If I had to live my life over

Flash back to 1986

I am transported to a wooden house on stilts, mom says.  “Godownstairs and pluck some vegetables for me, bring okra, coriander leaves,tomatoes, green chilies and also pluck few avocados and mangoes from the trees. I wish to make a delicious lunch today.”

I love doing these small errands for mom; it is like I amcontributing to the household chore in a small way, making my bit.  Momdoes most of work on her own, we have a helper who comes to clean the house,but mom does all the cooking and gardening.  She has planted somevegetables downstairs under my bedroom window, the soil is very rich, whatevershe plants, grows healthy and instantly. I love to cook too but I normally dothat when mom is busy elsewhere and I have kitchen for me to play around withingredients, try some recipes from the cook books or sometimes follow recipesthat are borrowed from friends.

Life in Surinam was beautiful; it offered good weather and fabulous food except that in the year 1986, situation in Surinam was getting worse.

People were getting arrested on the suspicion of planning a coup against Military rule. There was no freedom of speech, there was human rights abuse and we were hearing the stories of people disappearing overnight. Business was also not good; there were no good hospitals and no good school. Many people had migrated to Holland and Indians were planning to migrate to any another country as the future of Surinam didn’t look promising.

We were planning to migrate too

I had just returned from my school and was relaxing in my room. It was not easy teaching 10 children separately and at different levels. I taught in a small private English school in Surinam and most of my students were the expatriates mainly from Brazil and India. I enjoyed teaching but it was quite exhausting.

I sat reading in my room and the telephone rang. It was a long distance call from my sister in Spain. “Come to Spain” she said, “the business is good and the new laws are being passed and they are inviting investors, a new town is developing in the South of Tenerife, there is much scope for progress”

I had two choices,either to migrate to Spain or to USA. My maternal uncle lived in USA and he too called me regularly asking me visit him.

“You must visit me first, if you like it, I will apply visa for you” he said.

I had neither visited Spain nor USA; therefore I could not decide which place I could choose. If given a choice I would never want to migrate at all. I loved Surinam. I had good set of friends, a comfortable job and good working hours. The climate was good and food was fantabulous. The only drawback was the language. Dutch was the local language and the natives spoke Taki Taki. I found it difficult to learn any foreign language.

Maybe I had developed a very strong ego too.

I had an ethnic taste. I made lot of money selling my art work. I specialized in Indian art work/painting and was often invited by friends from Indian Embassy in organizing various cultural programs.  Many times I believed that I was quite talented and could survive at any place. Europe or America, what did it matter, I felt that the world was just waiting for me; it seriously needed a talented person like me. What I didn't want was to learn a new language. I asked my sister if English was spoken in Spain and she said ‘Yes” My family respected my opinion and they were willing to go to any place I chose.

I chose Spain.

Wrong choice I made, because on arriving Spain, I discovered that nobody spoke English, even the TV programs were dubbed in Spanish. Maybe my sister misunderstood my question when I had asked her if English was spoken in her country. Maybe she wanted us to live closer to her and therefore she lied.

My ego shattered into small pieces when I discovered that nobody was interested in talking to me because I could not converse in their dialect. I wanted to converse with people but language was a huge barrier. I wasted two years of my life learning the language. I couldn't find job because Spain had strict rules and nobody can work without work permit. I worked in my brother’s retail store selling electronic goods and gift items, most of the time I was bored. Moreover, I hated the weather in winter, each night I shivered like snake under covers during winter.

Europe is beautiful and even more beautiful on post cards but I could not adjust to the people, to the bland taste in food and the climate. After staying for 10 years in Spain, I decided to move back to India.

If I had to live my life all over again, I would choose America.

I always feel my life would have been completely different had I chosen to live in US of America instead.

My friend says, "We are the choices we make." she read about my experience and said "I am sure you are richer for all the experience you have gained and now appreciate Mumbai better, maybe dirty, crowded, lazy but it is your own Mumbai"

Yes true, after traveling around the world and living in many places, I have learnt to appreciate Mumbai lots more, I am happiest in Mumbai because I have the freedom of movement; I love the

warmth of weather and people here. I have come to realize that it's not the infrastructure (although to certain extend, it is) but to be surrounded by the warmth of affectionate people is more rewarding perhaps.....

Another friend said, “Very interesting life! I was curious if you felt that as though the experiences in Spain taught you something, did you glean insights there that then helped you grow as a person? How did you recover from the shattered ego post-Surinam?”

During my growing up years I was very aggressive, egoist and was very opinionated. But living in Spain, and not being able to communicate with others forced me to spend more time with myself. This perhaps changed me; I became introvert, reserved and soft spoken. The more time I spent with myself the more sensitive I became to people’s problems. I think I have become a better person. I don’t take anything for granted anymore. Moreover had I migrated to USA, maybe I would have never returned to the school for mentally challenged where I play a very important role of getting funds for the school and upgrading the lives of underprivileged in the best way I can.

But then, it’s all destiny....

Image source from web

Today's Post is a response to the GBE2 prompt: "If I had to Live my life over"

Urban Woes

Each week a TV program called ‘SatyaMevJaitey’ churns out juicy stories for people to mull about, to remind them about the issues affecting a common man, to make them aware of the problems that everybody knows it exists but can do nothing about it. Each week, after 90 minutes of these emotional programs where people are believed to have shed a tear or two, and those  who are moved by this program donate Re1 SMS to a NGO, hoping it will bring change which is actually a Government’s job.

Different issues have been discussed so far regarding child abuse, dowry, female foeticide, doctors and their mal-practices and yesterday it was the bad infrastructure for handicaps.

So, the people who are differently able were discussed.

They spoke about equal opportunities for all, about integrating them into main stream, about their mobility in public places, about building ramp in the public places, about Job placements, and about many more issues affecting handicapped people.

But ask a common man how much he suffers even when he is able and completely normal.

Mumbai is safe city to live in, that is what most people believe. But walk down the street in broad day light and see how dangerous it is. The roads are broken, the inter-locking tiles are stolen from the street by hawkers to create make-shift tables, all the roads are dug up and they take months to repair. Foot paths are built one foot above the road level, how do they expect the handicap and senior citizens to walk on footpath? There is no co-ordination between different utilities, everybody had their own timing for carrying out their work and digging the roads.  

The other day I was waiting at the bus-stop and saw a woman in sari struggling to climb the first step of the BEST bus. She had to lift her sari up to her knee to climb up the first step, two and half feet above the ground, some street urchins had a good laugh watching her struggle. Only the fisher-women, sports women or women in jeans are able to travel with ease. 


Same story is at the Mumbai Locals. The new trains are two feet above the platform. The tiles have come off the edges of the platform, there is danger of slipping while alighting a train.

Nobody thought about senior people while designing new local trains?

Mumbai has sky walk in many areas, but who is using these sky walks? They are three floors up with no lift or escalators. If you walk through these sky walks at night, you are likely to see hundreds of street-people sleeping up there, it’s a safe place to sleep with no fear of speeding traffic to run over them, but during day time, it is used by very few people, senior people or handicap can never use these safe walks.

How can you make the life of handicap and the senior citizen easy when the infrastructure of Mumbai is handicapped?

Friend says to be the change you want instead of complaining.

I would love to bring change if it wasn't so difficult to get required papers/forms to be passed through offices with ease....for every work that we want done, there are long queues, repeated trips to the same office which reduces with the amount of tips you give. There is too much frustrations. Nothing happens without influence.......it takes so long to get any work done that all the peons and watchmen start calling you by your first name.

Last year I went to visit city of Lavasa, on the outskirts of Pune. This is the new city that is being built presumptuously with better infrastructure. But here too, I found they had not paid attention to the needs of handicap and senior citizens. True, there were ramps and slopes at certain places but there were no railings at stair case. One had to do balancing act while climbing up/down the steps without support.

No change is possible till the mentality of people change, till the Government realizes that it is its’ duty to make the life easy for its citizens. 


On my recent visit to Dubai I was impressed with the metro stations. Every station had escalators and lifts, everything was computerized and the most impressive thing was that people who have constructed these stations are all Indians.

Friend says that changes can be brought about with the right attitude.

Awareness is the first step towards change. Positive mentality is another factor, then there are also different organizations such as ‘San-Kranti: transform Urban India’ and ‘Indian Institute for HumanSettlement’ who can take up these projects and bring some change,

But I still feel

Life of a common man can be a comfortable only if the state cares…….

Wordless Wednesday - Love story

Our Children deserve a better future

Although Mumbai is my favorite city in the world, it fails me sometimes when it cannot keep itself clean.

It stinks.

Walk down any beach in Mumbai and it is filled with plastic bags and garbage. Sit in the auto rickshaw and you will see the auto fellow spit  bright red patch on the side walk, when he stops at the signal. Travel in the train and you will see the woman sitting opposite you munching on a snack, as soon as she has finished eating, the empty wrapper goes down on the railway tracks.

Are Mumbaikars dirty by nature? They get seriously annoyed if we point out their bad habits. How do we educate them?

The 5^th June is the world environment day and the theme this year is green economy.

So what is green economy?

Green economy is having a good quality of life with less environment risk and is ecologically green

It is important to inculcate the good habits of caring for environment and keeping it clean from childhood itself.  A child who grows up in a clean environment at home develops the habit of showing such etiquettes in the society too.  Children pick up the habits from their parents and from their grown-up with whom they spend most of their time.

How do we train a child if we have not been able to understand this concept?

The area of the earth is not going to increase, we will always use the same square foot of the space on this earth, but what will change is the natural resources that is inversely proportional to the number of people using these resources. If we don’t use our resources intelligently, we will be depriving our children of good quality of life.

With the redevelopment mushrooming in all parts of Mumbai and sky scrapers dressing the sky-line, there will be shortage of water, electricity and greenery if we are not careful.

How many birds do we see in Mumbai?

There are only crows that spread garbage from one balcony to another; there are pigeons that spoil our window sill and fly into the empty homes through broken windows to raise a family. But we don’t normally see those pretty birds that we often saw when we were young, birds like sparrows, cuckoo, parrots and many more?  

The birds have disappeared and have gone away to look for trees, where they can build a home and care for their young ones.

In the concrete jungle of Mumbai, children can take a very active part in making their environment clean and green. It should be mandatory for every child of 5year-old to plant a tree on his birthday, the tree could be planted either in the building garden where he/she lives, or on the street outside his/her house or at the park closer to his/her house. The tree should belong to him/her; he/she should take care of it throughout his life.

Children should be taught to use electricity stingily.  Why do we need to watch TV and still have computer on to socialize with friends on Facebook/twitter during the promos, use AC for all 24 hours of the day, have too many lights on, in short why must we waste electricity?

Children should be given the responsibility of switching off the lights when leaving the room and saving electricity and water in the house. Incentives like extra pocket money can be given to a child when the monthly energy bill shows low consumption.

When we go for marketing, how many of us carry a cloth bag?

Most of the time we forget to take a bag with us and then we have to buy a plastic bag which the vendor will sell. If we don’t stop using plastic, children will learn to ape us too. We have to discourage our children from using plastic; we have to teach them to say ‘No’ to plastic.  No plastic plates, cups, straws, caps, bags, and water bottles. Plastic is very difficult to dispose and when it goes down the drain, it could choke the drain pipe, if dumped into the sea, it could harm the fishes and whales.

source:google

We have to make them aware that we need to maintain a green economy.

They must know how to recycle the waste and create something useful.  They can be encouraged in environmentally friendly activity like making some innovative product from used electronic waste, of creating re-cycled clothes for fashion and cultural shows., of creating films on saving the planet and putting on plays on topic of sustainability.

On this World environment day, let us be the responsible citizen and let us set an example that our children can ape.

Lavasa Bloggers Reunion

Every morning after a cup of tea, I walk around the pages of Face book, Twitter, blogs and other social media channels to update myself with the latest events. I normally see the same set of people, most of them are unknown to me personally, but I know them well from their profile pictures, their postings and the news that we share.

I am never sure who reads my blog but I was surprised when I was invited by Windchimes to participate in Lavasa Women’s Drive2011 along with seven more bloggers to spend two days of leisure and tour around the city.

That was the first time that I met bloggers whom I had never met before. I may be very active online but otherwise I am quite reserved and don’t interact freely with strangers. It took me some time to interact but others were very friendly and full of news to share, soon I was enjoying with them, laughing, chatting and touring around the city.

Nisha Jha, the travel blogger, Kiran, blogger and author, Leela Shakti, DNA sub-editorand author, Monika Manchanda, the food blogger, Ramya Pandyan, a netaholicblogger, Anuradha Shankar, thetravel blogger, and Shashi, shoppingstories blogger were the eight bloggers whom I met the first time and Biswajit was our friend, our guide fromWindchimes, who would calm our nerves when things went wrong.

We spend two days together in the beautiful city of Lavasa and then we went on with our lives with just the memorable time etched into my mind.

Over the period of one year, everybody has progressed exceptionally well in their own field. I wanted to meet them all, at least once again, but getting them under one roof was bound to be a difficult task. Every month I asked if it was possible to meet up but always somebody was busy. Three months passed but we were not able to find common dates to suit all. I had almost given up and decided to try for one last time and wrote a final mail asking

‘Will we ever meet?”

Kiran responded saying that we could meet this coming Saturday but Shakti had already planned for that week-end and said she couldn’t meet.

 I wanted to call it off again but this idea had stretched too long and we decided to go ahead with whosoever was free on that Saturday. We discussed various venues and finally zeroed it at Lemon Tree at Bandra.

At 1pm, Biswajit send me the message that he had already arrived and was waiting at the top floor of the restaurant. I waited for Nisha, since she was coming from Panvel, 3hours away from Bandra, to attend this meet-up. We met at the end of my lane and took an autoride to the venue.

The ambience at this restaurant was very soothing and peaceful with beautiful decorative plates, vases and blue lanterns on the wall, there were artistically painted white logs and branches on the ceiling, the etched floral glass on the windows, white and mustard paint on the walls and white shades to keep the sunlight out.

The tables were distantly placed with enough privacy to each group. We sat comfortably on the soft seats with ample of cushions of different sizes to lean on. The quorum was not complete, unfortunately, Monica is in Bangalore, Shakti had her college reunion and Kiran had last minute guests. Five of us met, ordered the drinks and refreshed our memories of the days spend at Lavasa..

When bloggers meet what do they talk?

Blogging of course.

We started the meals with drinks, each one ordering their own preferences; they had interesting combination on their menu card like spicy guava, blue berry yogurt, Chunky Muesli, etc. Over the drinks, Ramya, who now conducts regular workshops on blogging, discussed the various methods she used in her workshops and how she uses visuals and content to her blogs to make it interesting.

The next, we ordered the starters like Mediterrian grilled salad, Cajun potatoes and chicken in green pepper sauce. In between our chat, we clicked few pictures of the food as they arrived, which amused the waitress a lot, who was so distracted that she brought the wrong order of potatoes, which had to be moved away before we finish off the plate. This year 2012, I had made a second trip toLavasa again with other set of people, I was happy to share my experience and how different it was from my last visit.

For the mains we had Basil Ravioli of oven dried tomatoes and olives, a Shepherd pie, Ratatatoville Risotto and vegetarian sandwich platter. The food was quite bland to our taste and we had to order extra tomato chilie sauce and Mustard sauce to alter the taste. I was specially amused by this long black pepper grinder which looked like a weapon of mass destruction. We continued our chat on different topics. Nisha had just returned from the Malayasian BloggersMeet and Award Nite, and also had spent two months, working with NGO in Cambodia teaching school kids in the rural areas. It was interesting to hear her stories of the natives and how rewarding it was to work for NGO and contribute to the society in our own capability.  

My Blue Berry Yogurt lasted throughout the meals; sipping slowly and relishing every sip so when they ordered Crème Brulee and Bitter chocolate and apricot mousse for deserts, I only watched them eat. Anu spoke about her romance of apple pie and how she has enjoyed at different places. I have never ever tried the apple pie but now am curious to try one at Yazdaan Bakery when I visit South Mumbai next. Anu has been travelling widely across India and she has a new hobby ofcollecting postcards and stamps of different countries, it was interesting to hear about her adventurous travel tales across India.

The lunch lasted over four hours, bill was paid but our conversation had not yet come to an end. We had to vacate the room for its closure during lunch hour. We moved to another room downstairs, which was cozy bar with wooden tables and chairs, to continue our conversation. Biswajit, who is the social media consultant, discussed the importance of virtual interaction on net and how useful it is to the corporate world.

Blogging is the informal way of advertising and bloggers should not be taken for granted. There may be paid news in the newspapers and magazine but a blogger cannot be hired, because he will be honest and true to his content, he may not hesitate to give negative review if he feels like it.

Blogging is a very powerful medium which plays very important role in spreading awareness. There are no monetary benefits, it is purely passion but much importance is given to the written word. A blogger is invited to different events by corporate in the hope that they will get free publicity, people feel pleased when they see a blogger making notes, clicking pictures but they are never sure of what review they might get.

Blogger is not looking for free-bees; he is just looking for news-worthy content, to share with those who are looking for right kind of service, be it a new product, a film, an interesting place or an event. Bloggers should never be taken for granted because they are creative, moody and sometimes fun too.  

We missed Monika, Kiran and Leela Shakti. We had hoped to listen to Kiran Manral discuss her new book ‘Reluntant Detective’, or Shakti discuss her book, ’Imperfect Mr Right’ or Monika for her culinary stunts of those beautiful cupcakes

But most of all I truly missed Monika gurgling laughter.