home away from home

Burrabazar among us mawaris is probabaly more famous than the seven wonders of the world! Many from the community have scripted their rags-to-riches story in the narrow lanes of Burrabazar. Some of the most successful "baniyas" (businessmen) can be found here dressed in crispy white kurta-pyjamas, chewing rajanigandha and spitting paan.

Hundreds of gaddis (business set-ups) exist cheek by jowl in the area's dilapidated buildings. However there is no "fierce competition" among them. A sense of mutual respect and co-existence lets harmony preside. A "gaddi", of all is a very humble place. Furniture here is minimal. Only a couple of mattresses covered in sparkling white sheets, a galla and images of Laxmi, Goddess of wealth and Ganesha, God of auspicious-ness is all you will find. Appearances are deceptive and this applies here too. So do not go by the humble interiors of a gaddi, business dealing worth crores is done here!

I do not know how and when I developed this "phobia " towards Burrabazar. Maybe it was the fear of running into those dark, perspiring, lungi-clad labourers earning their daily wages that scared me; or may be the sheer cacophony and disoriented-ness of the place repelled me. I always feared getting jostled, unable to gain control.

But then the best way of overcoming fears is by facing them, and face I did! Compelled by "shopping needs" and pushed by the urge to overcome the "burrabazar-phobia" I, one fine day, decided to visit Burrabazar.

As I marched into the marketplace, a certain sense of familiarity struck. Little did I know (but soon found out) that this place was just like any other marketplace in Rajasthan, my birthplace! It was a microcosm of sorts. Shops were named the way they are in Rajasthan. "Sohanlal and Sons", "Chandmal Sitaram", "Chhaganlal Shyamaldas", have you ever known shops named this way? Well, I have. You find them either in Rajasthan or, yes you guessed it right, in Burrabazar!!

Soon my ears began picking words in marwari from people's conversations. Bandhej and chunari (native Rajasthani fabric prints) sarees lay on display as I crossed them in shops, one after the other. Those perspiring labourers gave way to lovely aunties, some sensuous and others pot-bellied. (:D) Suddenly I felt releived, and safe. I looked around as gentle breeze from a nearby banyan tree caressed my face, as if to say, "Welcome home!".

Delightful mirth dwelled in me as I explored few more lanes around. Such was the aura, that I soon realised that one could easily pass off these lanes as  being those of Jaipur. I was overjoyed and wished I had "discovered" this facet of Burrabazar earlier.

"The leaving" was as difficult as "the coming" but this time the reason was completely opposite. This time I just didn't want to go! I wanted to explore more, shop more and in turn relish abit more in this new found "at home" feeling that the place was so generously exuding.

Alas! leave I did, but only with a will to soon return to my very own "home away from home". :)

( And oh! I had the yummiest curry-bhujia in one of the eatries there, it tasted just the way it does at home :) :) )

My second holi with friends! Was crazy to speak the least. I was never a Holi-person. My entire childhood is full of only observations of people playing with the colors. I always liked to maintain a distance, and watch.

Earliest recollections are of my parents and a whole lot of their friends. They would all come to our place in a car. Dad, in white kurta-pyjama would go with them somewhere.  Couple of hours later when they returned , dad would look like a ghost! His white kurta-pyjama now with patches of red, pink, green and blue colors all over. His chappals and feet smeared in abeer, applied by his junior colleagues as a mark of respect.

Then came the tussle. Mom wouldn't let dad enter the house in his "ghastly and colored" state. Dad, in turn would pull mom out of the house and overturn a packet full of abeer over her. Other friends would join, as I watched, sometimes from the balcony and sometimes from a distance somewhere.

One of dad's colleagues (we called him 'tauji')  would live in the same building as ours. I very vividly remember how dad hurriedly took us (my sister and me) to the balcony one Holi morning, himself carrying a bucketful of colored water. Tauji, all bathed and beaming in his new, sparkling white kurta-pyjamas was standing downstairs just below our balcony.  With a startling splash, the entire bucketful of water was dropped onto tauji! Bewildered, and with water dripping from all over him tauji looked up, and we all screamed in unison, "Bura na mano Holi hai!!" With that, all our mischiefs were pardoned.

That's the magic of Holi.

Smeared in color, everybody appears the same. Nobody is rich, nobody is poor. They are all red and blue and green.