Observations on a grey afternoon

Sorry about the nail biting tension. This is how the stubbornness story ends.

As it happens, I waited for about an hour and then went hunting for the Brat. He was sitting quietly in his room with a book. I figured that he is still young enough for me to talk him through this. So we did the usual – Are you feeling sad? What did Dada say? Do you think he was right? Should you have done what you did? Are you sorry? Do you want to tell him so?

He went and apologised to his father and we helped him dig his stuff out of the trash. Thankfully it had just been emptied and had a fresh liner so it was fine.  Alls well that ends well.

——————

I was out picking up groceries and as I walked back I noticed a couple of young mothers with their babies on the swings. Too young to be in school, the babies don’t get a chance once the school goers get back and being a grey morning it wasn’t unbearable out in the open. All the mothers, without fail, were on their phones. Either talking or messaging or checking email.

On a slide was a woman with a little boy in her lap, flying down, squealing with joy. It was a maid. I wondered if it was her own baby and then I realised the child was very well dressed and she was referring to him as ‘aap’ and telling him something about his mummy.

It’s funny. I may not have had too many good experiences with maids but here was a maid actually spending quality time with the child and engaging with him while other parents absentmindedly did their duty, not really focusing on the children. No judgment. I’m sure they spend enough and more time and deserve their time off. Just an observation.

———————-

I also passed an old grandfather walking his grandson back from school. The child spoke with an American accent and the gentleman spoke slowly, laboriously hunting for the right words. I walked alongside, swinging my bags, shamelessly eavesdropping. Life sometimes gives you the opportunity to see love and understanding only as a bystander and I don’t see the harm in grabbing those moments. I’ve noticed that a lot older people who have grandchildren visiting/ returning from abroad  insist on focussing on language and culture as though that is the only and most important thing that needs to be passed on. I don’t know the history, but it was so sweet to see that the old gentleman was only interested in communicating and building a relationship with the grandchild. Even if it meant him taking the first step forward and learning a new language in his old age. So beautiful. This is the kind of selfless love I’m hoping to be capable of someday.

Rain

I’m standing at an open window, the wind in my hair, the rain on my face, looking down at the open expanse on one side and construction going on in the distance. The homes being built will be sold for multiples of crores and the shanties near by belong to the construction workers building them. That single moment is such a leveller. Regardless of our dwellings, humble or exalted, we all turn our faces up to the heavens in gratitude, as our prayer for rain is answered

Notes from the suburbs

In no particular order…

1. To me, the suburbs have come to be defined by lack of option (and I’ve been here all of three days so I really shouldn’t be commenting just yet!). Lack of option about moving there, lack of housing options – yes I know you can get from 1 bhk penthouses to sprawling mansions – but there are 14 others just like yours. Nothing unique about it (Another brick in the wall now plays in the back of my head like the soundtrack to my life) except maybe the different colour curtains peeking through your windows. It means taking Amul Milk instead of Mother Dairy because that is what your local guy supplies. It means buying Vim instead of Odopic because that would mean trekking to the next market.
2. It means bowing to monopoly. The cook servicing my building isn’t the best and is quite a nasty creature, but I can’t get another from the neighbouring building, whose cooking I might prefer, who knows how to make idlis, because they wont cut in on each other’s turf. The third time it happened I was tempted to push her over my 13^th floor balcony and watch her go floating down screaming. To say nothing of pricing. The last one told me she won’t wash up the cooker and wok she’d used because it wasn’t the building policy. I told her that building policy could kiss my ass. This is my house, I am paying, so things are done my way  - so she could like it or lump it. She agreed. I think a little firmness is required. They are used to yuppies who don’t have time or the courage to argue with them.
3. There is a uniform. Within 12 hours of hiring the cook she mistook me for a maid. I was down at the swimming pool with the kids and she entered the lift with me. I smiled at her, and continued to instruct my maid in Bengali on lift usage for days when I am not around. The cook began to get rather chatty with me and I replied politely. It was only after I walked into the house and began to talk to my mother in English that she asked me – are you the person I met yesterday, the one that hired me? Hmm… my simple work wear cotton salwar kameez obviously didn’t pass muster. Or else I shouldn’t have been at the pool, minding my own kids. When I met her the day before I had been in my home uniform of little faded cotton Sarojini Nagar sundress – which was probably more madam-like than my expensive pure cotton patiala set! From now on, it has to be shorts or capris if I plan to be recognised as mother and not maid!
4. Men in elbow length ladies gloves. Yes, I get that the harsh sun burns your skin but it still looks bloody weird! I can still handle it on the bikers. But on the man sitting inside an AC car, I can only imagine that its vanity!
5. The foliage. Somehow, nobody seems to be planting anything other than frangipani and palms. I know they are fast growing and hardy, but almost all buildings have only those and nothing else. No mango, leechi, guava, jackfruit, neem, nothing! It is truly fast food culture. Plant something that will grow fast and cover up the dry red countryside.
6. Distance. I am going nuts having to plan my day. I am not a planner by nature and its not like me to work my day out well in advance. I know I will have to do it now, but it goes against my haphazard, easy going temperament. I am actually down to making lists these days and then staring at them in horror and wanting to burn them.
7. The last one is something I can’t define. There is something very self indulgent about the way I live now. Within a gated community, with 100% power backup and water too (trust me, I don’t miss the lack of them!). But it seems as though my life has shrunk to fit into 10 acres or so and will stay that way. Walk within the compound, befriend those in the building, swim right there, play a game of basketball within the boundary walls, call the local store to deliver your goods, take a lift to go down (well, with my knees I shouldn’t be complaining!) and more. It’s almost as though I’ve got the world to stop and just focus on making things convenient for me. It’s taken the struggle out of my daily life and being the contrary person I am, I am complaining! It just somehow reminds me of those fake snow and ocean amusement parks where for a while you leave the real world out. No doubt my two hour commute each way, is enough to make up for any other lack of struggle but I feel stupid looking around the complex and getting excited over the presence of a doctor. It reminds me of living in a real organic city and having doctors, grocery stores and dry cleaners all living cheek by jowl with you. Not this orderly way of rows and rows of residences and a neat little pocket of 5 shops.
8. I now get nostalgic each time I hear someone mention the word Delhi. Because really, I don’t live there anymore. Yesterday I went to drop the keys off with the old landlord and I noticed the repairs have already begun. And the first thing to go were my Warli figures; wiped out, along with all other traces of us having spent five years there. A man was filling sacks with the mud and plants from my tub and dumping them on the road. Blank walls stared back at me. This wasn’t really home. Home was the place where my babies were squealing in a swimming pool, threatening to jump off the 13^th floor and running up and down the stairs of the duplex. I shut the door on the corridor and slowly came down the stairs one last time.  Funnily, my knees don’t ache anymore.
9. Oh – and I had to add a new tag to my list. Gurgaon.

Coordinated

I am always rather torn on the issue of whether you should click pictures of people without their permission or not. As a journalist, it is something I do professionally – take snapshots and observations out of everyday life. As a person, I feel rather offended when I am treated like an object and clicked without my permission. But I’ve sort of realised that my job requires me to observe and record so I overcome my qualms and get on with it. As far as possible though, I always ask permission.

A few days ago I was walking through a subway on a terrible Delhi summer noon and I saw this sight. A mother and daughter sleeping on the cool floor, sheltered from the heat. Unconsciously matching, in their yellow and black outfits. Sleeping with such abandon. In our sleep we’re all the same – this is exactly how I sleep on my side, with the Bean on her belly next to me.

There were monkeys dashing in and out while these slept on peacefully…

When a television commercial

sets these standards,

you begin to understand why thirteen kids committed suicide in Mumbai within two weeks. A VP at 24? Is that what our kids should be aspiring to? Or even talking about at the age of 8? 9? How old does the little boy look?

And although I am no fan of Chetan Bhagat, I must link up this story here in the hope that it will spread near and far. So what if it mentions my old college? :p