Trees and Histories....one Sunday.

I planted four trees last week.   A banyan, a pipal, a red frangipani and a lime.  The Banyan’s history is impressive.   It is India’s national tree and the largest tree you can find in India or indeed anywhere in the world. The Indian name for it is “Vat” (pronounced “vut”) . Once a year, during Vat Poornima, (meaning Full Moon Night of the Vat) Indian, married women after fasting the whole day,  find a Vat tree, anoint it, then circumambulate the tree tying white string to its trunk.  By evening the trunk is completely covered over and white with strings. This ritual is meant to ensure the long life of the husband. (And no, there is no similar ritual observed by men.)

 I didn’t plant the banyan for any ritualistic reason.  I found it growing along with a pipal, in a small pot, which its owner had discarded by the roadside.  The banyan’s strong roots had tried to thrust out of the plastic pot in an effort to survive but hadn’t succeeded and both plants were dying. I brought the pot home, took the plants out and planted them, in the garden of my building, with some water and a prayer.

PIPAL

The pipal too has an interesting background.   As if being the tree under which the Buddha found enlightenment, wasn't history enough, it was also believed that planting a pipal in your courtyard would guarantee you a male heir and even today a walk in the villages shows a pipal outside almost every house.  I do believe though that THAT was a tale planted just to get people to grow more trees.

Interestingly, villagers used to conduct the marriage of the pipal and the neem tree complete with priest, rites and bridal finery with the neem being the bride.   It is a strange fact, that more often than not, the pipal and neem, even in places where they haven’t been planted by human hand, can be found growing close to each other - trunk, branches and leaves clinging together very romantically.  Perhaps it was this sight which made our imaginative villagers, want to legalize their relationship!

LIME

The lime I found growing in a pot on my terrace and trying its best to edge out the buttercup growing there.  My lime tree has no history. How it came to be in the pot I know not.  I've planted it with the others in the hope of a fruitful future for it.

As for the frangipani it was only after buying frangipani to plant last year that I learnt that one can grow them simply by snapping off a small branch and tucking it into soil. The one I’ve planted now is a branch of a rare red frangipani growing near my office. It is still a stub but I’m giving it lots of love, so I think it’ll thrive.  The other three though as you can see, are looking very pleased with themselves.

When will you come by and see them?

Rosemary

Servants' Day 2011 (Joy of Giving Week)

As part of the Joy of Giving Week, I celebrated  Servants’ Day on October 2^nd Gandhi Jayanti, this year too; and this year it was almost the same as last year and yet also very different.  

 his year I decided that the only way to avoid the negative and hurtful comments of last year, ( http://goo.gl/AyfLp ) was not to ask for any donations or contributions.  Accordingly I let it be known that this year’s Servants Day was going to be sponsored exclusively by me.  However, one kind old gentleman advised me that this wasn’t right. “Get people a chance,” he urged.  “Don’t shut them out.”  There was something to be said for his point of view also and so I informed friends and neighbors that while I was going to sponsor the event they could contribute if they wished to.

No one did so.   Like the previous year, I was again told that treating the “bais” was not a good idea, that they gave their servants food and clothes; that the “bais” anyway kept borrowing money and not returning it; that I had done this event last year and why do it again; that Divali was coming up and they would have to give the servants something then too;   and finally that if I wanted to waste my money on such a foolish idea, I was welcome to.  Faced with this much hostility, I began to doubt myself.  Was I being foolish?  But all doubts fled seeing the eager anticipation in the faces of Urmila and Laxmi the women who came in daily to help.  

 I decided that since most of the help were fasting, it being Navratri- that’s the nine days of fasting preceding Dassehra  I decided on  sabudana  (sago)vadas,  coconut burfee, potato chips,  rajgira (amaranth flour) laddoos, and lime juice.  (Yep, believe it or not, these are permitted foods for a Hindu fast.) Also like the last year I would give  every help a gift and have games they could enjoy.

Nevertheless, I was feeling a little downcast working on the whole event all by myself.  Then a  couple of my friends called.  They had just learned that I was doing the whole thing all by myself and they insisted they would not let me shoulder the burden alone.  Anju insisted on buying the potato chips and Usha, who loves sweets but cannot  eat them because she is a diabetic, said she would buy the coconut burfee.   Mamta said she would sponsor the lime juice and all of them promised to come over on Sunday and help.  Happiness!!

The next hurdle was requesting permission to use the Club House for the event,  from the Building Committee.  Last year, they had flatly refused it.  This year, I was in for a surprise.   When I went to the Committee Office, I found that the Secretary had left a message saying that I should have the club house at a minimum fee and that if I felt I could not pay the amount, he would pay it. Now that was really nice!

And so, this year’s SD was same and yet it was different. We had the entire building’s domestic help, security staff, sweepers, gardeners, all 60 of them,  playing passing-the-parcel, winning gifts, eating, and giggling at the lucky dip basket.  We had people who were as boorish as last year and we had people who gave generously and thought it was a wonderful idea!

But by far the best part of this year’s Servants’ Day was discovering that I had such wonderful taste in friends!
Rosemary

What women talk about...

Overheard at a beauty parlor:

Very pretty girl getting artificial nails fitted on:

So I bring him his soup and he says. "It’s cold."
So I heat it and bring it back.
He takes a sip and says: It’s still cold."
I take it back, heat it thoroughly and serve it again.
He : “It’s cold.”
I go, heat it, bring it back.
"Its cold.”
That's it. I go back, heat the soup to boiling point, then heat the spoon red-hot and bring it back with my loveliest smile.
The creep takes a sip and is silent for the rest of the flight.




Two very young girls lying with eyes closed and faces hidden under cucumber face masks:

Girl 1: The boy is coming this evening to “see” me.
Girl 2: Remember to look at his hands.
G1: Hands? Why hands?
G2: Don't be an idiot. Don't you know, the size of a man's hands is equal to the size of his…..
The face masks crack up.


Pregnant woman getting a foot massage:

At my Bunty's time I had it really bad.
I used to sit and sit and sit and strain and strain and at the end of it , what do I get?
THIS much. (Finger and thumb held an inch apart)



Much married matrons:
My husband is such a miser. He’s just back after a six-month stint abroad and guess what gifts he’s brought for the boys. The hotel blankets.

The above is absolutely true and just a small sample. Don't think you men are up to hearing the whole of it..

Lots of love and really sorry for keeping away for so long,

Do like the Goans.

Greetings!!
I was thinking about Goa. Yes, it is beautiful, but that apart, what makes it so completely different from the rest of India? Everything about it is different. It has a small population, most of which are either Hindus or Roman Catholics. Disputes between the two religious denominations are very rare. There are no beggars. The roads are clean. The houses and the surroundings are clean. The public transport is clean. No one spits on the roads and no one, but no one, urinates in the trees dotting the roadsides. The people smell nice. The people talk nice. They greet each other; they smile, even if they don’t know you. This just does not happen anywhere else in India. Despite liquor being a way of life in Goa, you don’t see drunks making asses of themselves in public. You rarely witness fist fights or any sort of fights. The crime rate is low, which is why the occasional beach rape or murder gets international notice.

Everyone, cabbies, shopkeepers, beach shack owners are educated, property owning, responsible people. Time and time again, I have forgotten my things and got them back intact after days. Visiting Coco beach, which is a remote beach accessible only by private boat, I had absolutely no doubt that the boatman dropping me there would as he had promised return to fetch me that evening. I call a cabbie I had traveled with on my last visit two years ago, and I know he’ll be there when I arrive. I call Auntie, who runs the beach hotel and she agrees to hold the rooms I want and no questions asked.

The only other state in India, that comes up to Goa is Kerala. True, Kerala is not as cheerful and smiling as Goa is but the people are invariably polite and as trustworthy. I was a little discomfited by the mustachioed men who stare at you unsmiling, but when I mentioned this to one of my Keralite friends, he was quick to reassure me that ‘Kerala men all love moustaches; and they only look, they don’t do anything.’ (Should I be glad or sad?!)

Like Goa, Kerala too has 100% literacy. So is it this that makes these states different from the rest of India. No. I think it is public awareness. Goa has an age old reputation of being “susegad”, which would mean something like laid back, cool. Yes, it is. But when their kids were threatened by the drug trade that once proliferated Goan beaches, and again when they felt their kids’ morals were being corrupted by the nudism on the beaches, every Goan was up in arms, fighting it together.

In Goa as in Kerala, everyone plays a very positive role in keeping their state clean and seeing that everyone else does too. In fact Kerala leads India in total implementation of all social policies and projects and the credit goes to its public who are not only aware of the policies, but make sure that they are implemented properly.

So why are we not like that? We need not strive to be like the US. Suffice it, if we just follow the examples of Goa and Kerala.

Not my city, not my state; but my India.

Greetings!!

Mohammad Pande ( MP) is an educated, cultured Indian. He would have been born a bastard if his Hindu Dalit mother had not married his father in the nick of time. His father had been married before and had a son from that first marriage. When MP was a toddler, his mom divorced his father, married a Christian man and bore him three children. MP now has a Muslim father, a Dalit mother, a Christian stepfather, three Christian step-siblings and a Muslim half-brother . Obama with a similar history, (according to media reports) , will soon be President of America. So can the fictitious Mohammad Pande aspire to be the future leader of a country? Not of India at any rate. Not while political parties like the MNS and Bajrang Dal flourish. And not while the educated, intelligent Indian remains a slave to the system, prefers to bury his hand in the sand and keeps silent in the face of injustice.

Obama did not make history. His country did. By choosing to believe in him. By making the choice that nothing mattered more than the quality of the man. Not his color, not his birth, not his family tree. Not the place he came from but where he would, one day, lead.

People, India belongs to all and every one of us. Choose not to have just one small corner of it belong to you. Choose to make it ALL yours. Make a deliberate decision not to let a small-time political party decide where you are going to live, where you are going to work, and which religion you should follow. Stand up for that friend, that neighbor, that stranger on the street, who is thrown out of his home, his job, by a wannabe politician because he comes from a different state or is of a different religion. He is truly brave who would fight another's battle!

It is the common people of America who raised their country over and above every nation on the earth. It is people like you and me who could make the JANA GANA MANA the anthem of the world. Speak up. Silence is golden no more.

Rosemary.