(Un)Blessed Children

I feel pain, an intense pain, when I see children begging. I never give them cash, always afraid that they will know the taste of easy money at this age when they should be learning that begging is not a dignified thing to do, that education is the better option and if one is educated, there are wide choices available out there in the world. But at this tender age, I see them at every signal, running from one parked car, to another auto, to another car, some of them selling flowers, some of them sell books and some of them only beg, peeping through the glass window, putting on the pathetic face and asking for cash of which they may not even comprehend its value. Many of them might kidnapped and abused, their childhood scarred forever.

But then what can one do??

In my life time, I have taught many maids to read and write, teaching them simple mathematics, to read and write alphabets, to write their name, to be able to write phone messages and numbers for their employers. There have been many maids who have learnt a lot and have migrated with their employer because they are able to read and write. But most of the time I have been disappointed. I spend money buying all the necessary books and stationary but they lose interest and are not sincere. Some of them are plain stupid and I have to really try very hard to make them learn some simple things. And most of them have interfering parents who are always suspicious of my willingness to teach.

I once had a maid who used to bring her 9-year-old daughter to work. Most of the work she would ask her daughter to do, with her only supervising her daughter’s work. I would feel that she is taking advantage of her young child and thought it was not very nice thing to do. But the kid excelled in all the chores that she did. She washed utensils, swabbed floors and did all other work efficiently. She was an enthusiastic learner too and I saw great potential in her. I wanted to educate her and asked for her mom’s permission.

Her mother was very pleased. She suggested that she stay with me and help me with the household chore while I could teach her whenever I could. The next day, she moved into my house and into my private zone. Now I am very uncomfortable with live-in maids and I prefer to do odd jobs on my own. I don’t like to take any service from anybody and especially not from this 9-year-old kid. Anyway, now I was committed.

Her mother enrolled her in a school and I got for her all the necessary things that she would require like school uniform, books, stationary and all her personal items that she would require for her day to day activities. I was feeling like her prodigal mom. I fussed over her food, making sure that she was ate well, took up her school work and doted over her. She would wake up early morning, get ready for school, come back and study. Personally, she was of no use to me; the only work she did in my house was to help me with chopping of vegetables and dusting the furniture. All her free time, she would spend in her personal grooming or watching TV. But her mother thought she was doing me a great favor by getting me a live-in maid.

As the days passed, it was becoming very cumbersome for me to have this girl in my house. I couldn’t leave my house unless I chose to take her with me. Her family would visit her at all odd hours of the day. Her TV habits were giving me a head ache. I had lost my personal space. Since she was a normal girl, just like the children her age, she would have her temper tantrums when the things would not go her way. At once such occasion, I scolded her and she decided to go on hunger strike.

She just refused to eat.

What can one do if the person is stubborn? I was not about to apologize to her for the scolding which was due and proper. Sometimes it is important to point out the flaws in the person to show them the right track.

I tried to coax her to eat but no cajoling helped.

She skipped dinner and the breakfast the next morning. When her mom came to work, she complained about me and accused me of starving her.

What followed next is too messy to relate.

Till date, I have never again invited any maid for free tuitions nor do I go out of my way to offer my help to anybody. I would rather help in an institution voluntarily and work at my own leisure. Sometimes it is best to leave things as they are.

What can one do?

Furious Critter

Last night my room-mate Smitha, came running into my room, screaming, “There is a flying cockroach in my room.” She said

“Kill it”, I said

“No! I am afraid, Please come and you kill it” she said

"What are afraid of such a tiny thing? If you were in China you could have sold these by dozens" I said

But actually, I am afraid too. Its very sight is so disgusting, That chocolatee brown body with those menacing whiskers, more ferocious than Ram Gopal Verma film heroes but I was not to show my cowardice in front of my room mate who had great faith in me. She trusted me to solve her problems so I bravely went to the battle field. The cockroach was flying in all directions, a tiny helicopter type species. I armed myself with pesticide spray and stood at one corner of the room, and sprayed from a distance. The spray filtered through my nostrils, I covered my nose and didn’t see cockroach getting furious. It flew in my direction, I heard the whoosh closer to my ears as it brushed against my ear-lobes then flew back in opposite direction and Smitha screamed. I threw the tin on the floor and climbed up on the bed, covering my ears, hopping on the soft bed, lost my balance and down I was on my butt, unable to move. The pesticide was playing its tricks on cockroach too, it fell down next to me on its back with his feet doing the latest aerobics, swinging its tiny feet in the air and spinning round and round.

I slowly crawled a bit further away, so as not to disturb the spinning cockroach. “Your hours are numbered” I told the cockroach showing my tight fist and slid away on my bruised butt away from this critter.

But this one belonged to some Pathan species, very, very strong, had a great will power to survive and would not die easy. It kept swinging its eight arms/feet in such a way that it suddenly turned over and started walking, like a drunkard. Smitha screamed again, “look, it is not dead” she said

“Okay, bring the slippers and kill it now, just crush it under your feet” I said, gritting my teeth, feeling the genes of Naxalites crawling under my skin.

“No! I shall not kill.” she said wriggling her nose, very devoted to her PETA clan

“Kill or it shall walk up to your bed and come and sleep with you” I said trying to instill the fear in her.

“No!” she screamed again as the cockroach turned to walk towards her direction.

She waited far away and watched attentively, following its every movements. TV programs forgotten, hunger vanished and internet was idle. Such undivided, focussed concentration! I think if she meditated on the cockroach for next one hour she might have reached Nirvana.

The critter walked slowly, aimlessly, its wings loosely dragging from its flesh. It seemed like it had wardrobe malfunction. It walked from room to room, parading with caution, until it went under the bed in the living room and disappeared.

Smitha spent the restless night unsure of her safety. When she slept for a little while, she dreamt about the cockroach that had come back with the army of hundred critters to get their revenge.

Early morning, I swept off corpse.

Passing the parcel

Although my birthday was last month, but it never ends till all my friends have wished me, so today, another set of friends (just eight) came over for lunch to enjoy the belated party.


Now eight is a big number for a private party and I don’t like to leave anybody out of conversation so I decided to have some games to get everybody involved. After the delicious lunch of Veg Briyani, Samosas, bhajiyas and Raita followed by chocolate ice-cream, we started the normal game of bingo for warm up and almost everybody received a small gift for their participation as the play progressed from jaldifive to 3 lines to full house.

Next we started to play the interesting game of passing the parcel. When we were kids, game of passing the parcel was all time favorite where we had punishments which would be quite entertaining with something like ’sing a song’ or imitate so-n-so, or some other childish punishment which sometimes would be quite an embarrassment. But today these kinds of punishments were not on my mind. I wanted to do something innovative.

So I made list of six topics for discussion as punishments where in I put the question and the person was asked to express her views. Following questions were asked:

Q1: As we all know that Imran is a gay icon- how will our community behave if they start exposing gays. Do you think that older generation will be able to accept this fact? What kind of conversation will the people be having during discussion of latest trend of our youth?

Q2 Do you feel suicidal sometimes? What things irritate you the most and you get this kind of feeling that the world is not worth living in?

Q3 Do you think media is responsible today? If you were a reporter what would be your first priority of reportage?

Q4 You know your friends are not paying attention to their health. You want to help them but you also know that she/he is not likely to follow your advice. What strong words would you use to bring home the message?

Q5Do you believe in idol worship and blind faith? If someday, you became a spiritual guide, what kind of preaching would you do to explain the existence of Supreme Being?

Q6 How responsible is our Indian Cinema? If you were given chance to make a film, what kind of movie will you make? What important message would you give in your films and whom would you cast in the film?

There was heavy discussion on every topic and there were difference of opinions too. The fun part of this game was that one person spoke while the rest listened carefully and gave their feedback and there was some healthy conversation. Normally, the shy ones never get chance to speak and they are left out from conversation. This way, everybody was participating.

The discussions went on till tea-time after which we all headed to Baidas Hall, Vile Parle, to hear the Vedanta lecture on ‘Happiness’ by Jaya Row.

Today I am in a phunny mood!

During my last visit to China, I noticed that nobody smiled and I was thinking are they stressed out? All had tight lips sealed from corner to corner, not a curve anywhere, as if their lips were glued in position and were afraid of some kind of punishment if they dared to smile.

So you would think there is no humor in china

There! You are wrong again.

They have fantastic sense of humor only they don’t see it

But they truly have phunny translator who do justice to our language

Justice to English?

Well! why not?

Have you travelled by bus in China? No?

Then next time you visit China, please do travel by bus and if you are lucky you will be travelling in the same bus as I did, which had this threatening note just above the dashboard.

The bus is running? and I am not supposed to spam seats? How do we spam seats? Mess around? Oh never mind…..

Sitting in stable?…..er..stable? ....I am reminded of horses….

Never spreading arms and body? How do we spread our body outside the window?

I might try to..but my size is not as thin as Chinese size. .maybe they use window to exit from the bus? Er?

Going up and taking off?? Is there some short cut to heaven?

It was my first day in China, first ride and the humor had just begun

I did enjoy my stay in China…the humor was behind those closed lips...humor zipped behind those lips..hahaha.... Lucky lips!

Fake notes are doing their rounds in ATM machines in Mumbai

and you can do nothing about it. Talk about trusting your bank? Well… that trust goes down the drain.

No bank will ever take any responsibility for the bank notes that are circulating from their ATM machines. If you have a fake note in your pocket, too bad! It’s your bad luck! Sigh!!

Today early morning, in a hurry to pay my web designer a fee of Rs5000, I rushed to the nearest ATM cabin, which is just outside the Bank of India, opposite National college, and extracted the money from the ATM machine.

But my web designer is smart lady, (maybe she has lots of time on hand, or maybe she had been cheated once, because she has made a study of each note and could distinguish the fake note in a jiffy). She checked each note before taking it from me.. and Lo! Behold! One of the one-thousand-rupee-notes was a fake note.

“This note I cannot take, it’s fake note” she said

“But, Maam, I have just removed this from ATM machine this morning, how can it be a fake note?” I said.

And she started to educate me.

She held the note up against the light and looking closely, she said, “Array baba, see the watermark na…this watermark on the empty portion on the left side of the note? Can you see that? One should be able to see a portrait of Mahatma Gandhi in this space, along with multi-directional lines and an electrolyte mark showing the denominational numeral, see, there is no 1000 numeration mark here.”

I looked at her with blank look

She took out the authentic note from her cash box and told me to look closely, “Can you see 1000 numerals in this corner?”

serial no 2BD 579808 is a fake note

At first I couldn’t see anything nor distinguish it but when I held it against the light, I was able to see the numerals. Then she gave me the fake note and showed me the difference. Sure enough, those numerals were missing.

‘Hmmmn” I said

She held the note at eye-level and said, “Look into the gap between the vertical band on the right and the portrait of Mahatma Gandhi. In genuine notes, one should be able to see the word RBI and the denominational numeral in this space.”

True, transparent numerals '1000' were not visible in fake note.

“Now see the micro-lettering too,” she continued “Hold the note up against light. On the left of the portrait and half down the vertical band on the side, one can see a floral design, which appears hollow on the front side and filled up on the opposite side. The denominational numeral can be seen as a whole in this floral design, though the half of the numeral is printed on one side and the other half on the opposite side.”

“Even the visually impaired person can identify the fake note.” She said, stressing her point on ‘visually impaired’, “Look below the floral design. One can see a dark patch in intaglio print (raised print). The shape of the intaglio print varies according to the denomination of the note. Did you know that there are different shapes for various denominations? There are vertical rectangle on Rs20 note, Rs50 - square, Rs100 - triangle, Rs500 - circle and Rs1,000 – diamond.”

I had never known that. My interest was deepening and I wanted to know more about it.

I listened with rapt attention as she told me about other features that appear in intaglio print like: Seal of the RBI, the guarantee and the promise clause, RBI Governor's signature, the Ashoka pillar emblem, and Mahatma Gandhi portrait, all of them had a raised effect.

Even the color of the numeral changed from green (when I held the note flat) to blue (when at an angle).

She then, pointed to the security thread on the note and said, “Look at this line here, this is a security thread. It is 1.4 mm wide. It appears in breaks on the front of the original note. However, from the back, it looks like a complete line. The words RBI and Bharat (in the Devanagari script) is inscribed on it. It appears yellow in ultra-violet (UV) light. This thread will not glow if it is a fake note. Continuity of the security thread is not maintained if it is a fake note.”

I saw the green glow on the real note. Wow!

I kept comparing the fake note with authentic note, seeing the difference for the first time. I had never ever held a fake note but today, I wanted to know everything about it.

“Now let me tell you what features one can see in UV light?” she said, as she took both the notes in her hand. Then she went on to explain to me about how the optical fibers on the bank note make themselves visible when held under ultraviolet light. (In case of a fake note, optical fibers are less in number), the year of printing of the original note is visible in the middle and the reverse side near the bottom, and how it has that unique feel and a crackling sound.

I felt cheated.

I took the fake note to the ‘Bank of India’ Khar, and I was directed to speak to the manager.

From the look on his face, I knew at once that it would be the waste of my time. Firstly, he did not believe me nor acknowledge it and I had to show him the receipt of the proof to convince him that the transaction was done from ATM outside his bank. He argued and I threatened to report it to the media. He got defensive and played the blame game, saying that ATM was not in his control that I must contact ‘Brink Arya India Pvt. Ltd’, a cash handling and secure logistics company and they are the ones who load all the cash in all ATM machine in Mumbai. He told me to search the details about this company online, and then post the complain note with photocopy of receipt of transaction and the fake note.

“Sorry I can do nothing about it” he said seeing my disappointed look. “Now-a-days, who can distinguish the real one from fake one?” he said “Tell me one thing, what makes you say that this note is fake?”

Now it was my turn to educate him. Whether he knew the difference or not, he did listen to me while I explained to him the difference. He expressed his helplessness at not having any control on this aspect, “There are so many notes out there in circulation, how can one have time to separate each one?” He asked.

True.

I am left thinking what can one do about it? Nothing? I can afford to fold this one-thousand-rupee-note into eight folds, tuck it away and move on but what about those who find it difficult to earn a decent living? One thousand rupees is a lot of money to them, can they let it go?

Duplicate currency is manufactured in Pakistan and Bangladesh. The fake notes are brought into India through Nepal by Pakistan's ISI and other terrorist groups. The amount of fake Indian currency in existence today is huge. According to one national daily, in UP alone over Rs40 crores is estimated to be in circulation. This might be the tip of the iceberg. The fake notes generate easy money for terrorists which use it for antisocial activities.

How will this racket stop? How will they separate fake from authentic? Is there really nothing that we can do about it???

I am not very sure that I live in a secured world! As long as terrorists and criminals will keep on manufacturing such notes very intelligently, there is no hope! Nor any help!! Sigh!!