Choices?!

‘Given a choice, I would/would not do this.’ How many times have we uttered this sentence aloud or in our mind? Have we ever thought about the consequences this statement would fetch, if God happens to listen to us?

Imagine an ideal (?) life where we would be granted choices in any stage, in every situation and at every instance. Aaah…that would be good…isn't it? Choose to wake up late and bunk office or college. Choose orange juice over a glass of milk for breakfast. Choose to relax and read all day by lying curled up in a sofa and reading a book sipping a cup of hot chocolate or cappuccino and laze around under the pretext of catching up on much needed sleep. Or even choose to shop all day and blow up a massive amount on some useless shopping!

There are larger aspects to having choices which paint a very rosy picture. I would choose to have an exotic holiday abroad or pamper myself to a spa treatment instead of slogging it out over a never ending project. I would also choose to make my life my own way, carve out every move. And so could YOU. YOU as in my reader/s. You might be thinking that I have written about all my choices to do with entertainment and relaxation, but let me tell you, it is only just a quotable instance. There are choices in almost any and every walk of life and a part of each decision that one makes. So choices are good, right? WRONG.

Well again, this is my perspective. Over the years I have come to see that in a given situation, once the host of choices is infused, it always works opposite to its purpose. Infact, even before we are old enough to understand their significance, we get surrounded by choices. Only difference is that as a child normally someone else chooses for you and as you grow up, you are supposed to make your own mature choices. Let us take an example of little kids in primary school whose parents want them to excel at studies and also be all-rounders. So, there comes up a host of choices – sports, IQ classes, music, dance, elocution, painting, etc. The innocent impressionable mind is subject to a lot of things that his/her parents bring forth as choices. It is good to have A hobby, whereas it is not a great idea to be Jack Of All, Master Of None and compromise on academics and get so exhausted by the end of the day, that the so called Play Time becomes non-existent. Then at various stages of life, options keep hovering around them in the form of school, extra-curricular activities, toys, clothes, friends, food, etc. So from a very early age, the mind is attuned to choose among alternatives and always look for different options.

Imagine a boy, fresh out of school with an extraordinary academic record of more than 90% (worthy enough of praise). He is very keen to pursue his talent and his hobby of writing and thinks he would really excel at it. And whoosh sweep in the preferences, notions and nuances of the intelligent experienced minds (or so we think). Suddenly everyone who is even remotely linked to the boy’s family will call, give their gyaan, whether seeked or not and lo! The confusion has just managed to increase.

It just goes on and on. Whether it is in picking an optimum career, or its zeroing on the job and the company of your choice. And then comes the huge topic of marriage. And when I say, marriage, I mean the concept of arranged marriage which is largely existent in India. Umm...Don’t even get me started on that one!

My take? Choices just complicate things. So it is definitely not ‘the more the merrier’. Indecisiveness creeps in and creates mayhem and general disruption in the route called LIFE. But my take is of course, just my take. Life’s take is something else altogether. In life we are always faced with more than one ways of reaching our destination. And strangely a person’s personality, thinking, nature and the very existence is judged based on the choices he makes in life.

How I wish that I would end up with a perfectly ideal blend of all that is good to have, arranged like an assortment of tempting offerings in every step of life! Given a choice, I would like it that way. There I go again, given a choice! Situational irony? I am as clueless as YOU…

The more the choices, the more the confusion,
When all is hunky dory, it adds to the commotion
There are opinions flying around in absolutely no unison
It’s the longest route for finding the best solution
When all you would hope for is just a perfect fusion!!!!

Chaos!

As kids we often got this essay topic in school - 'The Day When EVERYTHING Went Wrong!' When I wrote about getting drenched on the way to school, losing my favourite pencil box and landing up with a bruise while running around as events of my WRONG day, little did I know that as a grown up there is so much more to it that it can drive you crazy. This brings me to describe one such ATYPICAL and downright BIZZARE day!

Imagine...
You wake up one fine morning on a bright sunny day with a feel-good factor about the day ahead and BAM!!!...it all backfires...and how! Wake up late and drowsy, rush to get ready for work and pop go the buttons of your favourite shirt in all the haste! Reaching office late and perplexed and facing an angry manager, a barrage of phone calls, professional tiffs with colleagues and work pressure which resembles a deadly gas chamber. Hoping it will fizz out by the end of working day. But obviously it does not.

You reach home and there is frenzy everywhere. An activity which has fetched thousands of phone calls is driving the inhabitants crazy. The phone keeps ringing like a Government office complaints department and the conversations are like traditional stock market trading Ring. In the midst of all this disarray, you switch on your dear PC (dabba) for some important mails that need to be sent out and it refuses to oblige. The technician makes matters worse by opening up the CPU, spreading all the nuts and bolts, conducting a post-morterm on the poor little thing and BAM!! goes the mother board. And almost immediately our dedicated lanline follows suit.Thats a happy state of events!

Admist flying tempers and wicked conversations, the plumbing system of the house decides to give away, as if it was just waiting for an opportune moment and had suddenly found it! And isnt it the most happiest time then to have guests come over? Sure it is! People who had shown their faces after 365 days for casual socialising.WOW.Such an awesome sense of timing!
A precious newly purchased item had chosen today as its LAST DAY, much to our dismay. What was it boiling into? A LOSS day? I was yet to see...

After a good meal and some light hearted conversation, you decide to call it a day with the hope in mind that all is not lost and tomorrow is a new day. But is it really?

Wake up the next morning (probably 24 hours of the wRonG dAY are not yet over) and get to know disheartening news about your car being stolen. The sense of loss for something your family so dearly owned and used, the memories attached to the tiny vehicle that was a part of all good times of the family of four has suddenly bid a forceful goodbye. It really can scare the daylights out of a person. You wonder if you woke up on the wrong side of the bed twice. Your world is zooming around you, you lose sense to think or work clearly and that one daunting question is blaring in front of you. WHY ME?WHY US? And you get no answer. You can try blaming atleast 10 different people and systems who were directly or indirectly responsible for this or you can attribute it to karma. All said and done, the bottom line still remains - its gone.

A couple of insights that did come out of this day were - it suddenly works as a catalyst for the kids of the house to grow up. It is not a calamity but a chaos, a crisis. And it is important to be clear headed and calm in the midst of it. When the parents get worked up, the children take the baton from them swiftly and smartly and become the pillars of support and inspiration. The situation does not change, its the same crisis but there is a positive reinforcement of hope, courage and ideas that brings comfort. Also it reaffirms the faith in Almighty. It just comes to make us realise that however pompous or egoistic or laid back we may become, HE makes us realise that we are just a speck of dust and ultimately things are under his control. I would like to think of this as HIS way of telling us to never forget him even when all is smooth coz you never know when the ride would get bumpy! A day without faith and prayers is like a clock whose pendulum has gone missing!

After all the hysteria following the incident i PEACEFULLY sat in an auto to go to work -again an hour late - and was praying to God to give me fewer such unusual and wrong days. And the auto music system plays an apt Marathi song - 'Aga pori sambhal dariyala toofan ayela bhari...' (Take care girl, there is a stormy sea ahead...') ~

UK Summed Up... - Part 2

By mid-December we were done with a very important assignment and mid-term exams were a month away. Our exhaustion needed a vent, which came in form of a road trip to the renowned beaches of South Wales. Whether it was Barry Island or Gower or Pebbles Beach or Swansea Waterfront - each coastline had a different story and something unique to offer. Our car full of friends made the most of these two days by posing for craziest of photographs,eating weirdest of foods and making our mark on the beautiful beaches of Wales. The soft lemony tar breeze, the icy cold waters of Atlantic ocean, the nippy weather and crazy friends contributed to an ideal & memorable holiday!

Winter gradually enveloped the capital of Wales with arms wide open. Such were the cold chilly winds accompanied by rains that it became normal to wear layers and layers of clothes and look like footballs walking on the street. To make matters worse - by 4pm it was pitch dark and remained so at least till 7am the next day. The cold, the gloom,the wind and the scary UK winters worked as deterrents for studying with concentration, which was now becoming essential with the approaching exams in the first week of January. Midnight snacks became our source of break and entertainment! On charged up nights we had feasts and on other serious nights we survived on cereals! It was amazing how concepts were understood and discussed with so much vigour and enthusiasm in group study - which until then I never had confidence in. If all this did not keep us awake - one thing surely did. Building 16 and 17 of our Talybont South residences had a notorious reputation of fire alarms in the death of the night. So it was a regular feature to run down floors sleepy eyed and drowsy in weird states of dressing (there was a time when a girl came down wrapped in her blanket alone!) and shiver in the cold outside while the firemen came and fixed the problem (which more often that not was caused due to some moron smoking in the corridor or kitchen) Aarrgghh!

Christmas made the mood festive and cheerful. The celebrations in London & Cardiff were a class apart - brightly lit up Oxford street, City Centre, goodies, gifts, cakes, carols n more! The only thing missing was the snow to make it a WHITE CHRISTMAS. Towards the end of the year came the Boxer's Day. The day when clothes, shoes, perfumes, gadgets, etc. would be available at 50% discount or even more! This was my opportunity to see Britain wake up at 4am, queue outside shops for the mega sale and shop like maniacs once the stores opened at an unearthly hour of 5am. Here I waited for 1 hour on an early frosty morning, with my aunt and as soon as the shutters opened - there was a marathon, grabbing, pulling, pushing and so many things at once, that I was transported back to a Big Bazaar sale back home! And to see the haughty British do the same made me realise with a sense of satisfaction that - DISCOUNTS & SALES have no religion or nationality - shopping makes EVERYONE mad. PERIOD. :)

Shopping for us students, however was more frequent than that. It was a weekly affair. But it was not luxury shopping - it was essential shopping. So TESCO Extra became our favourite hangout/shopping/entertainment/necessity destination. The vastness of its size and the availability of food options enthralled me, as I had never seen supermarkets of colossal sizes before. It was easy for a tiny little me to chug along with a trolley of my own get lost in the alleys offering pastries, breads, cookies, yogurts, ice creams, chocolates, ready-to-eat foods, cans, cereals and whatnot. Running a tight budget helped me cut down on a lot of fatty things, which I would have otherwise bought. But my friends can vouch that there was a huge similarity between me and a balloon by the end of the year. Blame it on the extraordinary fruits and desserts! If I did feel guilty about my size, I would walk it up both ways to City Centre from my hostel (which was quite a considerable distance) for some work or the other, feel proud about saving 2 pounds for the return bus journey, but put back all the calories by spending the saved money on Veggie Delite @ Subway and GUMMY BEARS! :)

On New Year's Eve, we went to the one place that all students in Cardiff would have gone at least once in their lives - CREATIONS - a lounge bar. It was hilarious when we observed the native girls high on alcohol walk around the streets in skimpy outfit & tiny skirts and compared them to our state - covered from head to toe with overcoats, jackets, gloves and hats!

One day, in early January the temperatures dropped to minus 10 degrees Celsius. I was stuck to the heater like a leech and going to college was next to impossible. That very night it SNOWED for the first time that year in Cardiff. Its was so spectacular and white outside...at times huge flakes came down and other times the sun came out to shine upon the world giving a glittery gold effect.The chilly mad wind blew across my face as I peeped out of the window that morning and the world looked like a newly adorned bride - roads, trees, rooftops, cars alike carpeted with tonnes of snow! For a snow lover like me it was PARADISE.

The best thing about Cardiff was that after every tedious studious experience, there came a time of thorough enjoyment and fun. So after our difficult back to back exams it was time for the grand MBA Dinner in the City Hall. This was an occasion to address to the students, the progress of the school, where boring old men came and rambled on till everyone in the audience fell asleep. It was a 5 course meal, with food that looked greatly garnished and royally served but hardly palatable. The interesting part for us was, the dress code of the event - national costumes. On that frigid night, we girls were clad in thin chiffon saris like bevy of glacial Bollywood beauties, and kept smiling through the event, when sitting in an oven looked like a more attractive option. Look pretty or die!

MBA abroad usually gave so much exposure to different cultures, lifestyles and work styles of people round the world. Something which would naturally and obviously occur to me, was not so obvious for all and vice versa. Through a series of presentations and dialogues, in a project called Business Plan, some interesting insights were revealed about setting up any business in UK with the help of imaginary 1 million pounds and planning the entire launch, marketing, finance, human relations and strategy of the business right from conception to profits. It was a unique concept, which weaved in all management subjects studied throughout the year spiced up with practical experiences and ideas emerging from a melting pot of ethnicities .

Spring brought in a riot of colours and the sun decided to leave its confinement and beam upon us. It was that time of the year, when suddenly 12 degrees Celsius became 'HOT' and the lawns outside my residence, Talybont resembled the Bondi Beach of Australia. Almost everyone except the Indians (who still found jackets useful in late April) applied sun-tan lotion, sported shorts, bikinis and sun-glasses and studied outdoors in the sunny weather. It was quite a panoramic sight and suddenly Talybont became a favourite destination for most boys.

Spring also brought in electives and main exams. Many of my friends tell me, that I was busy studying and unaware of so many gossips happening around me, regarding friends. Maybe I was. For the next few months, I gave in my best effort for it to be a fruitful MBA. After 9 back to back core exams, 2 elective exams and hugely long and scary dissertation and a part-time job (which helped me buy my ticket back home on my own :)) I was done with the mammoth course. Visibly fatter, rounder, sleep deprived, exhausted, richer in friends and experience and 5th in a class of 300 odd students from across nations!Quite a fair deal I would say...

I am sure a lot more could be done, many places were left to discover, there were some regrets with respect to the job scene and placements, etc. But I really do not want to paint an unhappy picture here, because what I gained was immense and what I have now is really priceless. I learnt so many things living away from home, which I probably never would have thought of bothering about back home. I realised that a lot depended upon me and what I should do and should not do to maintain a healthy lifestyle. So whether it was doing the laundry, cooking food, keeping house clean, buying groceries, paying bills, handling bank transactions, studying, working and maintaining finances - it all boiled down to an individual and invoked in me, a sense of responsibility that was dormant earlier. I also learnt the importance of people, relations and family in my life. Its natural for us to take so many things for granted when at home, but we learn to appreciate them much more when away.

So, along with imparting critical lessons for life, my year at UK was when I was the happiest of all. It was one of the most fantastic years of my life - full of independence & responsibility, life-long friendships, international bonding, global academics, delightful experiences and memories to last me a lifetime!Cardiff is truly, NOSTALGIA REVISITED. A year for which I would trade almost anything in the world..to get it back! As the Welsh would say it... Hwyl Caerdydd (Goodbye Cardiff)!

UK summed up - Part 1

The idea of going to UK for higher studies, was neither the first one, nor my very own. I was all set to work in a reputed company for a year or two and plan my MBA in India through a series of tedious and tough entrances. But DESTINY had other plans for me. Before I knew it, I had resigned from the same reputable firm and was packed off with bag, baggage and food (which is probably more important than even clothes for some Gujaratis!) to London.
London, the city of the Queen Mother, boasted of ancient architectural delights like palaces, bridges, dungeons, Big Ben, St. Paul's Cathedral, Trafalgur's Square, etc. It also had a modern touch to it, what with shopping paradises like Oxford Street & Harrow, pubs and lounges, food joints serving cuisines from all over and an excellently networked transport system - RAIL in particular! London, however was not my destination and I was just to stay there for a week, at my aunt's before heading to the place which was to be my home for the next one year - CARDIFF!
If London was Mumbai, Cardiff was Lonavla.As I passed through the quaint little university city, I was amazed to see the symmetry of its structure and the tininess of its size. Little red brick houses, no more than a couple of floors taller bordered two ends of the sidewalk, with little green trees, well trimmed bushes. So serene, so quiet and so empty! For a person like me, who has right since birth lived in a city that is surrounded with hustle, bustle, activity, people zooming by, rush and madness - this was a stark contrast and a shock! I missed Mumbai for all those things, which I had once found unsettling. Two-third's of the city population was university population and hence there were mainly young faces to be seen everywhere. It was equally interesting to find out that a huge percentage of these unknown faces belonged to Asians - Chinese & Indian alike.
I was put up at Talybont South residence - House 17, Room 3-1-6. The strange apartment consisted of 8 such rooms and one huge kitchen. It was occupied by 8 unknown girls from different parts of the world. This thought gave me a chill while I carefully unpacked all the goodies got from home. The room was another SHOCK. When I first saw it, I wondered if it could be called a room?One bed occupied almost 3 quarters of the room, on the other end a neatly furnished study table and cupboard and at one tiny end, a bathroom. In exactly 5 steps, my room ended, with little place to navigate in between. How I managed to unpack EVERYTHING is a mystery to me too!
Around this time, I got my first so-called CULTURE SHOCK! I gradually got introduced to all my flatmates over the next few days - 4 Chinese 'girls' (I was later to know that one of these girls was actually a mother of a 10 year old whom she had left behind in Shanghai with her husband for a year of MBA), 1 Jamaican (who sorry to say, cooked the most PUNGENT food possible) and 2 other Indian girls (who were later to become my close friends there). My first concern was to secure a spot on the 2 shared refrigerators that was to be shared amongst us. Along with another Indian veggie friend (dear ol' Shuchi), I had a hard time convincing the others that it will not be ok if pork would be kept on my cabbage or that duck eggs would not sit in between my apples! They were shocked to know that I survive only on veggies (poor thing they said) and I did not mind their shock much, coz I had encountered a lot of those questions back home from friends! For a girl, who barely had shared a table with a chicken eater in India, it soon became a regular sight, to see pork or chicken being cooked, kept on the platform, cut, garnished and arranged! It stopped affecting me, for which I was mighty thankful.
Before I knew it, I had started sincerely attending lectures of great, well read professors with tonnes of international experience behind them. Our classroom could seat at a time 300 students. It was amazing to interact with people from different cultures, in our syndicate group studies where we were a part of a mixed cultural group. During the course of this study, I learnt to respect so many religions, cultures and their ethnicities and got over so many prejudices and culture shocks that I am surprised how I had suddenly become so adaptable and flexible. I delightfully learnt how Nigerians respected women, how British were still accustomed to kissing on the cheek for a goodbye, how the Greeks thought that taking showers once a week was a luxury and combing their hair a fortnightly affair, how Chinese were so hardworking, polite and helpful, and how there was hardly any difference in the lifestyles of the so-called rivals - Indians and Pakistanis! So much so that the buildings 16 and 17 of Talybont South, largely inhabitated by these were named Chandini Chowk
Soon life settled in a gradual routine, with assignments, lectures, pre-readings, post-readings and tests like any other hectic MBA life - probably a little more taxing, it being just a year's course. We did have occassional breaks and detours - when we saw the famous places - a beaming Cardiff Bay, Bute Park, City Centre, Church, Castle, Lake and River Taff. River Taff deserves a special mention. It was running exactly by the side of my hostel and on quiet evenings, I liked to go and sit by the river and watch the serene beauty of gushing waters, autumn leaves, ducks floating by, with a mild breeze adding a magical touch to the whole scene. It was one of my favourite places, after the quiet little chapel and I loved going there on my own. A friend of mine, Santosh was quite convinced that I would jump into River Taff one day for some odd reason! Sometimes when I sit back to remember my days there - River Taff flashes back in my mind so stark, and so clear that the urge to return there gets heightened!
Other than studying, wandering and attending lectures - I developed another strange hobby - cooking. First more out of compulsion, but later out of experiment and pure joy! It was equally endearing to see a few of my friends from Southern India - guys - who were such excellent cooks that we girls almost faded in comparision - while eating their spicy sambhar, rasam and delicious recipes! I also realised that Chinese as we had in India was nowhere close to the actual food. Spinach leaves cooked in olive oil with salt, pepper and pork formed most of their meals. Making them eat gulab jamuns, kheer and pav-bhaji was quite an adventure. Although I never got myself to master the art of eating with chopsticks, which I sorely regret...
Before I knew it - autumn had advanced to give way to winter...
Guess I have rambled on quite a lot here...so shall save more for the next post - a lot to recollect, a lot to write and a lot of nostalgia - coming up in PART 2....

A Dreamy Analysis…

When I think of dreams I drift back to the Roald Dahl classic that I read as a child – The BFG – Big Friendly Giant who was a Dream Catcher by profession. He caught dreams that manifested in the Misty Dream Country and blew them through trumpet like pipe into the bedrooms of children, while they were asleep. What a wonderful fantasy – so mystical and yet so innocent.

The BFG also used to make sure that he bottled up the blotchy nightmares in caves far away so they would not affect the little kids. Which makes me wonder, if those bottles start exploding and finding their way out to reach the civilization as we grow older? Or is it just a figment of our imagination?

So what is the power of dreams?

My friends say I see funny dreams – some of them can be written as film and drama stories and sold to directors for moolah. Strangely, I distinctly remember most of my dreams – both good and bad. They are Technicolor, have a lot of action, adventure, special effects, heroism, people, emotions and technology! The range of subjects on which I dream are enormous - wars, celebrations, trains, galaxies, deaths, cliffs, sea, sharks, children, fire, bomb blasts, running, havelis, monsters, deserts, rock concerts, safaris, gardens, rains, skiing and horses! And what not! Sometimes they are futuristic, sometimes awe-inspiring, sometimes heartening and most times amusing and plain funny! There are times when it feels like a Sanjay Leela Bhansali or Suraj Barjatya magnum opus. If I start with giving a sneak peek into the content of these dreams – its sure to fill up volumes…so I shall save you guys the torture :)

But it’s truly fascinating to decipher dreams and analyze the meaning behind them. Then there are disturbing dreams as well – when you wake up from them and wish you had never slept…never dreamt those. But then if life would become sugary sweet seen through rose tinted glasses, we would always miss the spice.

I have often thought whether there is a full-stop to dreams or even a semi colon for that matter. Infact I took this discussion up lately with a couple of friends and they also had interesting insights to share. I always used to feel that we should not limit our imagination or ambition by our dreams. Dreaming big is good – like they say...aim for the stars, so that you reach the treetop. I have seen many dreamy eyed people in this city of Mumbai. There are huge success stories to boast of – about people with no money and magnificent dreams making it big. Dream is the end, the means of which is work – sometimes hard work and sometimes smart work.

So is it right to build castles in air? I think not. There have also been instances of people who harbor dearest of dreams in their heart and when they cannot be fulfilled – they get shattered – their castles in air come tumbling down their ears and are sometimes beyond repair – and then nothing else in the world is as gratifying as that ONE dream, since they are so emotionally attached to it.

Its not a pessimistic view, it’s a realistic scenario. To resurrect and rise from the ashes like a phoenix is another human wonder that happens. But there are extreme cases when it takes ages for that to happen, or at times, to others dismay, never happens. Then What? Is it worthwhile to have lofty dreams in those starry eyes? Maybe yes, if we are 10 year olds. But the fact is, we are not. And the people that we are, the life that we have, its sometimes imperative to dream attainable dreams, rather than chasing mirages that were never yours. Atleast that way, we are closer and more committed to our goals and if it doesn’t happen, we can pick up another dream and move on.

Maybe I am drawing a contradictory analogy to what I said earlier about a dream having no boundary and now I am mentioning about an attainable dream which in itself is an irony. What is the best thing to do? Maybe BFG would have an answer…

Mumbai Monsoons..!

I had written this lil verse 3 years ago on a rainy day...blogging was nascent then so just thought of publishing it now to set the mood right for a beautiful monsoon. The ideas and thoughts were just embryonic then as compared to now...but the SPIRIT remains the same!

The rain comes down in torrential showers,
The steely clouds kiss the mountaintops
A brisk wind blows gustily to freshen up the air,
As I set out for another damp damp day.

Those earthy puddles of dirty water,
Splashing out, then refilling by the rain,
The restless gray sea rushes to meet the land
And splashes saline sprinklers on one and all…

That delightful vada-pav stand at the roadside,
Quickly devoured with cups of hot cuttings,
Another refill, the stomach is yearning,
As the masses wait forever for the slow traffic to budge

A brief respite… and people hurry out,
The trees however spill dollops of water,
They act as the rain gods in absentia…
As I skip through puddles dripping and shivering

The children are so happy, another holiday!
The office-goers lament and trudge on with their day,
The rain gods smile benignly,
As I rue about my makeover from a kid to an adult

Come what may…knee deep waters or wind fallen trees
None can obstruct people’s errands and routine
And so truly the spirit of Mumbai never fails
Life moves on…sandstorms or rains!

Summers - In the summer time, when the weather is fine!

When I was a child, around 15-20 days of my summer holidays used to be spent at my maternal grandparents house at Mahesana - a small town which is couple of hours drive from Gujarat's commercial capital of Ahmedabad. It had become in my definition my native place. This time, when mom mentioned the visit again to meet my nani ' Baa' as I fondly call her - I jumped at the idea!

That is when I began reminiscing about my childhood days....
The days were characterized by melodious kirtans sung by Baa, plucking variety of flowers from our backyard garden(juhi, mogra, champa, chameli,gulaab, gulbaas, etc.), devouring fatty meals and lots of mithai, playing cricket with my cousins ( all 4 boys and me the only neglected girl who used to do fielding in some rare corner or was sent to get the ball from some neighbour's home!), playing hide-n-seek and actually getting lost in the enormous 3 floor pushtaini haveli (that my grandparents later sold off), watering the plants in the garden and using the hose on each other in the evenings, eating raw mango & kalakhatta golaas, lying on mattresses at night in the dhaaba (terrace in Gujarati) and reciting tables from 13-30 in front of nanaji and watching larger than life dreams about the future through glistening eyes by watching the starry sky and arguing about non-existent planets and invisible UFO's until the soft breeze drifts us all to sleep....

What a phase this was! Abundance of innocence, no hassles, hang-ups, money issues, friendships, fights, hardships, deadlines, egos, relationships, falling in love, falling out of love --- nothing~
All that one would do is eat, sleep, play and enjoy life. No wonder childhood always beckons most of us throughout our lives!

Its funny how in this small town half a bucket of water for bath seems perfectly fine and drinking water from the matka or a fan in working condition is a welcome delight even in the scorching heat!

People are so unusually caring that such kind of behaviour can actually stifle a person's privacy if in a metro city. For instance, I went to buy a pesticide for some gardening tasks for our backyard. An eccentric old shop-owner frowned at me when I asked for it and asked suscipiciously - 'What do you want it for?' I was like...'Gardening..(duh)' He goes ' Ok then take it for gardening beta...dont you dare drink it or think of committing suicide or I will follow you home and tell your family!!!' I really did not know whether to feel angry or touched. The homes are small but the hearts are big in these little towns :) Touche!

I believe it set the tone right for me to explore my childhood and connect to my roots so wonderfully and effortlessly!