Companion...thy name is Love!

On my journey to Chennai this weekend, I came across a couple who sat next to me in the Aerospace bus to airport.

Unlike me, who was traveling to the final destination of the bus, they got down several stops before me. The striking thing that I found in this couple is the care and affection they had and showed for each other.

I don’t know whether they were husband and wife or just companions or whatever state of relationship they were in…the thing that mostly mattered were that they showed complete confidence in each other and trust that we could see through.

It so happened that I got inrigued and started watching them as their common conversational language was English. Though they did not either speak as perfect tech savvy types or try to ape the westerners with an accent. They spoke perfectly well that each of them could understand each other and respond.

It was by mistake they got into the bus I was in. They have been regular in their travels that they assumed this bus to be one of their regulars. They had offered a fare of Rs.40 to the bus conductor for their trip and found out that it actually cost them another 40 rupees, for their trip.

That is when they come to know it is not their regular bus and need to get down exactly one stop before their place and walk up to till there.

The conductor asks for a name for their place they want to get down, but they don’t seem to get the place correctly, they just remember the place they need to get down.

The guy is so much in his thoughts that he keeps repeating to her…not sure where this bus is going and where they need to get down.

The girl comforts him by saying, they can take an auto from the stop as it would cost them another 20 rupees only and she has done it several times. He just nods to her and tells her that it is actually far…and calms her before she gets worried.

They keep talking to each other and she points to their bus that they usually take, when it plies past them. At this he just nods and his forehead worry lines tells us that he is thinking at the stop they need to get down.

After much thinking, he tells her, I think we need to walk a long distance. At which she says, ok will walk by, what to do?

She now gets into thinking; I see her tapping her fingers on his lap and lost in thought. Then as if out of revere she says, yes, it will be far…I thought about another bus-stop when I said we will take a auto, no use we wont get auto’s there…we have to walk.

At this, the guy laughs and says, so at last now you have come to a conclusion… at this she says something further that is understood only by them.

I could see both smiling at each other. A passenger next to them opens a conversation with the guy and he almost repents to him taking the wrong bus. He tells him that they usually take another bus and when she stopped this bus, he did not check it. Now, wondering how she will be able to walk so far.

Just before their stop is come, the bus conductor asks them to get ready and he stands up taking the bag she has and moves forward. He cautions her about the step beneath her feet and asks her to be careful about the step.

He moves forward in the empty bus…keeping a watch over her and instructing her to catch hold of the rods that are provided for support in the bus. He twice lets out a cry to be careful and looks onto the road in front of him.

He finds that it is the same place where they have to get down, he strikes one of his beautiful smiles and looks at her with a relaxed and pride look. They both smile and nod their head in acknowledgment and the bus stops at their stop.

He gets down first not before asking her to be careful and then gives her a hand to hold on for support as she alights down the bus.

The bus slowly moves on and I find them walk hand-in-hand towards the long road that unfolds in front of them.

I wonder, for almost a century now, I believe that sweeter are the conversations you have in your own mother tongue and the sweetest journeys are when you share it with your loved one.

I was proved wrong…the conversation can be as exciting and beautiful as long as you are talking or sharing your feelings with someone you like and love. I could not strike a resemblance to any language as their mother tongue and they seem to be conversing the way they did sometimes, by laugh, by touch, by smiles, by looking at each other, and not the least by talking …

For an instant, I felt the warmth of love and affection and companionship in all one package! I was moved by the amount of worry that guy had for this woman…his worry lines almost spoke his heart and the amount of care he bestowed upon her…they way he led her and took her hand…helped her alight the bus. She is being given a royal treatment. May they be blessed together!

PS: The couples were in their old age, the man must have been above 60 years of age and the women must have been the less or same age as him. They just made a wonderful couple.

(Read Again...)

Walk the Dog!

Living in metro cities and the plush locales of the city, one common feature I watch everyday - "Walk the dog".

Well, everywhere else there are these street dogs that are targeted for all the other reasons except for a beautiful morning walk, sometimes in the cold mornings, sometimes in the sunny mornings, sometimes in the foggy mornings and sometimes in the dullest mornings.

It is so funny, you know!!! The dog walks in front of you and you running or pulling it towards you or make it walk at your pace. At times, you wonder who is taking who for a morning walk.

I am really baffled by this feature?! Dog - Human beings best companion and a wonderful and emphatic listener!

I wonder why they take this dog for walking, coz, some dogs just graze around the garbage, some just keep sniffing at the other passers-by on the road, some bark at every person who passes-by, some drag the master ahead of his/her stride, some run wild letting lose the strands, some sniff at the street-dogs, some try to patch-up with the other breeds, some just drags by letting the master be ahead of him…whatever the intend behind – ‘Walking a dog’.

I initially presumed that it was only in the process of getting it habituated to get into clean habits and the early morning rituals as human beings. These dogs are taught to be clean in the house and dirtying the roads………cha! What habit is this?!

But, then my reluctant mind did not allow me to stick to the convention and I did a little bit of an exploration into it.

There is ‘Main Hoon Na – Google’, which gives you a plethora of Web pages to display the content related to your specific arena of search!

Of course, some pages are as usual were of no use and of the pages, which had information it states that, “All dogs, regardless of size or breed, need to be taken on daily walks, jogs, runs, bike rides, rollerblading, any means you have to get your dog moving. Taking your dog for a walk is an important ritual in keeping your dog mentally stable.

A dog, as an animal, is a walker/traveler by instinct. Packs of dogs get up in the morning and walk. Simply having a large back yard or taking your dog to the dog park is not going to satisfy this instinct in your dog.” [Courtesy: http://www.dogbreedinfo.com/articles/dogwalk.htm]

Adding to this there were lot of ‘ifs’ and ‘buts’ and benefits of walking the dog and various other activities for the beautiful companion of man!

The cliché is that I came across only the maids and the male servants of these houses taking these faithful animals for a long walk! I don’t know if the animals got benefited by it but ‘Yes’, the maids and the male servants really seem to be enjoying each others company.

For, I could see a beautiful and a meaningful relationship developing between the two breeds and the society seeming to erase the casteless society and make it a single large entity of love and understanding.

I work here and you work there….and we live in wealth though not ours but almost ours [Yeah! they are the ones who enjoy all the wealth accumulated, for the owner is busy acquiring more sweating in an air-conditioned office!]

Yes, of course, [Did you think otherwise? I hope, not. I don’t perceive things, I see them?!]

I am talking about the animals [I wish, I could write ‘dogs’ here. But, I am being a little decent for the fear of my writing to be misinterpreted. It won’t isn’t it?!] of different breeds developing a relationship and walking in unison with each other in eternity, on every beautiful morning on the shaded plush locales and running around or cajoling each other, warming up to an effective active life and energetic one!

I see the dog being exercised in the mornings out in the best conditions of the environment and trying to make it effective and remain healthy so that it can accompany the man a little longer than required!

I see the man trying to exercise in the air-conditioned environment and reduce the fat accumulated by eating all the possible junk along with the healthy eating habits?! Yet, bond with the animal forever!

Who needs the exercise, the dog, the maid, the owner? I am perplexed. There is Website enforcing on the exercise for the dogs and the man as well! Who listens, who cares, you walk my dog and I walk the machine, and tell the world – I am healthy, I exercise and so does my dog – everyday although individually!

PS: Alas! This is a feature only specific to Indian Subcontinent.

Mein aur Meri Tanhayee…! [My loneliness and me]

My third interest and one of the important aspects of my life is ‘writing’. I am not talented and I am not a perfect writer, in terms of world standards and requirements. But, I know I just fine to say a few things about myself and about the things I feel and reciprocate!

Now, I guess reading a lot made me write simultaneously. Even otherwise to improve my handwriting, I had written a few passages copied from other text books and borrowed sentences must have kindled the writer in me! I don’t know when or how I got into writing a few lines to few poems, few stories and then a novel [in my standards]!

I wrote my first poem when I was in seventh standard. Now, how early is that?! That was a sweet poem about a person, who was dear to me by the emotional values [Ok, I hear some musings here]! Exactly, I would not call a love poem or an expression to an opposite gender. But I would like to put it as a state of overwhelming feeling for a person in other standards a human being who had been kind and compassionate to me!

It talked about the various things that person did and how I reacted to it. It was a wonderful flow of emotions like, Wordsworth says “Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings”.

I shared it with my friends and they all praised me…I had written it in a dairy and kept the poem close to my heart as a ‘First Love’ vista! Then, I forgot about it and about poetry as well. Even when I read it today, I can feel the presence of the freshness in mind!!!

I completely forgot about this factor in me for days, then suddenly one day I heard somebody in the school talking about poems and poem competitions…I woke up from my reverie and knew that I too did some thing of this sort. On pestiferous friends, I too wrote few and then there was some praises about it happening in the air for sometime.

They said, ‘Kavitha, it is too good. You should write more’. I said fine and wrote a few in my dairy. I wrote about my dad, my mom, my sis and about varied few things. I was a feminist, I guess in my earlier days of life! I have some poems about female sufferings and female upliftment! Those contexts are related to few of the sufferings and atrocity against feeble women I heard around the place I lived!

I grew up and my thoughts got mellowed and I wrote many others. I wrote to praise beauty, praise nature, love about nature, about my friend, about relations, about aunt, about uncles, a dedication to my friend, in appreciation of my lecturer, dedicated poems to a lady, I wrote about dowry, about man, his laziness, his pride, his love, his passion, his clutches in life, and about every aspect of life in full dimension. These writings used to be companion for me and I used to pour my feelings into them. After a point of time, these little poems became a vent for me!!!
When I was in my 2nd year of college, I remember my lecturer who handled ‘Plays’ for us was a very different teacher. She was very lively and made us do a lot of experiments with language. She did not just come, teach and go. She inspired us to write and appreciate language [I did BA English Literature, as my under graduation degree].

We looked forward to her classes and her classes were fun. We explored a little bit of her and found that she had a love marriage and she married her professor in college. She did her MA English Literature in the Madras Christian College (MCC), the best known college in terms of standards and best teaching for arts and science subjects.

She told us her story and we wanted to feel the love she explained and smiled away to glory. Then later, I came to know, that the professor she married was my maternal uncle’s professor too and he had handled classes for them apart from the regular classes and my uncle had gone to their house for classes.

Now, this is second time something like this happening to me. In school, I had an English teacher who inspired to read and learn the language! She happened to be my uncle’s classmate in MCC?! What a coincidence!!!

My lecturer keeps an eye on me after knowing that I am somehow closer in precedence and then what, I in limelight! Second year, in college in when you focus outside your text books and the reality dawns on you that you are part of the elite group who go to college everyday to gain knowledge[That, is obvious reason, but we do otherwise, isn’t it].

We look out of our text books and there is a literary event in which you take part, the literary committee for which you are an assistant secretary and there is a college magazine that requires articles and it is to be done in another 30 days!! Oh! loads of things to be done, there is a chief guest who is a contemporary writer the best in the world of writing and you have a speech in front of him! All weirdo combinations of work to be done!

The circular reading out for contributions to the magazine does its rounds of announcements and in vain there is no single written document on your hands. The lecturers pressurize you and you in turn look at the class and beg for a single article if not a borrowed writing!

You get some articles flowing in and you breathe in an ease of air…not lasting long. Your lecturer has a different idea; she throws open the floor for a poem competition and then you are trapped in it by your well-wishers. You always have them backing you whenever they are asked to do something. Like in this case, there was poem contest, many wanted to write but the fear of being ripped naked in the crowd, voice for you and call you the most read and lovable poet!!! Huh! The language has so many adjectives, now!?

I am done, or my life. The quotient that was in my dairy was being exhibited to my lecturer! That too the one who knows my uncle?! Now, that calls for serious trouble, she said the poem should be about love and nothing else, as it was Shakespeare class and we were doing ‘Twelfth Night’ a wonderful romantic play!

She asks me to stand and a few others and she said, ‘First you guys attempt at it’. She gives me a sly smile as I stand there with my head focused on something below my feet!!!

I too start raking my brain for words and I knew I am a William Wordsworth, could not churn out poetry without a feeling attached! Finally, it pours and I start writing and take it to my class. Did I not tell you the topic given to us?! Oh! Yes, I basked it in one single mistaken word –Love, but speaking very directly, it was “First Kiss”.

We all in the class fought for a change of topic but the lecturer did not budge. The next day, it was ‘read-out’ day, luckily I did not have to read out my poem, but she did make a point to ask me if I had done my share!

I nodded coyly and said ‘Yes’, don’t read out but tell me what comparison you made. I did not want to tell her, and pointed at the others to reveal first. My friends, the best companions could not resist that and made an anthill out of nothing and made me speak in the lowest volume ever possible in my entire life.

She asked me to raise my voice to audible levels, reluctantly I did and then after hearing a few lines she put her right hand to her forehead and sat! The whole class looked at me and I was under a hundred watt spotlight, glittering and gleaming!

When I finished, all she said is, “I think you have never been kissed” the whole class swept into laughter and giggles. There were secret giggles amongst us and for that she said…’Oh! This class has a lot of experiences, let me catch them next class and left!!!’

After she left there was no time gap for my class to pour in their advices or grievances. The next day she advised me a lot and said, ‘Your poem is good, your writing is good, but don’t be a Meta-Physical poet [the poets of the era of English Renaissance -17th century] but be a romantic poet and write about nature, cat, dog, animal, love, rain and all the beauty in life!!!’

I still remember her words and they echo in my ears whenever I try to write something meta-physical. I went on for higher education and along with it I continued my writing, it brought in new flair and there was a varied subject that I wrote on. I got into the writing arena of paper industry and developed an interest in writing articles, post and covering certain events for the newspaper. I parted my poems as ‘Birthday Gifts’. Since we were doing management studies, my friend suggested we could use my skill to write ‘Greeting Cards’ and sell them across world and become successful business woman and men!!!

I slowly developed articles and then I wrote my first short story, at the age of 22 years, inspired by own life and giving it a twist and turns and making it very romantic and painful at the same time. My first short story, I did send it to ‘Womans Era’ magazine, hoping that my story was one among the best short stories that were being published in the magazine. The short story got returned within a week!!

Being in an IT company, the access to the Worldwide Web, the e-media, the advancement of Technology, and the advent of online personal dairy – the blog…gave varied dimensions to my writing. At first, I was indisposed with the idea of writing something personal on a media that is accessible around the world; I came across a lot of blogs that spoke about personal experiences and only them!

My work being mainly focused on English and writing, I was asked several time by the interviewers and fellow people, as to why I did not have a Personal Blog apart from an Official Blog page, for the only reason being ‘Writing is my Primarily Skill’. I pondered over it and the proposed to have one blog page, just not to be left alone on the path.

I created one and started writing and thus continued to write…till this one!

PS: The poem on ‘First Kiss’ turned out to be fiascos coz; I had compared the event to a daily chore in a man’s life such as Brushing!!!

My Tryst with PG!!!

Does this title invoke oddment in you; believe me more riveting in reading it!? I will clarify the shortened form of the title does not refer to any ‘Censorship Certification’ for any film that I am to demonstrate!!!

It has been few days; I have been thrown out of my comfort zone and let me be wandering in the wilderness.

I am lost and there is darkness all around me. I look up at the skies above and see darkness and that too in different shades of it…I was lost totally lost! (God damn, the sky is cloudy, enough to welcome me with a torrential downpour as if to cleanse me!). I had nowhere to go…I was given a piece of paper and asked to talk to someone unknown entity! They said, you can live here and that too for a limited period and you had to find your own accommodation.

I was on my knees asking them to forgive me, let me go, send me home to my family…who even if they did not want me will certainly show some forlorn love to me…but it never happened and I landed in this ever mass of land!!! At least, I sighed that I was on shore… (Oh! One shore deprived land to another, my mind said!).

Setting my feet on this land, I was reminded of the land I was in and it flushed my mind with memories of yesterday and drove me to extend of being lost amidst my own men!

But then I took my soul and wandered deep into the woods and found myself a vehicle that could transport me to the vegetation and the ‘promised land’. I set my journey, which lasted more than my entire trip from the ‘Land of Nawabs’ to this ‘City of Angels’ – Bengaluru (Can’t give up the idea of writing –Bangalore, Alas!)

I got here and just settled on the piece of land my small brain reminding me to search for a permanent settlement and not get carried away with the life of living in a ‘Guest Accommodation’.

Here, it was heaven, you have a cook who makes you hot roti (bread) and waits for you to have the last bite of the roti on your plate, to drop an steaming hot one with tasty dal (lentil gravy) and sabzi (vegetable cooked with onions, tomatoes and spices) that’s mouth-watering. (I guess, every food that is even not palpable will look good and inviting if you are lost and starved)

You have the housekeeping to attend to your needs, they fill your bottles with drinkable water and see that it is always to the brim, even if you tend to take only a few sips in a day, leaving the bottle always filled, like the ‘Akshaya Patra’ (magic vessel) (Oh! yeah! the same one given by the Sun-God to Yudhishthira, during the exile! Yes, the exact vessel that did not go empty!)

You can leave your bed not done in the morning and find it ready for you to slip into the warm sheets in the evening, neatly binding to the ends of the bed and inviting by the time you get back.

This all is for another week, tells me, my stupid and senseless mind that prop up in times of dire ecstasy and lets me down when in dire need. It makes less of decisions and only suggests!!! What to do, can’t change my mind or bargain for a new one, have to live with it! So, I ask it to clam down and let me think.

I set on a mission, now I have the Worldwide Web at my office, I can’t afford to crib that if only I had the access, I could browse for some advertisements and get some numbers to call people and start looking around.

I had it and had to use it, I went ahead and logged on to a portal that exhibits advertisements of the sort, Sulekha.com and got some several numbers and the most appropriate locations.

I send them to my personal mail id and kept thinking that Saturday and Sunday will be a day out!!

As they say, “A job well begun is half done” on the pretext I too laze around thinking that I am almost there and it just needs some tightening of loose ends.

But no the title cards have only rolled by, the main picture is yet to roll on, as in to make me an assurance, it wasn’t only Sharukh’s famous dialogue in ‘Om Shanthi Om’. I dilly-dally over the week in the new office, meeting new faces, and new avenues, kind of adjusting to the new offshore connectivity cubicle or desk for myself and droll in the glimpses of heaven given at the guest accommodation(Huh! the word ‘guest’?!).

The dreadful day comes in quicker than I could bat my eyelids twice. I gear up not losing hope and being pampered to a real delicious breakfast, I venture out with all my gears and gadgets ready….I walk on to the street below my heaven and look up with a weary face and the closely hugged dearth of losing ground.

I set on my hostile expedition, I have no clue where I stand and what the place is expect with a piece of paper that I can read, which says the address of the place. The phone numbers I had on the paper, had markings as available with food, without food, 2, 3, and 4 sharing…and that’s all.

Now, knowing the local language is a BOON or DISGUISE, I did not know until I started talking. If you know more than one South Indian language, I am sure you are to get confused and or at least speak in a language that almost has an equivalent meaning for each thing you want to describe or pronounce. That’s what exactly I faced, when I had to converse with the auto-wallahs in Bengaluru!

(…to be continued)

Mein aur Meri Tanhayee…! [My loneliness and me]

Series -2

Hmm…it has been a little too long a gap between my series 1 and 2. My second interest in life after music is books!!!

I started this flair also quite young! I remember, when I lived in Calcutta (now, Kolkata), I used to travel to my hometown, Salem by The Coromandel Express. These train journeys were fun and great thing to look forward.

The meal in the train, the home food packed in dubba’s (boxes) that lasted only for one meal through the entire train journey that lasts for two whole days…in the days gone by! And we had to open the dubba’s and eat the food as soon as we got in, coz they used to be so deliciously made. They were mostly of favorite stuffs such as, poori with alu sabji or tomato rice with alu fry or lemon rice with alu fry or some soft idlies with that perfect chutney or just some chapathi’s with the tomato curry……Man, even now my mouth waters thinking and writing about those delicacies.

It was great fun to manage the stuff on your lap and eat…without spilling them on to the floor of the train. Otherwise, it would be a big mess, unless somebody comes cleaning it, normally this cleaning would be done by some grown-up kids or some physically disabled person, a means of earning for them!!!

Just the thought revolts, my dad used to pay them appropriately coz, even in their plight there are people who used to walk away without doing the deed and would be perfectly able. Some lazy guy, who sought means to earn a penny by mocking an act!!!

Ok, deviating from the topic…I am talking about the habit of reading. So you know, by now, where does my scenario come from!!

On these long journeys, when I was in school and very little about in 3rd or 4th standard, I started reading the Amar Chitra Katha, Tinkle, and Panchatantra stories….!!!

I brought them for a price of Rs.5, which could buy you a lot of things. My dad used to not get those saying it might hurt my eyes…and other things. But I insisted on it and would buy them. I had two wonderful bound books of varied stories and legends….but some friend of mine flicked it from me…! Alas! I will not forget her deed, even though I forgot how she looked!!! The irony is that I lost them in Bangalore, the same Bangalore where I am right now?!

I used to get on to the train, wait for the train to leave the station and then devour on the food that we carried and hold on to the window seat and sit comfortably with the legs folded underneath my lap and open the book and read the lines….and drift into a world of my one…Kavitha in Wonderland!

I used to love the cool breeze across the face and on my hair…I still love traveling by the window seat and the breeze on my face!!! It feels like heaven!!! You can see the dry and wet lands pass by, the greenery, the forgotten lampposts, the devastated temples and buildings, the big round well in the fields and the varied trees and pathway that get you lost in to cities and towns you never know!!! The graphic representations on the books would used to come alive on those vacant spaces!!!

I developed my reading habits with these small kids’ books. Then, I slowly got into reading Tin Tin, Archies, Asterix, and various other comic books.

Slowly, I got bored with them and moved into big series books such as Edin Blyton – The Famous Five, Robert Stevenson – The Treasure Hunt, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn – Mark Twain, Charles Dickens – The Oliver Twist, and David Copperfield, and many likes!!!

I was in fifth standard when I went to watch a play - A Midsummer’s Night Dream by Shakespeare enacted by a troupe of London Artists, in a violin shaped auditorium in Bangalore(now, Bengaluru). This violin shaped auditorium is called Chowdaiah Memorial Hall. We all received an adapted version of the play in easy understandable language as a hand-out. I remember having the hand-out close to my heart locked in a cupboard for long!!!

I was surprised by the way the play was done, the curtains, the costumes, the make-up, the artists and the whole thing. I guess, I decided to do a little bit of acting myself. I had in fact shook hands with an artist and felt like a queen…as this privilege was given to very few of them!!!

I have played the role of ‘Lady Macbeth’ the main protagonist in the Shakespearean play ‘Macbeth’ during my school days. The acting stint of mine was also due to a movie, I got to see early in my life an English movie in a theatre, ‘The Sound of Music’. This movie influenced me to learn the English language in the right and proper sense!!!

I was very much impressed by the play and fell in love with Shakespeare as well!!!(Still do). I started reading his adapted versions of his plays by various authors…!! Plays like As You Like It, Merchant of Venice, Midsummer Nights Dream, Macbeth, Antony and Cleopatra, Twelfth Night, King Lear and The Tempest.

Thanks to being in a central board education, the best of my companion in school was my English books…they were two, one Non-detailed and another Prose and Poetry text.

The non-detailed text book had these adapted writings of the famous novels and several short stories, which were from some of the famous writers, R.K.Narayanan stories and novels, Ruskin Bonds stories, Charles Dickens, Shakespeare, and many others.

I started carrying them instead of buying novels and short stories coz, they were costly and my dad did not believe I could understand all that stuff….!!!

Then, when I slowly grew and got into college it was mostly fiction and then when I comprehended the world and the knowledge spread across the world I got into non-fiction stuff and got interested in reading books on various genres of writing.

I have read a lot of them starting with Sidney Sheldon, Robin Cook, Jeffery Archer, Arthur Hailey, Robert Ludlum, Irving Wallace, Jawaharlal Nehru (One better Indian Writer), Gandhi (the worst writer), Rabindranath Tagore, Girish Karnad, R.K Narayanan, Ruskin Bond, Ayn Rand, Sarojini Naidu, Adolf Hitler, Bernard Shaw, Benjamin Franklin, Milton, Napoleon Bonaparte, Shiv Khera, Robin Sharma, Paulo Coelho, Khaled Hosseini, Shashi Tharoor and many more……….!!!!!

End of it what, obsessed, I am obsessed with books and book stores, you end a messed up reader who goes mad after seeing a bookstore and picks up books more than you can read at one time!