Life is easy kya karein

 Lonavla, Khandala, Matheran and Mahabaleshwar.... four places where Mumbaikars head for weekends. They are popular and close by. These four places are on the hills of Sahyadri. Alibaug is another preferred place which has a beach and good coastal cuisine. Lonavla and Khandala are twin towns and sound like sisters too. For years, I used to think Matheran and Mahabaleshwar are also twin towns. I never knew they are in totally different directions. When I was younger, Foreign trips meant Singapore and Bangkok. Later European trips meant London, Paris or Switzerland. No one differentiated between cities and countries. Some countries like Switzerland was more famous than its cities. And when one thought of London, England did not come into the picture. Like Paris was an entity in itself. There was no  difference between Bangkok, Hong Kong or Singapore. Manila and Malaysia were places you learnt to mark on a map during your Geography class. Life was lost between Grasslands, Steppes...

 All the idea of men and romance came from the books I read from the school library. Nancy Drew, Famous Five, The Scarlett Pimpernel, Pride and Prejudice, Black Beauty, D. H. Laurence etc. I used to love the books by Daphne Du Maurier. The setting for love was always European. Further in Mumbai, I started reading Mills and Boon, after eleventh grade. All men and women fought. Man was always tall, dark and piercing eyes. The Man always spoke less. He always had a huge house called some Windermere or Aberdeen or some such British name. All houses had huge gardens, view of the sea or on banks of a lake. There were beautiful flowers in the garden. There was a distance between the hero and heroine. I referred to the lead characters like that, courtesy Bollywood. The girl was always alone or in need or in some dire circumstances . But her spirit was intact.The Man was always a man and never a boy.  The fights and the sarcasm between the boy n the girl was the best part about reading...

 Making people laugh is a huge skill or a big art. I do not know how people manage that. I consider myself as someone who can laugh at jokes but not make people laugh. Is it an acquired skill? Does one learn it from family or from friends? Are loners good in humour or are gregarious people best at it? My mindless TV watching is about stand up comedy. Do I laugh about anything and  everything? No way! I have set up boundaries even there. I can create boundaries where none exist. That is the power of our mind. We think we are breaking boundaries or making our circle bigger? Is it about making more concentric circles? Do Venn diagrams still exist in my life?  Being liberal is one more such farce which I keep insisting on. I am open to what I think is good and right whether for me or for society or for the world. Life is always about me except that I am able to con a few into agreeing to my views or telling them mine are better than yours.  'I am better than you' is the ...

In Jharia, whenever we went out and came home, my grandmother had only one question for us. It was " "Majja aavi  aney su khaadhu?" Two questions, actually.  It means Did you enjoy and what did you eat? As a child, this was an irritating. Everything was fun when we went out and food was not important. I thought her only question was to know the menu. Gauri Bai did not eat from restaurants, she did not eat breads or cakes. She did not eat onion and garlic, so restaurant food was a big No for her. Dhanbad did not have the option of Jain food in restaurants which is without even potatoes. There was no concept of take-away foods and delivery boys. We all went out to eat. The "Double Gupchup" from Rameshwar came at home packed in a steel Dibba. It tasted delicious. Sitting in a restaurant and eating was a joy.  I used to think that  because Bai doesn't eat out, she wants to know what we eat. Now when my children go out and come home, my first question is "W...

After marriage, I got to live in apartments in buildings. We lived in rented accommodation. The building has flat owners and some people lease out their apartments. After hostel life, this apartment life is a new ball game entirely. And if you are on rent, God save you. These are smaller buildings where people know each other or have lived around for years. The Watchmen on duty know everyone who come into the building. They know the maids and the drivers too. In fact, if you need a maid, you have to inform the watchman. He chooses which maid, he thinks is suitable for your house and sends her to talk to you. We were not choosy. We hired the first maid, the watchman sent. Soon , there is a flutter in the building that some new tenants have come to live in 'so and so's flat. You learn to start with your hesitant smiles and in some cases are totally ignored. In hostel life, at any given point, you are not alone. Someone or the other is there at the dining room, washroom area or in...

I have lived in  hostels for fourteen years of my life. Every year, your room would be changed.When we were in college, after the first year, you were given an option to choose your roommates. It was a big political exercise. Each hostelite was given a form. You had to write your preference of room mates you want in the order of 1,2 and 3. The number of room mates would be 4, 3 or 2, depending on which year of college you were in. We filled this form with lot of secrecy if we were unsure who our real friends were. Some times, there was a lot of clarity that we four want to be together and then all of us would fill the form and put the same sequence and same set of friends. The hostel Warden was the ultimate decision making authority. You never came to know till you came back for the new academic year, who your roommates would be. If you reached the hostel before your friends, you got to choose your bed, desk and cupboard. Whether you got the bed near the window, sticking to the wal...

I am dealing with some metaphysical questions in my life. Should I or Shouldn't I ? Can I or Can I not? Is it for the higher good? Will it benefit all? Am I thinking only of my good with this? Should I talk to the concerned people or should I talk to strangers? Will the situation persist or do I have the power in my hands to change the situation? What if this continues? Where do we go from here? Am I scared of hard work? Why can't I make this work? Am I reading too much into this? Is it causing a lot of stress? Is Social Media adding to my woes? Am I being plain lazy and stupid? Why can't I learn to adjust? Will it be fair to all concerned? What am I resisting at this point in my life? The eternal question is to be or not to be.  And with lot of internal churning I have got the real area I am dealing with in my life. It is whether to have a live-in house help. In these times, my existing staff's residential areas are in containment zone. Strange but in the new parlance,...