Good morning!

This morning Rishi wanted sandwiches in his snack box and he also wanted to learn to make coriander chutney. So in the midst of getting ready for school we stole a few moments for ourselves in the kitchen with the steel plates and bowls. And look what we've got.

Malgudi Days

Those days we didn't have a TV at home. In fact TV was a luxury that only a few could afford. So in a chawl of fifty homes, only three would be in a position to own a television. We got ours in 1984. Before that we were at the mercy of our neighbours. Every day we would gather at their place for the day's viewing. On Wednesdays, it was special. R K Narayan's 'Malgudi Days'.

Aah! The moment the title track would go 'Ta na na tana nana na' the neighbour's living room would be full. It was amazing. The rendition of the track and the close-to-life illustrations are still fresh in my heart and mind. Today, the title track is a heavily downloaded ringtone for cell phones.

For old times' sake I'm putting the unforgettable title track on my blog :-)

Memories of a little girl

As a little kid there were a few luxuries in life that came in the form of National television. My favourites were these:

1. Hind des ke niwaasi sabhi jan ek hain...A song to promote National Integration. I loved it, in fact I still do. And I can sing it in that little girl's voice :-)





2. Lakdi ki kaathi, from Masoom. A beautiful song from a wonderful movie. It's a favourite with many people.
I have seen this movie umpteen number of times, and every time I see it I shed tears.



3. The title song from Jungle Book.

10th November 2002

Rishi's attempts

Indeed! You made me smile....GG

There are a few SMALL things in life that elate me:

When somebody makes my kind of tea for me (in the morning)

When my favourite music is playing in the car

When I receive a handwritten letter from someone dear to me(which is a rare treat)

When someone takes the pain to make something for me

When I find what I'm looking for

When I read a good book

When I get lost, dancing throughout the night

When I read a good poem

When I get to eat GOOD caramel custard

When I see good slip-ons for my feet (I may not necessarily buy it, but seeing it also thrills me)

When I find the right shade of lip colour

When I find the right kind of kohl for my eyes

When I see good junk jewellery

When I treat myself to a scoop of Rum Punch with cream and pineapple topping
When Rishi draws something and tells me, "It's for you"

When Amu hugs me tight (again a rare treat, she's her papa's daughter)

When I cook for my family

When Raj stops at the busy flower market to buy flowers for me

When my bro tells me that I may not get a Booker but a Cooker

When I travel by train

When I see a missed call and call back to hear the same thing, "You haven't changed one bit. You still haven't learnt to answer calls"

When I hear Rishi's teacher say "We are proud to have him in our school"

When a training batch gets over and after a fortnight I get a message saying "WE MISS YOU"

There are so many things that make me happy.

But sometimes its a small email that takes you by surprise, especially when you are the least expecting it. A mail with a picture that was designed and made exclusively for you by someone whom you haven't met or seen. Like this one,

"Count your frogs....

...before you date them".

Please don't ask me what that means. It was a dream that I had last night.

Okay, the story goes like this. Till a few months back I would regularly see dreams. Dreams that never really made sense to me. But I would remember every single detail. My mornings were an event where I would sit and seek help from my husband, asking him to interpret it for me. But all that was in vain. Of course, there were connections from real life, but those were like 'set intuitions' - only helpful in the beginning. Then my mind would wander to places that I have never been to, see things that I had never seen and meet people who were never a part of my life.

For the last few months, I wasn't seeing any dreams. In fact I had forgotten that a pattern of my life was missing. Exactly four days back I found the bottle of the 'lucky red seeds' that I was hunting for. I was elated. But the happiness was short-lived. Those seeds had lost their charm. they didn't look red any more. And I wondered - Where can I get some more of these, real red ones? I guess the thought triggered something in the 'dream faculty' of my brain. That night in my sleep, I went to a place that was high up on a knoll which also doubled up as a quarrying site. There was dust storm all around me. I walked and reached a place where I saw a few Lambadi women preparing food. As soon as they saw me, they pointed towards a wall with a tree behind it. And guess what? It was the manjadi tree and there they were - the lucky red seeds. I picked up so many that I had to ask them for an extra bag. Suddenly a man appeared and told me "You have to pay for these pictures". That's it. This was around four days back.

This morning I woke up at four. Could not go back to sleep again. So I got online for some time and then tried sleeping again. And I did sleep. At nine, my husband woke me up. We were supposed to go to Thane at seven in the morning. He told me its already nine. I sat up startled and told him that he should have woken me up. He replied, "I did try but you said let it stop raining. I don't want to drive when it's raining". "Raining? Has it been raining in the night?" I asked. At least not in the real world. I got the message. I started recollecting the events of my dream. Here it goes.

I was teaching in a school. As part of my daily schedule I was delivering a lecture on Value Education and the thought for the day was 'Count your frogs before you date them'. Can someone please tell me what this means? And every time I think of it, I just burst out laughing. What on earth does that stand for? I was asking the kids to interpret it and then there was thunder and lightning (Thank Nature for the rains! I don't know what interpretation I would have given for something so weird as that). Suddenly the school declared a holiday. And I stood outside waiting for the rains to recede. May be that's when my real husband from my real world tried waking me up and I said, "Let the rains stop".

I don't know what's in store for me tonight. Happy dreaming1

Rights of a girl child

White flowers

These days I'm on a painting spree....

The Vodafone song...I just love it

Girl on Moon

Musical medication

I'm going through the most stressful phase of my life. My house has been under civil and wood work for the last two months and my brother is getting married in the next week. All those stressful thoughts were givng me a tough time and it had started affecting happiness...which makes it a litle dangerous. That's when my friend Sel suggested something.

So it was going to be on the 31st of October, 2008 at 5:00 p.m. He reached outside the gate on his bike...yeah, bike. Now that's an altogether different story.

We left for BKC and was hunting for the venue when my eyes fell on a hunk on a bike wearing a T-Shirt that read 'PUNK ROCK'. I told my friend to follow him and it worked. We reached the place. Bought ourselves the tickets and then it was just five hours of absolute musical intoxication. After all Sel had got me to enjoy the 'Rock On Concert for Humanity'. This concert was organised to raise funds to aid victims of the floods that shook Bihar this year.

And they were performing:
Something Relevant
Pindrop Violence
Dream Out Loud
Pentagram
Parikrama along with Saif Ali Khan (who turned out to be a major disaster)
Shaa'ir & Func
Avial
The Raghu Dixit Project
Kailasa
Them Clones
Shaan
Kunal Ganjawala
Shankar, Ehsaan, Loy
Farhan Akhtar and Arjun Rampal

And some celebrities to add glamour to the show:
Sharukh Khan
Preity Zinta
Zayed Khan (Who said that we are all brothers and sisters of the same mother called India. Now what on earth does that mean? Anyway he was booed away by the crowd who was there to listen to music.)
Shabana Azmi and Javed Akhtar
Hritik Roshan (With that Greek God look of his, he rocked the stage while the Rock On team performed.)

Those five hours were like a musical extravaganza. Kailasa as usual was incredible, so was Parikrama. Pentagram has definitely lost it's charm. There was a plump Vishal trying to keep up with the musical notes panting and gasping for breath. The Raghu Dixit Project was also a good dose of vibrancy. Raghu's performance is still ringing in my head. And he's got the sweetest smile I've ever come across. A very contagious smile. The so-called 'politically aware and ideologically driven' Avial charmed the crowds with the rendition of their Malayalam songs. The vocalist Tony came dressed in a kurta and lungi and bowed to the crowds with the typical Keralite namaskaram. Though most people could not follow the lyrics, they enjoyed the music. Parikrama too met expectations with Nitin Malik as the vocalist and the mind-blowing violin rendition of Imran Khan.

Them Clones and Shaa'ir & Func were fairly okay. Dream Out Loud was again great.

And then they usurped the stage. Farhan and his team along with Hritik. They started with the 'Rock On' song and ended with the 'Meri Laundry' song. Yeah they sang only two numbers. I would've loved it if they sang 'Sindbad, the Sailor' instead of the title song. But never mind...let's not be greedy.

Now after all those musical tablets who, on the phase of Mother Earth would even think of a word called 'STRESS'? For me music and dance are two inextinguishable flames of my life that keeps me going. They are my stressbusters!

And hey Sel! Thanks a lot!