The lift man

There are 4 elevators in my office building. Two each on either side. Every morning I somehow gravitate to the left side in default mode.
The lift man is standing there , under a terribly slow wall mounted fan, in his faded grey uniform, directing us to queue up.
Every morning I greet him with a smile, and he returns the favour. This has led to his holding the lift door for me at times when I walk in just as it is moving up.

Today morning the left side lift was stuck  at the 12th floor and the right one was just about to reach ground when I entered the building.
As usual, I moved left on default, but my eyes registered the faster arrival of the other lift.

My lift man took immediate offense to this. " Don't even think about it ! You have to travel in my lift only !"

I was amused and touched at the same time. Just 2 minutes of convergence each day has created a new bond. Just a smile and namaste is enough to grant me special access.

At the end of the day, we are all social animals, care and love shall always be treasured :)

The Metro girl

She called her lover at day end
A short girl
Hanging on to the rails
Of the metro train

Effervescent and full of life
She poured all her love
Into as much as the
'Hello!' could sustain

On the other end
A sullen voice spoke
He accused
'you are late, again'

'I was with my friends
Just hanging
After work you see...'
She tried to explain

He raved and ranted
And cut the call
Causing her to pout
Her dissapointment

She frowned a bit
Then tossed her head
Linking her arms
With her metro friend 😊

Waiting for the laptop

I don't have my laptop yet
It's just my phone and me
I wonder what the world is noticing
As I look around furtively

I arrived insanely early
When the office was zero buzz
Since then, slowly and painfully
I am waiting for the daily ruckus

The smell of chai permeates the air
As people slowly pick up pace
Good morning greetings and smiles
Get replaced by the serious face

I sit around waiting and waiting
For Vaibhav the IT guy
The same time is moving at snail's pace
Which on most days just flies by

The woman with the bull tattoo

Clad in a blue salwar kameez the overweight woman put forward her medical file at the counter. A long queue for ultrasonography since the morning had made the girl at the counter snappy and irritable. The blue dressed woman with the super long plait and thick rimmed dark glasses shook with visible irritation on being rudely spoken to by the billing girl.
Nondescript looking, with a waddle in her walk and no sense of fashion to boot, my blue lady adjusted her dupatta. A bull tattoo on her shoulder peeked at me. She pushed up her glasses, and dealt with the billing girl in a polite but firm manner. Instantly the crowd around got pulled towards her charismatic way of speaking. The billing girl immediately apologised and calmed down.

The hidden power is there within us. Always. We may or may not choose to display it on the outside, but the hidden bull tattoo is alive and kicking. And may it continue to be so.

The Affair

Like naughty kids who have been up to something,
they stole a glance.
When they just happened to run into each other at the store by chance.

Her teeth found her lower lip, (well only the right side of it) to bite
The eyelashes went right up and everything else went out of sight

Just him, just him, just him all around, that was all she could see
There wasn't anyplace else on the world that she would rather ever be

Other than this small local store lined with bread and cookies along the row
This cozy place where her she hoped her secret  blush would never show

For what would the people say if they were to ever come to know ?
Of how her little heart started madly tap dancing on it's toe !!!

At the mere sight of Mr Miller's face. That sideways grin with a dimple.
If only, if only, if only Ms Patty's life had turned out to be that simple.

For Ms. Patty was seventy with four kids and a husband up in the sky
And Mr. Miller had four of his own and a divorced wife to drop by

So there they were, the naughty kids by the bread and cookie row
Hoping that their pretty blushes and cheeky grins would not show

Tomorrow again as the evening sun went down and the clock struck six
Both Mr Miller and Ms. Patty would take out their walking sticks

And meet down by the greengrocers along the row with the carrots and french bean
And carry back with them their smiles and happy dreams of what could have been.

Of Set Squares and Parenting

So I was sitting around feeling as redundant as the set squares in the geometry box.

Every exam time I buy two new Geometry boxes for the boys. Every single time they lose or break the scale, the compass, the protractor. Yet, every single time, without fail, what are left behind are two brand new, unscratched, gleaming triangles of plastic. I have been collecting these set squares in a tin box which had come with some cookies.

Today, that box refused to shut down. There were just too many of the triangles inside. No amount of shaking, poking, prodding was helping the purpose. My frustrated mind pulled out the dustbin from under the table ,"Let me get rid of these. They are of no use anyway." I thought. I couldn't come up with better use for them other than emergency scales.

Yet, somehow I couldn't throw these. I took them all out and arranged them slowly with their pointy edges non overlapping, in such a way that they found their niche in the box, and finally the lid shut down easily.

Job done, I sat around feeling as redundant as the set squares. Housework , kids, food , all had been handled hours back. Years of starting life early has seen me finish off daily chores quickly and go about my Job. The sabbatical now sees me trying to wrap my hours around the same work which took me minutes to finish.

I floated towards the kitchen to find comfort in food. Munching on my favourite chocolate cookies, I came back towards the dining table when my attention fell on a school document of the elder one. He had filled out his details on the form in his neat handwriting. After the blank for the Name, it said S/O or D/O and it was followed by another blank just enough to fit in the father's name.

Now most official forms either say ' Father's name' or  ' Mother's Name' or this type of S/O , D/O followed by the blank.

In case of S/O D/O option, the most likely response is the father's name. We have grown up to accept this as the norm and I don't really see anything wrong with it. After all in a patriarchal system of nomenclature, we don our father's names. Identify with the paternal family's genealogy and hierarchy.

So I kept looking at the small dash after the S/O and kept feeling even more like a set square in the geometry box of my son's official identity. Just as the thought floated around and tried to find roots in my head, I noticed the remarkable  'S/O Romit and Piyu Mukerji'  filled out in my son's neat lettering. The words had been reduced in size to fit the small blank.

He may have done this thoughtfully or out of sheer habit , I am not sure which. But these cursive strokes of his lifted my spirits beyond the skies.

I wasn't a set square anymore. I was very much a scale, or a compass or a protractor....

The boys are being brought up right. That itself makes me feel important. Parenting boys properly is a sure shot way of moving towards a positive society which may someday learn to leave a longer dash after the S/O D/O.

Shiva and Love

Amidst the myriad festivals we celebrate, Mahashivratri fascinates me the most. A country which normally turns it's face away from any public display of love between a husband and wife, celebrates a festival commemorating the same.

The marriage of Shiva and Parvati. A love so strong that it transcends time, a passion so potent that it is legendary. A union leading to creation. There are enough reasons to love this festival.

It is said, that this day marks the destruction of old and ushers in the creation of new. I often think, like the annual celebration of such a festival, there should be an annual cleansing ritual of marriages as well. We accumulate so much in a year, hurt emotions, fights, harsh words, unspoken simmering anger.... There should be a day to cleanse it all. A clean slate day.

The base line of love is always there to build up on. There is a need for such a day where the past is shed , like shiva's snake sheds it's skin. Only then, can the new be born, only then can creation and positivity be there.

Like Shiva dances away his hurt, his anxiety and his anger, we should be able to shake out the clinches of the relationship and dance the dance of creation. Dance the dance of love.

My understanding of Hindu mythology is basic at best, and many may find my views simplistic and discardable. But my understanding of love and relationships is deeper and it is this knowledge which drives me to love Shiva, and surrender to the power of destruction and creation.

Om Namah Shivay 🙏