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Showing posts with label meeting. Show all posts
Showing posts with label meeting. Show all posts

Wednesday 9 April 2014

100 Happy Days: Day 96 Surprise Meeting


Happiness is meeting a friend at most unexpected places



I walked into the lobby of a hotel and ask for directions to a particular restaurant I was to dine. While the person was still giving direction, my gaze settled on a friend sitting at the far end of the table. Everything forgotten, I rushed to the table to hug my friend whom I had not met for a long time. 

Happiness is found in most unusual moments. Many times we ruin our happiness by complaining. By bringing the unpleasant past back. It’s the moment that decides our happiness. Meeting her was pure happiness. It was the moment to relish and be glad that her delayed flight (her reason for being at the hotel) and my presence at the hotel (was invited to attend a dinner party) resulted in this happy meeting. Had I not met her I would not have known that she was in Mumbai.

Was I glad? Of course yes…..

So here I am, with the project of 100 Happy DaysI am posting pictures each day here on my blog then sharing the link on my page on FB too. You can enjoy my work either here or on my page at FB at Pushee’s World

Saturday 22 March 2014

100 Happy Days: Day 78 Friends


Happiness is spending time with close friends.



Friend says ‘Don’t cook too much, just make a simple meal, dhal and rice will do, food is not important, we will come over and spend some time with you.’ She does not want to burden me, but I enjoy cooking. I invite more friends and decide to make something special. Friends come over; each one brings something to share (no, its not Dutch party).

There are cakes, chips, chocolates, strawberry milk shake, falooda and ice cream. “We will eat later” they say. There is so much food and too much variety. I should have told them what to bring, planning helps.

Now I need to call another set of friends to finish these goodies.

So here I am, with the project of 100 Happy DaysI am posting pictures each day here on my blog then sharing the link on my page on FB too. You can enjoy my work either here or on my page at FB at Pushee’s World

Sunday 9 March 2014

100 Happy Days: Day 65 Discussing a New Product


Happiness is spending a Sunday afternoon with foodie friends.



The beauty of spending an afternoon with foodie friends is that you not only talk about food and the recipes but you also learn about the new product in the market and how best to make use of it.

Met some foodie friends at a cook studio and over the cup of coffee, we sat discussing the product which is soon to be launched in Mumbai. During the interaction, we discovered that the product is more useful than what we normally thought. The discussion progressed from latest food trends, to the sharing of the pictures at Instagram.

Quite an insightful afternoon.

So here I am, with the project of 100 Happy DaysI am posting pictures each day here on my blog then sharing the link on my page on FB too. You can enjoy my work either here or on my page at FB at Pushee’s World

Sunday 11 March 2012

The Superstar Meeting

My friend has written the script of the play and she wants me to watch it and give my review.  The theatre is houseful but I insist that I would like to see it, the man behind the ticket desk asks me to wait until the show time, and he assures me that I might be able to get it, if there are some last minute cancellations.

I emerge from the theatre box office and walk out towards the open-air cafeteria. It is a quaint place surrounded by bright orange lanterns that hang low from the trees. There are strings of tiny bulbs blinking from branch to branch against the back drop of dark blue sky. Ten stone tables spread over the place and many small bamboo stools dot the floor. All the tables are occupied. One group of four youngsters sit huddled at one such table sipping Suleman chai, the specialty drink of this cafeteria, spread in front of them are large sized black and white photographs, and it seems like they are discussing and critiquing the photographs that they must have clicked earlier during the day. At another table sits lone youth, scratching his beard, lost in the own world, surfing the net on his laptop. All the tables are full with different type of groups. I look for empty stool and glance all around the place and then I see him, that same glowing face, the same charming eyes.

I had seen him many times during my monthly visits to ‘Open Mike Poetry Slam’ at Prithvis. He sat there, on a wheel chair, his body stiff and still and his over-weight body filling the whole seating space, hands hung loosely over his lap, lower limbs rested on the foot stand, his eyes listless, staring into the space as if, filled with sense of disquiet and utter isolation. Many a times I was tempted to capture his image in my camera, but then again, I remained undecided. Was it right to click pictures of the helpless people?  Would it look good to go closer to him and blind him with the flash? Would he approve it if he saw it? Even though he sat there so limply, he still imposed proud personality. People noticed him and many people greeted him.

He waves at me as if in recognition and beckons me to come and sit next to him. There is an empty stool next to his wheel chair. At first I am uncertain. Then I think, just as well. I walk closer, smile and sit down next to him.

‘Would you like to have coffee?” he asks softly, smiling a little and there is a faint twinkle in his eyes.

“No, thank you” I say, although my throat is parched.

“How are you?” I try to make a conversation

“Fine” he says his voice barely audible. He tries to shift in his wheelchair but with great effort he makes a slight movement.

I don’t know what else to say to him. What do they discuss with a person who has been a super star in his youth and now sits paralyzed and so helpless in his wheel chair?

Would he talk about his happy days on Bollywood screen or will he talk about his health. I can feel his pain and I am aware that he must be feeling miserable in his present helpless condition, I don’t wish to show him any pity, what is the safe topic to discuss? I sit quietly, next to him, my mind drifts back to thirty years.

In an airy room, I sit facing my sisters. Having the difference of opinions on every issue, they spend lot of their time in having unnecessary arguments. I am amused by yet another pointless discussion

“I love Manoj Kumar” says my elder sister,” he is the bestest actor in the Bollywood industry, so very good looking”

“”You have a very bad taste, what you like Manoj Kumar? He is always covering his face with his hands, if he is good looking then why does he need to do that? Nobody in this universe is as charming as my Shashi Kapoor” says my other sister.

“Rah! Shashi Kapoor? What acting he does? Huh? Just jumping around like a frog,”

The discussion and abuses goes on for next ten minutes, with each one belittling the other’s choice and finding faults in the superstar’s acting. There is a heated argument and then sisters part in opposite direction, resolving never to speak to each other until they learn to show some respect to each other’s superstar idol.

I want to tell him about the fight my sisters had over him some thirty years ago.

I searched for words to begin the conversation. I try to remember the names of the movies that I had seen him in. Jab, Jab phool khiley, Deewar, Sharmilee, Aa gale lag ja, Abhinetri, like a slide show, the images play in my head. He had a boyish charm, charming smile, and his unique style of dancing made him stand apart from others. He was also quite vain though, I remember, I had read during those days about his comment on film star Rekha saying “How is this dark, plump and gauche actress ever going to make it?”

His attendant brings the coffee and sandwich and places it in front of him on a small stool. Balancing his stiff hand, he places the sandwich between his fingers and waits next to him. His foot falls off the foot rest, hanging limply on the side, stiff, the attendant bends down and places his paralyzed foot back on the foot rest.

He bites into the sandwich and noisily chews the food and suddenly a loud burp. Our superstar idols that we see in movies never burp so freely in public places unless in jest. This superstar whom my sister adored so much just burped loudly now without any embarrassment, without excusing himself. I look at the attendant’s face but see blank expressions, not even a moustache moved. Well, what can an old man do?  Burpinging and snoring is the common trait in senior people, why must I be offended?

“Are you going to watch the play?” I ask pretending as if I never heard it.

“Yes” he says “I am looking forward to it”

At that moment one couple approaches us. The man joins his hand in greeting while woman bends down and touches his feet, and then slides her hand over her forehead.

“My wife is your greatest fan. We are so glad to see you” says the man. The woman just smiles,nods her head in agreement, teeth filling her face, the adoration writ on her eyes.

He nods his head acknowledging them.

They stand there, opposite him saying nothing and then look at me, greeting me. Finding no words to continue the conversation, the couple walks away.

I bend and bury my head into my mobile to read my mail.

It’s show time, I take his leave and walk back to the box office to ask for tickets. There is a tune running in my head, one old Hindi Bollywood tune that runs into loop

 “Yahan mein ajanabi hoo, Mei jo hoon bas wahi hoon”  (I am a stranger here, I am what I am)





Tuesday 21 February 2012

Literary Meeting with ‘Shakespeare and Company’ group



I visited Bangalore after 20 years this week-end. I remember Bangalore as a garden city with quaint bungalows and wide clean streets. Development has changed the entire city, with airport so far away that I was getting guilty pangs on having asked my family to spend two hours to fetch me from airport to the city. But then I do not understand the roads and would not be able to use public transport therefore had no choice but to depend on the residents of the city to transport me around through the fractured roads.

I went for four days, two days to meet-up the family whom I had not met for a long time and two days to meet the members of S&C community of writers whom I had never met. This is the writer's community with whom I have interacted on FaceBook and we regularly share writing skill and ideas. This would be fun group for people taking writing classes as well. All the informal knowledge is shared through fun and jest.


Pragya Thakur, the moderator of this group, was making the visit to Bangalore with her daughter, Anushka, and wanted to meet with the members of the group. The event was created on the FB and members were showing their interest in attending this event “Revels 2012’ Jaya Chandra offered to host the event at her villa at Whitefield, Gopu and JJ organized the event, arranging food, sound and logistics.

The meeting was in Bangalore and I live in Mumbai, so why did I decide to travel all the way to Bangalore to attend this event? 


I am not even a great writer who can proudly share about some extra-ordinary work with the rest of the group. But here was an opportunity to re-visit the place, meet the family who has grown older by 20 years and to meet my faceBook friends whom I had never met before but knew them only from their writings. 


 Friendship for me is complete only after I have met the people personally and interacted with them in real world and this was my only chance to meet the real people whose writings gave me so much happiness.

Confirming my attendance, I booked my air-ticket and hotel room but was still nervous of meeting the FB friends the first time. Through chat pages and phone calls, I exchanged dialogue with few of them so that I would be comfortable when I met them personally.


After spending two days with my family, at 2pm on 18th Feb, I checked into my hotel room next to Pragya’s room, dumped my luggage and immediately ran to her room to meet her and her daughter, Anoshka. The two hours were spent enjoying JJ’s presence, Anoshka’s innocent chatter and dance, Pragya’s chat and songs.

At 4pm, it was time to meet the rest of the group at the hotel lobby. One by one, as if on a ramp, each friend made her presence through the glass door, crinkling her eyes, recognizing me from the images she had known of my virtual profile pictures and my animated chat which now morphed into three-dimensional real person, to whom I stretched my heart, tied a knot and strengthened the friendship into my real world.

With transport meticulously arranged by Gopu and JJ, we drove in four cars, one behind another, making sure that nobody got lost. At the dot of 5pm, we were greeted by our gracious host, Jaya and Mahesh, who stood with open arms at the portico of their beautiful villa surrounded by greenery, the birds began to sing with the orchestra filling the wind.


The artistic interiors of the living room and the fragrance from Jaya’s kitchen of fritters cooking in hot oil made me feel so much at home. Although it was time to mingle and familiarize, the hunger pangs made me spend more time on munching and talking food. I stole some time to feast on dhal-kachories, potato bajiyas, cheesy popcorns, spicy wafers, crackers and strawberries till it was time to move out in the open space, on the chairs spread out on grassy patch, at the back of the villa. The presence of the mike and the spot lights spelled the seriousness of this meeting.

After the group photograph and the formal introduction, the event ‘Revel 2012’ began.



Maitreyee, the one blessed with the beauty and the brains, was the perfect one to start the reading session followed by Sushmita and then one by one, we heard the play of words by different writers as they read out their poetry and prose, so intelligently worded, flipping out from their scripts, filling the air with vivid images. I fumbled in my mind, not sure if I could share my mediocre work with this creative group. Twice I inserted my hand into my purse to extract my book and twice stuffed it back, not sure if I could share.

Suddenly the power went out. In darkness we sat, gazing up in the sky pointing out to constellation of stars, the Orion and its bright stars, the great bear and the seven stars, the little bear and the Polaris, we scanned the dark blue sky looking in all directions and at that very instant, there was a song…..Pragya started to sing…in the perfect stillness of the evening it was pleasant to the ears, soon everybody joined in, some softly and some loud, then Gopu commenced, enthralled us with his deep smooth voice, the memories of Kishore Kumar and Shamshad Begam Akhtar came alive along with other singers long forgotten, the chairs shifted in two groups and unplanned antakshri began.

Soon the lights came on, ankatshri game abandoned; we tracked our steps back to ‘Revel 2012’

Uma got her ipad and tried to include Ranjini (who was physically across seven seas but mentally with us) into the group through skype. But the bad interconnectivity gave us just a glimpse of her and tried as much as we could, I only managed to type a feeble “Hey”

With internet connected, Madhavan was able to extract his writings from his blog, and later he and Richa read ‘Dhaiya re dhaiya’ Richa and Revathi read their winning entries of ‘short stories competition’. By now, the phobia of reading my work was slowly fading, I plucked up enough courage, extracted my diary and my reading glasses from my handbag and waited for my turn to read my poems. I was happy I did because it felt good to share my work and I discovered it was not that bad after all.

As the evening progressed, the air thinned, it was getting chilly, I borrowed a shawl from Jaya, wrapped myself and sat cuddled, enjoying the reading and the off-handed hilarious one liners of Madhavan thrown in between the serious readings.

 Soon the theatre came alive with evocative reading of the play ‘Taming of the Shrew’ by Kirtana and JJ

Not wanting to disturb the neighbors, we decided to move back to the living room to continue the reading after dinner.


There was more reading to be heard of Suja reading her published stories, of Pragya sharing a creative writings, of Uma, Jaya, SeekerSought, Gopu, Gargi, Sangeeta and Shankari reading their stories, but the clock on the wall glared at us, showing us the lateness of the hour. The event had to be winded up in a jiffy but not before the announcement of the lucky winners (Anitha Murthy, Revathi Siva Kumar and Richa Dubey) of the ‘short story competition’  and taking home the prize.

It was a wonderful event, worth the long distance trip that I had covered from Mumbai to Bangalore to attend; I have acquired a new set of extended literary family that I hope to retain this friendship for long……

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