WANNA BE A CALENDAR GIRL

One night, was sitting in the kitchen

With a heap of utensils to wash

Wondering if this life of work & drudgery

Ever would end.

And out of thin air, came a beautiful Fairy

Ask for a wish and thou shall get

Just one wish, Yes, just one wish and no more

I wondered as my thoughts wandered

No, not riches, not food, not glory, not kingdom I seek

I just wanna be a Model.

Whaaaaat??

Yes you heard me right, I wanna be a Model

For all my life, have got along well

With oldies and kids alike, not so with youngsters

I want them to look at me, admire me, adore me

No better way than being a Model

I just wanna be a Calendar Girl

The one who’s there on the walls

Pasted on minds, glued on hearts

All through the year!

Ok, so be it but I’ll need to change your….

That’s ok, if Bruce Jenner can, I too can

Give me a beautiful face like Katrina

With a pout like Priyanka’s, legs like Deepika

Complexion like Kareena’s

Simply make me Sunny!

Intelligence? You can give it a miss

Buss…that’s it, of course there is another thing

Tomorrow is the Big Night, when they will select

The Calendar Girls for next year

Oh, how lovely will it be to be up there on stage

Wear the crown of glory, get clicked get applauded

And get a million hearts beating.

Ok said the Fairy, so be it.

Here I change you from, Man to a Woman

A woman of your choice

With beauty beyond words

Truly you will be the Queen of Hearts

And much more tomorrow night.

And of course here’s some more

A beautiful evening gown to wear

Shoes that’ll fit, bag full of best cosmetics.

Remember all this will last for only a day

Then it’ll be life as usual.

As I transformed, the Fairly vanished

Got all I wanted plus a God Card

Fairy said this will pay for anything

This money is freely convertible,

With no downturns in value.

Everything seemed so perfect

Just two things were amiss…

My hairy arms and

Oops no swim suit in my duffel bag

Anyway both shouldn’t be much of a problem

And started solving the First

Wore a hijaab to hide my change

Went to the best parlour

One that my landlady said were the best

Walked in and said Shave…, Sorry clean me up

Came in a Tall, Dark and Handsome to do the job

His walk, talk & style left me to wonder

What's he doing in a ladies parlour?

Oooh..oooch..Hai Raam, bus bhi kar

As he pulled off  years of hardened mane

By the time he finished, felt like a new born baby

My arms felt so tender, My long Deepika legs so s…

I went to the counter, He said ten thousand please

I swiped my God Card and out came

A couple of VIP Tirupathi Devasthanam Passes

TDH was delighted.

One down, One more to go.

This one was far more difficult

Went to the sports shop, asked for swim wear

He showed me Speedo & Arena, offered fins and cap as well

But when I whispered into his ears

Modelling ke liye chahiye, Bhai

He burst out laughing, Not here Baby

Showed me to a fancy store nearby

Where I saw the skimpy stuff hanging

Uuff… I nearly fainted

Oh No!

Oh My!

How can I?

Went to the trial room, couldn’t believe

What transformation!

Looked great, felt good & smiled

No wonder when you wear these

People say,” gimme more, gimme more”

Ended up buying the finest two piece

Or should I say the slimmest

He said it was the best, both the suit & the price

50 grand, Please, and so I paid him

Again through my God Card

He swiped and out came VVIP Passes to Shirdi

He was overjoyed

Gods truly must be crazy

No matter what business you’re in

You’ll always find printed in bold

In God we trust, rest pay cash

Now I said to myself as Maria did

"So, let them bring on all their problems

I'll do better than my best

I have confidence they'll put me to test

but I'll make them see I have confidence in me."

It was the night of the event

Saw my name displayed in the hall

Shortlisted for the finals

The Fairy had done her part.

As I went into the changing room

In came a man with a white beard with hat on top

Hi Baby…you’re beautiful,

You can be a winner, I can make sure of that

Because it’s my calendar and I decide the calendar girls

Who’ll be in, who’ll be out

Wow..thanks Sir but I rather do it the fair way

The old man was funny or should I say strange

He wouldn’t leave the room for me to change

And started acting funny

Helpless I said

Mujhe Bhagwaan ke liye chhod do

He smiled and said

Arrey agar Bhagwaan ke pass hi jana tha

To Lakshmi aur Saraswati Press mein jana tha

They would have dressed you

Like Durga, Kali & Lakshmi..

Calendar Girl fir bhi ban jaati tu

Not here baby.. its my world

It’s my way or the highway

Main aisi waisi ladki nahin, I pleaded

As they would say in all old movies

Where chastity was the greatest value

Lifted my long skirt and started running 

I ran as fast as I could, He ran after me

I ran..he ran, we ran

One of my stilettos fell off, he picked it

But I kept running, running for life

Went into a sports bar

Where they were screening El Classico

It was Real Madrid vs Barcelona, 

It was Ronaldo vs Messi

Everyone there was drinking beer and cheering loud

No pinching of backs

No lewd comments here

No funny acting as well

When they saw my Beckham tattoo on my arm

They cheered and took me for one of them

And I said to myself, this is where I belong.

The green, green grass

The running, the tackles, the goals

Yes, this is my world

Let me go back to my daily chores

Let me be what I am.

Next day the old man came

The kingfisher in search of his worm

Knocked at my door, was disappointed to see

A spectacled middle aged balding man

Asked if there was anyone in the house

Whose feet would fit the stiletto he had

I put my foot for him to see

Offended & disappointed he left

Came to know that the Old Beardy

Spent all his fortune looking for the Cinderella

The Calendar came out that year

Beautiful Girls, Beautiful Swimsuits

But no Beautiful Me,

Up in smoke went my fairy-tale

Cinder-wala remains and that's Truly Me.

THE BIRTHDAY DRESS

My birthday is always followed by Durga Puja-sometimes a week, sometimes a fortnight and at times even a month later. I remember my father would wake me up on Mahalaya, at an unearthly hour every year, with the words, “See the other day you were born and now it is Devi Pakhsha”. Half asleep, half awake we would all listen to the voice of Birendra Krishna Bhadra reciting the Chandipath interspersed with the ethereal agamani songs like “Bajlo tomar alor benu….” with their all pervasive melody wafting softly through the entire house.

Pujo to me is that time of the year when the day begins with the fragrance of the shiuli flowers in the air, rows of the wispy white kaash phool in the distant fields, the whole para or neighbourhood resonating with the beats of the dhak, loudspeakers blaring the latest Hindi and Bengali songs. Pujo also means crisp, new clothes…and the number of new dresses you had meant a lot when we were kids. So every year I would wear my birthday dress for a little while and keep it away, neatly folded, to take it out again on Shasthi, the day of the Mother Goddess’s bodhan or welcome, marking the first day of Durga Puja.

My earliest memory goes back to my fifth or sixth birthday when I was given this lovely orange dress. That year my dress for Pujo was a bright red one. Both came from New Market. Both came wrapped in little card board boxes, brought by my father from Calcutta. Both were equally pretty. The orange one was an A-Line dress with some frills and fancy buttons and short butterfly sleeves. I remember coming home from school in the afternoon, quickly changing into this dress and sitting down for an elaborate meal. That day the food would be laid out on the floor, not the dining table. An embroidered ‘ashan’ or small rug would be placed (this one was special since it was hand embroidered in colourful geometric patterns with wool, like a little carpet, by my grandmother). I would be made to sit on it with all the food spread out in silverware and this was one day I would eat with a silver spoon. Among other special items there would always be payesh or the rice pudding, a must in every Bengali’s birthday celebration.

We never had parties due to some superstition of my grandmother, in whose family some tragedy had befallen one of the members after one such event. So birthdays remained a family affair and I regretted missing out on unwrapping presents like my other friends. It bothered me to no end that I had carried this gift and that gift for my friends but I missed out when my turn came since there were no parties in the evening. When we moved to Calcutta there were always family dinners at Peter Cat, Kwality or Mocambo in Park Street. The cake or sometimes a box of assorted pastries came from Flury’s , at that time one of the most well known confectioners in the city, which my father would pick up on his way back from office. I was made to feel like a princess that day.

We were allowed to carry toffees to school but the Convents I went to never allowed us coloured dresses. So I could never flaunt my birthday dress. I know this will not make much sense to today’s kids who attend International Schools where they follow the American concept and, even if they do have school uniforms, they very often take the form of smart casuals or bright T-shirts with track bottoms. We were never that lucky and had to be content with our knee length blue skirts (which started off as navy blue but with regular wash in surf water gradually acquired various other shades of blue) long white socks,  stiff white shirts, and funny looking ties which were pre-knotted and even had buckles. In our school days the PT dress was a little smarter, comparatively shorter, with a sash which flaunted the House colour. At the end of the day, the birthday dress, seen only by the family, would be packed away and taken out again for Pujo, a few days later, adding to that year’s Pujo collection. The birthday dresses bought by my mother would always mysteriously be a size or two bigger since she bought them, may be, on a five- year plan but this orange dress, fortunately bought by my father, was of a better and smarter fit.

Strangely, I still follow the practice of putting away my birthday sari and taking it out again during the Pujas. After completing fifty summers, twenty four in my parents’ house and twenty six in my marital home it is difficult to now say where I truly belong.  After my marriage, it was my mother-in-law who made the payesh on my birthdays. I still remember waking up earlier than usual on some working days to sounds emanating from the kitchen, wondering who was in there so early, only to discover my mother-in-law crushing the cardamoms and cashew nuts. After her the task of making the payesh for everyone’s birthday fell on me though my husband, nowadays, insists on making it for me.

I must stop digressing and get back to that cute little orange dress which I continued to wear for a couple of years till it acquired a micro-mini length for me, since I was growing tall, but I always managed to slide in. No stitch ever came off, no button went missing and the colour remained as vibrant as on the first day despite my having worn it so many times.

One winter morning, when I was in the seventh or eighth grade, while leaving for school, I saw my father sitting on a cane chair in the verandah having his tea, and a little girl, aged about five or six, all covered up in a coarse material, with only a tiny face visible. She had a nice chubby face with pinkish chapped lips and cheeks. She was also having tea in a steel glass with biscuits. Later, my mother explained that she was my Baba’s ‘little pet’ whom he had discovered sitting on the steps leading to the verandah, shivering in the cold. He had made her come and sit under the roof in the grilled verandah and had asked my mother to give her some tea and biscuits. This had been going on for the past few days. She would come in through the grille door, sit for a while, have tea with biscuits or ‘chapati’ and after some time she would leave. They could not make out much from what gibberish she said and neither could she make out much of what was said to her. May be her mother worked in some house close by, or she belonged to one of the labourers’ families living on the roads, or may be just a little beggar child, though she never asked for anything.

One day my father asked my mother to give her some of my old clothes and she gave her the little orange dress I had long outgrown and which now lay in one of the old metal trunks.  It had become a familiar sight every morning seeing her around the same time wearing that orange dress, which would show a little beneath the rough, thick shawl that covered her, sitting on the verandah with my father having her tea and biscuits. Her chubby face and curls reminded me of the cherubs. Then one day she stopped coming as suddenly and as mysteriously as she had appeared.

My father, a self- proclaimed atheist, who always admired the temples from outside, but never entered the sanctum sanctorum; my father, who let my mother touch his forehead with the puja flowers but never tasted the prasad; my father, who avoided going for pujas but never shied away from helping another human being, could not help saying that the girl was a little ‘angel’ who had chosen to visit us. We really do not know who this little visitor of ours was but I still feel I am connected to her in some way , as if our lives and fates are intertwined somewhere, by that orange birthday dress. Hope her life too has been as blessed as mine.

DS

CHICHER DAY

We don't need no education 
We don’t need no thought control
No dark sarcasm in the classroom
Teachers leave them kids alone
Hey! Teachers! Leave them kids alone!
All in all you’re  just another brick in the wall.

Dear Mr. Pink Floyd, I am a little confused whether it will be a good idea to do away with education and the Brick in the Wall.

I was at Delhi recently and visited 3 Municipal Schools at Delhi as part of the Company's CSR initiative with an NGO called Aspire where we are working on improving the education levels of 1200 kids studying in MCD schools.  You must be wondering why we need to give any extra classes for these kids who are studying in schools with reasonably good infrastructure and teachers who are after the multiple pay commissions get paid well.

The primary schools that day were celebrating Teachers’ Day where students of class V dressed up in colourful bright dresses were the teachers for that one day. The young teachers were far more diligent than the usual ones in making them do their studies.

Then a couple of incidents happened. First one was a card made by a student for her teacher that day which made me feel something truly needed to be done.

 A child in class 4 writes Chicher instead of Teacher…she must be following the phonetic way of writing.  She wrote the word as she would be addressing her teacher every day- Good Morning Chicher and the Teacher never stopped to correct her? I asked the girl who made this card, Beta batao Teacher’s Day kyon manatey hain? She said on this day, the Bade Sir (Director of Education was called Bade Sir in their parlance) comes and gives us food packets with sweets so this day is celebrated as Teacher’s Day. Surely Late Dr. Saravapalli Radhakrishnan would not be smiling down from up there on this day dedicated to him!

The second instance was when we were sitting in the room of the principal of one of the schools and a couple was talking to her. The parent said that they had 2 kids studying in the same school- son in class V and the daughter on class 2. The father who was leading the conversation was a casual labourer took out a report card.

“Yeh dekhiye Madamji, mere bête ko sab number kitne ache milte hain…sab subject mein 80 pratishad se upar. Maine usko bola ki apni behan ko thoda pada de toh woh kabootar ke ka se aage nahin likh paya!” (Look Madam, my son in class five has been getting scores everytime over 80% and when I asked him to help his younger sister, he could not write beyond the first alphabet of Kabootar!)

Thanks to government's so called education policy, all students today necessarily have to be promoted without examinations. The education being imparted in some of these schools is appalling and deserves an extra effort from all of us.  Thankful to people like Aspire and others in the field who are making an effort to make a small difference to the education levels for kids who have little or no support at home and teachers who come and go, marking their attendance, of course not forgetting to knit sweaters in winters.

On the same trip met Savitri Devi in one of the girl’s schools at Delhi. She sat in clean crisp clothes listening to the Prime Minister making his long speech on the eve of Teachers’ Day. She seemed the only one in the hall wanting to hear every word the PM was saying. The school did not have a television so the school students sat in a hall with a speaker attached to a mobile phone with All India Radio playing. Everyone else in the hall was fidgety including students and teachers. When I entered the school and walked around, what caught my attention was the cleanliness. The class rooms, the pathways and the hall…not a leaf lying anywhere, not a mark on the walls…quite unlike the other 2 schools I had visited earlier.

When I spoke to the principal about the cleanliness, she pointed out the lady sitting in the room ahead of us was Savitri Devi and she was the sweeper of the school. Savitri Devi made sure that the every inch of the school was spic and span. She would even call in her husband on weekends to help her with cleaning the toilets and the water tanks. The principal ended saying that today Savitri Devi is very upset because this program of listening to the President and  Prime Minister was decided late yesterday evening and she did not get enough time to clean the hall by sweeping it with water and soap before the kids sat down today.

Seeing her dedication, got reminded of a book where in trying to explain what Passion means the author cites a story where Martin Luther King Jr once said, “ If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted or Beethoven composed music or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep the streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, ‘Here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well’.” I am sure King would have had Savitri Devi in mind when spoke.

Back home on next weekend went over to meet the kids of Prayas, an NGO working for the betterment of education of street kids. Here was delighted once again to meet my trio named ASK. As the word suggests it is all about inquisitiveness and we do a couple of rounds of quizzing on Saturdays. ASK stands for Arif, Shivam and Kartik. These are kids whose parents do menial work and the teachers at the NGO teach the kids what the school misses out on. The ASK trio is among the brighter of the lot and they have now been admitted to better private schools seeing their merit and paid for by some generous benefactors.

The three have quiz books given by some people, they write down carefully abbreviations and questions in a separate GK notebook. They question me and I question them and many a times they beat me. Some questions that stumped me were-

Who is the President of China. Being a Jackie Chan fan I quickly said Hu Jin Tao. I never miss this name as my daughter and I have seen the movie Rush Hour hundreds of times. Right Sir, ekdam.

Suddenly one of them asked me what comes twice in a week, never in a month and once in a year?  I scratched my mind but couldn’t answer and Shivam said the answer is E….zapped!

I asked them from a small quiz book, which is the most dangerous snake in the world? My book said Cobra and the trio started arguing with me…Sir, it is Black Mamba. We have seen it in National Geographic and Black Mamba is the correct answer.

This Teacher’s Day how I wish I could work with three hundred ASKs and watch them beat me everyday hollow in quiz and in every sphere of life.

When it comes to teachers and Teachers’ Day, the one person I always remember is my teacher in class X, Brother D’ Souza. He would have been about 20 years old then when we were 16. Here was a man who changed my life and many more lives. For the first time I started enjoying some sections of my studies. He would encourage me, would give extra classes for us laggards after school hours and gave us cyclostyled notes on History which I used even during my Senior Secondary as well as in graduation. He not only was good in the class room but extremely talented otherwise…playing the guitar, dramatics, sports….A Complete Man I would say. He became the Headmaster in no time in the school and could have gone on to become the principal next. Yet he chose to go to St. Edmund’s, Shillong where he started Providence which is a vocational school for the locals there, making a difference to many a life.

Here’s he standing in the red T-shirt with some of us at a get-together organized by the Old Boys to raise funds for Providence. He himself would never ask for any help but every student would love to do something for him today. If you were to ask any student in our batch the one teacher who you love and respect, it surely would be a unanimous vote for one and only Br. D’Souza.

Today in the Corporate world, every day we are bombarded with lessons on Leadership which say a leader is someone who influences you to take you elsewhere. I thought only a teacher could take your elsewhere, mould your life and transform you….often wonder if you had been fortunate with a Br. D’Souza in your life, leadership lessons would become secondary. A leader is after all a mentor and a coach to his people and a teacher is…much more.

Guru Brahma Guru Vishnu
Guru Devo Maheshwara
Guru Sakshat Param Brahma
Tasmai Shri Gurave Namah

(Guru is Brahma, Guru is Vishnu, Guru is Lord Maheshwara. Guru is verily the supreme reality. Sublime prostrations to Him)

Happy Teacher’s Day.

SS

LOST AND FOUND

Part 1

Who loves an owl…Ullu to be precise? I do.

Mom, it seems I’ve lost one of my earrings...

Don’t get upset. It can happen….which one was it?

The one with the owl….sob sob

My mother knew how important this simple pair of earrings with an owl dangling was for me. My parents had got it for me 6 years back and whenever there was anything important like an exam or celebration, I preferred the Owls to anything...a sentimental fool was I…not sure if it was superstition.

Kichhu hoy na Babu…look for it in the room…it may be stuck to your hair or the t-shirt that you were wearing tonight ….search for it, consoled my mom. In the background I could hear my dad asking, what was the name of the place I had been to with my friends for dinner that night….Kebab Gali. He quickly Googled and gave me the telephone number….call the restaurant and tell them where you were sitting and to try and look for it. I immediately called Kebab Corner. I kept my fingers crossed that they would find it around the table…but if it had fallen on the road it would be lost forever!

As I kept talking to Ma, my tears just wouldn’t stop flowing…how could I lose it? It was like losing a friend on friendship day!!! My friend in Bombay had already mailed me various Owl earrings available online…but none of them could replace that silver pair…it just wouldn’t be the same. After a while I took off the lone piece from one ear and thought I would just keep it safely as a treasure for good times together. And as I opened the safe box I found the other piece in there…staring at me, without blinking….saying, So you left me here alone and wore just one earring to the party? Ullu kahin ki!!  

Woohoo! I have my Ullus…yeah.

Ma, just found it in my box.

I told you baby, you never lose anything. Since school all you’ve ever lost is a water bottle and nothing more….I knew it would be somewhere around. Good, now call up the restaurant and tell them to call off the search.

Madam, for the last half an hour, two of my boys have not been serving any customer and looking for your earning…surely my tone had made it very clear that I had lost my precious and wanted to find it desperately. Chaliye Madam mil gaya ab…ok good night.

The Ullus are back in my life and I stay awake till 1-2 am …that’s normal for me….seems I’ve found the biggest Ullu in me.

Part 2

How could you lose it?

Ma’am, the other unit guy gave it to me…he found it lying around in the OT. I kept it safely but put it next to the OT table when they sent me from one task to another and when I came back it wasn’t there…I asked a few people, they said you had taken it.

Do you know how expensive it was…forty thousand….you are a careless fool.

The news spread like wildfire…M had lost a senior’s direct ophthalmoscope.

I looked like a petty criminal in the unit with everyone saying…how..where…when…how how how??

In the OPD that day, everything was a blur.I was working blindly, both lost in thoughts, trying to remember what happened that day in the OT, as well as through the tears I was trying to hold back. How could I do this? Was I really so irresponsible?  Every ten minutes or so, I kept calling my batch-mates in the OT and OPD and other seniors trying to find out if they knew anything about it.

This went on for nearly three hours and then I called Ma in Mumbai.

Somebody must have taken it…ask your friends to look for it.

We’ve searched for it everywhere but it can’t be found.

It is ok…don’t cry baby. If you’ve lost it, you only should give it back. Buy her a new one, use your credit card. Give it and get back to work. Such things happen at work.

Obediently I went to the senior and said, I’m really sorry ma’am. I will buy you a new one, let me make good the loss.

Relax…I have got it back. Your batch-mate just told me that he had taken it from the OT and kept it with him….he forgot to give it back to me or tell me that it was with him, she said.

No one found out who took it out from her bag in the first place. Since morning there was so much commotion in the unit about this incident and whoever had done it knew about it very well. No one will ever know what truly happened but I became branded as a careless Ullu.

The senior found what she had lost… what about me? I too lost something that day….my honour…how long before I earn it back…

Part 3

It’s been two months away from home. Home, where I was a Princess. My Diary would read…early morning waking up without any alarm ringing with dad brining a nice glass of water and tenderly waking me up…post that was mom keeping hot breakfast on the table…a different lay every day…the routine went on till I went to sleep and mom would even come down to check the speed of the fan just in case it got too cold.  They over did it, certainly, but I enjoyed. I had to only take care of my college sessions. For the rest of the work and worry, I had two specialized khidmatgaars of the colonial times in dad and mom who even ensured my Vodafone top up was done on or before time. All the time, these two doting people would search on their own what work I had to do and what more could be done to make my life comfortable.

And then the clock struck twelve…and the party was over for Cinderella as I landed in Delhi.

Now I wake up 15 minutes before the alarm goes off…the body clock is now so set. Open the door for the maid, then go on to make my frugal breakfast on some days, take some sandwiches on OT days, pay the guard, the maid and all the other bills. After 15-18 hours of work, if the shops are open, I pick up bread, call for water, ask the laundry person to come and collect the clothes, wash some on my own, keep a check on my wallet. At times I feel terribly lonely, even though I may be surrounded by 5-10 people with whom I work every day…but I need somebody with whom I can talk freely and open my heart to. Mobiles and internet can cover the distance…but only to a certain extent.  It feels so weird to see my home from the other end of Skype.  I seem to have lost everything… my peace, my confidants and myself.

Today, however, looking back, I realize I can now do things on my own…I’m no longer dependent on anyone for anything. Wow...I’m a woman who is struggling, yet everyday discovering new things about herself. I never knew I would be able to do all these things without my dad and mom. I know how to pull out cash from the ATM, how to get work done by an electrician, keep a note of the expenses. Today I do not need to tell anyone where I am going and what time I will be back. Every day is a struggle, every moment is a fight but I know I can do it…alone.

Two days ago, I performed my first cataract surgery…gave sight to someone… but sighted a new me.

I know my loving guardian angels must be wanting to take some of my burden if they can…don’t worry Mom, don’t worry Dad…I have learnt so much from you over the years that your daughter can and will do it…alone. Your blessings, I know will always be with me so just pray I do not skip a step anywhere on this treacherous road I tread and that I have the fair judgment to take decisions and do things right as I live this new life of mine.

Life is a never ending story of getting lost and found, of ups and downs, highs and lows…reminds me of one of Ronan Keating’s songs…Life is a roller-coaster, just got to ride it!!!

MS