I am at the receiving end ~ Part 1

The Joy of Giving week starts on 26th September and I have been at the receiving end.

I am blessed with well wishers who admire my work with ‘Mentally Challenged children at Swami Brahmanand Pratishthan’ and they have extended their hand, reached out to me and have helped me to certain extend in helping me follow my dream,

So what is my dream?

It’s a simple dream of empowering the mentally challenged to lead a better life. I can never change their physical handicap, it is something that they are born with and they have to learn to live with, I cannot even change their living conditions, actually I can hardly change a thing but this is my feeble attempt to bring a smile to their faces by trying to help them in which-ever-way I can.

And for this, I am grateful to my friends and well-wishers for their moral and their financial support.

The next week, during this ‘Joy of Giving’ week, I will dedicate one post per day to show my appreciation to my friends who have cross my path, turned back and walked a mile with me.

So, watch out this space………

Sweating over 500-rupee-note

source: banknotes

I was in two minds today, either go to ‘Arena Animation Class’ for Flash practice or go to school for some updates.

I am all ready at 12 noon, I wanted to go to ‘Arena’ but I know that the instructor may not even bother to teach me any new tricks on animation because he does that only every alternate days and today is not that day, so by the time I have walked out of my gate, hailed an auto, I say ‘Bandra Bus station’

I am lucky that the auto overtakes my bus in time for me to board it.

I settle in the front seat just behind the driver all set for the 90 minutes trip, the cool AC breeze just above my head has no regulator. *Oh dear*! I have my BlackBerry to keep me away from other distractions.

The conductor comes to my seat and I give him 500-rupee-note and tell him “Belapur, CBD.”

“Give me the change, I won’t take your 500-rupee-note” he says

*What the hell* the bus ticket is Rs60 and he wants a smaller note? How can he not have a change?

“I have no change. My journey is long, you may give me the change at the end of the journey, and there is lots of time.” I say, as I fumble with my reading glasses.

“We don’t accept 500-rupee-notes” he says

Now this is news for me. A public bus does not accept big notes and they have no change? Are they afraid of fake notes that are doing the rounds in the city nowadays?

They want no risk.

*Thinking if those Babus will also stop accepting Rs500 in bribes*

“So what you want me to do? I don’t have smaller notes.”

“In that case you cannot travel in this bus.”

Huh? He is asking me to de-board the bus because I have bigger notes? *I have heard about people being asked to de-board if they have been pickpocketed and are not having any cash on them" but this? This is ridiculous.

I ask the girl sitting next to me to move over so that I can get off the bus. She is sorry for me and asks me to request the people in the bus for a change of 500-rupee-note.

*How silly it will look if I flash my 500-note, seat by seat, asking each commuter for a change?*

I am in no mood to draw the attention to myself, the bus is moving quite slowly, actually crawling, and there is too much traffic jam. I ask the driver to wait while a get the change from the shop outside.

None of the shops oblige. Nobody has 500-rupee change!! I never knew this was such a big note!

The driver is getting restless and refuses to wait.

*Go to hell* I wave out to him and he drives away.

Now I am desperate. I enter a fast food kiosk and he is willing to give me the change but, only if I give him some business.

I am not hungry, nor I am thirsty but order a bottle of orange juice.

With this unnecessary extra baggage of this juice bottle dangling by my fingers, I am too lazy for a long trip, I decide to go to ‘Arena Animation class’ instead.

One Evening Out.....Offline

This is one of those evenings when my friends hijack my evening hours and wean me away from my computer screen.

“Actually speaking, evening is for strolling and socializing” (argues my offline friends) “its not for gluing on to the insensitive machine,”

Insensitive machine?? hmmn!! Well, they are unaware of the big range of activities of my dearest virtual friends with whom I have some 'mousy' fun round the clock, and otherwise also, I do have Saturdays reserved for my offline other friends, yeah! I do!! But still, this is one of those evenings when my offline friends insist that I walk down the stairs and interact with them out in the open air.

Oh!!

So I have two invitations today, a stroll by the seashore for an evening breeze and later to visit another friend for Ganpati pooja.

At 6pm I get one more reminder call to get me off my butt, and I say goodbye to my 'dahlink' machine and off we go to the Jogger’s park at Carter road.

It’s worth it!

The cool breeze and the beautiful sunset, the sky changing colors every minute with sun playing hide-n-seek games behind the clouds, throwing reddish to pinkish colors around the clouds’ lining creating an artistic pattern on the sky’s belly with harmonious reflections of sky on the sea below, such is the sight I bathe in.

We aimlessly walk around a circular, concrete path for next twenty minutes . At one node there was a gardener ..er..umph! a rabbit.. chewing up the grass….(recently I have been seeing animals at many public parks chewing up the over-grown grass, other day I even saw few donkeys on the road dividers chewing up the grass, creating a nice manicured strips in the middle of the busy road, I was thinking if the animals were purposely put there to save the cost of the labor and create food opportunities for the animal and get free fertilizers’ in return??)

After four rounds of the park, the beads of perspiration trickled down my back and I sat down facing the birds cage, watching the children play.. It’s a treat, indeed. A two year old child walks up the muddy path, her tiny feet slipping on minute rolling pebbles and she squeaks…aw!! her four-year-old brother runs and holds her hand protecting her from further scratches…and there is pleasure and joy watching these two kids and I am glad that I am here to witness this.

After one hour of such pleasures, we head towards my other friend’s home for Ganpati Pooja.

‘So very glad that you could come” says my friend with a friendly hug and I am led into her room that is occupied by Lord Ganesha sitting with flute( flute?? yeah, I am wondering too) , half of her room is occupied with the decoration for Ganpati with plates containing flowers, sweets, fruits, lamps, savories all spread in front on the floor. Pundit sits near the idol performing some rituals while there is CD music singing hymns in the background. I occupy the comfy couch and we wait till the room fills in with more invitees. (and devotees).

There is a certain kind of vibrations that uplifts the mind to the higher zones, filling me with the kind of feeling that is difficult to explain.

I am not an idol worshipper, nor do I visit any religious concrete structures for spiritual contentment, I don’t follow any rituals nor chant any rhythmic verses, I have always found spiritual strength within me, it is something that is there within and can be felt every moment, it is the harmony within oneself that helps me communicate with outside world in a pleasant way and but here I was, staring at Ganesha’s eyes and feeling the profound joy.

The pundit immersed the flower into the container of water and sprinkled the drops up in the air, lighting the lamps with camphor in one lamp and oil into the other, he started chanting prayer, then suddenly, the blasting music from CD ranted the aarti “Jai Ganesha, Jai Ganesh, Jai Ganesha deva. Mata teri Parvati, pita Mahadeva” The music so loud that I thought that Ganesha was uncomfortable too..(I was thinking of all the ear specialist in that area who would have a fantastic business after the festival) I am sure all of Mumbai could hear it, plus the heavenly abodes up above, where all other Gods reside. Why didn’t they allow punditji to chant the aarti instead? Had he forgotten his lines? The aarti went on for next twenty minutes with each person in the room taking their turn to hold the plate containing the lighted oil lamps and swinging it in front of the idol of Ganesha. Soon the room was filled with too much smoke from camphor. So much smoke in the room that any asthmatic person (like Dimple Khanna in movie Debangg) would have met an instant death. Everybody in the room was chanting the hymns with teary eyes.

And then there was silence.

But only for a moment and then it was punditji’s turn again to chant more hymns. Flower petals were distributed to everybody and they all threw the fist full aiming at Ganesha but not really succeeding, there were many flower petals on my head too.

The delicious part was the Prasad, (of course) a banana, an apple, dry spicy channa, modak, dry bhel, chikki, dhokla, veg cutlet, stuffed patties, coconut chutney. Yum!!!

Hmmn!! skipped dinner…and back into my virtual world. Hahahaa!!!

Elements in our nature

During one of the sessions at the workshop that I was attending on Management Development Program, we were divided into five groups representing five elements in nature: Space, air, water, fire and earth.

Each group had to write the qualities most suitable for that element.

The groups came up with wonderful results

The characteristics of space could be free, creative, curious, mysterious, limitless with no boundaries

That of fire is heat, uncontrollable distruction, aggressive, rising upwards, bright light, contagious. Can spread easily, calmed by water

The characteristics of water is free flowing, mingles with anything and get molded in it, always flowing downwards, creative,

Those of Earth is stable, firm, trust-worthy, firm

And that of air is free, creative, adventurous, daring, and open to ideas, more accommodating, universal and versatile.

These characteristic were then compared with humans and how the presence of elements in person shapes the person’s character. That explains that why we can jell with few people and other we cannot tolerate. A person with more of 'air ' element is more creative and he might find it difficult to understand the person with 'earth' element who may be stubborn and with strict values.

It is easy to be tolerant to people if we just understand what elements are stronger in them and what is the reason behind person’s behavior. Our personality is the combination of five elements, some elements stronger than the others. If we work against our nature then there is conflict and then stress and then depression.

We then wrote a bit about ourselves and I made the list of my own characteristics

Looking within, I discovered that I am creative, I cannot repeat anything twice, many times people ask me to make the same food I cannot reproduce the same taste…I like to lead and inspire people, I can make decisions independently. I am caring and more accommodating to other’s needs and am willing to walk an extra mile to make somebody smile. I am outgoing type and love adventure, like to try new stuff and am willing to take risk. I make few selected friends and look for long durable friendship. I never talk to people just for time-pass, I would rather read a book. On the negative side I am too sensitive and sometimes a recluse.

Thus, I discovered that I have more of air and water element. I keep away from people with fire element, because I hate loud noises and aggressive people and those with earth element who are stubborn and unwilling to go with the flow.

So, what element is stronger in you??

Hostel Room 131

Whenever there is a book lunch or any other event/promotion at Crossword, I get a SMS alert. This book store is just five minutes walking distance away from my home and it is a good place to relax. Moreover, this is the only place where I can go alone on my own.


So, today morning I got a SMS : “Meet noted filmmaker Onir at the release of ‘Hostel Room 131’ by R.Raj Roa at 7pm.”

It was raining all day which switched me off to a silent mode and I was quite lazy to test the sturdiness of those wet broken streets. Mumbai is not the safe place to do any jay walking, the minute I venture out alone; I have to recite some strong prayers hoping that I don’t tumble down too close to the ground over pot-holes or trip over chipped interlocking tiles. I can easily spend a carefree day trekking on the outskirts of the city or even take a comfortable walk on the steep hills of Europe, but Mumbai streets don’t qualify for such pleasures. More on that some other time, but for now, I looked at the skies. By 6pm the clouds had cleared and I was brave enough to go out to the book launch.

As soon as I reached the bookstore I saw two transsexual men at the entrance. They were dressed in tee and jeans and had gaudy make-up. I couldn’t help staring at them. It was early, so I decided to browse over some magazine racks. I had no idea what the new book was all about but I noticed that there were more men than women attendees.

The launch started with introduction about the writer who is the professor in the department of English at ‘University of Pune’, two of his books, ‘BomGay’ and ‘The Boyfriend’ is regarded as cult classic. His other books include ‘One Day I Locked My Flat in Soul City’ (short stories), slide show (poems), ‘The Wisest Fool on the earth’ and other plays. He seemed to be quite a popular writer (although I had not heard about him) but the bookstore was jam-packed.

When Raj started to read the excerpts it dawned upon me that this was a queer literature, that ‘Hostel Room 131’ is being marketed as Gay novel, that it is a story of two boys in the hostel madly in love with each other, struggling with society values and parental reservations. At one instance, I saw one man on my right stretch over and fondly ruffle the head of the man who was sitting next to me. I found that very odd. Now I have never been in the company of gay men, and have never seen group of men so happy in each other’s company unless they are sharing a drink or a cigarette puff.


Here I was, surrounded by men who were looking at each other, exchanging raised eyebrows and some of them holding hands.

(And for the first time, nobody was staring at me.) hahaaha!!

I was especially distracted by one photographer who was dressed in a very peculiar manner. He wore the most stylish black clothes with colorful mirrored jacket and a turban. Ears, ten fingers, wrist, arms, neck, ankles, and even toes were covered with silver jewelry and huge precious stones.

It was when the discussions and feedback started, that I realized that this was no laughing matter.

It was sad to hear about their struggle in the mainstream, about being different. How does it feel to be rejected by the society? Dirty, used, humiliating, worthless, crushing, devastating, useless … all these normal emotions I read between their lines. I have seen mentally challenged children at school but they are the happier lot because they don’t understand the society’s indifference. The blind people are happy too because they cannot see the cruel expression of the presumed-sane world. Deaf and dumb are lucky too.

But being born different and intelligent can be quite challenging sometimes.

Surprisingly, society wants perfection on all counts or else they cannot stop judging you. They find it very difficult to accept the people as they are or respect their way of being who they are. The discussions were quite thought provoking, sometimes black humor and sometimes pathetic.

At one point I was highly amused when one of them said that gay person is likely to get aroused by seeing the butt of the men who are shitting on the railway tracks during early morning train journeys.

But most of the time I was uncomfortable. I could not explain my own behavior, maybe because we are conditioned thus or maybe because this was my first encounter with them. We don’t normally see them differently in the usual crowd because they don’t get chance to show their real self but here they were, their actions loud and clear.

As soon as the discussions were done, I rushed back home. I did not wait in queue of hundred men to get my autographed copy.

When I came back home I was highly disturbed and wanted to speak to somebody who would understand me. I spoke to my online friend, who understands me the most and she encouraged me to blog about it.

I told her that I was afraid to hurt the sentiments of their kind and wouldn’t know the proper words to use. But she reassured me, confirming the fact that we are so used to the idea of heterosexual and that is what that seems normal to everyone. She told me to befriend at least one of them and they won’t bite and the truth is that they have been here for ages and the acceptance has just started and then added “Don’t worry, write, it wont hurt them”

I told her that it was very difficult for me to understand my own rude behavior and she laughed out loud, ‘lol’ing “You behave thus because it is your first encounter with them but soon you will see gays taking over the world” she said.