Life is easy kya karein

A two and half hour drive from Coimbatore gets you to the beautiful little town in the tea gardens called Coonoor. Why do we say Tea Gardens but Coffee estates?  When I came to Mumbai to college, most hostelites were from different school hostels in Ooty, Mussorie, Shimla, Kodaikanal etc. These places were hill stations for me and I only knew Darjeeling and Dehradoon had good schools where people sent their sons to study at St. Paul's and Doon school. I never knew what alumni meets were and why certain schools alumni nexus was considered powerful. Small learnings which when I am writing, I realise where I learnt it from. In my little cocoon of Jharia, I read my syllabus, Femina magazine, Hindi novels, Readers Digest subscription, Gujarati weekly Chitralekha and newspapers like The Telegraph and our local one Awaaz.  This did not cover places like Wellington, Lovedale, Sanawar. For me all these English sounding names were ' phoren' places. I had never realised that Coonoor...

Coimbatore has character. It is not just another manufacturing or industrial town. Cleanliness is Godliness is totally practiced in South India. Swachh Bharat Abhiyaan is for other parts of India. The joy of cleanliness starts from our destination airport toilets. The muggy lemongrass cleaning agent or diffuser oil smell which is prevalent in the Mumbai public toilets,  is missing in the public toilets of South India. They are actually clean without any artificial fragrance.The Race Course Road has a circular three km tree lined walking path. I walked there on two mornings and it was an experience. It wasnt as crowded as Mumbai. Open gyms, temple, church, hospital, grand houses of mill owners, Government bungalows of the District Collector are covered by this walkway. The benches and dustbins are very well placed. Very few girls were seen walking. Women, men-old and young and all backgrounds could be seen. On the other side of the circular road, there are some beauty parlours, of...

Last Year, Karwa Chauth was full of questions for me. Each one wanted to know why I was fasting when I am not a Punjabi. Mumbaikars can be so weird at times. I should not be generalising but right from the fabric shop owner to the Yoga mates to the school Moms to the neighbours , all asked why was I practicing this ritual since I did not belong to that particular community. Strange but just Mehendi/ Henna on my hands got a barrage of questions even from all my household help. I just got some vague, some puzzled and some sympathetic looks. Some even stated that their husbands do not expect them to fast and their families are liberal. Some years back, I was getting into the groove of Karwa Chauth and putting Mehendi on my hands. Friends thought I was making fun of them. This time, I played smart. I did not give any explanations. I just heard people and their views and the way some women express their feminism.  People can't figure out that if I am a Gujarati then why wasn't I b...