Life is easy kya karein

When we were in school, all students wore black Bata shoes. The shoes could be bought from anywhere but I called it black Bata shoes. On Games and PT days, we wore white canvas shoes. There was always a chalk available to make our dirty shoes look white. The concept of sneakers or sports shoes came much later. It was a total foreign phenomena. If you had relatives abroad, you had chances of owning a pair of sports shoes. I learnt the word Sneakers only when I came to Mumbai. And then when the children grew up, I learnt that 'Snickers' is a brand of chocolate. I knew the word ' sniggering'. We did a bit of that in school. Learnt in my higher class  that P.T. was Physical Training. The Bata shop was the best looking shop in the whole of Jharia with red and white Laminate. We called laminate as 'Sunmica' which was brand name of the Laminate. Like I still say 'Xerox' for photocopy. All our stationary shops also put up a board saying "Xerox for Re.1...

Plastic ban has come into effect in Maharashtra. When I was leaving for my vacation it was on the anvil.  I saw with a keen eye how much plastic and paper is used all over Europe. And everything is packaged. Shops, stores n boutiques do not give you cloth bags. The office crowd is buying plastic packed ready to eat food and sitting in the park enjoying their salads n food in lovely one time use plastic containers. The disposal system is excellent so there is no litter seen anywhere. The garbage collectors are hunting through garbage cans for beer bottles. They get one euro or ten Kroners per bottle. The beggars are there at railway stations in Paris, major shopping streets in Oslo, Stockholm and Paris. The beggars collect the alcohol bottles. All beggars have their own cell phones, a suitcase and a huge plastic sac. All people who drink alcohol, do not put the bottles in the dustbin but leave it in the grass in the park for the beggars to collect. They feel they are doing their b...

People will go to Oslo after they have finished the more popular destinations of Europe namely Paris, Switzerland, Italy etc. Paris almost sounds like a country rather than a capital. Apart from being the most visited place on the planet. I wonder why as most monuments were burnt and rebuilt. The pressure of Paris and Switzerland is unbearable if you have not visited them. Come summer and Mumbai seems to head to the cooler climes of Europe. No, I did not meet anyone I knew during my vacation. I am super excited to meet people I know. It makes me feel very happy that I know so many people that I bump into them wherever I go. Trees are getting chopped due to rains and the fear of falling branches. The trees on the footpath on my way to the Yoga class grow back after every trimming they get. I feel bad seeing the chopped wood and leaves and the nests gone. But Nature takes care of itself, we just have to trust it. The lone Koel is heard occasionally. I often wonder what the Koel doe...

Tiffin boxes looked different during my school days. I had a steel rectangular tiffin box with a small rectangular 'dibba' inside. Sometimes the coloured steel boxes were in royal blue, purple, golden yellow and a funny green. Some people had an aluminium or a plastic tiffin box. The tiffin box for the school has become bigger and fancier now, with few shelves or partitions or decks. The food has become less nutritious and is usually packaged. Though we left for school at six am, almost all students carried a fresh meal. Thanks to our Mothers, who cooked meals without any house help nor the kind of support structure and ease of living which we have now. Some people covered their tiffin while eating, with the lid. The lid made a right angle with the base of the tiffin box, so one could not see what they were eating, unless you stared at them chewing. Unlike the Mumbai schools, our school was huge. Kids ran out to eat their meals in the sun in the school grounds. There was so m...

I noticed that I love eating the leftovers from my child's tiffin box. I almost always take a bite when I am putting the box for a wash. Today I realised why. I ate the plain 'Paratha' of last night with pickle and Viola! That is how it exactly tasted when I was a kid. I simply loved it. After having a full meal, I ate that one leftover paratha with the mango pickle with the masala eaten away. It was divine. My taste buds must have changed multiple times in all these years but this 'Paratha' had the right softness and the pickle tasted perfect with it, just like how my Mom and Chachi made it. All along, when I used to taste the leftovers from their tiffin box, I thought I was checking if the food tasted okay when cold or was it spoilt or did the child like it. Have been smiling like a child since I know the real reason behind it. The taste took me down the memory lane. We had no kitchen tissues in those days, we used newspapers to wrap or cover the food. One day, ...

When I wrote the post on Makar Sankranti, I had friends sharing customs from so many of their festivals. I wasn't able to collate all of it. One interesting thing was Pongal is celebrated for four days. First day Bhogi is about cleaning the house and lighting a bonfire of all the discarded things in the night. Second day is to worship Surya or the Sun. People make Kolam with rice flour outside their house and on the doorstep. Third day is Mattu Pongal dedicated to cows and buffaloes. Fourth day is Kanum Pongal where apart from going to the temple, food is made and offered to the birds on a banana leaf. India respects Nature in all its festivals. I was wondering how festive is Lohri in Punjab and then we went to Amritsar. Amritsar was a long pending thing in our list. The Golden Temple is divine beyond any imagination. The way the area is developed and the sound of Kirtan all over is so humbling. The beauty of Harmandir Sahib strikes you. It is mesmerising. No one is chatting in ...

Makar Sankranti is not just a kite flying festival. There is much more to it. The sun moves its position  towards the Northern hemisphere. It signals the end of winters and the onset of spring. Sankranti comes on 14th January every year. All the 'Tithi' fall in place. Another festival is Vishwakarma Puja which happens on 17th September every year. The Indian calendar or 'Panchaang' is the world's best calendar. It gives you not just past and future days and dates but gives you the same for years to come and years gone by. It also tells one the planetary positions and the movement of the stars and the planets. The eclipse and 'Nakshatra' movement are predicted much in advance. This all has been done by our 'Rishis' much before the advent of telescope and computers. The world follows lunar calendar. In India, we always had sidereal calendar which means that we knew not only that the sun is the centre and planets are going around it, but we also calcu...