My Train Journey to Kumbh

There was huge apprehension in my family about my Kumbh trip. To make matters worse the railway footboard bridge at Allahabad Railway Station collapsed just 3 days before I was to leave. Now it was like -why do you want to go to a place like this? Thankfully I spoke in time to Vandana, who was there on the day of the tragedy and was reassured. And now I was even more determined.

I was to board from Thane, while two of my friends were to board from Kurla. As luck would have it they were running late and in no way would reach the 12.20pm train. Now I had bigger question-should I travel alone. I am going to Allahabad, Kumbh all alone!!!  I decided to leave it on my Guru. 10 minutes before arrival time, I got a call from my friend that they had managed to board the train as it was delayed by 10 minutes. I breathed a huge sigh of relief. I boarded and hugged my friend as if we had climbed Mount Everest.
We settled in our seats. There were two more passengers on our adjoining seats. A youngish man in his early 30’s, dressed in office formals and a middle aged man in his 40’s who wore slightly greasy clothes. He looked more like any UP, Bihari bhayya’s who work in Mumbai. His name was Sharma. The young man smiled warmly. I returned a half sceptical, half polite smile. They both were going to their home town Allahabad. I ate my food quietly without the courtsey of offering it to them. Furkaan ate some curds and others had their lunch at home early. As time passed the two guysbecame friendly and were very polite. Also took great care of us. At a halt, one got them got down and realised that I was looking out for chaiwala, so ran and fetched tea for me. I still doubted them. My head was full of ‘Is it safe to trust these men? What about all stories that you hear? And we are 3 women travelling all alone? What if we get drugged? So on and so forth’. I offered him money. He declined and said ‘ Arre abhi toh pura safar baki hain. Baad mein aap pila dena’. I thanked him and reasoned in mind that even if the tea was drugged – My others friends are not drinking it. So it would be Okay. As time passed we realised that the two gentlemen were being extremely polite and were taking care of us in every possible way. They got us fruits, Amul Cool bottles, Curd packets. We got them tea and coffee. We in return shared our dinner with them. They offered their lower berths at night to make us comfortable.
Next day we learnt that Sharmaji deals in some machine parts and has a shop in Shewree. The young man was a sales person named S.M. Furkaan, worked for a dealer of Samsung. We chatted about life in Mumbai. In course of discussion I realised that Furkaan was a young man with a modern outlook. He argued about how a housewife needs help to look after kids even if she is at home. He said he had changed because he saw his brother help his wife at home in Muscat. I must say, I was impressed with this mindset and was slowly changing my opinion. The next day when Sharmaji learnt that they we didn’t have a confirmed return ticket, offered his Ticket Agent’s contact and shared his mobile number. He also offered to book it in tatkal and said I could pay him back in Mumbai. I was wondering how he can trust me when I may not meet him ever again. I exchanged my number with a little hesitation. Towards the end of the journey when we thanked him, he said Mumbai has offered him a chance to make living and earn monies for last 15 years. This is his way of paying back in kind to the ‘Mehman’ who are visiting Allahabad. I really was humbled by this person’s approach. He warned us to not trust people blindly, not to eat alone at any place in Allahabad and said there were many crooks who will take us for a ride. He asked us to call him if we needed any help and promised that he can reach in two hours if we were in trouble.

When we alighted at the station, they helped us carry our bags and put safely in the auto that had come to pick us up. Furkaan had already offered his car in case the auto guy didn’t turn up. We said our good-bye’s with a heavy heart. Ashamed at how most of Mumbai ites treat UPites and Bihari’s in general. I also wished that some political parties who beat up North Indians read this and realise that this country belongs to all of us not just to locals of that place. Sharmaji called me to check if I reached the ashram safely and called again on the last day to check if I had managed to get a return train ticket.

In my life, I have never met such kind people who took so much care of me ever across 17 years of work life. I also think that we have stopped trusting each other as humans. Now whenever I hear Allahabad, I will remember these two good souls.

 

 

In the picture on left behind is ever smiling S.M. Furkaan and right side behind the lady in specs is Sharmaji.

 

Aashadi Ekadashi

Vivek, my friend, called and said on 30th June, there is some ocassion due to which there will be a lot of traffic on the road that had Vithal temple and so the Wadala centre will remain closed. I tried to explain with my half-baked knowledge about Aashadhi Ekasdashi and realisedI didn't really know much about it, although as a child I celebrated it every year. The fasting treats were yummy but the 'Dindi' processions disrupted traffic in Pune completely. I have walked, and walked miles to reach home during college days, courtesy Pune traffic Management. That set me thinking as to how can I explain Aashadhi Ekadashi, which has great significance in Maharashtrian household.

So here it is Vivek for you and some other non-aware friends.

Shayani Ekadashi is the eleventh lunar day, Shukla paksha of the Hindu month of Ashadha (June - July), also known as Ashadhi Ekadashi or Ashadhi. This holy day is of special significance to Vaishnavas, followers of Lord Vishnu. On this day images of Vishnu and Lakshmi are worshipped, the entire night is spent singing prayers, and devotees keep fast and take vows (of abstinence from garlic and onions )on this day, to be observed during the entire chaturmas, the holy four month period of rainy season. These may include, giving up a food item or fasting on every Ekadashi day.

It is believed that Vishnu falls asleep in Ksheersagar - cosmic ocean of milk - on Shesha nāga, the cosmic serpent. Thus the day is also called Dev-Shayani Ekadashi (lit. "god-sleeping eleventh") Vishnu finally awakens from his slumber four months later on Prabodhini Ekadashi - eleventh day of bright fortnight in the month  of Kartik (October–November). This period is known as Chaturmas ("four months") and coincides with the rainy season. Thus, Shayani Ekadashi is the beginning of Chaturmas. Devotees start observing the Chaturmas vrata (vow) to please Vishnu on this day.

A fast is observed on Shayani Ekadashi. The fast demands abstinence from all grains, beans, cereals, certain vegetables like onions and certain spices and all kinds of meat and eggs.

Pandharpur

a small town on the banks of river Chandrabhaga or Bhima, is main center of worship of the deity Vithoba, a local form of Vishnu. On Aashadhi Ekadashi, thousands of pilgrims, form of religious procession called as Dindi’s visit Pandharpur. These pilgrims are referred to as Warkaris. They sing Abhangas (chanting hymns) of Saint Tukaram and Saint Dnyaneshwar, dedicated to Vithoba. This customs started far back in year 1810. Tradition has it that two of the greatest devotees of the Lord from the State of Maharashtra, Sant Gyaneshwar and Sant Tukaram had set out on a pilgrimage to the temple of Lord Vittala from their respective places and reached the Divine Abode in fifteen days time on the auspicious day of Ashadi Ekadashi.

Today most of the processions carry Palkhi's (palanquins) with the images of the saints of Maharashtra. Sant Dnyaneshwar's image is carried from Alandi, SantTukaram's from Dehu,  Sant Eknath's from Paithan,  Sant Nivruttinath's from Trimbakeshwar, Sant Muktabai's from Muktainagar, Sant Sopan's from Sasvad and Gajanan Maharaj’s from Shegaon I have been to Pandharpur only once and the darshan of lord was mesmerising. That just explains why millions, every year go there.

As a child, I have been facinated with Dindi's and the Warkari's, with orange flags, forehead smeared with abir-bukka, waking, singing and dancing to the lord. One has to see the 'Ringan' dance performed by Warkari's. I am still hoping that one day I too shall join them singing, dancing to see the Lord.

Note- the images are from Net and I have no rights to them. The warkari image is Manodyna's pictures.

My Village Trip

Recently I attended my cousins wedding in a small town in Maharashtra. I rarely get to meet my cousins as most of them live in remote towns in Maharashtra. My daughter refused to come for the wedding stating a standard teenage syndrome- Boredom!!!.

The wedding was a far cry from the sophisticated planned( almost perfectly choreographed)events that we see in cities. The rituals are more elaborate, chaotic, loud speakers are too loud, food is simple( not fancy), sarees are shockingly bright( bling) and band baaja has local flavour. This one had an ochestra playing with one charlie singing away 70's songs. Yet, I thoroughly enjoyed this wedding because; I got to see a part of my folks who I have never met in last 17 years, there was a lot of warmth extended by village folks. Most people are gracious hosts and will embarass you by their 'adara thithya'( hospitality). I say embarassed, because we( city people) can never match their hospitality, not in warmth and certainly not in the time aspect. The rituals were fun, I got to wear the green bangles, 9 in each hand, applied mehendi to others, did  welcome aarti to the bride, I also helped her dress and apply make-up.

Meeting so many cousins bought in fond memories of my childhood days, when I spent my vacations with these or other cousins.This was the time when middle class wasn’t bitten by tourism bug, at least not to the extent it has infected today.  Today most families are nuclear and whenever they get a long weekend or vacations, they are spent in seeing some part of country or abroad.  During our time,  Summer and Diwali vacations meant dividing them between Nani’s place, Dadi’s place, Weddings in family and the balance breaks were spent at various uncles and aunties houses. We were a nuclear family and lived in Pune for larger part of my childhood and growing up days. I was blessed to have 5 massis’s and 1 mama on my Mom’s side. On my dad’s side there were 4 uncles, so holidays meant  FUN.

My Massi’s (aunts) lived in joint families and between them and their families they had at least 8-10 kids, hence visiting them was one big party time.  Sight-seeing close by places were a part of the holiday program and no we did not crib going to temples, weddings (even of not –so- closely related people). I guess, our parents didn’t give us much choice. The days were spent playing- various games and evenings were spent going to local sight-seeing places. Bhel, Paani-puri and Mewad ice cream was a treat. End of that vacation was also waited upon as the party who hosted us would gift us a dress material or money. This also was eagerly received and those clothes were worn with great pride and love( though on hindsight I feel there was a beauty in being ignorant of dressing sense or fashion sense). 

Looking back I felt, I felt I looked odd one out, distant in my cousins or may be I felt I was. My clothes were way too different and probably made me most under-dressed person there. I remember in my early 20’s I worked away from home, tried hard to stand out, moved away from relatives and yet when I met them after so long, I realised that I was trying to blend in..what was happening to me..why was I trying to belong to something that I was so away or was always trying to be different from. Is this the 40’s syndrome..or is it called Mitti Ki Khushbu( just like NRI’s who suffer from India pangs).. this trip has left me with a very confused state of mind..What was I seeking..does this happen to others? Whatever it was, it left me happy and rejuvenated one level for sure.

Life is beautiful only if you choose to see it so

Some times, some stray incidents happen in our life to create a paradigm shift in our thinking. This incident was about 10 years back. It was blazing warm sunny Saturday. I was working in JWT then. Some unfinished last minute emergency and hence I was travelling by train all the way from Thane to Parel. I managed to get a window seat, now that is a luxury in local trains in Mumbai. I always prefer travelling with train simply because it’s quick and you get a feel of people. Soon I got lost in my thoughts and was brooding over management of some expenses. It was financially a difficult period for me as Rajesh was out of work.
I saw a woman with small children sitting opposite me. I was lost in my home loan, bike loan and aspiring for a car loan calculations. Thoughts fly and so does time and I had to alight at Parel station. As I ran up the flight of stairs, noticed one child who was about 3 years old struggling to climb the stairs and the same lady from my compartment was almost on the top of the stairs holding older child in arms. I was annoyed with the mother for abandoning such a small child, he could have easily fallen through the railings and that too on rail tracks. What kind of careless mother she was? etc etc. I held him up and climbed the stairs and caught up with the mother. I was about to tell her my feelings and also give her a mini lecture in polite words but stopped to catch my breath. It is then that I actually noticed  her, a frail 26 year old housewife, simple saree, sans any fancy mangalsutra. Just a few black beads strung together in a thread. She looked tired and gaunt and was perspiring from all the effort. She put her 6 year old on the landing...the older child had a scarf tied on her head and was bald, pale with eyes protruding and had a surgical mask on the face. She looked at me with gratitude. I was tongue-tied and appalled, felt stupid...of course she had come Parel’s Cancer Hospital and the older child was a cancer patient and hence had to let the younger one climb stairs by herself.
I smiled feebly and deposited the child with her and walked away briskly..And suddenly all my problems seemed much smaller to me. I felt much smaller in front of that woman who was struggling to do everything to save her baby.
I still have tears in my eyes and can never forget the pain in her eyes. I learnt that day, if you feel unhappy about yourself –Just look around and then thank god for all the things that you have!!!

My ex and current Flame

I have been watching the trees in my residential complex, whole 20 days passed and there was still no activity. Then I wasn’t around for a week, so I missed my walk with Teio. Yesterday, suddenly as scanned the trees absent mindedly, I noticed small clusters of orangey red flowers breaking through the green foliage of Gulmohur Trees.  I was so delighted  that I started humming the song “ Gulmohur gaar tumahara naam hota” I have no clue who sang this song but  I think it’s very beautiful  and romantic too...Just doing apt justice to the flowers. The orange canopy makes scorching summer heat tolerable and beautiful, a relief for thirsty soul. So aptly called Flame tree

The older the tree, the more beautiful its foliage. In my childhood, I lived in defence area in Range Hills, in Pune. There were many old cottages/bungalows with huge compound around it and all of them had a Gul mohur tree right at entrance. Each tree, in full bloom was a like painting created by God. No leaves, just enveloped in the orangey red bloom. My hobby was to watch the shapes that each Gulmohur tree created and even today, whenever I pass through that area I can't take my eyes off those trees. As children, we ate a part of the flower too.

My concept of house was to have a Gulmohur tree in the courtyard and I fulfilled it in virtual space. When I played Farmville on Facebook, I had a row of Gulmohur trees lined up in front of my cottageJ)))

My school enemy

My daughter heaved a sigh of relief after her maths paper and I perfectly understood the feeling. The four letter word that terrified and harassed me through school life was MATH.

No matter what I did or how hard I tried, I just couldn’t get it right. So terrified I was of maths, that my hands used to go cold by the end of the paper( they are called as panic attacks) and I used to get nightmares of writing maths paper long after I had passed 10^th.  Thankfully due to memory gaps, I have forgotten most of my trying days but some events are still etched on my mind.

 Every simplification complicated my life while factorization created those many hurdles. During the Math paper, I was the first one to ask for supplements. Most of my time went in scribbling over rough sheets. I always managed to get different answers by different methods and finally left the honorous task to the teacher, to choose the problems that were solved correctly. 

The one topic that I never liked was quadratic equations and also the ones  where the water tank has two taps, one that fills with x diameter and one that empties it with y diameter. And we had figure out when the tank would get emptied..now my naive mind always had a question ..why would you want to fill a tank, only to empty it out and what would I learn by solving this. Take another example, one train of x length travelling at some speed crosses the other train of Y length  travelling at some another speed, in xy minutes, so calculate when they would eventually cross each other ....WHY  why must you torture kids by giving these kind of problems.

Needless to say that I the moment I passed 10^th, I dropped it like a hot brick and ran in the opposite direction. I don’t know how but I think God really, honestly came and wrote my maths paper else how can I explain a distinction in that subject. All was fine, till I came to my MBA exam...again this time it was Maths and Stats but then things changed.  I met a Teacher who really taught me the basics and made it very easy and interesting for me for me. The teacher was Dilip Oak and I sincerely wish, I had met him earlier in my life...my school years wouldn’t have been so bad.

Self Gloating Moms

Meera called . She wanted to wish my daughter the very best for her exams. It surprised me as she never ever calls. She went on to chat about how today’s education system is full of competition and how its marks are really not the real barometer of anyone’s career or life. Since my daughter was in ICSE, she asked if they would be on par in 11^th standard with other kids. I said yes they would. I frankly feel a child should be allowed to learn and not made into a race horse that runs with his parent’s aspirations. We talked about how children get stressed and one shouldn’t do this comparisons..so and so forth.  Then she went to ask how much did my daughter score in the exams and after hearing her marks  went to on gleefully announce that her son gets 90% and was hoping for more in the SSC board exams. And was preparing for his engineering and also planning to study abroad. She went on to say that of course not everybody is a star and cut out to be engineers and it is important for a person to do what he/ she likes and some more things that were very contrary to what we were discussing just 5 min back...Oh yessss!!!  then I realised that this was indeed a clever and deceitful tactic of putting other people down and I had walked right into it. I had met many of these Self Gloating Mom’s in my life time. Their objective in life is to put others down...Now I am not a person who believes in calling people and insulting them but I certainly don’t like to take things lying down... I thought I had to return this favour.

I reminded her that I was not a topper in school or college ( she was a year senior to me). Also bought to her notice that I was a 70% average student, from a small town, finished my MBA  and worked out a career across the best of MNC’s and  had work life which was far more challenging and different than most other professions. And that I strongly believed however good your education is, at the end what matters is, what you do with it. I assured her like me, my daughter will eventually find place that belongs to her. My friend mumbled something about being late and then said a quick bye. Just to give a background (My wonderful friend was an engineer by profession and had worked for 3-4 in the initial years of her life and then did nothing of that career post marriage).

Yes , it important to me that my daughter does well economically and all that in life but one has to realize that each child has  different capacities. And for me it is important for her to be happy and a good human being. If I can succeed in that, then I feel that I have done my job as a mother.