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."