Tuesday 21 June 2011

Doodles..


                                                     An Icy Water Pump......
                                              The Three Witches from Macbeth.....
                                             A Scene from a Fairy Village...
                                                               Naughty Pixie Boys..
                                                       A Haunted Castle..
Alice talking to the caterpillar.

Free time on your hands really lets you discover many such facets of your personality that were hitherto unknown even to you. It helps a person discover hidden potential which would never come out if we were running the rat race all the time, trying to get god knows where. Slow down and smell the flowers and get acquainted with a new you.......as I did..

Monday 20 June 2011

pitter patter rain drops.....

'Pitter patter rain drops, I'm wet through, I hear thunder, oh! don't you..'

As I sing this popular nursery rhyme to my 2 yr old son in the night, I listen to the sounds of rain drumming on the concrete outside. It has always been a special treat to sit coccooned in a warm and dry bed and listen to the sounds of rain outside. (Ah...the simple pleasures of life!) This rain has been long awaited and brings huge respite from the soaring temperatures. It is like life giving nectar to the parched earth. Everything that was withered by the heat comes to life- grass, insects, humans...
                                                                The rainy spell takes me back to the rosy days when I was a newly wed with stars in my eyes ; there was a dream like quality to life in those days. My husband was posted to Shillong, which is a hill station and it gets a lot of rainfall. In the rainy season, it used to rain for days on end; umbrellas were a must when you went out even for a walk, or buying vegetables or something. And the puny umbrellas that we use in north indian monsoons would not work; we had to use these extra large size umbrellas if  we wanted to remain somewhat dry. In fact, umbrellas were an integral part of the local fashion. You could buy matching umbrellas (same patterns and colours) to go with your dress or shoes or handbag..!
                                         Due to so much moisture and humidity, growth of fungus on anything and everything was a climatic hazard. Therefore all your possessions had to be regularly checked and aired out. Washing and drying clothes was a nightmare. All the almirahs had bulbs fitted inside to keep the air inside warm and free of humidity.  During rains, if you went out for a walk you would sometimes find yourselves inside a cloud. If you happened to be in a building with a tin roof, the racket the rain made would be deafening.
                                                                       It was rather an irony that in a place with so much rainfall, there was a shortage of potable water, as there was no water collection system, and all the rain water would flow downhill into rivers and lakes. Therefore local people had their own water collection systems in the form of huge drums to collect the rainwater.
                        All houses there had fireplaces and in the winters, it used to get freezing cold after around 3 pm. So fires were lit in the fireplace to warm up the rooms. And after 3 pm, you couldnt do anything much except sit around the fire with friends and eat and drink and make merry. Though I stayed in Shillong only for 6 months, the friends I made in that place are people that are dearest to my heart even today. Shillong holds for me the fondest memories of my life...and aren't I lucky that every rainfall today reminds me of those fond memories........

Wednesday 15 June 2011

BAREFOOT...

Social service or philanthropy is a virtue that not many of us possess...Oh sure! we give ourselves lots of convincing reasons for it,   ( namely that we dont have enough money for giving away, or that we are too busy making both ends meet to find time for social service, and so on and so forth..) But people who want to do it just go ahead and start doing, and they are no millionaires themselves...just common people like you and me.
       I have a friend who is just such a person. On every New Year's Eve when all of us are celebrating and partying, he buys a load of blankets and goes around town giving blankets to people sleeping on the footpath. How touching..!  This friend of mine lives in Jagannath Puri in Orissa- the place lies on the eastern coast of India and it is a beach  town famous for the temple of Lord Jagannath;  so it sees a lot of tourist traffic, both domestic and foreign. Now, the state of Orissa is famous for another thing and that is its poverty.
                  To help the common  man in his state, Mr Kar and some friends have started an organization called 'Barefoot'. The organization's first project is called 'Green Riders', which is an effort to help the rickshaw-walas who were extremely poor and whiling away all their meagre earnings on drinking cheap alcohol. All the willing rickshaw walas were gathered and given classes every Sunday by volunteers on grooming, personal hygiene, etiquettes, some basic english and how to deal with tourists. They were given green uniforms- to signify their eco-friendly transportation (as rickshaws are human powered, and do not use any polluting fuel). The rates to all the various destinations have been fixed by the organizers..(so no haggling over money). These 'Greenriders' can be seen all over Puri nowadays in their sharp new uniforms, proud of their achievement; many of them have kicked their drinking habit, and they now have a decent income to get by
    The Sunday classes for the 'Greenriders' are still going on, as more and more rickshaw walas are joining. So the 'Greenrider' project is going strong, and the next project in the offing is called 'seariders' , in which lifeguards are being trained for the Puri beach. They will also rent out beach umbrellas, loungers, life jackets etc to tourists and this will be a source of income for them.
                                                                                       May more of us have the inclination to do something like this and I wish 'Barefoot' and all their present and future projects all the best...
                                                                                                               

Thursday 2 June 2011

these days...

The air in the plains of north india is heavy with dust..the dust settles everywhere- on screens of doors and windows, on the blades of the fans, on curtains, on your clothes, and it seems even in your lungs. There is no escaping it. One hot summer evening,  its very still, the air sits heavy, not a leaf on a tree is moving. It seems as if all living creatures have even stopped breathing and you feel suffocated and wonder how much more you can take....lost in these thoughts, you notice a slight movement about you- is it the rustling of leaves? maybe it is..you hope it is..but do not dare to think aloud or even to acknowledge it to yourself for fear that you will be disappointed.                                                                                                                                                                    
                    But while you have been lost in these musings, a slight breeze has started blowing and  in a few minutes, it has grown in strength..it has become a definite breeze now and it has suddenly become very pleasant..the world around you seems to have come to life- leaves are rustling away merrily,  birds are chirping or tweeting or whatever it is that they do...small insects and squirrels are suddenly visible.. even the air seems alive. You  remember the way you were feeling half an hour ago - hopeless, despondent, suffocated- and you cant stop yourself from breaking into a song...you feel you cant sit still anymore,you have been infused with a new energy which will not let you be still...so you get up and walk about. It feels as if everything's all right in the world just now. Meanwhile, the breeze has been picking up and its now more a wind than a breeze.. things such as newspapers, polythenes, leaves  have started getting blown about from the neighbour's garden into yours. But you dont mind one bit...you are in a state of euphoria about the relief from the terrible heat of barely an hour ago..and of course now you can see the sky blacken with clouds in the distance, so you wait eagerly for the rain to come and settle the dust, and also lower the temperature a bit. In this happy state, you feel you cant celebrate the moment without some tea and pakoras..
                                                                                    So off into the kitchen you go, happily humming "barso re megha megha" or some such thing..and start cutting and chopping things for your pakoras, blissfully unaware that outside, what started as a pleasant breeze is now becoming a gale....it has started bending trees and blowing about bigger things like plastic buckets, thatched roofs, even breaking off  branches from trees. There is a whole lot of dust blowing around..much more than we originally started with. When you become aware of this, you scramble about closing doors and windows to minimize the amount of dust blown into your home- all thought of tea and pakoras forgotten- and also run to gather up your clothes from the washing line in the backyard to prevent your clothes (specially undergarments)  from being scattered all over the neighbourhood. "Still", you think, "at least the air is cooler now and rain should be here soon to settle all this dust." By the time you finish your thought, the electricity goes off.  
                                                                                   "@#$$%@@!!"

Now, there is stifling heat indoors because you have closed all doors and windows to save yourself some cleaning and dusting afterwards.So you try to be brave and venture outside into the verandah to at least avail of the cool wind...sure enough the wind is cool ....and loaded with dust which, in addition to accumulating everywhere else, gets into your eyes also. You screw up your eyes and look up into the sky to see why those black clouds haven't arrived yet, and what do you see? -- they came and were blown away by the strong wind............................................................................
                                                                                    That is the story of my life these days...