Thinking of my Grandmother

My grandmother practically brought us up - me and my brother. Both my parents were working and at 3 months of age i was left with my grandparents and great-grandmother during the day. They talked to me all day, fed me, entertained me and im sure i entertained them and kept them busy. The result being that at 3, when my parents thought of getting me enrolled into a school, much to their horror, i could only speak in Punjabi. My mother would worry about it all the time. She talked to her friends about how the hell was her child was going to clear the interviews. But ofcourse, there wasn't much she could do about it, except talking to me in hindi and english for the little time she got to spend with me in the evenings.

Well, i did obviously get enrolled and i do speak in other languages. In the process, unfortunately, my punjabi isn't as good as i would have liked it to be. Lets talk about my Great-Grandmother first. She was a beautiful beautiful lady as im told. She passed away when i was 4. Yet strangely i remember very vividly the day she passed away, where she was laid down. I remember circling around her and saying, "Ab ajwain kaun banayega?" (Who will make Ajwain - its a herb, she mixed it with aloe vera and made something rocking out of it). At 4 - Ajwain is all i could be bothered about.

She was the wisest lady in our lineage. She explained the eternal truth to my mother which my mother dint really understand by herself and doesn't acknowledge even now. She explained that i was no ordinary child. I was a rose, a marble statue and that she should not let other people hold me. This obviously i'm told, with a big laugh, like what a joke my parents just cracked :/

My grandfather truly was a wise man - he dint really say any such flattering things about me, but he did teach me alot of things. He dropped me to the bus stop, picked me up in the afternoon, took me to the market and for walks. All those things that usually grand-fathers do. But my favorite thing was, in winters, he would make me sit in his lap and wrap us in a quilt ..... wow ! so safe and so cozy. Makes me feel all fuzzy when i think about it. He passed away when i was 10 i guess.

After that, it was me, my brother and our grand mother, spending the day together while our parents were away at work. We came back from school, we were fed, scolded, screamed at - with no effect alot of times though. My grand mother was swifter than us at most things, she could not sit still for 2 min. Her alternate afternoons were booked with her set of friends, who got together for Kirtan. She also had an investigative streak. She would have made a stupendous spy/journalist/CBI agent. She loved to sneak up on us with a test paper she found buried under our clothes in the cupboard where we had scored a big fat proud 0.  She would report every single detail of every single fight to our parents.

As we were growing up, we alot of times had arguments over the sneaking up. And ofcourse, with my swinging hormones, i was far from polite. I could barely hide my irritation. I did feel horrible inside after i had said whatever i did, but could never really go back and apologize. It always was very tough for me to do, so i would express it in my actions.

Our grandmother saw us through school, our teens, college, early 20s. She was around everyday our lives, a part of every small and big thing that happened to us. Worrying sick and being concerned about every stupid step we took, yet not being able to do much about it.

Since we lost her 3 months back, i find myself thinking of her all the time. I don't really think of my wise grandfather and my beautiful great-grandmother at all, but i think of my grandmother all the time. I miss her in my daily life. Little things remind me of her - like when i eat badaam, when i eat achaar, when i keep something at the edge of the table (she was always wary of things kept on the edge), when its my birthday, every time i visit my parents, every time i go to her room, every time i open her cupboard.

I miss you and i always imagine you are in this cloudy misty heaven, taking a walk with dada ji, avoiding your mother-in-law who is sitting elsewhere on a cloud with her harp :)

Maid in India : Tales of maid troubles

Just this morning i had a long conversation with my sister-in-law who happens to live in Bangalore. Her biggest complain for the last 2 yrs that she has been there has been the maids. Our conversation was dominated by the most recent maid she was forced to chuck out.

It turns out that she had some guests over and she had called in her maid to simply fry some pakoras, she did all the cooking herself. The maid invariably began to crib but did show up in the evening. Just as my sister-in-law entered the kitchen, she saw the maid frying the pakoras and eating a few too. She ignored it, though im sure the instinctive desire to scream your head off as the woman of the house would have been incredibly hard to control, for which i raise my hat to her. The next time, the darling maid was supposed to sun some dry fruit which she instead walked out popping into her mouth. I think that coupled with a few other piled up frustrations blew my sister's fuse and she threw the maid out. Rightly so.

As another one of my cousins was expecting her first child, she was in dire need of a full time maid who could cook and take care of the house for her. After alot of her attempts to find someone failed, she turned to the "agents" that everyone seemed to suggest, and found herself a maid. All was well untill one day her husband woke up in the middle of the night for an early morning flight only to find the main door open and the maid missing. After alot of looking around, the guards finally recovered her from an under-construction apartment where she was having a party gobbling up fish and gulping down drinks with the workers. It was a hard day's night i guess and unwinding was in order. My cousin ofcourse got so angry that she packed her maid into the car and drove off to the agent in the middle of the night. The maid though had no regrets, the party it seems was worth it !

Another one of her maids ran off in the middle of the night, but she finally has someone stable and i pray that it stays that way. Everyone say with me - Amen !

My mom's maid seemed more like a case of adoption to me. She was a young girl who had run away from home from a tribal village near siliguri and come to delhi with the agent. Jassi had not spoken to her family in 3 yrs and was unhappy with her decision.  My mom tried to do what she she knew best - that was to teach her - but Jassi was least interested. Jassi  with all the exuberance of youth wanted nothing to do with books. She wanted to cut her hair, she wanted fair n lovely, shampoo, cut her kurtas shorter to be with the times, everything you should expect from a 19 yr old. But she did miss her family.  Thats when my mother put her most efficient google junkie(me) to find a phone number we could call at Jassi's village. I made a few calls off google but turns out there was no phone in that village. Finally my mother got me to post a  letter which to our immense surprise and delight did reach her parents in 4 months. She finally got to speak to her family, but understood over a couple of months that there was no going back. My mother explained to Jassi that she would get her married and that its a very bad world out there for a young girl. Unfortunately, it did nothing for Jassi's loneliness. 

One fine day we discovered Jassi was gone. She had eloped with a guy and such leap of faith can only come from the optimism of youth. A few weeks later as i sat sipping tea with my mom and brother, i asked if there was any news from Jassi. Mom mentioned that she has gone to the guy's village and is apparently happy. I asked mom how come she did not see this coming, to which my brother retorted, "i did". My obvious question was how?  To which he said, "to itni bhayankar garmi main dopahar ke chaar baje kaun tayar hoke doodh lene jata hai " . Elementary my dear Watson.

As women in metros, especially the working ones, the maids have become a big part of  happiness quotient. Im not sure how many men know and realize this, but surely the women do. For a working woman,  there is alot she is leaving behind which has been stamped as her responsibility by the society whether on not it is feasible. Other than working ofcourse, she is responsible for the house being in orders, groceries, vegetables, fruits, the man being fed heathy food, the children being taken care of. All of these things are actually a full time job which if done as well by another person (full time maid, nanny etc) could cost you a fortune. Besides, it will never get done as well. 

Coming back to the maids, so it seems the maids in metros and IT hubs are so very much in demand these days that they simply do not care enough to curb their bad attitude. Its just another level of what IT engineers did when the industry boomed. You dont like it, leave it. Depending on where you stay, the maids are either too expensive, or have a bad attitude, or are never on time. You want a full time maid, she has to be trustworthy. Who do you leave you kids with? What choice do you have? Suddenly, you miss your parents and your in-laws.

Some lucky few who have found that right maid - hang onto her with all our might. Pray to lord every day that she doesnt lose her mind and count everyday that she is around as a blessing. Because you my darlings have hit the jackpot which is one in more than a million in India i guess. It helps to build a relationship, know their troubles(especially after long term enagements), know their routine.  You still would need to overlook a few things as long as they are not becoming habits. 

As they rightly say, behind every successful woman is a rockstar maid.

Milkha Singh Ji

I have been away for a while now, attribute it to professional early mid life crisis and regulatory change happening in the investment banking domain. But i have promised myself to be more active now.

So what got me out of my slumber - as you would have guessed i watched Bhaag Milkha Bhaag. The fact that im writing about it clearly means that i loved the movie. I'm the sort of audience who will live the movie for those 3 odd hours, i will cry, i will wince in pain, i will shut my eyes, i will feel nauseated with disgust. So i like my movies to engage me, take me on that ride. Which ofcouse BMB did.

As we sat down for the movie, M asked me why was Farhan Akhtar so bulked up - and me having read all his interviews and listened to all he had to say on the radio informed him that its an artist interpretation of what he thought the image should look like. M gave me the look he has kept reserved for pseudo intellectuals.

As the movie progressed, i marvelled at how different Farhan looked and how hard he had worked and how well the movie was made. But i think 45 min into the movie i stopped thinking and started feeling.

As the movie progressed to the partition phase and the refugee camp with Milkha's sister and her abusive husband, i felt like someone just clenched my stomach and squeezed it.

While on the other hand Milkha's sheer will power im sure was what M was applauding in his heart, since he would never say it out loud. As we came to the intermission, i was telling M that i have lot all stomach for partition stories and especially abusive behaviour against women - he asked if it were since i watched Pinjar - but it wasn't - my guess was its to do with age.

I wondered aloud how much it was for a 12 yr old to take and yet survive. M argued that Milkha was not the only one who had survived, there must be hundreds like him - our very own grand parents did.
Our grandparents did, but not alone, not at 12. And yes there must be others alone and young but does that change the pain? Or is it that when you see and entire nation in crisis, it gives you the will to survive because you are not the only one?

With all these thoughts we approached the climax of the movie which was the perfect note to end this  great epic. People whistled and clapped - and this was a late night show with mostly families - yet they clapped and whistled and felt proud of the man whose story it was - saluted his determination, his survival, his grit and his obsession.

From the feminist in me

This one is for you ladies.  I dont really like feminists, mostly because im more convinced by biology and evolution than feminism. And before you pick up the belan and charge at me, let me clarify that i do obviously believe in equal respect, equal rights and equal opportunity, but if you expect me to join a protest outside a beauty paegant, be prepared to be disappointed. I'll get to that in another post.

As i was cooking last night - which btw is not one my strengths and M (my husband) could vouch for that , given diplomatic immunity. I have these bouts of wanting to cook, and thats when i do. So i decided to make maharaja burgers with some chilly fries and baby corn. I made this pretty burger and set it on a pretty plate which we dont usually use, coz its heavy.. And i presented it to M. And then i made another one of my pretty maharaja butgers for myself, but i found myself pulling out the not-pretty plate - thats when i paused and thought to myself  - what exactly am i doing? Why am i not serving myself in the pretty plate. For those of you (especially men) thinking "its just a goddamn plate for godssake" - its not about the plate. Moving on. I pulled out the pretty plate, decorated it and promised to think about this after watching some mindless TV.

How many of you have heard this from your mothers while growing up - "arre bete pehle papa ko dinner serve kar do". How many times is the lady of the house served water or tea when she walks into the house. The examples are plenty, but the point im trying to make is, though we have been subjected to this kind of conditioning all through our childhood, its time to consciously avoid letting it affect us. More importantly, its time to teach our sons to be equally responsive to the needs of the women in their house and not turn them into a "punjabi puttar" - i hope my mom is reading this. And most importantly ladies, if you dont have the nerve to stand up for yourself, do the society some good by NOT bad mouthing the ones who do. Yes your are jealous , no you are not being pious and homely like a matrimonial ad.

Thankfully, the women in my family are strong and independent. Not the 21st century independent but definately the 20th century independent. They have a say, they participate in decision making, they lord over their children and can scream at their husbands in private, if required. And no, they are not disrespectful towards their husbands, they dont drink or smoke, they manage relatives beautifully, go out of their way to help each other and get along well enough with their mother-in-laws. 

YET - "arre bete pehle papa ko dinner serve kar do" 

Though i can gladly say that luckily im married into a family where women from both generations are sent to work with a kiss on the cheek every morning. They are welcomed home with a hug in the evening. If they are tired or unwell, they are instructed to stay in bed and are served food. The men here have very smartly figured out that women appreciate these bits (in daily life) more than expensive gifts. Saves them alot of expense too :)

However, as i was writing this i got a call from my mother. And as she told me about her day, she said - "arre beta (yes thats what she always says)  aajkal main subah late uthti hoon, papa jaldi uth ke dadi aur mere liye chai banate hain"  how sweet ! Late in life, but much needed. So proud of all you lovely men.

Unfamiliar Territory

Its a cold winter morning, something i have not experienced before on a weekend. And yet, here i am wide awake at 6.30 am. I have only my work to blame. Every weekday i leave home at 7am, which ofcourse is a torture in winters, but what'll you do. But somehow, earlier, my body knew weekdays from weekends; which is no longer the case.

So yes, i wake up and its still dark outside, and im sitting in my cozy bed, in my snugly warm room and start doing what i do best - thinking. As a child, i went to these weekly 'development' (i really dont have a better word) classes. They are a big part of my childhood memories. I dint quite understand their importance at that point, but now, im sort of proud of them. Though these classes had a religious tilt to them, which i understood much later, they were a form of missionaries popularising their sect by catching us early. But, for the most part they worked on the gurukul model.

As most of us know, in ancient India, education was mostly verbal. So we went to these classes, twice a week, we were taught shlokas from ancient scriptures. We recited these shokas enough number of times to learn them very well and also to understand what each word meant.

So coming back to my cold morning, one of the shlokas we learnt was to be recited looking at  your palms as soon as you open your eyes. It was an ode to the work we do with our hands. Clearly alot has changed since. I no longer wake up and religiously look at the palms of my hands and pray to my work. Instead, i wake up, reach for my ipad on my bedside table, as i open it, facebook stares back at me and asks, "How are you feeling, Priyanka?"