Life is easy kya karein

She was ready to leave home the next day.  In India, leaving home is not about moving to your own place or starting out on your own. It is still about leaving your parents' house to elope and get married.The word 'elope' sounds so archaic,but we still use it in case of most love marriages. The marriages where parental approval is not there for a variety of reasons like social status, caste, money, society, same gotra or the guy is useless. In most cases keeping with the historical traditions, the girl steps out of the house on pretext of college and doesn't come back. The couple get married with the help of the groom's friends. Its never ever a court marriage as in Indian courts, there is no instant marriage. The court requires one month's notice along with all details of the boy and the girl like names of parents, address proof, identity card etc. This notice is then put on the court walls for a month so that if anyone has any objection, they are welcome to...

The tubelight in my bedroom did not work for a long time. I had stopped using the switch. There was no energy , time or inclination to repair it. Seemed the case in the bathroom too. I am so okay with things not working as far as my life is not hampered.Today while working on my laptop, I decided to switch it on with my big toe. Bingo, it came on. By the time I could finish typing one sentence and gloating overit,the light started flickering. All thoughts of spending half a saturday to locate an electrician and convince him to come home, were not calling. I was mentally going through all the switches, lights and fans which needed some kind of repair. Getting the electrician for one flickering tubelight was not justifiable. I climbed on the study table, it takes my weight because it is fixed to the wall. I turned the tubelight around and there was light. I didn't heave a sigh of relief as by now I had a list of things which needed the electrician's healing touch...

We studied in a girls college. Never had a chance to interact with boys of our age or same class. They were like kids for us. All students and broke. Those boys also had enough girls in their colleges. We always went out with guys who were working. All had graduated and joined their father's business. All of them had a car at their disposal and wads of money. I sound like we actually were looking for monied guys but the truth was atleast in those days Breach Candy was full of the rich elite. The men who hung around in that area were also rich or made a good garb of acting rich. They had fancy cars and lovely music blaring. In those days, people hardly put the airconditioning on in their cars. It was about letting the wind sweep through your hair and looking out without the tinted glasses. Simplicity and joy even in that. My cheap thrill was to get to drive these cars. I remember 118NE was just launched and a friend let me drive it with the back seat full of girls. It was so much f...

We had gone to a Disc. The days of seventies where you went to a Disco were over. There were no pubs or retro bars. There were five star hotels which had discs with fancy names. He was there in a plain beige shirt and worn out jeans. A cool dude in the days when all men wore black or black. He was wheatish, super fit and clean. Most men that time had this funny unkempt look about them.I liked that in books but in real life, clean men were what I liked. We all girls were so happy dancing. Music was our cocktail. You could only afford one thing in those days. So you either paid the entrance to a Disc or you paid for your drink. Letting someone else pay for your drink was a complete No No. One learnt to protect themselves in a city even when no real protection was required. We always stuck to our gang of girls. French fries were eaten as hostelites were always hungry post dinner. If a man rather a boy approached you, you were cocooned by your girlfriends. No chance of anyo...

I attended a musical perfomance by Sivamani. A friend was kind enough to invite me and give passes for my family too. Any good event,be it a musical or theatre or dance related , is almost out of the reach of the common man. In Mumbai, these events happen at NCPA or Tata and the tickets prices are almost unaffordable. How many of us in India have internet on our phones which we actually use for booking tickets for a show? I mean a housewife or an average educated businessman is not booking on the net. In Mumbai and I live in the centre of it, the travel to Prithvi theatre in Juhu or NCPA at Nariman point, is highly cumbersome. How do I commute half way across town or suburbs at peak hours as most shows are post seven pm? Where do I get someone who will come with me to watch a classical dance perfomance? Who will take care of my children? If the husband does baby sitting, then which friend male or female do I coerce to come along? Does any friend get coerced at all these days? During...

India is all about experience. Most of it is mystical. Your trip to or within India depends on what you are thinking at that moment of time. Are you open to the magic called India? Are you ready to experience where words fail to describe the feeling? Its about do you want to explore yourself? I am not talking about a pilgrimage but a spiritual journey, for sure. Are you inspired? Do you want to really look beyond or is it a place to be tick marked from your list or should I say crossed from your list. Is it a task done well or is their some more to be explored. As a traveller, one can never really strike off a country as 'done'in terms of travel experience. Wondering about the place, looking at the finer nuances and feeling them is what travel is all about to me. As a travel weary Mumbaikar, one always hears stuff like "Oh if you had to travel for work , you wouldn't be talking like this. " Travel these days,for the rich,has become a hotel experience. People ju...

Hostel training was amazing in my life. Learnt such interesting things which were very different from how we operated at home. I think all this was very specific to Sophia college hostel. We had to keep our room clean. The bed had to be made in the morning when you woke up. It could not be left to be done after breakfast. Meals were on the ground floor and rooms on first and third. The intercom number of the floor was 31 and the higher floor was 40 so we called that floor 40. Life was simple. The receptionist called your floor if there was a visitor for you. You could not call anywhere except reception from there. If the phone booth was not working, you could make calls on the main line post 5pm. The receptionist connected the line. You went into the cubicle to talk and paid three rupees for that call. If the parents did not get through the hostel line, they called on the main switchboard and you were called down to talk to your parents. This is how telecommunications operated in thos...