Darkness at Noon Night and the whole day !

In what age am i living in? This is supposed to be the twentyfirst century...the promised age of
connectivity,global village and wifi dreams....as told to us by the late rajeev gandhi and his gang of go getter men...but to me, as i sit in darkness it seems it was all a pipe dream.
We, the people, living in the Cantonement seem to be light years away from all that is happening in the bigger cities and towns becoz the army still hasnt got over its colonial hangover !
Oh sure, we live in big bungalows and have lush green lawns and hear the chirping of the birds instead of the roar of traffic...thats the good part...but wait...you havent heard the down take on all this...
the bungalow is huge no doubt....but is crumbling and falling apart
is termite infested and huge ants get you
i have even had a snake fall from the ceiling....becoz the ceiling is of cloth
and is home to birds bees and geckos and huge monitor lizards
the walls are thick and are made of mud faska so the termites have a field day
the floors are bricks....how i envy the ads in the papers when they talk about italian marble flooring and wood paraquet in living rooms
and when it rains ...it pours inside!
wait...dont go away...there is more to come
repair of any kind has the cantt board descend on you
and the babudom in the army is amazing .... one has to experiance it to believe it !
water....whats that ?
electricity....now didnt you read the title of this blog?
the M.E.S has cut off our electricity and we have been running from G.E. to J.E. to all sorts of shortened official titles
and as i sit here in complete darkness all around me....i am thinking...where am i? In the dark
ages where people used to get perverse pleasure in putting another human being thru pain?
there is anger in me at the complete insensitivity of it all...
but then is guess this is one of the reasons why the mofussil towns of india are where they are.
to get back to the darkness in my heart, eyes and soul
and the army brass...why are they so pompous...and this goes right to grass root level where
even the lineman behaves as if he is the generals son in law and we poor civilians who are living amongst them have no right to the good life.
why?isnt electricity the constituitonal right of every indian?
everyone around me has lights blazing....the army mess which are upteen in this area are on fire
with sodium vapour lamps...the small islands of green and the parks have hundreds of mercury lights....the regiment centres are on diwali display around the year....and here in this ocean of light i sit in my island of darkness trying to figure out where do i go from here ?

life begins at 50

I turned fifty a few days back. Everyone wished me and congratulated me and my daughters flew down to be with me. We had a great party and I even cut a birthday cake but through all this there was something missing…and I am still trying to pinpoint it.
Over the last few years it seems like the pace that I was always used to has slowed down.
I sleep less
I eat less
I read less
I don’t over react anymore
I never seem to ever get angry
I have become a little lazy
I don’t like too much of talking around me
I start yawning at parties after eleven
Am I turning into an old bore ?
Is fifty really all that old?
Well, it definitely is time to take stock of my life. T he children have gone , the nest is empty and time hangs heavy on my hands and I see a lot of people going all spiritual and the mandir route but I really don’t believe in all that crap. As someone rightly said ….puja is a waste of time…..ringing bells can hardly appease the gods and insure a place in heaven…and anyway who wants to go to heaven? Not me, hell is the place for me coz all my friends are going to be there….all my relatives will be above !!!
See, one even starts talking and joking about the inevitable…death ! this is what fifty does to you !!
I have to get rid of this heavy feeling of weariness and give myself some pep talk and start living on the edge again…life begins at 50!

why?and for what?

The other day,while I was surfing channels , I came across this music channel which had
a kind of reality show for children,songs and the prize being offered was fantastic…cash and ofcoz instant stardom….
What shocked me was that these children were all under 14 years and were accompanied by the parents…..and the earnestness of it all was heartbreaking….and the kids who were eliminated …it was gut wrenching to see them sobbing their hearts out and even the mom and dads crying…what the hell was it all about?
Parents trying to fulfill their own dreams thru their children?
Why?
Isnt it cruel to put little kids thru all the trauma of this very hyped up competition?
Kids are supposed to be enjoying all this but not even in one kids face did I see fun and laughter.They were scared of failing their parents,their school,their neighbourhood and their small towns…..most of them were from small mofussil towns of India.
What have we come to? The lure of big bucks and instant stardom is so great a temptation that parents are putting their kids on line.
Or maybe it’s the moms and dads who want to get out of their middleclass homes and their children are their passports and these kind of competitions their visa to a better life in bigger cities...
I wish that whatever the competition there should be a fun element in it all and these little kids enjoy it…not cry and look tense and we don’t have to see parents with eyes shut and hands folded in prayer at the time of judgments !!

difficulties of the netting kind

As i was getting used to writing blogs and reading blogs this black blank page started to hit me between the eyes....what the hell was i doing wrong ? so here am i finally onto the dashboard after much juggling around ,many telephone calls to my friends and my daughters ,all of whom said the same thing...it is working fine on our computers..whatz wrong with yourz ?
i still havent been able to see my own blogpage but i had to write and tell you about it...and if you are getting to read this than ,by jove, you are lucky...coz i am definitly not !
But i guess, these little hitches are bound to come in the way of my blogging coz i am new to the game...but i am an enthu cutlet and will master this jargon and all the blips fast...see, i told you i was quick to learn !

Fairy Tale...Fairly Told

A young girl married to a man she loves….fairy tales usually ended like that and one happily supposed that it would be roses and roses all the way….but now it begind with…A young girl married to a man whom she wanted to get married to without any parental oppositions or any villain in the whole story….but wait ! the story starts now.Married and away in a big city with no support system…only a mobile phone to keep in touch and learn how to make a dal and roti….run a house and specially make sure its all clean and orderly, the clothes are ironed, the groceries are fresh and the sugar and salt are right .Lonely days follow and many a time lonely nights coz the husband is working late….which is usually the case in mnc’s…and she looks around for things to do…so she takes up working from home and all the while she is on the laptop she escapes to a world different. Then job offers come along and she has these millions of fantastic ideas swirling in her head…but who is going to hear her. and then the gods smile on her and she gets a call for something she has been really wanting to do…but the timing is wrong. She id just going to get possession of her new house and they want her to be away on location for four months…now what ?A real dilemma. But no one can help her with this…she has to be solely responsible for the decision she is going to take.On one side is an opportunity which might never come again…and on the otherside is a commitment to the man she loves and promised to always be there for him. Why does it have to be this way , she is probably asking herself a thousand times a day. She tosses and turns at night as the day of reckoning comes nearer…..what should she do?This scenario is happening to most of the educated girls of today…they have good jobs or their own work for which they have worked hard and to give it all up is gut wrenching….and for what most of them ask themselves?....just to pamper the males ego ? and just becoz they have got married ? But then again…sometimes it is better to let things slip through your fingers….human relations are fragile and if you do have true love it is important to hold on to it and nurture it. The glitter of gold is just glitter….and diomands on fingers are just stones….its the love the understanding the sacrifices which bond a couple and make them one.In her grey hair years ,she will probably look back on this decision and see that it was the turning point either way.So the story goes on…..it never ends, you see ….chapters keep being added and new emotions surface, new relations come into play ,new desires take hold of the soul….nothing eveer ends happily ever after….only fairy tales

Ah! To be 50....

I am going to be fifty, but I still feel like a twenty-year-old…okay, that’s a bit of an exaggeration… how about 35? I am learning things about mobiles, computers, I-pods and am even learning how to savvy speak. I would love to dress savvy but the flesh is way too much though the spirit is willing! Like generations before me, I like to think that I led a simpler life, the air was pure, the fruit sweeter, the grass greener, and relationships were forever. But in fact it was never so…. truly speaking, we were caught between two worlds. There was existentialism to discuss, the anti nuke and anti establishment stuff was dynamite as was communalism. The hippie movement was exactly what we were looking for and what our parents weren’t. There was Ravi Shankar and Bob Dylan to go with pot and patched jeans and gogo glasses. Groovy was a real word that meant everything and nothing. ….and guru was a real ‘hep’ word and if you dressed right you were modBut there was another world of arranged marriages and babies and proper housewife things waiting to happen to all of us,while we were having our stars and stripes dream…the ultimate getaway was U.S.A. and the most coveted thing was an I – 20 form from some university back there.And the two worlds collided.Arguments, tears, emotional blackmailing and the torn patched levis and gogo glasses went out of the window along with the stars and stripes dream to be replaced by 6 yards of silk, bangles, and sindoor…and a suited booted husband who was as confused coz he was probably dreaming of a Blonde-blue-eyed-chick as his ticket to freedom.Okay…let’s get back to the present.The Gen ex is discussing reservations, Afghanistan, terrorism in Barista coffee shops or over bottles or should I say cans of beer. The jeans are down to their navels while the shirts and tops are way above the navels and parents want their kids to go abroad. and yes they still identify with Dylan and Lennon singing imagine…and ‘cool’ is an all encompassing word as is chill. And there are no arguments and tears and emotional blackmailing…the kids get married and continue working and partying like before …That’s what I like…see, there is not much change actually.Ah! To be young and happening…who said I am not young huh ?

Gimme Summer!

Summers and an Indian summer at that…its energy sapping,its nerve wrecking and the sunshine is blinding. The whole country turns into one big soup cauldron …hot and moist! People are mopping their brows, there is road rage and the only drawing room discussions are power cuts and how long will this heat last. Hordes descend and take over the hill stations shattering the peace and quiet with loud music on their car stereos and even larger wallets in their back pockets ..the well heeled take their high heels to London, Wimbeldon and the Alps and the medium heeled make a dash for Singapore and Malaysia shopping sprees…..while the no heeled sit back in the heat and……Enjoy the juicy musk melons and red watermelonsMangoes of all shapes and sizes and taste…from the tangy to the oh so sweetSleeping in the open with a crisp white sheet under you and a starlit sky aboveAnd the smell of raat ki rani and bela and jasmine just there but youcant pinpoint whereStrains of some old forgotten hindi song wafting in the air from some far away neighbours transistor. Crisp white starched kurta pajamas. Cool foods like pana and jawar and lauki and torai and cucumberAnd long white stalks of rajnigandha stolen from someones backyard and hurriedly put in a stainless steel glass.Many a summer romance has blossomed inspite of the heat….there is madness in the mind and soul and to add to it all the intoxicating scents of summer flowers…..a heady combination indeed !Getting up before the sun comes up to the sounds of birds waking upAnd feeling fresh as a daisyLong lazy afternoons in a room darkened and the fan whirring along with giggles and stories being exchangedDrinking glasses of home made bel ka sherbet ot faalsey ka sharbatTrying to steal a piece of the delicious pickled mango curing in the sunAnd finally the evening comes and with it a cool summer breeze and its back to watering the courtyard or terrace Laying out the cots and sheetsAnd waiting for the stars to comeAh!the romance of summer……now why do people want to sleep in closed rooms with the aircon on ? what a waste of summer. We as a nation have forgotten to enjoy the good things of the hot season….give me summer in the open anyday !

blue tooth-ed!

The first time i heard about blue-tooth,i thought to myself...what on earth are people talking about?One had heard of blue blood...but blue tooth...could it possibly be something handed down by royalty for the use of poor mortals like me who had red blood in their veins ?
Anyway,after struggling with data cables,no signals and rising internet bills,i decided that i wanted to find out about this blue thing.
So i went shopping without the vaguest idea of what i was getting into.And,yes i could buy the bluetooth gizmo but first i had to upgrade my mobile....okay,so i went in for a nokia set which put me back 14000rupees....and bought the bluetooth thing.
Came home, all excited , and opened the box to find a yellow transparent little thing with a little flickering red light...there was nothing blue about it.loaded the software ...activated the phone but nothing seemed to happen....after many hours i came to the conclusion that i had been had!
Went back to the store and was told that everything was in order but phone service people had to send me the configurations...so for two weeks i ran in little circles calling up customer service
until they decided that i had to do it all manually...it was a sight to see! the laptop infront of me
a mobile stuck to my ear...one hand on the keyboard the other with a pen and paper....
ah!finally it wotked...but my joy was shortlived....after two hours,i got this message flashing on the screen....error678....so this went on and on...with me and customercare old friends now.
But after a month and a half i am finally bluetoothed...lots of trials and errors and all sorts of things.....the only thing blue ....i was going blue in the face !
so i am suited and booted and bluetoothed.....and i didnt even have to go to the dentist!
What is really fascinating is the speed and the way it all works ....no dialups and such...and so small and cute but packing in a real blue punch!

arty farty

I donot understand art....i mean i do understand the performing arts but what is really greek to me are paintings.When they have the human element i somehow manage to figure it out,but those abstracts and tantric stuff ....i am absolutely medium wave !
My mother should have kept all my doodles and scribbles and the standard water colour paintings we were made to do in art class...you remember....?.....the ones that had a mom and a dad and sister and a brother ..holding hands and smiling and some funny squiggles that passed for flowers ?...and what about the one with hills and a rising sun and one little cloud,and black birds that looked more like tick marks on your toefl paper....and ofcoz,how can i forget the cottage with a stream in the background and a boat on it and a chimney with curls of smokeand pretty curtains on the window and red roof....and an open doorway with little steps lined with little flowers...and a big tree/palm tree...on the side which usually had a birds nest....
idyllic setting...all of us related to it and some of us still do.....
i wonder what my pieces of art ended up as?.....papercones for peanuts,lil bags for groceries or
maybe someone had a kabab roll wrapped in it!
see,i could have been a painter...but
who would buy my stuff?.....people would if it was hyped enough and i got rave reviews by the art czarinas...but it was not to be......
and i still cant understand how come people pay tons for something that even their three year old can do if she is allowed to go beserk with the paint box!
see...i warned you i didnt know a jack about art...didnt i?

In the days when convent education was not for the masses and there was snob value in having one,there were a few golden rules which we were taught by the irish nuns...god bless them ! ofcourse there were some minor rules which were rather silly then and are downright absurd in todays world but some of them were SOLID GOLD and i think the time has come to remind ourselves and our children of them.
Keeping your legs crossed and not showing your teeth when you laugh,or brushing your hair with 100 strokes definitly donot come into the solid gold league,but what does is...
Never talking about money.
All around me ,i find women and ofcoz men discussing money all the time,so much so that it has become a sort of party menace.they go on and on about shares and how much one has to save for ones old age and the expenses one has to go through...and i found ,one bright morning that even i had started talking like that...
but i was fortunate enough to remember what i was told over and over again by the nuns in school..
to mention money is bad manners
to talk about it in the sitting room is rude
and to discuss it on the dining table is crass.
if you have it ...it will show anyway wihout you flaunting it...and if you dont have it the same applies.
one should treat money with just that little bit of disdain...and not become a slave to it.
we all need money but do we have to yak about it all the time ....who has spent how much on a house ,a car,a wedding, a party...or even how much a wedding card costs or a saree or the rocks
on your finger, or that mithai or resturant bill...
we have become experts on money dissecting and bissecting...and our children are growing up to be spoilt money brats...who dont want to work but want all the trappings of the rich , the famous and the beautiful....
lets remember that money is the means to an end ..not the end itself.

The wait for the monsoons seems to be longer than usual. Its an everyday
thing…that the minute I get up I go out and see which way the wind is blowing
andjust pray that it is an easterly one….for the last week the sun has been relentless…and doesn’t seem that it is going to let up in a hurry. the tv met reports are something that I look at during this time….dark clouds everywhere but what about us ?
and what if the monsoons forsake us ? a living death that’s for sure.
So life goes on…this cycle thing…first the heat then the wait for the blessed rains…
and then if it rains too much then we crib like anything.
sometimes…and its pretty often these days…I think about moving to a different place and hope that better climes prevail there…but what with the global warming and all that,I just might get a bad deal!
but again…the dark clouds gathering overhead,the smell of the earth as it thirstly drinks up the first showers.and the look of everything which says the almighty has just given the earth a good shampoo and bath and sprayed on some good perfume ! it’s a lovely sight and the pitter patter of rain drops on a tin roof is the best music I have ever heard!
and when the rolling clouds come in from the east and the clap of thunder encouraging lightening to do a tango its totally rejuvenating….and then the first fat drops fall and all seems to be right with the world again…and summer a forgotten bad nightmare….until next year!

fm blues

I am all at sea whenever I am listening to the fm radio in Mumbai or delhi . somehow Calcutta ….er sorry…its kolkata now…. is still sound sane ! and I cant speak for madras coz it will probably be all greek!
But to come back to the point , why do all the radio jockeys sound as if they are talking gibberish ? and what an awful tone they use and that sing song nasal voice….ouch ! its abs. noise pollution.
One thing is sure, that none of them ever took elocution classes and if any of them were to sit for the elocution exams by the trinity college of London, they would fail miserably.
This is one end of the spectrum.
The other end is even worse…that’s if it is possible. The govt. run all India radio is pathetic to say the least…..they have lousy jockeys and the two women who go on and on with giggles along the way are just 50 years behind times….someone should tell them that people in general are more interested in listening to music than inane chatter. And they love the sound of their own voices !
Why cant we follow the middle road ?anyone out there who feels the same as I do ?
Anyone listening ?

the diet bugs

the most irritating thing in the world is to have a person who is health conscious and on a diet to be sitting on the same table as you....but worse than that is to have one of them on either of your side...believe you me,just as you are about to dig into that heavenly piece of choclate mousse, one of them is going to come up with a calorie laden sentence and dammit...hells staring at you from the spoonful !
so my grouse of the day is why cant they keep their mouths shut all the time......since they hardly eat its usually shut ,but the minute someone else has to eat their mouths open with
vengence.
then there are the types who have this gymanddiet halos ...you want to go to heaven looking skinny and with no sex appeal, fine with me...but please ,i am going to hell so can i eat my mousse in peace?

birds dilemma

This morning ,when I opened the newspaper,as usual ,I skipped through most of the pages and turned to my crossword.Justas I was folding the page my eyes fell on the comic strip section and there in animal crackers was something that really got me thinking….
Two birds sitting on a single telephone line….one saying to the other…I hope everybody does not switch over to mobiles.
I really don’t have anything against mobiles.infact I use it like anything,but what really gets me is :-
The unsolicited messages which are so damn irksome
The lousy ringtones which one has to put up with whether you are at the calling or receiving end
The eardrum shattering ones are the polyphonic ringtones, the headache inducing ones are the terrible nasal offkey voice of mr.himesh reshamiya….believe you me, there is absolute no resham in his voice.
But the ones that really fox me is I never know whether it’s a birdcall or a ringtone in someonelses house.
And ofcourse we have the mr Bluetooth,who invariably has everyone listening to his conversation even though hes bluetoothed !
So give a thought to all the birds….we have cut down the trees,we have antiseptic pruned gardens…and now we are about to take away the telephone lines….probably,the birds are asking each other where do we go from here?

indian summers

Summers and an Indian summer at that…its energy sapping,its nerve wrecking and the sunshine is blinding. The whole country turns into one big soup cauldron …hot and moist! People are mopping their brows, there is road rage and the only drawing room discussions are power cuts and how long will this heat last. Hordes descend and take over the hill stations shattering the peace and quiet with loud music on their car stereos and even larger wallets in their back pockets ..the well heeled take their high heels to London, wimbeldon and the alps and the medium heeled make a dash for Singapore and Malaysia shopping sprees…..while the no heeled sit back in the heat and……
Enjoy the juicy musk melons and red watermelons
Mangoes of all shapes and sizes and taste…from the tangy to the oh so sweet
Sleeping in the open with a crisp white sheet under you and a starlit sky above
And the smell of raat ki rani and bela and jasmine just there but youcant pinpoint where
Strains of some old forgotten hindi song wafting in the air from some far away neighbours transistor
Crisp white starched kurta pajamas
Cool foods like pana and jawar and lauki and torai and cucumber
And long white stalks of rajnigandha stolen from someones backyard and hurriedly put in a stainless steel glass
Many a summer romance has blossomed inspite of the heat….there is madness in the mind and soul and to add to it all the intoxicating scents of summer flowers…..a heady combination indeed !
Getting up before the sun comes up to the sounds of birds waking up
And feeling fresh as a daisy
Long lazy afternoons in a room darkened and the fan whirring along with giggles and stories being exchanged
Drinking glasses of home made bel ka sherbet ot faalsey ka sharbat
Trying to steal a piece of the delicious pickled mango curing in the sun
And finally the evening comes and with it a cool summer breeze and its back to watering the courtyard or terrace
Laying out the cots and sheets
And waiting for the stars to come
Ah!the romance of summer……now why do people want to sleep in closed rooms with the aircon on ? what a waste of summer. We as a nation have forgotten to enjoy the good things of the hot season….give me summer in the open anyday !