The Walk Across The Oceans

Starting today, I add a new column to my blog. The  world is full of people who have faced the challenges of life and emerged winners. Life has been harsh to them, yet they have found reasons to carry on. They could have given up but they didn't, because they believed that the fact that they were still breathing, was a bigger gift. These are the stories which we can turn to, at times when we are at our lowest. These are the heroes  who can be your idols. They will share their stories as to how they overcame their losses and are still content and happy. They will tell you how they faced the harsh world. To begin with I share the story of Major A K Singh, which in fact is the fourth in the series. The first three will follow in the coming weeks.

Major A K Singh

Life never ends with an accident or an emotional setback or for that reason, any tragedy whatsoever. It's up to us to shift gears and go full throttle in whichever direction we want. To bring across the truth of this belief, to millions of readers out there, I wanted to interview all the tough fighters. The decision been taken, the next step was the daunting task of finding such people. I set out for my research. One day while browsing through the shelves of a bookstore, an interesting cover caught my eye. There was the picture of the ocean, and a tall, dark handsome guy sailing across. The cover looked interesting. And as I held the book, my eyes noticed, that one leg of the hero was wooden. That indeed is my subject, I thought. With the name securely written on my note pad, what I didn't envision was that in spite of the shrunken world, I will still face difficulty getting in touch with him.

After a smooth ride of penning three articles, I stumbled. The next two names in the list just eluded me. One was Major AK Singh and the other...well...I will divulge his name only if ever I am able to bring his story to you all.

Coming back to Major A K Singh, I did finally get to chat up with him. He very humbly differed with my view of finding him handsome. "I just felt I was that odd awkward boy, who would wear special shoes with heavy inner soles to improve my knock knees and flat feet. In fact I was nicknamed German Shoes," says the good humoured Major.

Setting aside the matter of dissension, I would like to warn about the adrenaline pumping read you are about to dive into. Till date I had only seen schools of flying fish jumping out of water in the technologically created scenes of 'Life of Pi'. Today I can boast that I have heard about them from someone who has personally been through the ineffable experience. There you go, I can sense the thrill building up already. So let's embark upon the journey with the man who with immense passion pursued his dream to sail around the world. In the process he went on to become the 'First Handicap Person to Circumnavigate the Globe'.

The Foundation

"I remember as a four year old I had watched films like 'Ganga Jamuna', and 'Jis Desh Mein Ganga Behti Hai'. I was so impressed. The dacoits were doing such a good job. So when anybody asked me what I wanted to be, I would proudly say a dacoit", he shares laughing out loud. This child with adventurous streaks in him went on to be a soldier to the nation.

Born the youngest into a family of two brothers and two sisters, Major Ashok Kumar Singh's father pooled in all his resources to provide the best to him. He was sent off to The Rashtriya Indian Military Academy (RIMC), where he excelled in his studies. The foundation to be physically strong and courageous was laid to prepare him to join the National Defence Academy (NDA). "It was at NDA, that I was introduced to sailing. We started off with small cadet class dinghies", he recollects. "It was fun and I enjoyed it. Soon we were sailing in Mumbai. We used to sail off the Colaba Coast in those days."

He went on to represent NDA at the first Cadet Class National Regatta held at Pune's Royal Connaught Boat Club. He also represented India at the Youth Olympics at Kiel, West Germany in 1972.

Streak of Adventure

By the time he moved to IMA, he had already picked up the Sports Blues for riding, polo, swimming, physical training and athletics. His proficiency in sailing and yachting fetched him the Sports Blazer at NDA. The list is unending. At the IMA he was awarded the Sword of Honour for being the best overall and the President's Gold Medal for being the best in Academic Subjects. Armed with excellence he was commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant into the Bengal Sappers. "That's one group of Indian Army Corps of Engineers. The other two groups of Combat Engineers are the Bombay Sappers and the Madras Sappers," he makes things easier for me to understand.

Sailing and Windsurfing had become a part of life for him now. In 1977, he was part of a Yachting Cruise from Bombay, now Mumbai to Bandar Abbas, now Iran. At times when he wasn't sailing? "I would drive around in my Royal Enfield, which I modified in those days to run on diesel, with my Golden Spaniel dog as company," he fills in enthusiastically.

Leap of Destiny

While posted at the College of Engineering Pune, Major Singh took fancy to hang-gliding in the Baner Ridge Area around Pune. "As I had been transferred, I felt there was this one high-performance kite I had not flown", he recalls of the fateful day. "They say nothing should be done in a rush and that was one time in my life I rushed." The breeze was at about 12 knot, the day was normal and he took off as usual from the cliff. "I knew I had to take a left turn to make the kite go right. But I don't know how it turned towards the ridge again and I hit the cliff and was stuck on a branch."

The impact was so strong that his helmet fell down. A woman standing below mistook it to be his head falling apart and fainted. The rest for him were faint memories in and out of a delirium. He could sense the bumpy ride in the army ammo truck. "I managed to say 'it just happened, I just crashed'. I could make out it was night. And then I heard the doctor saying, just tear away the pants."

An emergency operation later, Major Singh had a steel rod inserted through his left femur. Both his arms and legs were immobile, because of the various fractures. "The jaw was all wired up and my mouth had dry blood and saliva caked upon it." But it is fine. I shall be alright thought Major Singh lying in the ICU. 

Sheer Negligence

Unfortunately, all wasn't right. "I still remember that the first report prepared by a young recruit doctor had the note 'no blood flow to toes'. There was no flow to the dorsal artery of the foot and my toes turned bluish black." he remembers. Strangely it went unnoticed by the experienced doctors and out of sheer luck his brother-in-law who is a neurologist intervened. In a rushed up emergency operation he was amputated on his left leg above the knee.

"Later I was told it was the case of Gas Gangrene," he sheds light on the seriousness of the issue. Gas Gangerene is supposedly the deadliest form of Gangerene. I call the accident a leap of destiny, because if the incidents following up the accident hadn't taken place, the country wouldn't have got the first physically handicapped person to sail around the world. As rightly put by Major Singh himself, "Poor are the people who haven't faced hardships because they teach us a lot. We need to enjoy our life. It's our duty towards us. Enjoyment in the context that you think, you understand and you see the richness in life. You learn from what is taken away from you."

Replanning and Relearning

The process of learning to be normal had already begun since the day he lost his leg. Using a stick was out of question for this daredevil. He practised sleeping with the artificial limb on, to see how long could he take it. "The process is of learning on your own. People love throwing challenges at you. You have done this you haven't done that. How can one, who is not in the situation, know how to tackle it. Even the doctors don't know best since they are not amputees," he nails it by saying that.

In the meantime, the planning of the voyage on Trishna which had actually taken root in 1979, was given a green signal around June 1984. By then Major Singh was married and in March 1983, he had even met with the crash. 

Recounting about how he found the perfect boat he says, "I headed to England to select the boat. With limited finances, I looked over 200 to 300 of them." With lot of help from British sailors, a 14 year old third hand boat called Guinevere of Sussex later renamed to Trishna was picked up. The reason? "Well it had been sparingly used and was in a very good condition. It was the class of boat that could take the seas anywhere in the world," he clarifies. 

Even as he was getting the boat prepped up for the voyage, he was clueless as to how would he steer with one leg. "I didn't remove my leg at all for several days when we started, but then things fell into place. I designed my pants by taking my trousers off from my knee, so that the limb could be removed easily. This way I could sleep and also be up on the deck fast and work."

Major A K Singh on Trishna

The Survival 

With the ocean spread out challenges must have been abundant. "The beginning was bad because we were still settling down," he puts in. His artificial limb broke four times during the voyage. "I had so much faith in it. Unfortunately it was not made of stainless steel but of mild steel, which can not take salt water and so it corroded and broke." he complains. Every time it broke, because of the financial constraints he never saw the urgency of buying a new one because he kept on thinking that he can't afford an imported limb. Of course when the crew came to know of his suffering, they got him a new one.

Storms on the other hands can be very horrendous on small boats. He goes on to say, "you have water all over, your face, body, tongue and your eyes are red. One can't even drop off everything and turn away." So when they were hit by a storm in Tasman Sea, it was hell. When the wind pattern was supposed to be blowing West to East, they were travelling East to West. "We were suggested by the New Zealand Navy not to sail. But we all felt it was not fair to have it out in the press and then let them say that the Indian Army is not sailing because of the storm." So much for the pride of the country and he maintains that not his hang gliding crash, but the Tasman Sea was the most difficult moment of his life. "You start losing body temperature, there's a sweet deep warm feeling inside. You start hallucinating. Everything becomes dreamy. In the sweetness of the feeling you feel relaxed, want to give in, lie down and go to sleep. That is the most dangerous thing, because then hypothermia takes over," he point out. The mixture of hypothermia and his broken limb put him through a crushing feeling. But then as he specifies that when you are out there, every situation needs to be tackled to get out of it. And so they survived to share their stories with the world.

The Ethereal Experiences

Excited like a teenager I want to know if they came across any pirates. He laughs whole-heartedly and says," Pirates too know who to go after. If they find six scruffy Indian army guys, they will be like, what the hell do they have that we want to go after!"

 On a serious note, they were adequately rewarded by safe passage and the sea life too made its presence felt time and again. He has seen the whales, the sharks and also the flying fish. He vividly describes the day when flying fish were darting out of the water by hundreds. "Obviously something was wrong, either there were predators around or something to do with the sun or the moon phase or they might simply be mating because we never came across that phenomenon ever again." While occasionally they had flying fish falling on the deck and it would make good food for the crew. But that day they had to cover their eyes lest their hard jaw would have punctured them. "They left black marks on our face."  He also got to see huge Ray fish, coming clean out of the water and falling back flat. 

"Whales are curious creatures, they come close to you. It's surprising to see tons and tons of a whale body jump out clean five to ten feet above the water. It was fun watching them investigating  us, but then scary too because they were more powerful," he points out. They had come across a yacht, where the whale had surfaced below the sailor. He flopped over the back of the whale into the water. Fortunately the boat was still upright. Having lost the rudder, he somehow managed to figure out some kind of system and find his way back safe to the islands. 

It must have been scary when while on Albatross, they were sailing on shark infested waters. With a freeboard of eight inches, he got a chance to picture the shark going around the boat. "I remember telling myself not to keep my hand dangling in the water. It will be funny to be minus a leg and a hand," he shares light heartedly. And then on tropical waters on a pitch dark night, they would see a huge shimmer in the water, phosphorescent green because of planktons. "It is so ethereal, you can keep looking at it," he says of the experience.

Major A K Singh(2nd Row, first from left) with the crew of Trishna

The Present

Devoting time to his aged parents and making up for the time spent away from his wife and daughters, Major Singh today lives an active life in Lucknow. He tries to pay back to the society by looking after the girl child, running a college for girls that his father started in the village. He still pursues things he is passionate about, like travelling and indulging in adventure sports like scuba diving, skiing. A couple of years ago he managed to tick Bungee Jumping off his bucket list. Now he is waiting for the opportunity to go sky-diving. Never say never to an adventure seems to be the mantra of this spirited fellow. His enthusiasm rubs on to you so much that after the interview I too sneaked in a couple of more adventures into my bucket list, which I otherwise had started to believe that at this age I should let go off. Wishes I realized should never be ticked off. His golden words got etched in my memory when he said,"it was a simple wish to sail around the world, not meant to set record A or record B. The Ocean does not recognise records, the mountains and the jungles don't. You can enjoy them. Get from them what you never get anywhere else."

Major A K Singh with his wife Asha

Deep Insights

Life is : Beautiful! You need to see it correctly. It's a journey not chosen by us but it's our privilege to live it.

Body is :  A carrier for who you are, all you want to do for yourself.

Duty is : Life

Happiness is : Being able to do what you really want to do.

Adventure is : Pushing at your own personal thresholds all the time.

Dreams are : Anything that doesn't go away while you are awake or sleeping. It nags you, bothers you, you can't wish it away.

Into "The World of Cloudtains"

THE COVER

A couple of years ago I used to regularly travel to Mussoorie, the abode of one of my favourite writers Ruskin Bond. For me it was a getaway from the routine of Mumbai and to catch up with my son who had a break from his school, the prestigious Woodstock School. While our walks down the mall I would always get to see Mr Bond, I mean Mr Ruskin Bond seated at one of the book stores, signing off his books for the patiently waiting mix of young and old readers of his. I never had the courage to go and get a book signed to keep for myself, though my library has many of his books. But standing there watching him sign off the books so effortlessly, I would be a bundle of emotions. A part of me wanted to pick up a book and get it signed, another wanted to go and ask him that how does he keep on writing so many stories one after the other and each one so engrossing? There was another which wanted to tell him that since I had read his "A face in the Dark" as a 12 years old, I have had innumerable plans of how one day I am going to write stories as spooky as that.

Nothing of that sort happened and I would silently with my son in tow walk away from him pledging that next time I would certainly have the courage to go meet him. But then what happened was more of a blessing to me from the universe. Those days I was constantly being prodded by a voice inside me to get back to my first love WRITING. I don't know why I kept on putting it aside. Then on a flight from Mumbai to Delhi when I was looking out the window, I saw the vast expanse of clouds. And a minute later it transformed into a world of its own in my imagination. I could get hold of only a tissue and fortunately had a pen on me and there and then I started jotting the points for my story. A couple of years later I got together all my notes and sat down and gave shape to the story of two sisters Arya and Nitya lost in the land of clouds.

Once done began the innumerable mails to the various publishing houses and the rejection letters from them. While with each letter my dream shattered but my confidence in the story refused to waver. And then as a ray of hope came the letter of acceptance from Bloodygoodbook. I didn't know whether to accept or not, whether to be happy or not. The reason being it was not the traditional way of getting myself published. Bloodygoodbook is the country's first crowd sourced and crowd curated e-books publishing venture.

So then I thought and thought and thought and finally got my heart and my mind in sync by making them believe that what better way to get yourself published than getting your writing judged by the readers first. So here am I asking you all to click click click on the links below ....read my book and leave behind a review and your precious vote. Do make a point that you let every kid around you know about it so that they can vote too.

Link to my book on bloodygoodbook.com : http://bloodygoodbook.com/world-of-cloudtains

Link to the video : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=75zev4lg9F8

Rattled But Resilient

It was just waiting to happen. And am sure that like me many other women in this city were well aware that it was just a matter of time. When it happened in Delhi, I wanted to pen my views but could not. A strange numbness would take over my mind each time I wanted to express myself. I would relive all those moments when I had been groped and pawed as a young girl. All those times when I would hate myself for being born a woman. I wanted to cover up my body in layers and layers of clothing, be invisible or would pray to God to bestow me with some magical powers to punish the perverted animals. It was all the more confusing because the two men at home, my dad and my brother gave me all the freedom while the men on the streets exposed me to the inhumane side.

Fate brought me to the then Bombay and I took my first breath of freedom. In a crowded bus I would anticipate something to happen but nothing happened. I was scared to join an evening college for my post graduation but my brother laughed off my fears. And as I learnt to live without fear, I realized that I didn't need a male to be besides me always and slowly I fell in love with my life as a woman. In those days when there were no mobiles for my mother to reach out to me, my deadline to be home was 11PM. Can you beleive it? I could be out without a male escort till 11 in the night!

Then, I started working and my job demanded irregular working hours. I have driven back home in the middle of the night, all alone. The cops at the nakabandi were a positive assurance of my safety. I have never been scared in this city, of walking up to a cop and asking for help and they have always been there. The few shameful incidents that ever happened didn't daunt my trust in them and still hasn't. 

One day, in the evening at around 5PM, I was driving back  from Lokhandwala. A group of youngsters returning from their routine cricket match shouted out some comments. There and then, I knew that my city has changed. The daily newspapers loaded with horrific crime incidents confirmed it all the more. Initially I tried to pass it off  as wild imaginations of my mature age. But then when I exchanged notes with my friends, I knew I wasn't wrong. Somewhere the city had stopped respecting its female inhabitants while the women on the other hand, got more and more self dependent. Is it this insecurity that has forced the males to turn barbaric towards the womenfolk?

The system of law and order is crumbling and we are talking the same things over and over again each time the youth of a girl is humiliated. Our demands are heard but not paid heed to and heard too only because they are in the form of an outrage. They talked about speedy trials when the rape happened in Delhi. That was December. Eight months and where is the verdict? As a woman I don't see it as a fast track case anymore. And neither will any pervert male waiting to pounce on another innocent female! 

The accused claim to be minors the moment they are caught. Why not consider only those who can produce a proper certificate acquired at birth as minors and the rest be treated as majors no matter what? How many more to be victimized to guard the human rights of a wrong doer? Do they even deserve to be allowed to cover their faces from the world?

Since childhood a woman in India is taught not to step out without a male as an escort. But now one male can't save us. So should we start moving with a posse of males as our security guards. Oh No! We should now ask for police protection each time we go to a lonely place!! 

I can go on and on like the endless debates going around. But I can't, because the more I talk about it the more suffocated  I feel. But come what may, as a woman I refuse to let my spirits be dampened. I am answerable to all those males who have let me be alive in my mother's womb, to all of them who have held my little fingers and made me learn to walk, to all those fellow students who have been besides me whenever I excelled, to all those colleagues who have believed that I can reach the skies and to all those friends who have been besides me in the hour of need. So the ones who have not been able to adjust to the strong headed independent woman of today can sit and sulk because there will be an uproar each time a heinous crime is committed against a woman in my country, till the laws are strong enough and the lawkeepers are left with no option but to provide a safe environment to us.  And above all every modern day mother will bring up her sons instilled with tremendous respect towards women. Because after all, the onus to change the society has to be taken by us, to make it a better place for our own survival.

Some Scenarios of Being Cheated - I

The crow cawing outside my window in this lovely weather of Mumbai is a proof of the fact that certain things don't change at all. Thank God! Though, this goes even for the potholes on the city roads. They have a tendency to get worse but alas! not disappear or for that reason reduce in numbers. The chaos of our everyday life and the chaos in which the country is in, also seems unchangeable. While a part of the country is moving ahead, a bigger part is still fighting with trivialities of life. We are busy cheating each other over small things.

The prices have gone up but the packaging has become smaller. Are you even aware of it? You are being robbed of on both ends whiz a whiz paying more for less stuff. 

Go and buy a car. You will be promised by the sales team all sorts of add-ons. The promise that you don't have to pay for the insurance, for the teflon coating and the anti rust coating brings a big smile to your face. So much of expenditure saved, your mind calculates. Your big smile is intact only as long as the car doesn't go for the first service. Then a call from the company workshop knocks off that smile because he wants to know whether with the free service you want to get the coatings done. Your logic to him that while buying the car you were told that you don't  need to worry about the coatings for four years and there is a warranty on that is answered in a very convincing manner, "Oh that they say to sell off the car." You are left shocked. However, you decide to not get the coating done. Are you taking a risk with your car or you are being intelligent by not letting yourself be cheated by the servicing guy is a question only time will answer. 

You want to buy a Vaccum Cleaner. Well the sales guy comes to your home. You don't have to take the trouble to go anywhere. You get a demo and you tell the person that you will look at other available options from other companies and then get back to him if you decide to buy his product. The sales person has to up his performance quotient. So, with the vaccum cleaner he promises you a bag in which you can store all the parts accompanying the machine, a discount of some percent if you order immediately and a home delivery within the next forty eight hours. The piece is so much in demand that by the time you decide to buy it, it might be out of stock. That does it! You place the order, only to discover later that the model sold to you is the one being phased out and the company as it is has a policy to deliver within forty eight hours. OH THE BAG! When the machine is delivered to you, the bag supposedly was out of stock and it remains out of stock and an illusion for you always. The reason being that from now on the sales person will stop taking the phone. If you manage to trace his boss he will promise to get back which he never will, and after making some futile attempts you will give up thinking why are you breaking your head over a minuscule bag.

How many times have you bought a mobile phone plan only to discover later that it's not as profitable as it was made out to be because only when you start using it, do you discover the hidden costs.

How many times have you bought clothes in sales to come home and discover a piece that is torn at a place which you would have not been able to notice then, and now you have to live with your buy because of the no exchange no refund policy during the sale period.

How many times have you bought an expensive electronic item with the tag of two years extended warranty only for it to go kaput exactly at the end of those three years leaving you wondering how did the company know that the product will last only that long? 

Such happenings or coincidences leave me questioning myself again and again whether this is the nature being unjust to a select few or lack of ethics by the companies. But it does pinch. No not for the money going down the drain but the fact that I got cheated by my own fellow human beings. Thanks to the crow outside my window. At least somethings never change.

The Wandering Me

Oh! what a wanderer am I ?

wandering in search of my soul,

though it lies within me

I search for it in other times.

The soul that donned other bodies,

That which could give me answers for now;

I have searched for it forever 

Forever, since I remember.

Why am I here, I would always ask,

As a child, looking at people 

oh so comfortable,

in their human garbs.

Trudging the arduous paths of life

awakening the soul within,

My heart still seeks an answer

Like a child in an overgrown garb

WHO CARES??

A couple of weeks ago I did what every Hindu in Mumbai is proud to do....Yes!!! WALKED ALL THE WAY TO SIDDHI VINAYAK TEMPLE FOR DARSHAN ON A TUESDAY MORNING. I can not explain the exhilarating feeling I had after the darshan. I felt so elated. For the next two days the very thought that I had walked down to Siddhi Vinayak kept bringing back a zestful smile to my face. Every year at least once I visit Siddhi Vinayak, but that day at 3.15 AM when I set sight on the idol of Bappa, it was a different  feeling altogether. This was the  night of 17/18th June.

Today when I look back I remember that on that very day when I had reached out to God, many pilgrims      were struggling to survive in Uttarkhand. No matter how much we pass off the floods of Uttarkhand as a natural calamity, we all know that we have pushed the nature to a point where it has started revolting back. Hinduism, which represents the culture of living life in a simple way has lost its true meaning for all of us. The calmness and serenity of our minds is long gone. We have made competition a part of even the most mundane activities of our lives. Everything is materialistic because money brings in all the happiness.

Hills are being developed to accommodate the influx of tourists. Any piece of  land available, is being constructed upon. The outsiders go and leave behind plastic, litter and marks of  hooliganism. The locals take it quietly without uttering a word because,  these are the people that are bringing in money and with the soaring prices there is nothing else on our minds. Religious places have been modernised  to make life easier for the pilgrims. A couple of years ago I was shocked to see the changes that had been done to Vaishno Devi. Frankly I found the Vaishno Devi which I had visited in 1984 better than the concrete structures that have come up today. Why? Why do we kill the basic character of a place in the name of modernisation? Go to Shirdi. Lost is the beautiful, serene village where Sai Baba once lived. Horrendous, ugly malls stare at you in the face.

On my way while walking to Siddhi Vinayak there was not a single place where the people walking for the darshan could sit and relax for a couple of seconds. Since ages Tuesday after Tuesdays after Tuesdays people have been walking to Siddhi Vinayak on Monday nights, but I didn't find a single footpath on which I could walk. I had to walk on the wrong side of the road to keep an eye and be alert, lest a speeding vehicle bumped me off. I had to sit on the edge of the high footpaths smelling in the stink of the city. Yes, have you ever noticed that in addition to all other problems during rain nowadays the city stinks! There were huge piles of filth pulled out from the drains and left in heaps as it is. Alas! the memories of the deluge are long forgotten.  And by the way, whose idea are those footpaths because I don't see any senior citizen able to use them without the fear of increasing their arthritic problems.

The authorities decide to extract two different kinds of taxes namely Vat and then Property tax for your properties, in one year. They also add up the pending amounts for the last couple of years and you have to pay it. Giving a relaxation of a couple of months is enough they think. Taxes have become more of a kind of the punishments the headmistress Miss Trunchbull  used to vent out to the children in Matilda. Moreover, you pay the taxes and forget about your rights as a citizen. The roads you move on are so bad that I am sure we spend a larger amount of money on getting our cars and bodies repaired.  Yes the living and the non living are in the same boat so they are repaired, The air we breathe is full of pollutants and nothing new in that complaint. The vegetable, pulses and any other thing we eat or drink dumps in loads of chemicals into our body. We have stopped thinking as to how much of chemicals or banned substances they have. We make ourselves happy by looking at the size of the cauliflower, the brinjals and the gloss on the fruits.

If the authorities themselves are so unconcerned what to expect of the common citizens. In Hindi there is a saying 'Jaisa Raja waisi Praja' ( As the King so are the Subjects).What better way to explain the situation today. We don't think twice before fleecing our fellow citizens, before finding ways for breaking the laws or before bribing. Sadly, it's a never ending circle of life during Kaliyuga that's swallowing us in.

As a harrowed citizen my dejected feelings...? Well, I'd say that I don't know the statistics and I don't even want to figure it out but yes it seems, the system and the authorities have only in mind the top percentage of the country which is already affluent and can afford just about anything. The rest can fend for themselves for their survival. Even if they can't Who Cares? 

Dunkin Biscuits

As I write my blog, I should warn you that I will take a short break somewhere in between my writing. Don't worry nothing serious! It will be to dunk in the last biscuit into my evening cup of tea and then finish off the remaining tea.

I don't know about other countries but I am sure most of the Indians love dunking their biscuits into their cup of tea. I love doing it. Today though I dunked in a few Oreos and mini Chips Ahoy, but my all time favourite is Parle G.

I remember earlier I used to not share with anyone my love for my biscuits dunked in. I mean, I used to take care that nobody other than my close family was around, when I relished my biscuits that way. So mostly, when I visited someone, I used to hate it when they served tea and biscuits. The reason being I used to miss my dunking ritual so much that the moment I returned home, I would rush off to prepare myself a cup of tea and then dunk in a whole packet of Parle G and enjoy. Everything wrong with it. Firstly, think of the amount of calories I had taken in when I ate those biscuits and tea at the friends place (and somehow most of the times Indian chai is nothing but milk and sugar boiled together with some tea leaves added to it), and then the double dose of calories I thrust into myself to overcome the urge that simple tea at the friends home had left behind. Sinful...

Over a period of time I developed different tastes of dunking, as per the mood. Like it was different to have it with tea, absolutely different to dunk in the biscuits into a glass of hot milk and if nothing else, very different to dunk it in a glass of water. Water is preferable if you don't want to mix any other taste into your biscuits. The moment you pull them out after keeping them dunked in for the right time, they will be soft enough to ummmmm melt into your mouth. And its an altogether different experience when your attention is diverted by a regular chit chatter and you over dunk the biscuit. Now, in the journey from the cup to the half open mouth full of juices ready to work on  biscuit, the over softened biscuit doesn't reach the target. It plops down into the cup and dejected you just get to gulp down the juices. But the next moment your mood lifts up again because as an experienced dunker you remember, that the last sip will be the best.

All said and done, a few years ago I seriously wouldn't have had the courage to write about dunking biscuits in tea. Then one lucky day I read a write up by Vir Sanghvi and my inner voice said, " OMG! he knows about it too? And he does it too? If someone like him, who has eaten out of the hands of the best of the chefs enjoys doing it, then why should I be hiding my skills of dunking?"  And since that day, I don't feel ashamed of dunking my biscuits into my tea. It's an altogether different issue though, that now I only drink black tea. But then, that again is a different experience, of dunking your biscuit into a hot cup of black tea.

My Sinful Indulgence

On the insistence of my younger son, I watched 'Cloud Atlas'. Not that I didn't want to watch the movie, but  I was just hard pressed on time and felt that this one thing can certainly wait. But since he was to go back to his hostel, he insisted that I watch it with him before leaving for my trip to Delhi. It was like watching all the beliefs I have grown up with, through the eyes of Hollywood. My gut reaction insisted, that we should be the one's making highly sophisticated films on this subject and not just twidling our thumbs and being mere spectators to the philosophies our land is seeped with. But as I write this, sitting at the airport my head involuntarily turns to the TV monitor and I cringe at the sight of the blood spurting out of the mouth of the goon as John Abraham lands a punch on his stomach. This is just the trailer filling in the break of the more disgusting Ramgopal Verma Ki Aag with senseless visuals. What a waste of his talent and skills by the director !

Why? Why? Why... are we stuck in the cliched. In fact our old movies were more progressive than what is being churned out at present. My constant introspection does not lead me to any answers, so maybe the  people and the land has to live its karma and grow into something consequential only in due course of time.

I started writing this blog while I was at the airport and by the time I got back to writing this paragraph, I have already landed in Delhi and caught up with my friends in Faridabad. Great sessions of catching up interspersed with breaks of great meals. I would certainly like to mention here the scrumptious home cooked meal I had at my friends place prepared by his spouse. At home while I am made to believe that I am the best cook in the world, meals like the one I had, give me a complex. And I also should not forget mentioning the jalebis and gulabjamuns I have relished.

In the past 23 years or so  while I have become a true Mumbaiker, I still yearn for the gulabjamuns, jalebis and chole bhature's of this land. Last two days for three of my meals I have eaten Chole.....taking into consideration that I take only two meals in a day.....that is a little too much of Choles. For those who are wondering what this word means, it is an Indian preparation of chickpeas. So back to my having it in overdose!! But I am not complaining. I can still  eat more of them. With samosas and tikkis too. They don't make these things like this back in Mumbai. It's the same that they don't make Pao bhaji Mumbaiya style in Delhi. I cringe everytime I eat Pao Bhaji here. I want to shout at the top of my voice or better so have a Anna Hazare kind of morcha and tell people that this is not even close to the pao bhaji I get back in Mumbai. What we get in Delhi is a highly cinnamonised version and the regular sweet buns  replace the oh so delicately delicious pao's. I can estimate the intensity of the shock an old Parsi bakery guy can go through if he sees what is being passed off as the staple mumbaiya pao.

At times when I am shuttling between Delhi and Mumbai, I wonder if anyone can sympathise with the pull I feel between the two places. Or for that reason I can put my Bengal too in the bag of mixed parentage and upbringing. A transferable job held by my dad and then finally one day my karmas taking me to settle down in  Mumbai, exposed me to people from various cultures and religions. This has made me incorporate many things from different parts of the world into my life. I can not take sides or do justice to any particular state, or country, because for me we are all human beings with a set of good and bad qualities. That leaves me completely at a loss of reactions when I see people fighting so fiercely for their cultures, sticking to their beliefs. I personally feel that instead of making mundane laws, the bureaucracy of India should make a law  making it compulsory for people to move out of their birthplace and spend some years of their lives in different parts of the country.  Maybe they can pick up the regions they want to experience. And then the process of living life with people of different cultural ethnicities certainly will open up the minds of the citizens and make people more adjusting to the beliefs of other people. Half of our lives are spent in trying to make people change their beliefs because we all are driven by the egoistical belief that we know the best. Acceptance of our friends, relatives and loved ones just the way they are, is still a leaf in the pages of Bhagvad Gita and other inumerable books with preachings of various spiritual souls in the land of spirituality.... Don't you think so?

While you introspect let me just go and enjoy some tikkis because back in Mumbai, ragda patties though similar in looks do not taste  like tikkis Delhi people make.....

The Seeking Heart

The land of Whirling Dervishes and Rumi and Shams Tabrizi..... that is what Turkey is for me today. It took me a trip to the place to actually feel the ethnicity of the country. 

Sometimes a bit of suspense can unfold into something very exciting and that is exactly what happened with me in the past week. I hung on to the invite by a dear friend of mine, to join her on a trip to Istanbul. I could make out that it was to be a very non touristy trip. I grabbed the opportunity just to get away from the drab local news of Mumbai. The ever increasing taxi and auto fares....the onset of the unbearable October heat....and the ho hum about Arvind Kejriwal and his various expose staring at me from the local newspaper every morning.  Anything would have been good but unknowingly, a dream vacation was falling into my lap.

Istiklal Avenue

Inside the Blue Mosque

The thunderous rolling down of the trams on Istiklal Avenue and Divan Yolu, the chaos of the Grand Bazaar and the magnificence of the blue mosque will always stay fresh in my memories. The fact that I went to Topkapi palace and didn't enter the gates. Yes, I actually did that. A piece of history was there right in front of me and I decided not to enrich myself. That is so unlike me!  Deep inside my heart I felt, "will do it the next time at leisure".

Grand Bazaar

Sharing the same roof with the hippies of 60's

Walking down Divan Yolu

On recollecting now, that I was under the same roof as the followers of hippie culture of the 60's at the Pudding Shop, and was walking on Divan Yolu, a road laid down by Constantine the great somewhere in 300 AD, gives me a high without a drop of the local Raki going down my throat. The coming together of people from different parts of the world under one roof at Konya and the opportunity of understanding not only Sufism and teachings of Rumi through their eyes but also looking at the richness of my own country through their seeking hearts, leaves me fulfilled.

View across the Bosphorous from the Asian side

I have to go back to Istanbul, to visit places around it, to enjoy a sumptuous meal of fish by the Bosphorous, to shop in loads at Istiklal Avenue, to eat Baklava, to see the whirling dervishes and to catch up with a couple of friends I have made there in so less a time. The list is endless. I want to have Simit with Cheese, walk down the cobbled streets or sit at any of the beautifully landscaped parks and do nothing. It was exactly the way I had always wanted to experience the flavour of a country.  Be on the roads, trying to figure out where to go with the help of maps.....getting the name of  the bus stop we wanted to go to absolutely wrong, but still land up at the right place. Trying to communicate with people on the streets without a common language and still manage to explain ourselves and understand what they wanted to say in their language. Everything from the weather, the ambiance,  the helpful people of the country and the stimulating discussions on the Sufism and its message of peace to the world and the vast  history of the country has done wonders to my heart. 

Turkish Coffee served with style

One more time someday in the near future I wish to share a cup of Turkish coffee with my dear friend sitting in the same restaurant, the name of which we didn't bother to find out. And the beautiful trip can again be wound up with one more coffee cup reading for me. The only difficult decision I have to make till then is whether I stay on the Asian side or the European side of Istanbul. 

MEMORIES

I had to write today, to look back at those beautiful memories I cherish of my brother, to look back at all those fights I had with him and to just try to reach out my hand into thin air and try to feel his physical presence. The last part, my heart knows, is absolutely impossible because when people move on to their onward journey from Earth, they never return back......

Fourteen years ago on this very day, early in the morning I was staring at his motionless body, waiting for him to jump up and start behaving like himself. He didn't.... and after all the rituals had been taken care of, I got to hold his ashes in a small urn and I kept on thinking all the way to Haridwar that, "Is that it?" And as I mulled over the incomprehensible secrets of life and death, somewhere inside me my reflexes told me not to look back AT ALL......as looking back meant breaking down and that would have been a hindrance to the tasks he had left behind for me......I had to keep running his company as long as I could, and had to take care of his young sons, and to try and heal his mother...our mother....who must have been absolutely shattered after losing a part of her, but refused to show her grief to anyone.

But how long can I hold myself back.....as I started treading towards the ensuing dawn of my life, I one day just turned back and looked... and there, I could see myself riding with him on his bicycle, being brought back from school after waiting for a harrowing one hour outside the school gates, while everyone else had left. I was dying to reach home and complain to my mother and satisfy myself with the scoldings being bombarded at him.

My ears were ringing with his voice singing all the great melodies of Kishore Kumar, while I was sitting there on the bar of his bicycle. Till today many times I listen to Kishore Kumar songs to feel my brothers voice kissing my ears. His was a voice exact copy of the legendary singer and very few people know that he was a trained classical singer.

I can hear him recollecting the mishaps he had had with me because as an infant being 11 years younger to him I was absolutely at his mercy. He would tell me how, inspite of being a frail clumsy boy, he would love carrying me around in his arms and one day just dropped me into a gutter full of..........well you can guess what gutters are full of!!!! I would go urghhhh.....and he would enjoy my displeasure with his full throated laughter.

He was the first boy to pull at my long plait and though it hurt me, he always enjoyed it. Maybe that is why in the past years I have preferred to have short hair, because there is no one around to pull at the plait anymore. We fought like animals, like many other siblings, but the strange part is that I always won the fights instead of being so much younger and smaller than him. He got me into the best school of Chandigarh, after dad thrust the responsibility on him.  And I enjoyed him coming to pick me up from school, because my friends found him handsome...they never said it, but I could see it in their eyes.

Oh for those long sessions of playing cricket...and hockey and football. I always preferred playing cricket though...and sticking around with him wherever he went. He would get tired of me at times. Which young teenaged boy wouldn't, with his sister, sticking around him like a sore thumb, when all he wanted to do was enjoy with his friends and flirt with the girls on the street. That too a sister who would spurt out all what he did to mom and dad, the moment we returned home. Wish I had the decency of keeping his secrets.

This place is too less to go on talking about what we shared and what all we disagreed upon. But still after so many years, I am happy I made the attempt to refresh his memories and I am sure he is smiling up there. I wish he could give me his bear hug and pull at my plait once again....oops! I forgot I don't have it anymore.

But today I want him to  be at peace wherever he is and to be in the best of his spirits, no matter if he is in any physical form or is a divine soul. And as I look at his two young sons and try to find him in them....I wish to get one more chance to tie Rakhi to him and look forward to him reminding me to touch his feet, because he was older to me and we happened to be Bengalis. The only difference being, that this time I would throw myself at his feet to pay obeisance to all that he has done for me and to hide those tears rolling down to cry over the fact that his was a life of a genius cut short by the game of destiny. And more so a life today not remebered by many which otherwise,  had he been alive, would have attracted loads of appreciation because he was on his way to reaching out for the skies.......

DO WE ACTUALLY CARE....?

A couple of months ago when the rains were about to set in,  a public awareness campaign by the BMC caught my eye. The corporation had requested the citizens not to throw plastic bottles, and plastic into the nullahs......But did we care...?

Its been 7 years since Mumbai suffered the deluge. We all blamed the administration for not cleaning the drains. But since then have we personally stopped using plastic?  We had criticised so much after the deluge that it's the overuse of plastic which clogged the drains and resulted in the loss of so many lives. Today the administration has levied charges on each plastic bag that we use in malls and supermarkets. But do we ever falter before asking for a plastic bag? Is it so hard for us to carry a bag of our own?  How demanding can it be to keep a few bags in our cars? 

Is it difficult to reuse the envelopes or the back side of the used papers supposed to be thrown away? I sometimes even use the bills given to me  to take notes. I don't care if someone thinks I am stingy. For me, I am trying to pass on a better world to the generations to come. I hate to throw an empty paper into the dustbin. 

So many times I have noticed that the window of a swanky car is rolled down and plop.... a bag full of garbage is thrown out or a mineral water bottle is tossed out with the expertise of a seasoned bowler. It breaks my heart to see even a small piece of paper being thrown out. Does it ask for too much to carry the paper with us and throw it in the waste bin at our home???

I wonder how most of the international cities are kept clean by the administrations. Obviously it's the citizens as well, realising their part and not littering. Actually, I shouldn't be wondering about this  since I have been brought up in a city like Chandigarh. I have always had problem settling in other cities basically because of the high standards that city set for me. I never saw people throwing their rubbish on to the streets. In the mornings around six when I would be cycling down to school, the streets were being cleaned. In Mumbai the municipality people get down to work only by around 11, when the traffic is already at it's peak. When the citizens themselves don't have place to walk peacefully, the BMC guy struggles to collect garbage. I look at it and think, "What a farce ........?"

I have thought over it again and again, and only a few days ago my positivity gave in to the sad feeling ,that there is no way out of all this mess. It is all like quicksand...the more we try to come out of it, the deeper we sink...!!!!

Still....still...I will keep on carrying the trash back home and putting it in my garbage bin and stare back harshly at  anyone who opens the door of his swanky car and spits on the road....and I invite you all to post your comments, photos and anything that you notice that knocks at our conscience to keep the city clean, on the page of this group started by someone with the same dreams as me but more proactive and bold than me ...https://www.facebook.com/groups/280350462071313/members/

Served With Love

Phew!!!! last two weeks have been erratically busy.  When there is loads of stuff to be taken care of within a stipulated period of time, one just loses track of time. But one thing that was worthwhile about the busy fortnight was that I was mostly immersed into my second love : cooking. After a long long time I had friends come over, and this time for brunch. I loved everything about it. The setting, the drinks prepared by me....  Of course they were mock tails. I have still not been able to graduate to cocktails though. No no no, not that I don't know how to prepare alcoholic drinks.....it's just that the old time middle class girl, used to a teetotaller dad's home has not been able to incorporate alcohol completely into her day to day routine. Although, I have learnt to use it in my pastas, risottos and tiramisu. Anyways.....what I was talking about was the menu of the brunch. Well, it comprised of waffles. bagels, cinnamon rolls , carrot squares etc. etc. I love preparing dishes for my friends and fortunately they appreciate my dishes and are ready to be the scapegoats to my experiments. I love baking. Its therapeutical. Now I know why all the chefs have such a serene expression on their face. Serving food to people is a de stressing exercise in itself.

Today, as I was settling down to plan the menu for the various upcoming lunches, high teas and dinners, I remembered my initial attempts to preparing the so called exotic dishes. I have been cooking the Indian meals since I was twelve. My dad used to love my preparations. He was a blood pressure patient, still my meals were tasty while sticking to the regime of absolutely low fat in them. Even today, I can prepare the best of the Indian meals with very little oil and they are yummy. Indian food has variety in taste. Its altogether a different thing that Kim Kardashian finds it disgusting. My goodness! what a derogatory word to use for food. Even something like cockroaches and all those weird things which some parts of the world relishes, can't be termed as disgusting. After all it's food for people who are used to it. Nobody is being forced to eat it. I am sure it was just a slip of tongue and the rather derogatory word got blurted.

But what's wrong with me today? At the drop of hat, I am off shooting from the main topic. Seems my thoughts are all jumbled up. Let me get back to the point, which was about my initial attempts to making the so called exotic dishes. I remember once I tried making pasta for the whole family with a ready made sauce. Don't remember exactly the name of the sauce but it had basil in it. Everybody on the lunch table almost went hungry that day because,  there was no back up plan and the dish had turned out so bad that even I could not  pop it into my mouth. Just so that the food didn't go waste, I asked my nephew to go and give it to the stray dog in the building. That twelve year old came back and broke my heart by saying," Well the dog sniffed it. I think it wrinkled its nose and walked away. O yes! it did turn and look back once, with the question in its eyes, that how can you people eat such disgusting food?"

I conquered it and today I am quite good at what I make. One day I want to start my blog on cooking and then I will share loads of recipes with all. Till then..... they are just simmering in my heart and getting perfected because good food is not about how many ingredients one puts, it's simply the love with which it's cooked.

Clueless About Time

The concept of time with some people leaves me perplexed. Consider the scenario :  a meeting is fixed at 10 am or pm whatever....no one usually turns up before 10.30. You schedule your party for 9 in the evening, the guests start trickling in by 9.30. By the time everyone makes it, it will be 10 or 10.30. But Beware!! Don't try to be smart and schedule the party for 10.30 the next time. Because in that case it will start at 11.30.

If you are one of the rare punctual species, then you must have innumerable times faced scenarios like :

You have reached the meeting point and the other person hasn't reached. After you have been waiting for 15 minutes, you get a call or message saying, "Stuck in a bad traffic jam will be there in 15 minutes." What the person is not telling you is that he has stepped out of the home at the scheduled meeting time. After 15 minutes you call up to know the progress of the traffic jam. Your call certainly goes unanswered. After 5 minutes the message tone beeps and you are mocked at by the message, "Will be there in a minute." You will still be waiting for 20 minutes. But this time the call comes from the other end, and you get to hear, "I am just round the corner." As you put the phone down you realise that the person didn't specify whether its your corner or his corner.

God save you from statements like, "I'll be right there, I am just parking the car." You can be standing at the parking lot with no car in sight. 

You are waiting in your office for the person to turn up. Frustrated you call him up to find his whereabouts. "I have reached the gate and will be there in a second," is the answer you get, while in the background you can hear the trains rattling by and you very well know the station is good half an hour from the office. 

Every time I face a situation like this, I make a resolution that the next time I will call up the person I am supposed to meet, before leaving my house and will leave only after I make sure that he/she has left. But sadly, I remember my resolution only when I am fuming at the meeting point. GOD! WHY AM I SO CLUELESS ABOUT TIME?

Many More Years to Go...

The fact that even the jawans and officers of army can loose their cool, forces me to take back all the nitpicking I have directed towards my fellow citizens. The most astonishing part is that it happens in a place as cool as Nyoma in Ladakh. Those who don't have any clue to what I am talking about can check out the news on the link : http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Army-officers-jawans-battle-it-out-in-Ladakh/articleshow/13102508.cms

This incident forces me to come to the conclusion that there is certainly something wrong in the air. Maybe the predictions that there will be an apocalypse on 22nd Dec has made us all jittery. And that has charged the environment into an aggressive mode. I basically think this whole thing about the Apocalypse will fall flat on its face. I tell my sons that we talk so much about the new age belief that we get back from the universe what we give to it.  So, keeping that in mind, if at all, mind it, if at all the end of the world happens it will happen only because of so many Hollywood movies we keep on making and giving ideas to the universe. So much of water rushing on to the streets, dinosaurs coming back into the world, aliens of various kinds and forms coming down on earth, zombies taking charge of cities and what all and what not . It's a different scenario altogether that I am the first one to watch them when they are released.

This time people are a little cautious and its not like it was in 2000. Does anyone remember that in 2000 there was all that hoopla about Y2K crisis? I was on a trip to Nagarhole National Park and my travel agent  made me stay in Bangalore just because she did not want me, with my kids and ageing mother stuck at the airport, when supposedly all the computers could go bust. The computer bug, I suppose  chickened out and NOTHING HAPPENED.  This time around too it will be the same.  Our past experiences have taught us and that is why with about six months to go for the apocalypse to happen already alternate theories have started pouring out.  A look at this video by National Geographic will certainly pacify your nerves.  It tells us that the Mayan Calendar in no way suggests the end of the World.

http://video.nationalgeographic.com/video/news/history-archaeology-news/maya-art-calendar-vin/

While you go check out this video, I look forward to 22nd December, when exactly about 7months and 10 days from today, on a cooler Saturday evening I will be updating my blog.

Our Snubbed Conscience

Its absolutely a miracle that we are progressing in spite of the mumbo jumbo state of our country. I don't know about others but I personally don't  understand the attitude of my fellow countrymen. Let me share two of my experiences :

Yesterday afternoon, I was waiting in my car, for the signal to turn green.  A lady wanted to cross the road. But a hoard of vehicles : autos, cars, bikes... decided they didn't have time to wait. This lady who actually had the right to cross the road could not. She kept on stepping ahead and back. I just looked on helplessly. I was also being honked at to jump the signal. Then as the signal turned green I found support in the driver of the car next to me. We both waited till she crossed and then we moved on.

Papers and files go missing from the courts or police station. Some papers pertaining to an application moved in the Magistrate's Court by me are untraceable. Hard to believe but true.

This leads me to the conclusion that we need strong CCTV surveillance. The move of the common man, the public servant and the caretakers running the country, everything needs to be constantly monitored. Somewhere we have let so much of greed overpower us that we are not God fearing any more. I remember as a child our mothers would tell us that  God above doesn't approve of lies and misconduct. We grew up with the belief that he is always watching us. Today in the busy schedule of our lives God figures only when we need something. When we conduct a misdeed, we forget that someone above there might be taking a note of our misdeeds. What is God for someone can be conscience for others. But that conscience has absolutely been snubbed. That calls for the need that with the help of modern day technology we position a watch guard through CCTV cameras so that we learn to conduct ourselves.

Nobody in this rushed up city waits behind the zebra crossing. Walkers cross the roads when the signal is green and leisurely keep walking across the road challenging the speeding cars to slow down. Why? Why are we testing each others patience........

Harsh Realities

In my past few blogs, I have been deliberately keeping myself away from issues which have been stirring my soul. Basically because I didn't want you all to think that this middle aged lady has lost it (trying to imbibe the lingo used by today's youth). But today morning,  when I watched  Amir Khan's TV show "Satyamev Jayate" I realised I am not the only one to be concerned. So many times even I mull over the thought  that is this the country our freedom fighters had laid their lives for? Is this the kind of future they had envisaged for us? When I talk about the daily irritating incidents happening to me or around me, it is because of the fact that somewhere I question myself again and again, that has education made us more civilised or uncivil, or maybe it would be right to say civilised brutes.

I have not and will not talk about female infanticide because I have boiled my blood immensely over it in my youth. I belong to the generation in which waves of feminism were strong. Many of us had the guts to take a stand against many issues which we felt were strong at that time. But have any of these been resolved? On the contrary they have increased and in a more civilised and sophisticated way. Female Infanticide, Dowry deaths, Polygamy, Rapes, Child Marriage, Eve teasing......and many more. They all are still prevalent. and in a more heinous way.

Female infanticide has taken the form of a highly organised money making sector. Polygamy has given way to adjustments by both the husband and wife to live lives their own way or more so to wife swapping. Rapes have been replaced by gang rapes or cases of incest.  Child Marriage has television shows on it in the prime time slot. Eve teasing has  become a man's prerogative. If the girl doesn't give into his advancements she has to face an acid attack or rape. Dowries have subtly become the gifts to be given to the young couple to start their life on a good note.

Though, I do see a remarkable difference in the woman of today. She has become more enduring. Thanks to the support of the parents, who have taken care to provide education to their daughters. Credit to those who have taught their daughters to treat themselves as human beings ....the woman of today has become more self dependent. She is strong enough to accept her fate, collect her belongings if she is given the chance to and move on. It can be her children, a pair of clothes thrown at her when she is kicked out of her house, or for that matter only her self esteem too, which she holds close to her bosom and settles down courageously to start life afresh. She moves on making a free way for the man who otherwise should have taken care of her, to let him enjoy his life unblemished.  Her place in his life is unquestionably taken by another woman. And the so called society gets one more topic to gossip about in its next party.......

Summer Love : Alphonsoes

Mangoes ......My earliest memories about them is that as a child my text books taught me about it being the King of Fruits. Little did I know that one day I will settle in the city of dreams, and relish the oh so devine Alphonso. At that age I just did not know what the fuss is all about. In a place like Chandigarh, there were varieties of mangoes available. And of them I was very fond of my dussehri, which could be bought in kilos. They were dropped into a dish filled with cold water the moment they were brought home. "This way one ensures that they cool down and don't heat up our body." my mother always told me.  After lunch we would all sit down. Pull out one mango after the other from the cold water and eat them. A dussehri  is not supposed to be sliced but is just sucked upon. ummmmm.... heavenly...... and one could have as many as one wanted. It's a different thing altogether, that a bout of loose motions after that, was explained to be good because it was cleansing the body. A few days later when I would have a big boil on my shin or calf, unfortunately my feast would get over.  I used to wonder then, as to why are mangoes not cultivated in the winters if they are so heaty and am still wondering about it, when year after year the moment the summer sets in, I see the alphonsoes flooding markets all over Mumbai.

It took me sometime to get used to the taste of Alphonso. I was also not ready to kill my ego and accept the fact that alphonsoes are  actually delish. After creating a lot of fuss  and failed unlimited hunts for the dussehri's in the lanes and bylanes of the city....I did settle down to eat alphonso. But somewhere I craved for the dussehri's. Ages later it took me a trip back to Delhi,  and an excited bite into the dussehri, to realise that I had become an addict of the king of kings. Just like the city, the fruit too had silently entrapped me into giving in to its goodness.

I can go on cribbing about the city losing it's charm.....not being anymore what it was once.... but alphonsoes  is one thing that makes me look forward to the summers, no matter how killing the humidity is.  I love it sliced or in my mango shake....in the mango cheesecake or mango souffle.... there is so much I can do with the alphonsoes. Then when I send a box of them to my cousins in Kolkata....I feel so proud that there is one thing very Mumbaiyah that I can brag about and be proud of......

POTHOLED

Pothole????? Nay I will call them craters. You find them all over Mumbai. Their count increases during monsoon. Actually they are found in abundance all over Mumbai, but it's during the monsoon that they seriously start multiplying. Their life cycle is great. They have a birth date and beyond that they just keep living.  What dies is a part of you every time your car, cab, cycle, auto or your FOOT goes into it.  You want to scream out but can't because as a mumbaikar your never dying attitude will be questioned. You spot them from a distance....you slow down your car....then just at the last minute you realize it's bigger that the surface area covered by your front tyre.  You have almost failed the test of avoiding them. But you still are not ready to give up...the never give up Mumbaiyah attitude raises its head adamantly. You swerve your car and there,  you hit against the car overtaking you. If it's not the doctors bill from the backache you got by bumping in and out of potholes, that makes a dent in your pocket, the dent in the car you hit surely will do.

It's more of a mission to spot them during rains when they are filled to the brim with rain water.  They are actually placed to keep your alerts high while driving. A way administration has figured out to keep a check on your driving. You can be a little agressive and slap a Public Interest Litigation against the administeration. But that too falls on deaf ears. Loyalty runs in our blood that's why year after year after year the contracts are given to the same people who can do a better shoddy work each time. They too learn from experience.

So now, with the BMC unabashedly making true statements that they won't be able to fill all the pot holes before the monsoon, even with mud or tree branches, The Road Ahead Certainly Seems To Be Full OF Potholes.

To Moustache or Not To Moustache?

"Why are Indian men so much in love with their moustache?" I am sure you think that it is my teenage daughter speaking. Nope, that is my teenage son. Yesterday while we were driving down to the local store to buy my weekly provisions I don't know what made him blurt that out. But it immediately took me back to the times when I was a teenager and had taken fancy to men with moustache. My brother would laugh at me and I would wonder what the fuss is all about. Then as I kept growing, my liking for men with moustache kept growing in the opposite. My apologies to all my mous'tached friends, but the fact may be that I am not even aware of them supporting one. I won't say I started disliking men with moustache but just that when I looked at them I would think how can they support it without any problems on the upper lip right below the sensitive nose.....

One has to credit the fact that they have had an evolution of their own kind. They are in  all sorts of shapes and sizes too. Right from the huge ones that find a mention in the Guinness Book of Records to the tiniest ones. When I talk of the tiniest one, Hitler comes in mind. This moustache sits right there, in the cleft of the lip making a person look so Hitler like. To make it feel better let's say so Charlie Chaplin like. A search on google tells me that it's called the toothbrush moustache. Can you believe it, that there was  a moustache spoon for mous'tached people to drink soups during the Victorian England? That's what Wikepedia informs me. Here are two links one should visit. One brags about the goodness of the hairy fashion statement, and how to maintain and take care of them, http://www.nowthatsnifty.com/2009/05/great-moustaches-and-moustache-types.html#.T5ws1cT9NH8 while the other  http://www.cracked.com/blog/a-guide-to-the-modern-moustache/ talks about the ones which should be banned. My personal favorite is the second link. But then whatever.... I never wished to talk about the types of moustaches, I was just retrospecting as to how can people support such a thing in such a sensitive part below the nose. Specially the real bushy ones.

Observing the movement of a moustache while the person supporting them is eating or talking is a pass time on its own. Watching those with the thicker ones is more ticklish to one's heart. Then when the men supporting a huge burly moustache gulp down a glass full  of milk or butter milk and have it smeared all over their moustache.....the way it is licked clean eeeeeew....

Not to forget, that there are people like our own Hindi film stars like Anil Kapoor and Jackie Shroff, who look the best in their trademark moustache. (I abhor saying Bollywood because I find that name very downmarket). In fact these two people without their trademark moustaches come across as if they are going through an identity crisis. 

So can the verdict be that the problem is not the person supporting the moustache, but the shape of the moustache? That's why maybe I support the second link. Ban some keep some. Can't be more judgemental than this. My dad too supported the toothbrush and the pencil moustache, but that was long before I was born. I fortunately saw him clean shaven. Thank you daddy. Your sweet kisses otherwise would have been so prickly.....

"To Moustache or not to moustache that is the question."

Can We Be More Considerate

Last week I struck Gold. Watched two good movies back to back. First Vicky Donor, and then I decided to go and catch upon Pan Singh Tomar. I had to struggle my way through the early morning traffic jam, to go to The Hub in Goregaon. That theatre has been a blessing whenever I have been late to nose out  a good movie. From  experience I have learnt that a delay of only two weeks too can make me go galloping to The Hub, to catch up on a movie. While all the major multiplexes shuffle movies within a few weeks, this theatre always has the worth watching movies running for quite some time.

Pan Singh's life  made me think... about the fact that how circumstances make a completely different person of us. Deep within, while we remain the same entity, we keep weaving our life around the challenges thrown at us. Then one day when we reflect back, we realize we are not the person that we were. Kept thinking of the callous policeman who was just not ready to carry out his duty.  I wonder as humans, why can't we relate to someone's problems. What makes people do what they do? Why do we carry so much of burden of selfishness within us?  How can someone who is supposedly a caretaker of the people  behave so callously. Why do they step out of their institutions and wipe clean from their conscience, the oaths they had taken during their training. Policemen and doctors, should be our support system at the time of crisis.  How many doctors have the sympathy or the guts to take in patients who deserve immediate medical attention and attend to them with urgency and  save their lives. A helpless patient and his family members are made to run from one hospital to other till they can't defy death any more.  Do these doctors, even for once at the end of the day think as to what must have happened of the patient they turned away during the course of the day?  Patients are lying in the wards awaiting treatment and there are no doctors available. This still happens after years of planning by the government to provide more medical aid to the citizens. Believe me it was easier to feel helpless twenty years ago, because we knew there was genuine scarcity of doctors.

To think of a time when every citizen's medical care will be a responsibility of the government, is still a far off dream, because the harbingers of the foundation of the country are busy collecting the who's who of the society in the Rajya Sabha. For all you know next they might even come out with the idea of a Madam Tussauds. Where..? Ahem, ahem...give it your best guess, it's easy.