Life is easy kya karein

Last week, I was showing off to a new friend how I have been practising Yog for years. He asked me, 'How many years?' I was little hesitant and then said 'Almost six years, though not regularly'. His response was that in five years you should have been able to master it. I squirmed and did not explain to him that even now I cannot touch my toes and Shirshaasan is still a faraway dream for me. That's the thing with new friends, they do not know you well and can shake you up completely. I seem to have woken up from my slumber. What is it with me? Why don't I want to master Yog? Why am I not committed enough to learn my stretches and Aasanas well? My idea of learning something 'well' is definitely not the same as my teacher's or my new friend's idea of 'well'. In school , students always had a desire to score high marks and come first in class. I was never into sports, but I did want to win a race and excel in a game. At work, I did want t...

During monsoons, I keep looking at the sea which is invisible from most of the windows including the bathroom ones. The sea plays luka chhipi ( hide and seek) with the intensity of the rain. This time the internal chatter actually slows down. I feel light. The summer dust settles down and the feet feel cleaner at home. The sunlight is easy on the eye and I do not miss the afternoon glare and the heat. I have no concerns about not having rain shoes and I am okay spoiling any pair of shoes. I like the washed clothes hanging on the clothes racks inside the living room and am not embarrassed about it. Years back, a friend's wife had visited me from Delhi. She had later conveyed to her husband how I had clothes drying in the living room windows instead of plants. My friend used to visit us when we were just married. The house was full of plants and knick knacks. With two small children, anything which can be put in the mouth, had mud in it or could topple or had sharp edges was gradua...

Evening snack during the summer months was water melon. We call it 'turbooz' in Hindi. Mumbai calls it 'Kalingar'. The water melon was cut into half moon shape for all of us children. Due to shortage of water and electricity, the refrigerator barely worked. We children hardly opened it to keep it cool even when there was a power cut. Dad and Uncle liked cold 'Chaas' and water. During the 'loo' ( not toilet) when the afternoon heat and a wind was at its peak, we shut all windows and stayed indoors. The joy was watching Amitabh Bachchan movies on VCR while the electricity was there. Earlier when I was the only child in my house, we slept on the neighbour's terrace. This was 'Ratan Kaki' s terrace. We called it ' saamey waadi chhat' .  That was in our compound. The single ground floor houses had a common terrace with no boundary. All neighbours came up to sleep like community living. Each one put their own 'Chattaai' or mats...

Summers in Mumbai start with ample time to read the newspapers. The newspapers these days stress me out. Earlier only the fashion magazines managed to make me feel ugly, now even a entertainment paper is telling me how bad I am. It starts with clothes, branding, advertising, covering every single fashion show and hairstyle. Bombay Times tells you which actor is taking a flight and wearing what clothes. The actually write captions like  XYZ is wearing shades to block the sun or carrying a jacket for a comfortable flight. It goes on to Winter make up skills, Summer coolers, Beauty tips for the heat, which sun block to use and what SPF, How to plan your vacation, pack your bags, shop during a holiday and for a holiday. In between all this, I am supposed to try out the new Sale at Marks and Spencer as it is my cat's anniversary, I have to buy gold for Akshay Tritiya and a house in the hills, I can book a flat at Lodha and provide LSF which is Life Style Factor for my child. No one bot...

My Saree blouse tailor Manhar Bhai is a very important person in my life. I started wearing sarees at work. The most important thing while wearing a saree is the fit of your saree blouse. The saree blouse gives us the chest, the posture, the subtle show of the collar bones and the back. The depth of the neck of the blouse depended on how much cleavage you wanted to show. Some liked low backs in their blouse and some liked low plunging necklines. The blouses were made of Rubia two by two which was pure cotton or silk. Later a fabric called 'lizzy bizzy' came into existence which was synthetic and the color took longer to fade. I did try all three fabrics and came to the conclusion that cotton was most suited for me. Some colleagues were okay in their synthetic blouses too. We did go out in the sun to sales call on different corporate houses. Wanted to look as less hassled as we could. The high neck blouses were almost out of fashion for us though the service staff had to wear ...

The other day, at a get together, I overheard a friend's husband talking about it. It was an interesting conversation going on and I moved closer to be a part of it. Then the 'housewife' in me stopped me from doing that. It was not appropriate behaviour to barge or nudge into a discussion about work when I had quit my job twelve years back. It was also not so straight forward as there were more women in the crowd and I had to be a part of that, rather than hang around with the boys. I continued with my delicious meal and waited for the family to come to fetch me. Some of the snatched pieces of the conversation are here. Why do companies make Mission statements and Vision statements ? Does any employee ever remember what is the 'Mission or Vision' statement is? But while working, we spend hours creating this. I remember, there were external consultants called to help us come to our Mission statement and vision statement. There were endless meetings, jargons use...

I wrote the above captioned post and posted it. Within a few minutes of it being uploaded and liked, it disappeared from twitter, Facebook and my blog. I tried to figure out through Google where did the post go and tried to retrieve it, but Nada. No success at all. I had not deleted it from anywhere on the laptop. Technology: A boon or bane? This used to be a topic of many a college debates. When I was in school, there was not much in terms of technology which could hamper our school studies. I am trying to rewrite the post. Am a bit angry about loosing it after posting it. On Twitter, so many people I found using my pic as their display picture. It is a weird world out there or rather a good world with some weird people out there. When I joined the hostel in Mumbai, the only English songs I knew were the hymns we sang in school and some songs from Abba which were also taught in the school choir. We had Sr. Emma who taught us a song " I had a dream, a song to sing". The...