A day in the electric train

It was a Monday morning; the city was bustling with energy, children running to catch their school buses, working men and women rushing to reach their destinations on time. I was the on the go too to the railway station to catch up the train. Monday mornings, although energy levels are high my mind would be lingering over the weekend, reluctant to leave home. Like a little kid who wears a long face at the bus stop with the school bag in his shoulders trying to give naive reasons to bunk school, I would force myself towards the railway station, awaiting for the surprises the day had in store for me. Electric trains are a middle class boon. I would have a seasonal pass so that I could travel as many times within the time frame in the local trains. I would usually get down at Guindy from where I would have to take another mode of transport either share-auto or bus to reach my destination.

The ladies compartment of the train would be relatively less crowded when it reaches my station and would become almost full there. I would locate a window seat and sit at ease enjoying the morning breeze and the scorching heat at times. When I start gazing through I would be amazed and simultaneously felt bad for the women who would be panting for breath having hastily caught the train for if they had missed the train they would be late to office which would result in penalty, loss of pay or loss of half day leave. I would be amazed by their time management skills, few of them would comb their hair, few apply powder and do a little touch up, few would buy vegetables sold by vendors inside the train (although this is not permissible by law, we still find many people selling vegetables, eatables, groceries and few gypsies selling fashion accessories inside the train), few pray with their sloga books in hand, few have breakfast in the train, few teachers correct the answer sheets, few lecturers would prepare for their lecture, few over the phone instructing people at home of the electricity bill or telephone bill that was due to be paid and few lost in thought. Due to lack of time these women would try to make best use of their travel time.

On the other hand there were few others having fun in the train playing anthakshari and large chunks gossiping either about their bosses or their in laws or about the television serial the previous night or about the disrespectful behavior of their neighbors, few school students whispering to each other and few IT guys displaying their tags and headset in their ears and few completely occupied with some story book. Every day of my train journey was full of interesting experiences with one or more of these characters.

One day it happened so that my co-occupants were few middle aged women nearing their forties who were clerical job doers in the treasury office. They were a gang of five and posed as though they were the SMART FIVE at their office. There was one central figure who supposedly seemed to be the gang leader , was trying to reveal her thoughts over every topic of discussion ranging from the hurricane that hit the United states ,the storm and rains at Mumbai to why and when electric trains were discovered. The topic became all the more hilarious when she started narrating the quarrel she had with her mother-in-law at home and the disgustful behavior of her in law. She then said that her mother-in-law had slipped in the bathroom for having quarreled with her and that GOD had punished her for her misbehavior. She was able to relate it with karma. Her description about her in law was so realistic that I started to visualize her figure in my mind. I felt she would have made a good writer sans the humor interwoven. Then the topic sidetracked over to a fellow colleague at office who had made an irrevocable mistake in the document he had typed and she boasted of her eagle's eye to spot the mistakes made by him. She blasted of the guy’s insincerity in his work and concluded that the youth of these days were not so obedient and sincere compared to their days. Then on noticing a girl sitting cross-legged opposite to her she started advocating that girls were not supposed to sit cross legged since one it was a sign of disrespect to the elders and two it would increase body’s heat and affect her uterus. Now I felt she could have made a decent doctor too.

Finally I was nearing my destination and I had to take enormous efforts to reach the door, like a fish that swims against turbulent waves I had to fight my way through swarm of people who were never courteous enough to move away and give way for the people getting down.  I received the final piece of advice from my fellow passenger. She said I should never feel bad to move forward pushing people behind and that if I were timid I would have a tough time. She was able to correlate this act of mine to real life and she was delighted on being able to make such a brilliant comparison. She was beaming with pride as her group was awe struck by her philosophy. I couldn’t refrain from laughing despite my jam-packed situation. I finally managed to reach the entrance by the time the train had halted. It was then I was pushed down by all the ladies who were getting down too and I had to pull my handbag and shawl which was caught up in the menace. I was almost drenched in sweat when I got down from the train and started walking outside the station awaiting for the surprises the day had in store for me

True happiness lies in contentment

After shopping at a retail outlet, my niece and I came out with a baggage of groceries. I had always enjoyed the 10 minute walk from there to my house with broad roads and shady trees on both sides of the road, complementing us with a breeze as they nodded welcoming our arrival. But I suddenly felt someone nudge me; it was my little niece with pleading looks requesting me to hire an auto. I was astonished and sternly chided her saying “Walking is good for health”. She was not convinced but was adamant on her stand. I started advising her like a prophet (my merciless efforts to thrust too many values into the minds of a tiny tot) saying that we should not go behind luxury although an auto is affordable and that she should learn to accustom herself at all situations., be happy for all the blessings GOD has showered upon her, for wonderful parents, grandparents and so on and on..I suddenly stopped to find her give me a puzzled look, I could interpret her mind which said “Why so much of talk for a small auto ride?” This gesture made me reminisce my past. Memories way behind 15-20 years flashed upon that inward eye. I was completely lost in thoughts forgetting my present.

Outing with dad almost every weekend is one of the most memorable and cherishable moments in my lifetime. My dad being a government employee was frequently transferred to different places within short spans of time. The tenure in a place was extendable provided you’re not evasive and unconcealed, ever ready to fill the gunny bags of the superior authorities with …. (hope you guess what I mean here). My dad being an unconventional and principled person, (although these can never be accepted as traits of a government employee ) was being transferred almost every two years or sometimes even every year, irrespective of the fact that he had his family abode at Tuticorin with my mom working as a professor in college. (Oops off the track!!)

  We (my sister and me) would yearn for the weekend, since my dad would reach home by Friday night. Our gala time would start from Saturday noon. We had to take oil bath every Saturday, a ritual we were forced to follow:-). We would have lunch together mom, dad, Subha and me with my granny serving the delicious meal for us. Lot of gossips, fun and frolic, happenings of the entire week, scolding from mom for the petty mistakes committed either by me or Subha all unraveled during the meal. My dad would silently listen to all of them with a beaming smile. Followed by the meal would be a short nap after which we would start getting ready for our venture into the small town Tuticorin.

This venture was usually preceded with tiffin at “Hotel Visaka” near our house. My choice would unassumingly be kesari, (for people who know me well would know kesari is my all time favorite sweet) and my sister would get into research ordering new dishes every week in spite of the fact that there would not be more than 4-5 varieties including MY KESARI. We would quickly finish it off so that we reach the theater early for the movie. In our town there were only a couple of theaters that had A/C boxes(which means the entire theater would not be air-conditioned and only a room with around 20 seats would have the air-conditioned facility which would be almost full or reserved for rich people-talkies kind). So we would ensure we reach early so that we could catch up on the ladies queue to get the tickets quickly. The greatest talent we would boast of until the next movie:-). Movies are events that occur every month or sometimes every quarter of the year. Alternative to movies we would visit temples and beach, the most exotic place since shopping and movies were not affordable frequently.

Saturday night after dinner would be the most awaited moment. The moments that would take us to the heights of amusement, fear, thoughtfulness, rolling on the floor and laughing, psychic screaming or what so ever, guess what!! My dad would narrate a story for us, a new one every week with so much of mimics and expression that would take us to another world (Similar to the one in the movie Anjali when Raghuvaran narrates a story to his kids). I really wonder this unique talent in dad; he was a master in conquering our attention and keeping our minds intact. We would be spell bound by his narration. Exotic memories and I still remember few of those stories. His stories continue until we doze away, sometimes stories end sometimes to be continued the next week. Devoid of mobile phones, ipods, lpads and all modern gadgets the bond was tight. We had lot of time for each other. Less affordability propagated more happiness.

On Sunday, post breakfast we would all be assembled before the television to watch Ramayana or Mahabharatha in Doordarshan with my dad explaining our queries on almost every character during commercial ads. He would have almost every religious fact in his finger tip that any neighbor or relative of ours would refer dad like an encyclopedia for all religious beliefs. Devoid of cable network we had no other choice but to watch the programmes telecasted in Doordarshan. The most important is the Sunday movie for which we would fervently pray that an old black and white movie should never get telecasted.

 Dad loves Philosophy and all his speech would always be tainted with philosophic ideas. Out of 10 sentences he utters one of them would bear a philosophic quote from Socrates. He was so fond of Socrates that he was unable to refrain from quoting him despite mom’s frequent sarcasm about dad’s love for Socrates. Dad in addition to his stories would try to impart moral values every now and then, either in the form of philosophic notes or quoting incidents from his own life. He would advocate his prophecy “True happiness lies in contentment”. We would give him an interrogating look, the looks similar to the one my niece threw upon me. Oops I was shaken by a scream of complaint from my niece to my mom (we had reached near our home by then) that I had kept silent during our walk towards home there by punishing her for being adamant. My mother threw a stern look on me for being rude to the little one.She innocently came back to me with loads of apologies for her disobedient act and was ready to listen to my prophecies .Ripe opportunity for me now; I simply said “True happiness lies in contentment” with a wink. She nodded as though she had understood what I meant. She stopped me before I could move on and said “I understood all what you meant but one doubt, what is contentment chithi(meaning aunt)?”
I burst into laughter and kissed her for the childish innocence :-)

But on thinking deeply, with all these luxuries in place, we’ve always had a vacuum inside. In spite of having everything in excess, entertainment, shopping, travel, food we seem to be dissatisfied and the wish-list gets longer than the tail of hanuman. On digging into the reason behind this vacuum Eureka I discovered (personality traits of my dad to quote Socrates) that it is this excess that had been the root cause for all miseries. On removing excess I was contented, simple, but strong and thought provoking quote by dad. I’m taking conscious efforts to adhere to this as I wish to have true happiness. Thanks to dad for imparting such good values now and forever.

Sashtiapdhapoorthy—The success story

    It’s a scintillating moment for children to watch their parents getting married and it becomes all the more special for parents when children organize this for them. One such awesome function was the Sashtiapdhapoorthy of my parents (meaning on completion of 60 years of the man (head of the family), a marriage celebration for the couple, which serves as a union between the wife and husband rejoicing the success of their togetherness these many years. The highlight being their children celebrating this function, wishing their parents long life and happiness in the years to come).Blessed were we (my sister Subha and me) to rejoice those blissful moments.

               It was during the month of January Subha started talks about the celebration. My mom was the first one to raise a strong objection towards this. She had ample reasons to justify her stand on why a BIG NO to this function, but none of them seemed reasonable to Subha and me. My dad an unconventional, calm person wasn’t ready to justify his stand, instead ignored these talks completely and kept himself aloof just watching the drama like a silent spectator. This angered Subha all the more and both of us tried every possible loop hole to convince them. But the bond between my parents were strong, they were stubborn. This was a big challenge for us to tackle, the greatest obstacle to cross over.

                    We somehow managed to get their acceptance, after nodding to all the terms and conditions dictated by mom. To mention a few:- No grandeur, no lavish spending of money, function to be conducted in the most humblest way inviting only very few most important people and so on and so forth….Subha had a twinkle in her eyes. To mention about Subha, she has gut instincts at times and she never questions them if they were strong enough to pursue further with her thoughts. She goes by them always which finally end up with euphoric moments or some treasure to be valued for the lifetime. This was one such occasion which rose as a result of her instincts. She was determined to take up and make this occasion a grand success in spite of many odds.

              We started off with our preparations by purchasing sarees, jewels and gifts primarily as they occupied the first few items in our shopping cart. At this juncture it is indispensable to mention about my sister’s in-laws without whom this function would never have happened. Her in-laws irrespective of their health ailments took all the pains to cater to our wishes. Right from scratch till the end, they contributed in every possible way, thus making the function a grand success. I express my sincere gratitude heartfelt THANKS to both of them via this blog. Then came the invitation part when my MOM carefully started preparing the list of very few most important people..:-). But the list grew big, bigger and finally ended up with 100 most important people who would attend the function at any cost. This included relatives, neighbors and close friends. Our home was not spacious enough to accommodate 100 people and there was no appropriate dining area to accommodate the crowd. Since our house was at the ground floor with no lift facilities, we thought it would be a laborious task for all the guests to climb three floors even if we were to arrange for a shamiana in the open space for lunch. We had already booked a party hall, but had to later cancel it since it didn’t fit into Mom’s TERMS and CONDITIONS. But finally we had to opt for the party hall with no other feasibility.

   

               Finally the big day arrived, with the function starting at 4 a.m. in the morning with around 18 purohits chanting the manthras. We were all set to invite the guests since we were organizing the function. Slowly after dawn people started arriving and the hall was almost full during the muhurtham. The sky was falling with the sounds of the nathaswaram and kettimelam (traditional musical instruments in tamil marriages) when my dad tied the mangalyam (holy rope) around my mother’s neck and all showered their blessings on them. Subha and I were at the heights of glee or I would say plethora of joy as though we’ve conquered the entire world. The entire crowd congratulated us on our achievement. It was like a rewind of memories for Mom and Dad and this  event was even closer to mom’s heart since all her best friends and colleagues who were present on her wedding 33 years back were present there all of them enjoying their friend’s happiness as their own. Truly inspiring group of friends mom has earned, the greatest asset for her lifetime.  

        My parents were at their heights of pride and glory with a sense of gratitude towards us for having organized the function and conducting it successfully in spite of their constant barging into each and every decision of ours. We are grateful for having such wonderful parents who care for us and I strongly believe it is the duty of all children to fulfill the wishes of their parents and keep them happy.