainage flows into. I remember the 'chulha' being lit in the morning by Mom or Aunt as soon as they woke up.  There was an art to filling the chulha with wood and coal and little kerosene.  We had two chulhas of medium size and a big one when we had guests. I mean to cook the food. The chulha was made of iron and coated with mud to keep it a little cool on the outside. The fire was on top and the ash fell down. We used only one matchstick to light a piece of old paper and that was put on the coal which ignited fast due to the kerosene. Or we soaked a piece of wood in kerosene and put in under the coal. The fire caught in about twenty minutes. We could n

The radio ads are so suggestive. When I am travelling in the car with the driver, it is actually embarrassing to listen to the kind of content which is being spewed. The festive season has come starting with Raksha Bandhan next week, followed by Janmashtmi, Ganpati and we are on a roll. The shops do not have the festive stuff or the festive look. The Giri Puja Store sales person said that people shop for Ganpati in the last five days. In other words, "Kindly do not be so enthusiastic and come so early asking for stuff which is still in shipment". Me thinking of planning and getting things in advance to avoid the festival rush is not a good idea. I do last minute stuff only for my personal things and the school projects. Those are things where all laziness creeps in. Am amazed at the number of vacations people are taking. Long weekend and short weekend, train and road travel, Tashkent and Thane, people are moving all the time. I have become one of those Bombayites who thin

My cab ride on Independence Day was quite interesting. The cab driver made the first connect when he praised my angry young one by saying she is very intelligent. He got more brownie points when he said that girls are intelligent. His daughter in in the seventh grade in the village and scored 75%. Now I was totally game for all that he had to share. He explained to me that there are three types of cab drivers in Mumbai. The first category owns a house in Mumbai or its distant suburbs. He will never drive anyone else's cab. He owns a cab, drives short distances, doesn't take the pot holed roads and is very concerned about no damage coming to the cab. He has bought a Santro cab on loan, paid Rs.40,000 and pays an EMI of Rs.6000. The annual maintenance of the cab costs him around Rs 6000. He doesn't make much money but is proud to own his vehicle and does business of Rs.20000-22000 per month. He has his family commitments which are more important. The second category is fr

I walk on the Z bridge in Matunga to travel from western to the central part of Matunga. People in this area are very particular about which part of Matunga they belong to. I am not sure if this is Mumbai specific. But I do hear friends in New York always specifying the area they live in. I have no clue about what is a better area or how far is it from Manhattan, but things get measured like that. Matunga road or the Western Matunga was called Matunga BB earlier. It was a cloth mill area and an area for the under belly of Mumbai in the days when the mills were working. Then  the buildings started coming up. A pond divided the two Matungas and both sides were lush green. A small narrow bridge like a brick wall was used to cross over to the other side. Most schools were located in central Matunga. Now there is a Z bridge which runs above the railway repair yard. I love peeping into the repair shed through the broken slats.Seeing bogies getting repaired and the smell of petrol/ diesel us

I used to wear Sarees everyday when I was working. Those days in the hotel industry, all employees wore sarees. The Sales n Marketing teams could wear their own sarees and not the uniform sarees which was for the people in the Front office and Back of the house. We all loved buying new sarees all the time and cherished them. In fact, all of us wore natural fabrics and not the flimsy artificial fabrics. By the time I was in the eighth year of working, the foreign hotel chains had come into India. To prove their westernization, the uniform became shirts and trousers for all employees. Men n women in the hotel looking like penguins in those white lobbies. This is one more of my ranting against the Westernization of Indian people and culture. The 'Goras' for the lack of a better word, felt one looked more professional in trousers n shirts. The pant shirt uniform was hassle free. Not to forget those thick jackets on the poor perspiring staff. Indian weather is not conducive to jack

A friend sent a personal response to my last post. She shared that around her in North India, the scenario is opposite. The daughter-in-law is not willing to allow her children to spend time with the paternal Grandparents. The daughter-in-law wants a share in the family wealth but does not want to take on any family responsibilities. I grew up in a family where I was equally fond of my cousins and relatives on paternal and maternal side. I think lot of this is dependent on the mother of the house. If as a child, I see my Mom only with maternal relatives, then that is what I will take on in my married life and with my children. If I see my Grandmom with only her side of the family, then I will feel that is the right way to behave. Men do not have these conversations or never have any issues regarding these things. I seem to be righteous about it. For me joint family is like Ram Rajya, all have to be happy living together. Is this Utopia, I am going after? Is this not possible? Am I l

Child came from school and mentioned that some one in her class has Ego. I was taken aback. What does a ten year know about Ego? How did she get to learn this word and to use it? Is Ego and Egoistic same? Did she mean the class mate was egoisitc? What was her experience that she used such a strong word?  How do I explain it to her? Do I ask her why she is using that word? Do I ask her what happened? Do I try to talk her out of using such words for her friends? As a mother, should I cut this conversation in the bud? Is she really looking for help? I simmered but I did not advice her. Later she said he was a friend and enemy. Frenemy is the new term coined in Bollywood news. The child shared all this in complete innocence but my maternal instincts were on high alert. As a mother, I am just looking at countering emergencies or handling situations for my children. This is so lousy. Instead of creating something wonderful for my children, I am looking at 'What needs to be handled nex

I am staring at the DVDs and CDs lying all around the house. I have never seen or heard them. I keep thinking I will do it one day. I am better with books. Even if they are all over the house, I feel intellectual about it. CDs and DVDs do not give me any such high. In fact I am quite irritated with them. None have been bought by me. We are a family which never watches a film on the DVD player. I don't even know if the  DVD player works as we have not used it for years. My solution to all the things which I can not operate or do not know how to operate, is to give it away. I have even given away grill toasters and juicers because I was not comfortable using them. I felt the toast turned better on the Tawa and the juice came out better in a mixer/grinder. I am not too comfortable with kitchen gadgets or any other gadgets. I feel most are used once in a while and occupy so much space in the house. I am uneasy about using things which cant be washed well. I do not like a grill toaster

In school we learnt some funny two liners which rhymed and were used to tease other children. One of them was " Nadi Kinare saanp hai, Wohi tumhara Baap hai." We said it in a singsong way to tease other girls. All would be very offended by it. It meant, there is a snake by the river side and he is your father.We thought that a snake is a bad animal and the ultimate bad thing to do is to say something bad about some one's father. Actually we did not think all this or understood the meaning of it. We said it because we knew it was bad and it rhymed. On a warm evening, I was wearing my white cotton petticoat with pink n blue birds embroidered on it. Once I came from school, Mom changed me into these white cotton slips which were embroidered and could be used as inner wear too. She was oiling and combing my hair, looking for butchies. I did not like the fine tooth comb she was using. My thick hair really pulled from the scalp with that combing. I just rattled my newly learnt

In school, our bus used to fetch us from outside Fatehpur Lane and dropp us at Matru Sadan More. The place was earlier called Ghoda stand as the Tongas would leave from there for Dighwadih, Sindri, Bhaga, Jealgora. Mom says once a Tonga overturned and a pregnant woman who was sitting on it, lost her unborn child. Then the Tonga rides were stopped in Jharia. Now the place had a Trekker stand. Trekkers were like big Jeeps but more seating and broader vehicles. I saw the transition from taxis to trekkers in Dhanbad.  The trekkers took around 25 people and traveled fast. Picking up passengers on the way even when they were full way beyond their capacity. The Trekkers charged Rs.2.50 for most journeys and that was a lot of money in those days. The Trekkers stopped at fixed cross sections and you could not request them to stop midway to disembark. Atleast  that was one rule they followed. It connected the whole district very well. The local trains from Jharia and Katras to Dhanbad had sto