Simply Me

I didn't want to go to Bangalore in October... and I don't want to go tomorrow... I guess it just makes me HAVE to believe they are both gone...

I can't call them to tell them about my office... my ajju won't ask me my salary and say, isn't that less? Bapama won't say, don't worry, don't feel bad about ajju... Bapama won't say, don't worry, you'll get married when its right; when you find the right guy...

I can't call them every weekend... I can't call ajju just to ask him which is correct: 'I am as good as he' or 'I am as good as him.' I won't be able to show ajju any of my poems if I ever get around to writing one again...

I surely can't tell either of them how much I love them... I could never really say goodbye to either of them... I can't listen to ajju tell another story or sing another song which hasn't been recorded... I can't hear bapama ask how some relative or family friend is whom she hadn't seen for years together...

Amma won't be able to tell bapama about a neighbour from Ashwamedh society where we lived until '99 whose son is getting married and be surprised when she asks about not just them but also about half the other people in that building WE hadn't thought about in years...

I can't say anymore that my ajju is going to complete his 102ND year or bapama reach her 90Th year or them celebrating their 75Th anniversary...

I won't be able to take their blessings when I get married... When I do find that guy I'll marry, he'll never be fortunate enough to have met them...

Never again will I see them smile... Never again will I see him look at her with love or with that possessive look... never again will I hear her say in a choked voice how happy he would have been to hear me sing one of his favorite songs... Never will I be able to hear her reminisce something funny from the past... or hear her tell a story...

There are so many things I never thought to ask and they never thought to tell...

I have to keep telling myself this is for the best, but still my eyes well up.. still my throat chokes... still I try not to let the tears fall down... still I try to think of all this without getting depressed... still I try telling myself that losing 3 of the 4 people I have loved the most in my life isn't the end of the world... still I tell myself life should go on... still I tell myself that neither of them would be OK seeing me feeling low... still I hope to see them again as someone else... still I hope I have already learnt enough from them... still I say shubha ratri, good night and oya sumi nasai to the three of them...

Labels: If only I could turn back time, Yaadein reh jaati hain...

Lost...

We were in Mangalore and had gone to a festival and dinner to the temple. All of us on my mom's side... When the ladies and children were ready to leave, no sign of Vijendra... The men were busy serving... An extensive search revealed no signs of Vijendra... Asking both maamus to keep an eye out for him, we decided to go home to see if he was there... And halfway there, was Vijendra, his fair face and eyes red with tears... He thought we had forgotten him... Walking all the way home and a lock... the distressed child lost his way and thats how we found him where he was... he couldn't find anyone he said...


Forgotten...

Before I was born and Sohan anna was a child, mhanthu and his family had come to Pune. Asking Soniakka to sit with ajju and bapama in the car, mhanthu and annu went to the doctors' Sohan anna with them... They asked him to sit outside and sit on the compounder's stool... After a while, the boy got worried... he came out of the dispensary thinking both his Pappa and Bappa had forgotten about him... He was quite good with cars and asked someone on the road to take him across the road... Crying out for Papa and Bappa, he reached the car... At the dispensary, the two men, busy talking came out totally forgetting that his son/his nephew had come with them... At the car, everyone asked... Where's Sohan? Then they remembered... Thankfully Sohan anna was with the people in the car and they were pulling the men's leg...


House Arrest...

Three year old Ashwini and her parents were leaving for Dombivili early in the evening... About a couple of hours to leave, Ashwini goes to ajju and bapama's room and turns the key to lock herself in... Cajoling and confusing by the grandparents and her mother didn't help and Ganesh mamu's anger didn't simplify matters either... Ashwini was close to tears... All the shouting of breaking down the door woke up amma... First things first... she asked everyone to calm down... she'd see what to do... Everyone had already taken the handle apart... No way to try anything from this side of the door.. All upto Ashwini... Ashwini do you see the key? Put it in the lock... Now... Do you know left? yes... Turn the key left... Ok now turn the key right... Left again and real hard... The door comes open with a push...

The human doll...

At Chavathi (Ganesh festival), our entire family came together... Sohan anna, Ashwini and I were partners in crime... Sohan anna and Ashwini an year apart in age... Me the youngest 2 years younger than Ashwini... Finding that we were very silent, our families came searching for us... The older two had put on make-up on te youngest and a beautiful doll... a make-up of kajal made for the vaina pooja... the doll went into the dustbin... and half the day went to make me look presentable enough... Don't forget mhanthu's cream on the walls either...

A hard day's work...

Shifting to a new house is always a pain, especially when you are unwell and there's furniture being made and you have a 4 year old daughter to take care of... The carpenters had asked amma to take all the clothes left for drying into the room so that none of them got wood dust on them... Amma put them in ajju's room... that was the only room with no furnishing to be done... the bed had a pile of matresses on them since we always had guests coming to our place... Ajju and bapama at mhanthu's, tired amma went to sleep as soon as the carpenters left... Left to my own devices, little Tejaswini picked up a litre bottle of oil and decided to pour it on the freshly dried clothes... At the 'Devva kooda' water went into the bowl containing kumkum... An angry, exhausted amma sees this and goes to the bathroom to get everything cleaned and her feet can't stay on the ground... she is slipping... a litre bottle of shampoo is poured in the bathroom...

Labels: Hum bhi agar bacche hote..., If only I could turn back time

A few years ago, most of my family had come to Pune. Ajju, Bapama, Mhantu, mhava, Sohan Anna, Vatsalakka, Soniakka, Shivram Bhavaji, Meghana and Mehul, and Ganesh maamu, Nalini akka and Ashwini from my Dad's side and Narsimha maamu, Shreelakshmi maayi and Krishna from my mom's side. The occasion? Nothing really. Maamu and mayi were thinking of visiting us and so were everyone from mhanthus' so thought if everyone came together it would be all the more fun. And what's more my grandparents were in their 70th year of marriage, so we thought we could have a small Satyanarayan Puja at that time.

Maamu, mayi and Krishna came first. Now lets introduce our neighbour's grand daughter... The little princess who lives in the flat above us.. Ishika... Ishika and Krishna were born on the very same day a few hours apart... When she was a baby it was just amazing to listen to her... She would start crying, so her dad or grandad would start to sing... aisa waisa nahi... a proper aalap... And this little kid would wail exactly like that!!! That babe had a gifted voice... Sooo coming back to our little hero Krishna... Now the first day he came here, we were standing in the balcony. Ishika comes to the window... (Their living room window overlooks our balcony) Her mom says to her... 'To bagh dada' (Dada=Older brother)... Now from then on, she used to keep calling out to him off and on 'Dada.. Dada...' and our little Gopal would come running out when he heard little Radha call out to him... and he would stand there looking up at her and calling out to her 'Didi.'

The next day, in the morning, my grandparents arrived by flight and were followed the next day by the rest of the family... Now lets just point out that Krishna was 2 years old then... When he met Meghana and Mehul, 4 years old, he was absolutely delighted... and so were they to see the little one. Now the little brat is soooooo haughty I tell you, whenever poor little Ishika would call out, our little high-and-mighty definitely was NOT ready to go out. He would pretend not to hear.. neither her calls nor our, 'Paley.. appaitaasa paley tukka' (Look, she's calling out to you...) No siree he definitely gave our damsel a cold shoulder.

Somehow these kids developed such a good bond... They say twins don't allow a third kid to come between them. But with Krishna they were absolutely generous and sweet. They would play with him and hug him and kiss him and pamper him... One of the cutest things they would do is Krishna would sit on Mehul's back and Meghana would pretend to sit on Krishna's back.. We were worried the first time they did this but we immediately realised that she was just pretending to sit on his back.

Laying down the matresses at night though was a huuuuuge headache... The moment the matresses were laid out, these kids would come running out of nowhere rolling on them and making the beds was a terrible task for all of us. Of course once they had their fun, Meghana and Mehul would actually help us lay out the beds.

It was an absolute joy having those kids around... Three years since then and I can still recollect the naughtiness and cute little pranks they played.

Labels: Hum bhi agar bacche hote..., If only I could turn back time

Ye weekend friends ke naam and revisiting an old time zone and memories and well... Just getting back in touch with old friends... Yesterday met friends during our alumni function, today met up with friends from my old building.

Tina had sent a mail around to us long ago to ask if we could meet... unfortunately, that meet didn't materialise. So this time when Shradha asked if we could meet up, all four of us said YES!!! So when... Definitely a weekend... OK no probs... I'm staying at my friend's this weekend... I have to go for a reception next week... I have my alumni next sat... I'm going to Bangalore for Ganapati Festival... So Sunday the 9th it is... Cutting a loooooooooooooong story (and a long chain of reply to all mails) short, we decided to meet up at Chinese Room, East Street, Camp for lunch... The four of us... Mansi, Shradha, Tina and I... Last I had met Mansi was like for 5 minutes during a Verve competition during engineering... Shradha a few months ago during a KIP meet and Tina? Well loooooooong ago when she was going somewhere on her bike and amma and I were going for a walk... And again this was for just a few minutes. So we all had a lot of catching up to do. One thing as Tina observed was we all still look the same but as Shradha said just older and as Mansi said prettier (sure I'll accept that complment for myself too...)

To be honest what we ate doesn't make a difference... what we are doing, well everyone has pretty much started to get settled with their lives... everyone knows what direction they want to go in in life. But what we enjoyed most was talking about all the fun things we did together... How every year during Ganapati festival, we would dance at the four building common Ganesh Festival competitions... The huge hits like Morani Bagama or Humma and the big time flop Gori nal ishq mita (ok my knowledge of Punjabi sucks so... hope u can jhepofy which song that was...) or we had acted during a Ganapati festival play... the naughty kids who had grown up to become geniuses... the silly games we used to play like Bhoot or Dabda-is-spice (OK thats a version of hide and seek where someone who throw a dabda that is an empty can or an old coconut shell from the first floor, the denner would go fetch it... the rest would hide and then to spy anyone, you had to keep a foot on the dabda and shout XYZ out or the ones who had hidden had to kick off the dabda and then re-den :D) or Red Letter or Mother-May-I or.... OK that would be a long list in itself...

Maybe since it was just us girls then, we missed out on all those games we would have played if there were guys around like Cricket but there are really no regrets.. We had a really fun childhood... We thought of some of the other kids who were our neighbours... I was a brat... Being the youngest, the others quite spoiled me... I would quarrel each day and come home in a huff... Of course, I knew that the others would come to pamper me... Finally one day amma said to the others... don't bother... she'll come out... if you keep pampering her she'll just take advantage of it... 'course needless to say, I was back out playing with them after a while.

We have played, we have fought, but either ways, we have made some really cool memories that I'll cherish for a lifetime...

P.S. Can't believe I just got back half an hour ago and I wanted to put all this down on my blog... Just the adrenaline I guess :D

Labels: If only I could turn back time, Yaaron Dosti badi hi haseen hai...

We had our alumni function today. Second alumni function of SKNCOE.. in fact the second this year. The first was in January... no one wanted to wait till September for the very first Alumni function... Of course we had a pre-alumni function too...

Our first alumni function was held in college... Theme... Hawaii... It was pretty cool.. Everyone.. well 'most everyone in skirts and wearing jerberras in their hair... No other class can ever beat the girls in my class when it comes to dressing up for themes... especially Sravya or Priyanka Batra... Sravya had dressed up like Anarkali during our send-off for the Bollywood theme... Priyanka had worn a nice paper tassel skirt over her own skirt for the Hawaiian theme with flowers in her hair and around her head and around her wrist... Needless to say I have always been rather hopeless when it comes to dressing up for a theme... Well anyway, our college and our juniors had arranged it really well... It was arranged in the college lawns (Normally we weren't even allowed to step into the well manicured lawns.. that day we actually had a party there... how cool is that... OK fine... when we got home mosquito bites on our legs and our arms we didn't think THAT was all that great.. but we were blissfully ignorant rite? Annnnnyway....) We were welcomed with those plastic flower garlands and tender coconuts... there were Beach background cutouts for snapping photos... They had thought of everything... We danced... ate.. had fun... Of course when t comes to dancing definitely have to mention Priyanka, Anagha and Sujata... They don't like to dance.. they don't dance unless we drag them to the dance floor and make them dance and even then they find the smallest window of opportunity to slip away and just clap... So we were trying to teach them how to dance... OK I said... Lift right foot and place it about a foot away... Lift left foot and let it join the right foot.. OK now the other way... OK now move your hands a little... OK that's good... Now the waist and finally the shoulders .. There you go easy as pie... And just when they have learnt that one step.. gaana change.. next is RDB... Ab Bhangda... And again next song... They were switching songs so fast, were we to be playing musical chairs we would have got dizzy... Anyway had fun... And most because all 6 of us were together.. Anagha, Priyanka, Sujata, Supriya, Varsha and I....

And that's what we kept thinking of today... We missed Anagha and Sujata and trying to get them to dance... Missed Varsha... Missed Priyanka Batra who has returned to Delhi... Missed so many of our classmates who had come last time but still had lots of fun with some classmates we hadn't seen since the last alumni function or since after our finals last year... This time the party was at Abhiruchi Farms.. The theme.. Village... Dear Lord!!! Fine... I'm gonna dress up as a visitor from the city... How in the world would I find anything appropriate? God!!! You can't imagine how nice it feels to meet all your old classmates... More wonderful than the invitation to the function is actually being there... Can't believe so many of my classmates are either getting engaged soon or are already engaged or even married!!! One had brought her fiance along and he played the keyboards amazingly well and sang 2 songs... The juniors had arranged it really well again... As usual, most of the alumni from our batch... Felt nostalgic meeting old friends and old teachers...

Alumni functions... a way to look back into the past... In this busy... Bhaagambhaag life, one of those rare times we meet our old classmates... Thanks a lot to SKNCOE, all our teachers, the Principal and our HODs and most importantly our juniors for giving us such a beautiful gift...

Labels: If only I could turn back time, Yaaron Dosti badi hi haseen hai...

At sudden unpredictable times you relive your childhood... just something you see, some kids playing, some songs, whatever... just trigger off certain memories.

Well today that happened when amma and I had gone out... We had gone to Bhandarkar road and then were coming back walking via Deccan. While walking we came outside a furniture shop. Now there I see a bunk bed... Well instead of two beds one atop other, this one had a bed on the top and a writing table, a chest of drawers and a chair below (don't know if this is called something else btw...) Anyway, what this reminded me of was of the time when we used to live in Ashwamedh society. Mansi and Kruti, sisters had a bunk bed and all of us (Don't know how this came about but all the kids in the building were girls... each and every one…Shradha, Deepa, Mansi, Kruti, Tina (well she lived in the next building) of course later there were Neha, Mugdha, Charusheela, Neha(another Neha that is) and of course how could I forget me?) would play in their house some evenings... Where does the bunk bed come in picture? Well, what we used to do is, one person, the 'denner' (What does that mean anyway? How did the word come into existence? No idea... But that’s the person who is supposed to catch the rest) would stay on the top bunk and the rest of us would be on the lower bunk. The person above couldn't look down... She would just put out a hand from any side of the bed and try to catch the rest of us and we would just play on the lower bunk screaming away to glory...

OK stupid memory I know but just something I remembered today. Sometime maybe I’ll share a childhood memory pertaining to my best friend and cousin, Ashwini:)

Labels: If only I could turn back time, Yaaron Dosti badi hi haseen hai...

In college we were an inseparable group... Anagha, Priyanka, Sujata, Supriya, Varsha and I.. always together in college... watching movies together.. going to college together.. calling up each other when we got back from college and then talking for hours on end.. conference chatting late into the night on weekends... An year after engineering has ended, I find that we are slowly drifting apart. When we do meet, we just keep on talking, like we did back then.. all at the same time.. But the times when we actually meet are few and far between.. Studies, work, marriage and life in general seem to have torn us apart... We call each other up once in a few weeks or meet up once in a few months and though there is that link, it just seems strained.. last time we met my friends kept on saying how quiet I had become... I guess it was just enough to see them again after so long and listening to them that I couldn't get out the words to actually say something..

Last time we met, we met at my home as we had many times before... For almost an hour, we just sat and talked about what was new in our lives... We didn't even want to decide where we would go out to eat... Just sitting in the hall and talking was enough.. When, at last, we decided we would go to Marzorin, I don't think any of us was too hungry, talking together had filled up our appetites... We missed one of our really good friends, though, who is now married and has left Pune..

As soon as we finished engineering, Anagha and Supriya started on their jobs, Priyanka joined MBA, Varsha started preparing for MBA, Sujata started with a course which pretty much kept her longer at the institute than I was awake during the day(OK thats a hyperbole, but come on.. her classes went on from about 9 in the morning to 10-11 in the night.. and add to that 30-45 minutes travel time each way... and that on all 7 days of the week), who soon got engaged and is now married.. and I started with a course myself(and no.. I wasn't that busy). So now with just 5 of us still in Pune, Anagha leaves for the US tomorrow, for doing her Masters..

Will this mean that we will be further apart from now on or does this mean that we will grow closer? What will prove to be truer... Out of sight, Out of mind or Absence makes the heart grow fonder????

In the final year of graduation, I had written a poem for the college magazine.. Priyanka had thought, she told me later, that this would never actually happen with us... but even though in my heart I had never wanted to believe this to be the truth, the future, I find myself thinking that when you are apart, that when you don't meet each day, you DO sort of grow apart...

Well here's the poem, the reality of life... life after college.. Starting off with a new chapter of life..

Ringing in the New Year

As an old year ends,
In comes the new,
Old fancies, old mistakes,
All this we are through.

We step into the new year,
Resolution in our heart,
Of a new beginning,
To become a part.

New places, new faces,
Everything brand new,
A whole new world,
Of which nothing we knew.

Soon we settle in the new life,
The new us, that we are,
But we can’t shake off the past,
Which suddenly seems so far.

Gone are the times,
When carefree were the days,
When we still hated the present,
But still had fun in many ways.

The SMSes, the phone calls,
Chatting late at night,
Journals, submissions, VIVAs,
Now seem alright.

‘What about a movie?’
And we’d suddenly decide,
‘Why not go eat bhel’,
Or ‘Together go for a ride.’

Did really we think then,
Nothing would keep us apart,
Every month we will meet,
We’ll be together in our heart.

We start off well,
Phone calls every week,
‘Sure, why not?
At Vaishali we will meet.’

Slowly the meetings trickle off,
The calls, they do too,
We become caught in our lives,
In various things to do.

‘I have an exam next week,’
‘My PM is breathing down my back,’
‘My project is due soon,
God! I’m becoming a nervous wreck.’

Then, ‘I’m being transferred,’
‘I’ll be married soon,’
‘I’m going abroad to study,’
For each other we have no room.

It was not like this before,
We never thought it would be,
It just happened a day at a time,
What was WE turned into ME.

Then one day it arrives,
A window into the past,
A moment of joy,
A Reunion Invitation at last.

Some have come, some have not,
We laugh and dance and sing,
‘Of course now that we have met,
Next week I’ll give you a ring.’

Labels: If only I could turn back time, Yaaron Dosti badi hi haseen hai...