The Odyssey

I Wish My Mom Were a Goldfish!

2011-10-25T16:30:00.003+05:30

I have had the experience of having a wonderful pair of goldfish as pets many years back. They were given to us as a Diwali gift by a family friend. Two years later the same friend, when he visited us again, was amazed to see them still going strong. He said normally they didn't survive that long in captivity, that too in a small round bowl. Anyway...ultimately they died. Now after so many years I felt I could do with some company in my immediate surroundings again, without having to take them for a walk and worrying about their hygiene. Dogs and cats were a strict no, no! So I bought a pair of Orandas.

Oranda

Orandas are beauties. They all are. But orandas need extra care as they are not as hardy as the common fantails. They are more easily affected by pollution. Isn't it just wonderful to sit there and watch them opening and closing their mouths without any words coming out? They don't taunt you, don't snub at you, don't tell you to run errands for them. I am sure all the bosses in the world would love to have employees like that and watch them opening and closing their mouths without asking for a payrise!

Common fantail

To All Those Who Made The Difference...

2011-10-15T18:55:00.004+05:30

" The Eternal Masterpiece"

My life was a canvas
That along life's way
Filled with a multitude of colors
Lovely bright and gay

I went along with the flow
Only to realize
The colors that then seemed so divine
Those colors were not mine

The next morning I awoke
Only to find the colors gone
The canvas empty again
As the colors were not mine

I reached out to nothingness
Into deep empty space
I cocooned into myself
All withered and frail

Yet to see another morning
Yet to see another dawn
Yet to see another canvas
Yet to see waht it had borne

I saw the empty canvas
Start filling with a ray of hope
A ray that became a rainbow
Of blooms - silver and gold

A rainbow that was there to stay
A rainbow to make my rainy day
A doing of an unseen hand
An unseen friend and confidante

Who made my canvas a masterpiece
Priceless with love so pure
Giving me the strength to sustain
Life's miseries that I endured

I shut my eyes and think
Far from all the crowds and noise
I remember your sweet words
And I still can hear your voice

Here I stand with all the words
To me that you have told
You will always be part of my memories
As priceless possessions that I now hold

Fatigue Is Only The Creation Of The Mind

2011-10-15T18:27:00.004+05:30

(Quote From Robin Sharma's "The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari")

At times when my mom asked me to bring her from the fridge or see who's at the door or go and see if the clothes on the line were dry, I would make up umpteen number of excuses. I never liked household work unless it was something affecting my comforts. I was too tired or too busy then, or had a maths test coming up and any interruptions would affect my concentration (not that I ever got great marks in maths!) and, and, and...(more excuses).
Fifteen minutes later my favorite program was on TV and I just had to watch it. "Could you please chop these vegetables while watching TV, dear?" my mom would say. "Oh mom, You know I am too tired from studying and my eyes are aching and I need a break", would come my reply. Oh well, the TV was an eye tonic, right?
Half an hour later, my college friend gives me a surprise visit and yippee! I must show her around my campus, all the greenery, the students' canteen and activity centre where we go swimming. "Mom, I will be back in an hour or so". Where did all the tiredness go then? The TV and my friend were now the energy drink, the Red Bull that had given me wings. Why?

Confession...My Live-In Relationship

2011-10-05T09:24:00.011+05:30

I have been living with them nearly all my life and had got used to them being around while many others shrank from the mere site of them.

Their favorite place, my kitchen, of course! These friendly reptiles would devour any mischief making insects, cockroaches and the like from destroying my kitchen of its edible contents, keeping my kitchen free of them. They would make their home under the bread toaster and would conveniently move out of the way when required. I have seen many of their generations come and go.

I have never known them to be vocal until a two-year stay on the island of Maldives, when much to my surprise, I was woken up from my slumber by a loud and constant geck...geck...gecking in the middle of the night! Before that I never really understood why they were called Geckos!

In my new house back home, I once again had the priviledge of sharing my apartment with these beauties, my kitchen again being their favorite domain, this time under the cooking stove as well as behind the gas cylinder. And the kitchen floor was their playground at night! I would always reach out my hand first to switch on the kitchen light before entering at night so as not to step on them if they were around, and as it so happens, on each such occasion, I have found them right in the middle of the kitchen floor, seemingly in deep slumber! They would quickly wriggle away on hearing my footsteps.

I normally have had no problem with them except for the occasional cleaning up which I had to do after their droppings on the kitchen slab and on the floor. But what transpired today had me at my wit's end! Early morning, as I was about to enter the kitchen to prepare my morning tea, I saw a long tail hanging out from a snack bowl I had left on the slab the previous night with a few biscuits inside! Then as I came closer, I saw the little devil bent over the edge of the bowl like a cat over a bowl of milk or rather a lion at the edge of a waterhole, oblivious to the fact that I was so close, almost upon it!

What if this had been going on for ever? Had the whole household been poisoned by my carelessness? What if... Oh my God! Is there a way to lay a trap for them? Please HELP! Or perhaps the next time I enter the kitchen at night, I should do so without warning...

Welcome To The Road...

2011-10-03T08:55:00.005+05:30

The Daily Commute - A Way Of Life
Isn't it amazing how your life can suddenly leave you feeling at the end of your rope after an eternity of pampering care? I remember the days of school when everything seemed to be planned perfectly for me. In my kindergarten and primary years, my father would regularly drop me and my brother off at school and pick us up on the dot. Then as we grew up, the school timings changed and we opted for the school bus. The bus too, traversed to and fro punctually and dutifully till we were almost old enough to leave school. But things were soon to change.

At the end of my 12th grade, we had to attend extra classes after school hours. As the school got over, we all huddled into our alloted classrooms for the lessons to begin. By the end of it I couldn't wait to rush out and go to a hot lunch waiting at home. But alas! where was my bus? It was nowhere to be seen. Where were the other buses? Then it suddenly dawned on me that we could not take them for granted . They had their own time constraints! I managed to call my father from the school office, in for yet another shock! My father refused to come, said he had had a tiring day at work and that I was old enough to come home in the local bus myself ! What ! In the local bus? All alone? Amidst total strangers? Was this what they call weening? As a matter of fact my parents always made sure that I carried some money on my person. Perhaps their foresight was better than mine!

I finally decided that it was time to get my feet wet. A bus ticket, the minimum fare, at the time cost just 50 paise...that is for the distance to and from IIT campus and Tagore International School (Vasant Vihar). And it was then that my life started. There was no looking back after that.

The college years saw a drastic change in my commuting abilities. I often found myself dangling at the doors, along with many others, of buses that seemed to bulge at their seams. Often I had to catch buses that were almost full to the brim, halfway from Kamala Nehru college, where I studied, till Golden Dragon, near Panchsheel. Then I had to switch over to another bus which would finally take me home. It was during one such commute that the incident occurred.

I was as always, in a much crowded bus and could feel the pulling and tugging going on all around me. I was in a hurry to get to the Hauz Khas bus terminal where I had to get my bus pass made. I managed to squeeze my way past and get out at my stop just as the bus started moving again. I reached the terminal in time only to find all the money gone from my purse! All hell broke loose. I was nearly in tears. I just about had enough money in a secret pocket somewhere which saw me home. I cried myself out to my anxious parents, partly guilty of not being careful enough with the money that was my father's.

It was then that my father sat me by his side, comforting me. He told me not to worry my head over it as it was all part of life...that it happened with people all the time . I should be grateful that I came home in one piece. I should think of those who lost their livelihood, all their life's earnings in one go. This amount was negligible in comparison. But then I got my first lesson. Every other time I got into the bus I would pull up my purse in front of me and hold on to it till I reached my destination! That day my parents gave me some other valuable lessons in commuting (conditions apply!) for which I shall be ever grateful to them! Once I had the opportunity of trying one of them in a crowded bus route no. 620 on my way home from college with a friend. I never imagined the back of my left hand could feel so good on an adversary's cheek (details witheld!).

After college, I took admission in a fashion institute where again, the bus was my best friend. It was always a welcome experience to be surrounded by people, total strangers who yet seemed so familiar with each passing day. During my Fashion Designing course, I had to carry heavy files and project folders throughout the year, proofs of my hard work. It was to some relief of the females that the buses had a few seats reserved for the weaker (oops!), fairer sex! But I somehow could never muster enough courage to ask for one if occupied otherwise. Alternatively, I devised a plan. I would politely tell the seat occupant to remain seated but to hold on to my bags and baggage for me. The occupant would either vacate, seeing the burden he would have to carry, or be obliged to play porter! And that saw me through the year pretty comfortably. I soon learned the tricks of the trade!

How time flies! I found myself opting for the career that would shape my life in the years to come. I became a teacher. I may mention here that we had a flat in another part of Delhi, many kilometers away from the previous place, where we would ultimately shift after my parents retired from service, which was to be pretty soon. So I decided to apply to schools in the new area and was lucky enough to get a job in a school, almost walking distance from our flat. But as I could not move in immediately by reason of it being occupied by tenants, I found myself commuting to and fro.

Then as time passed, due to changed circumstances, I found myself in another school, this time in the opposite direction and living in the new flat, commuting all over again. Those 50 minutes in the bus (one way), had become a necessity for the past 3-4 years.

On a couple of occasions when my father could not make himself available to play chauffeur, I was roped in to accompany my very much car-dependent mother, to the market in the bus for which I was always delighted! My mother would trip a little here, tumble a little there, step on someone's foot till somebody said, " Madam, are you travelling in the bus for the first time?" Ultimately my mother had to admit that it looked like a piece of cake for me! She admired me for the ease with which I managed in even the most crowded of buses. Her words of praise were a feather in my cap!

I had had the opportunity to learn to drive a car while in campus but I always considered it an extra bonus, never trying my hand at it practically. My parents tried to persuade me to buy my own car on loan and drive myself to work, in order to be more mobile and more independent but perhaps they did not realize that they were beating a dead horse! I cooked up enough excuses to myself to the effect that "what would a car be without all the bells and whistles", that the car would require a lot of maintenance, and what of the tension of driving to work every morning with horns honking all around you and the constant traffic jams and back again. And that I dreaded the parking blues! I would imagine having to park in the South Extension Parking lot or elsewhere and it would bring back the phobia.

But to be honest, I think these were all just excuses as I realized that commuting in buses had almost become a way of life with me. It was in buses that I felt free, I felt mobile, I felt I belonged. I felt I mattered. The commuting in the regular bus daily brought you closer to the likes of yourself, people you could relate to and people who you soon started feeling, were almost family. The bus drivers seemed to carry the weight of the world on their shoulders, bending to the various demands and requests of the daily commuters. The bus staff would take care of you, even wait when you were late. What more could one ask for?

The day anyone stopped by or offered to give me a lift in their car out of courtesy, though welcome in its own way, felt as if somebody had clipped my wings. The commute was not a mere necessity but a luxury, with so much to learn from those around you, the occasional jokes and gossips and an occasional brawl here and there, the struggle for many to make both ends meet . For instance, what transpired yesterday brought me closer to the gross realities of life.

A very old man, bent double, supporting himself on a stick, seemingly not from a very well-to-do background, got in with me on the bus on my way home. After a few minutes wait, I managed to get a seat on the ladies side of the bus while a gentleman sat with me. After about 10 minutes I heard a little commotion alongside, realizing someone requesting for a seat for the elderly man. I was amazed that the old man had still not got a seat while I had already been sitting for quite sometime. I soon found myself sitting with the old man as the gentleman with me offered to vacate his seat. Every now and then I found myself studying the lines on the old man's face. As moments passed, I became aware of a terrible stench coming from the old guy, a stench stronger than the smell of old age. In other circumstances, I would have absolutely thrown up, but somehow the moment had my mind preoccupied. It held a strange resemblance.

It reminded me of my grandfather back home who found himself lonely, all the more so after my grandmother's death, inspite of family being around. Though 93 now, and amidst loved ones, he had withered, he had frailed, I still feel, much before his time. He now constantly sits at the same place at the edge of his bed, hardly ever coming out of his room. Even on persuasion, he delays taking a bath for weeks for fear of slipping to the disasters of old age. What helplessness! What if this old man on the bus was not as lucky as my grandfather, to be surrounded by family or loved ones? What if his family had thrown him out? Did he know where he was going? Did he know the way? Why was he not able to get a seat in the bus for so long? Why did I feel guilty? My eyes clouded and I was glad when my stop arrived. As I alighted the bus a single drop fell onto the dry earth below.

In the dog days of summer, in rain or shine, in the blinding fog of a winter morning, I still find myself eagerly awaiting the familiar site of the giant on wheels. No doubt life has its ups and downs and so does the commute, but I will cross that bridge when I come to it.