5 surprises in 7 days - Atlanta Journal

One cosy December evening found us in Atlanta. We had packed our house in Bangalore, bundled up a few belongings and lots of memories, said goodbye to our friends and family and boarded the flight to Frankfurt and then to Atlanta. The haul from Hartsfield–Jackson Atlanta International airport to our hotel in Buckhead gave us a taste of our first surprise.

1.Traffic - If horrible traffic was one of the reasons I moved from Bengaluru, I surely was in for a nasty surprise. Atlanta is notorious for its traffic jams. You can be stuck in crawling traffic for ages. The silver lining : Those Whitefield and Silk Board traffic jokes can be recycled and reused here, with a local tadka:)

2. Use of Disposables - Turning up for breakfast in the hotel the first morning, I was in for another unpleasant surprise. Breakfast was served in disposables. Each piece of cutlery was packed in plastic. At first I wondered if the use of disposables was because of the ongoing renovation at the hotel. But my husband, who had been in the same hotel at other occasions, told me this was the norm.

I shuddered at the waste created by the end of one breakfast. Mr. President, along with Paris and Copenhagen talks, why not start with a few simple things like making it mandatory to use reusables for meals at hotels? A lot of energy would be saved from production, transportation and recycling. 

3. Garbage segregation - The concept is not very popular here. I have stayed in a couple of hotels and been to a few friends' places and haven't seen separate bins for garbage. One big bin with all your trash, that's how the waste is collected. It's quite disheartening to see that. Time to start a green team here, I guess!

4. School pick-up time - 6:45 am. Are they kidding the kids? To add to this, the younger the kid, the earlier she has to leave for school. The older kids go later! The school transport, is however, free which is so convenient. 

5. Chilled drinks - No matter how cold it is, no matter if it's snowing, If it's a drink you want, it will be served chilled, if not with ice. With drinks, I mean water, juice, soft drinks and even milk.

Welcome to the land of abundance! Hope it becomes a land of responsible consumerism too.

Why grandparents aren't allowed to live in apartments

Recently, my parents talked about shifting to an apartment from their independent house and my heart missed a beat. It wasn’t just because of memories associated with the house. It was also for the fact that my 4 year old daughter would not be able to experience life in an independent house. We live in an apartment. My parents-in-law recently shifted from a house with large outdoors to an apartment.  There is something about an independent house which an apartment lacks. Maybe character? Where and how would my daughter experience the joys of an independent house? Besides, grandparents living in an apartment just doesn't sound right!!

When I was her age, I spent my summer vacations at my maternal grandparents’ sprawling house. It was a labyrynthine haveli with rooms that had exotic sounding names like ‘baradari’, ‘chaubara’, ‘tibari’, ‘jharokha’ and ‘darikhana’. A gala time awaited us from the moment we disembarked from rickshaw. Right from playing with cousins in different rooms and rooftops of the haveli to sleeping on terrace at night, I relished every moment of my stay. The haveli was said to be 150 years old and had fascinating stories about tunnels, ghosts, hidden treasures and bygone luxuries, which kept us suitably mystified through long summer days and provided grist to our gossip mill in nights. The house was so big that it was an ordeal in itself to find and collect us all during meal times.

Visits to my paternal grandparents’ place were a memorable experience of a different nature. It was a small town and the house was rustic where floors needed a cow dung and mud plaster every 15 days. A couple of rooms were dedicated to storing hay. In summers, cart loads of mangoes would land in those haystacks. Imagine eating bucketful of mangoes for breakfast and competing with cousins to throw mango pits the farthest. We kids had a fantastic time. Then there was a well in our compound and it fascinated me no end. I loved the sound of pail going splash when it hit the surface, the glug it made when tilted and the rush of water once it started filling. Pulling up the heavy bucket was hard work and a cousin was always around to give my little hands a helpful tug. The water was incredibly cool and refreshing. A couple of turtles called the well their home and it was an added bonus to spot them. Here again, the days were spent playing both indoor and outdoor games with cousins and neighbors or reading comics. The highlight of the trip for me, however, was a visit to our fields. Mango laden trees, a ride in a bullock cart, a shower at tube well, a picnic in picturesque fields, were all a treat to the senses.

My parents’ current house, though very pretty, is not that exotic and neither is it full of cousins for my daughter. In fact, she is the only kid around when she visits them. Large families gone, large houses are bound to follow suit. Why am I so hung up on a big, independent house then? Some contemplation led to enlightenment. A large, independent house is the last vestige of that joie de vivre which was a hallmark of joint families. I miss that feeling of being in a joint family, albeit for vacations and knowing that those times are not going to come back, I think I am just stuck on the symbolism!

This post was published in 'Right in the middle' section of Deccan Herald.
http://www.deccanherald.com/content/544004/grand-old-symbol.html

Look, Who Read My Blog!

In my last post, I was cribbing how nobody reads and comments on my blog posts and is it worth writing a blog when nobody does so. Little did I know that my blog was soon  to be read and judged by none other than Bachi Karkaria - a renowned journalist, author and a former editor of Times of India (TOI). Not just read, but also liked enough for me to be selected for Times Passion Creative Writing Trail.

The Times of India, which is a highly renowned newspaper in India, had come up with a very interesting concept. It had conceived of various Passion Trails - travel itineraries with a small group of like minded people, led by a trail architect who was an expert in that area.  The themes of these Trails ranged from tracking footsteps of snow leopards in Ladakh to sampling street food in a particular region, from temple photography in South India to culture and heritage trail in a certain state. 

First evening in Mumbai with Bachi, Shaili and fellow participants

I was  quite proud to be a part of the Creative Writing Trail because participants were selected from a host of applicants from all over India. From the moment I set my eyes on the ad for the Creative Writing Trail, I knew that I was meant to be a part of it - ki jaise isko banaya gaya hai mere liye! 

Since my little one had come in my life, I was notorious for not reading newspapers on time. I also didn't want to dispose off the newspapers without reading them first, so I had stacks of them stored everywhere. Whenever I found few precious minutes, I would pull a random paper and devour it! So the fact that I read the newspaper in the same year (not to say anything of the same month:) ) and saw this ad in time, was a big sign in itself. Then I remembered to visit the Passion Trails website and registered myself I time. I also managed to fill up  convincing answers to questions like "Who is your favorite author and book?" and "Why should you be selected to be a part of the trail?". Trust me, this was a big achievement in itself because chores of life, have a knack of burying all other stuff in deep recesses of Neverland. The fact that I did everything in time plus my 4 blogs and a few published middles gave me some dough to display.

I was on cloud nine when I got a mail from TOI announcing my selection. True, I had to spend 40 k for participation, but even the Marwaran in me was convinced that it was worth the experience. After all, I was going to have a session with Javed Akhtar, that stalwart of Hindi film industry, who has given us movies like 'Sholay' and ' Deewar' and countless memorable songs. Apart from him, there was an interesting mix of famous wordsmiths like Amish Tripathi, Swanand Kirkire, Shaili Chopra, Vinay Shukla, Agnello Dias and of course Bachi, who was the trail architect and was to stay with us throughout the trail.

A literary session with Javed Saab at JW Marriott, Mumbai. What an afternoon!!!

Stories from the Trail will lend themselves to another narrative. What I wanted to express in this post is how my belief got reinforced - the belief that no endeavor in life gets wasted. My blogs and middles took me to the Trail. I had a body of work that spoke to someone. My writing mattered. 

The Trail has already made precious memories and lovely friends. Who knows where all will it take me from here! Cheers to future literary journeys and happy blogging :)