Bored in the Skies

Tweet

I was on the flight to Bombay from Kuwait... was bored and wanted to avoid conversation with my co-passenger... iPad to the rescue. :D

Painted this on the iPad on the app Procreate with my fingers (didn't have a stylus at the time.)

Was exporting my images from the iPad to the PC when I remembered about it. :)

Keep Safe: A Few Tips

Tweet

I had recently posted about a meeting with the Senior Inspector at the local police station and how he engaged us in a chat session where he gave us a few tips to keep us alert and hence safe in some common daily situations.

I am listing the tips here since all of you may not be lucky enough to have a considerate police officer in your area.

Most of the tips are rooted in common sense and logic, yet a lot of us choose to ignore them and on someday a criminal takes advantage of our ignorance and cynicism. The tips which we were given were to generally prevent or reduce break-ins and thefts and incidents of petty crimes such as pick-pocketing and chain-snatching.

Some tips for when you are out of the house:

• Be aware of your surroundings.
• While walking on the road, do not be so totally lost in thoughts or on the cell-phone that you do not notice danger to yourself and your possessions until it is too late.
• Indian women love to wear expensive jewellery and most of them love to flaunt it. Well, it does not make sense to buy jewellery and keep it locked up at home. Wear it for sure. And flaunt it too. But, use a bit of logic and show it off only in a surrounding where you are sure that it would not attract unsavoury attention. A wedding or a party or get-together or even for a visit to a dear friend’s place may be fine times to get all decked up and bask in the sparkle… but while you are getting to the destination try as much as possible to cover up stuff of value especially when you are using public transport or while walking on the road. Tempting fate might not be a bright idea when your life could be at stake.
• It is best to walk on the footpath wherever there is one. When out with a male companion, women should avoid walking on the side closer to the road. When you have your male companion in a position between you and the road, a chain snatcher on a bike or bicycle would find it quite a task to reach the chain on your neck.
• As far as possible, walk on the side of the road where the traffic is facing you. This could give you valuable seconds when you sense mischief from someone like a chain snatcher who would inevitably be on a bike or bicycle. It is safer to avoid walking on the edge closer to the road at all times.
• When you park your vehicle on the road or in a parking lot, do not leave valuables in the car. This is common sense which most of us know and yet ignore. Even if you have absolutely nothing of value in your purse / wallet / briefcase / backpack, etc., do not leave them in the car. You would know that there is nothing of any value in it but a thief would be tempted just the same to break into your car.
• When you are out on errands with high value such as picking up cash from the bank, do not try and club a multitude of other mundane chores with it which would require you to leave your vehicle unattended, especially if the said valuables cannot be carried on your person.
• Even when you just step out of the car for a smoke or to buy a bottle of mineral water from the roadside tapri (shack-shop) be sure to roll up the windows and lock the car.

Tips for when you are inside the house:

• Most of us reside in apartments which are crowded 2 to 4 on a floor… yet we are all confined to our own lives. There is no reason to leave the entrance door open even if your building has guards, especially when there is no one in the room to keep an eye on the door.
• A lot of us tend to be careless within the house in the smug knowledge and comfort of the fact that we are home and home is a safe haven.  It is not completely wrong to be a little relaxed at home but absolute and regular carelessness could result in trouble… for example, routinely leaving jewellery out in the open around the house could incite a maid to flick it after the nth temptation.
• Doors these days are not safe with a padlock alone. In fact, if the police are to be believed (and why should they not be) then a locked door is a signal to a thief / robber that you are away from home and they have a chance to break-in. So what should we do in such a case? Well, there are a couple of things that can be done.

1. Do not use a visible lock. Instead use one of those godown locks / heavy duty Mortise locks with the huge keys which require you to turn the tumbler some 8-16 times to open it. The lock part is on the part of the door inside the house and all that can be seen from outside is a key-hole. Also, safety latches are safer where they are not accessible from without the house.
2. Install a safety door. It adds that extra layer of protection and is a back-up for those times when you have been careless enough to leave your entrance door open. Again, avoid the ordinary visible padlock on it.

• The peep-hole and the latch-chain on the doors are there for a reason. Use them.
• Make sure that all the latches and locks are engaged before you retire for the night. Early in the morning, if you open the door for the milkman and the newspaper-waalah and then decide to catch a few more winks, then do lock the door again. Similarly, if you plan to sleep in the afternoon, then the locks of the entrance door are safer engaged.
• In almost every city and town, it is usual to have the milkman bring you milk in the morning and the newspaper-man gets you your daily. When we go on a vacation, these services are not needed for the period. The general step people take is to stick a note on the entrance door asking the milk and paper to be stopped for the period of your absence. So now a prospective thief or robber has the exact period of time of your absence and time enough to plan and pull off a major heist. In this age of cell phones, all you need to do is call up the milkman or the newspaper service and let them know that you would like to stop their services temporarily or until further notice.
• Before a vacation or trip, if you have large amount of cash and valuables in the house then either they should be deposited in a locker if you have one or packed safely and given over to the custody of a friend or relative whom you can trust. Some banks have a safe-deposit system where valuables can be safely kept for short periods, probably with a fee and provided you have an account with the said bank.
• In the house, make it a habit to lock the doors of the wardrobes and cupboards where you keep valuables and especially when you leave on a trip, lock them and take the keys with you instead of leaving them on top of the cupboard or under the pillow. Do not keep keys ‘hidden’ in places which are common knowledge to everyone since ages... Under the pillow is one such place.

These tips are some of the basic steps we can follow for our own immediate safety. The cop had a lot more tips but the time did not permit an elaborate discussion on all of it. He offered us the opportunity to call him for a lengthy discussion if an audience could be arranged. That is nice and responsible of him.

Another important thing he told us and which I have also mentioned in my previous post is that we as citizens should not shirk from assisting the law-keepers as far as possible. A simple thing like shouting loud to attract attention if we see someone committing a crime can scare the criminal away. Notifying the nearest police-station is an even better idea.

Hope these tips help all of us be that much safer. Crime may not be totally wiped out by just these steps, but the rate of crime would take a hit with both the citizens and cops alert and working in tandem.

World Record Week

Tweet

The entrance to the pooram grounds (clicked by my brother)

The last week has been mighty hectic. It was also loads of fun. And I got myself in to the Guinness Book of World Records. Yeeaah!

To be a bit more precise… me and around 2700 other ladies literally danced our way into the record books. The feat was enabled by the Mumbai Pooram foundation which organizes a yearly Arts & Cultural festival, the largest of its kind outside Kerala in Bombay. This festival is based on lines similar to the temple festivals (pooram) of the state of Kerala… the most famous of the poorams being the Thrissur Pooram held on the temple grounds of Vadakkunathan Kshetram with the temples of Parmekkavu Bhagavathi and Thiruvambady SriKrishna participating. Although the main deity of the Thiruvambady temple is Lord Krishna, the deity participating in the pooram is Thiruvambady Bhagavathi. Bhagavathi is a representation of the Hindu goddess Parvati, the consort of Lord Shiva (the deity of the Vadakkunathan temple.)

Though, the Mumbai Pooram is a celebration of the pooram culture of the temples of Kerala… it is not a religious festival. It is a showcase for the art and culture of Kerala and a platform to unite the Malayalis who have chosen to live their lives outside Kerala. It is a festival that brings the colour and pageantry of the vibrant pooram right in to their busy city lives.

This year, the major attraction of Mumbai Pooram was the world record attempt by 2700 female dancers performing the Kaikottikali / Thiruvathirakali dance art of Kerala. This form of dance is performed by women on the occasions of Onam or Thiruvathira. The dance is performed with the lasya (beauty and grace) element dominating the movements and expressions of the dancers. The typical formation for the dance is a circle of women around a nilavillakku (a ceremonial brass lamp) or a pookalam (a floral design) or a combination of both. The hand movements are languid and the bodies sway in a fluid motion in clockwise and / or anti-clockwise directions. The rhythmic movements of the dancers are given more importance than the hand mudras.

On the 9th of November 2012, a bevy of around 2700 ladies gathered at the KDMC grounds in Dombivli to perform this graceful dance in a special, never attempted before numbers. We had the Guinness Book Of World Records’ officials presiding over the event to ensure that the dance met their precise standards to ensure a place in the record books. The performance was scheduled for 6:30 PM and all the ladies had reached the venue by 4:30 PM, decked in the traditional Kerala attire consisting of off-white handloom cotton sarees or set-mundu with gold brocade borders and red silk blouses, with hair tied up in buns adorned with fragrant jasmine blooms, with kaash-maala / lakshmi-maala (a long necklace made of gold coins) and gold bangles, earrings and anklets.

After a long wait of about one and a half hours whilst which we were served cutting chai, the Guinness officials arrived to start taking a head-count of the dancers. Arranging 2700 dancers to be counted within the grounds when it was already choc-a-bloc with spectators might not have been an easy task… though the organizers could have done a much better and faster job if they had tried a bit harder. The dancers ended up waiting until 8:45 PM for the officials to finish counting them… all this time, we did not have a place to sit and were standing barefoot on the gravely ground. Let me tell you, it is not a pleasant experience to be standing without any food except a few Parle-G biscuits for about 5 hours… with the performance still looming ahead. Quite obviously, with the kind of exhaustion that had set in a few girls fainted… and I think one of the girls could not even be part of the performance. After the officials counted us… we were guided into the formation which took another half hour. Finally by 9:15 PM we were all ready in concentric circles, 18 in number.

The Guinness officials had informed us that any dancer who gave up before 5 minutes of dancing or who rested for over 5 minutes while dancing would be disqualified from the record attempt and their count deducted from the total. It was a scary prospect because the 5 long hours had exhausted the women… some of whom were really old and all of whom were above 13 years of age. Once, the guru-vandanam started, we were infused with a bit more life even though the limbs of most of us were too stiff with the waiting. When the singers started the song… all pains and aches and stiffness was forgotten and we all danced… and danced with as much perfection as we could muster. The performance lasted some 20 minutes… and by the end of it we all took a bow full of hope and anticipation… which later became a bow of triumph as we were informed that we indeed made it into the record books… the largest Kaikottikalli performance in the world.

Since, I was one of the dancers, I had to leave the photography to the professionals. Here is a lovely pic of the formation just before the dance started taken by freelance photographer Veeraj Nair (you can see more awesome pics at his blog.)

That's me!

Here are a few pics of the event my brother clicked.

The Vashi group... can anyone spot me?

A decorative gopurams structure which made it into the Limca Book of Records

Waiting for the Guinness Officials

The gopurams starting to light up

Standing in queues to be counted

The ground being prepared for the formation

The gopuram now completely illuminated.

Still waiting as the head-count nears completion.

The dance

The dance... continues

A formation showing unity.

The final bow.

In preparation for the event, we had daily rehearsals. Small groups of women from various localities gathered at convenient locations to practice the dance on a daily basis for the last few weeks. Our group was the Vashi group and had about 70 women in it. On 4th November 2012, there was a rehearsal at the venue which saw some 1500 of us attending. A few pics from the rehearsal.

A snapshot from the Times Of India

Bachchpann Ke Din

Tweet

The timeline post of yesterday got me thinking about my bachchpann ke din. Those lovely days of all fun and just a li’l bit of academics (there was no escaping that… ever.)

For some reason, I got really good grades in school and didn’t really have to put in much effort… was pretty lucky that way. This had a great advantage… my teachers in school thought I could do no wrong and that pretty much gave me the license to be quite naughty (not bad… just fun-loving). At home I was always a good girl… very obedient (though for some reason, mom termed my obedience as rebellion). But then, there is no cure for the Mom Logic!

Those really were the days… not a care in the world… except dodging the occasional school test or two… and the abhorred sports-day. I hated sports… especially, the ones I had to participate in. I love watching sports… but that’s another story. I despised athletic meets and the P.E. periods in school where the teachers expected us to do disciplined physical activity. I didn’t really have anything against physical activity… I loved climbing trees and walls… rarely took the normal road to school and back… used every shortcut I could experiment with, loved to trek the nearby hills and wooded paths. I loved the games we played… Lagori (Eleven tiles), Dodge-Ball, Dog and the Bone, Hopscotch, Four Square, Save Dolly… and so many others we had invented on the go.

Life in the colony (Anushaktinagar) was one big vacation trip… every day was leisurely for us kids. Beautifully laid out, with stately old tree lined avenues, lush lawns and flower-beds, hills on one side, the sea on one side, thick woods on the third; the colony has well-planned building (apartment) complexes and some 17 high-rises. It has a multitude of play-grounds and open spaces… and for a gated residential township it is one of the largest in Asia.

Our Little Paradise - Anushaktinagar

The summer holidays in the colony were delightful. It never would have mattered if I didn’t get to go on a vacation trip anywhere else. There was fun and then there was adventure to be had right there. The daytime would be spent with my nose buried in some novel and the afternoons were spent outdoors… playing with the friendly neighborhood strays, stealing the spiced mango & kokum laid out in the sun to be dried for pickling, climbing up the wild-cherry trees (I still have no clue what they really were) and the hundreds of mango trees for unripe mangoes (which we would eat with masala made by the neighborhood chai-aunty), building shelters of slate-tiles (multistoried… no less) for the stray cats and dogs and decorating them with wild flowers and electronic waste! The more leisurely days were spent playing board games… carom, Monopoly™, Scrabble™… even the Ouija board at times when we were in extremely ‘adventurous’ moods. Evenings were for some cricket or dodge-ball and the late evenings for sit-down games like Passing the Parcel, Chinese Whispers, Antaakshari or Dumb Charades. Sometimes, the evenings demanded long winding walks around the colony and a visit to the in-house cemetery… after which followed a discussion on the paranormal and exchange of ghost stories until our folks would call us from the windows (and that meant dinner time… well, our folks were just as happy to have us out of their hair for so long).

The winter holidays were equally fun even considering the fact that Bombay does not have much of a winter. The colony was always 1-2 degrees cooler than the rest of the city… thanks to the green blanket. One of the major events was finding a Christmas tree… of course, there were no conifers available… the closest we got were the Casuarina trees… the twigs of which we would break off and tie together in a way that there was never the remotest resemblance to a Christmas tree (Wasn’t really our fault… but they just did not have the required shape). Plastic trees were rare and not in our league. The ‘tree’ would be stuck in an old planter and kept on the first floor parapet of our building. The parapet was deep & wide enough to allow us to sit around the contraption. Almost all the decorations were hand-made… this used to be our task for the weeks before Christmas. The only adult help which we had was for putting up the lights.

After Christmas, the next event was burning the Old Man… a dummy which we made from dried twigs and grass and old clothes and newspaper… the dummy had a face made of a paper plate or sometimes it was a Santa mask (yeah… kinda evil that way). The last 4 days of the year were a frantic search for the material for the dummy and the fifth day was the making of the Old Man. On the 31^st of December, at night… the adults lit a bonfire for us and under their watchful eye we burnt the Old Man. That was meant to instill in us extremely non-violent ideologies (considering our parents always encouraged us)... or maybe that was just us preparing for the ubiquitous dummy burning protests that may or may not be required in our adult lives.

That was childhood life in the colony… simple and memorable.

Pathos Of Parting

Tweet

It is finally time… the countdown is rapidly nearing its end. The last few days… the scrambles to tie up all loose ends, to wind up things those have stretched along. Three long years eddying to a date when I’ll board the plane back to Bombay. Much loved Bombay.

Yet, there is that tug at my heart… a sadness that overwhelms… something beautiful that had just blossomed would soon be thrown in to the backwash of the plane that takes off, effectively killing it.

The corners of my eyes are wet… a storm brewing behind the irises. There is a tremble on my lips as I say goodbye to the country I have never really loved. There’s a lump in my throat that refuses to go away when I think about the love that bloomed in this desert; which shall never find its way again in to my heart.

When I bid adieu to that love… it is an everlasting farewell… something I cannot erase even though I want to.

Parting is such sweet pain… in the anticipation that there would be a meeting in the future. But, when that hope is dead… parting is just torture.

The castles in sand that I’d painstakingly built… their halls would never be decked again. The lights are all out and the windows barred… the drawbridge pulled up and the moat’s flooded. 

Life would go on… There would still be a tomorrow… where I wake up to the cold sun.

The spring has passed… the snow falls thick… the winter deepens, darkens and freezes the moments of happiness in crystal cages.

All my bags are packed, I'm ready to go

I'm standin' here outside your door

I hate to wake you up to say goodbye

But the dawn is breakin', it's early morn

The taxi's waitin', he's blowin' his horn

Already I'm so lonesome I could die

So kiss me and smile for me

Tell me that you'll wait for me

Hold me like you'll never let me go 

'Cause I'm leaving on a jet plane

I don't know when I'll be back again

Oh, babe, I hate to go 

There's so many times I've let you down

So many times I've played around

I'll tell you now, they don't mean a thing

Every place I go, I think of you

Every song I sing, I sing for you

When I come back I'll wear your wedding ring

So kiss me and smile for me

Tell me that you'll wait for me

Hold me like you'll never let me go 

'Cause I'm leaving on a jet plane

I don't know when I'll be back again

Oh, babe, I hate to go 

Now the time has come to leave you

One more time, oh, let me kiss you

And close your eyes and I'll be on my way 

Dream about the days to come

When I won't have to leave alone

About the times, I won't have to say... 

Oh, kiss me and smile for me

Tell me that you'll wait for me

Hold me like you'll never let me go 

'Cause I'm leaving on a jet plane

I don't know when I'll be back again

Oh, babe, I hate to go

Of Heartaches And Homesickness...

Tweet

It has been eleven months since I have landed in Kuwait… and I have survived. Doesn’t sound like much of an achievement, does it? I know it doesn’t, but to me it is. From the hustle and bustle, the happening life of Mumbai to a much laid back lifestyle in Kuwait, it has been a herculean task to adjust…And no… I am yet to find that much needed equilibrium.

For an outsider it would seem to be a joke if I say that life in Kuwait is not fun. What lacks? Don’t we have everything here… loads of dispensable money, everything money can buy and more. Hmmm… yeah, we have all that here... but yet, I miss the pulse of life here. The excitement that is there even in the mundane when I am in Mumbai… that heartbeat of a city which keeps it alive is missing here. You find a tiny bit of that in Kuwait City, but it is no match for what I am accustomed to.
But, this ain’t a crib-fest against Kuwait; rather it is the pining of my heart for my home, my Mumbai! It just happens that when anyone points out one awesome thing after the other in this beautiful desert-land; in my mind I can picture something better in Mumbai… always!

There was a time when people used to flock to the ‘Gulf’ – the term given to the Middle East, in search of its vast non-taxable riches. But now, the Gulf is in the midst of an economic slowdown…we all saw Dubai lose some of its lustre. Kuwait has never been in your face or over the top or flashy, but it still is one of the richest countries in the area and well, in the world too… somewhere in the top Ten! But, the fact that it is has more sober and subtle roots maybe the reason that it does not appeal to the young crowd or the Generation Next as we call ourselves. The religion and culture in Kuwait though not as strict as in its neighbor are still far from forgiving.

Today, in spite of the pull of money and the promise of a luxurious future I still find it extremely difficult to curb the urge to return to India, to the city of my dreams, Mumbai! And, the argument against all those who tell me that I am throwing away a bright future is that money to me is a well-balanced income which I would easily get in Mumbai and luxury to me is being in the city I love, the city of my birth and being close to my loved ones. I cannot think of a better future than settling down in the concrete jungle of Mumbai in a 3-BHK flat overlooking the at times rowdy, at times serene sea… with the music of the never sleeping city buzzing in my ears.

Mumbai trip – Dec ’09

Tweet

There is that special place in a person’s heart which stores all of his/her favorite memories, things and places they like the most, sights and sounds that please them… It is quite something when one finds a city that contains all that the special place in the heart holds.

A city that’s witness to every special memory; has every one of your favorite things; is filled with the sights and sounds that fill your senses in a beautiful way and of course, it is your favorite city – yes, that’s Mumbai / Bombay . Call it by whatever name, the city is pure magic!

One has to stay away from the city for a long period of time to actually experience the delight, the strange sense of belonging and an unexplainable joy that is experienced as the wheels of the aircraft touchdown on the tarmac at the Chatrapati Shivaji International Airport , Mumbai. I have heard it many times from my expatriate friends about how lovely that feeling is… but a first hand experience tells me that no words can do justice to that feeling - A feeling of being home.

This time in Mumbai, I found new bus-routes by the BEST and NMMT bus services – Volvo buses, extremely comfortable and convenient, a host of cab services which give the ubiquitous black & yellow taxis and the omnipresent rickshaws competition and company.

Then there are some things that never change – the roads that are always dug up – in the past the culprits were MTNL, Reliance and BMC and now it seems it is development – Metro, Monorail and Skywalks. Traffic crawls as ever it used to and it is strange that when I was residing in Mumbai, I was so used to the traffic snarls and the creeping pace that it never bothered me and now as a visitor I only find all that endearing. :)

Finally, food in Mumbai – nowhere in the world can one find the variety or the awesome taste that is found in Mumbai. The road-side dhaba with it’s cutting chai to the five star restaurants of the affluent side of the city – equally yummy and absolutely delicious.

And as sone pe suhaaga (icing on the cake) – meeting my boyfriend after years… see, Mumbai is once again witness to the most beautiful moments of my life.

Beauty... most unusual

Tweet

The horizon shows three layers... A brilliant turquoise blue sky mottled with white cotton tufts, a bluish-gray layer of thick smog, and the emerald green of the city spread beneath.

Fiery Rage

Tweet

The sky explodes in fiery vermillion as the sun sets behind the hills... The silhouetted building looks as if it rests in the center of an erupting volcano.

Wrapped in velvet

Tweet

This picture was taken from my bedroom window. It shows my secondary school and some of my neighbouring high-rises. The hills are swathed in green velvet and the mist descends slowly like a shroud... A pure example of poetic beauty in a concrete jungle like Bombay.