The Washing Machine saga and votes

What is 8 times @Rs 2000? , He asked with a smile on his face. I promptly told him the answer and his smile got bigger. I asked him, Bittu why such a big smile?

He answered and said, Bhabhiji, I would sell my vote along with that of my family members for at least this much. And, in this way I can replace my washing machine. It is not working and it’s causing a lot of inconvenience to us in this cold. I was amazed, here the papers were full of write –ups, short clips were being made and the voter was being told to use his vote judiciously and not to sell it to the highest bidder for cash or kind. I actually saw the clip that was posted by one of the DC ‘s to spread awareness sin one of the closely watched elections of all times.

Punjab is in the midst of its fiercest, ugliest triangular battle that gets shriller by the day. My own village has couples not talking to each other since the last election; AAP drove the wedge between the marital bliss of our local shopkeeper and his wife. She is a die -hard Akali worker and he is a jharoo supporter and well rest is history for this month.

The public has the shortest memory, they do not count what you have done for them, the visits to pilgrimages, the atta dal or the free units of water or electricity or the shagun schemes, it is one pension that they didn’t get or one street that wasn’t made wipes off the slate.

The congress tries to cash in and sell the anti incumbency platform, saying that the previous government has looted the state and they will change the farmer, usher in industrialization, bring in a revolution and also wave a magic wand and wipe off the debt we face. The turncoats who crossed parties get shriller and the dramatics of their words and the expressions are worthy of the finest Shakespearean drama and I am reminded of the Bard who said ‘ all the world’s a stage and all the men and woman playing a part.

In our case Punjab is living it to the hilt. We have singers, actors, politicians, sportsmen, army officials; teachers all set to convince the voter to vote for them.

The broom party that plans to sweep, clean our state out of drugs, give the youth jobs has promised the latest revolution and his trump card is to give the Dalit an identity.

I think that is the worst form, to cash into a personal’s identity and to manipulate and cause divisions is the worst .to divide and to stir up emotions and then to deepen the lines is wrong and the worst form. He tries to evoke the blood of the revolutionary Punjabi that flows in us by merely wearing the yellow turban but these kind of fakes, oily salesman selling utopia merely are given one chance and then they fade into oblivion.

I am also wondering with the current demonetization how the politician is going to finance the election.

Its evening time, and as the canvassers come back home and all they talk about is the freebies given and the grudges they have against each other is why the other got the toilet made first and why hers was later or the fact that she hasn’t been given pension in spite of having three acres of agricultural land!

It’s a land of plenty. We have everything and we just crib about everything, it’s like the pot is brim full and water is spilling and we don’t want to turn off the tap.

The press is full of drugs and the pandemic and the falling water table, the fact that we have no industry but all we worry is about the comic characters we have who mud sling and the war is on who shouts the maximum and is the loudest.

To leave a message for the next generation is just to wear the whitest kurta pajama, with the sign of the party and to bad mouth the other! Some just calculate how much they can make by the 4^th. 

Its easy peasy and free money, in exchange for the inedible ink that fades away into oblivion. A people that elect corrupt politicians are not victims…. but accomplices. (George Orwell)

How can I explain to my cook that it’s a domino effect? He sets the wheels in motion, but how many of us can stop it ? The wheels of time will alone tell.Maybe getting a Pink Gandhi is the safest , he is being any ways booted out of the calendars and maybe in this way I could show my solidarity to the Million Woman march too .

The Short Obituary

One of the finest of the state passed away, a true gentleman and an extraordinary human being, a nationalist and a true son of the soil of Punjab. I did not know him personally nor have I ever met him but always read about him being the soft spoken, gentleman in politics and well we all know about his journey. What makes me sad, is the few lines of obituary written about him in the papers and the last lines being that now the Barnala dynasty is not fighting any elections in the forthcoming Punjab Dangal.

Is one just reduced to this? It could be any one, and the long journey is just summed up in a few words and if you’re lucky they might write a long paragraph for you. All our lives we strive to achieve a lot, from the day on one is born our parents, grand parents start dreaming for us, planning and chalking out a future for us. The journey starts with getting admission in the right school, striving for the perfect grades and then getting admission in the best university and making a career with money, laurels and the most important fitting into what the society tags as successful. This according to me is the worst trap of all. The tags are what trap us, weigh us and shackle us.

This path is strewn with one getting stuck again in the same cycle as one’s parents, wife, children and dreaming about success, fame for them. What do we come on this earth for? Why do we take birth? What is karma? Is our existence so cheap, that we are born, live an inconsequential life and we die and that is it and we are then photographed and hung on the wall, with a garland around us.

Ninety percent of the time, one is spoken about in crying, kind tones for a week or so and then life takes over. The trend these days change is to making a remembrance pages that sees a flurry of activity in the first month or so and that also ultimately dies a virtual death. Some kind people make a whatsapp group to remember the departed soul and to reminisce about him or her but in the fact it is more to be worried about one’s own mortality. We go through the routine tests to check our parameters and then take action all to prolong our lives on earth.

Why are we so fickle? Why do we not learn, from the dying? Isn’t, death the best teacher? We fight, strive, to collect material possessions, money, position, power and accumulate more and more money to fill a greed or need that has no answer or limit but is fanned by more and more luxuries!

I could go on and on about this, but today finds me gloomy about the purpose of life. The giants have gone, and they all leave behind great shadows and imprint. But, do we learn from them? They also came, lived extraordinary lives and surrendered to the success of the nation and state.

Today makes me think what would be my obituary? I think coffee and books and as they say she was an aflatoon.

Imagine, three words and that sums up your life . Have you pondered what yours is ? It’s nice to do some soul-searching and unmask what defines you . Maybe , that would help in changing us all .

My beeji

The sidetable still was pristine and in order, the faint lingering fragrance of Boroline in the characteristic green and cream color lingered in the air reminding me o. Her Johnson’s tube and her comb, still lay there. Her pillow in pristine white embroidered gently with rose buds still was kept there. My grandmother loved subtle embroidery and my cousin embroidered her cream chunni and her suits in the same fashion. Her style of the pre –partition era still was classy as ever and resonated charm in her golden baalis and her one single bangle she wore just the way Sardaarji liked it.

My grandmother or my beeji passed away many years ago but for me that simple lady with her wrinkled face and her open arms was the place where I got comfort and I felt at peace.

Since my childhood, I was their favorite. The complete acceptance, the love and surrender to her and her warmth have been my cornerstone. Beeji was, a small diminutive lady, a wife of a politician who was married at an early age, not allowed to wear make –up or lipstick as he didn’t like it, but she used her daatun to redden her lips. Her stories regaled my childhood, the way she used to softly touch my forehead and she would keep on saying that I needed to be less livelier and spend a little less money. But ,I was the one who got her money to buy what I needed the most my books.

Beeji loved her glass of cold drink and some mitha for Sardaarji as she made my mother and aunt do this for her all the time. She was my darling and even the years might have gone by, but I still miss her with an ache that hasn’t dulled or diminished. Time is not the biggest healer nor does it fill the void. Her eyes behind the glasses were always full of love, and they twinkled. I always used to say if Beeji had been educated she would have been the real politician than my grandfather. Sadness still lingers in my heart because the love of a grandmother is not unquestionable, its not challenged nor can it be measured. She never had any expectations from anyone except pure love.

How do you take comfort from the words , that say oh it will be get better? What gets better? We just get involved in our lives and the humdrum routines trying to eke out an existence but that acceptance and love where they just love you never comes back and I miss it.

All my cousins would ask her why I was her favorite , she would just say I was. This is my most precious moment, to be someone’s without any questions is what makes us complete.

All our lives as we grow through childhood, we constantly try to measure to a ghostly framework made for us, outlined by society that has no grey but is so stark in black and white that one gets tired trying to fill the large footprints.

As a woman, one gets tested, tried way too many times and it’s a constant upheaval and a battle sometimes and sometimes yes, it’s a cakewalk. But life does not wait for anyone and that is the saddest fact.

I wish I had more time with her, and that I think all of us feel  the same way, one more hug , one more kiss on her cheek and one more time to paint her nails , one more time to brush her hair and to make a snow white bun .

In the early nineties, when television had just started , we had a new series that we all watched the Bold and Beautiful which was scandalous at that time , and she and I used to watch it with so much attention and she would understand all of it and then make all sorts of unapologetic remarks that would have everyone in splits ! Her frankness, modern approach to life made her more modern than the educated old fashioned, narrow bigots of today..

I could go on and on, but the fact is treasure what you have, make time for them and the virtual life we all live in is not what its all about. Take out time to reach out to your loved ones and make the telephone call , and better still hug them . They live in us , yes but the ache remains.

 Love ,

A granddaughter who misses her grand ma .

Colors of Life

She didn’t want the dark chocolate sweater; her mother had forced it on her because it was warm and practical. It made her look one color, dark and black. It was her curse to be born so dark in a state that kept on harping and kept a high value over white, fair skin. How was she ever going to win Ranjan?

She wanted to marry him, set up home and never go back to Bihar.

Nothing seemed to work for her; she worked as a maid and didn’t know how to attract him. Beena was a diminutive young girl happily renamed as Nikki as thousands of young girls were called in rural Punjab. Whatever be the size or the age or the color they were called Nikki fondly, maybe it was arrogance on the part of the Punjabis as they couldn’t be bothered to call them by their names or it was just a way to make them theirs, they called them Nikki. I guess it was love, and affection and a reason to embrace them as their own. However, Nikki was growing finally from the four feet something to four and five inches but she was growing in years and age and not in height. She knew who wanted what and where everything was kept in the household. She also knew about every temperament and about every one’s mannerism. She was the subtle thermometer gauge in the house, and kept everyone smiling, catering to all and sundry. Nikki’s morning smiles and her salutation started the day and she was like a little butterfly making smiles and giving them.

Beena didn’t see what she was, all she knew she was dark and black and she cursed the day she was born. The village shopkeeper had convinced her that if she could spare money for a tube and if she applied it over a period of time, she could lighten her skin color.

Beena diligently kept on saving money over the months to buy the angrezi tube and not let her family members know about, she knew that getting the tube would be magical and she could lighten her skin.

Her dreams did come true coupled with Santoshi Ma’s fast that she kept regularly every Thursday and the application of the tube, Ranjan started looking at her.

He smiled a bit; she made sure she was out in the lawn when he came to give some stuff inside. The quickening of the smiles, the catching of the glance, the meetings of the hearts, made life seem better. Her life had taken a turn all was looking good.

After talking one day on the sly, they made plans to meet outside in the field the next Sunday. She thought about nothing else, but she knew she had to wear eye catching clothes, a brighter sweater, shawl and she thought she would wear silver earrings and her anklets that made the merriest sound!

And, she planned to take jalebis with her self when she went to meet him. Anything , to counter the dark skin of hers. Sunday dawned, and she got ready, washed her hair, made it in to a pony tail and she wore her anklets, left the cardigan away wrapping her shawl around her small body and she walked the unlevelled path to the far away fields.

She waited for him there with her offering, and he came there with smiles and started talking to her and before she knew it, she was ambushed by a few of his friends.

The next day she was recognized by her mother’s shawl that she had sneaked away to look pretty.

No one knew what had happened or who had done this act but on the pyre at least she wore a new sweater courtesy of the people she worked for her.  Death was kinder to her.  

Hand of faith

He sat hunched, spirit broken. His head lay, in between his legs, and everything seemed grey, his clothes, his turban all of it seemed sepia toned color after countless washings. The only thing that stood out in sharp contrast was his white beard. He was born a Punjabi, but sadly was defined as a Muslim by his religious identity today.

The last time he had ever visited a mosque must have been when he was a toddler taken by his father and his uncle’s for his formal name keeping ceremony. Ever since that day, the country had been divided, his family was here and some were there and it didn’t matter to him. Life had embroiled him in his circle and he kept on living day by day caught up in between wife and children and birth and death. Where did he ever have time for Allah? God had taken a back seat.

Aziz was in shock, his entire life played in front of him, like a film reel and never had his name been a problem when he partook langar in the Gurudwara. No one had ever stopped him for entering and eating langar. In fact the last  Bhaiji who was his friend made sure he got his share of Prasad in the morning every sangrand.

Today was gurpurab, and Guru Gobind Singh ji’s birthday and he had thought he would go and take his langar there with the rest of the villagers . All human beings have the same eyes, the same ears, the same body composed of earth, air, fire and water. The names Allah, and Abekh are of the same God; recognize ye the whole human race as one. Guru Gobind Singh.

That was what he had been taught by masterji and now these radical, free thinkers, custodians of modern day fundamentalist religion questioned him once just over his name.

His snide remarks made him think, and he was made to realize that he was different. Did they come to know from his turban? Was his beard cut differently? Who was a Sikh or who was a Muslim? Where did the lines come in the forefront? How on the day of commemorating the birth of the warrior saint soldier, poet who saved humanity and let it flourish by all his acts ,was he being questioned?

Wasn’t being human more important or was it just a phrase coined for marketing gimmickry? Aziz , sat , tears rolled down his eyes and he felt his years now. The years sat heavy on his shoulders and he felt old. Life had dealt him partition, division, births, young deaths, separations, property disputes and riots , and countless things and the latest demonetization where his old pension was also withheld ; the sarpanch failed to get money out from the bank in the long serpentine queues.

Nothing had affected him, but being questioned just because his name was Muslim,had shaken him . To be set apart, by young boys who he had seeing born and were now sprouting flowing beards proclaiming a stronger claim to being a sikh. A sikh was a person who was a seeker of truth and that’s what he had been all his life , working with the villagers to make the gurudwara , tilling the land and even building it .

Tears rolled down his grizzled, wrinkled cheeks and he wondered , and wondered , when a small hand touched him.

He looked up and a little girl asked him what was the matter?

She took his hand and asked him to come along and she took him inside to the gurudwara , talking in a sweet gentle tone that all human beings were equal and the word langar had come into existence just because everyone should sit together irrespective of caste , creed , color and social standing.

He followed her, with eyes blurred with tears , a smile forming and as he sat down it seemed as if he was at peace.

Last , he could hear was a sound of someone shouting Babaji , uttho  and then calm.

Infact , humanity reposed faith once again.