Learning Lessons

I've been so baffled over these past days hearing and reading so much that I wonder what makes sense and what does not.....and if at all anyone can ever drive some sense into people who have such wierd notions about human beings and about life itself..... the perpetrators of violence of any kind need to be brought to book....can there be a system where humaneness be injected into people's minds....I wish there was a way to do that......

This ghastly and absolutely numbing crime  is not a single-point issue.....there is much more to it and I completely agree that the instant politicisation of any social issue ensures that the debates become cynical, and I daresay a lot more glamourous too....look at the panelists on various news channels....I just can't tolerate even one of them ........... and their shallow talk and indifferent lip service  comes across as so totally outrageous and insulting to the masses who suffer because our legal system is unfortunately perpetrator-friendly.....it may sound strange and ridiculous to those who have not had a brush with it....but those in the field know how atrocious it can be when the victim has to go all out to prove that he/she is indeed the victim while the criminals are not not pronounced criminals until proven guilty, which may take years considering the manner in which our  courts work. 

It is not just this one case where such a heinous crime has been commited so brutally.  Today it is Delhi that is being termed  the Rape Capital...... Do we remember Gujarat? Rape as a war-weapon has been tolerated and even encouraged.....in times of communal riots it has the sanction of religious/political powers.

And is anyone going to talk about female foeticide when it comes to talking about crime against women.....? and the dowry deaths....?
These are not isolated issues.....they are all related to the dignity of women and they have all taken a hugely inhuman  toll on female lives.

I'd like to add that while laws need to be strict, no law is useful if implementation is slack.....also in comparison changing laws is easier than changing a mindset.......and we all know harsh laws don't change mindsets........ also if a junior officer is at fault, his senior should be taken to task too........ most of the time subordinates are at fault because  they know their seniors are corrupt and will not penalise them

The balme game is and age-old game and we all seem to play it well . Let us stop searching for scape-goats to bear our guilt.

And on second thought I wonder if it is so difficult for parents to teach their children good values........what kind of parents would like their children to go through legal procdures and punishments to learn values in life...............
Like it or not, admit it or ignore it but the fact will not change unless we do something about it. 
And that most regrettable fact is that we have a culture of glorifying violence. We have a mindset where even a drive to educate the masses to get their children vaccinated is termed as a war (against that particular disease)
It would be to our long-term advantage to come out of this ailing primitive mindset and realise that violence is not a solution. 

Do we realise that it is this insensitive barbaric mindset that led to the loss of an innocent life. So suddenly everything has changed for the family of a young girl who never had suspected what lay in store for her when she stepped out of her house that day......

Indeed  parents as well as teachers have to honestly share the responsibility as to how an adult shapes up.....laws and courts are very torturous....those who have gone there would know how inhuman the system is and something certainly needs to be done to make the system more accountable
We also heard some people argue that after all, the politicians, the police force, the judiciary and others who make the system work, come from among us......and  so I once again ask this one question more emphatically:
"Does it not become important to emphasise on introspective social changes too while we demand a more accountable police and judiciary?"

In all as I said above it is a baffling situation and a lot of things need to be taken together to bring about a solution
But to begin with, parents can start better.....and set an example

The Best Tribute

"Aaj ki hansti-muskuraati khushiyon mein aksar kahiin kal ke kisi gham ki mehekti yaadein mil jaati hain......"

 I was not waiting for a formal invitation card. Am not so fastidious with family celebrations. A casual call  asking me to join in is enough.....and that had come more than a month ago. Hence I was prepared. Delhi in December has always been beautiful, inviting, tempting..........

Yesterday afternoon the card also came.
There was something unexpected about it which  shook my heart and  blew off that layer of dust which was  shielding a bunch of memories for quite a while now. I had even tucked away in an unknown corner of the house that one  very  poignant photograph which reminded me of her.

She was not someone I knew personally. I had never seen her except  in the pictures. And  was I thankful for that.....
Yes ! In a way I was.
I think a person gives a part of himself / herself to you when they meet you. So had I seen her in person the memories would certainly have been far more difficult to fade away......

The first time I heard about her illness was at a cousin's place in Lucknow. She was then in her teens.  I never gave much thought to the news.  What   serious  problem  could there be with a normally growing up girl...... some people have this habit of making mountains out of a molehill  I thought .........................
Besides Her Family had access to  world class medical care .....so  if at all there was a problem that needed special treatment  it could be  taken care of by  the  most expensive and the very best on this planet.....
In the worst of my  nightmares too  I could never have dreamt of the actual state of her disease..... I had no idea that the reality she was putting up with at that tender age  was  distressingly shattering.......
 Her Story was therefore out of my system  at the first opportunity.

I got a real taste of its seriousness when things  were coming to an end for this young  girl, who would have turned eighteen had she lived a few more months.......
I felt a chill run down my spine as the realisation came.....her ailment  was incurable

My couisn's daughter  had come to Allahabad for an entrance exam. She was restless. Genuinely concerned about something , she had a worried look on her face and kept repeating that she should not have come.....What if something happened to her best friend....
"Zohra Khalaa ! She wants  me to be with her..... I think she feels lonely without me......she talks to me about everything ......perhpas she wants to still tell me so many things.....but this exam.....I  could not miss.... so I had to come...."
And then a little later she would call her friend's mother, talk for a while, cry in a solitary room, come out and mutter  "I wish nothing happens to her...."

"Nothing" happened to her ......except that till my cousin's daughter got back to Delhi, her best friend had  slipped into a coma......
All those things that she might have wished to share also slipped into oblivion......

And after some days she was gone forever.......

Goes without saying that my cousin and her daughter earnestly stood by  the bereaved family in those most trying  days....  in those hours  that refused to budge.................. in those minutes that just would not tick away.............
I also went for the Condolence Prayer Meet which was held for a soul that was so spotlessly pure , for a body that hardly got time enough to commit sins.....

My cousin's daughter could think and talk of no one but her best friend . She took us to her grave. We said a prayer  for the peace of a soul that must have been happy to have left a body which was needlessly experiencing so much pain and despair . At the graveyard the care-taker informed us that he had seen my cousin's daughter so many times sitting there and weeping.

We were now worried for her.
The loss of her dearest friend had immensely devastated her . And what was more disturbing was that she was  letting herself sink  into a bottomless ocean of pain and an extreme sense of loss. She could be  slipping into severe depression

Her parents surely had to work very patiently with her . Convincing her to leave Delhi....even leave India for a while..... and go abroad for further studies was not easy.
She would not hear of it...... "leaving her friend" one more time ......No....Never....!!
"I can't go......I can't leave her this time........"
She would blurt out passionately.

But finally she did go ....... and immersed herself in a new world.
Day, weeks, months......
Time passed.........

Now my cousin's daughter is getting married.
The Card  reminded me of  the amazing bond that she and her best friend shared ........... I think her best friend's parents are paying the richest tribute to this absolutely divine closeness between these two girls ......and  their gesture has  touched the deepest corner of my heart

My cousin's daughter's  Nikaah is to be solemnised at her best friend's parents' home.......

Revisiting the driveway.....

In Allahabd it was an early Ramzaan morning some time in October 2005-06. Pleasantly cold, it was that time of the year when one looks forward to festivities....Dussehra, Diwali, Christmas.....and the New Year.
For me and my family  this year was momentous.

I was in the midst of a  new beginning at this juncture in life when most of the complexities and the teething problems of a marriage are  usually   sorted out and life seems to settle down on a well cemented foundation.
So how does it feel when the apparently strong  foundation gives way and your  hitherto insurmountable castle of dreams comes crumbling down like a  weak house of cards ???

Having finished  the sehri, my father and I  got busy gathering the  things that had to be left behind  so that they could be safely kept. Our bags were packed for the journey that would take us away from this  beautiful and comfortable place called Allahabad.  The city where I had spent almost twenty two precious  years of my life. Some of sweetest and bitterest moments of life were shared not just in the company of my beloved family but in the arms of this wonderful  "friend" too.

I was about to go away, and  start afresh in a place that I had barely known ...... Just like it was more than two decades ago when I was married and  had to come to Allahabad , a town I had associated with "Chhora-Ganga-Kinaare-Walaas" .......I had left my parents, family and friends to settle down with an entirely unknown family, unknown people in a completely strange place.
And now when that place and its people had become my own I was being shunted out  as an outsider.
It was  perhaps the biggest paradox of my life.

But these emotions  must wait for a while. The eyes could not afford a surging rush of  salty waves that would drown my vision. I had work  to do. My father was diligently gathering all the important files that had to be left in the safe custody of a very obliging and trustworthy relative. My maid  and driver would arrive any moment.

A couple of hours later as she  walked with a loaded trolley of the things that I had let her take away, my maid of ten years looked longingly , tears in her eyes as if all that load which was now hers and was so precious to her till some  minutes back  had suddenly turned  worthless. All that mattered to her was the association which held us together not as a  Begum Sahiba and a maid, but as  Bhabi ji  and  Sona. I was her entire family's Bhabi ji.
And that was not all. The driver,  a young boy named Shamim in his late twenties was more like  a son  to me. He had begun by calling me "Madam" when he had joined, but later settled for that sweet word ..... Bhabi ji.

This was going to be his last  errand  for me  as my driver.

I wonder if  he could believe it. Because for me it was just too much happening too soon. He had  come  for the job  a little less than ten years ago. And through the years had sincerely  worked his way through to becoming  one of the family. I had trusted him with my small children. He had taken them to school , to friends' places, to the playground....
He had been always there with my husband on his business trips in and outside Allahabad. He knew the lawyers' office and residence. He knew the factory and offices of the companies that my husband worked for. He knew where our banks were located. He knew where our CA stayed.
He had  accompanied my father and me  as we made whirlwind tours of the locality   searching a  place where we could keep our belongings in-transit as we gradually worked our way out of Allahabad.

He was the one who, along with my innocent little children  had brought home my husband's body from the hospital.

And now he was the one who would take my father, me and our car to my native place, where  we would leave the car  before leaving for our destination: Mumbai.
He would of course go back to Allahabad.

It was too emotional a  journey..... The weather seemed colder than it perhaps was.
Usually we used to look  forward to long drives and  trips  outside Allahabad , to Lucknow, Kanpur, and of course to  my native town,  specially in the months when the weather is pleasant. Stopping over dhabaas and listening to film songs or music through the journey.
But this one  was rather quiet. Each one was perhaps engrossed in contemplating what the future held in store.

Five years later last December I was in Allahabad with my younger son.
A lot of things had changed.  To the eyes Allahabad was not the same.  But the heart knew that warmth , that love, that longing  which was all very much in tact.
December is really cold in Allahabad. The sun does  not come out of its sleeping bag  till noon at times....and goes back shivering  too soon.
I remembered  December was the time I had first  set my foot on this  sacred soil . I was not used to such extreme climatic conditions. But so totally loved it  from the beginning, spending   many  cozy winters  in the awesome hues of  Phlox, Salvias, Pansies, Calendulas,  Sweet Peas, Nastercium, Cinerias, Dahlias, Asters.....and the absolutely luxurious warmth of  a coal angeethi which  the servant was instructed to light before calling it a day, but sometimes my husband  himself would so lovingly light for me.....

Back to the present,  the dusty, muddy  and rather uneven roads were  a bit of a setback. Civil Lines  had lost its Colonial grandeur and fallen in line with "progress and development".  Gone were the old time bungalows that used to have  neat and plentiful gardens.  There were too many heaps of debris where once upon a time stood stately  spacious mansions. Too much construction activity was going on. We were  informed that multi-storied residential blocks would soon come up there.
And box-like monotonous Shopping Malls were fast  devouring in  those lovely personalised  grocery and clothes stores.
The Pride-of-Civil Lines,  "B.N.Rama" was razed to the ground.
And Palace Cinema was almost a ghost structure.

Is five years so long a time period or is the world moving too fast?

My son and I shopped for some gifts. And for Shamim's  children we purchased  story books, pencil boxes, colour pencils and such other  things. We knew he was working at the prestigious Bible Seminary and living in the residential blocks there.....his children were studying in English medium Schools.

When we reached the  magnificent Seminary  premises , there was a  Pre-Christmas celebration going on. Shamim's eldest daughter had grown tall and beautiful, almost lady-like, she was very dignified and clam. Not  a trace of that  running nose and those noisy tantrums had remained. His sons were too small when I had left and had not seen much of them then .Now  they came across as very well-mannered children accepting the gifts with  sweet "Thankyou-s".
Shamim's wife had learnt  embroidery and stitching  at a class for women . She was talking non-stop , her excitement oozing out like many birds chirping  pleasantly.

But Shamim was not home.
When I had called him half an hour ago, he had  not been able to contain his joyous excitement. So now where had he gone?
His wife smiled, and lowered  her large eyes  so  full of love. That smile  had not changed  even one bit.
Just then Shamim entered looking very smart , his sheepish grin,  in place...
The aroma of samosas following closely. And the earthen pot in his hands was so familiar. Gulaab Jamuns.....YES ....Of course !!!!
How many times he had brought these things when we had guests..... and  even otherwise when the children wanted a feast at home...... from "Heera Halwaai" at Thornhill road and Qadir Halwaai at Sabzi Mandi..... and the asli-ghee jalebis from Netraam at Katra.....countless......and countless  times  indeed!!!
On our way to Lucknow, we used to eat  at that one particular dhaba, which Shamim patronised. His chholey and samosas were divine. And the tea....absolutely refreshing.
At that dhaba  Shamim used to get  tea without sugar specially made for my mother, whenever Mummy accompanied us.

And  en route to Kanpur, there was The Mohan ka peda at Malwa-n and on our way to my native place  there were the  kalaa-Jaams at  Micheal Gunj....

So many memories  to share  ..... so much to say and listen....the time was indeed not enough.

The clock seemed  ticking faster than usual .........I'm not sure  how many hours  we spent with Shamim and his family........ but it seemed like minutes......When it time to leave, from the garden his wife brought some lemons and gave me , and Shamim said:
"Yahan sab araam hai Bhabi....lekin aap ke ghar jaisa araam nahi...."

I knew he was earning better, living better, doing so much better. I was very very happy for him from the bottom of my heart.
So could there be a sweeter and more precious  compliment than  him  saying this ?
I had a hard time holding back my tears of joy.

Once  we were back in  the car on the way to the hotel, my son remarked:
Amma! his children have grown bigger than I thought.   Our gifts should have been bigger by at least five years....!!!!!"

To us  it seemed  that those five years had  stood still ...........watching over us with fondness and good wishes.....as will all the coming years.....

Tanha Kaynaat

Main aksar apne saath hoti hoon
Kabhi subah ki sunehri kirno mein lehlahaati hui
Kabhi shaam ki mastt khunki mein gungunaati hui

Main aksar apne saath hoti hoon....
Waqt ke saath qadam milaati hui
Apne aap se khush, muskuraati hui....


Khud apne saath baithi hui
Kabhi  ugtey huay sooraj  ko
Kabhi udti hui chidiyon ko
Kabhi hanstey huay phoolon ko
Kabhi sharmaati hui ghaas ko
Kabhi paas aati hui titli ko
Kabhi doorr jaati hui ghataaon ko
Kabhi  nikhre huay chaand   ko
Kabhi behkey huay mausam ko

Apne dil mein apni aankhon se mehsoos kiya karti hoon


Unn ko wo  kyon  nahi dikhta
Jo  mujh ko nazar aataa hai  .......
Wo log jo kehtey hain ke
Apni tanhaai mein kahiin  khoii si main rehti hoon

Aakhir Kyon.....

This is  dedicated to a young couple very very dear to me.....I wish they would always  be together..................... for me they always will be.............
But in reality they are not .....................................................................


"Kyon bantey hain wo rishtey jin ki qismat  hai bikharna
Kyon miltey hain wo dil jin ki qismat hai ujadna

Wo tera  milna, phir baarha mujh se wo takrana tera
Meri qismat  thi....ya ke  thi wo qismat teri

Kyon jud gayi  chand din ko teri qismat se qismat meri.....

Kyon qareeb aaye thay hum jo tha aise hi chaley janaa
Kya karoon kaise sambhaloon main judaai ka ye nazranaa

Le jaa yaadein apni, de de waapis meri tamannaein
Warna amaanat mein khayanat ka bhi ilzaam lagey ga mujh par

Dil ke aangan mein ye  kirchein..... kitni chubhti hain
Kabhi paaon mein.... kabhi aankhon mein bhi lagti hain


Ek aandhi dabey paaon chali aayi thi
Kya ussi ne machaai hai tabaahi itni

Zara aansoo tham jaaein to dekhoon....
Thoda behlay jo ye dil, to zehen kaam karey....

Kyon baney thay wo rishtey
Jin ki qismat mein bikharna tha......

Chandni mein sharabor mera aangan

Simat rahi hai chaandni mere ghar ke aangan mein
Aaj ki raat chiraaghon se kaho zara araam karein

Aamrood ke darakhat ka saya jhilmila raha hai sarshar ho kar
Ghiidhaunchion par rakhey huay paani ke ghade mehek uthay hain mahaul ke saath

Kuchh dooor par beri ka  ooncha sa pedd  aasmaan ko tak raha hai tamanna ki tarah
Kuuein ke paani mein chhaand apna aks dekh kar thithak gaya hai kuchh itraata hua 

Kyaarian bhari paddii hain nashiili bele ki kaliyon se aarasta  ho kar
Ye kaliyan khilney ko betaab , aapas  mein sargoshiyan kar rahi hain

Khamoshi gungunaati hai,  raat ki masst hawa jhijhak si jaati hai
Chaandni utri hai mere aangan mein, chiraaghon se kaho aaj wo araam karein

( By Ghazala M )

Thankful Always :):)

"Shirin Farhad Ki to Nikal Padi" is a contemporary love story, where the characters are (obligingly) not from the stinking rich families who look like living in a make-believe world.
It is  not a rich-guy-poor-girl (or vice versa) fairy-tale.
It is also not about that teeny-weeny dream-of-the-teens called First Love.
It is actually quite realistic and beautifully emotional. But of course, like life, the film too has its imperfect moments. And like one who has learnt to move on in life, the viewers too happily let go of the flaws to enjoy the larger picture. Life itself.

The best part is that  it is  about mature , middle aged people and yet conveys a feeling that is as refreshing as the first dew-drops. Perhaps the blossoming of love  makes life bloom as nothing else ever can. It has been proved beyond doubt that love indeed has no expiry date.
To a traditional mind and to an orthodox lifestyle, it may be difficult to come to terms with some extraordinary facts of life ....situations and circumstances that are beyond one's control and hence must be tackled differently

Settling down in life is not deemed complete in most societies and communities unless one is normally (or is it naturally....???) married. Some extend this completeness to having children....and then further to the girl-boy ratio ..... So obviously most young people are supposed to "settle down" by a certain age. And what if that does not happen.
Or worse still if  the "settlement"  receives an unexpected blow from uncertainities that life often serves with extra helpings of rotten coldness....and which most often is bitter on the tongue and teary in the eyes.

Happiness comes with  having the freedom to choose Happiness.
And at  different phases in life Happiness comes with different meanings.
If at one time it is in togetherness, at some other time it may come in Me talking to Myself.
Life is full of possibilities and opportunities. It is also not same at all times.

I am absolutely convinced that Love has no expiry date.
But let us not forget that some relations do thankfully have an expiry date....
(Otherwise looking forward to future would be impossible !!!)