Random Musings

"You were destined to travel with me, Madam" says the aged Auto driver with a smile! I smile back a little self-consciously.  After all, I had just brushed him off saying I had booked a cab! After the Uber guy cancelled I had to go back to him a bit sheepishly! "You must owe me money from another lifetime, Madam! No wonder, the Uber guy cancelled" he says, grinning heartily. I'm kept engaged throughout the journey with various anecdotes.  Albeit halfheartedly and with a lot of skepticism at first, I begin to listen halfheartedly. We stop at the traffic signal near a Gurudwara. "Even before I made a boni (first earning of the day) today, I met a family of three...a mother, father and a physically challenged son of about 15-20 years. They wanted me to drop them off at the Hospital and said they would pay 30 Rs. Normally it would take no less than 60 or 70 Rs, Madam", he tells me.  "But I agreed to drop them anyway. I helped them to get the child ...

I remember a time in the years gone by, when as a child, i used to run to the grocery store at the end of the street and fetch provisions for my mother. I would ask for the staple dal of most households, the simple and essential "Arhar dal'. Without so much as a blink of the eye, the shopkeeper would deftly pick up a sheet of newspaper from the bundle lying on the side and would roll it into a cone. With the smooth move of a magician, he would scoop out the 'dal' from a big gunny sack and with a swooshing sound it would be transferred into the cone. He would quickly weigh it and smoothly pull on a jute string which would be hanging from the ceiling on an iron rod. A quick swirl of the hands and the jute string, and lo behold, the dal was secured in the newspaper cone and quickly handed over to my tiny hands. No plastic packets...no plastic bags..no foot-long bill, just a number scribbled on a small chit, the size of a token. Most probably it was an old calendar...

In the beginning was the Word...I was a Literature student so my love for Words is no surprise...I get caught in the warp and weft of words...i am moved to tears...i laugh with joy, i feel the pain and the sorrow...Words, they do have the power to sway us and carry us with them... Especially in today's day and age when we are submerged in social media posts...and there is so much verbosity as has never been seen before in the world. I don't think anybody was this vocal, this loud or this heard before us! Nobody from the earlier generations had as much opportunity to put out their thoughts into words and put it out there for others... Words do have the power to transform lives, to offer solace and support, to inspire or pull down, to start movements, to decry the atrocities, to….I could go on and on…But, suffice it to say, Words do have the power! But when I think again, words are just words, they would mean nothing if they are not backed by actions... Words that don...

+ So, these days, i get a good cup of coffee made by the man of the house! Before i have even taken the first sip, i'm asked enthusiastically, how it is! And i get to eat home cooked meals over the weekend, made by him with all the eagerness of a new husband to please me, his wife of 26/27 years! And frankly, since this is a first in 27 years...i quite like this change! I enjoy it and i can see through it! Come on...don't i know what this is all about! I know. But i play along, taking on the role of a pleasantly surprised and mightily pleased wife to the hilt! My heart whispers, let the good times continue! I saw through it the first weekend, when he offered to make me his 'special' Maggie for dinner... well, i wasn't disappointed, after all, i didn't expect a MasterChef standard gourmet meal! And i'm not complaining! I'm just reminded of the Hindi movie "Pati, Patni aur Woh", starring the legendary Sanjeev Kumar, Parveen Babi, Dipti Nava...