The Colours Are Calling

Navratri and Durga Puja are around the corner. And with, it the air is filled with the colours of festivity. Back in our childhood there was shopping to do, and showing off our new dresses to our friends. Well, visiting a friend's house to see the Puja dresses was almost a ritual.

This Navratri I want to take on a new challenge - wear Sarees on all nine days. I know it's going to be a task and I will need lot of motivation to start and keep going, to find the Sarees to wear, the accessories to match, the time to get into all these before rushing to work and after finishing the morning chores.

Looked through Ma's Sarees and added a few to wear during Navratra, hope wherever she is, she knows that I plan to wear them. It would be nicer a sight to see her wear new Sarees but there are situations which are beyond our control.

It gives a kind of numbness when I browse through her Sarees, it's a feeling to which I can't put words into, it feels like a dream that someone who wore these Sarees is gone for ever but still I feel there is some life in them, I feel a bit of her presence in these Sarees.

Ready to welcome Navratras, to feel the colours, to feel life I have arranged some of my and Ma's Sarees which I plan to wear....

When time stood still...

This time of the year when I wish to go back to childhood, go back to the times when we would wait for the exams to get over, do the shopping and enjoy the festivities. This morning I sat and penned a few memories of Mahalaya and immediately the melody of the Devi Stuta seemed to be playing in the background.

This evening as I walked back from the market, witnessing the Ganesh Visarjan procession my thoughts immediately went back to those days of the Durga Visarjan. Back home we would throng the streets and almost everyone had a tear in the eye bidding good bye to the Mother with shouts of ‘Ma, don’t go, come back soon’.

For a split second, I stood there like a child watching the procession with the same kind of enthusiasm I had years back, then suddenly ran back home to pick my little niece so she could witness the same. This was how culture was imbibed in us by our elders.

We walked with the crowd today until the point where we could get ‘darshan’ of the deity. The bright and decorated trucks and ‘Jai Deva, Jai Deva’ playing in the air, people walking as they sang, bowing and praying,  was a treat, something I missed in Delhi and Delhi felt like home for the first time today.

Tola Toli Tales - The Trash Searcher

These are real life incidents, somewhat funny but true to the core. The characters are known, the names are very close to real and the incidents in random order...
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So someone dropped their trashes at Tola's gate and Tola being Tola meant business! So daily he searched through the trash bag in the hope of finding a clue.

Hard work meets success sooner or later, so one day he found an envelope bearing the address of the recipient. Tola immediately knew this was his man; he reached the address and gave the man a piece of his mind.

No more trash at his gate from the next day...