The Rain

It has been raining since noon…There is a constant drizzle. The long and wide window panes are decked with silvery fine drops of water. It’s as if I am looking out through a galaxy of shiny stars adoring my window glass.

The day will be over soon and then there will be another day and then another and another. The life will go on. There will be changes – big and small. Changes that will make us admire the vast variety life offers…There is still so much to see, so much to experience. Was it not just a few days ago that I was watching this rain from the windows of my hostel? Was I not equally amused by the abundance of nature and the abundance of life experiences? It has been just 20 years since then…

Today when I am watching this rain, my heart jumps to the past and the next instance hops on to the future. In a few years’ time, I am sure I will be sitting at some window and watching the same heavenly rain. The windows will be different, may be there will be a different me too – but the rain will be as heavenly as it is today. Life would have given plentiful experiences till then, multitude of feelings and friends would have made the journey enriching…but the experience of rain would just be the same!! This rain would keep pouring on and on. It will keep drenching the window and will keep making my mind enjoy those impressions and imaginations of past and future.

Future that we don’t know, future when we would not be same as we are today, future that will be lost in memories of the past and the future that will keep wondering as to where every life return to…Will there be similar rain in that after life too? Will that rain remind me of all my rainy experiences? Will there be something to imagine for the journey thereafter?

And this rain continues…The daylight has almost retreated and the lustrous droplets on the glass seem to be just enjoying themselves!!

Bandarwadi

In her childhood, Bandarwadi used to be a bunch of small houses and a couple of chawls with a playground in the centre.Houses were all better versions of huts, some of them with a good concrete structure. She could see the Arabian sea from her granparents' home in the chawl. Needless to say there were common toilets for all the people in Bandarwadi. Invariably these used to be very poorly maintained. A lot of kids always preferred to use the space outside these toilets..for theirs and others convenience...

There was a good mix of people in Bandarwadi..Though primarily Dhanagars and Marathas, there were many Muslims too. She remembers visiting Muslim families during Eid and savouring yummy Sheer-kurma. There used to be Taaboots in Moharrum..with many many people beating themselves to blood...such a horrifying sight!! Dhanagars were the heart of this Bandarwadi...(May be initially it was called Dhanagarwadi or Banagarwadi, which later got convertedpolluted to Bandarwadi) Most of these Dhanagars used to have sheep and goats of their own and these animals could be seen wandering freely in Bandarwadi. She would always wonder if all those people earned their livelihood by just rearing those animals...At night after dinner, one could often hear Dhanagar songs being sung by a group of people far away...All these songs used to have a very similar tune, one person singing a line and others singing after him...It used to be a lot of fun for her to listen to that music. Those became some of her earliest memories of music.

A lot of these Dhangars used to wear a very traditional dress...a very flowing kurta and dhoti. They also wore a heavy wrapping of long cloth on their head...it would be quite imprudent to call that thing as pagadi...The Dhanagar ladies always wore their traditioal 9-yards saree with a big Nath, a heavy studded nose ring. Most of them used to prefer to put the vermillion on the forehead in a thick sleeping line shape tapering at both ends. Very rarely one can find them without kunku. Their hair always oiled excessively and tied in a bun. One could rarely find a lady who has pleated her hair or even tied a ponytail. They would always have at least one dozen green glass bangles decking every wrist, the colour of these bangles competing the colour of the dark green mango leaves. They normally had their head covered with their saree padar. It used to be her pasttime to watch how they do their daily chores like cleaning the outside area of the house etc, by holding the padar on the head, sometimes even holding it with teeth.

This description is not of any village..neither it is from a very distant past...This place is actually in Mumbai, the biggest metropolitan city in India. Bandarwadi exists till date in plush western suburb of Bandra and just a walking distance from S.V. Road and the famous Linking Road....

Though there are a lot of changes now, I do feel that Bandarwadi of my childhood was more colourful, beautiful and of course social than it is today...

For You...Dada

I remember the day I wrote my first essay all by myself...


Till then I was always - always guided by my grandfather in writing. He would discuss with me the topic in detail, give me all the examples, anectdotes to add to the beauty of any essay, explain all the variety of aspects around the topic and then...only then I would start writing...After I am done, he would make me read it out, each para many times He would make me correct my sentences, improve on language flow and sometimes even make me rewrite things...


My grandfather, we used to call him Dada, was the one who always appreciated whatever I wrote. He had gone completely blind before I was 5 years old....Earlier in his life he was a highly respected Bank Manager and was given lesser written work in his last years with bank due to his poor eye sight!!


He had written a lot of short essays in his own handwriting even when he was not able to read it himself...He was just fond of writing!! He loved to play with words and knew by heart beautiful verses of some famous English, Marathi and even Sanskrit poets/authors. He actually knew by heart some famous speeches of the people like Churchill, Nehru, M.L. King. As a child, I would always wonder how he rememebers so many things!! He loved to explain those poems and speeches to us children in his own style, enacting everythings. We would actually imagine that Robert Frost is roaming in woods when Dada would explain 'I have promises to keep'. We could actually see the swan sleeping with one leg folded when he would explain the 'Nala-Damayanti' by Moropant. For that matter, his narration of Sherlock Holmes mysteries used to be more exciting than the one by Arthur Connon Doyle.


That day we had a lot of guests at home since morning and I just couldn't get Dada's time for my essay. I had no option but to write it myself. I finished it and told Dada that I need to submit it the next day. Dada was very busy, but then he asked me to read it out in front of all the guests present. I was feeling very awkward since this essay did not have any inputs from Dada and he might find numerous mistakes in my essay....Neverthless, I read it out. To my surprise, Dada was extremey happy. He did not give me a single correction but said, “From today, we will never pre-discuss your essays. Let your thoughts flow freely. Be your own guide!!” It was the best compliment I had ever got from him. That was not all. He went to his almarih and got all his hand written essays. He handed over all those essays to me and said, “Now I am proud to hand it over to you!!”



I was speechless. Though I had seen those papers a few times earlier, getting them in my possession was something I had never looked forward to. Those loose papers, his big cursive writing, hardly a sentence in straight line, each line going up.....not a single correction anywhere...Those were all his random thoughts bundled together...The wandering thoughts and his passionate expressions!! Those papers remain the precious possessions for me till date!!


Dada paased away the year I graduated. He used to be very proud of me and I know from somewhere in heaven he is proud of the fact that I have found my expression again....He would be proud of this blog!!

Ripples...Ripples..

This blog is nothing but some wandering thoughts that keep coming to my mind again and again...

Those that have left some ripples in my mind...

Some things to think, some things to cherish, some things to admire....

That's here in Ripples...Ripples...