Moorings

Bhai kitne baar jaayega tu Nagpur😊?

Given a choice, i would love to travel to Nagpur every month atleast for a day of two. Atleast till I can manage to do that on my own. And during each such visit i would definitely go atleast once to the place where I grew up from an infant to a young adult. The place where I spent 23 years of my formative life. The place where I spent maximum number of years with my first blood - my raison d etre - my parents and my sibling. The place which gave me the most lasting of friendships which were destined to be and i had no choice in choosing them. The place where I was never judged for what I was born as or for what I had done with my life till then. A place where the only tags attached to me were pet names given by my family and friends.

Every other subsequent place where I spent rest of my life as an adult, have been a place of my choice but still none can measure up to the charm and appeal of the quaint little place where time stands still for me. A place where I can smell and feel my childhood and adolescence.

That's the only place on earth where I can visualise my parents as being fully capable and incharge of their surroundings, and not being dependent on any third person for their own needs, as it had been towards the fag ends of their lives. A place where I saw my father as a hero who as the sole bread earner could handle any situation in his inimitable cool as a cucumber style  and my mother as a home maker who perfected the art of running the household economy in minimum resources and yet not making us aware of the limitations she faced in walking the tight rope. Two very capable persons who ensured that I got the best of what any average child in the neighborhood could get. And the place also gave me the pride of being the younger sibling to a super achiever sister whose accolades (curriculum as well as co-curriculum) were always a source of joy for the entire family. 

These moorings bring me back to the place again and again. And during each such visit I can sense the good old days still hovering around the place as if untouched by time.

To put in a somewhat poetic style - "Meri rooh yaha basti hain"😊

Deja Vu

Once in a while we do come across a situation where a total stranger appears like a known person resulting in an instant bond that transcends all norms. Same happened with me during my official tour to Kandla where I met Amit who served me breakfast with a smile on his face. After few rounds of interaction Amit remarked that my face appeared very familiar and that probably he had met me earlier. His observation could have passed on as a standard line for striking a conversation. But strangely I  too felt the same about him and prompted me to ask him whether he had worked/lived in any of the places that I had visited in the past. Strangely neither was he anywhere near my age group nor had he lived or worked in any of the places named by me. It was a strange sense of Deja Vu of having met a person like him in the past. Someone who not only resembled him in physical appearance but also in mannerisms and way of communicating.

The feeling being mutual made us communicate more during my breakfast sessions during the weeklong stay in the hotel and by then he came to know that I was almost twice as old as him and he started looking forward to me for few words of wisdom based on life experiences. On the last day Amit asked me a very poignant question. While I struggled to provide him with a plausible answer, it made me ponder over the weekend over the depth of his question.

Amit wanted to know why a woman finds it so difficult to adjust with her in-laws? He wanted to know what any husband could do for resolving the issue.

On the face of it his question appeared to be no brainer and I began answering him with the standard quote that it's Kahaani Ghar Ghar ki and was an ailment with no cure. But gradually the topic veered towards the aspect of how different women are from men, physically, mentally and emotionally. According to me the biggest reason for marital disputes is the inherent sense of mothering/caring that an average woman is born with. And this continues with her all through her life and manifests in the urge to control the men around her, be it her brother and father during her childhood, her male friends during her adolescence and her husband and her son post marriage. All is well and hunky Dory as long as there is only one woman around a man showering her motherly affection. Problem arises the moment another woman is there in the arena. And it's always the man who is split between his mother and his wife or between his sister and his mother or between his wife and his daughter. Men too add fuel to the fire by unwittingly taking sides resulting in the other woman getting ensnared in a sense of insecurity bringing out her darker shade. Darker shade of a woman invariably results in the man being fed with negativity about the other woman in question, which mostly happens to be either his own mother, his wife or his daughter. It may sound very misogynistic, but very rarely we come across a woman who inspite of being hugely insecure  can handle such situations maturely.

The only word of advice that I could offer Amit was that a man should always try to ensure that the women around him never feel insecure because of his behaviour. According to me, for any man the biggest problem in life is to live with a woman having a sense of insecurity. And unfortunately very few men have been fortunate enough to have mastered this rare art.😊

Proud Voters

Just as the indelible mark is slowly fading away, the Candidates for whom Proud Voters voted, will also disappear soon only to come back knocking at your doors with folded hands after 5 years😊 

Meanwhile, an average voter will be back to deal with encroached footpaths, pot holed and uneven roads, mad rat race in the field of education and job sector, soaring utility bills and  organised loot by the health sector. 

Whereas, the elected netas will once again get insulated from all such travails and resume their cushy lifestyle busy exploring opportunities for adding more crores into their net worth before next elections. 

No wonder they are so addicted to their profession and want someone within  the family to continue their win win legacy, as the voters keep wondering all their lives "Saala aisi kaunsi galati kar di life mein ki is tarah ki zindagi guzaar raha hu"😅

Bird watching

We human beings are very observant as infants and as young children, and absorb whatever we see around us.  Those visuals and experiences get imprinted as lifetime  memories. 

As a child majority from the earlier generations (before the millennials) would have witnessed sparrows building nests with the onset of summer and hatchlings flying out before the end of summer and arrival of monsoon. 

The houses back in the 70s had thick walls made of bricks instead of present day thin walls supported by RCC framework. Such homes had ventilation holes at the roof level and a deep cavity existed within such ventilation holes between the external and internal walls. Same provided perfect annual nesting paradise for sparrows and other smaller birds. Growing up observing this annual ritual of our feathered friends used to be a wonderful mix of joy and sorrow. 

Joy was the sight of pair of tiny birds assiduously fetching tiny twigs, dry leaves, silk cotton, etc., building a home for their young ones, taking turns in hatching the eggs and once hatched running errands for gathering nutrition such as small insects, worms, etc. for the tiny ones. Added bonus for an observer would be listening to the muted calls of the hatchlings and finally witnessing their brave attempts in stepping out into the big world outside flapping their yet to be fully developed wings. That marked a happy ending to the story.

 Sad at times when any one of the parent bird got hit by the blades of the ceiling fan running at full speed at the peak of summer. Poor bird would come crashing down on the floor, with a broken wing or at times a broken beak, stunned by the hit and gasping for breath. Vivid are  memories of tending to such grievously wounded sparrows, offering them water in a saucer and hoping against hope that it will miraculously survive and fly back to its young ones who otherwise would end up as orphans starving to death. But in most of the cases the hit was so fatal that the parent bird had to be given a sad burial at some discreet corner in the garden, lest the dead bird ended up as a meal for a cat or a dog. 

With age the child in us outgrows such wonders of nature and focus shifts initially to pursuance  of career and later into bird watching of another type as would happen with any young adult😀. 

Like the sparrows, human life  too gets busy in building a nest for a new found partner and the tiny ones to be, and then life gets so entrenched that we become oblivious of our own surroundings.

Years pass by and when our young ones have flown the nest and when you start seeking your inner self, the focus slowly starts shifting back to the surroundings.

Once again we start observing the change of season, spring giving rise to fresh leaves, flowers and fruits, bees humming around, butterflies hovering over the flowers, and birds chirping away to glory. 

This time around we try to make sense of the nature's cycle and are amazed at the realisation that everything happening around  has a purpose and happens with magical precision. Trees around us have grown new branches and leaves and birds are back to gathering nesting materials, in anticipation of a warm and dry summer that will provide perfect settings for the arrival of their young ones. 

Only difference being the fact that our homes are no more naturally ventilated and sparrows need to search around for a safe haven for ensuring continuity of their race. But the pleasant fact that sparrows are still in existence and they are still gathering nesting material, makes us wonder where are they building their nests and where do they disappear along with your young ones during the rainy season. 

Life is really interesting 😊

On Dogs & Dog bites.

Dogs like any other animal are known to be peaceful beings unless provoked. Even a snake bites only when it senses danger to its own existence. 

Of late social media  especially WhatsApp is witnessing a trend of forwarding gruesome videos of dogs mercilessly attacking children. Nobody knows the origin of these videos, but same are being forwarded mostly with a tagline about consequences of feeding of stray dogs and a request to forward these videos as much as possible.

Sounds like some propaganda at play.

Amongst all animals, dogs are known to be very benign and loving when kept as a domesticated pet at home. Even as strays they are known for their attachment to human beings and unfailing loyalty to the hand that feeds them.

Every locality has its 'Kaalu' or 'Sheru' or 'Chotu' or 'Rani'  which in majority cases came to the locality as an abandoned puppy and was collectively adopted by the locals. As it grows into an adult, these stray dogs, not only display affectionate responses to the locals but also have unflinching loyalty to the premises, which perhaps may be more than the loyalty displayed  by the locals themselves for their premises. In such situations, an outsider may not always be welcome and the dog may bark. The outsider can be a delivery person, security guard or any random visitor new to the premises. If on such occasions the person concerned tries to show fear or agression over the area domination exercise of the dog, then the dog may turn violent and may even attempt to bite the intruder as part of its animal instinct. There is absolutely nothing wrong on the part of the dog if it is so provoked. Rather it is prudent for the human being blessed with superior thinking abilities, either to ignore the dog and confidently move ahead or to get acquainted with the stray rather than intimidate it. 

Another reason for stray dogs displaying attacking behaviour can be unpleasant memories of having been themselves attacked by human beings, or having been injured or having lost its kith or kin by being run over by a speeding vehicle. That's why we witness dogs running after vehicles in certain localities.

Left to themselves dogs will rarely attack human beings especially when they know that their very survival is due to us.

Coming to the appeals being made for stopping feeding of stray dogs, thought in the right perspective, isn't such an appeal equivalent to starving a living being to death? Does any religion on earth allow this?

If we as dominant human beings sitting pretty on top of the food chain as consumers, are to stop feeding other animals then what are such animals supposed to do? Sit quietly waiting for themselves to be starved to death, or will they not start attacking us more sensing danger to their very existence? 

And if we are to stop feeding dogs because they bite, shouldn't we also stop feeding cats, pigeons, birds, etc. etc. for the various risks they pose for our healthy existence. To think on extremes we should also stop feeding ruminants like cows and buffaloes as they produce toxic methane gas. Things can spiral unreasonably, if stopping of feeding of a dependant animal species is the way forward for ensuring safe living environment for us human beings.

And more importantly who has licensed us human beings to decide which type of living organism should survive and which one is to be eliminated?

Lastly, considering the sage advice that hunger is the root cause of all evil, how prudent is it to stop feeding a stray dog to ensure that it wont attack /bite? Conversely all that a well fed dog does is sleep peacefully. Isn't that more prudent?

Life comes full circle

As a child every person waits for the parent to be back home no matter which hour of the night it is. Mostly because, as a child one tends to look upto the parent as a Hero, without whom every childhood story remains incomplete. 

Years pass by and the child grows to be a young adult leading life on  own terms and conditions. Now it is the turn of the parent to look upto the child as a Hero, without whom every parents' story remains incomplete. 

Having a parent who is a workaholic and a social animal at the same time, can be really tough on a child. The world may go to sleep but the child remains wide awake each time the parent returns home late at night. Nagging fears abound in the young mind about something bad happening to the Hero which may turn each childhood story upside down.

Equally tough is life of parent of a  young adult, who over the years has forgotten the special bond that kept the child awake late nights. But as we say life is a great leveller wherein tables get turned and roles reversed. 

Now it's the turn of the parent to keep awake till the child has returned back home safe and sound. 

Ironies of life

No matter the travails a person has gone through in life, no matter how lonely one's old age was, no matter how much one longed for being comforted by loved ones in the dark final days of life, beyond life the bereaved do manage to pull out a more presentable image of the otherwise frail and hapless soul whose sufferings were perhaps not known to even the most loved ones. Seemingly a manifestation of our selfish selves and desire to absolve ourselves of having failed to some extent in providing succour to the departed soul when alive. 

No wonder, images of the departed souls,  which adorn walls of our homes, display a trace of bemusement on the face, as they benignly look down on us from the high pedestal we place them beyond their lives. 

Ironies of life.