October Read Meet In Khar

Some read from their laptops,
some from their android phone 
Some recite from their memory 

while some from their written notes, 

but the stories that they share are 

their original work 

written with great care

When the read meets are on Saturday and the venue is closer to my house, there is no reason to give it a miss. This was #22 readmeet and the theme was interesting too. Writer friends brought their naughty work because that was the theme…’Inverse Bowdlerisation’…inserting naughty bits to the respectable ones without altering the real script. They said ‘it was not easy’ but they did it well. Their work was so good that it was difficult to differentiate the original from parody. 

I did not write on the theme, because I was not sure what I was expected to write. I took my story that I had written during #CelebrateBlogging organized by Blogadda. We had to create a story with our team members. There were 30 teams who had participated in this event and our team had reached 12th position. I read the part that I had written during the event.

Here is what I read:

Immaculately dressed, Cyrus made an impressive presence, as he moved with authority in the crowd, his smile plastered perpetually on his face, and a drink goblet held loosely in his hand. He had lots to celebrate, as ‘Play Deo’ his ad company, was the new talk of the town. It took over the turntables and was enjoying the success.

The celebrations kicked off in full swing when the bare chested Bollywood star Akhay Khan made his appearance on the stage gyrating his pelvic on the hottest electronic music tracks.  Rhythm of oohs and aahs blared from loud speakers. Akhay Khan was spinning, his wet skin shining under blinking colored lights. The Olive bar’s stunning cocktail beauties showed up next to Cyrus and presented him with two glorious gold plaques for his achievements.

Flashing his gold tooth smile, Cyrus held his plaque up high for his guests to see while everybody raised a toast and gold confetti shot up in the air.

Cyrus kept the party going all night, spinning all the way until the early morning.  Throughout the evening, heels clacked against hardtop dance floor as dancers gradually overcame their shyness.

Tara was exhausted. She had not wanted to participate in Cyrus’s achievement. But the world was watching and her absence would be felt in the Ad world. Although they worked together and created terrific ideas for their clients, she hated his insensitive personal comments.  Lately she had been deeply offended when Cyrus had asked her if she suffered from the disease called Munchausen syndrome by proxy or MSBP. She didn’t know what he meant but she had felt hurt that he had mentioned it. Somebody has been gossiping for sure, but who??

MSBP was the behavior pattern that she had grown up seeing her mother suffer from it. Her mother would systematically fabricate or exaggerate the symptoms, and even once induced her with wrong medications when she was unwell. Her dad had explained, telling her that people who suffered from MSBP were willing to fulfill their need for positive attention by hurting even their own child and then appearing to care and save their so-called sick child.

Münchausen syndrome by proxy

The words played in loops in her mind. A hundred times. Revolving round and round till her head began to spin. No, it cannot be true, she held the most responsible post in an ad company, she could handle the most difficult situations. How could she bring harm to anybody? Bring harm to her own child. Never.

“Maybe I should pick up Roohi from school today” she said under her breath as she removed the mobile from her purse and started to dial.

“Hello Shekhar” she whispered into the phone, her fingers pressing hard against her left temple, “I will pick up Roohi from school today.”

“Are you okay?” said Shekhar, shifting uncomfortably in his wheel chair. “Come home directly, she will come by school bus, like she always does.” There was a ring of concern over his voice.

“No, I am fine.” She said. Her mind drifted towards her 9 years old daughter. A flash of pleasure swept over her.

Spending time with Roohi always changed her moods. In worst of situations, a happy chatter and her bright smile lifted her spirit; she needed that at this moment the most. She could come later to work and maybe work late nights, but right now she needed to go someplace with her daughter.

She flung her handbag over her shoulders, plucked the keys from the key stand and emerged from her cabin.

“I will be back soon.” She said to no one in particular as she strode at an easy pace towards the parking lot.

She revved up the engine; it rumbled, gave a soft jerk and then began to move.

She had had the presence of mind to call the mechanic and get her car repaired. It was just a spark plug issue and it was resolved in no time. 

Roohi had just emerged from her school gates, when she recognized her mother’s car parked behind her school bus, hazard lights blinking, and car position a bit skewed. She looked closely. A wave of happiness enveloped her when she saw her mother standing next to the car. She blinked, turned swiftly, her gaze not leaving her mother, her shoes grinding against the sandy ground, with her both arms swinging in air, her school bag thumping against her back, she walked swiftly, reached Tara and circled her arms around her mother’s waist.

“Mamma! So nice to see you. Ooh! I cannot believe it. What a pleasant surprise!”

“Yes, my pretty Rooh. Today, I decided to spend some time with my baby” Tara bend down to kiss her daughters forehead.

“Really? Are we going someplace?” Roohi walked towards the other side, threw her school bag at the back seat of the car, opened the front door and plopped herself in the front seat.

“We are going home, baby!” said Tara, as she put the car in gear and pulled out of the parking lot. 

“No, no, Mamma please, I don’t want to go home, can we stop for an ice-cream, please?” said Roohi, her voice lingering on the word ‘please’ and her eyes rolling in excitement.

“Hmmn, only ice cream then, okay?” said Tara, her eyes focused on the busy road ahead.

Tara parked her car outside an ice-cream parlor, hand-in-hand, Roohi and Tara walked inside.

With an interior design that looks more like a clothes shop than an exclusive ice cream parlor, this place had more than fifty flavors of ice cream, some of them truly amazing. In winter they also served chocolate delicacies and pastries.

Roohi chose the combination of vanilla and strawberry ice cream, topped with small chunks of chopped strawberries, two tiny kiwi rings, black grapes and broken pieces of walnuts and pine nuts.


While wolfing down her ice cream Roohi looked up and asked:

“You and daddy don’t go out nowadays, do you feel sad?

“Yes, sometimes, but he will be fine.”

“Will he ever walk again?”

“Yes, baby, he will.”

“You know, mamma, daddy is always on skype.”

“He is working no?”

“But he spend so much time talking to uncle Sunil on Skype.”

“Oh, they talk business.” Said Tara, wondering if Sunil was a new friend that Shekhar had found on the net. She would ask him later she decided.

“But I don’t like him.”

“You don’t have to talk to him.”

“I don’t want to talk but daddy asked me to.”

“Just say ‘hello’ and go back to your room.”

“He said he might come to Mumbai and stay in our house.”

“Don’t worry, he must have just said so, daddy friends always stay in hotel. No?”

“Mamma, he said he might come home.”

“Okay finish your ice-cream, I will drop you home then go back to work.”

“You will go back to work?”

“Yes, baby, Mamma has work to do.”

“Please, stay at home today, please, please.”

“Okay, lets go home first then we will decide.”

They drove home with Roohi chatting all the way, telling her stories about her school, friends, teachers, food, games…

Tara was already in good spirit when they entered their building compound. She inserted her house key into her main door and walked in.

She could hear soft murmurs coming from her room.

“Go to your room and change your school uniform Rooh, I will just be back” she said, nudging Roohi's shoulders to steer her towards the other room.




She decided to surprise Shekhar

She walked into her room. Shekhar was in the front of the screen, his back towards the door, deep in conversation. A shock wave travelled from her foot to her heart, as she focused her eyes to look at the face in the screen. She shivered, her nerves pulsating against her temples.

“What-the-hell!” she screamed as she clutched the mouse to switch off the Skype call.

Shekhar turned and looked at Tara in surprise. 

“You know him?” Asked Shekhar

“Yes, he is Cyrus’s brother.”

“Wait a minute, how well do you know Sunil? Have you been gossiping about me??” 

Read meets are always interesting, and every meeting I attend, I always learn something new. An evening well spent

‘Lavasa Women’s drive’ I was there too..but for a different reason...

Without women, this world wuld be a boring place

When I got an invitation from ‘Lavasa Women’s Drive organized by Lavasa in collaboration with the Times of India’ to celebrate the spirit of modern woman, telling me that my opinion counts, that people care to read what I write, and that there is someone out there listening to me, many random thoughts flooded my mind quizzing my position in cyber arena. I was elated with a false sense of pride for this achievement, thinking that I was filtered out from million of bloggers for some unique reason unknown to me and I happily debated with a bloated mind….thinking.. .. I am a strong woman, I am good blogger, I occupy the popular position in the social world, my writing has weight, bla, bla, bla....duh!.... My ego was in the fourth gear, speeding shamelessly. I wanted to share this news with all the people I knew. I was bragging near everyone who cared to listen, till I discovered the real reason behind this event and the seriousness of this ‘Social Cause’

This event was not about me or my ability to write......

‘Lavasa Women’s drive’ was about the creating awareness for early detection of breast cancer in women….

A message with responsibility……

“OVERTAKE BREAST CANCER”

I was bribed into this event with the perks to cover this event as chroniclers of Lavasa Women’s Drive.  (Which I could easily have blogged for free,) since this is the ‘social cause’ very close to my heart, having lost my 3 aunts in a row and missing them terribly even now. But this bribe was no ordinary one. Besides giving me an opportunity to get free screening for Breast, Cervical and Oral cancers at Tata Memorial Hospital, it would also allow me to enjoy the new city called ‘Lavasa’ free of cost. (a place that I was planning to visit since a long time, and had neatly tucked aside twenty grand for this purpose).

I realized that I had a responsibility of posting my message across that screamed loud and clear that ‘Cancer is curable if detected early’. It was an event to help promote women empowerment.

So, on 27th February 2011, when I reached the venue.....

I discovered that there were very large crowd of women who, like me, cared.

I woke up early at 5:30am (which is quite rare) to be at Bandra reclamation grounds that was bustling with positive energies. There were 350 cars participating in the Rally from Mumbai and (I was told) 150 more from Pune. Every car had a message to share.

It was all about saving the girl child and promoting women empowerment.

Comfortably, we drove for 5 hours, in a specious Inova, following the participating cars, cheering the women drivers and their girl-co-passengers on route whenever we overtook their vehicle (they had a map and certain rules to follow. Later, eavesdropping at the promenade, I heard one woman speak about her fright at speeding at 140) We drove through express highway, some 211 kilometers, via Lonavala, Hinjewadi, Pirangut, driving up through western Ghats, behind the majestic Sahyadri Mountains, along the contours of the Warasgoan Lake to reach a complete new world, a planned city of Lavasa, a city with an European crown.
 

Warasgoan Lake

Once there, the atmosphere was emotive.

Women, women, everywhere.

A carnival of music and dance.

Many of the women enjoyed one day carnival and headed back home but me and five other bloggers (two bloggers went back the same day) along with the members of windchimers, discovered the blogging world as we exchanging our stories of the virtual world in the luxurious service apartments where we spend the night as room-mates. Twenty fours hours ago, we were strangers but forty eight hours later, we were blogger buddies who had exchanged stories worth more than thousands of words.......

On the first day, we walked down the promenade, meeting participants and asking about their experiences

All the women were having fun, dancing and singing.......

And bloggers were communicating in their tweeting world. The virtual world were kept abreast with all the events and happening by live tweets of @shaaqT, @anushankaran, @ideasmithy, @monikamanchanda @kiranmanral and @Cemonde

When they were not tweeting, the enthusiastic bloggers would go yakkiti yakkiti yak yak, making interesting comments, sharing their views of their blogging world, it was the best time ever for me. Thank you girls….you were sooooo very adorable.

Although there was much to see, our one-day-stay limited our tourism. We did drive up to Ekkant retreat which allowed me to commute with nature and we visited a bamboo factory called Bamboosa where I purchased a hand crafted walking stick. But apart from that, we just walked up and down the Dasve town, discovering the European architecture and the scenic natural waterfront. (I was told that there is Nature Trail, Christel House, Xthrill, Boating, plant Nursery, convention hall, and adventure tourism which offer camping grounds, rock-climbing, para-surfing, and other water related sports like jet skis, catamarans, motor and peddle boats, fishing and pool volleyballs.

The city was clean and refreshing, steps and potted plants everywhere, with hundred of steps to climb up and down the hills but unfortunately there were no railings anywhere, (I think they forgot that senior citizens and handicaps need support during climbing up/down the stairs) Being hilly city and easily accessible by road, many would also like to cycle around but there were no lanes for cycling, all the paths lining the driveway were filled with flora and fauna (which looked pretty, no doubt about that) but a thought for a lane for mountain bikers would be appreciated (anybody listening?)

And surprisingly, being an Indian town, there were no beggars! Strange!! But that must be because there were no traffic signals. Not as yet! Hahaa!

It is hard to believe that it’s an Indian city, easily accessible to every Indian, with no visa requirement. All one needs is just a desire to stay with the nature, away from the maddening crowd and screeching horns of busy streets.

Just few hours away by road from Mumbai,

A city of dreams where there is sound of music in the air...

I am motivated to go once again.

Maybe I will,

if travel bug bites……..under my tapping feet.

))))))000000)))))))000000))))))))000000))))))))))0000000)))))))))

Co-bloggers who also travelled with me and then blogged
Anuradha one more and more
Kiran
Nisha, one more
Idea Smith, one more
Shakshi
Monika
Shakti
Lavasa Blog

Planning a trip to America - Part 4- Application form

This is the continuation of my previous entry.....
So, here I was, poorer by US131 dollars, applying for US Visa after obtaining the bar code.

Since I was applying for tourist visa, I needed to fill the forms DS156 and DS157 which, besides entering all the necessary data, like name, address and other details of my existences, also had some queries that required digging my grave for the lost skeletons.

For example I had to list all the countries I have visited in last ten years (Hello! I have visited so many places in last ten years that there was not enough space to list them all in that small dotted line. Over the last ten years I have traveled every year, some place or the other, Asia, Africa, Europe, and no embassy has asked me so many queries, neither at the embassy nor at the immigration)

And the next question: List all the countries that have issued me passport in last ten years (my last passport was issued in Madrid and my new passport is issued in Mumbai, now any stranger would wonder why my passport was issued in Madrid and what am I doing in India? Americans might think that I have no home that I might be a gipsy.)

Another question: Not including your current employer, list your last two employees… now this is tough to answer…I have never worked under somebody…ever, always been my own boss. When I started my career as a special educator, I was the head teacher, worked for two years and went traveling to Surinam, came back to Mumbai after four years and worked in the same school for another four years, again migrated to Spain and worked in my own retail store for another ten years, now back in Mumbai since last five years and I do blogging and social work….I have worked all my life but I have no proof, no paper work, no proper salary slip to show. What do I do?

Another question: List of all the charitable or social organizations that I belong to, or contribute or work with…..(Yes, I do work as a NGO with charitable institution for mentally challenged and do help the school in raising funds. There are many other things I do besides that like: blogging for that school,  holding workshops on teaching method for teachers, counseling the parents,and I am also the committee member and do take active part in decision making at the school, I normaly do all my work, keeping a low profile, don't like too much publicity, must I really brag???)

But, why do I have to write so many details in this application form when all I want to do is take one month holiday to Chicago and go for a road trip with my group of cousins?????

To be continued………

Voluntary work done Involuntarily

My FB friend posts a link that says….. Mozilla Service - Want to Help Source: mozillaservice.org If we can make a browser that makes the Web better, just imagine what we can do for our local communities. Equipped with a group of committed, energized, service-minded individuals and a belief in the open web, there's no limit on how far we can reach! It states that Mozilla for coming up with this idea. From the site: "During the week of September 14-21, you can make a serious difference in your local community. Here are just a few ideas of ways you can help: * Teach senior citizens how to use the Web. * Show a non-profit how to use social networking to grow its base of supporters. * Help install a wireless network at a school. * Create Web how-to materials for a library's computer cluster. * Refurbish hardware for a local computer center. * Update a non-profit organization's website. * Teach the values of the open Web to other public benefit organizations." Thinking back, I can proudly say that I have done all of the above services in my free time. My free time is my time away from my reading, writing, handicraft, art, painitng, entertaining my family and friends and travelling. People often ask me what do I do and I often say ‘Nothing in particular’. The problem with me is that I cannot sit idle, not even for a minute. Am I bragging if I discussed what I actually do with my time? Well, I have taught seniors, children, maids and housewife the use of net, how to operate it, how to surf for information and how to send e-mails and they have been quite grateful to me and the payment I get in return for this service is the beautiful smile they give me, when ever they see me passing by and I am grateful for that. I regularly go to school (at Belapur, CBD) for mentally challenged, which is two hours away from my house (I live in Bandra), I click their pictures and update their blog, and maintaining this blog has been very useful to school. Many people are willingly to be associated with this school because they are sure it is real and not a fictional institution. On festival days, food is sponsored for these children, sometimes, from as far away as Spain, the proof that their money was spent on children for food only, is shown in pictures on the blog and this encourages people to donate more help. The children are always enjoying the feast and are happy to come to school. I maintain two blogs: http://sbp-pushpa.blogspot.com/ is the blog of the school where I blog about the activities at school keeping the parents and the well wishers updated with the school. This has been of great help to the school, because people want to be associated with the school that shows so much progress. The other blog http://arushi-sbp.blogspot.com/ is mainly for teachers and parents to help them understand the problems of dealing with mentally challenged. I write about the various diseases, methods of dealing with them, and the facilities provided for mentally challenged. I prefer to stay focused on just one institution so that I am able to help out just one particular group of people. I seek neither recognition nor any awards for this voluntary work (I am camera shy so I never give interviews) and do it just for my own interest. It gives me immense pleasure to extend my time and support in this little contribution that I am able to make. Actually speaking, the rewards are very satisfying because I would otherwise be bored, doing just nothing in my free time.

Blogging Mania

Obsessive internet use is a public health problem which is so serious it should be officially recognized as a clinical disorder, according to a leading psychiatrist. They suffer four symptoms: They forget to eat and sleep; they need more advanced technology or more hours on-line as they develop ‘resistance’ to the pleasure given by their current system; if they are deprived of their computer, they experience genuine withdrawal symptoms; And in common with other addictions, the victims also begin to have more arguments, to suffer fatigue, to get lower marks in tests and to feel isolated from society. I am not sure if I have this clinical disorder, I just spent all my free time on the net in quite a harmless activity called blogging. I love visiting other bloggers, reading their views and mainly to learn from them the new tricks of the trade. The new trend has started of winning the best blogger award. These blogger awards are not official but just expression of showing their love to the blogger. I stumbled upon one blogger who had collected so many awards that she could make one complete post on it. So what should I think about them? Must I feel envy for those intellect bloggers or feel sorry for myself that I do not qualify for such awards? It is easy to win these awards. You give one and you get one. The more friends you have, the more awards you get. The law of karma applies here. .’What you give is what you get’. But the craving for awards loses our creative ability. I mainly blog on things that interests me, well, initially it was like that. Then as I became aware of my readership, I started to get responsible and felt I was talking to that particular group of people who would read my work. The more traffic I would get, the more encouraged I was to write some more and before I realized I was blogging too much. Reading, researching for facts and blogging takes up so much of my time that I have to actually wean away from my computer to watch some TV program. Presently, I am following just one TV program regularly and that is during my dinner time. On those days when I have guests at home, I squeeze few moments to just check a blog or two, but writing or researching on topics during those days is difficult, unless the guests decide to stay for a week or more (then it is easy, how much can one talk to the guest who will stay more than twenty four hours?). Few days ago, I had some guests who came to spend a week with me. During their visits, I found time to sit on the net only when they were resting in the afternoons. My guest asks what I would do if there were no computers. Good question? I would be more useful then. When there were no computers, life was more fun. I found time to read novels, watch TV, go for walks, play scrabble, draw and paint and make lots of handicraft stuff like cross stitch, crochets, knitting..etc.. With computers my life has come to a standstill. This is the only window that I seem to be looking at. I have this disease called ‘Computeria’ and I wish there some rehab where I could be detoxified off this computer. I hope to be normal some day.