Life is easy kya karein

The school Parent teacher meetings are a very important part of the life of mothers of school going children. My house help was the Class representative for the parents of her child's class. She had to attend a monthly meeting with the teachers and the school Principal. She would inform me in advance that she will come late to work or do little work and leave early. That day she would not wear her daily Salwar Kameez but would be in a Saree. In those two years, I realised she had such a beautiful choice of Sarees . She wore them so gracefully. That day she would have the extra excitement on her face. I could see her buzzing with energy. I think that was the place where she had a position of a leader. She felt pride in her role as the PTA head for her class. She never missed those meetings. Now both her children are in college.  Coming back from Yoga, right outside our house is a vegetable vendor . He has encroached the footpath space. He and his wife have a big table to keep ...

Parents are sending their children for Speech and Drama class. This is supposed to make the child bold and confident. Every one wants a child who wins debates and speech competitions. I know our school used to have something called Extempore competition where the topic was given and children had 10 minutes to prepare and then go and speak on stage. For me, I never understood the meaning of extempore. I could not even understand or pronounce it correctly. I have just checked the meaning on Google and it says to talk or do something without preparation. Preparation for a speech always meant my Mother helping me by writing the speech and guiding me where to pause when I tried to 'mug' it and 'rattle' it at the same time. 'Rattle and mug' was the colloquial language that I knew. Children would get a couple of quotes from their parents and tried to fit it in the extempore speech.  Nowadays in schools, if the child is quiet, it  is a problem. All parents want th...

Yesterday I had a meeting at Shivaji Park at noon. The October warm weather has set in the last week of September. This time the Ganpati Visarjan happened without any rains and then the temperature went up by a couple of notches. With Shivaji Park as the venue, I was assured of  shade under the trees. I absolutely abhor meeting anyone at a CCD or Starbucks kind of place. First of all, I do not like machine made tea or coffee. The tetra pack milk which is not boiled tastes 'raw'. These small little cubby holes which have got converted to Coffee places are not my thing. I find a distinct smell of  the mixture of Air conditioning, stale air, coffee and raw milk and the mop with disinfectant which they use to clean the place and the tables, nauseating. The smell issue happened as soon as I started working for a 5 star hotel. My work involved meeting corporates in their offices. Coming back to the hotel lobby to walk towards the sales offices, the smell from the restaurants would...