Random Musings

Memories are funny, they sneak up on you when you least expect them. When i opened my Instagram the other day, it was an almost mindless force of habit and routine. As i scrolled through my feed, I came across a video shared by Ratan Tata about a young boy who talks about his father who is a sanitation worker. The video soon went viral and it was shared by many people across WhatsApp groups, chats, Facebook posts... The video personally meant a lot more to me as it brought back a flood of memories. Some memories unwittingly get etched very strongly in our minds and hearts and get triggered when we least expect them to surface. My earliest interaction, if i can call it that, with a sanitation worker was way back when i was a child. I remember being in the car with my father and we were driving out somewhere. Suddenly, he stopped the car to the side when he saw a few people working near a manhole. As a child i had no idea what those gaping holes were or what those men were doin...

"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...

I hadn't heard this word "Adulting" till very recently. Considering it's a term mostly used by the millennials, it comes as no surprise that I had not known of it earlier. It's a term that my daughter has embraced in letter and spirit and I am extremely proud of her. I remember being her age, all married and in fact gearing up to be a mother, while most of my friends were still exploring their options career wise, studies wise and in general taking things quite easy or so it seemed to me. While, there I was already "Adulting", and trying to cope with the responsibilities of a newly married and a mother to be. As a new mother when all I could think of and be was a mom, I remember my father getting me a stack of new books of my favourite authors and asking me to get back to enjoying an old hobby, while he and my mother took turns with me to look after my infant daughter. And every time I went back home to my parents, I would be pampered and treated as...

Today I made a tentative appointment with an old friend...seems strange to me, considering that we once shared such an easy camaraderie. Things change, times change and sometimes life is not as easy and as casual as it once used to be. I knew the fault was mine...the issues were mine, so I had to make the first move and see if we could rekindle the old friendship. It had been playing on my mind for a long time now and it already seemed a bit too late. After all 4 years was a long time and I was running out of excuses. So, it is with some trepidation that I select a comfortable corner, sit down and open my blog. "New post"(?!) stares back at me from the screen like a hesitant hello and I know I have to take this leap of faith...I click on it and there we are...trying to reconnect, my Writing and I...! The keypad appears on the iPad and i know there can be no second thoughts now. The first contact in many years has been made. A bit unsure, a bit awkward...but strangely...