The rains again!! The only one thing that can make Mumbai look slow, sluggish despite the frenzy... greener and fuller despite the so called "construction bug" eating into the backyard sanctuary and frontier mangroves.
My office is located on a hill. A waterfall rages down the hill during the rains every year. People brave the windy rains and take pictures against the waterfall during lunch time, leaving me sad from the apathy we harbor for our forests, rivers, nature in general.
Within the year that has passed I have watched the slow and neat tonsure of hill after hill. I have seen inexplainable forest fires and lost sleep over the reasons. I see trucks going up and down the hill all day long. Building after building gets inaugurated now and then and the roads are decorated with huge flower pots which the builder has vowed to water daily.
This year too the waterfall is flowing down. All muddy and filthy unlike the fresh water it used to bring. To me it looks like another of nature's attempt to wash our sins.
My thoughts are disturbed by a corporate email announcing a plantation drive some 20 km away. And I am like 'Lets look at our backyard buddy'

When you are confused about something.. things around you happen to move faster than you expected.. and there are incessant rains....

Eagerly waiting for the sun to shine..

Temple Trauma

From Tirupati's Balaji to Mumbai's SiddhiVinayak and Haji Ali,to Katra's Vaishno Devi,its an unavoidable,tiring journey of sorts till the sanctum sanctorum.Serpentine queues,arrogant security guards,ill-mannered volunteers,hordes of flower sellers running after you,lakhs and lakhs of people and after you manage through all this,just a glimpse of the reigning deity.Once you enter the inner abode,you have to be extraordinarily active, as you are in for some serious multitasking."Look at the god",which is quite a task, given the number of heads moving in every possible direction(worse if you are vertically challenged)."Say a quick prayer",in my case I have to recall one which is an overhead."Keep away all the other thoughts",despite the fact that you have left your cam and fav slippers with the mithai wala.So,you take a deep breath,try hard to concentrate, shut out the noise around you,you close your eyes,and voilaaaa!! you are out the of the temple.
Makes me wonder at the whole purpose of such visits.A stark contrast from the serene atmosphere at the famous Golden temple in Amritsar.Can't the huge funds be used in a more
effective manner?

Spent last night watching Q.G. Murugan..one of the best sattires ever..With cool oneliners and unbelievably simple plot..it sure has its moments..Go watch it I say!!
And if you are a member at your local gym, don't miss the steam bath for anything in the world..Awesome :-)

Half Book Prince

Just watched this movie, (made out of a book), "The Kite Runner". Can't help grumbling what a shoddy work the movie is, not even an inch close to one of the most emotional stories I have read so far. There is this particular wedding scene, which is one of my favourite in the book, where in, the main character Aamir, is getting betrothed to Suraiya and, according to Afghan tradition, they look at each other's image in a mirror. Suraiya asks her husband, 'what do you see?', to which Aamir replies, 'The rest of my life'. In the movie, this scene was so tasteless.I wish someone, one day, will bring this beautiful sequence alive on the screen. May be, Divyanshu can give it a try. Ditto with Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince. They made it a half book prince. Dumbeldore's death is so easy in the movie. But as it is everytime, I loved Emma Watson..

MJ .. where are you?

I and my maid share a peculiar relationship. I don't understand what she says, and she does'nt understand what I say, and yet, we are amicable, dependent. 

One day I asked her, where she came from, and somehow she understood the question. 

Bangladesh, she said. Her daughters live here and they got her to Mumbai, so that she could work as domestic help and earn money to save her ailing husband, who, along with their son, is still in Bangladesh. "Woh dono ricsaw chalata hai"."Aurat log ko wahan kaam nahi karne dete". "Isliye hum yahan ayee". I was already thanking God for all the freedom I enjoy.

Yesterday, she bunked. Today morning, she came, looked dizzy, did some work and requested my room mate to allow her to go. Her husband died yesterday. "Main kal aaon, aapko dikkat tho nahi?". None of us replied.

Throughout the day , I was thinking of her. Tomorrow, I will open the door for her, with a different attitude.