Maya

Following is an e-mail a dear sister of mine wrote me. I am just going to cut and paste it as no amount of effort to re-tell what she is trying to tell here will do any justice.... Why I loved this mail certainly is not only the story of the lady called Maya that moi cousin is telling but the way this story's touched her... Love u kiddo! Here's to you!!


" Maya, a lady in her late 20s, probably 27 - 30. She is a 8th standard drop-out from छबिलदास School (Rucha, its a school which was ONLY good during our आजी's schooling years and probably a few years after that!). Her family lives near Curry Road Station, very near to लालबागचा गणपती. Her mother works as a cleaner at Mumbai airport. Her father probably does a similar kind of job somewhere. She looks after patients who have very little hope of survival or extremely old people. She was a so-called nurse for a kid with lukemia. She was jobless after 5 years as the patient was no more. Then she was offered a similar position with a family to look after their very old grandfather. She was and I think still is with the same family.

Do you know where she lives? In the Heart of Central London !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Her second employer was so happy with her work that he sponsered her work permit and since she already had been in the UK for the past 5 years, he even helped her with her residentship.

Today, a very proud Maya is one of the official residents of the Queen's country. In these 11 years, she has travelled to Nigeria, Spain and Italy. She converses very well in English, though not that very fluently, with a bit of an accent !!!! She knows Marathi, Hindi and Gujrathi - reading, writing and speaking. She cooks very good Gujrathi food (it was a part of her second job). And of course English for her daily life.

I met her when she had come to meet माधवी मामी. When she registered with मामी's marriage bureau, मामी told her that she would not accept any registration fees from her as it would be entirely मामी's pleasure. But when she completed the form and left, she had quitely slipped 100 pounds between the pages.

It was संक्रांत and Mami gave her गुळाची पोळी which was generously soaked in ghee (there is no तूप here !!). That was the first time she said she had tasted a real गुळाची पोळी!!

I sent a usual Sunday nite mail to aai and just as I switched off my laptop, I remembered I forgot to mention the most important event of the weekend. I was sleepy and thought I would do that from office tomorrow and with that I turned off the light at midnight. But for the next 40 minutes, I just couldn't concentrate on sleep. Somewhere in my mind a voice was saying, "Send the mail NOW! Tell everyone NOW ! " So now its 1:00 am, Monday morning and as I finish writing this mail, I feel completely relaxed and genuinly happy for Maya. My Sunday evenings are generally spent in thinking about the boring week ahead or which company have I left out for job applications. But I couldn't help feeling absolutely happy for Maya today !!

3 Cheers for her. If I was a Christian, I would probably drink to her health and success !!

ता. क.: Why doesn't someone make a movie on this lady, rather than churning out rubbish like Dhoom 2 and Don.
ताई...a blog for this please.........

And if anyone noticed, I have sent this mail ONLY to the 4 most importent ladies in my life. "

PS Sorry for certain references inscrutable to some.... And Muuuaaaannhhh to you M!

'Quality' Conversation!!

We - me and my better half - rarely manage to find 'quality' time together and whenever we do its usually when either of us is driving from or to home. Here's an interesting sample of the conversations we have - courtsey traffic and lawlessness of drivers in Pune.

Situaiton: A car and two wheeler are having a stand-off in the middle of a quintessential Pune lane (Read: Narrow is an understatement!) The guy driving the car is totally unhappy about the lady driving the two wheeler and the lady in question is quite reciprocative, too!

A: Why is he (car driver) on the wrong side of the road?

S: Why is she (the lady on two-whe) on the wrong side?

A: I guess she is....

S: Even he seems to be...

A: I guess they both are bad drivers...

S: I am the only good driver around here!! (By then he has managed to wriggle through the jam caused!)

A: Ain't you really the best thing under the sun anyways?! (Add nth power of sneer and a truck load of sarcasm)

S: Around! Not under the sun Aditi, around it!!

The traffic has caused not only the sheer deterioration of our intellectual levels but it is also going to be my marraige breaker... Grrr.. Do you think I can take someone to court against such a torture??

Notes

This new year READ all the articles that Google keeps sending to your mail box because YOU in the first place have subscribed to those.

Make sure that the pipeline you have been building over last year pays up.

18th April is approaching and fast. You still are clueless..... Figure out the plan of action.

GYM regularly. (in bold and capital and then again underlined.)

Make a good and long trip.

Change your laptop (sob..sob...I love this one... I think I already know I am not going to heed this note of mine!! Chuckle!)

Wish the person 'appy birday or anniv if you know, your cell phone calender tells you, birthday alarm mails you or Orkut acts diligent.

Try and save the skin of you car better... Its precious... well literally as well!

Study! Oh, chuck that smile.... Don't take this lightly.

Make time for people. You are increasingly getting worse at this. Stop being lazy.

Whats the point of this post?? Well NONE!! These are not even resolutions but a mere wishlist. Terrible as I am, even at remembering my resolutions, I have given up making them long ago. But whenever I was asked in these 5 days of a brand new year, this list above kept popping up in my head! So thought I would post it and then go back to it about a year from now.

And in almost all likelihood, laugh out loud at how different the life's turned out to be!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Happy New Year to all of you and here's wishing this year turns out to be better than you thought it would!! :)

Cochin Trip

Some of the visuals from the Cochin trip we did over last weekend for the wedding of a dear friend!

A Room with a view:

Out of the living room window of the apartment hotel called 'Riviera Suites' that we were staying at. This is a very nice place with a coffee shop serving best of Kerala food (that we feasted on!!). Rates affordable and service good. However, negotiating on other petty expenses and charges is a very good idea!! ;)
By the backwaters:

This is a doctored pict of the lovely Chinese Fishing nets. I could not bring myself to post the original because of the extreme amount of dirt and float in the water aroud the nets!

The pict taken from the base of the main mast of the fishing net. The flying crow I think gives it a nice creepy effect! There were zillions of crows here and hardly other birds!

Found the contrast of the two boats striking!!

People:
Saw many intriguing people sitting by the backwaters or working if they were fishermen. I tried to capture a few.

Fishermen untangling the net

He seemed to have aaaalll the time in the world!!

Looking at each other!! What must they be thinking?!! !

A man and drift wood.....

Togetherness... :)

Complication and Contemplation

Kids:
There was a group of four kids having a blast at the beach(!) They did some posing for my lens!

Fun timess!!

I aaaammmm the poooweeeeeerrrrr!!!

Malabar Escapes:


For lunch in Fort Kochi we went to this swell place called as Malabar House (- a botique hotel - amazing to say the least!) that has a restaurant called Malabar Junction. It was difficult to decide what was better - the ambience or the food!

Jew Town - A spice and antiques' market:

This sure is a must do at Cochin! There also is a beautiful synagouge here which is closed on friday and saturday and hence we had to miss it. (Same goes for the Dutch Palace. Its wise to avoid these two days as both these places are supposed to be extremely beautiful.)

Taken at an antiques' shop. There were dozens of spectacles in this shop. It all looked like a curious mixture jigsaw pieces of South Indian Architectural styles. Frankly I would not have minded carrying a couple of large vessels or a few antique columns home...but.....!!! ;) Some time in moi life, I shall!!!!!!!! We also saw in this market the world's largest 'Varpu' aka a cooking vessel 12 feet in diameter! It looked like a bathing vessel to me but the work on it was pretty good!


Well, all-n-all we had a wonderful trip! Signing off with yet another one of the nets!!!

Idea..

When an idea is talked about ad-infinitum, does the passion fizzle out?

Does it become mechanical?

Then does that passion still remain at heart and just does not come out in repeated projections?

Or does it go away all-together because of long protracted ‘talking about’ the idea?

If it is so it is dangerous… or is it?

If it is then what should be done to rekindle the passion?

Or should we?

PS: Written in the middle of a client meeting on 13/12. Just found myself wanting answers to all these questions listening to all of us sitting round the table and discussing a project..

हा एक माय मराठीच्या नावे!!!

This is a snippet from one of the recent conversations of my husband – श्री – and his friend – कॆ – who was trying to tell श्री that he is going to get married. For non-Marathi speaking of you all who are reading, sorry, but kindly abandon your effort right here as there is no way in this world that I am ever going to be able to translate this one in English! And hence here's my very first blog in Marathi!

कॆ.: अरे माझं लग्न ठरले!!
श्री.: Congratsss यार!! काय करते बायको? नाव काय तिचं? कुठे असते?
कॆ.: 'कल्याणी' (hypothetical - मला के-चं लग्न मोडावं अशी इच्छा नाहीये!!!:) ) नाव आहे तीचं! कल्याणी गड.
श्री.: 'गड'?! हे वेगळं आडनाव आहे!
कॆ.: अरे तिच्या आडनावावरुन 'म' (हा आणि एक विद्वान मित्र!) काय म्हणाला माहितेय का?? म्हणे 'गड आला पण आमचा सिंह गेला ना!'!!!

Lolzzzzz

ता.क. : आई शप्पथ असं घडल!!!

Vivah

Some movies leave me with conflicted thoughts and Vivah by Suraj Barjatya has been one.

What appealed and at the same time appalled me was what Mr. Barjatya was trying to say… so either my thoughts are convoluted or these times that we live in are… I was trying to brand this movie bourgeois and write it off as yet another one on my ‘why the hell did I watch it???’ list, but some very nice, respectable thoughts and messages kept coming back to me – The thoughts and messages that were no doubt highly relatable to the 90% of Indian population but a lot of it also relatable and learnable by the balance 10%... who think they are ‘modern’ but are hypocrites at the core…!

In the movie a number of explicit references are made about the inappropriateness in the reluctance of people in small towns to have a female child. This message might actually reach and be internalized by the audience who needs to….
But this whole thing about parents ‘finding’ the ‘right’ match gives me creeps. The families claiming ownerships of individuals bruises my sense of identity. The overtly ‘traditional’ ‘conservative’ Indian wedding/families’ thing, though can be attributed to the way of living and thinking of more than 90% of the populace, is not palatable for me. (yup I know! I am the crazy one here!)

The groom’s father mentioning that he does not want a dowry or the entire family accepting the bride even after an unfortunate accident – recognizing it as just that – an accident. These are ideas – or ideals that the society needs to understand today and showing it through films is perhaps the single most effective manner to bring it about…
But then throughout the movie the guy keeps looking for a mother/wife. Never a friend – Unacceptable.

However I think what psyched me the most was the most popular song in the movie. It means “I have the right” It might not have the same connotation as conveyed by the stark manner of my translation but the Hindi word ‘Haq’ in this respect meant only that to me…. “I have the right” And expectedly the guy keeps repeating this ad-infinitum and the girl keeps repeating her submission. Not once did the girl say that she might also have a right to something….
But maybe Mr.B is just trying to take one step at a time…… There are zillions out there who do not even believe in human rights being bestowed upon a female and I am thinking of equal rights. Quite the other end of the spectrum, isn’t it? Will telling these people to respect women help or tiny hints in entertainers like Vivah will?? Whichever does, Amen!


On a side note however, Mr. Barjatya has taken the caution to recover his money (inclusive of that lost in Main Prem Ki diwani hoon!) by extreme branding done all over the movie by (not so clever) product placement!