Aie - About my grandmother...

The word 'Aie' means Mother in my mother tongue Marathi but we used to call our paternal grandmother Aie.A grandmother is usually  called 'Ajji'.Today would have been her 87th birthday and I thought of sharing  this poem which I had written over twelve years ago.My daughter was four years old then and my son was yet to be born!
                       
        AIE - ABOUT MY GRANDMOTHER

When I was born, my grandmother hastened to declare,
"I won't be called Ajji, I don't have grey hair!"
So Aie she was and Aie she remained,
Right till the end of her earthly reign.

I could hear her pattering in the kitchen
Long before dawn.
And she worked all day,
Without a yawn!
She made the most delicious meals and pickles too,
Today I wish I'd taken a moment
 To say 'Thank you'.

In Aie's regime the house was always sparkling clean.
She scrubbed and mopped,
Swept and dusted,
I told her,in vain,
It was time she rested!

When for long hours I'd been on the phone,
She'd rave and rant and shout and groan.
And about hefty phone bills
She'd loudly moan!
Her monthly budget was a wonder.
No finance minister could have made it stronger.
In her purse a rupee lasted so much longer!

I scoffed when she said gold was an investment wise,
Today, as interests fall and prices rise,
The wisdom of her words I now realize.

In winter, to wear a sweater, she with me would plead,
Not that I, to those words ever paid heed!
Today my daughter is wrapped up at the hint of a breeze.
And yet I am anxious lest she cough or sneeze!

Her reluctance to let me cycle in traffic
I used to hate.
Today I don't let my daughter
Out of the gate!
Me travelling alone gave her the shivers.
I, in my ignorance, mocked at her fears.

I laughed, then, at her obsession with her daughter,
Today, I know, one cannot, with words,
One's own lamb slaughter!
Sometimes against my mother
Her sword would be drawn.
After all, which mother in law ever admits
She could be wrong!

Then one day I went away
Without a thought nor a guess,
That her hands, for the last time
Had me blessed.
When I returned,
She had gone for her eternal rest.

An earthern lamp on the floor
Stared me in the eye.
To its steady flame
I said my last goodbye.

Hide And Seek

Childhood memories surface 

Of damp, dank June days....

Of paper boats and puddles

Of high and happy spirits.

Inhaling the fragrance of wet earth

Twirling a bright umbrella,

Seems but a distant dream.

And thick dust cloaks everything.

Getting tangled with my gloomy thoughts,

Dark clouds hover

Across my city's barren horizon,

Bringing a promise of rain.

Scraggly trees, dry as bone,

Surreptitiously straighten themselves,

Hoping to wash off

The dust of a summer passed.

A few drops fall

And glisten on a thirsty leaf,

And my heart lifts up,

Only to slump again.

A brisk breeze blows

Through the trees.

The dark clouds scurry away,

The meagre raindrops hurry away.

Grey dust still clings to the trees.

I can taste it on my tongue.

I feel that yet again,

Summer has begun...

A Thirsty State

June was like facing summer all over again,
A leaking water tank giving the illusion of rain.

The farmer's gnarled fingers shade his eyes,  
As he anxiously scans the skies,
His wan face to conceal anxiety, tries,  
How long can he believe the weather bureau's lies?

The only moisture of which there is absolutely no dearth,
Are the farmer's tears, as they drip onto the parched earth.    

His seedlings lie shrivelled,
His wife is no longer bejewelled.
He is buried under a mountain of debt,
But there is no sign of rain...yet.

Rich and poor equally moan the lack of rain,
But only the farmer is driven insane.

The chopping of trees does not cease.
How can the weather Gods then be appeased?
Prayers are being chanted across my State,
But the farmer has already resigned himself to his fate.

Dark clouds hover, but they aren't of rain,
We seem to be facing a drought all over again!

Thirsty cities speak of water harvesting,
But most of the time they are only jesting.
As the first minute drops fall,
All resolutions are chucked across the wall.

There is talk of reducing global warming,
There are discussions of how we are the environment harming.

More trees are hacked to file these paper reports,
And people pledge their undying support.
But at the least hint of rain,
Every proposal is shelved again.

Mother Earth waits in vain,
Asking 'When will humankind be sane again?'




                            

Old Scabs And Fresh Wounds.

Remember how, when we were children, we used to pick at scabs on our knees or legs or arms even before the scraped knee or elbow or the mosquito bite had fully healed? Remember how the blood would ooze out of the still fresh wound and our mothers or grandmothers would rush to apply liquid dettol or antiseptic cream, lest the wound became infected?  As adults, we often keep picking at scabs of past hurts, insults and misunderstandings that we believe others have inflicted on us. We keep digging into those wounds of the mind, whether real or perceived, and continue to let them fester without letting them heal and giving the scars a chance to fade away. What I have experienced in the last couple of days made me realize that most of us make much ado about nothing almost all the time. I have learnt lessons on how to cope with what life throws at you  from a mere child, whose physical and mental wounds were reopened six months after the incident had occurred.
Since the kids have 'Spring Break', ( yes, it is spring in the United States Of America, though we have just lived through an unusually hot Nairobi summer!) they are at home and my son wanted to invite his bus friend home to spend the day. I messaged his aunt and she told me the child was in hospital again. The doctors had operated to remove the plate that had been inserted in his thigh after his bone had been shattered by a bullet during the Westgate Mall attack. He was recovering, she said, and would be discharged that very evening since he had already spent three days in hospital. We sent him our best wishes and said we would visit him at their house the next day. She was especially glad that we planned to visit, as he would be alone at home all day with just the house help for company, as everybody would be back at work.
So my son and I went to see the brave little boy. I thought, with such physical and mental trauma, he would be abed. I knew it was not just the old wound that the doctors had reopened to remove the plate.He must have relived all the mental agony of being back in the same hospital where he must have been given the news of his mother's tragic demise in the attack, a mere six months ago. If news of his operation brought back such vivid memories of that day for me, I shuddered to imagine what agony he must surely have faced. As a child, my favourite and sometimes the only good part of having been sick, or having a broken bone or a minor surgery was that my mother and either, if not both, of my grandmothers would be at my beck and call! The most vital person in his life would not be there during his recovery period and ever after and this hurt me to the core.
The house help ushered us in and to my great surprise, the child followed, once again back on his crutches. He greeted us with a huge smile, was completely delighted to see my son and when I handed him a bag of chocolates, the first thing he did was to offer one to my son! I was speechless...
My son and I had not gone there to poke and pry, we were not there to dig and delve into what he had undergone. We had gone to offer whatever little crumbs of comfort chapattis and spicy vegetables and a few chocolates could give to this child. Yet he candidly discussed his operation, showed us the X Rays taken when the ten inch long metal plate with ten metal screws was still inside and finally handed over the plate, which the doctors had returned to him, to my son for his inspection! They both examined the screws, speculated on why one was longer than the other nine, rechecked the X Ray and wondered aloud why two screws seemed to be crossing across each other into the bone. I was amazed at their coping ability. They could have been touching and talking about a metal plate used to make furniture, not one that had resided inside the child's body until so recently,so matter of fact were they about it!
The child hobbled into the kitchen on his crutches and asked us from there if we would like to have some juice.He could so easily have asked the house help to get it for us but this was something he wanted to do himself. I could not imagine being so hospitable after such major surgery and great pain.My son ran inside to help him, even as I said I was fine and would not have juice. At that point, I was barely swallowing my tears and I thought it would be impossible to get juice past the lump in my throat. My son rushed out of the kitchen, literally joined his palms together in the age old Indian gesture of supplication and beseeched me to have the juice. I was shocked, as he has never begged with humbly folded hands before. If either of my kids wants something, they ask or request me, not beg. He said sotto vocce,' Please have the juice, my friend will feel so bad if you don't. Please.' So I agreed.
The child's left hand was also bandaged. He said the burnt skin had been scraped off by the doctors. But that did not stop him from quickly making a tiny bow from an ear bud and some thread and an arrow from a tooth pick! I warned them not to shoot at each other so he drew a guy on a piece of paper and wrote ' I am a bad guy' on it. They had great fun shooting arrows at their target and while my son did it in all innocence, I wondered if it was a cathartic process for the other child...
When it was time for us to leave, a pen was pressed into my son's hand as a gift, maybe for visiting his home for the first time! He refused to take no for an answer. Oh generous heart, those bullets could not destroy ingrained qualities!
If, at the beginning of this academic year, someone would have told me that a fourteen year old and a ten year old would teach me about life and living, I would not have openly scoffed at the person, because I believe we can learn from even a new born baby (ever watched one breathing?!), but I admit I would have been a bit skeptical. That is exactly what has happened. The child has taught me about being equanimous and generous in the face of huge tragedy. I have learnt about being hospitable and smiling for your visitors though you may be wracked by physical pain and be feeling mentally torn apart. From my son, I have learnt the importance of firm, supportive and unyielding friendship. He may be bursting with questions but he never asks his friend about what transpired that day and yet listens whenever the child wants to talk about it. He does not shy away from it. Most importantly I learnt that accepting hospitality gracefully is also an art, which my ten year old seems to have mastered and I just about scraped through my first test after being prodded by him! I only wish it had been under favourable circumstances...

The Legacy Of A Mother...

When school reopened last August, as I waved goodbye to my children from our balcony, I noticed a new child riding the school bus. My daughter had mentioned that one of her friends had recently moved house and had now switched to their bus. I asked if the child I had noticed was her classmate. She replied in the negative and said that her friend was picked up after they were and this was another boy who had just moved to Kenya from another country.
Soon this child, although a few years older than my son, became good 'bus' friends with him. One of their favourite topics of discussion, as related to me by my son, was guns and warfare in their respective countries. Much as we all try to deny it and curb it, guns do hold a certain fascination for boys. My paternal grandfather and father were in the Indian army, my father in law used to head the quality control department of the ammunition factory in Pune and had set up the entire Ordnance factory in another town in our state, after being trained for the same in Germany. So it would be fair to say it is in my son's blood and the other child's ambition being to join the army, they got along famously and enjoyed their discussions. Of course, no guns were actually involved! At that time, the bus used to pass Westgate Shopping Mall everyday, and once when it was pouring and a flood of water was flowing through the open channels by the road, this child had dubbed it as 'Westgate River'. No one knew then that soon those would be rivers of blood and how horrifically and deeply he would be affected by it.
Around a month later, my son came home with a little gift from his new friend, a set of small colourful rods with magnets in them which could be made into various shapes. I explained to him that we do not accept gifts from anybody unless it is a birthday or a special occasion and asked him to return the gift to the other child immediately. I further added for good measure that the friend's mother, whom I had never met, might say that he had simply taken the toy and then what explanation would we have? We could be called thieves! I knew I was exaggerating but I really wanted to press home the point to my son! He agreed to return it the next working day,after the weekend, which happened to be a long one, as the school had given a holiday on Friday.
If we could have prevented what happened the next day, I would not mind being called a thief a hundred times over...The child and his mother were at Westgate during the terrorist attack and the mother was fatally injured. She passed away and the boy spent many days recuperating from his injuries in hospital. The little magnetic game was right next to my laptop, ready to be returned, even as my daughter gave us this horrific news, after she got it from friends on Facebook. My son sorely missed his bus friend and we all prayed for him and even though I had never met the child, he was continuously in my thoughts...His mother's role and mine could have so easily been reversed...given the fact how often I used to be at Westgate.
My son was delighted to have his friend back on the bus after a month and they continued their friendship as if the nightmarish events had never occurred in Nairobi. My son, always quick to help, made sure he escorted his friend who had to use crutches for a few months as a result of the attack,as far as he was allowed to, given the fact their classrooms are in different sections of the school and Elementary students are not permitted beyond a certain point.
Just before the American Thanksgiving weekend, the child mentioned how lonely he would be at home for the next three days.  When my son told me this, I told him to invite his friend over to spend an evening with us. He accepted the invitation and I finally had the privilege of meeting one of the best behaved and most polite children I have ever come across!
I had made the very popular Indian snack of  spicy, fried potato cutlets for the kids. When I asked our guest if he liked Indian food, he said yes he loved chappatis! I asked him to come for a meal one day so I could serve chappatis. Then it struck me why not make chappatis? Just because we eat them for our main meals, it was no reason to deny them to this child.
I began rolling out chappatis and he was delighted to have them with coconut chutney and kept thanking me for making them. After a few of them he said he did not want any more.We persuaded him, saying we had plenty of dough and it was easy to make them, he could have as many as he wanted! In my own mind, I could hear a mother telling her son when he was a tiny tot, not to be greedy and to mind his manners! How well she had taught her son in the thirteen odd years she had with him. I have fed so many people over the years, family, friends, relatives, neighbours but the satisfaction I felt that day when I made chappatis for this child is unmatched. Finally I could do something to make someone, who had suffered so much, happy, albeit for a few hours. Maybe from somewhere a mother's distraught soul looked down and she could see another mother feeding her son a hot meal...
Nowhere did I see any bitterness in this child. As he was leaving, I handed over his crutches and he happily told me he had almost forgotten he had them and soon he would not be needing them anymore. Oh to have the resilience and forgiving heart of a child! We invited him to come over again soon.
A few days later I was standing in the balcony, waiting to wave to the kids. I could see this child in the front seat though he could not see me. He removed a chocolate bar from his pocket, quickly broke off a piece and handed it over to the bus driver. Again a mother's voice echoed in my mind, share what you have with others around you, is what she must have taught him. He was doing just that! I wondered if I would be so generous if I had lost so much...
When he came over the next time, he had brought a tiny cross bow and arrow that he had made himself for my son, his scarred hands notwithstanding. It worked perfectly, except that the arrow was an old refill from a ball pen and there was still a bit of ink in it. As my son shot the bow, black ink spilled out on my sparkling clean, cream floor. I told my son that the house help would not be too happy to see the mess on the floor. The other child quickly grabbed some tissues and mopped up the mess even before I could say another word. Again, the words of the mother came to me, always clear up any mess made when you have been playing, specially in someone else's house. He had certainly taken those lessons to heart! Believe me, children do not automatically learn these things! Mothers have to reinforce them time and again, often by example.
I do not encourage my son's friends to come over when he has school the next day. But I do make an exception for this child, because I can only imagine how awful it must be to go back after school to a house without a mother in it. One day when they both got off the bus together along with my daughter and I had given them their hot snacks, I reminded my son that he had home work. The other child immediately offered to sit down with my son till he finished his work. My son told him not to worry as I would not let him sleep even if it was ten in the night, unless he had done his homework. The boy told me that his mother told him it was fine if he did not do his homework, as long as he bore the consequences the next day. She would not write any note to the teacher asking her to excuse him! My admiration for this lady went up another notch. She had taught her son to face the consequences of his actions and today, though she is not physically present in his life, her words ring in his ears...
The child carries his I Pad to school and all the boys like to play games on it en route to school, which can sometimes be really violent ones. I had told my son to stay away as I do not believe that he should start the day by playing on an electronic device. Finally I told his friend that my son was not allowed to play games unless it was a teacher recommended site and for that, too, he had to use my lap top. The child now puts away his I Pad when on the bus and even when he comes to our house, they only play songs on it. What a relief to find that obedience is among the many admirable qualities his mother has drilled in him.
A popular saying goes' God could not be everywhere. So He made Mothers'. Sometimes, for reasons beyond our comprehension, he takes away a mother too, much before her time. But as I am witnessing almost every week, the legacy of a mother lives on through her child, though she may have passed on from this Earth.

Hell's Gate : Gorgeous Gorge Getaway!

We had made no concrete plans to go any where this December. My parents had been unwell for the last few months and there was a chance that I would have to go to India along with the kids if the pathological reports, in my Mom's case, were not too good or if my Dad's deep vein thrombosis did not respond as expected, to medication. By God's grace, all's well that ends well, we did not have to go to India and we landed up spending the vacation in Nairobi with tons of books for company! Not that we minded in the least!
But there was a national park, very different from the rest of them, a little more than an hour's drive from Nairobi, that we had been wanting to visit for some time. My husband had the brilliant idea that this would be a good way to celebrate my birthday and decided to make it into an overnight trip. Old friends of ours from Dar days were keen to join in but they had to drop out as they were expecting visitors from India. An American family who has recently moved here from the States joined us, my husband asked for and got the day off, and we were on our way to Hell's Gate National Park, in Naivasha, in the Great Rift Valley.
We made good time despite the fact that our friend's car had a flat tyre even before we had left Nairobi and a couple of hours later we were at the entrance to Hell's Gate. This national park is the only one in Kenya where one can actually walk in the park or cycle in it, as might be one's fancy! As we drove to the Ranger's Tower inside the park, we saw plenty of zebras, wart hogs, gazelles and people huffing and puffing on their bikes! We opted to walk from the Ranger's Tower and visit the gorge, as bicycling such a great distance around the park with four kids in tow did not seem to be a very viable option. And this decision turned out to be a fantastic one, as we were in for a visual and, for the fit among us,a physical treat!
I had first seen pictures and then  read, at my mother's knee, about a gorge in our book about Rivers! I had studied about gorges right up to twelfth grade. But, not even in my wildest dreams had I thought that a day would come when I would actually be walking, nay, scrambling, up and down a gorge, family and friends in tow and that too in Africa! When in Africa, expect the unexpected!
The first thought that came to mind as we followed the Ranger into the gorge was that the word 'gorgeous' surely comes from the word 'gorge'! It was breathtakingly beautiful! Sheer rock walls rising almost sky high on both sides, cool water flowing down the centre, hot, sulphuric water falls tumbling around in little nooks and corners and ice cold water falls roaring in other crevices. A flat bed rock, the guide told us, was dubbed the 'Devil's Bedroom' which resulted in my son promptly christening two of the water falls as the Devil's Hot and Cold Showers, for remember, we were in Hell's Gate!
Extremely steep sides, resulted in us taking the utmost care, during our hike. In some places where huge stones blocked our path, we had to climb up the sides of the gorge and then climb down again. A slip of the foot could have sent us tumbling below... This one is certainly not for the faint hearted! Mount Longonot lies in close vicinity, can be seen from this park and had last erupted in 1900! We can still see the volcanic ash and the children were thrilled with the huge chunks of shiny, black obsidian that lie around the entire gorge, thanks to the same volcano! A tall, natural tower from the same surrounding rock, rose from the gorge and was known as the Central Tower. This was very near a cave, high up, where baboons, intelligent creatures that they are, reside! This was also the site, the ranger informed us, where parts of the Hollywood movie Tomb Raiders Part two was shot.
 At regular intervals, there were emergency exits out of the gorge. The guide told us that flash floods are very common here, specially during the long rains and the water level rises so suddenly that people in the gorge are often caught unawares. In fact, a few students had died here some time ago. That was a sobering note, and we were glad we had chosen to visit in summer when the river was a mere gurgling stream! A long hike up the side of the gorge brought us to a scenic view point where a lady had strategically set up a stall, selling us cold soft drinks! Hot, tired, throats parched after the hour and a half long hike, the children begged to be allowed a Coke (no explanation needed!) and a Tangawizi, a famous ginger drink in these parts! I had to give in but contented myself with a bottle of water! I had burnt a tidy amount of calories and there was no way I wanted to take them in again through a sugary, acidic drink!
Lake Naivasha Sopa Resort, where we had planned to stay, is practically across the road from Hell's Gate and we reached just in time for some delicious lunch, needless to say, in our case, Indian and vegetarian! Beautiful cottages line the large grounds of this resort which covers a hundred and fifty acres and whose borders touch the shore of Lake Naivasha. Zebras amble around, water bucks placidly chew their cud, a friendly giraffe comes up to the dining area, royally ignoring the hordes of children who chase it, shooting pictures from their parents' mobile phones! A baboon steals a tea bag from the tea/coffee/cocoa station set up near the pool, sucks it and disgusted by the taste, spits out the entire concoction! His fellow baboons delicately lap water from the shimmering blue pool, after polishing off a few stolen croissants. Why should they bother to go to the lake when the pool is closer at hand?! My son hires a bicycle and rides it for hours amongst these myriad animals. The golden rays of the setting sun light up the grounds as we walk around the resort. What an idyllic way to spend a birthday!
A surprise awaits me after dinner. My husband has organized a birthday cake for me and, right on cue, the dining room lights are switched off and the entire team of servers comes banging pots and pans, carrying the egg less chocolate cake, a flaming torch held high to light their way, singing songs in true African tradition! At the end, the lights come back on, the entire room, with its hundred plus occupants, bursts into applause as I cut the cake! Our kind friends have got me a beautiful gift and a card I will always treasure...
 As night falls, the hippos leave the lake and come out and a bunch of them graze right behind our cottage! We are enthralled as we have always seen them in the lake during the day and did not expect them to come out and wander around like domesticated cows, with just a glass door between them and us! This, is, indeed, the icing on the cake for me! After eight years in Africa this is our first sighting of 'out of the water' hippos as they leave the water only after sun set!
The next day we head for ' Crescent Island' which, during the summer months, is accessible by road. We take an hour long boat ride from here on Lake Naivasha and come withing touching distance of the hippos again, who are, of course, back in the water now. We spot a pelican who takes to graceful flight when our boat goes too close, we identify different kinds of birds all of whom are nesting on clumps of thorny bushes in the middle of the lake! This is a bird watchers and bird photographers paradise...We are ready to head back home to Nairobi.
Recently I watched the movie 'A Royal Romance' in which Wiliam and Kate play the ' Never Ever Game' with their friends. Here are my questions:
Have you never ever had hippos grazing in your backyard?
Have you never ever had baboons quenching their thirst in your pool?
Have you never ever had a giraffe join you at tea time?
Has your son never ever bicycled between two water buck and wound his bike in and out between six zebras?
Has your daughter never ever tumbled half way off while scrambling down a gorge?
Have you never ever taken a boat ride with hippos within touching distance sharing the lake with you?
Have you never ever cut your birthday cake to the chant of Swahili songs with a hundred other uninvited guests looking on?
If you have answered yes to any of the above questions, you have surely lived in or visited Africa at some point in your life!

                                           Chiselled edges of the gorge.

                                             The rocky Central Tower...

                                              The baboon cave!

                                               Goodbye Gorge!
                                                The Pelican takes flight..

                                              The sun sets on my birthday!

                                              Hippo out of the Lake!

                                               Hippos in the Lake!

                                             'Our' picturesque cottage.

From Kenya To Kodai ( Via Pune, Chennai And Madurai... )

I have been getting a large number of mails from the Head Office in Mumbai pertaining to the next conference for the Speech and Drama program whose franchise I hold in Pune, my hometown. This time it is going to be held in a tiger sanctuary next month and sadly I will miss it as I will be in India only by next June. But those mails reminded me that so many things have happened since I attended the last conference in June in the beautiful hill station of Kodaikanal in the state of Tamil Nadu in Southern India , that I never got around to writing about it.
The first step, after I was invited for the Kodai conference and was told it was compulsory to attend, was mentally preparing myself to spend three nights and four days away from my children who I would have to leave with my parents since my husband would still be in Nairobi at that  time. Linda Goodman's typical Capricorn mother that I am, staying away from my kids even for a couple of days is a huge challenge for me and I am continuously haunted by questions like  'Have they brushed their teeth and have they had their milk?!' Little wonder then that she says and I quote ' If you have a Capricorn mother you do not have to worry for the rest of your life..'
The next step was figuring out tickets which I bought on line in Nairobi and thus discovered that I would be travelling from Pune to Kodai via Chennai and Madurai. I had forayed into Tamil Nadu more than two decades earlier just after my tenth standard board exams to visit my Aunt and Uncle who were based at the Army Staff College at Wellington (yes, the colonial touch still reigns and we still have towns named after Brit Lords!) near yet another famous hill station, Ooty. But I had not visited any of these cities whose glimpses I would be able to catch now. An added bonus was that I would be staying at the very same hotel 'The Carlton', where my husband had stayed many years ago for one of his conferences. He had said then that we should visit this place together and since then we have been all over the world but have never visited Kodai. It seemed I was destined to visit it by myself !
My Dad dropped me off at Pune airport and I, as usual, popped into the airport book shop to arm myself with a good book. After all what's the point of spending so much time travelling if you do not use it to read? Soon we were winging our way to Chennai and all our Tamil friends came to mind. Chennai is one of India's safest metros and I have read about the pure silk saree clad, top to toe gold laden 'atthais' (Aunties), fragrant jasmine flowers in their hair, who move confidently around town and  have no fear that their jewellery will be snatched by bike riding thieves, just the way women could move around in Pune a mere twenty years ago...
I only got an aerial view of Chennai and of course there was a brief halt at the airport as I changed planes to head to Madurai but I liked what I saw and someday I would love to visit this city. The next aircraft was much smaller and sadly the airline served no food. Used as I am to good Indian vegetarian meals on all our international flights, it hurt to buy food but it could not be helped and I bought a packet of tortilla chips at an exhorbitant cost!
Finally I landed at Madurai where my colleague received me at the airport and we began the last leg of my journey to Kodai which was still a three hour drive away. Clean air was a welcome relief after my poor polluted Pune and swaying palms were easy on the eye. Driving on winding roads, through small villages, climbing up into the hills, with a GPS navigator by our side, there was no way we could lose our way and sure enough we soon reached Kodai, ready to participate in the conference. Our meals were included in our package and we bonded with fellow franchisees from all parts of India including Manipur, over Dosas and Sambar, Idlis and Vadas ( that is typical and very popular South Indian cuisine for the uninitiated!) rounded off with ice cream at every meal! Every one else loved the cool Kodai weather but since I live in Nairobi, another hill station, all year round, it was the norm rather than the exception for me!
Chocolates, supposedly hand made, tea, fresh from the surrounding hills, medicinal oils and spices were on my shopping list as Kodai is famous for all these and my suitcase was full to bursting point by the time we were ready to leave. I also won a rolling trophy at the conference on an all India level and that, alone, made my trip worthwhile! The cuddly 'Bear Trophy' was also added to my 'threatening to burst at the seams' long suffering suitcase!
 We drove back to Madurai very early in the morning and I was blessed to witness a beautiful, golden sunrise, a sight I would have otherwise surely missed, as getting up early tops the list of things I hate! Since our flights were in the evening I was invited to my Master Franchisee's sister's house for the day. After dropping another colleague who had an early morning flight, to the airport, we headed straight there. And, thus, I had the fortune of meeting some of the most generous people I have ever met in my life!
 What is it about small towns that somehow manage to produce people who actually care about others? We, from the big cities are so busy with our own lives, that we rarely have a minute to spare for anything or any one that does not directly concern us. The saddest part is that things were so different even in a mini metro like Pune just a handful of years ago.. My host's father actually made it a point to go up to his aged mother and tell her he was leaving for office and he also increased the volume of the television set so that she could clearly hear the religious discourse that was on. Most people I know seem to have forgotten these minor courtesies and look upon their parents as a burden they cannot wait to get rid off.
My hosts ensured that I got to visit the famous Meenakshi Temple of Madurai that has visitors from all over the world! They personally dropped me close to the temple, where their friend who owned a huge garments shop right in the temple premise, fixed up a guide for me and then they told me they would pick me up and take me home for lunch! I would have been content to study the marvellous architecture alone ( my M.Phil thesis dealt with temple architecture!) and would have worshipped from afar but thanks to these people whom I had met for the very first time I was able to go right  up to the sanctum sanctorum of the temple. I was mildly surprised to find that only Hindus were allowed inside the temple...Since I had not expected to enter the temple, I had dressed comfortably for travel in a pair of knee length capris and so I was stopped by the lady security guard and told in no uncertain terms that I was violating the dress code of the temple! Oops! I assured her I would not make the same mistake twice, begged her to let me enter and she finally relented!
My mother's birthday was coming up soon and I was determined to gift her some gold from the South. The kind shop owner sent one of his sales ladies to guide me to a reputed jewellery store. The same lady accompanied me to an ATM machine to withdraw cash for my purchase, without a word of complaint, when my credit card refused to work due to network issues. Yes, small towns have their share of problems! And then I had to practically force a tip in her hand. There was no expectation nor was there any sign of the greed  in her eyes that one normally sees in our metros.
A delicious home cooked lunch followed by juicy mangoes and a short rest later, it was time to leave for the airport. I thanked my hostess, who despite having had a baby just a fortnight earlier, had taken great pains to ensure that I was comfortable during the course of the day. I invited them to Pune and I hoped I would be able to reciprocate at least a fraction of the hospitality I had experienced that day!
Hitherto my only experience of Madurai had been through A.K Ramanujan's poem that I had studied in school. 'In Madurai, city of temples and poets who sang of cities and temples....'. Well they should have sung about the amazing people who live here too! I would not have been blown off my feet by all the kindness shown to me then!
It was only fitting that my trip to India that had begun with a journey to Chennai should end with watching a movie just a day before we came back to Kenya, whose name begins with Chennai....I am still recovering from that particular experience and am in no hurry to repeat it...

                                           Carved Shikhar of the Meenakshi Temple, Madurai

                                                  The room with a view at the Carlton, Kodai
                                                          The lovely lake and stately trees.