Delli Belly

I always hated Delhi because of the people there. Either they are super rude or else fake sweet and all lack professionalism. The "Haan ji Sir ji" ( A "Yes sir" dripping with a bucket full of honey) be it sweet or rude, does not help if my work is not done on time due to the "Chal ta hain" attitude. ( "brushing off things like rules because people think they don't matter”)

Another thing unique about Delhi is Everybody and when I say everybody I mean Everybody has Some Political connection. Be it Friends brother in laws, second cousins- brother in laws - Uncle's friend but connection is there and however distant the connection - it is still very strong to make you want to be weary of the person to take panga ! (Pick a fight) 

And Everybody brags. be it Subtle or shamelessly - the bragging is always there. Just like air, it is critical for living in delhi. 

This time when I went to Delhi for work and was first mildly amused at my Angreji speaking driver who claimed to live in the same lane as Mrs Indira Gandhi, whose cow's / bullock's milk goes to the MPs & MLAs and I was wondering whether the bullshit was being directed towards me that particular day. His brothers are CA and CS. & his kids were born because of a baba's ashirwaad (blessings)

Being a Bombayite all my life (Yes I hate the word Mumbai) and though I have lived most of my life in Navi Mumbai, new bombayite is what I actually am but thats meat for a future blog post. Ok now I lost my point. Well whats great about bombay is we dont have time to do idle chit chat with the all and sundry. We reserve it only for people we love, care, we are curious about or we can get our work done with but still its not all and sundry. So after the initial "Ms Congeniality" version of me bid adieu, the blue blood bombayite rose and I stopped being responding too much to his non stop yapping. 

Amongst the non stop yapping I could filter out some real interesting things. 

One he believes machines cannot give you any health. Walk as much as possible. I asked him about his belli, he said " Madam ji buddha ho gaya hoon tou chalta hain". But if you think of it, what he said had a lot of depth, jogging, swimming, mountain climbing, kick boxing, yoga, martial arts did not require machine but are the great forms of workout.  

Second, in India there is atleast one Baba who will make your dreams come true. You just have to hunt for the right one. He happened to have found his and if you have your baba it gives u license to bitch about all the other babas who are dhongi (fake). I am a total Anti Baba however educated sophisticated he or she may be.. but totally agree most of us do have if not a baba, a jyothish (astrologer), a tarot card reader, a psychiatrist.. someone we can blame when things dont go our way. Ha ha am guilty of one, now you guess which one ..

Third, India is country where we blame our population size for everything that goes wrong. Which really struck me. I too give that lame excuse when I want to defend my country and its people from the criticism we always gather across the world. 

Whatever be the reason, he sure is someone I will not forget for some time soon whenever I encounter an other Delhi Cabbie with a Belli and attitude. 

Somewhere we connected throughout the pandemonium of the day and at night when I went to sleep, I did pray for his well being that night. 

Guess it is to do with being Indian. The new age Indian loves to believe he / she is independant, cares two hoots about any one other than self, is super suave to handle stress alone but beneath all the glitter is gold deep down. We do value the Indian factor that binds us mostly in pain or during cricket matches. 

Subh Dipavali

I have not been writing for a long time. Not motivated enough as no new thoughts hit me in a long time and I let my small problems govern my life

Yesterday I was talking to an old friend who told me I should start writing back and atleast one person will read it.Felt so good that no longer I have to make my family read my blog on gun point and continuous verbal torture. He asked me to take the theme of DiwaliAnd here I go..
Every year in Bombay there is this competition between society members which is unofficial, non verbal and very fierce - who lights their house best. Why mostly amongst society members as all of us have matchbox size house and diwali gives us a means to shine brighter than the rest. Over the years the number of lights outside the house has increased every diwali and the light within our souls have diminished. Having said that, I too am an enthusiastic contender in this non verbal, not at all subtle competition, so this time I went to Crawford market to buy my unique lights and hope they are really unique :)Today the charm of diwali from sharing joy and cheer has gone to spreading awareness of ones affluence. The bigger lights, the louder crackers, the bigger or more expensive sweet and yet the ever so small hearts, the narrow thought process, the increasing apathy and worse the increasing lack of trust. Today if someone out of his or her way does anything good to me, I will first be weary of what favors does he or she want from me. So we dont accept things on face value and wrack our brains to dig deeper for the so called "real reason" behind the goodness around. This obviously discourages the do gooders to restrict their operations in most cases and the incurables ones like my parents still go on despite too many wounds. My parents both are the strong believers of the philosophy of " Do good for others without expectations and God will take care of you."Several decades of Murphy ruling their life ( The Devil's philosopher of the infamous Murphy's law - whatever can go wrong will go wrong) my parents still believe in their philosophy.My brother and me always laugh at them but hate it how totally unwillingly the same philosophy - thank god a lot dilute version has also been rubbed off into us. We too burn our fingers but keep our heart safe and call our mistakes of doing good to people who later create trouble for us as experience and move ahead.Somehow in this process our hearts have become stronger and our souls more humble. We both believe that life is too short to be happy or sad about. Its a ride, your destiny is the driver, you can give it directions but it follows the path which the gps created by God dictates. So this Diwali, Yes is will put on my unique lights, my  new floral rangoli, my recycled diyas and the shop bought sweets, celebrate another year of from darkness to light. & continue to grumble that mine was not the best lighting or rangoli and next year my zest for the best would be stronger and my source of light hopefully internal and not on the streets of Crawford market!

My last years master pieces :)

Ma & Dexter

Dexter and his antiques continue to light up and my family's world

What makes me proud that after meeting Dexter so many people around our block have a labrador. One spark to light a fire is so true.Of course there are so many who would not understand this crazy canine love.

Some of his antiques

Ma & Dexter

Ma one day came home thirsty and told Dexter, " Give your Grandma some water Dexter", Dexter figured smartest thing to do was drink some water himself and go wagging his tail to Ma as though saying "look how smart I am"

Ma also loves jesting Dexter by mimicking him and that gets Dexter's doggy panties in a roll.. Its funny how he stops talking to us and will sit grumpily in his house ( under the dining table) and will refuse to come out till I cuddle him like crazy

In order to ensure Dexter eats his food quickly Ma will always call him to eat him food and become first and then she announces to the house "Dexter has again become First" Am not sure Dexter understands the meaning of first but he realizes its something good as he does his proud prowl around the house after that for a minute. Earlier me and my bro would groan at my ma's ranting if I may call it so but seeing Dexter really enjoys it I and bro have our own ultra Spoof version to get back at ma.

Ma is the only one who never takes Dexter for his walk as she has arthritis but she at times accompanies us for our walks and its so sweet to watch Dexter care for her, he would walk slower and if she is unable to keep pace he would run back to her and start walking even slow.

He touches our lives in so many way and so many times that keeping track and penning them down is one of the few things that bring joy to me
  

slaves then, now & then again

I logged on to blog spot after couple of months & took some 5 minutes to reach to "new post", phew technology sure is changing our lives, for better or worse is I guess very debatable. 

Too many thoughts & all in chaos makes it impossible to pen or rather key in words on my blog but thanks to crazy bombay rains and nothing interesting on 200 channels on tv got me back to blogging.

Have been reading this fictional book on black slavery and that got me thinking , how have we as humans really progressed. From white skin to brown to black skin, slavery still has not changed much. But what has changed is we have stopped retaliating for change. We accept that the poor will be slave to rich, the fat will be scorned by the slim, the white skin will smirk at brown and pot shots will remain the favorite sport for humans, only venue changes, from real life it now resides also in cyber life.

But am in awe with the speed at which information travels off late, thanks to the viral social networks, now the speed of lightening too must be getting a complex :)

Its a bit more crazy how often things change so often and now we are forced to accept instantaneously adjusting to change as the constant, which unfortunately is gonna stay in the long haul. Earlier the breather period to accept change was a lot longer but now its either change or perish. 

The generations to come wont I guess know the meaning of relaxing means doing absolutely nothing :) 

Sounds a bit scary to me but maybe that too will have its fun quotient however many zeros will be there before the point !  

make shift world

A few days back I was waiting for the lights to go green at an signal and then I saw an old man with a hug bag on his head and bow legs crossing the street with lots of difficulty. I wanted to give the man a lift to his destination but was scared what if the destination was not safe for me. My inward battle continued but the lights turned green and unfortunately I had to drive ahead but I went back to him and gave him money for his destination ride. He looked at me trying to figure out whether I had a catch to it. The simplest thing to do was just move on. So I dont know whether he took the ride in the rickshaw or not but my conscience weighed a little less even though what I did was a peace meal approach.

Great people are selfless and make this world a better place and for the lesser people like me, we create our little make shift world which we try to better. 

the truth about cats & dogs 2

I am not a cat lover like any other cliche dog loyalist and I never give cats a thought even when I see a real cute one. Having said that I do not encourage Dexter to growl or frighten them away either. That's against my "live and let live" principle and always want to inculcate good habits in dexter which I mostly fail in. But off late dexter too has stopped bothering with cats and am kinda proud about it as I like to believe because he has been reprimanded by me often ;)

But off late a cat has been coming to our house past a month and once she even hit dexter with her paw and poor dexter sat like a big dodo get whacked by her who happens to be 1/20th his size! Not only that this cat would also growl (yes not meow like a cat but growl like a tiger) at my ma for milk. It was really funny as ma too would growl back to annoy her and she would growl with added lung power till my ma would admit defeat. At home we have been teasing dexter a lot about how a cat hit him and of course we never thought he would take things to heart.

Whether it was our constant teasing or the annoyance of sharing our affection with a third person (second being fluffy our part time  street dog  pet) but day before when the cat came home and started her usual banter for food Dexter scared the living hell out of her by barking at her till she ran off. What was funny was initially she did not budge till dexter started hopping mad at her.

Ha Ha. Dogs and Cats ... the story continues.. 

gone From the dogs

Had to take dexter for his vaccinations. I love going to the vet only for yearly vaccinations  as that time I am not tensed about his well being and can enjoy the company of so many canines and let dexter also play with the fits ones.

I and Dexter both were having a good time with a pug and cocker spaniel when a huge Rottweiler came in without a leash. I had never seen one up and so close and was not regretting the same then. As you know Dexter is not so brave to put it very mildly :) he dug inside me for protection and I too was seeking protection from the side wall as the Rottweiler's growls were bursting my ear drums. Not being judgmental but keeping us a ferocious dog at home like we have in bombay is kind of not at all normal to say the least.

There is another thing about vet waiting zone, you meet a lot of like minded people who alone can empathize about your crazy affection for animals and treating them as equals or more loved than humans. Its where you share eating habits, discuss dog food (sigh .. Bombay does not have great variety of doggie treat ) and share funny incidents about your pets. So during one such stories, an uncle told us that dogs too have a very strong code of conduct and do not attack their bitches (no pun intended here ) and I was like yes that we cant say about humans, no wonder dogs are better.

The owner of the rottweiler interjected us and said women need to be shown their place some times and there is no better way than hitting them and then he started off with his story of why he hit his wife twice!

I wanted to argue but the rottweiler without a leash instantly helped good sense to prevail and I let go of the topic and felt a bit a coward for not standing for my fellow women clan.

But on my drive home I realized just putting in my point of view to him would not have changed him so no point sulking about it.  What is unsettling is these are not people who are living in slums with no education or are deprived or mentally challenged but people who had the fortune of good education, upbringing and exposure. I say people because there are women too who believe husbands should hit their wives to teach them who wears the pants in the house.

But I guess change of human behavior is rarely instant which is both a boon and a curse but today women and men both are much more assertive and hopefully people with such barbaric thinking will meet their matches who will make them eat their words with humility.

Until then online lashing continues at them :)