Will miss you - until further notice.

They say you only realise how much you miss someone/something when you lose them. Well I didn't really believe in this so-called rule of love and separation. I like taking things for granted especially when I have given them due time, attention and affection.

But recently when it actually happened to me, I was dumbfounded. I was dreaming, day and night indeed. Dreaming of access to that one thing that I had taken for granted for the longest time.

I can't actually recall it but my family reminds me of this incident time and time again. I was about 2 and half years old when I got a terrible asthma attack. It was like in the movies, the patient lies in the ICU while the family stares through that absurd round window in the door, weeping to bits. So apparently when I first came to my senses, I had asked for what I had been missing all this while. 

Yes, I try to spend time with others but I hate it when they just can't match the comfort level I felt with the one I am trying to get over. The feeling that could turn scorching Tuesday afternoons to spring breeze and wake me up like a shot of caffeine is gone, gone until further notice. So one can imagine my attachment to it. 

Moving on is tough but trying is not. So here I am trying new things, giving up hope on things that I have left behind. But my fizzy, cold glass of diet coke with a slice of lime - nothing like you will I ever find! 

Overnight Celebrity

 Is it luck or simply one's genius - one day you're just any one and next you're like no one else. The concept of ordinary people making it big really fascinates me. Why is it that some of us just have that factor in us to shine and others don't? To be very precise, I do not perceive cinematic success the only benchmark for success but celebrity to me is anyone who has made a great mark in their respective fields of study, business, art etc.

Now look at Shahrukh Khan; my mother recalls seeing him during her college days just like yet another guy on DU campus and now she is a die hard fan! What did he do right that hundreds in the Drama club didn't do? Bump into the right people who recognised his potential or just worked so hard that there was no choice? In one of his episodes of the show - Living with a Superstar, he says - "To be successful, one needs to breathe belief, eat belief, drink belief. Believe in what you want, what you desire and you'll succeed." But don't we all do that? I mean I have seldom met a person who is doing something that he/she doesn't believe in. Then what does one attribute his success to?

More than belief, I think it is the unimaginable perseverance. To me the relation between effort and success follows Hooke's Law as applicable to elastic bodies.

In layman terms, Hooke's Law states the relationship between force applied on a spring and the deformation it suffers due to that force.

I'm sure all of us have looked at an elastic spring. You press it and it bounces back. What I think is that all of us have been granted that elastic strength but a lot of us or for that matter, most of us break before we reach the phase of permanent deformation (In spring terms, when you press it and it would permanently lose its elasticity).

Using SRK's example once again, he lost his parents, lived alone, wasn't well off to afford a decent standard of living and I'm sure had matters beyond his control trying to wreck his efforts. Or take the example of Thomas Edison, he came from a poor background, was declared "slow" at school, lost hearing ability and sold newspapers at a young age. What such instances provoke me to think is that there is this driving force that one needs to surpass what so ever life puts you through without suffering permanent deformation.

It could be anything - personal satisfaction, love for the work one is doing, immeasurable desire to succeed for a loved one or just conditions that leave you with no option but to keep going.

Looking at the competitive landscape we work in, promotion to a higher position in the hierarchy is considered success. But to that one person for whom that success is a mere decoration and a reason to move ahead, there is no looking back. 

Hyper-connectivity. Amen.

Adjusting the on-the-go playlist on my ipod, checking email on the blackberry, finishing a presentation on my laptop and not to forget occasionally staring at the novel in my Damier check tote waiting to be "held". I found myself trapped in the car breathing "devices"; scared to the bone by my ability to coordinate using all of them at the same time without a glitch.

Instantly, my conscious came into play and I grasped "100 Dollar Start Ups" lying ignored in my bag. Almost immediately, I convinced myself that listening to some music couldn't do any harm and plugged in my pod. I barely finished couple pages when my hands started itching to touch the qwerty keypad of my Blackberry! I resisted the temptation; almost meditated (concentrated on my breathing and all that jazz). No luck! I held my phone and it felt like 'Pi' after being trapped 277 days reached ashore and touched the warm sand! An email about some deadline and there it was; back to my laptop.  Back to square one.

Blame hyper-connectivity! It is almost like the device doesn't require our touch to function but our touch requires the device to function! Why is that knowing everything has become so vital? I know there were times when an entire village knew what was going on in one tiny hut at the other end(especially if it was gossip). But that was the fun bit I suppose - the finding out and the manipulation of news as it traveled. Now what we have are: brief sentences, no punctuation and minimum emotion!

We, the baby manufacturing machines!

Running around in the unknown territory of a government hospital for someone I am not remotely related to has given me a sense of relief like no other.
I was out having high tea on a particularly idle Sunday when I decided to go back home early. My driver, V who has been working with us for over a year called in the most disturbed voice saying -  "hume nikaal diya" (They turned us out)! I didn't really understand why his wife who was in full-time labour be turned out of a private hospital at such a crucial time. I tried to ask him why, but fancy words dropped by the doctor about a certain complication were far from being comprehended by this man who drove a rickshaw since he was 15!

I asked him - "paisa ka problem hain kya?" (Did you not enough money?). He said he assured them that money wouldn't be a problem but still they asked him to take his wife to a government hospital.
He rushed her to a nearby government hospital and called me from there saying they were not accepting her admission too.

I was appalled! Do government hospitals not cater to complications or people like him don't have complications at all! That's when my aunt and I decided that sitting at home and trying to help him over the phone wouldn't help. We went to same hospital where he was being denied admission. It was a dead place with casualty cases all over the compound. Never in my life had I thought that I would have strength to walk through such a place. It also cleared a massive delusion in my head that one day I could be a doctor!

He was there outside the OPD trying to get his wife admitted for medical attention! They failed to make him understand that it was the emergency room he was looking for.  We guided him to the emergency room where they readily took her in and asked us to take her to the labour room.

This room was one floor up so for obvious reasons I requested for a wheel chair service for the girl in labour. That was considered an absolute impossibility as I got stares from people screaming - "don't you know women are baby manufacturing machines? She will be okay to walk". We had no time to argue and hence, slow and steady we got her to what they called the "labour room". It was more like a untidy dorm room where no one had a clue about what's going on.

The gynaecologist incharge was nowhere in the vicinity and this 10-12 bed place full of women absolutely ready to shoot out babies was being attended by tiny interns who were manually dividing the number of days by 8 to see how many weeks has it been for everyone.  When their multiple choice ticking ordeal to decide the number of weeks was over, we showed one of them her latest ultrasound report. The lady leisurely looked at it and started copying it word by word in what looked like her bible. It was getting too much to handle, so my aunt just followed her to the reporting doctor who of course was not slightly perturbed by the piling cases that needed her attention.

We had to drop a few names as my grandmother used to be a known gynaecologist in the area to get her to move her butt. First thing she looks at the patient and says - "kya problem hai? (What's the problem?). Seriously? If we/the girl knew what the problem was, why would we need her at all! My driver, V tried to come into the room several times but apparently men weren't allowed inside. Well, I thought to myself it is only in India that a man who is equally responsible for getting the girl into a situation like that is not expected to share the pain with her.

Finally, the doc ran a few regular checks and told us that it was a little late and she would have to operate on her and the chances of survival of the baby were slim. That's when I went out and stood with V. He was scared. The good part was he was less scared about the baby but more tensed about his wife in pain. I told him it wasn't going to be easy and he just kept trying to peep into the tiny opening to catch a glimpse of his wife.

I realised the feeling one gets being a parent has nothing to do with how rich or poor you are. At that moment, everything just becomes the same. The pain of watching someone close to you suffer dilutes all differences that we as humas have created.
Nevertheless, we left them there at midnight and couldn't sleep all night thinking about what the outcome of the operation would be. Finally, we gave up on waiting to hear from him and called him expecting bad news. To our surprise, we heard - "ladki hua, abhi hua" (It's a girl). I don't think I have felt that sense of relief ever before. And I kept repeating It in my head - "it's a girl! , it's a girl!". Phew.

Piece of cloth or a semi pressed animal?

Have you ever noticed while driving down on a fairly empty road, these rugged things or pieces of crap lying aimlessly. Black or brown due to the pollution and dirt brought by vehicles, to me these seemed like maybe injured animals from far off. Maybe highway road trips I took as I kid have instilled this thought - I used to without fail look back at every piece like that on the road and sometimes it was actually a semi-pressed cat or dog that probably tried to cross the road without caution. Fear or the sub-memory thought of those injured animals makes me leap every single time I notice such a disturbing thing lying on the road.

My utterly active mind especially when it comes to things that don't actually require so much over-thinking doesn't leave this instance to imagine the worse. I used to think to myself -  where did this piece come from? Has it traveled a lot? Maybe it was a part of someone's wardrobe. Maybe a dupatta? I don't know it used to leave me a bit intrigued about the history of those pieces and where they came from. A very similar thing happens to me  when I sit in an airplane. I used to look down during take off and wonder where the lights were coming from until there was complete darkness. Especially while traveling when you come across barren areas with just a light or two visible - I used to ponder about what those prime lights could be illuminating. Could the lights be coming from a house? Are people around that light able to this plane?

It might sound shocking to some but I have this incessant habit of keeping things that mean absolutely nothing apart from the fact that someday sometime I happened to find them somewhere and they looked fascinating. I know it can be formally referred to as hoarding by the way I explained but actually things that I am mentioning here are the most unimportant tiny ones that I link my memories to. Say a napkin I found with a note for someone in London, a bottle that looked stunning but was abandoned, pink paper clips stained due to paint, tickets to the show I never attended etc. I just think we come in touch with things or even people for a reason. The reason may not be entirely clear initially but as time passes I think one might find a connect. For example - the ticket of the show I missed reminds me every day that I still haven't seen it! Or the bottle - it instantly takes me back to the moment in London when I missed the 12am train and was stranded. Everything teaches me a lesson or brings a smile across my face. 

Madam "wok" (vogue) le lo

Everything becomes a business in seconds in this place and everything shuts shop in even milli seconds in Delhi!

So I live in Punjabi Bagh, a place primarily renowned for its filthy rich people with every car possible and the stamina to eat/pay for good food. There has been no such ice cream brand that has not targeted this region. So in a line of shops you'd find cocoberry, hoki poki, baskin robin, gianis, 24x7, nirula's and of course not to forget the existing hawkers of mother dairy, amul, etc. I mean yes the people like ice cream but how much can they eat! That's what I thought. But was surprised to find later that yes, they can eat A LOT and something new every night. Its crazy how none of these brands claim they've had a dry sales time ever in this place!

Target market/group analysis has such a widespread application in everything India does. Its almost like marketing skills have been drilled in all of us. Think about it - the vendors on the traffic lights know exactly who will buy flowers, magazines, car chargers, books etc. Now they did not study anything its just experience that talks loud.

At this red light recently, this tiny guy selling magazines comes to my window and suddenly changes the order of the magazines. Says - madam "wok" (vogue) le lo. I told him while pointing at a hindi publication and said - woh kyun nahi dikhaya? He started giggling and said "firangi type Indian  log toh "wok" hi kharidte hain". So this barely 8 year old guy knew the exact market for what he was carrying to sell! Similarly, this girl selling flowers at the signal tells Dev (a friend) - "phool le lo bhaiya, madam khush ho jayengi". Yet again they knew that a guy and a girl sitting together would be ideal for selling something like flowers.

There is this word called - "jugaad" that exists in a lot of our dictionaries, at least it does in mine! I absolutely love how people here have a gut feeling that if something is not possible, there has to be a sidelined way to get it done. We do not take NO as an answer very easily. If we go to a shop and do not find our size of say a pair of shoes, it would be 99percent that we would say - "please check in the stock." I mean why is it so hard to believe something when told once. Its probably because there is such a high probability of being cheated in every sphere! Even the sabzi wala will try and quote wrong prices so you can imagine how big decisions would be so tough to take. How do I know that if someone is telling me the right thing so I just haggle until I know that I've done my best. From the auto drivers to desi sharaab places - all cheat us and we still keep believing we made a good deal! That's the beauty of business here.

My nails will never be the same again

It is very weird when someone you see for 5 years, two times a month, one day is declared dead. Sometimes you can't imagine where death takes you and when you actually do its too late. Something similar happened to the man who always made sure my hands looked presentable.

It might be considered very trivial in a lot of people's lives but my manicurist was very dear to me.  Even during my years of being out of the city, he would skip any appointment if he knew I was coming back for a couple days.

Many are in this business because they couldn't do anything else in their lives, many are not even proud of the profession just attached to the money that comes with it and few are just happy having uninterrupted access to women and their lovely hands. In my experiences with salons in Delhi, I have never noticed a male manicurist who is so committed and  honest to what his work demands.

The last time I met Harish, I was going to get my nails done after ages and I was very well prepared to hear him rant about the state of my tanned hands. He was up and about as usual, complaining about his daughter creating tantrums at school and him having to go regularly to fetch her. He had been missing work quite a bit due to her.

He often joked about when I would get married and how old I had become to find a nice guy. I would laugh it off saying - just because you ruined your life early don't expect me to. He would laugh but always added - "if I wasn't in love, I wouldn't have".

Never in my imagination would I have thought, a hurried holiday to his home town would turn fateful for him. I entered the salon on a casual saturday not aware of what had happened and could literally feel the eerie atmosphere as everyone was uncomfortably quiet. Since, Harish used to often take holidays, it wasn't a surprise to me when another guy volunteered to do my manicure. In the process, he said -"whatever happened to Harish was not fair, I don't think it was an accident, it was definitely a murder". I was shocked! For a second I couldn't believe it. I asked him again -"what are you saying? What kind of a joke is this?" He apologized for breaking the news so abruptly and said - "ishita madam I thought you knew, otherwise no one in their right senses would do your manicure if Harish was here because we couldn't match his level of work."

I was very hurt. It was almost like losing a friend, a family member. I asked the guy what had happened and how his family was doing. Turned out his wife didn't know about it too until they rushed him to a local hospital where he was declared dead due to brain damage. The people from the salon had gone to visit his family in the hospital a day before his death. Harish's close associates at the Salon told me stuff that left so many questions in my head - it didn't seem like his parents were shocked, they claimed that he had a drinking problem so he lost his balance and fell from the first floor of his village house, his brothers were not there to assist the parents in the hospital, they did not admit him in a Government hospital which would be far more affordable as compared to the local private one, his wife was not given clear answers to what happened to her husband, the police was asked not to interfere in the case.

It all seemed like a cover up for something that went terribly wrong. The damage that his body took couldn't possibly occur even if he fell down from atleast 5-7 floors, in fact it was very possible that someone beat him up. The puzzle pieces fitted well - him rushing to his hometown without notice to the salon could have been due to a property matter, his brothers would have been unhappy with sharing the part with him so probably beat him up under the influence of alcohol, them not going to a Government hospital because the police would ask 'n' number of questions to raise the possibility of murder and finally, his parents not being shocked because they knew exactly what happened in the village.

He is no more but I can't possibly stop thinking about the state of his wife. A completely dependent woman lost the support of her husband and is stranded with two children (4 and 6 years old). I want to help her in some way but monetary help is not what I have in mind. What do you think one can do for her without making it look like charity? Knowing Harish, charity would disgust him and pity would make him sick.