Maya - Re-visited

Lately, I have done a lot of retrospection, thinking about various people, places and incidences. And I thought of Maya!

For those of you who do know her:
I have mailed a couple of people asking about her, but no leads. She has disappeared! Totally! I would have liked to follow her, though.

And for those of you who do not know her yet, get to know her! Following is a mail I sent more than two years back and a dear cousin (Muah!) saved it for me in the form of a blog which I am happy to copy-paste from her! :)

I still get that mixed feeling of admiration and heart-wrenching happiness when I read it. And for all this, I sincerely hope she is very happy.

" Maya, a lady in her late 20s, probably 27 - 30. She is a 8th standard drop-out from छबिलदास School (Rucha, its a school which was ONLY good during our आजी's schooling years and probably a few years after that!). Her family lives near Curry Road Station, very near to लालबागचा गणपती. Her mother works as a cleaner at Mumbai airport. Her father probably does a similar kind of job somewhere. She looks after patients who have very little hope of survival or extremely old people. She was a so-called nurse for a kid with lukemia. She was jobless after 5 years as the patient was no more. Then she was offered a similar position with a family to look after their very old grandfather. She was and I think still is with the same family.


Do you know where she lives? In the Heart of Central London !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Her second employer was so happy with her work that he sponsered her work permit and since she already had been in the UK for the past 5 years, he even helped her with her residentship.


Today, a very proud Maya is one of the official residents of the Queen's country. In these 11 years, she has travelled to Nigeria, Spain and Italy. She converses very well in English, though not that very fluently, with a bit of an accent !!!! She knows Marathi, Hindi and Gujrathi - reading, writing and speaking. She cooks very good Gujrathi food (it was a part of her second job). And of course English for her daily life.


I met her when she had come to meet माधवी मामी. When she registered with मामी's marriage bureau, मामी told her that she would not accept any registration fees from her as it would be entirely मामी's pleasure. But when she completed the form and left, she had quitely slipped 100 pounds between the pages.


It was संक्रांत and Mami gave her गुळाची पोळी which was generously soaked in ghee (there is no तूप here !!). That was the first time she said she had tasted a real गुळाची पोळी!!


I sent a usual Sunday nite mail to aai and just as I switched off my laptop, I remembered I forgot to mention the most important event of the weekend. I was sleepy and thought I would do that from office tomorrow and with that I turned off the light at midnight. But for the next 40 minutes, I just couldn't concentrate on sleep. Somewhere in my mind a voice was saying, "Send the mail NOW! Tell everyone NOW ! " So now its 1:00 am, Monday morning and as I finish writing this mail, I feel completely relaxed and genuinly happy for Maya. My Sunday evenings are generally spent in thinking about the boring week ahead or which company have I left out for job applications. But I couldn't help feeling absolutely happy for Maya today !!


3 Cheers for her."

What's Your Time?

I am wondering if you know what "time" you live in? Are you "with times", "ahead of times" or "behind times"? And by 'you' I mean the society in general.

Our society is such a varied mixture of everything thrown together, all mixed up and confused! And then that same mixture of confusion thrown back at us in different forms, that I sometimes wonder how we (or at least I) manage to stand up again after a new series of this throwing and catching game of mixed confusions takes place?

All this has confused me beyond limit! :) But what I really want to say is that how do we manage to survive peacefully in all this mess that we call the 'traditional Indian culture'? Or is it just me bothering about apparently insignificant things?

At least that's what MY society is like - the people I meet everyday and those that I don't.

To quote a few unique examples... the first one that comes to mind is a former colleague - a classic case of timeless confusion! A simple, plain-Jane, good girl and starved in the name of religion. So starved, that I thought her to be much younger than she actually was when I first met her. Plain-Jane fasted for most days of the week not knowing (1) the significance of the day, (2) the deity/God she was supposed to be fasting for and (3) the 'rules' that are to be followed during a fast! When asked why she bother about all this when she didn't know answers to any of the above, all she would say was, "That's the way it is. I can't help it."


And do any of you (yes, you, the reader) have answers to any of the above? Are you aware of the 'rules' that I am talking about? Maybe not. Here are a few:

(1) When a person fasts for one day, that day is counted from dawn to dusk.

(2) Coffee and not tea is allowed during a not-so-strict fast because coffee beans are not native crops/plants of this country. Same for potatoes, sweet potatoes, peanuts and chillies. (Yes. Thank Mexico for all the spicy chillies.)

(3) God does not come to your rescue if you do something stupid like wait in queue for long hours in scorching heat outside his temple (which he NEVER claims, by the way) while fasting and then faint on your way home.


The cherry on the cake was Jane not eating red-coloured potato papads on one of her fast days because I told her she could not have them if she was fasting! I said thay because the papads were fried. Not because of the colour. But she thought it was because of the colour (She told me so).


The next case is of a friend trying to be 'ahead' but is in fact between 'with' and 'behind' times. While finding a suitable wedding present, I came across a beautiful set of earrings in silver. But was advised not to buy those (by Aai) because (according to Aai & I fully trust her with such things) she and her family are a little conservative and such people usually prefer the newly married girls in their families to wear gold jewellery. Silver jewellery is for the younger, un-married girls! "What crap!", was my immediate reaction. "If silver jewellery looks good with an outfit you are wearing, then you wear silver jewellery! What has that got to do with your marital status? And does jewellery not symbolise wealth?" All Aai had to say was, "These girls wear outfits which only go with gold jewellery."

This same friend will soon be leaving her job as she is moving to a different city after marriage. Given the current economic and job scenario, I casually mentioned that continuing with her present job till an equally good one is at hand will be wise. Hers is a love marriage. So I thought a little adjustment will neither be a problem nor a mis-understanding. I was gently reminded that it was impossible to work out such a situation and it was best not to discuss it further!


I understand that such changes are not possible overnight. But why don't we use our own brains while deciding what is good for us and what is not? Afterall, we have been given the power to think so that we can employ it for our own use and betterment. Not for Nature's amusement!


All said and done, I wonder which "times" do we live in? "With", "Ahead" or "Behind"?