As the year 2016 ends

It is that time of the year when the world goes absolutely bonkers about celebrating the New Year! Due to My mother in law's health, New Year celebration is going to be at home, subdued, sans any fanfare. My aim is to find a few hours to unwind, hang loose, not worry about anything and just relax with family.

As the year 2016 comes to end, I realize I have barely written on this blog this year. Honestly, given the choice, I would not like to revisit last three years that gave us toughest time of our life. My mother in law's cancer has taken toll on all of us. It feels as if last three years moved so slowly that it started to us hurt deeply and we are at end of tether!

Death and serious illness teach us things and open our eyes about some harsh realities of life. 

It would be easy to just say nothing much of value happened in 2016! But that wouldn’t be true. I have learned great deal about life, frailty of human relationships and above all, value of human life and realized how grateful we are to have such a wonderful life! 

There have been instances when I wanted to write posts but was stuck in quagmire of emotions that typically visit a primary caretaker of a person fighting life threatening disease. Many a times my mind crossed timelines trying to figure a rhythm to settle down but just could not and so the articles never got written on the blog despite me having written them many times in my mind at some random hour.  

I wish to correct that in the year 2017. Thank you my dear readers for having faith in me and writing to me and encouraging me to continue this blog. Your love and support mean a world to me. Many of you have reminded me "the show must go on" and it will!

Here is wishing you and your family a fantastic year 2017! May you find all the happiness in coming year and may your dreams come true! 

Loads of love !!!

The boy who never smiled!

These days, when even tiny toddlers have mastered art of selfie-ready smile; a cultural and social reflex of our times, I met this boy  sans the smile, who intrigued me deeply!

His piercing gaze had something fascinating about it! He was at a handicraft exhibition, looking after one of the stalls, all alone. Perhaps, his mother/father had gone somewhere. On the board at the stall was the address written of some remote village from Karnataka from where he hailed. 

It is easy for me to connect with people, strike conversation, especially children! But this boy was different. His curiosity was restrained, unlike other children of his age who always clamour around me gleefully expecting some great fun with the very sight of my lens! The boy looked intently at the lens and then at me, little shyly, observing me deeply with a sage like detachment and calm in his eyes, unruffled, as if trying to read me.

I was not sure if he was prepared for conversation so I just smiled. He acknowledged it with a small nod sans the smile! Bit frustrated, I kept wondering what kind of thoughts and experiences of the world might have etched and moulded this little angel’s mind? He was too young to have worries and pressures of life I thought as most of children his age I met at the exhibition were busy in excited chatter or were engrossed in play. 

I was about to give up when his mother arrived. Oh, what a lovely smile she had! The language barrier, made me leave the stall, waving at the boy and his mother with sense of defeat. Sad at having failed to connect the way I usually do even with complete strangers. 

I crossed a few stalls and got busy with clicking some more images when I felt tiny fingers touching my hand. The boy from the stall had followed me. He was pointing at my camera suggesting I show him pictures. Pleasantly surprised by his interest, I borrowed a stool from nearby stall and spent few minutes displaying all the images taken at the exhibition. While all my attempts to make him speak went in vain, he watched each image intently, lingering a bit longer when his own image appeared on screen, looking at me with a very subtle smile. 

He searched for something frantically from all the pockets, took out a toffee that was carefully tucked in a small handkerchief; perhaps to share it with his special friend or sibling. He removed the tiny cloth and put the toffee in his mouth with the wrapper and before I could stop him, he cut it in to two halves. He removed the wrapper, gobbled one piece and offered me larger one and vanished before I could comprehend what had just happened!

The boy who never smiled had just given me so much warmth, joy and happiness without exchange of single word or a smile! 

I packed my camera and started walking towards my car. There were many more images to capture. But I wanted to let the lesson I had just learned sink in.

There is dignity in silence and sometimes, the best words are the ones that are unspoken yet have power to strike a chord within.

The taste of that toffee I had that day was out of the world and is going to linger on my mind forever!

My every day companions!

 :)

Have you ever noticed how we are attached to so many things that surround us every day?! Little things that we painstakingly shop and collect and decorate our house with....artefacts, aroma candles, wind chimes, handicrafts...I can't have enough of them!!! 

Sometimes, these things are forgotten once placed at assigned space, just like people in our life, until a visitor or two admires them and we are reminded of their presence and beauty and some things, just like some special people in our life never let you forget their presence!

This wind chime (in the picture) sings most lyrical notes I have ever heard! It is absolutely thrilled just to BE; celebrating every moment, whether it is existence of a tiny plant thriving, sprouting glowing, little buds in defiance of my expectations, loud songs of cuckoo announcing Summer or rain, frustrating heat/humidity or just a playful breeze, its sweet tinkling never stops echoing through my home, bringing along fragrance of a distant rain, hay or a deeply guarded memory with calming energy....

There are some potted plants below the wind chimes in our balcony and when music of the wind chimes starts, leaves rustle in resonance creating perfect harmony....sometimes a butterfly, honeybee or a dragonfly whirls around it trying to catch up to its tune and leaves happily like a girl who has had the greatest dance of life with the coolest guy on the floor!

Once in a while, out of blue, the wind chimes stop singing when there is no breeze depriving me delight of Nature's background music and for those few moments our home feels so barren... and just like that, the music starts, picking up from half a broken note and unique symphony is orchestrated once again!

Wind chimes; my constant companions at home that sooth my hidden aches....come rain, heat, thunder or hail storm, they NEVER stop their soul stirring renditions!

Life is so much more beautiful and tolerable with a little music in the backdrop! Joys of simple, little things and their magic!

When nostalgia comes wafting

A hawker girl making preparations for the "chana chat" 

Cartload of seasonal fruits 

The quintessential childhood goodies neatly arranged at roadside  

The mouth watering "kairi" (raw mango) sprinkled with salt and red chilly powder

Last week, I was heading for some work when the traffic stood still due to rain and all the chaos that entails the Mumbai rains ensued. Being a photographer I tend to grab even such frustrating moments to discover stories in fleeting moments and believe me, streets in India are like never ending scrolls of circus of life but more about that in some other post. 

While I was trying to observe life around, I saw a triumphant street vendor trudging his cart amidst the incessant honking, choicest of abuses and middle finger salutations barely managing to bring his cart next to my car, impatiently waiting for the signal to go green. In his cart lay the mouth watering childhood goodies that made me feel so nostalgic about the pleasant memories of my school days!  

I went to a school that never allowed any food carts near the premises. But somehow, a Gorkha family from Nepal had managed to have a food cart little away from our school compound. That cart served as a treasure trove for children who would run frantically to reach and clamour around it during recess. When the decibel levels grew too loud for the Nepali lady, she would invariably yell profane words in her native language which were sometimes translated in Hindi by her rebellious son. :) 

The rich spread at the cart next to my car;  Amla (gooseberries), Kairi (raw mango), Bair (jujubes), Singada ( water chestnuts), Imli (tamrind), Karonda (Carissa, a kind of dogbane, according to Wikipediea), Kauth (wood apple), Bhuni Sing (roasted groundnuts) took me back to carefree days of priceless joy of eating copious quantity of these goodies without iota of shame or guilt or worry of calories! 

Having been born and brought up in staunch Maharashtrian Brahmin family, eating street food or for that matter anywhere outside home was considered a blasphemy, hence the adventures of secretly bartering my lunch with the tidbit bought from the street cart were limited to occasional impropriety triggered by eternal rebel thriving happily inside me. 

In city like Mumbai one rarely finds such street carts that cater to innocent longings of childhood.  With new international food chains doing brisk business in every corner, one often sees children eating junk food and they rarely know names of the local fruits and vegetables! I am dying to see a child screwing his nose after taking bite of a tamarind pod or a raw mango sprinkled with salt and red chilli powder! I would give anything to see children compete to finish eating sugarcane without help of knife. I am searching for children who know which fruit or vegetable their fancy gelato/sorbet is coming from. I want to meet children who have experienced life and its priceless goodies without the weight of snooty perceptions of food that we all are often subjected to. 

Alas, food is no more just food. It is also reflection of one's way of life.  Guess I will have to travel to some small town where simple, innocent pleasures are still part of growing up in gay abandon! 

Quiet riot by the Sunset

As I type this article, I see a gorgeous Sunset from my window. The evening is approaching languidly with the birds returning to their nests singing in gay abandon! The day is about to glide into the night and I am surprised how I have missed stealing these beautiful moments, witnessing this everyday miracle since past few months! 

It has been really very long since I wrote on this blog. With my mother in law's deteriorating health, most of my time is consumed by hospital visits, looking after her and sporadic lurches amidst all the chaos created by the unpredictability life threatening diseases like cancer create. Being a compulsive writer, I have missed this blog sorely, made many attempts to write but invariably always been dragged to zillion things that need my time and energy ASAP. Believe me I have sulked many a nights silently in vain! 

Yeah, it is difficult to love life sometimes. But it is amazing how some tragic events reveal insights from random experiences and enhance our perception about life and people in general, compelling us to visit realms of our mind not visited before. 

Have you ever realized how important it is to take a step back and reconnect with your core when life becomes too chaotic to handle? Nursing patient of life threatening disease with serious psychiatric issues can sometimes create negativity that gets too far under your skin. You need to emotionally disconnect and create a healthy detachment from the inner circus, the never ending noise of demands, expectations and compulsions and truly strive for some quiet time alone and listen to your own body, mind and soul!

 It is amazing what all silence can make you listen! We never truly comprehend but there is rhythm in silence and in solitude. It is only when we embrace solitude with discipline and discover ourselves layer by layer we understand there is much more to life than sum total of our experiences, relationships, aspirations, achievements, failures and all such things we get weighed down by. 

And sometimes amidst all the chaos, a few sacred moments of solitude watching a glorious Sunset, like the one I am witnessing right now can be a perfect balm for the jaded soul! And in that beautiful pause, life suddenly appears worth loving all over again DESPITE everything!