Children on Mumbai streets

I get very disturbed when I see kids on the streets. They should be studying in some school. Education in India is not very expensive, and there are many NGO’s who are willing to help, but still, how these kids land up on the road and beg at every street signals, is a mystery to me. I don’t like to give them money or patronize them in any ways because I am worried about their future, if they get the taste of money at this young age, and learn that they can earn money by begging or selling on the streets, they will never understand that education is more important. While rich children lead a sheltered and comfortable life, we have poor children who are doing all kids of odd jobs like selling their wares, or begging in the local trains or cooking on the street. Rich parents would never allow their kids to even light a match and here we have street kids as young as five years old, lighting the fire and sitting so close to it. We have six year old child selling her wares in the local train. Seven year old child will do streets shows like tight rope walking Eight year old might be the street musicians Ten year old might be seen begging and crying of pain. Some of the kids are tortured and forced to beg. And some of them are learning to steal at this tender age. I remember of a day, when I was traveling in an auto and I had a food packet in my hand. At one signal, one child came and snatched the food packet from my hand. The signal changed to green and my auto drove on, but I was sorry that the child had to forcibly snatch the food packet from my hand, had he asked me politely I might have given it to him. What these children will grow up to be? I dread about its outcome

Cooking on the road is not allowed in Mumbai

Hawkers in India are discouraged from cooking on the streets in Mumbai and there are regular inspections by police to ward them off. But they are back, after a day of rest, to do their business in an illegal way. And it is for us that they are willing to take the risk of being whisked off again and again. But then we are always looking for an easy way out. Today, for example, during my morning errands to the market and the bank, I thought of making radish-brinjal vegetable as soon as I would reach home. As I crossed the street to enter my lane, I saw this hawker selling Vada Samber, and I was tempted to patronize him. The fragrance of the fried Vada is very tempting. My cooking plans got postponed. I turned a blind eye to the unhygenic envirnoments surrounding this hawker, so strong was the fragrance of the fried Vadas. The pocket that was made for planting flowers, on the side of the road, was used by this hawker as a mini kitchen, where he had this huge frying pan. He had prepared the batter at home and he served the hot, freshly fried Vadas to his clients. While I waited for him to fry the Vadas, I decided to click few pictures. The hawker got panicky and hesitantly asked me the motives behind my clicking the pictures. He requested me not to make trouble for him by exposing his illegal business and even refused to charge me for the Vada Sambar that I had bought from his stall. I refused to take the free meal and asked him to relax, I was in no mood to report him. How much easier it must be for the policeman to turn a blind eye to such illegal food stalls, if the hawkers are in the habit of providing free meals to every person, who they fear, can put them out of business?

Staying Alive...and healthy....

Staying healthy is the choice that I make. If I show irresponsibility towards my eating habits, it inconveniences me in the long run. I have decided to take charge of my life. For when I am sick, it is only me who suffers…..in pain and in paying for doctors and medicines…… ..Just little care, and I am able to save that money for a luxurious holiday to some fancy resort. I can lay back on the easy chair and ask somebody to press the point on my foot..and all that I do is to drink my cool drink and enjoy a book near a seaside enjoying the gentle breeze…. But when I am at home, burried within the four walls of my room, I press the points on my hand and I feel quite well. My friend has given me a plastic messager which has narrow point on one end and flat rounded surface on other end (it looks like a hammer) and this is a good instrument for pressing the points in the hand. When I press a point and if it pains, it means that there is some problem there...when I had kidney stones, the centre of my palm would pain, whenever I would press that point. I spend lot of time on a computer, But still, I can keep myself healthy by just self-message.....the windows sometimes take too long to open the page, during these spell a few minutes of these exercises really help.....to improve my concentration, creativity and the clarity of my mind...so while I am munching on some dry fruit by my side, it is a good idea to do self message..... After all it's my life so why give the chance to others to rule my life?

RIP

The memory of Kalagoda fiesta lingers The show comes to an end. The Panel discussion and Coffee meetings With workshops at different stands I loved the gallery and pavement shows Concerts, film, theatre, and performing dance The lively festival with heritage walks. Oh! There were too many events, And so little, limited time It was all over in a passing glance But Me I want to sit on a Black Horse To gallop with a silence band…….. Puff! Puff! Puff! Me Quite tired! All good things, like always Have come to an end…

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.