Writing practice

We had no idea where Jeddah was. All we knew was that Mohan mama had gone to Jeddah. His letters would come (sporadically) in an aerogramme with white outside and stripey blue inside. And they had KSA stamps on them - which we dutifully collected and added to our foreign stamp collection.  Appa had gotten a camera from someone for use during our vacation - I dont know why - we werent planning to go anywhere. It was a summer like all summers. Our summer had a ritual. We played all day except coming home for food. When all the neighbouring houses had enough of the kids, we stayed in our own houses. And in those times, our trunk was our solace (more on this in another post). This summer was special, because Mohan mama had arrived from Jeddah. Our uncle who lived in "foreign" had come. The house smelt of Yardley soap, Yardly Talcum powder, Axe oil, Tiger balm, Wrigleys chewing gum (we did not know what was spearmint), TDK cassettes and the weird unexplainable smell that somehow c...

 The office was located in the back of the beyond. It was well hidden, except for the well worn paint that said, customer service, 20 years ago.  I walked up. A sheet of paper directed me to the left. Inside was a thoroughly disinterested bureaucrat. She had arrived royally at 10:45, just 45 minutes late.  She had the expression of a circus tiger who was a looking at you - puny human in the audience- with derision. The facial expression read, growl.  The desk was an old table. The table would have seen glory days with mounds of files on them and tea served by a bearer, alas - today it is saddled with two desktops on it, yes two - the big visible change from the olden days. This would have been a typewriter, but it was not. Other than that there were registers (notebooks). There was a a chair with torn mesh. A stool with a few loose forms. The place was dinghy, almost dystopian. And the landline rang.  The bureaucract derisively picked up the phone, mumbled a few...

I was waiting outside the office for 2 or possibly 3 hours seeking an appointment with a self professed busy man a Vice president, no less. Finally he deigned to see me and handed over a final year project to me and introduced me to his reportee - a Mr. Manoj. It took him all of 2 minutes, but he made me wait.  I went to meet this Manoj outside his office and Manoj said, lets catch up over tea. "My stupid boss does this to everyone. Makes people wait. I saw you sitting there, but I had no idea you had come to see him. But anyway, start coming from tomorrow, we will start on the project" And thus it was that my association with Manoj happened. I don't remember much about the final year project, but when my final job posting happened, it happened at the same place.  I thanked Manoj about it. "Oh, we were asked to hire a CA, but I convinced my boss to hire you since you had already done the final year project with us, so we were allocated a Management trainee and here y...

Time. Remembered as seasons. Season of rains in Mumbai. Of puddles everywhere. Of squishy shoes and dripping clothes. Of buses splashing water as they go past you. As the benches joined together in the classroom. As the soggy notebooks being taken out of the rainy walk to school.  Of summers. Of pickled tender mangoes. Of the drying karuvadams on the terrace. Of the sweet smelling night jasmine that we would pluck early in the morning. Of the wafting fragrance of the nandiarvattai. And the mangoes, oh the mangoes, dripping through the fingers and sticky afterwards.  Of the smell of the soil after the first drizzle. Of the feeling that summer is approaching and vacations are around the corner. Or the approaching winter with that nip in the air.  Time. Remembered as days. Days you cannot forget. Days of happiness. Days of joy. Days of sadness. Days of despair. Festival days. Celebration days. Winning days. Exuberant days. Comfortable days.  Time. Remembered as moments....

Today, we are all techno savvy. A child of three can use a camera phone. By five, they can focus, defocus, apply filters and create a wedding photoshoot. And you can see the evidence. At the next wedding, you will see that amidst the few, professional photographers is a bevy of people young and old - but watch out for the youngest. The fact that we consider ourselves techno savvy in using a device that is designed to be easy to use for the lowest common denominator tells us a lot about ourself on how low the human race has plunged. Not for a moment do I say that the child is unintelligent, but that the child (or all of us) are capable of way beyond using a mere tool in our hands that actually requires very little real skill. We live on planet earth. The sun rises and sets each day. As does the moon. But look up and you will see so much more in the night sky. You will see more in the day sky - but I will let that pass for now. The night sky has stars, planets, constellations and ot...

Brown. This shoe was my last big purchase on a corporate salary. Cost me 10k. As I purchased the shoe, I thought, should I be buying it, considering I am stepping into a role from scratch soon? The salesman won over the budget in the end - with all the features and benefits he listed. And so brown came home. Brown was my companion as I navigated through the corporate carpeted corridors. Brown was with me while there were designated cabs waited me at the airport. And then the transition happened. Brown was with me on my first client meeting - waiting on the dusty roads -for the bus to take me home. Brown was with me as I shivered in my first ever presentation to an alien audience. At the night of the first presentation where I felt I had flubbed badly, and the night meeting on how to salvage the situation - it wasnt that bad, but brown was there. And the next morning when we performed and came out with flying colours.  Brown was with me in many of those meetings that neve...