Another Wonderful Wedding In Pre Brexit Britain

Amongst Indians or people of Indian origin, wedding invites are first issued verbally to immediate and extended family, immediate neighbours, close friends and certain colleagues. Since planning and executing an Indian style wedding is a colossal task and people travel from far and wide, forewarned is forearmed!
Thus it was that my husband's boss and the owner of Kenya's top tea company that my husband works for, sounded him off in April itself, about his older daughter's wedding, which was to take place in August 2019, in London. I told my own daughter and her excitement ran sky high and she was determined to attend this wedding, especially as her college did not begin until the 1st of September. She knew this would be a really lavish and glamorous 'celebrity style wedding' and besides she had never visited the United Kingdom and this seemed like a golden opportunity, pun unintended of course, though one may be forgiven for thinking one has stumbled into a gold shop accidentally, while entering the venue of an Indian wedding! And into a designer sari shop too, for good measure!
There was the 'small' matter of visas and whether we would get them in time or would they be rejected, was the moot question. My husband and I had travelled to the UK twenty two years ago and so had those visas in our old passports, making it easier the second time round. But we were both eligible to apply from India and Kenya, and my daughter was eligible to apply from India, Kenya and the United Arab Emirates! The Indian travel agent was worried and advised us to apply from our countries of residence, (Kenya and UAE respectively), as applying from India could be a reason to reject them! Ultimately my daughter and husband, who were in India for a short time, ended up applying from Nairobi, while I applied from my home town, Pune. We spent a mini fortune, even though these stiff upper lipped folks entered our country so many centuries ago without a so much as a 'by your leave', we have to shell out mega bucks to get the documents to enter theirs....Oh, the expensive irony!
And so, though our visas were still in limbo, it was time to shop for this wedding while we were in India. Shopping in Nairobi would have meant we would have had no funds left to buy our tickets to London! We were invited for three major pre wedding and wedding events and so outfits and accessories (read matching purses, shoes, costume jewellery ) for every single outfit became essential. Suffice to say, at the end of all the shopping and stuffing heavy dresses into suitcases that seemed to have shrunk, my daughter declared that IF she ever got married, she would never have a destination wedding, as packing wedding outfits, even as guests, seemed an impossible task and imagine if you were the bride herself ! I'll definitely hold her to this IF and when the time comes...
After spending a few days in Nairobi, settling my son into his new academic year and teaching my Mom the ropes of handling the house, managing my house hold staff, and the 'how to' of teenage sitting the son and baby sitting the dog, taking a marathon twelve consecutive hours of compensatory classes on Skype to make up for my little holiday and participating in a Webinar as the chief speaker, finally we were on our way to London...
The hotel where we were put up was in a very beautiful part of London, at Kingston Upon Thames, and was located at the sight where hangings took place many centuries ago. That was where the original inn had come up, to accommodate people who had travelled long distances to witness the hangings... Rather gruesome but more grist to the mill for an officially qualified history buff like me! We were greeted by very thoughtful 'Welcome to our Wedding Weekend' hampers which had been placed in every room booked for the wedding. They had everything ranging from wet wipes to chocolates, snacks, safety pins, mini bottles of perfume, the ubiquitous band aids and many more things!
The most unique aspect of this wedding was that the girl is a Muslim of Indian origin, brought up in Kenya and the United Kingdom and the boy a British Jew and yet like all Indian weddings, no matter from which religion, so many of the pre wedding rituals were identical to those found all across India...And Bollywood of course effectively blurs all man made lines (yes, even the Radcliffe line!), with its milieu of songs and dances, which have become such an intrinsic part of Indian weddings.
The Mehendi or Henna painting ritual was the first formal wedding event and the bride's family mansion's garden with its colourful decoration of silk threads and a huge tent and stage which had been put up on the lawn, was the perfect backdrop for this rainbow hued event. Delicious food that felt like it had been flown in straight from India, right down to the Kulfi (Indian ice cream) and fresh betel nut leaves, hit all the right spots, with us vegetarians being sumptuously catered too as well. A little bit of traditional wedding songs and dances and the camaraderie of close family, friends and overseas guests made for a glorious day. It was the perfect way to kick start the celebration. We all queued up to get the intricate henna patterns done on our hands from the ladies especially invited for this occasion and got into the wedding mood, with the first fragrant whiff of henna!

                                That's NOT the bride and I have permission to post this pic!

The next event was the 'Sangeet' or the mega song and dance ceremony. Practice had been in full swing over the past many days and two choreographers had flown in all the way from India! There was the bridesmaids' dance, the parents of the bride dance, the parents of the groom dance, the bride's Uncles danced and finally the couple du jour danced, of course. After this the dance floor was thrown open for all the guests and as the DJ belted out the most popular dance numbers, it got transformed into a riot of colours, with even non dancers like my husband and me being pushed onto the dance floor. The popular Bollywood number from a super hit movie with the lines 'poora London thumakda' (all of London is dancing), was met with a huge roar of approval as it seemed so ironically appropriate for the occasion! The cuisine was street food from different parts of the world, with India predominating, of course, and the venue the very beautiful and historic Conservatory at Painshill in Surrey, with its lush expanse of green lawns and summer flowers in the most gorgeous of colours and the magically decorated hall and dining area...An enchanting evening, to say the least.

     The colours of Indian street food compliment the summer flowers, at the Conservatory at Painshill, Surrey. Note the delicate henna pattern on my daughter's hand!

                                               Recreating the street food scene at Painshill!

The actual wedding ceremony was a civil one followed by the grand finale, the wedding reception at the Hurlingham Club, set on forty two acres of grounds, bordering the Thames, at Fulham, touted as one of Britain's most exclusive private clubs. The waiting list for membership, we were told, is THIRTY years long! A couple of days ago, the club was in the news as Kate (the Queen's grand daughter in law) is taking private tennis lessons there and her three children are romping all over the grounds and no we did not bump into her when we were there! 

There's a time capsule buried right at the entrance of the club, adding an interesting touch of whimsy to an otherwise colonially correct establishment! I wonder what it says? Maybe it's,"No, though it's 2104 your turn for membership still hasn't come! Keep waiting...till eternity!"

After mingling around in the atrium, we were led to our pre designated tables in the spectacularly decorated grand salon. Everything matched the pink theme of the wedding invites, including the menu cards, the party favour boxes and the floral arrangements. One of the gifts in the box was a special blend of tea concocted for the new couple. A fitting touch, when your family owns one of the largest tea companies in Africa and is in the tea business in the United Kingdom too. The dinner was to be a pre plated one, with each delicious course being served to us in pre set plates, even as we listened to speeches by members of the groom's and bride's parties....A new experience for us but a very enjoyable one.

And then the dance floor was thrown open post dinner with everyone enthusiastically hitting the floor, with my daughter leading the pack...

And that finally wrapped up the wedding, our main purpose for being in the United kingdom and I'm going to need a couple of posts more to write about other important aspects of our trip! 

So bear with me,

This is the first of three..!

(When one visits Stratford Upon Avon for all things Shakespeare , which we did during this trip, I guess one starts ending a post with a rhyming couplet!)

Wedding Bells And When Nostalgia Dwells On The Banks Of The Broad Brahmaputra

This post, believe it or not, has been almost two years in the coming and, as I was reminiscing with my mother of how I almost didn't make it to the Gauhati wedding, I thought it was high time I wrote about what was a very emotionally charged time for me...
The invitation came on WhatsApp and as I had always sworn I would attend this particular wedding when it took place, I was all set to buy my airline ticket and I mentioned this to my daughter over a phone call. But my departure coincided with her arrival for her visit home from college, for the December break, for the very first time since she had left. She pleaded with me to not go, as she wanted me to churn out all her favourite food from my kitchen. Since my children were born, I have stopped gallivanting around the globe without a care in the world, and this would have been a first for me but I gave in, albeit with a heavy heart...I decided not to buy my ticket and stay at home and cook for my daughter instead. A week later my daughter called up (a more mature sense seems to have prevailed!) and said, "Mom, please go, we will manage..." My joy, in a very cliched manner, knew no bounds and I immediately asked my Dad to do my bookings, as Indian web sites were showing better rates when accessed from India, for what would be nearly a twenty four hour journey from Nairobi, as I would be travelling to the North Eastern part of India. Sadly, my super tech savvy and pro at online bookings Dad messed up one part of my multi sector booking, giving me the very first indication that all was not well with him... It was during this trip that I went home to Pune for a few days, after the wedding, and saw first hand how fast his health had deteriorated and I pushed him to get tests done, followed by subsequent hospitalization, which bought him some more time on Earth...Bottom line, if you think something is wrong with your own, your partner's or your parents'/ in laws' health, it usually is...Follow your gut, don't let denials from them (or yourself) cow you down.
But I digress. To get back to the wedding, and why this visit was so important for me, I need to go back more than thirty three years.
10th July 1986: The day that we had been anticipating for long had finally dawned. My Dad had been posted to Gauhati in Assam and it was time to bid goodbye to our beautiful colonial bungalow in Pune and to our dear Army-family neighbour and her two daughters. I still remember Ruby Aunty, illuminated by the headlights of the Army jeep that was to drop us off to the Railway station, tears glittering in her eyes, as she held her two young daughters close by her side, along with a plastic bucket my Mom had given her at the last minute and which she had insisted on paying for...All our trunks with our household items, books, toys, our car, bicycles and my Dad's motorcycle had gone on ahead much earlier and all our personal items were to go with us in a few suitcases, accompanying us on a journey which would take four days and three nights and two train changes, to a place we had never seen in our lives. Such is life in the Army but it does foster life long friendships!
My sister and I had been eagerly awaiting our first glimpse of the mighty Brahmaputra. My mother had told us that it was India's broadest river and at some places you could not see the other bank if you were on one side! I put each river, whose bridge our train trundled over, through what I call to this day, the 'bank-visibility test'! We spent nearly three very amazing, books and great friends filled years in Gauhati, a beautiful, rain drenched really green city, though a sleepy little hamlet then, in comparison with my comparatively huge home town. It is a testimony to the deep and abiding friendships we formed then, that we had remained in touch with all our close friends for more than two decades, by snail mail, as FaceBook and WhatsApp came into our lives many years later. The bride to be had been my mother's student in Nursery school in Gauhati and they had visited us a few times in Mumbai and Pune over the years but we had never made it back to Assam. The time had finally come and my mother had landed into Gauhati a few hours before my fourth and final flight touched down, nearly a day after I left Nairobi, which was nothing compared to the four days it had taken us from Pune, way back in 1986...
1st January 2018: The first shock came when I popped out of the airport, ( the same airport that I had taken my very first flight from in 1989, when I left Gauhati), and I saw a KFC outlet with Colonel Sanders looking straight at me. Since the airport had been practically next door to my Dad's Army unit, the only army officers I had ever seen in the vicinity all those years ago, were him and his colleagues...Well, it looked like globalization had not left this once pristine corner of India untouched.
I had told our hosts, (the bride's parents, both professors and Heads of their respective departments at Gauhati University and both also from my Alma Mater, Deccan College, Pune, who incidentally also happen to be on my personal list of my top favourite people in the world), not to bother to send anyone to pick me up and I could take an Uber, as I knew the road to their house like the back of my hand, considering that our former school was in their neighbourhood. I had spent three years going back and forth everyday, on that very road. They disregarded my request and sent a kind colleague to pick me and it was a good thing they did, because a whole new by pass had cropped up which I had known nothing about. It hit me then that nearly thirty years IS a long time...
Anyone who has ever attended an Indian wedding knows how quickly one gets enveloped by the warm and welcoming atmosphere. Old memories get a new life and lots of new friends are made and how do you know the bride/ groom stories are exchanged over multiple cups of masala chai (spiced, milky tea) and Indian sweets and savouries, a staple during weddings, even as everyone pitches in to help as much as they can. Women resplendent in sarees of the most vibrant hues and since this was Gauhati, women draped in Mekhela Chaddars, (which is the North Eastern variant of the saree), of pure Assam silk, with the most intricate embroidery, were at the wedding and it was a visual treat for my eyes. As a pre teen, all those years ago,  I had never realized how eye catching this garment is and how beautiful the women looked in it...Wedding songs rent the air and the smell of henna and fresh flowers permeated everywhere,  mingling with the aroma of all the delicacies especially cooked for the wedding. Glass bangles in all the colours of the rainbow tinkled, gold and diamond jewellery added lots of bling and bindis adorning foreheads twinkled brightly. I was so glad I was able to attend this grand wedding ceremony. I had known the glowing bride since she had been a really tiny tot and it was a pleasure to see her on her big day. The groom was a Canadian boy, so every Indian ritual had to be explained to him and his friends who had accompanied him from across the Ocean and that added a lot of fun and camaraderie to the event. The bride's girl friends from Canada were all dressed in her generous mother's sarees for the wedding reception but they carried off the outfits so well that it was hard for the rest of us to believe that they were wearing Indian clothes for the first time in their lives! The added bonus was that the main wedding day was also my birthday, so I got to celebrate it in Gauhati after twenty nine long years, with my mother and old friends and new!
Two of my new friends have already visited us in Kenya and we, in turn, have been invited to their home in the United States. It was also great to connect with our hosts' house help who had been with them all those years ago when we were kids and she had been slightly older than me then and now was the mother of a smart young son.

                                                                     Wedding Hues

We got a bit of time in between the celebrations to indulge in a bit of nostalgia. My mother and I walked the roads of the suburb where we were staying. We used to pass this junction every day on our way to school and back but could barely recognize it now, due to the numerous cars and bikes that kept traversing it. This was where we used to halt once a month after my mother, who used to teach in our school, got paid and she used to buy buns for all of us army brats in the Army Bus! Sadly I could not find the bakery but even today the whiff of freshly baked buns takes me back to my Mom's pay day in Gauhati...I remembered a store called Paragon which, to this day, has me hooked onto deep fried white chick peas but I have never eaten any to beat the ones that store sold. After asking a few people, we managed to find our way to Paragon and believe it or not, there sat the chick peas in a glass jar, just like they used to, thirty years ago. I never buy anything without checking the manufacture and expiry dates but I trusted this store implicitly from my Gauhati days and immediately told the person there to sell me everything which was in the jar! He was surprised but complied and then it was sheer bliss to crunch and much those spicy, sinful chick peas, even as the flavour exploded on my tongue, exactly like it used to, every month, all those years ago.

                                                    Maligaon: So quiet then, so busy now

                                                      My pocket money drainer!

                                          Fried, spiced white chick peas, I'm addicted for life!
(Connoisseur's tip: Haldiram's Masala Chana comes a close second to Paragon's chick peas' virtues!)

Our next stop was my sister's class mate from Gauhati school days and good friend's shoe store in Maligaon. When we asked for the younger brother who had been my mother's student, the older one who runs it now came out and though it was hard to reconcile the little boy we had known with the strapping young man in front of us, we explained who we were and he remembered immediately! I'm sure he felt the same as he had last seen me as a super skinny thirteen year old...He immediately contacted his sister and though she was busy in a conference, she made it a point to come and see my mother at the reception venue the next evening, after a long day's work, as my mother was leaving the following day. She later took me to her own home too. Such are the old ties that tightly bind...

                                This store did not change and connected us to my sister's friend!

                                                 On the banks of the great Brahmaputra!
 (And I stole these lines from our school song, else I would have written an alliterative 'broad Brahmaputra'!)

We also took some time out for shopping, drove along the Brahmaputra and were awed by it, bought some wonderful fabric, shawls and other souvenirs like the famous Jaappi, the woven straw hat of Assam, and the Gamcha , a hand woven cotton embroidered towel, from Pan Bazaar and Fancy Bazaar. I also bought some gold plated stunning Assamese traditional jewellery. My mother even bought an orchid plant for our garden in Pune! When we lived there, we would traverse the twenty three kilometer distance to the city centre only once every few months and our main haunts were the bookshops (many of my books have Gauhati, Assam written on them, with my name and the date!) and the famous bakery, Shaikh Brothers. Their fresh bread and jammy Swiss Rolls were a special treat for us, even as we eagerly dived into whichever new book we had started reading first, the minute we got home. My sister and I used to cut off the raised mound at the top of the unsliced loaf, dividing it between the two of us, irritating my Dad no end because then every slice had a crust only on one side!

                                          The small but sweet indulgences of my childhood

 I had planned to stay on for a couple of days after my mother left, as I wanted to catch up with my school friends and indulge myself with a few more nostalgic visits in Gauhati. I volunteered to drop her to the airport, and on the way we visited another of my mother's Gauhati friend's at her brother's house, where she was staying. Gaur aunty belonged to Gauhati and had been our first neighbour in our Army-Air Force housing complex there, as her husband had been in the Indian Air Force. I had met Aunty just a few months ago when I had dropped my own daughter to college in Dubai, as her daughter (my childhood friend!) stays there now and she and her family had already visited and stayed with us in Nairobi. (The world is very small!). But Aunty and my mother met after nearly thirty one years and it was very emotional. Today, my daughter is friends with my friend's twin daughters and so the relationship forged so many years ago in Assam continues in the United Arab Emirates.
The next day I began my solo adventure! I had hired a trusted cab driver for two days, recommended by my host, Tamuli uncle. My first stop was the famous Kamakhya Temple, a stone's throw from their house. I had last visited this temple as a ten year old child but I had vivid memories. After seeking blessings from the Goddess and admiring the temple architecture, I was ready for my meanderings into the past.

                                                                      Kamakhya Temple

I asked the driver to take me to Mountain Shadow, our old housing complex, into which so many of my pre teen memories were so deeply entwined. As happy coincidence would have it, one of my Dad's old students, (he had coached her for the Defence Forces entrance exam), also a friend of mine, was now an Air Force officer and was posted to Gauhati then. She had given instructions to the guards to let me in at the gate. Otherwise, gaining access to a protected area would have been next to impossible! By yet another unbelievable coincidence she lived in the same block of four flats that we had lived in, just below our old house! So when I went to meet her, I entered my own old gate, and passed the very spot my friends and I had spent countless hours playing happily, our only worry being 'Hope there's a delicious dinner ready on the table when we get home...'

My beloved balcony at 3/2 Mountain Shadow, where I spent countless hours studying, reading and doing embroidery! The only thing's that's changed in nearly thirty years is the colour scheme...

My next stop was the area just behind our old house, where the new Institute was being built then. Our favourite game, as a group of pre teen boys and girls was playing hide and seek in the newly dug foundations of this building. I did not know then that I would see the completed building only in 2018! We had spent many hours in the old bamboo structure, watching poor prints of Bollywood movies on an old VCR, while guzzling down soft drinks of a dubious brand, something I won't let my children touch with even a barge pole in this day and age.

                                          The 'new' Institute, which is now thirty years old!

Then I asked the driver to drive towards our shopping complex, ' Anarkali', which had housed, among other shops, our grocer cum haberdasher (the Brit meaning!) where I used to buy cloth to make clothes for my doll, marbles, Parle sweets, Cadbury's and Amul chocolates, birthday gifts for friends and other sundries, the Air Force canteen, the Air Force Women's Welfare Association Shop from where I unfailingly bought my parents birthday and anniversary gifts every year from scrupulously saved pocket money and a sweet meat shop where a person called 'Babloo' made the most delicious samosas I have tasted to date. Sadly all the civilian shops had been moved out of the complex and when I asked about Babloo, I was told he had passed away. The bare look of the complex brought a quick tear to my eye, it had been buzzing when we left. I had cycled here numerous times to buy something or the other and later ridden my Luna there too...
Then we drove to Gauhati University and I directed the driver to take me to the Professor's Quarters Area. Most of my close friends had lived here, as their parents had been professors at the University and thanks to all that snail mail, I still knew their house numbers by heart! Though they had all retired and moved out by now, I spent some time gazing at the house where I had had my first sleepover ever (after begging my mother in school itself to let me go directly to my friend's house. That friend visited me in Pune with her family from the U.S, in 2017 and they stayed with us!), at the houses where my Dad had dropped each girl home in our car, ( a luxury in India in those days), on our way back from the birthday party of another dear friend, who lived in Gauhati City.
And then it was time to meet my school friends! We had arranged to meet at a restaurant in town and this was the very first time I would be eating at a restaurant in Gauhati… It wasn't the norm when I was growing up and our only forays out were to the Army mess for a party, or dining with another Air Force or Army family in their home or an annual picnic on board a cruise boat, on the Brahmaputra. I was very excited to meet all these ladies whom I had known as pre teens and never met since. I was especially touched as they had all taken time out from their very busy schedules just to meet me, as per my convenience. It is hard to catch up on thirty years worth of news in three hours but we managed to make a good headway. And most of them  knew a lot about me, thanks to my blog! They refused to let me pay for my share of the lunch, saying it was their treat as I was the visitor! I felt so humbled by their magnanimity and was doubly glad I had carried tiny souvenirs from Kenya for them all. The years just rolled away and it felt like we were sharing a classroom again. We were certainly as noisy as a bunch of middle schoolers!
My final sojourn of the day was at the house of my friend's parents who lived a little away from the town, in an area unknown to me. Luckily for me, another school friend lived in the same area and kindly consented to come with me. We ended up going to meet Sharma uncle and Aunty together and also got acquainted with my friend's sister in law and niece! Though my friend lives in the US, her parents had arranged a quick dinner for me in their beautiful bungalow. So much hospitality warmed my heart...
All too soon, it was time to board my flight to Pune and then a few days later to Nairobi...I bid goodbye to my warm and wonderful hosts and to the new couple. It was only thanks to them that I had been able to make it back to this lovely city, got to be part of a fabulous wedding and to relive  bits of my childhood again...
My only regret? I waited nearly thirty years to make this trip happen, but better late than never!

      Goodbye green Gauhati! I hope to get my husband and kids here for a visit someday soon...

A Damp Diwali

The monsoon rain blesses southern and south western India by June every year and we receive substantial and sorely needed rains until mid September every year. This year, the rains have continued pouring down right through October, putting a damper on India's festive season, especially Diwali, the main festival of the Hindus. My home town Pune has been particularly hit, last month my parents' ground floor was badly flooded and I have lost both my scooter and my car, as the insurance company has deemed both vehicles fit only for the scrap heap, and everyone there is waiting with bated breath for the rain to wreak havoc again, more so as a cyclone, with it's centre in the Arabian Sea, is adding to the fury of the rain. We have been anxiously, metaphorically, scanning our skies there, via weather reports and updates from family and friends.
For my family, there are no Diwali celebrations this year, as we remember my Dad....It is hard to celebrate in the face of loss...

                                                    Juxtaposition of rains and Diyas ( lamps)…

                                                                  ( Image from the net)

 A Damp Diwali

Damp, dark clouds, heavy with rain,

Scuttle across the outraged October sky,

It is a dismal, dire, depressing Diwali.

Damp, dank, earthern diyas,

Line a peeling parapet wall,

Attracting, instead of prosperity,

Rain insects, which flutter around the flame,

Only to die on Diwali day.

Damp, Diwali decorations dangle,

Dangerously from a warped, balcony ceiling,

The rain did not spare us this Diwali day.

Decorously dressed families, meet, greet and say,

" Will it stop pouring at least today?"

Damp squibs refuse to deploy,

Further dampening already low spirits,

Which now spiral rapidly downwards,

As the eyes light upon muddy footprints,

Marring the once sparkling floor,

Instead of the dainty, vermillion hued ones,

When Goddess Laxmi, on Diwali day, comes.

My damp eyes try to peer past,

The cyclone brewing over the Arabian Sea,

Bringing further dismay,

To all those celebrating Diwali today.

Despite the damp, the despair, the gloom and doom,

All over my state, the sweets and savouries have been made,

And, one hopes, our debts to the Rain Gods have been paid,

By this evening our skies, of rain, will have no trace,

Like every year, a billion sparkling lamps, will be seen even from outer space. 

A Plunderer, A Marauder, An Unwanted, Intrusive Invader...

On the night of Wednesday, 25th September, 2019, I was on FaceBook for my customary ten minutes post dinner. I saw an update from a student saying that water levels were rising rapidly in her compound and she was desperately seeking help, as it looked like they would need to evacuate their houses...I immediately messaged a very dear friend who lives almost next door to this particular housing complex asking her about the flash flood situation and helpfully telling her to park both her cars in our bungalow compound, a five minute walk from her house and slightly further from the canal which was rapidly spewing out water after incessant rains and had transformed itself into a massive river. Little did I know what was in store for our housing society too. The time was 11:30 pm in India and all hell was to break loose shortly...
Our area was one of the many areas that were to be affected that night and by the time I woke up the next morning , I saw a message from our immediate neighbour asking me to call him when I woke up. I knew immediately that water must have entered our compound, but it was much worse...Water had flooded my parents' home, my car and my two wheeler had been completely submerged and thus began a frantic coordination operation to get a locked house clean again, from across the Arabian Sea...By the grace of God, my classroom which is even closer to the canal turned river, escaped by the skin of its teeth and water lapped at the top most step...Many lives were lost in Pune that fearsome night and tons of garbage adorned the streets, walls and gates, like wreaths left by the river to commiserate with a city in mourning...


 A Plunderer, A Marauder, An Unwanted, Intrusive Invader

A plunderer, a marauder, an unwanted, intrusive invader,
Almost unseen, almost unheard, the whys unknown,
Sneaked in while we were busy on the phone...

Furniture floated and then bloated,
Electronic goods sizzled and snarled,
Cars were by the waters hurled,
The river's fury completely unfurled.

And yet we dared to ask ourselves why,
WHY was the river making us cry?

"Seen the plastic, seen the filth?
Doesn't it make one flinch?
When your garbage chokes my throat,
I'm going to get your goat!"

In our cozy homes were we ensconced,
Expensive cars our parking adorned...
Our houses were always neat as a pin,
We never learnt polluting the river was a sin...

And then we realized how helpless we are,
No power, no water nor internet won't take us far...
And all the while the ceaseless, relentless rain beat down,
To the river's destruction, it added an additional crown...

Instead of roads we now have gaping holes,
Instead of power we have twisted poles...
Our cars are heaps of rusty junk,
The water even swept away Granny's old trunk...

Oh how badly we have are fingers burnt,
Have we then our lesson learnt?
Global warming is a reality,
First hand views are not pretty...

Let's reduce that carbon footprint,
In operation Clean Up let's do a stint...
And face harsh reality that in my city,
The damage hasn't been itty -bitty...

So let's recycle, reduce, reuse, refuse,
And let need, not want, let you choose...
Let's all come together and do our bit,
Already our dear planet has been deemed unfit...

A solution is needed quick and fast,
Let's find it before we breathe our last....

A plunderer, marauder, an unwanted , intrusive intruder,
Befits Man, not the poor, polluted river!


                                                Op Clean Up began in my parents' dining room

                                                                Into the kitchen too...

                                           The road to my classroom became a river that night...

                                           Garbage trapped at our bungalow's little gate

                                                 Five minutes walk from the house...

                                                                         Sad Sights....

When The Jacaranda Is In Bloom...

In times of extreme emotion, I have always found that it is easier to write poetry instead of prose. This week got off to a tough start, as we got the news that two men living in two different countries, both in the prime of life, passed away very suddenly and unexpectedly, both unmitigated tragedies, no matter which way you look at it. One died on Mount Everest, the other by the side of the Expressway that runs between my home town and Mumbai... Both friends of friends and relatives, both leaving behind young families, one does not have to know them personally to feel almost first hand how ruthless life can be...Also today it has been six years since Westgate Mall was attacked by terrorists leaving behind so many devastated families... Does one really ever recover from tragedy? And then yesterday we got the horrible news that our neighbour's gentle, sweet, kind old dog needs to be put to sleep. Since our bungalow shares a common compound, it feels like we are losing a family member yet again this year...


When The Jacaranda Is In Bloom...

When the jacaranda is in bloom,
At times, to me, it spells a lot of gloom.
Six years ago today when lavender blossoms adorned Nairobi like a bride,
Evil terrorists ensured scores of people at Westgate died.
Roads carpeted with Jacaranda blooms were awash with blood,
Of anger, fury, grief and tears there was a flood...

Last Sunday when Jacaranda blossoms were just peeking from behind the leaves,
And there was a hint of mauve on all the trees,
A dear friend's fellow mountaineer met his end on Everest,
Today he comes home to be laid to eternal rest.
He leaves behind a little daughter and a pregnant wife,
Between Man and Mountain, man lost the strife...

That same Sunday night when Jacaranda blooms had gone to bed,
In my hometown, a brilliant spine surgeon, after a freak accident, was declared dead.
Gone are those dextrous fingers, gone is that skilled hand,
That once a scalpel so deftly and adroitly manned.
Never again home to his wife and daughters will he rush,
All because of a horribly driven private bus.

In my own back yard from where the Jacaranda is seen in a purple haze,
My neighbour's gentle old dog lies in a cancerous daze.
In a handful of hours she will be put to eternal sleep,
Is there any wonder then that the Jacaranda makes me weep?

But then, every morning, down my lane, what do I see?
It is, as if, the Jacaranda has laid down a lavender carpet just for me.
I square my shoulders and lift my chin,
Just being around to see Jacaranda blooms feels like a win.

No matter what has happened in the years that have passed,
Every September, the Jacaranda gives our eyes a fabulous repast.
And it's up to us to drink in Nature's wonderful sight,
For, who knows, against Man, when these trees will lose their fight...

Lessons Death Taught Me

Today it's been four whole months since my Dad passed away and much water has flowed under the bridges spanning the Mula-Mutha rivers in my hometown Pune, the Athi river here in Kenya and the Thames too...We have taken many flights back and forth in the past few months, all of which would have left my Dad with his heart in his mouth, even as he would have assiduously tracked the flights on his phone Flight Aap, from take off to landing... Those who knew him, know well his absolute terror of flying, fueled by a couple of Air Force crashes he had witnessed and some near escapes he had had, during his tenure in Leh Ladakh, in Jammu and Kashmir, in his early army days.
Hard and hectic as these last few months have been (it is not easy to wind up your parents' whole house almost single handedly, lock up your own house, teach students who are ALWAYS appearing for exams, shop for a wedding it was imperative to attend, and finish a hundred and one legal and other formalities death invariably brings in its wake, pun unintended), they have taught me a lot about what those living need to do to make life slightly easier for those left behind. Trust me, no banks or municipal corporation offices in India make anything smooth for you, so 'Be Prepared' has to be the motto.

Health : This is the number one piece of advice I have for ageing parents. Parents need to take great care of themselves, exercise as per your doctor's advice, keep a strict check on your diet and GO for regular checks ups and other tests as advised by your doctor... This is one area where my Dad and I invariably clashed, with me pushing him for annual tests and him backing away from them like those needles were plague infected...Since he had been on blood thinners for more than a decade due to Deep Vein Thrombosis (DVT), it was even more imperative for him to get tested regularly. I ended up in Pune in January 2018, (not a time for my regular annual visit) on my way back from a wedding in Assam, took one look at his condition, screamed blue murder (backed by a dear cousin of his who had come to see me), with the result that he finally had the grace to call his technician home for tests. Shortly after the results were out, he was admitted to hospital for more than two weeks, to take care of multiple issues that showed up...but he made it home and that visit of mine bought him the extra year and a half, until May 2019.
So if you have a parent who fears hospitals and tests (and many folks shared this with me later, saying it is usually the Dads who refuse to go anywhere near a doctor), do not be an ostrich and bury your head in the sand but be eagle eyed where your parents are concerned. I'm currently engaged in pushing my Mom to walk regularly and have already succeeded in improving her sleep wake pattern..

Nominations: If both your parents are living, remind them to check that every bank account, every fixed deposit and every insurance policy has the partner's nomination. Our bank in India messed up the nomination for my Dad's Indian Army pension account , probably failing to carry it forward when banking software systems changed, as that account was twenty two years old... This meant that my Mom could not access the money until my sister and I had made a legal affidavit, stating we had no objection to her getting the money and she having to declare that she was his legal heir...Imagine how hard it would be for those who did not have any money, besides the amount in the pension or other affected accounts or even worse had children who refused to sign off what legally belonged to the surviving parent....So, everyone, check all nominations NOW, do not assume that the bank or insurance company has followed through...

Old Vehicles: This one is a request to all senior parents. If you have really ancient vehicles, please make arrangements to dispose them of NOW. Your heirs cannot even scrap a vehicle unless all documents are in order and with so many of us living outside the country, it becomes doubly hard. My Dad had stopped driving his fifteen year old car a few years ago, due to his DVT issues, but refused to sell it off and switch over to an automatic car. The only good thing was that he had got all the checks done and it had been cleared for the next five years, as per India's environmental law and the insurance was up to date. But we had to transfer it to my Mom's name first, for which an affidavit had to be made by her from a government  E Service Centre (my husband went with her for this one and it took nearly all day!) and we, as the heirs had to make another affidavit, declaring we had no objection to the car being put on her name....And then the entire formality of actually selling it but here dear friends came to our aid, and made sure it was handed over to the new owner only after all legalities were completed,  as we were in the country for a very limited amount of time....So my advice? If your heirs don't want the vehicles or do not need them and you are not driving anymore, SELL them and down load the Uber app...

After Death Rites: Put this down on paper. What do you want done after your death? While my sister and I were completely in agreement with whatever our mother wanted to do, objection came from unexpected quarters...I took the decision to donate my Dad's eyes as he had always helped my mother and me in our endeavours to record text books for blind students, ( nearly two decades ago, long before the currently read aloud software was introduced) and everyone was happy that two people would get to see the world... My Mother decided to donate his body to the Armed Forces Medical College to help medical college students. My parents had decided to attend my daughter's graduation from medical college a few years from now, notwithstanding my Dad's fear of flying... Now this would remain only a dream...While my daughter was thrilled with the decision to donate his body, my fifteen year old son wanted to go the more traditional cremation route...Then my mother wanted some religious ceremonies and after death rituals, as these do help to attain closure and give everyone a chance to pray for salvation of the departed soul. Both my children objected vehemently, my daughter because she felt my Dad was not a big believer in traditional rites and rituals and my son because he felt if she had not gone the traditional way after his death, why now?
Finally I had to intervene and say that since we had already signed a hundred affidavits about who his next of kin and legal heir was, it was that person's prerogative to decide what to do after her husband's death...So, I suggest put it down in black and white, grandchildren are very opinionated these days!

Death Comes As The End...BUT Does NOT Exempt You From Income Tax: The government must and does take away its pound of flesh even after you are gone...So for honest, income tax paying entities like us, it is imperative to leave enough money in your account, (which your Next Of Kin have access to), for the tax for the previous financial year...In our case, the money was not an issue but yet ANOTHER affidavit was required to be notarized and submitted to the Income Tax Department by my mother, seeking permission to file returns and pay tax on my Dad's behalf...A good Chartered Accountant is essential here, as he was the one who prepared this particular piece of document and my friendly neighbourhood notary, whom I have done business with for the last fifteen years, quickly notarized it...Only then could my Mom go ahead and pay the tax and file returns. This was pending, as my Dad had got hospitalized on the first day of the new financial year in India and so obviously had been in  no condition to pay his tax, like every year...

Declutter: I had written a blog post about this very topic after we had moved into our current house in Nairobi titled Knick Knack Paddy Whack, Who Gives A Bone? I spent a lot of time simply decluttering my parents' house...It is very hard to get rid of stuff in India as the Garbage collection ladies only take limited amounts of garbage out each day...I had to pay a lot of extra money to persuade them that this was a one off and they should cart away whatever we were throwing out, so that it could go for recycling. DO NOT trash your own house in order to save the environment, instead use cloth bags and sign up for soft copies of bills and other monthly documents and donate or sell things you do not need. It seems once your kids leave home, things just have a habit of piling up, regardless of whether you need them or not... Do not let this happen to you, I started my own declutter process more than a decade ago and it is never too early to start. Also do label all important documents and files clearly and boldly. Though my sister and I eventually found everything we needed, it took really long to go through ancient, dusty files. The next generation will be even more short of time than we are and honestly probably short of the patience too, which is truly required to do all this. It is not easy to make ten trips to the concerned office to accomplish one task...

A dear friend's daughter (and a student of mine) pointed out to her mother that in managing all this and wrapping up things before leaving for Nairobi, where was the time to grieve? That is so true...Death ensures one goes on auto pilot until everything that needs to be done has been done...my Dad was a fellow Capricorn, he would have understood...and would have been the first to share this post on FaceBook for his fellow ex army officers and other friends to learn from!

           Armed Forces Medical College Anatomy Dept, where we said our final goodbye...

The Vigil

The wait, the long wait for the unknown.
Time passes slowly.
As slowly as thickened molasses
Meanders down a channel,
In a sugar processing factory.

Time passes slowly.
As slowly as the rich, red life giving blood,
Passes so quietly,
Through transparent tubes.

A hot summer's day.
All is still except time,
But that too passes slowly,
Oh so slowly,
As life ebbs away...

The antiseptic smell of the hospital room,
Seems to suck up the very air,
The very hope that remains
Alive in our hearts.
For, we had been taught,
"Where there is life, there is hope..."

Heavy eyelids flutter once,
Bringing a small smile to many a face around,
As grey- green eyes half open,
But then the shutter falls again.

And time passes slowly.
As slowly as the river,
At the delta,
Winds its way to the sea.
Uniting with that vast sparkling body.

And so Time draws one,
Towards one's Maker.
Until the soul blends into infinity....

To The Woman Who Lost

The last few weeks and especially the last few days have been harrowing for India as a country. From being practically on the brink of war with our neighbour to one of our Air Force pilots landing into their territory, after shooting down their aircraft and being shot down in turn, only to eject and fall on the wrong side of the border...Mercifully the Geneva Convention was by and large adhered to and our pilot smartly marched home across the border last night, even as a country waited with bated breath and many a prayer, for his safe return. But every evening for more than a month now, news channels have been dominated by stories of brave wives who have lost their husbands to terrorism, to gunfire and, just two days ago, to a helicopter crash in the border area. Visuals of these young ladies saying their last good byes to husbands, many carrying young children in their arms are continuously flashing across our television screens...This has also turned the spotlight on the wives of soldiers whose husbands were martyred in years past and many a 'candid' discussion has taken place on Prime Time television. I listened to many strong women, (I refuse to call them widows), outlining the issues and the multiple delays they have faced in getting their dues and in facing the myriad challenges that arise when death occurs suddenly and so tragically, with government officials promising to make things happen soon... The definition of soon is anybody's guess...


To The Woman Who Lost

To the woman who lost a husband to vile terrorism or an act of war,
There is no magic balm for a heart so sore.
Never again will that deep voice emanate,
Asking for a last chappati, straight from your griddle to his plate.
The house that sometimes seemed a trifle small,
Suddenly seems larger than the nearest mall.
No surgeon, no matter how smart,
Can mend that gaping hole in your heart.
Precious memories spread themselves in corners four,
Who knew it was the last time he walked out of your door?

The throat is tight, the grief is red and raw,
Why does it feel like the camel's last straw?
The eyes are gritty with tears yet unshed,
Why were you chosen to be down this particular path led?

Government officials, news reporters, neighbours bombard you with questions galore,
While you wish, you could, like Sita, be swallowed up by the floor.
But life is always harder for those left behind,
To live for your children, yourself, your parents, in laws, you must put your mind.

You have to stand up and claim his posthumous Gallantry Award,
Which, for serving the Nation, is his tangible reward.
At times, the cold, hard metal will offer comfort scant,
At other times you will want to rave and rant.
But remember for the Nation he had pledged his life,
And you, you had signed up to be a Forces Wife.
The grit he showed in death, you will need in life,
One cannot pretend it's not going to be a strife.

For the long struggle to get your due,
You will find yourself a part of a never ending queue,
One would have thought the machinery is better oiled for a soldier's kin,
And making a devastated lady run around would be a sin.
But for the government 'servant' in his cool cabin and the clerk in the plush chair,
By making you visit 'just' ten times, he is being very fair.
"Rest assured, Madam, your work is almost done,"
While the reality is, he's not even begun...
And then, you realize, that the courage you showed when he died,
Needs now a thousand times to be magnified...

As winter turns to summer and summer to rain,
You ask yourself, "Was his sacrifice in vain?"
"Have my countrymen never learned,
That it's not just about the pension he had rightfully earned?"
"This is someone who died for our country,
At least do your job to honour his memory...."

Nearly a billion mouths should apologize and hang their heads in shame,
It's thanks to her husband that it's not you looking down from a dusty frame...

Of Martyrs And Torrential Tears

Thursday, 14th February 2019, for us, here in Kenya was a day almost like any other. Though it was Valentine's Day, the fact that it came almost in the middle of the week, did not leave much scope for catching a quick lunch with my husband (like the impromptu one last year!) or ordering in dinner. Plus there was the fact that my neighbour and I spent a lot of time supervising the guys we had called in to clean the water tanks on our compound and the only time I went through the headlines on my on line newspaper from India, was when I had my cup of Kericho Gold tea that morning. Post tank cleaning supervision and lunch, it was time for my classes to begin on Skype and with the Board Exam set to start in India next week, I am taking additional classes for my 10th grade students almost every day, with the result that I was now in class right until dinner time here.
So with eyes burning from staring at the screen, back stiff with sitting for a few hours at a stretch, the brain in a sozzled mess from fielding oh so many last minute doubts from students, I first barely registered what my son was saying, even as I rapidly rolled out chappatis for dinner. "Mom, he repeated, didn't you read the news? A convoy of Indian soldiers was attacked today, when a vehicle laden with explosives rammed into their bus, at a place called Pulwama in India's northern most state, forty men died, Mom, at 3:15 pm India time." I asked him if he was sure he was giving me the latest news and how he knew about it. He patiently repeated it like one talking to a small child, "Mom, people came up to me in school, (we are two and a half hours behind India), to say how sorry they were to hear about the attack, the WhatsApp group that I am in with the boys from our housing society in Pune have been discussing nothing else all evening...." And it was then that I realized that what he was saying had to be true.. members of our armed forces had been treacherously attacked, yet again.
Late on Friday evening, I asked my husband to switch channels to the news from India so I could see what they were all saying on the second day after the attack and to also watch respects being paid to the forty CRPF men whose Tricolour wrapped coffins had been by then, brought to our capital, New Delhi, before being taken to their respective villages, scattered throughout the length and breadth of India, for their last rites. Images of raw, unfettered grief greeted me, mothers and other women wailing, wives on the verge of collapse, (honestly there should be a law against cameras recording these very private moments and against news reporters thrusting mikes into the faces of all and sundry from each devastated family...) children crying, some too young to even comprehend that Daddy was never coming back  and men swearing revenge on the country that was deemed to be responsible for this attack.
The news channels were, as usual, debating the matter to its last fragments, with all kinds of subject experts (some self proclaimed and others genuine) and smarmy politicians who obviously wanted to use the opportunity to squeeze in sympathy votes, (India goes to the polls later this year), dominating the panels. But one lady in particular caught my eye and stood out among the rest. Every other panelist addressed her first, actually listened whenever she said anything and they all expressed condolences on the death of her brave son, who had been martyred in Kashmir just over two years ago. Her name was Mrs. Meghna Girish and she is the wife of a retired Air Force officer and the mother of  Major. Akshay Girish, who had given up his life, while defending the Nagrota camp from heavily armed terrorists, disguised in police uniform, near Jammu, as part of a Quick Response Team. He left behind a very young wife, a then three year old daughter, a twin sister and aging parents and grand parents.
A quick Google search, even as I was watching the news debate, revealed everything I had forgotten about the attack in Nagrota. At that time, when it had happened on 29th November 2016, we had been deeply affected, not only because of precious lives lost at the hands of terrorists but also because my Dad had been posted to Nagrota more than twenty five years ago. And then, on one of the search links, I came across Mrs. Girish's blog. I had already listened to the lady speak with quiet dignity and a face full of genuine sympathy for all the forty families so deeply affected by the latest dastardly attack. I knew I had to read it. And so at 11:00 pm last night, I started reading it, right from her very first entry, made mere days after her son had been killed, while defending a building which had families of fellow soldiers residing in them.
She starts with the birth of her twins in the mid eighties, her son's struggles with his health in the early years, his determination to join the Air force, like his father, and the eye problems which eventually led him to joining the Indian Army instead, where fate had the ultimate sacrifice in store for him. The story is so beautifully chronicled that within a few minutes into the blog, my tears were flowing freely, as she describes their close knit family, the school years, her son's wedding, the birth of a grand daughter and then her daughter's wedding. All the very simple joys of life that all of us take for granted, day in and day out. The final day of her son's life and the way they get the news, after being on tenterhooks all day, is absolutely heart wrenching...Each post ended with her thanking people for the support given to the family and her gratitude to all the strangers who came to show solidarity with the family and she always asks God to bless everyone. Her faith, despite what life dealt out to her, remains tangible, unshakable, unbreakable.....By 2:00 am this morning I had not finished nearly two years worth of posts and my eyes were swollen, my nose was red and running and I knew I had to stop reading and finish it the following morning... If I was so affected just by reading about what a family goes through while facing the death of a martyr and its aftermath, of a three year old daughter crying out loud that she wanted to see her father, of a young wife left to pick up the remains of her life, what about those many, many Forces families that go through this year on year, even as our country tries to continue waging a war on terror?
The Girish family now belongs to an organization that connects all the families whose family member made the supreme sacrifice and as she writes about the Kargil martyrs of 1999, she mentions meeting the family of late Major Padmapani Acharya, who was awarded the Maha Vir Chakra posthumously, ( India's second highest military honour), sending me whizzing down my own memory lane....
The year was 1986. My Dad had just got posted to Gauhati, Assam, and we had all moved from Pune. I was cycling around in our Army - Air Force Housing Area, when a fancy name plate on the terrace parapet wall of a first floor house caught my eye. 'Acharyas', it said in bold brass letters and I could see a plethora of plants around the entire terrace area. I was impressed, as my Dad had an ordinary wooden name plate and we were yet to buy a single plant, having very reluctantly parted from the beautiful garden of our colonial style army bungalow in Pune. Gradually we got to know Acharya Aunty, as we called her and found her to be a lovely, genuine lady who was the Principal of the little Air Force Primary school. Her then eighteen year old son, Padmapani or Babloo 'Bhaiya' (older brother) as we called him, was away at college and came home only for vacations. He was great friends with the daughters of our immediate neighbours who were in college themselves (I was in middle school then!) and that was how we used to often see him in our block....By late 1987, the Acharyas had got posted out and as luck would have it, we were allotted their house! Gone were those lush green plants, gone was that eye catching name plate, we had well and truly moved in...The Armed Forces are perpetually short of housing,so an officer doesn't usually get a house accorded to his rank until it is almost time to move out of that particular city...
Twelve years sped by, we all grew up and then the Kargil war started. Captain Vikram Batra, (he has a twin too), Captain.Saurabh Kalia and many others, both officers and soldiers, gave up their all to defend our nation and became house hold names. And then, I read in the newspaper, early one morning, that Major Padmapani Acharya, son of Wing Commander J Acharya, had been martyred too at Kargil, leaving behind a pregnant wife...This, I told my husband, HAS to be the tall, lanky, Babloo Bhaiya we knew. I was awed that I actually knew a Kargil martyr and that my sister and I had moved into the bedroom that had once been his, all those years ago... As the mother of a then one year old daughter, my heart went out to Babloo's wife, Charulata, who I had read then, delivered a baby girl, Aparajita, (the undefeated one) three months after her husband had breathed his last. Internet searches in later years revealed a family pitching in to bring up the little girl, just as her father had instructed in his last letter home...
Thanks to Mrs. Meghna Girish, I got to know that Aparajita Acharya is today in her second year of law college, plans to follow her late father's and grand father's footsteps in the Armed Forces  and has just penned a coffee table book about the father she never knew, titled, 'Our Babloo, The Hero Of Drass.' It was released on what would have been his 50th birthday, had he but lived...
And so, more than seventy years after independence, India keeps losing her men in uniform. To many of us, it is a face on television, it might bring a quick tear to the eye and then, as we get on with our lives, all is forgotten...What about the shattered families and dreams they leave behind? Many organizations are working to help the families and educate the children, just as their fathers would have wished.. It's not always about money but about showing you care, in your own small way. Reach out if you can, the internet will show you the way, and do read Mrs. Girish's words to feel just a fraction of their pain...We salute our martyrs, they who died, saluting our flag and kept it flying...

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The Hoo-Ha Over Helmets In My Hard Headed Home Town!

From the 1st of January 2019, believe it or not, one of the most parochial towns in India, Pune, was forced to accept a major change in the lives of her two wheeler riding citizens, which basically means anyone and everyone above the age of sixteen....You won't be called a legitimate Puneite if you don't own at least one two wheeler! The citizens were finally told that, after many a court battle and many a long struggle to resist the head gear, (the length and ferocity of which would actually put India's freedom struggle to shame), helmets would become mandatory for all and sundry, no exceptions!
People reading this from other parts of my beloved country and even other countries of the world, are probably blinking at this and shaking their usually helmet protected heads in disbelief...What, a mini metro, a smart city at that, took SO long to implement this very basic self preservation rule? What is wrong with this city? A lot it turns out..but hey, we are trying to modernize as fast as we can....which is a bit tough, given our ultra conservative, 'I know better than you', Brahmanical origins...
In my own case, I began using a 50cc two wheeler at the age of sixteen, a moped, which was just one up on the bicycle, to drive the seven odd kilo meters from home to college. But the first thing my mother did was to take me to the Army canteen, so we could buy a good quality helmet for me, at a reasonable price. This was way back in 1992, twenty seven years before my city FINALLY implemented the helmet rule. And I found nothing odd or unique in this as my mother had always used a helmet and my Dad, being in the Indian Army had no choice but to use one, for the Army made the helmet mandatory for its personnel long before I was even born...
In fact, one of my Mother's favourite stories, to drill the importance of using a helmet into our heads, was this one: It so happened that at one of the places that my Dad was posted to, an officer went out on his motor bike without a helmet. And as bad luck would have it, met with an accident and died on the spot. Army rules, at least in those days, (I do not know about today, since I am referring to an incident that occurred close to forty years ago), made it clear that the proceeds from one of the very few government insurance policies would not be given, in the unfortunate event of the death of a helmet less rider, whether officer or soldier. My Mom used to often relate how a helmet was bought, smashed with a stone, and laid down near the officer's lifeless head, just so the widow and children would get a few lakh rupees more in hand, at a time when faithful and honest officers of the Indian Army were perpetually strapped for cash...Everyone in authority turned a sympathetic blind eye to this farce but to us, as little, impressionable children, it drove home the point that a head, without a helmet, was of no use to anyone...
One of the major rules in my own children's lives is that neither my husband nor I ever took them out on a two wheeler and do not do so, to this day. Before my daughter was old enough to start school, I learnt how to drive a car just to ferry her around and the matter ended there, because India, unfortunately did not even manufacture good quality kids' helmets more than eighteen years ago, let alone pass laws against toddlers dangerously hanging on to two wheelers...I wonder what the scenario in Pune is like today, with the new law in place...I'm quite sure the toddler riding pillion on Mom's lap or strapped to her back, papoose style, in case the modern, liberated woman is driving the vehicle herself, remains without a helmet, but I shall know for sure the next time I go home.
But not allowing my children to sit astride a two wheeler did not prevent me from emphasizing the importance of using helmets to both of them, right since the time they started becoming aware of their surroundings. I discovered just how well I had driven home the point, when during one of our sojourns home, this is what I witnessed my son doing. Since I continue to drive in India, every chance I get, my son and I often end up stuck in heavy traffic. He must have been  nine or ten years old, (he just turned fifteen), when he suddenly lowered the window and yelled at the person on the two wheeler next to us, to start using a helmet immediately, before rolling up the window! I do not know who was more shocked, me or the person whom my usually very polite and impeccably mannered child had just ticked off in public! But when it happened again and again, I had to tell him to stop doing this, because, I explained, he might shock someone so much that he or she would probably fall off the bike, right on to our car, and their helmet free heads would get a really hard knock! While that would probably drum some sense into their heads about using helmets, we couldn't risk getting into trouble...But to this day, when we are back home every June, he feels very tempted to roll down his window and belt out some road safety rules to strangers...I am hoping that next time around, we will see a sea of helmets in our dear but obstinate Pune.
To all those, who for many years, stubbornly refused to use helmets on the grounds that 'we always drive very carefully and slowly', I would just like to say, read up on some Physics laws. Even if you are travelling at ten kilo meters an hour and a car hits your vehicle at fifty kilo meters an hour, guess at what speed you will go flying off your bike?
Despite the law, I read every week without fail, in the on line version of my city's paper, about students dying in road accidents because they thought that since they were travelling at night, no policemen or women would be around to catch them and fine them for lack of a helmet...I can only imagine how much their parents must be wishing today that they had drilled some sense of obedience into those young, hirsute heads, which refused to put on helmets...Sometimes fatal accidents happen even with a helmet on, but at least those you leave behind know you tried your very best to protect yourself, because you cared about them and about yourself too....

When Terror Struck Nairobi AGAIN....

Tuesday, 15th January 2019 was not a day on which we were following our regular routine. School had just reopened the day before, after Christmas break, and tragedy had struck the school community the same afternoon, when a teacher's husband collapsed, while watching his son play after school sports and passed away, despite huge efforts to resuscitate him. The teacher and her family lay heavily on my mind as I hurriedly packed my son's lunch and I remarked to my husband that, at that time, the previous morning, they must have all been having breakfast too, little knowing it would be their last meal together. And I had no inkling then, that the day which had started on a somber note, would end on a horrifying one...
It was not a regular day because my husband, our daughter and I were rushing around getting ready to visit 'Nyayo House', which houses the immigration department and where we trek faithfully every couple of years to get our passports stamped and to get new foreigner cards issued. I personally dread this trip every single time because we need to get through choc a bloc traffic and Nairobi's central business district is not one of my favourite places to visit here. I feel like the proverbial fish out of water there, cocooned as we usually are in our 'golden tower', (only elephants use ivory), from where everything we need is at a stone's throw and where we feel 'safe'.
After an hour's driving in heavy traffic, and narrowly missing being crushed by the public transport buses: the ubiquitous 'Matatus', which were going even faster and more recklessly than usual, given the morning rush hour, we reached our destination by 9:30 am. A couple of hours later, our passports had been stamped and we had been fingerprinted for the 5th time in more than seven years! There were huge sighs of relief all around, even as we wiped off the black ink from our hands! We had just validated our existence in Kenya, God willing, for the next couple of years.
We dropped off my husband to his office on our way home and began discussing our plans for the day. My daughter wanted to visit a couple of restaurants and I agreed, as she had just a few days of her break remaining and I had a rare week day off from teaching online, as students from three of the four schools scheduled for classes that day were in the middle of exams. But, one of the rules we live by is that we never gallivant around with our passports! If we were to, God forbid, lose our passports, between the four of us, we would have had to visit the High Commission Of India, Nairobi, for new passports (one visit would NEVER suffice, make that four trips!), Nyayo House for the Kenyan residence stamp (not AGAIN!), the Embassy of the United States Of American for our American visas which are on our current passports (that's next door to the house but the visas are EXPENSIVE) and last but not least, the Embassy of the United Arab Emirates for my daughter's student visa, as she studies there (and college begins THIS Sunday!). It was simply not worth the risk. And so we asked my husband's driver to take us home first, and this decision prevented my daughter and me from being in a restaurant on the very road, Riverside Drive, where terrorists attacked a five star hotel just a couple of hours later....
Once the passports were under lock and key, we were about to head out, first for coffee at 'The Wasp and Sprout' (which my daughter has been wanting to visit for the last couple of years) and then for lunch at 'Le Grenier A Pain' (The Bread Attic) which is a couple of minutes from DusitD2 Hotel, where tragedy would unfold very soon....But our canine kid refused to let go of my daughter and so we decided to take her for coffee with us. By this time, it was very close to lunch time and we decided to combine lunch and coffee at Wasp and Sprout and not visit Riverside Drive at all, which also happens to be in our old neighbourhood of Westlands and subsequently my former neighbours told me that, like during the Westgate Attack, they could hear the explosions and the exchange of gun fire and see the smoke curling up, from our former building... Had we gone on to have lunch as planned, we would have been in the immediate vicinity and who knows when we would have managed to make it back home, since the road was shut down immediately and people were asked to evacuate every building around the hotel, on foot , as at that point they did not know if it was a single attack or a multi pronged one, like the 26/11 attacks in Mumbai in 2008...
 Just the previous evening, (before we got the news of the death in our school community), we had broken a strict rule of 'not going out when there is school the next day' and taken our daughter and son bowling in a mall very close to our house. Since she is here for a very short time and we will not see her for the next five months, we were trying to cram everything possible in this short visit. In retrospect, we realized that we had visited almost every single place in the previous two weeks that are likely to be on a terrorist organization's radar... At the mall entry check point, the guard opened the boot of the car and gave a cursory glance inside, before waving us in...My son remarked that he had not even bothered to check properly... I jokingly told him that that was probably because we did not 'fit' the classic profile of terrorists, given that we had two 'children' (who are adult size) in tow. My son disagreed and this led to a discussion of children being used as suicide bombers by some organizations...Twenty hours later a suicide bomber blew himself up in DusitD2's Secret Garden restaurant, where my daughter has met friends and had lunch a few times, when she lived in Kenya...Terror is most terrifying when it hits close to home, until then, it just remains another statistic on the news....
And it was closer than we could have imagined. One of my daughter's closest school friends, an Ethiopian girl, who had moved to the United States five years ago, was back in Nairobi this month to meet all her old friends. She had been staying at the luxurious DusitD2 and had checked out to go back home just four days before the attack...What if she had been here last Tuesday? What if my daughter had been visiting her at the hotel that day?
These girls were not there but what about the  people who were? Innocent people who were going about their own business or just trying to earn an honest living? They leave behind heart broken families and loved ones, many of whom are still trying to identify bodies, at the mortuary located, ironically, just down the road from Dusit. Our hearts go out to them. What about the members of the security forces, one of whom lost his life and many others who are grievously wounded? We salute them all for the stellar role they played in rescuing people and in securing the hotel in a comparatively short period of time.
When will we see a peaceful world? What are we doing to each other? Who knows when and how it will all end... All we can do is to have faith in God, live each day as constructively as we can, keep our phones handy and carry identification on our person at all times. (Many people messaged their location from inside the besieged hotel to family members, enabling police to search for and rescue them in record time. A few bodies did not have any identification on them, making the task so much harder than it already is...). These, then are the new 'rules' for living in an unruly and ruthless world.

 DO VISIT KENYA. One swallow doth not a summer make.... Don't give up and don't give in. Together we stand!