Poetry and Story telling Performance.....

Last evening, I was invited for music, poetry and story-telling performance by a famous group of Tenerife called Sol Y Sombra. After dinner, we went to ´´Casa de Los Caceres´´ which is a heritage building, in Icod de Los Vinos, made of wood and stones. During day, there are many art exhibitions held in this place which exhibits the art and culture of Canarias. The show was held in the patio of this cultural centre and we were greeted with a glass of iced-gin tonic with basil leaves, and we sat there under the open skies, sipping the drink and watching the show. The patio, which is in the centre of the building, is surrounded by wooden windows of all the exhibit rooms, and it was from one of those windows, that we heard the musical voice of a singer, we looked up and saw him move from one window to another with a candle in his hand, his song resonating the patio as he walked down the steps behind the patio and he finally emerged the patio to present the show. The mood was set. There were musicians playing guitar/piano and the two artists who kept us captivated with their songs, poems and animated stories. There was a good interaction between the live music and the song. After each performance, the actors and musicians kissed each other expressing their gratitude and there was loud applause. The audience clearly mesmerised, wanted as many story telling performances as they could get. One could see that each artist performed with great passion, showing stunning melodic creativity and an ever fertile imagination. Although I am not too fluent in my Spanish, I could still follow the story from their powerful expressions. Such was the show that has clung to my memory and I am still relishing the tunes…..

Apeksha

Neha is very excited that I will meet her sponsored, nine-year-old mentally challenged child who lives 10000 miles away. My bags are packed for my trip back home. I am ready to leave the next day. “Will you take this gift for Apeksha?” she says as she shows me a box containing a pretty doll, dressed in blue knitted suit and cap, holding on to a soft, tiny teddy bear. “Oh that is lovely. Of course, I will take it for you. I am sure Apeksha will be thrilled.” I say Neha brings out a roll of colorful gift-wrapping paper, few strips of pink ribbons, a pair of scissors and a cello tape. She squats on the floor beside my deranged suitcase and starts to pack a gift for her sponsored child whom she has never met before. For next fifteen minutes, she carefully wraps the gift-box and makes a cute pink bow curling the free ends of the ribbon with a sharp edge of the scissors. She brings out a card, writes a message for Apeksha, seals envelop and writes in a bold letter on the top of the envelop ‘For Apeksha, with lots of love from Neha’. “On my next trip to India, I would like to meet her,” she says as she attaches the card and the pink bow on the gift-wrapped box and hand it over to me. “Sure, I will take you to school to meet her.” I say. The box is too beautiful to dump it in my suitcase. I decide to hand carry it. A week later, I go to the school carrying Apeksha’s gift. It is lunch break and I see Apeksha standing quietly and watching the other children play roller skating. “Apeksha, How are you? Look what I have for you” I say as I show her the gift wrapped box. She looks at me suspiciously and then looks away to watch the children play. ‘Come and see what Neha has sent for you.” Says her class teacher as she approaches her and holds her hand to bring her into the room, but Apeksha refuses to come inside and frees her hand, stares listlessly at me and returns her gaze back to those children with roller skates. Her teacher throws her arm around Apeksha and guides her gently into the room. I hand over the gift to Apeksha informing her that Neha is a friend who loves her too much and she has sent a gift for her. She takes the gift from my hand and sits on the chair facing me. “Open the gift. Don’t you want to see what your friend has sent for you?” I say She makes no effort to open it and just sits there, staring at the gift. Her teacher bends over her and helps her open the gift, removing the card, pink bow and detaching the cello tapes to expose the doll in blue suit with a soft, tiny teddy bear. “Do you like it? It is pretty. Isn’t it?” says her teacher ‘Hhmn!” she says and then gets up and walks out to watch the children play roller skating, leaving behind the box of doll, torn gift-wrapping paper, pink bow with curly frills and the unopened card, all carelessly scattered on the table next to me.

A true story ... of hope and determination

This is a true story of a woman, Shalini, who would help me cope with my housework When I lived in Spain, what I hated most was doing the odd jobs at home like sweeping, swabbing, dusting or washing clothes. Therefore,when I returned back to India, I started to enjoy the comfort of a helper which is easily available in India' I appointed Shalini to help me clean my house. Shalini worked in my house with a salary of just Rs500. Having her help in the house was a blessing I enjoyed and I was kind of living in luxury. She worked in four different houses in my building, doing the same job, over and over again, and seven days a week. I would ask her to take a day off and she would refuse telling me that she would be bored at home. Every evening, she would come to my house and make me a cup of tea, and while she and I sipped the tea together, she would relate to me the stories of her life and her family. Shalini had no husband and her family had cheated her out of the family property and she had been forced to work as a housemaid, because she was not educated nor qualified to do any other work. She had one daughter, Rupa, whom she would take with her everywhere because she did not trust the neighbor for her daughter's safety. While she worked, Rupa would sit and watch her mother do cleaning and swabbing at other people's houses. One day, Shalini's employer suggested that she educate her daughter, because she felt that her daughter was very pretty and education would do her good. On the insistence of her employer, she enrolled Rupa in the municipal school. Rupa would be seen following Shalini with a book in her hand. Rupa would get help in her studies from the children in the building, all the used books, and clothes were passed on to her from Shalini's employers. Rupa started to enjoy the attention she was getting from all people in the neighborhood and she took more interest in her studies and was getting good result. Years passed, Rupa grew up, educated and graduated. Shalini would tell me the stories of how people had helped her financially to get her daughter educated and how proud she was of her pretty, educated daughter. One day, she told me that Rupa had got a good job, she didn't know where her daughter was working but she said that she had started working in some office which was open all night and she had comapany transport at her service. I guessed it must be some call centre. While her daughter lived in style, she was still travelling by bus and doing menial work. For next six months, she would tell me about her daughter earning good salary, and improving her standard of living. First came, radio with stereo, then telephone, 24 inch TV, sewing machine, furniture and then washing machine....and she told me that her daughter wanted her to stop working as house maid, as she was making enough money to support her. But Shalini was a proud woman and she didn't want to live on her daughter's expense, so she continued to work in four houses, doing the same drab work that she had been doing for 25 years. Her own clothes were washed in the washing machine at home, while she washed people's clothes at work. I would wonder if her daughter was proud of her mother for getting her educated or was she ashamed of her mother, doing the menial work and earning only ten percent of her daughter's salary. She was a very good maid; she worked hard and was very honest. Many other employers did not want her to leave them. They were afraid they would not be able to replace her and therefore they discouraged her for their own selfish comforts. They were happy that she was a self respecting woman who did not want to live on her aughter's expenses. I ask her to leave the job and rest at home and tried to explain to her that she deserved to live comfortably because she had made an effort to educate her daughter but she would not listen, telling me that she would be bored at home. Her daughter got married and forced her to stay with her and it was her son-in-law who finally cajoled her into leaving the job and start enjoying the comfort in her old age. I lost a good maid but I was happy that her efforts had paid off. She visits me sometimes, and I feel happy to see her proud smile and glow on her face when she lovingly talks about her daughter's success. Cross posted on another blog on 'Unchaai – Crying for Love’ at http://unwantedgirlchild.blogspot.com/2008/03/true-story-of-hope-and-determination.html

The last day of the KGAF

was the day, when there were too many interesting events happening everywhere, and if I had some magic powers, I would have loved to attend them all. But unfortunately, I had to tick off many events to be able to attend a few of them. I attended only those which I could fit into my limited capacity of endurance. Sigh! There were many films showing at different venues. I was most interested in watching the film that was specially made for KGAF by celebrities like Anu Tandon, Brinda Miller, Soni Razdan, Sangita Jindal, Bandana Tiwari, Ayaz menon and Tony Singh. These were the set of short film with a common theme of the state of affairs in India after sixty years. It was amusing to watch the ‘Never Ending Story’ where people continued to watch the serial “Saas Bhi Kabbi Bahu Thi” even after sixty years. Also, I liked the one in which the world is ruled by Bollywood. There will be Hollywood stars dancing and acting in Indian film and all the Hollywood film plagiarize Bollywood stories. Later I headed towards David Sassoon Library Garden to spend the rest of the evening watching some interesting events that included discussion on ‘Graphic Story Telling’ and ‘Poetry Slam’. The theme at ‘Poetry Slam’ was ‘Name, Place, Animal, Thing’ All the participants were very talented and it must have been very difficult for the judges to score them. Towards the end of the show, I got my (own) two-minutes-fame, when I got to read my children’s story about cloud and wind called ‘Badli and Windy’. I had created this story during work-shop on ‘Writing for Children’ and it had some how reached the finals.