Pea Pod - A taste of everyday life

Nothing is free in this world. I've never taken anyone for a ride. I've never cheated anyone of a single paisa. I never wanted anything for free. There is nothing free in this world. Everything is paid for, even the freebies in a store or a supermarket.

I've taken a sabbatical from Social Networking. Even if it means temporarily. I like this old world blog. Need to get back to it instead of posting on FB and having an unknown world peeping into my life.

Does anybody even read my blog? Does anybody even have the time to just read? Does anybody like what I write? I write. I write what I want to write. I write because it makes me feel lighter. I write because I've been writing my thoughts since I was a child. I write not because I want someone to read what I write. I write because it makes me happy. I make sense sometime and sometime I don't. Whatever it may be...2004 this blog began. It will celebrate its 10th birthday this January 2014.

I was at an Ahmedabad beauty parlour two days ago. It's run by a middle aged lady in her home which is very close to where I live. There were two other ladies before me who were waiting for their turn. The lady finished with them and called me. On completing my services, I was on my way out only to discover that my Dr. Scholl's that I had removed outside her house had dissapeared. I could only see the Rs.2500 tag in front of my eyes as I went back inside the house and asked the lady if she knew the ladies who had come before me. I was relieved to know that one of them lived in another wing of the building I stayed in. The other one was an old lady and the beautician only knew the name of the building she lived in. I thought I should tackle them one at a time. Like a true detective, I reached my building wearing the footwear of "one of the two" and asked around for this lady. I located her flat and was thoroughly disappointed on finding out that she hadn't run...

On my way back from buying some groceries down the quiet lane, from a distance, I saw an old woman in a nav-vaari saree trying to pluck the bright yellow flowers from a tree. She held her walking stick above her head and was pulling the branch lower with it as she couldn't reach the flowers. "Aaji, thaamba. Mi tumaala madad karte," I said to her. She looked surprised to listen to someone speak in Marathi in Ahmedabad and gave me a sweet, wrinkled smile. "Donaj paayje mala,"she said. I asked for her walking stick and lowered a branch for her. She plucked some flowers and as I returned the stick to her, she put her shaking hand on my head and muttered some blessings with moist eyes. My day was made.

Back in the 80's, my father had received a video cassette of " Adi Shankaraachaarya", a  Sanskrit film by G.V.Iyer.  We, as children must have watched this film more than twice. With excellent direction, photography and music, this movie is etched in my memory. The most poignant scene being when a young Shankaraachaarya returns from the gurukul to do the final rites of his dead mother. He laughs continuously to everybody's amazement. It's this incident that made him compose -  Bhaj Govindam,  Bhaj Govindam Bhaj Govindam, Bhaj Moodh Matey Punarapi Jananam, Punarapi Maranam Punarapi Janani Jathre Shayanam Chant Krishna's name, Chant Krishna's name Chant Krishna's name, you dim wit Born again, dead again, Sleeping in the womb, yet again When my father passed away, I kept humming this in my mind and it felt so comforting to know that my father would be born as another life - again. Another aspect of the film that I can't forget is the v...

To my teacher of web design and architecture - Prateek Deo Gupta, congratulations on becoming a father to a pack of twin boys. Glad you moved "two" steps forward! :-) God bless you and yours'.

There are many people I meet who proclaim to have a voracious appetite for books. Maybe, they just fill their hunger for acquiring new books to fill up their showcases in the living room.  I say this because when these people write down their thoughts, their written English is just terrible - in language and grammar.  If you want to advertise to the world about your reading habits, please start digesting what you read so that the next time you put forth your thought in writing, you can prove it to them that you don't only read, but read really well.

My son sits on the pot with his slate. He usually scribbles and draws when he's at the big job and takes quite some time to call me to wash him up. Yesterday was a bit different. He called me almost immediately and said, "Potty finished, Mummy!" I told him that it can't be done so fast and he needs to sit for some more time. To this he replied."God gave me only one potty in my bummy today!"

Yippee!! Just one more week and the holidays begin at school! My son "wants vacation now"!