Tango with Supermarkets

I have always loved supermarkets!
Though I never understood the real reason behind it. But when one is staying alone in a more or less unknown place, a supermarket can be the best place to get to know the 'crowd'.
Like I know for sure, the ratio of coconut oil to mustard oil sold in supermarket's of Kerala and Assam will differ drastically.
And of course, there is the unexplainable joy of strolling through the junk food section and home accessories section! (Women! I tell you..)


I don't think my reasons stop just there..

There are these young people standing in the corner of each section; prim and proper, hair neatly combed, uniforms tucked, and a plastic 'friendly' smile constantly attached to their lips. Now, don't mistake me, for some of them are genuinely friendly.
I classify them into two categories. One being the "May I help you Ma'am?", whom I never prefer. Somehow they seem more like a pestering kid pulling your dress to buy some toy, than a true salesman. And in the end, out of desperation when you finally put forward a question to them, they blink and excuse themselves never to be found again!
And then there is this other category, who are in a way pestering too, but in a good sort of way.
Their answer to your question will mostly be, "Umm.. I don't know." But then they pop up an instant smile, and say, "Come behind me Ma'am."
Most of the times, you find the things before they do, but then they are their with you making you feel helped.

And there is one more reason why I like supermarkets so much. Because you never know whom you might stumble onto.
Sometimes a kid stuck weirdly between two trolleys, or an elderly couple trying to figure out their food menu for the week. And then there are some sweet annoying knowledge giving people, who tell you that when you use the same cover for muffins and detergent, the muffins might smell like detergent too!

I guess my 'real' reason would be... endless possibilities! 

Prayer

The boy sheepishly looked at his mother and then in his pocket. The pocket that was now bulging out, had a small plastic container filled with soap water. He touched his pocket, and earnestly looked at his mother and patted his pocket. His mother in turn glared and shook her head sideways. His face saddened and he came close to his mother and held her arms. 

Holding a piece of paper and a pen, I started to scribble, and the mother told her son, "Shh! Don't disturb, see she is writing.."

 

God? if there is one like you,

In the moments of silence and in the joyless pain,

I come close to you time and again.

Yet as I wait for you patiently as I can,

Lurking through the darkest nights, 

I stand tired and tanned.

Then, there is just a simple wish or call it a constant prayer,

That come what may I never end the search I have began.

Let me find you in simple things, and not in the comforts I please.

In the eyes of an innocent or curious minds indeed!

Even when I am showered with happiness and riches,

Help me see you behind the doors of the poor and pained.

Give me the strength to find you in spite of experience and age,

Even when I am the oldest of old, remind me I am no wiser

Than the child born today.

Yet in the end of the day when you find me hopeless in vain,

And decide its time now to remove your veil,

I pray to you oh! so sincerely,

That don't consider me weak.

For in your arms I shall merely die,

Otherwise I live!

In the Sister Land...

"Bidya... Are you fine? I had a bad dream about you." 

Thou hast made me known to friends whom I knew not.
Thou hast given me seats in homes not my own.
Thou hast brought the distant near and made a brother of the stranger. 

I am uneasy at heart when I have to leave my accustomed shelter;
I forget that there abides the old in the new,
and that there also thou abidest. 

Rabindranath Tagore

Bombay Lights

A cluttered house...

  Ah! those nosy neighbors...

 A day out in the city...

 With all those endless subjects...

 Including the kids flying kites!

 All in the scorching heat!

Along with the endless horizon...







 And looking out from the window ... I figured it all..

Bombay Lights it is!

A conversation

Earthquake hits Japan on 11th March 2011, followed by a 10 meter Tsunami wave. While I mostly remained numb and nonchalant about the disaster, a conversation that was somewhere buried inside started surfacing, bringing in images I had never seen.

I sit holding my writing pad, in which my datasheets are struggling, for the wind from the sea is hard. I try to concentrate on the couple of fishermen who are playing cards after their days work. I clear my throat and interrupt their conversation,
"So, do you think there has been any change in the fish catch after Tsunami?"
There is the standard answer which most researchers get, "Tsunami took everything from us. Now even the fishes have become scarce. It is all due to Tsunami!"

Gazing into the past one of them started telling me, "You know Madam, just a few days before Tsunami hit the coast of Tamilnadu, I sat just like this with my friends playing cards. I don't remember what we were talking about, but someone asked, which element of nature would be so dangerous as to destroy the earth?"


"I thought for a while and told them, it should be water. The sea which gives life has the strength to take it too. And just after that came this huge wave splashing on us, taking away whatever we called our future. In one minute we lost everything. And everyone called it Tsunami. We came to know it then, that there was something called Tsunami."


"For all we knew is that the sea was our mother. Each day she gave us our food. All we know is the sea. But after the Tsunami we understood her strength. The one that gives us life can take it too."


That respect for the strength of nature from an illiterate yet experienced man, still baffles me...

Tea-ho-lism

I should have realized this long back, but I ignored it all the way long.

As I left Dementor behind and ran towards my usual tea fellow, I was feeling a lack of enthusiasm for the day. Dementor later told me, “You are addicted to tea! This is not good. What will happen if you don’t have your morning cup of tea?”

I was cheerful after having my tea, so I gleefully answered, “I can’t work, will just feel sleepy.”

I blindly ignored what came next from Dementor, though this time I didn’t have an earphone to plug in.

But the day I decided to quit my early morning tea, is when I realized that I was a Tea-ho-lic!

I would have had a healthy breakfast, ample water and yet as I started the day’s work, I would feel a certain kind of dullness, some drowsiness. Something constantly told me, ‘I don’t feel fresh!’

Each time I cross the tea shop close to my bus stop, my legs long to turn towards the shop. I know, I can’t dare go in, even with an excuse of reading the newspaper, for the shop owner knows my weakness and would coax me with a cup of tea.

So, I started thinking, when did it really start?

It was probably when I entered the small tea shop outside my college in the interiors of Tamilnadu, that I first got hooked on to tea. It’s more than tea actually. It’s about the owner, his family, the ambience of the shop, and his usual customers that makes my day ‘fresh’!

I remember sitting in the shop of Siddharkovil, a village situated along the highway connecting Nagapattinam. I knew the tea shop owner very well. And so did I know his wife, and their two children; a young girl and an elder son, who was still in college. They had a set of usual customers, which included old men, kicked out by their daughter-in-laws, to old sages who in their search for nirvana, had settled with begging and usual woman folk who at times took a snack break. Every conversation is interesting here, no matter what the topic is about. And moreover, I found a great deal of local information; the weather, local political situation, village gossip, views about the outside world, so on and so forth. I have sat in these shops gulping tea after tea, not for the mere taste of tea, but for my interest in people and their views.

Then, my early mornings used to start with a cup of tea and couple of aged men for company smoking heavy cigars made locally. It gave a nice smoky ambiance to the place, though mostly I choked to its effect. If I were lucky, a group of wedding or ceremony attendees would folk in, and the so far dull conversation about the milk price and the amount spent on rearing a cow, would turn into cheerful gossip about who was getting married to whom, or how the girl looks too aged for the boy!

Life is constantly active in here, though for the outside world it might be rather dull. There is some amount of activeness that comes from the owner’s pet, which I can’t ignore. Some times a cat eerily shadowing the room, and at times giant dogs sleeping under the table, to hen that pecks under your feet, and surely not forgetting the lazy goats! They just make the whole picture complete.

All this matters so much that, when I finally went to one of the tea states of India; Assam, I didn’t quite enjoy the aroma or taste of black tea, which gave an aftermath of stained teeth! And realizing that I can adjust with coffee under circumstances, I don’t understand my addiction. Though given a choice, I would prefer to make my own tea, with the same tea powder and the exact precision of the tea and milk, with a tinge of ginger for flavor.

Looking back on my exercise in learning to make ‘my perfect’ tea, the company I had had while drinking the tea, and the endless conversations with people strange and common, friends and foes; I have come to believe… that tea is just my excuse!

Just another old labourer...

In the early morning mist, he sits on the wobbly looking wooden bench and waits for the owner to open the grocery shop. A look at him would make one imagine his age to be crossing the late 60's. His cheeks were sunken, probably because there were no teeth to support them. Even his eyes looked heavy with a sort of crowded numbness towards the world. 

Each day, as I stood waiting for the school bus, I got a glimpse of his early morning routine. This aged man, I found out, worked as a laborer in a grocery shop that was situated in an almost unknown village called Thenur in Palakkad district. Each morning he would ride his cycle and come to the shop, and would muse to himself during his waiting periods. I have never actually seen him in any sort of conversation with anyone.

As soon as the shop owner opens, this old man, gets ready for the days work, carrying and arranging the vegetables for the customers. It came to my notice almost on the first day that, for his old age he had had a physique that any young man would crave for. With absolutely no fat bodies hanging around his arms or necks, its admirable to observe the shaped muscles that forms his biceps!

This scenario of his everyday trivia is just a prelude to, what I would say my favorite part of his day.

 When he finishes work with the vegetables, he drags a stool and settles himself cross legged on it. With his dhoti pulled over his knees, one can hardly ignore the toned calf muscles. And just out of nowhere, a big male dog appears near him and looks over his face. Probably this dog was in the same place the whole time, but together, the old man and the big male dog come across as rather 'enlightened' companions, who could ignore the world around them in each others company. 
Satisfied with a meager touch of affection, the dog settles himself close to the his legs, giving a deep yawn.  
Life is still, life is slow here, in a village. Probably the old man and the dog never will understand the meaning of the much overrated word, 'busy' and yet life goes on...

The old man pulls out a beedi (local cigar) and lights it up with a matchstick. 
There is a sense of freedom in those pair of aged eyes, that I admire each time I see him smoke. It is the freedom that is not from the smoke that has clouded his head, but rather from the head that irrespective of the clouding smoke, remains free...

For all I know, this could well be my clouded imagination. But I would certainly like to believe in the freedom that a rugged old man enjoys!