A Tale of Two Cities

“7.30am – No time to put back the clock.

The day is dressed to devouring readiness.

…….And I feel the crunch of my bones,

The mad rush of blood and people,”

muses Dr. Shyamala Nair, a city poetess and now Principal of LAD College, in her collection of poems, ‘A Side of the Sun’.

It is true that life has become so full of activities that we really have no time ‘to stand and stare’ the beauty and happiness that are spread all around us in small bits and pieces. Moreover we have become so self-centred that we can not see things beyond us as we have to prove ourselves on so many fronts of life, whether it is Mumbai or Nagpur ( Oh! my city, a unique example of missed Capital status as promised by erstwhile mergers of C.P& Berar)

Long back when I was in school I read a novel by Khwaja Ahmed Abbas in which he had painted a grim picture of the fast life of Bombay in sixties and seventies. Life began at four in the morning and ends well after twelve and the space between the two points of time was filled with an extremely hectic schedule that could easily transform a person into a heartless machine. The soft feelings of life were evaporated in the complexities of struggle for survival.

Recently I met my old classmate who lives in Mumbai, and through her experience I conjectured how this new nomenclature, Mumbai is truly suited to the Cosmo-life of people there rather than its old name, Bombay. According to her, the life in Nagpur is so relaxed and complacent that she wishes to enjoy life here rather than going back to the mechanized life there. The roads are always full of people, traffic jams have become a part of their life, locals are flooded with commuters day in and day out, nothing is easily available from getting milk and newspaper in the morning to going to offices and schools, and wasting a large portion of life in travelling (or should I say shuttling) from one place to another.

Today, when the life in general has become so fast to keep pace in this break-neck competitive world, I can well imagine the life of this big Metro. It must have got faster, harder and tougher or perhaps to the extreme limit of human capacity to cope up with the ‘fever and fret’ of life. But it is not the only case, the life in general whether it’s a big city or a small town we find the same hurry, the same rush, and the same packed schedules.

Even in Nagpur life is not as easy as thought by some of us. Of course we need not run after city buses as is happened in Mumbai (thanks to our poor bus services!) or for local trains (locals! A distant dream for Nagpurians!), most of us including school children have to go for two wheelers, of course a costly option which has given our orange city (without oranges!) a unique distinction of being recognized as the number one (Numero Uno) city in India for maximum number of two wheelers running on roads.

Moreover our RTO feels proud in registering cases against school children for driving vehicles under the name of some XYZ drive, with warning to their parents for not letting them drive until they are adult (perhaps18 or 21 years of age when they look fools to learn driving a two wheeler). Practically it is really impossible today to depend on public transport system for doing so many things at one go, as going to school or office, attending coaching classes, hobby classes, training classes, sports activities, meeting people, getting some official or household work done as electric bills, cell bills, etc.

We don’t have time whether it’s Mumbai or Nagpur, for small social courtesies which cement one to one relations to an intimate bond and feel like becoming a kind of aching-heart (not heartless)machines as Longfellow has rightly sung “Not enjoyment and not sorrow; Is our destined end or way;

But to act, that each tomorrow; Brings us farther than today.”

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mother is god's angel

Mother is God’s Angel

(Published on 2^nd Jan 2010 in The Hitavada Middle Space)

By Jyoti Patil

When in one of the conferences I happened to invite Prantik Banerjee as resource person, he came up with this new genre in fiction, Chick -lit, as he is always known as a person of futuristic ideas who has left Shakespeare and his old tribe far behind and has recently pondered on IITIANS and IIMS who are giving a new dimension to Indian English writings. I think he is the person who is seriously thinking to liberate literature from the clutches of traditional fanatics. Chick Lit is a term used to designate genre fiction within women’s fiction written mostly by women writers for young women especially single, working women in their twenties and thirties.

Having been so amused with this new nomenclature ‘Chick- Lit’, I started hunting for something more amusing and enchanting terms. I happened to visit a book shop one day; there I found a series of Chicken Soup books. My first impression was that it must be something about cooking some delectable dishes. But after browsing some pages I found them very interesting with real life stories elaborating the points mentioned in those books. The book I chose was ‘Chicken Soup for the Mother’s Soul’.

The tender deep attunement between mother and child is so intimately and finely painted through the pages with passionate stories of real life that one can only see the pure and serene love of mother for her children without any selfish motives but quite often that love is misunderstood by the children and they distant themselves away from such affection and fall into trap of superficial attractions. Later they realize their fault but some times it is too late to repent. It is replete with such heartwarming stories which move and charge you to ponder deep over such cozy relationships that occur day in and day out around us but we don’t have time to feel and enjoy such intimacy.

It reminded me of a story narrated to me when I was a kid. That story has rooted deep down in my heart that I still remember it with wet eyes. There was a young boy who was deeply in love with a beautiful. The girl made him to dance to her tunes. One day it was raining very heavily but he had promised the girl to come. His mother tried to stop him fearing the bad weather. The boy was adamant. He kicked his dinner plate and went to meet his lady love. The girl that day wanted to test his love for her. She asked him to bring his mother’s heart if he loved her so deep. The boy agreed and went back to bring his mother’s heart. The hungry mother was still waiting for her son for dinner. The son didn’t pay any heed to her repeated requests to eat and murdered her to remove her heart. When he was going back to his lady love he stumbled on the way and the mother’s heart dropped off. There came a voice from the heart ‘my dear son, are you hurt? Be careful.’ He still didn’t pay any attention to her pleadings and reached to the girl who was aghast to see him holding his mother’s heart. She immediately turned down his pleadings for love and only said the person who can murder his mother for an unknown girl can easily murder her for someone else. Of course I don’t know how far the story is true but it gives us a point to ponder that we always try to catch ‘nine in the bushes’ by ignoring ‘one in hand’. It is rightly said that God can be with every good person to wipe his tears so He created the mother as his angel on earth. But it is not only the mother who gives a chance to smile but quite often it is the small cherubs (little Children) who give heart’s contentment and a moment to smile.

One of the fun rolled stories runs like this, One day a daughter got late from school and the mother got annoyed. The daughter gave an explanation that her friend’s doll was broken on the way. The mother asked if she helped her friend picking up the broken pieces. She innocently answered that she didn’t do any of the sort but stayed to give her company in crying. What a nice excuse the little daughter gave which only made the mother to embrace her with love. Another special moment was in poetic lines –

‘My child took a crayon, in her little hand, and started to draw, as if by command.

I looked on with pleasure, but couldn’t foresee, what the few simple lines, were going to be.

What are you drawing? I asked, by and by. I’m making a picture, of God in the sky.

But nobody knows, what God looks like, I sighed. They will when I’m finished she calmly replied.’

You can only see with amused eyes and think of the purity of idea.

The mother is the first to hold her children, and then holds them accountable for their actions. She teaches her children to walk, then watches them walk down the aisle. She shields her children from nightmares, and then encourages them to chase their dreams. It is really heavenly.

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Truth about Beauty

(Published on 12^th June 08 in The Hitavada, Middle Space)

“Beauty lies in the eyes of beholder” goes the saying but do you think that there is any truth in it. As reality is always stark and biting so as our attitude towards beauty. John Keats the famous romantic poet has said “Beauty is truth and truth beauty, that is all ye know and all ye need to know.” But perhaps most of us in real life do not see any example which can authenticate this claim that truth is beautiful. Beauty means something which attracts your attention and makes you feel joyful from inside. May it be a beautiful scene, a beautiful atmosphere or a beautiful living thing; we have certain parameters to measure the beauty of such things. These parameters vary from person to person and from situation to situation. Something that is very beautiful for you at some point of time can not be the same at some other point of time.

Keats has also said, “A thing of beauty is a joy for ever.” My objection to this statement is again got supported by real life examples where beauty is never eternal and we have seen many beautiful things changing their status by becoming callous and dull. A man married to a girl after seeing her before marriage but after marriage he left her only on the ground that she is not beautiful. Many beautiful people don’t look so beautiful when you meet them often and see their real personality. Moreover beauty of a person resides more in his quality and less in his physical appearance. If you like some person for some reasons that person becomes beautiful for you. It also leads to the conclusion that beauty can be superficial and artificial on one hand and can be real and lasting on the other. It depends on you what kind of beauty you prefer. Some people are beautiful looking persons and some are not so beautiful (I’ll not say ‘ugly’ as that word has already been used in other reference) but their worth make them beautiful for others.

I also know a couple who was considered odd because the husband was highly qualified and handsome and the wife was twelfth failed and from a rural background, but kudos to the husband who groomed his wife to match his standards. Now the wife is superbly clad beautiful woman who can be a proud of any party with her talent in singing and matching her husband with no less quality. Beauty should not be given preference when it comes to real friendship or human ties. I have the experience of being appreciated as ‘the most charming person’ by a person on one hand and considered to be ugly duckling by some other person. Sometimes it depends on the person’s mood to see things according to his convenience and temperament.

If we see our film industry which is flooded with beautiful and smart people but there are some established actors who perhaps do not qualify our parameters for beauty; take Shahrukh Khan who has pouted nose, dark colour, shaggy look and not so handsome personality. But he is the heartthrob of millions of people just because of his hidden quality to perform excellently and perfectly. That means some additional quality in a person makes him beautiful rather than his real looks. Take another example from television, in ‘Office Office’ Pankaj Kapoor is acting so beautifully that his ugly looks is nowhere felt. There are many such examples like Smita Patil, Shabana Aazmi, Om Puri, Ajay Devgan, Nana Patekar, Dada Kondke who do not have beautiful looks but have some tremendous qualities which make them beautiful for thousands of people. Here beauty is skin deep and not superficial.

Ugliness is associated with something unlikable. At some point of time we feel somebody unlikable and loathsome which can amount to ugliness but after some twist of events we start changing our opinion about the person and the person starts looking beautiful to us. Koutilya, Socrates, George Bernard Shaw are well-known for their ugliness of appearance but on the other hand they are still remembered for their excellent qualities as economist, philosopher and novelist par excellence. Keeping a feeling of positive thinking we can see so many things around us beautiful and charming. When you start looking for beauty around you, you become beautiful for others. This is the secret of a beautiful life where ugliness does not interfere with you. Try to see beauty in nature, in people around you and in inanimate things as well. Then you need not say what T. S. Eliot has sung in ‘Four Quartets’, “Time and the bell have buried the day, The black cloud carries the beauty away.”

Friendship Indeed…

(Published on 5^th Aug ’08 in The Hitavada, Middle Space))

‘A friend in need is a friend indeed’ goes the commonly accepted saying about friendship which implies that a true friend is he who comes to your rescue when you are in some dire need. Friendship, in true sense of the term, is a relation without any expectation from either side and purely a bond of two hearts in which loss and profit are never calculated. It is also not gender or age based. An old man may have a child as his true friend and a rich man may have a poor friend. Friendship is never made on any precondition. It is spontaneous and involuntary. Somebody becomes your friend because your tuning with that person matches without any additional efforts. If any additional effort is made to establish any friendship it will never last and it will be artificial.

Now a days we can see friends of various kinds like ‘bosom’ friend, ‘fast’ friend, ‘just’ friend, ’girl’ friend, ‘boy’ friend ‘business’ friend etc. But in today’s time when all blood relations and human ties are fading and warmth and intimacy are being evaporated, it is difficult to maintain a true friendship. Moreover we are becoming extra practical in our approach to life by calculating whether the relationship is beneficial for us or not. If we go on calculating things like this it is possible that in near future true friendship will be an extinct entity. Those who enjoy such friendship only know the immense emotional satisfaction and support they get from it.

Friendship with some selfish desire may end up with a bitter note and haunt both friends with nightmarish anguish. A true friend is he who maintains to enjoy your love and confidence without expecting anything in return. A true friend is he with whom you want to share all your emotions and feelings without any inhibitions or artificiality. You behave with your friend the way what you really are. You share with your friend any thing what comes into your mind. You call him at any odd time for help or for any venture and he comes without asking the reason.

Friendship gives a real meaning to your life as it is also said ‘a man is known by the company he keeps’. A friendship can not be compared with love-affairs as it is always done, for in the latter case an emotional attachment goes too far and sometimes when the expectations are high from both sides it turns out to be bitter. There are plenty of chances for such contractual friendship to fall apart but true friendship is not a contract on terms and conditions but it is purely accidental and involuntary.

There are many advantages of true friendship. A person can open out his heart to his friend, and in this way get emotional relief and comfort by sharing his worries and troubles, his joys and sorrows. It lightens his heart and relieves him from the burden of stress and strain. A person who is not blessed with such friendship suffers from innumerable diseases and mental disorders. History is full of such examples of kings who went mad because they had no friends to share their joys and sorrows. Another fruit of friendship is that a true friend illuminates the mind and removes confusion and obscurity of thought through discussion.

A true friend is a great blessing not only for the intellect but also for the emotions. Sometimes he criticises you bitterly for your wrong doing or wrong decisions. But that bitterness is like a bitter pill to correct you and save you from greater danger. Only a true friend can give sincere advice as your own judgment may be prejudiced. The advice of a friend is impersonal and unprejudiced for the improvement of your manners and morals. He helps you to be conscious of your own short-comings and makes it possible for you to improve yourself.

Getting true friend in life is also very difficult. If you have any such friend, preserve your friendship at any cost because if you lose him it will be difficult to get such friendship and your next search may end up in futility. You should keep in mind that one who has no true friend is as lonely in a crowded city as one is in a desert.

Tryst with Maidservants

( Published on 24^th June ’08 in The Hitavada, Middle Space)

It all began with the idea of keeping a maidservant. It is quite natural in Indian context to keep a housemaid for domestic help. In America things are quite different and you have to do all such things with your own hands. The concept of domestic help is not known to them. They envy Indian people for this comfort. But to get a good maidservant is not so easy and you should be lucky enough to have one.

I can at least boast that once I had a wonderful maidservant who worked so diligently and punctually that I hardly had anything to do at home. She took care of every thing at home which was possible for her. But there is a saying that happy days are not for ever and I had to shift to a new apartment.

From here my tryst with maidservants began. I kept a maidservant from day one but I was not aware of the conditions she had to put before me. She informed me that Friday is her puja day and she will come a little late. She said that she does not like dirty and unkempt rooms and she will only sweep the rooms when foot wears and other things are kept in their proper places. She will not touch the inner garments for washing and crockery should not be given to her for cleaning. She worked for few days with these uncomfortable conditions and then there was another experience. This time the conditions were less and bearable and I felt relieved for quite some time. But after a few days I realized that some of my clothes and utensils were missing. One day she was caught red-handed while she was throwing my foot wears from balcony to collect later on from the ground floor.

Then there was a lady with her daughter and some times with her two little sons. She worked honestly and I thought my search for an IDEAL BAI is over. She got more work in the same vicinity. Gradually her daughter took over her work, at least at my place. The daughter was studying in 8^th standard and had a high standard of working. She started demanding better facilities viz. a supermarket mop, vacuum cleaner for dusting, washing machine for washing clothes, special kind of broom, particular brand of detergent and washing powder etc. Her demands and control over things went on increasing. Gradually she started commenting on our family matters and my little son always got involved in fighting with her. He did not allow her to enter his room whenever he was at home. She used to narrate all sorts of stories of the neighbouring families where she was working with her mother. It occurred to me that when she is narrating the stories of others to me, there is every possibility that she must be narrating my stories to other neighbours. This thought troubled me a lot. But then she got involved with a boy next to her house and eloped. Again I came back to zero from where I began.

My search for a maidservant was on again. This time I got a unique piece and it seemed that she belonged to some royal family of maidservants. She poured on a shower of conditions on me. She will work only for six days a week and like office going people, one day off is her right, she may fall ill at least four days in a month compulsorily, she does not want formal wears, towels, bed sheets, curtains etc. in washing only daily clothes should be given to her. For dirty clothes like my son’s school uniform she needs special powder. All the clothes should be put into Surf Excel at least 3 to 4 hours before her royal arrival. When she comes in the morning she should be welcomed with a special hot milky tea and if possible something to eat. As far as cleaning of utensils are concerned, there should not be breakable items, glasses and big greasy pots. Only dinner plates, curry bowls, spoons and serving pots should be given to her. If I get some guests, extra payment per head should be given to her. The list of demands does not stop here, there is another bonanza. In Diwali, Holi and other festivals special bonus (equal to monthly salary amount) should be given in addition to any good gift plus a new saree which she can show to her other friends later. In such festivals she needs extra payment for any extra work such as washing the floor, cleaning the cupboards and so on and so forth. Any how I started adjusting myself with her. I never had adjusted that way even with my husband.

Helpless you feel and helpless you become. She had a special habit of disappearing from work during wedding season and that too for five to ten days together. I was forced to manage the household affairs without her at least for ten to fifteen days in a month. I got fed up with all such experiences.

But I was not aware of some good things which I learnt from these experiences. I blame my mother-in-law who was so caring and loving that she never allowed me to do such drudgery. The training of household work was given by all my maidservants who gradually but surely trained me to do such work which my mother-in-law could not teach me. Thanks to them that today I am maidservant-free and can manage both the fronts quite efficiently. One more plus point is that even being asthmatic I can maintain a very healthy stress-free routine which is today’s most sought after desire.