It had been a long day. The sun was out with its full might as beads of perspiration gradually lined Heera's forehead. All the seats in the bus were occupied. Thankfully she managed to find a place to stand comfortably in the otherwise crowded bus.
It had been 15 years since she had deposited Rs 5000 in the State Bank. Her husband, Raman was a wise man. He used to keep advising her to save money, that in time of need it was one's savings that helped. It was the result of several such doses of wisdom that Heera had decided to save rupees two thousand and put them into the bank as fixed deposit. The bank officials had then assured her a return triple of the original amount deposited.
After Raman's sudden demise last year, life had started to take its toll on Heera. She had no money to pay her only son's college fee. Repeated pleadings to relatives for help fell on deaf ears. She had not felt so helpless ever before. All hopes had faded. Her world was about to come crumbling down on her when a letter from State Bank reached her. Those 5000Rs had now tripled as the bank officials had said. The letter asked her to collect the sum at the earliest. A much stressed and worried Heera finally felt relieved. Help had come, finally. Raman had been right, in the time of need it was ones savings that helped.
So today she was returning home from the bank. The money would be sufficient to pay her son's college fee. Standing in the bus, she remembered her husband and his words, when suddenly she felt a tug at her saree. She turned to look into a pair of bespectecled, intent eyes . "Whats your name?", the women beside her was asking. "Why do you want to know?", asked a bewildered Heera. "I am Lata", said the women. "Lata!" cried Heera and her memory transported her to a period 25 years ago.

They used to be neighbours at Ganesh Talkies. It was a dilapidated two-storeyed building. Lata and Heera's families were the only ones sharing the building, Lata's family on the first and Heera's on the second floor. Each day they would have a racing competition, race starting from the terrace and ending at the huge blue-coloured gate of a factory beside their house. Lata's mother would keep yelling at them, on top of her voice, asking them to study and stop playing but it all fell ears. (...to be contd)

M e m o r i e s. . .

                                           

They sweep down my mind, they stirr up my spirits,

They leave me thirsty for the past...

Memories  float in, parallel to the future's creep,

They transcend me into the good old days...

How I miss those heart-warming moments,

The actual feelings I can'st not speak...

My friends, my loved ones all seem to have been left behind,

At steady pace life moves on...

Determined to cross new milestones,
Memories of them is all that I take along...

"Perhaps this is life..", I keep telling myself,"I need to move on.."
But strange, isn't it? how quickly time fleets along!

The poetess' own...

Lost in a summer's dream, happy children passing by...

I walked down that avenue, like the cheerful bird that flew past high.

Reflecting on the song of life, nature seemed to be dancing with me...

Joyous and mirthful was the tune it played, making even my shadow leap around in glee.

Full of life seemed the day that summer..

All around the wind blew,  thrilling me with its mysterious murmur.

The person within me was healed and healthy,

Life was moving on..with happiness world was wealthy.

A friend I had, the joy I wanted...but  journey was long that day,

 I did move on...unphased yet sceptical of the road ahead which lay.



Socially online!

Whats wrong with people? there seems to be no relevance of the word "private" these days. You go on a holiday and post your pics for the world to see. You go shopping and you post your pics for the world to see. I have even seen people sharing pics of them cleaning themselves inside a bathroom! i mean what the heck?? Have we got nothing else more worthwhile to do than to display ourselves posing inside our bedrooms?? Not just this, people are going around commenting freely on whats supposed to be your "private" moments with your family or ur friends, for that matter. Privacy of homes is getting encroached upon. Its like living on the streets where everybody can peek in n see what you are upto. Wherever i go, i find people smiling n laughing not at each other but at the camera! these pics are then very enthusiastically posted on facebook.  All and sundry, knowns and unknowns, neigbours and frens and almost everybody else even remotely connected to u then turn up to chirp how cool or uncool u looked!
 I had once been to a restuarant where three guys beside my table were eating and boozing. I noticed that at regular intervals each of them was clicking pictures of the other. With wine glass in one hand and kebabs in the other, they posed to their best. Just then one of them exclaimed- "wah! kya mast pic aayi h...facebook pe upload karna yaar!". The other joined in with- "haan ghar pahuchte hi saare pics upload kardunga!".
 Another thing that really irked me today was that i found myself tagged in a picture of a group of guys, among whom not a single one was known to me! Baffled and bewildered, I realised how my identity was not in my hands. Anybody could use or misuse it the way they wanted.
Incidents such as these have become an everyday affair for me. However the big question staring us is that have our lives reduced to this?? Our world have reduced to the confines of a 14inches screen or rather we have started viewing the world through it! Flowers have become more pleasing on an LCD screen rather than the sight of them blooming in the garden. The sun sets everyday but we never bother to take a moment and witness the marvellous spectra of nature but when a friend shares a pic of the setting sun, we never forget to type a comment on it no matter how busy we are. This is an age where inspite of having the time to go out and "look where squirrels hide their nuts in grass", we chose to stay indoors and see how our friend's friend's neigbour's dog's birthday party went!!

Nuts n memories...

Sometimes insignificant things which are in someway related to our loved ones become so important for us. It is separation that teaches us to value these things.
 I had a packet of roasted nuts my dad had bought in Ahmedabad. When he carried this packet to Rajasthan he had no clue that i would be carrying it all the way to Kolkata. Once here, each day i would pull out couple of nuts from the packet merrily munching on them, making my mind mill thoughts. Sometimes i would just stare at the packet, trying to read the words in Gujarati painted on it. The nice salty taste f the nuts made me wonder what the man who owned the factory that produced these nuts would be like. I tried guessing whether these nuts were famous in Gujarat..whether every housewife made sure that a packet of these nuts was always available in the house..and then I would think about my dad. Peace,mirth..happiness would seep in from all sides..I would feel im floating in thin air...mummy..papa...home...!
For 13 odd days i gobbled these nuts sometimes little, sometimes more than little but alas! everything comes to an end and so have the nuts!  All that im left with is the empty packet with its Gujarati label in blue. Im thinking of treasuring this packet for some more time. Not having it will not make much of a difference, but having it will make me feel closer to dad. Who knows sometimes i might just stare at it munching some other variety of nuts and allow the same thoughts to percolate in. Ultimately it will make me feel closer to home.

A sleepy happy world.

i spent a fortnight last month at my ancestral home, far away at a village in Rajasthan.
 It also happens to be my birthplace. Everything about this sleepy village is dear to me. The hanuman temple by the giant banyan tree, the primary government school which i attended as a child, the concrete road that runs right through the heart of the village end-to-end, the village well where men, women, children from my childhood would gather more to chat and recreate than to fetch water. There used to be a long narrow reservoir around a couple of water-taps by the well. The water in it used to be greenish-brown with slime and mucus that got mixed into it from the mouths of the buffaloes that drank water in it. As kids, we used to dread even looking into the reservoir. It marked the existence of a dark, mysterious and ghastly world full of creatures the thought of whom was enough to make shivers run down our spines. We could not dare to even stand by it all alone! As events turned out, one fine day i slipped and fell into this dark, deep, mysterious and scarry world we always believed existed. Scared to death I was that moment, my heart skipped several beats as i kept struggling to get to my feet. However, the monsters that i met under the gloomy waters were, to my utter surprise only fat, slimy,ugly and croaking frogs!! With my frock covered in repelling slime n mucus, i finally jolted out of the water and ran home crying!
All that has changed now. The taps still stand in their places, but the reservoir storing drinking water for animals has be relocated. Another thing that I really miss about Dujod is its serenity. There is never any kind of "noise" there. Once in a while the temple loudspeaker is heard abuzz with religious 'bhajans'. Sometimes a DJ is heard playing rajasthani songs in a 'barat' and thats all to it. Calm, serene and peaceful, life here has its own pace and at the end of the day every villager is happy and satisfied with their respective lives.  If one happens to pass by at noon, he might probably walk the entire length of the village and not meet a single human! That's because most have finished lunch and are off for a siesta while others are in a nearby town for work.
In one corner of this hamlet is situated my sweet, not-so-little home! As i reminisce my days spent there, I realise the how true the phrase "home is where the heart is" rings, and more so when ones home is situated in a village as this!