Money got no Heart – Money got no soul!

Someone truly said “you got to do some living before dying” and that someone would be me! Ever day I cross by the flower seller when I leave for work. The poor and deprived woman makes a living by selling marigold flowers on the road-side specifically for people who visit the temple or worship deities in their shops and houses. The poor woman in her late 20's has two semi naked children who play right in front of her, the boy is the younger one, about two and the girl is elder than him, about 7 – responsible and mature enough to care of the puerile brother loitering beside the road.

Every morning the boy beams and calls people by the name of some Bollywood actress or actor…people smile and pass by. The kind hearted often offer the urchin a rupee or two when they cross the flower seller to the bus stand.

Today I got free a bit early today and I happened to ask the boy what would he like to become when he would grow up. Startled by his reply I began looking at his mother who was in a tattered Sari making a necklace from marigold flowers. The tiny one wrapped in a threadbare mickey mouse t-shirt said he would become a teacher so that he could teach people not to spit on roads, waste food and misbehave with her mother and sister.

It’s an ignominy and an embarrassment on our society that we misbehave and misuse the public amenities and the underprivileged. Corruption is a different subject but we have lost the way we have been supposed to live. I say a 7 year old cleaning your car and you letting him clean it is a crime. Teach him something and free him for physical slavery. Why are we embarrassed to pick up our litter and throw it in the dustbin, why do we necessitate a poor an uneducated person from a lower caste to do it? What makes all the tobacco addicted people spit red saliva on the roads? Why cant we park our cars in the parking area and why can’t we be vocal about any crime and corruption that we witness?

If we educate the little urchins and help the unfortunate in our own little way, we could channelize or improve our own lives and the society and make it a little worthwhile. Earning a fortune, making mansions by the beach side with Jacuzzi and luxury cars, buying newestgadgets and sporting designer wear with bulb like solitaires will not accompany you after you perish. The great men/women always had a difficult life. Hence the Ten Commandments are worth implementing. Remember the uglier you think, the uglier you become,

The TEN Commandments -

1.      Women are not edible and not to be taken advantage of!

2.      Roads are not shit pots, donate what is surplus and not spoilt

3.      Degrees and learning from expensive and reputed institutions are waste if they are not utilized in the right direction.

4.      Educate and feed an empty mind and stomach

5.      Be truthful to yourself than anybody else, worship self and spread happiness

6.      Whatever goes around comes around, watch your words and actions

7.      The four letter word that the gods invented is love and not lust and definitely not rape.

8.      Manhandling a weaker person or bullying someone shall make you a fool

9.      Respect people, relations and power

10.  Politics and money do not have a heart and a soul

The four lettered fiasco!

I have been always surrounded by a majority of ‘committed’ people. Different types of people - people who are your life lines, people who are lame, nerds, bossy one’s, cry babies, shopaholics, stalkers, flaunters, losers (best pals) , foodies, fitness freaks, marriage freaks, ‘shit again a break up’ freaks or just freaks…not a single one being ordinary!

The lone question they have been always haunting me with is “What is Love”. Furthermore, it is habitually rather at all times succeeded by – “what do you know what is love and shit”. So, let me go by the line – the best advice is given by those who have never experienced the same! Get your thinking hats I have splurged enough food for thought…

Love is when you smile like a fool. Love is when you do anything for the person you love. Love is when you love selflessly. Love is when you relay the whole kit and caboodle around you with the person you love. Love is when commuter traffic looks like melody and people honking seem like love birds purring softly. Love is when the messy, filthy, local and deafening fish market looks like the red carpet of the academy awards and fish vendors like photographers and journalists calling your name out for paparazzi. Love is when you want to look beautiful or handsome only for that one person you love. Love is when you blush. Love is when you hear a dreamy romantic song and understand the lyrics. Love is when you imagine the hero/heroine of your movie as your better half. Love is you when you wake up with a smile and sleep with a smile. Love is when you read the messages sent by the person you love a million times, even the ones sent by you. Love is when you smile while talking on the phone to the person who becomes the reason for your smile. Love is when your enemies or the world at large does not matter much because you have the one you love by your side. It is when you wait for the person to call you and come running to pick up the phone. Love is when you expect and cry. Love is when after a party crowded with friends, you come home and rest with that one person. Love is when you would sneak out and become unpredictable. Love is when you plan to have grandchildren with the one. Love is when you care so much that you would die to protect the one you live for. Love is when you cry when he/she is hurt. Love is when you are never formal, you never compare, when you would never in your wildest dreams want that fiend tear in someone’s eyes. Love is when you are loyal and ingenuous, honest and always by the side of the other person in sickness and health. Love is when you buy for her/him and become contented by seeing the twinkle in their eyes as the gift wrap unfolds. Love is when you cry with bliss together. Love is when you follow the assurance of being with each other always and together. We are mortals in the end; life departs but love, people – endures forever!

TILL YOU FIND A PERSON YOU LOVE, YOU ARE AN ASS WORKING-WALKING-EATING-SLEEPING AND POOPING IN NO PARTICULAR ORDER! That’s what the world realizes you to be.

Afterwards - Party is over my friend. Subsequent to the mushy romantic running around the trees song in the movie, the villain arrives. Responsibility-bondage-obligation and duty my friend! A lavish marriage for the clan, bigger house with society, a bigger car, kids, lots of poop and puke, medical insurance, their education, rent, loans and stress, counseling your kids so that they do not develop to alcohol or porn addicted gothic freaks or become pregnant or slaughterers or terrorists, they study properly, get excellent marks in the exams and are courteous and well mannered, they do their grad and post grad and work, mid life crisis, support them, comfort them and help them grow up and settle and if they do not end being intelligent fools like their parents to find “LOVE”, get them a goddammit bride/groom per their behavior and standards, provident funds, become grandparents, see the lil buggers pooping and puking again, and that smile on the lil bugger calling you grandma will make your life, pilgrimages, old age, diseases ..

But there sure is one thing that remains in all the shit above that gives you a reason to live and accomplish everything that you had or will have in god knows how many lives…the only one thing that would fetch the world to your grave saying “what a person”! The only thing that made you smile like a fool. The feeling with which you did the most difficult thing with ease… The only feeling that made your day and your life…the only feeling which motivated you to live and enthused you to learn…to grow up. The only feeling with the person who believed in you and realized your worth at the most challenging or problematic times…the magnificent sentiment with the one you devoted your entire existence ...and the four lettered fiasco responsible for that very existence - LOVE!

Disclaimer – The author is appropriately crazy. The sounds of the pigeons mating on her air conditioner roof is making her design a campaign to PETA –“Shoot them they are useless”…kidding she loves animals, pigeons mating make her happy about the purpose of life! Background - She is generally an agony aunt and wrote all of the above after having pathetic supper. She feels like puking now. She wonders how people can cook so bad ...her maid should be awarded for cooking doleful and tragic poop and making people eat it! Electric shocks might resolve the mess.

The 10 minute wait at the coffee shop

It was 8 degrees in the capital today and I was literally shivering. I went to the nearest mall to grab a cup of coffee which would warm my numb hands and defrost my tongue. While I was at the coffee shop I ordered 1 cappuccino to-go…and the man at the counter billed it and asked me to wait for 10 minutes because of the rush. There was no place to sit in the busy evening 7ish hour of the coffee place so I chose to stand in the corner waiting for my coffee, sinking my cold numb hands in the deepest corners of my pockets. Restless as I am I started fiddling with my phone and looking around. There was a lot of noise.

Towards my right diagonal say 10 o clock there were fine gentlemen in their late 20’s or early 30’s (not all of them were charming) but over all, well bred, sophisticated and very well dressed. One of them had a classy leather bag which grabbed my attention and all six were so engrossed talking that I could barely hear.

It was just 2 minutes and I was told to wait for my order. So I started to concentrate further towards the hot “topic” among the boys and there I began to overhear. Bad habit though but amazing time-pass.

So one of them said – and this is why I don’t talk to girls. I so wanted to know “why”! I HAVE TO KNOW why…its my fundamental right to know why this fellow would elude girls for some disconcerting reason. The other one said – dude I am married, I am telling you they are all nice and cute in the beginning but from the day we got married till now, it has been 2 years or so she is a pain. Sometimes you cannot tolerate pain but other times you just deal with it. The third one said to him – you are so lucky you are married, we have been seeing each other since the last seven years and she still threatens that she will leave me one day and that I would not be able to do anything about it. All the while there was one who was very quiet, he hardly spoke and when others tried to ask him rather include him in the conversation he said – I am a happily married man, I see no fault in my relationship and everything is fine.

The stupid waiter started asking me about sugar and anything else mam etc. in the mean while and I missed some part I believe but I couldn’t resist and started to pretend that I was busy…started fiddling with my phone again and sat on a small table beside a little away from them.

1.      He just gave an opener I guess, which I missed, and then he continued. Think of women as – he started looking around for an example and then looked at his large coffee mug…think of women as a cup of coffee. The other five were quiet now and wanted an explanation for such casual comparison with the problem of their lives – so did I, suddenly I represented the women on earth and wanted an explanation too rather enlightenment ...so I listened more carefully now, pretending to read the menu.

2.      He pointed towards his cup and said - You cannot drink this coffee when it is very hot: Never talk, misbehave or aggravate a woman when she is angry. It will burn you and your blister your tongue.

3.      You have to drink this hot coffee at room temperature or cold – just the balance : talk in a gentle mood (room temperature) and do not neglect her (cold)

4.      Pour milk per your choice in this black coffee: you have an impact on her, your personality will reflect her and vice versa. Initial years and your actions will result and reflect throughout life (the amount of milk poured is permanent till the end if more)

5.      Sugar should be not too high or too low because it will be bitter: appreciate her not too much that she thinks it’s fake. Do not be bitter, else you wont be able to live

6.      Appreciate the waiter for he would serve you properly the next time also: appreciate and regard her family as yours, it will be all good as a result.

7.      Flavor it with chocolate, cinnamon, butterscotch for more taste : do not be boring, take interest in whatever she says, feel her emptiness (if the coffee is bland) and provide solutions (flavor it up) for a delightful taste.

8.      Respect the expensive cup and enjoy every bit of it: regard and respect your lady. She is the most desired, high maintenance asset of your life, the cup that you would demand and enjoy.

9.      You never leave the coffee that you ordered mid way and order another lest it is undeniably rubbish and you had no idea what you ordered in the first place : be loyal, our cup or your lady is yours till the end, do not have an eye on others coffee or you will have mixed tastes. You would forcibly change it (break the relationship) only when the expensive coffee (your valued marriage) is venomous or extremely disgusting.

10.  Snacks with coffee are amazing - she will blend with every addition you give her in the most loving way – cake (children), sandwich (friends and family) etc.

11.  You can take the cup far and wide when its to-go (love marriages, living away from family) – it will warm your hands and throat. Drinking it here is also an option but that way you will have to see if all others  have finished their coffee or not (arrange marriage – more compromises) but any which way the coffee is yours.

The others heard and all that while I considered myself as a cup of coffee and smiled. A coffee bean, may be because, I am not married yet ...but amazing co-relation! Till then my cup was empty but I wanted to hear more…and it was getting late. They all heard like a saint was enchanting prayers. And then one of them said – mine is Irish coffee, the other said mine is frappe…and I just got up and came home and smiled at the interesting comparison overheard at the coffee place.

The connection

When I close my eyes,

It is you I see.

When I remember you,

It is you in my dreams.

When I feel lonely,

It is you giving me a hug.

When I feel naughty,

It is you playing a prank.

And when I am gloomy,

It is you responsible for my smile.

When I shed a drop of tear,

It is you I feel.

When I laugh like a child,

It is you making me happy.

When I argue or fight,

It is you who calms me.

When I cook or clean,

It s you who appreciates me.

When I get promoted at work,

It is you who motivates me.

When your parents call me their daughter,

It is you - proud of me.

When I dress up,

It is you who admires me.

And when the world denies,

It is you standing by me.

When I act like a fool,

It is you who gives me wisdom and advice.

When I feel weak,

It is you who gives me strength.

But when you go away from me,

It is me who shatters.

When you stop talking to me,

It is me who becomes deaf.

When you see other women,

It is me who cries.

When you don’t realize,

It is me who lives in hope.

And when you don’t love me back,

It is me who dies.

Facepalm to Capital - Where are we heading to?

I am a proud citizen and I live in the capital city of India. The rich Capital city where millions of people, from around the globe come to visit the miraculously rich culture, heritage, indulge in food splurge and unite with unstinting and whole-hearty Indians. During winters the capital is all the more beautiful, no snowfall though but a lot of heartfelt memories to keep us all cozy and together.

And then one fine day almost at year end, we hear the news of a 23 year old medical student who came to pursue her internship in the capital, being raped by 5 men in a moving bus in a well lit, busy and posh locality, consequently hit by an iron rod and thrown out of the bus along with her male friend who was also brutally attacked and battered by iron rods…both struggling for their lives.

That’s the capital of my country – rich 'unsafe' culture and warm 'rapists and monstrous' people?

While the police are doing their job at their best but were we careful in the first place? Why is the crime rate so common and why are heinous crimes followed by lessons learnt and precautions taken subsequently. Why “thereafter”? “Thereafter” when an innocent girl was gang raped and people are dead and obliteration has taken place? What about the loss which could have been prevented.

Capital Fact File - Rape cases in India are the maximum in the world! Pollution in the air surmounts to maximum deaths by respiratory ailments. People die of hunger. 7 crore people are unemployed. Hypertension and depression are most common diseases after headache, cough and flu. Bribery and Corruption from the time a child takes admission in a school till he gets his pension, child labor, child abuse and abortions are at their peak not to forget domestic violence and sexual harassment! Alright Kasab is dead but does that mean terrorism is over? Where are we heading to?

While is it really difficult and challenging for everybody to educate everybody, can’t we take a little actions, measures and precautions on our own to sustain the culture, our freedom fighters sacrificed their lives for? There always will be an ‘evil’ and the ‘good’ will fight that evil ALWAYS. But we cannot make invisible the good to make evil win as a majority.

What harm will it take if we could give a poor family something to eat, teach some uneducated people who are not fortunate enough to pursue schooling, not spit on the roads and throw garbage in dustbins and take all pollution measures on our vehicles seriously. Will it hurt to have a strong opinion of respect towards other women and treat them like our mothers or sisters? Will it not take guts and prove you a pure gentleman or a woman of substance if you see someone bullying or harassing somebody and lodge a complaint against him/her? Will it make you less rich if you could donate a few clothes to someone who cannot afford clothes to cover their body? Do hell with religious riots aren't we HUMANS first…why would others culture and religion affect me – Can’t I respect his like my own? I am not spreading a message here even to miss a movie in the hall and do something extra ordinary for the nation – just minor gestures in our day to day life to make a change.

Shouldn't the vandalism by goons, arrest by cops because of FB post, the non performance of parliament, the failure of government and the “apathy “of leaders constitute gang rape of a nation?

The innocent girl who is battling for her life has ruined it already even if she fights through her last breath. The hopes, expectations, marriage and bright future of a family in a conservative country like ours is still a challenge, forget the mere sympathy of people for a year or so. The victim always suffers and the criminal, though punished or even if given a death penalty can do nothing after the irrevocable trauma, annihilation and devastation caused!

If the outrage does not extend to an “action” - be ready for more rapes on our women, our freedom, our rights and our country! 

12/12/12 – A note to my grandchildren.

I wanted to do something special on this date but did not get much time to climb mountains or do rafting. As they say - costly watches but no time, I was a little occupied working. 

By the way Rajnikant was born today and Pandit Ravi Shankar died. So here’s your homework to research on ‘God’ and the Sitar Maestro whose daughters were hot in our era.

I have no clue how the world would be in your generation, may be you will read this in a microchip already inserted in your brain as history master files which could be archived by year and time and buffered in micro seconds. May be you would not even know who I am or I even existed…may be you could be playing with me…one on my lap and the other on my shoulder and I would be narrating this story to you…MAY BE.

But just for the record, we are hearing that the world would end so I thought I would jot all of these for future reference, you know probably use these as pointers if I get the opportunity to be around you guys.

From the first quarter of my life I learnt these things – some developed, a few acquired and most – learnt from mistakes. Here they are: Granny’s 7 commandments –

      Be patient  

We have to absorb a lot of shit in life. A lot – be it family or friends at times, spouse, boss, irritating room mates, professors, nonsense people whose existence is illegitimate, pushy salesmen, domestic helps, BUT, do not rebel, fight or lose your temper. There is a right place for a right move. Compromising and being silent is the key sometimes.

      Enjoy Life

People, moments and more importantly stupid moments do not come again and again. Life runs – help people, smile, bring a smile on someone’s face, do something foolish everyday, laugh, make fun, do silly things, play pranks and let go. Life ha been pretty eventful so far but it flies.

      Never hold a grudge

Your grandmother does not believe in enemies. She thinks that if thoughts or opinions don’t match – they should part. If they cannot part think of yourself in your enemy’s shoes and react. Understanding the enemy is the key for nothing shall make him angrier than a smile or a good deed. In the act you will be the one who will be way higher than him and this shall make granny really proud of you.

      Love and Respect yourself

Granny has always been a fan of a person having high Self respect and standards like your great grand father. People having a high self esteem have and will always impress me. A person stays tall if he loves himself first and then others. Never sell yourself in front of people. True love and emotions reciprocate. If you do not respect yourself, forget respecting or admiring the world.

      Do not fool yourself

If you want to achieve something – go for it! If the plan is clear and the goal is known - start walking on the path you have chosen. There will be infinite hurdles, you will meet unnecessary people, bump into strangers who might become your mentors and miss the ones you love as at one point everybody vamooses and you would be on your own. Conclude the search and find that purpose of your life. Go for it – insanity is imperative!

      The law of attraction/reciprocation

If you respect someone, the respect comes back. Love someone and the person in front would love you back. If you admire someone truly, the feeling reciprocates after some time. Granny has felt it always – it is tried and tested. Pass a smile to your crush and he will smile back, love someone truly and the love is showered back provided you have absolutely clean intentions.

      Love superman J

Have a role model. Be it your parents, an actor, politician, a senior or granny. Granny used to love superman. Her office desk had a printout of superman, superman pajamas, superman dolls she got with Mc Donald's happy meal in her cupboard, superman bandanna, superman t-shirt and super man bed sheet (yeah we have this concept of beds we sleep on and we cover the mattresses with sheets). Having a role model would make you focused towards your shopping (I don't have to think when I have a superman print as an option) and most importantly evolve by acquiring all good qualities of your role model.

Have a great life - I would love to see you sometime.

Granny.

The Weekend

The rustling of leaves and the chilly breeze,

The smell of thin crust pizza with extra cheese.

Looked up in the sky and felt the first drop of rain,

Remembering lost ones as she felt the pain.

The full moon was as beautiful as her smile,

She was quiet and nostalgic for a little while.

Recalled an old joke and she smiled again,

Friends observed and declared her insane.

Just remembered something funny, she said,

And then there was a fight for the last piece of that damn bread!

Laughed merrily and pulled each other’s leg,

Let us sleep - early morning office someone would beg.

Come on few minutes extra - don’t be a cry baby,

These times will never come or may be…

She voyaged in the intercity metro to meet family and friends,

In the ladies partition she was aware of all latest trends.

Weekend’s over now – rush hour, work and profit is the key,

She sat alone in a corner and wondered with a cup of tea -

‘Yesterday I was with a lot of people alas look at me’!
After five days of work her brain shall slip to her knee.

Camaraderie counts be it parents, friends or spouse,

and the vacuity grubs you alive in your own house.

Striving to explore your happiness in others?

Be contented for you wont be shaken by shudders.

Shut her eyes and asked self if she was happy?

The rejoinder came from within – life is not that shabby.

Content with what she has, she then had a mysterious smile,

Hoping she could make Monday a lot more worthwhile!