When rats become Yoga teachers..

               Last week I joined the yoga class. This is my second attempt. I had joined four years back, reduced a couple of kgs and gorged some more and later put on double of it :P  This time I was advised by my family physician to join yoga. The idea was to reduce stress and anger management. For those who don't know- I managed to raise my blood pressure so much that the doctor and my parents worried I will break down and the very next day I showed the perfect mercury level :P
               Because of my haywire schedule I have no fixed timings for yoga. I enter into any random batch as I please. The first day I went into early morning 6.30 batch. This batch is packed with aunties. Salwar kameez wearing fat aunties. First time in years I felt thin :D :D One of them even remarked that she wants to get to my size.. Ahaa!! The joys of getting that comment :D :D  As for the stress issues- the yoga tires me so much that I have no energy left to show my anger or take any other stress.. World peace :D
               After half an hour of twisting and turning our muscles, doing that suryanamaskar that leaves us gasping for breath, the shavasan seems like the bestttt part of yoga. The driving energy for those suryanamaskars is the awaiting shavasan.

       On the second day, while I was lying on the floor trying to restore my heartbeat to normal, suddenly a loud shriek from the lady next to me shook me. In a matter of seconds the entire group was jumping around. I was too lazy to get up but the noise brought the dead me back to life. The entire hullabaloo was over a family of rats that lived in the yoga class. 

       Apparently the yoga class was their bedroom :D These rats stayed put in the neighboring kirane ka dukaan  (grocery store) and fattened up on the food there during the day. They are 4 fat rats. 2 stay below the desktop drawer (yes the yoga class doubles up as a nursery class during the afternoon) and two stay behind the door painted with tortoise and hare wala story. Intelligent choice the rats have. 

       The rats decided to meet each other while the ladies screamed away in terror. What is it that makes women give that "EEEEEEEEEEEEek" "Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa" even though the poor rats have been considerate enough and were crossing the distance from the sides? They are not like those mindless cockroaches which get inside anywhere! 

        Since the day the rats made themselves appear, the aunties have been severely terrorized. A few have shifted their batch to the afternoon when the rats go for their meals. Few have changed their position and stand on the opposite side from where the rats travel. While the rest continue to create a ruckus everyday. 

       A little noise from behind the painted door and there is a change in alignment of all aunties. While the instructor croons, "Relaaaaaaaaaaax ho kar saas lijiye" the aunties are constantly panting. Any asan done with closed eyes is blantantly not done :P Shavasan has been dreaded.

          Today I went in a little late to see that the entire class was full. Kya baat hai! I thought they must have got rid of the rats in the  last 3 days when I had been busy and attended  the last batch of the day. I didn't notice that the place next to the door was deliberately kept vacant and stood there. 

          While I was doing the butterfly yogasan, a small rat passed from right below my thighs while my thighs were up. I swear it would have been crushed if I had brought my thigh down. Thunder thighs I have :P 

                                                   

                                                    

                                                     I m  nowhere close to this :P 

             What followed was aunties rushing all over the place. I sat there patiently and went on to the next pose. The rats decided to have a gala time today and the entire 1 hour they kept going to and fro drawing hysterical noises from the poor aunties and a few young girls who had come today. I bet they are not coming tomorrow. The rats have made them do more exercise than the yoga instructor  :D :D Aur rakho darwazewaala position khaali :P 

             While leaving they asked the instruction a shift in their batch. The funny thing is no amount of rodent control will help as these smart fellows are never around during the day. so chuhe maarne ki dawa is out of question as the nursery kids are close by. Like everything, Adjust kar lo :P 

P.S: In the batch next to mine, 3 fat girls come for yoga.. I feel soo happy to see them! I want a picture with them.. :D Evil I know.

P.P.S: Of the many things I can do, this makes me proud.. I feel like an elastic when I do this :D :D 

                                             

                                        

Yellow pencil

                                        
"Will you tell me what it is called?"
"Yellow pencil!" I replied between sobs.
"Arre that is the color, tell me the name of that pencil" my Mom was getting irritated which lead to a proportional increase in my crying.
"Ok I will look for it."

I was in first standard. I had a friend of mine who had bought these yellow pencils to school. I used to somehow love her stationery. She was the first one who had brought "penpencil" to school. Those pencils which had many leads in it. Loss of one lead and the entire pencil would be useless. Nevertheless I had wanted that too and Papa had brought me a blue penpencil. Now this yellow pencil had caught my fancy.

Mom searched in stores and came back with a yellow pencil which had black stripes on it.
'This is not the pencil I want! I know you will not bring it now!" I threw a fit.
"There's nothing called as yellow pencil! The shopkeepers keep asking the name. This is also yellow so keep it." she yelled at me.

For days I kept pestering her for the yellow pencil.
In the lunch break my friend opened her pencilbox for some reason. She used to place a paper in  her pencil box so that it doesn't get dirty with the pencil marks and for some reasons she also put something fragnant in her box so that everytime she opened her pencil box it would smell of sandalwood.
I saw four bright yellow, sharpened pencils. It had no name on it.
Ego kept me from asking her where she bought it from. It made me more stubborn to have those pencils now.

I dared not ask for those pencils after Mom's outburst. After some days I even forgot about it.
One day while watching TV, I saw an advertisement on cable. It was the same yellow pencil! Its name was Lion!
Now finally I had a name for the pencil and called out Mom to tell her I want Lion's pencil. She might have been frustrated but it was rare that I did not get what I wanted so much.

My Mom worked far away from where we lived. There are many places near her workplace which are places for wholesale stationery and many book stores as well. She made it a point to go there on a Saturday (when it would have been packed with crowd) and look for the Lion's pencil. The shopkeepers told her that the pencil might not have been produced on a big scale yet and the ad might have been just promotional. There was no Lion's pencil in market yet.

She had promised me to bring those pencils if she found them but she had no luck. She knew I would be inconsolable if she returned empty handed.

She came home with four pencil sets. Two each of Apsara Gold and Apsara Extra Dark. Those were the times when Nataraj and Apsara (the normal black one) were used in our school. These two were newly launched so she had thought this would make me happy.. How right she was!

                              
I was satisfied with the new pencils and forgot all about the yellow pencils. More than writing with them, I played with them and sharpened all of them :P

How much joy a pencil can hold only innocence can know!

Today while travelling back from college in a crowded local train, I saw a girl seated and writing with a yellow pencil. Memories came back flooding. Years later, when I think of it, I realise the tact with which Mom dealt with me. I realised how even I might have been a cause for many young children of my class crying for the new "extra dark" or "apsara gold" pencils.

Later ,when my stop was about to come, I stood near the entrance and the girl with yellow pencil too came there. She was still holding her pencil in hand.
Ego kept me from asking her the name of the pencil :P
Some things never change I guess!

Through the window..- occupations, hawkers and businesses..

                 Moving ahead with the environment of the SOCIETIES..

           As I stated in the last post, the occupants of these SOCIETIES were locales who got the houses at low rates. These people were called "THE ORIGINALS". A typical feature of these originals would be- women dressed in navari (nine yards) sari, men who spitted pan on the lid of the drains outside, children who woke up early and started an ear-splitting cry and who were duly handed a 1 rupee pepsi (colored ice) to keep them quiet, the house cluttered with relatives who spoke the "language of the ghaats" and in the afternoon the unbearable smell of roasted tobacco would emanate from their houses which later in the evening they would rub on their palms with the thumb of the other hand and consume.. Their life, as I saw, passed more sitting on doors of their houses than inside. Sitting on the door served them their favorite pass time- commenting and gossiping about the "NEW OWNERS". The "ORIGINALS" somewhat had formed their own group. 

          The men in our societies were mostly on low rung positions in government offices (mostly obtained because of the caste they belonged to) and other occupations such as BEST conductors, plumbers, drivers, watchmen etc. Their wives used to think of themselves as "all knowing" even though they had never seen the face of what is called "school".  Due to their very narrow mindedness they thought we were poorer than them because both my parents worked and they thought it was totally out of dire need that women step out to work. If any young girl, no matter under what circumstances, came home late then the gossip would be like, "God knows what work she does, coming home so late!" or " Haaw they think we are idiots, which class runs so late?" As time would have it, today the daughters of these very ladies work night shifts in call centres and IT companies and I wonder who says "Hawww " for them! Yes situations change.. 

                 

          Life in society was not all suffering and problems.. Now when I look back, I laugh at certain situations.. One of them is the array of hawkers who used to visit the society, making it almost unnecessary to shop anything outside. Everything came at your door step! Heres a list..

1.. Doodhwala bhaiyyaa :

 He was the only fellow who came without making any noise. He specialised in two arts- balancing the cycle with so many milk cans and mixing water in purchased packed milk and selling it as "taaza gaai ka doodh". One day my father caught him doing the later and then we started buying packed milk

2. Bhaajiwaali 

Starting from 7 in the morning, the bhaajiwaalis start coming in.. There are different bhaajiwaalis for different bhaajis. It serves as a timepass for housewives to bargain and get the fresh vegetables. They used to shout out loud "Bhaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaajiwaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaali bhaaaaaaaaaji" and then wait at the doorstep of her regular customer. Every woman had her "bhaajiwali' who sold her bhaaji at low price!

3. Macchiwaali (fisherwoman).

Now they were some women! Fierce, strong and yes no-nonsense..lena hai toh lo nahi toh me jaati!! They are the original inhabitants of Mumbai-the Kohli people. I remember them as women wearing nine yard saris, lots of artificial gold, a large nose ring called "nathni",a large kumkum bindi on their foreheads, a tokri filled with fish and a large "koita". We would shriek with terror when she threw out those crabs she kept in the lowest part of her tokri and laugh at us when we shouted "Mummmmmmmmmmmmmmmy"

3.Bangdi waale ( bangle sellers).

Wow it was a kaleidoscopic view. So many colors of plastic and glass bangles this man would bring. The married women used to buy glass bangles of red and green color and we kids used to cry to get those colorful bangles and Mummy would say, "Only married women wear those" and for the longest time I used to think that these women would replace bangles so that they could break them when their husband dies! Filmy fool I was :D :D I too, with my nakhraas, got away with a few bangles which Mummy purchased from him but I soon lost interest :P 

He used to call out " Bangdeeeeeeeeeeeeeee wale- "wale" in nasal tone.. Ji ha! He is the guru of Himesh.

4.. Bhangaar baatli waala..

He used to come in the mid morning and we were his regular customers because in those times only a selected houses would get a regular subscription of newspapers. In addition to that he used to take away any plastic left overs like milk packets, bottles etc.. In return he would give a little money or sometimes garlic pods.. If the return was garlic pods then he would call out "EEEEEEEEEEEEEEE lasssssssssssoooon wale!" Lasoon meaning garlic here..

 5.. Dahiwala

He was an old man who carried a small bucket filled with curd.. The curd was heavenly in its taste ! He is personally my favorite hawker as his line was unique, "Dahi lo dahi.. " and he used to stop at anybody's doorstep and say, "Beta dahi loge? mitha mittha dahi" .. Sadly no picture I could search which matched his persona.. 

6..Washing powder.. 

This man used to come in the afternoon and he used to sell a lot of things on his cycle.. It was mostly phenol, scrubber, washing powder, laxman rekha-for killing ants, etc etc.. He used to call out "Washing powder pitaambari!" 

In the afternoon, various products were advertised by salesmen and salesgirl who used to roam around in that heat. The women, ever free, used to entertain them by talking and asking questions, giving them water and seldom buying their products..

Hawkers selling panties and bras (yes that too!!), sanitary pads, beauty products, hairclips and nailpaints too used to come in the afternoon..

Once its 4, then hawkers comprise mostly of those selling food products..

1.Khaari biscuit wala

. The first one to start was khaari biscuit and naan katai wala.. Since people used to love eating khaari biscuit with tea this one got lot of customers!

khari biscuit

2..Pav wala..

Now this one had a weird way of selling out his product.. He would say, "paw wala" in a very serious tone and then ring two bells of his cycle.. By that ring we would know that paw wala is outside.

3.. Bhel wala..

He was the friend of us children. In addition to selling his sukkha bhel, he used to talk to all of us and knew us by first name. He also knew what kind of bhel we liked. His bhel was murmura with few onions, peanuts, mirch chutney , salt and sev.. He knew that I liked my bhel spicy and I loveeeed kacchi kairi( raw mango).. So in late winter, when he added kairi as an added ingredient in his bhel, he would dole out a little extra in my bhel.. We used to await him every evening for that 1 rupee bhel we used to buy from him.

4.. Anda wala..

The egg seller used to sell pav too and he too had his own fixed nonvegetarian customers.. He used to be extra careful when in our society, because we were sooo many kids in number, playing ball, badminton and cricket that he was in constant fear of his eggs getting broken..

5.. Kulfi wala..

The last but not the least and one who ensured that children stayed up till he came was Kulfi wala.. He too used to come with his tokri in which he used to store his kulfi (cooled by ice which didn't melt because of the gunny sack it was kept in). I used to love seeing him make kulfi with those moulds that he had ! When I was small, I felt it was a great injustice my parents were doing on me by not buying me kulfi.. My Mummy used to always say, "I saw him sitting near the gutter, God knows what water he uses!!" and "Did you see the sticks he uses, shiiiiiiii they are sooo dirty!! " and Pappa would shout back at me when I tried to cry, "Don't you eat those, you will fall sick".. 

                                 the man who brought happiness and tears..

                                The moulds I was talking about.. you see those cone shaped steel things?

I see the post is going longg, but bear with me for a few more minutes since you have already wasted so much time :P :P 

The below three are the people who scared me to bits when I was young..

I) bububu waala or Chaabuk wala..

I seriously don't know what was his problem.. He used to come painted in such weird and horrific manner the he used to make irritating sounds on his dholak type instrument.. The sound was "bububububu" and  if some came out then "sataaaaaaaak", the guy would whip himself with his chaabuk and ask for money! I used to be dead scared of him and used to hide in the house when he came into the society.

                                        

                                ye toh fir bhi thik hai                                        lekin ye kyun?

II Chaaku chhooori  wala

Basically he was a scary looking serious man on a bicycle which had a round machine used for sharpening knives and other tools to be sharpened. Probably the sparks that came out while sharpening the tools used to frighten me a lot.

III Mummmmmmmmmmmmmy!!!! Baccchaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaao

These were unexpected and uninvited people who scared me out of my wits. All the children of the society used to hide below their beds when they visited. Elders used to handout some money in fear that they will be cursed. These were the eunuchs that came every week with ghastly make up and a voice that shook me up.

I remember the one time when my brother was a newborn and the maalish waali aunty used to lock the living room and I had to sit alone in the small outside area which had a sofa. These people came that day and since I didn't have money and I was soo scared that I didn't even peep through the door, they started banging the door soo loudly for almost 5 minutes that I thought they will barge in somehow through the door and I screamed "Mummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmy bacchhaaaaaaao". That seemed to work and the voices calmed in some minutes.. Earlier I was just scared, but after that I became petrified of them..

So this was one part of life in SOCIETY.. 

Let me know if the posts are getting too long to bear.. I will try to cut down a bit..

Dear Vegetarians

           Prescript: If  you are not one of those kind vegetarians who live peacefully without giving those disgusting looks to nonvegetarians, then this post is not aimed at you.. Keep giving us non-vegetarians peace while eating because we certainly won't offer you a "piece" of what we eat :D :D

          I m fed up telling each one of you the same things while you give that "eeew" "yucck" reactions while we eat and I even though I would rather appreciate if you just moved to another table while we savor our dish, you insist on me not bringing out non veg when you around!
          Everytime I want to go to KFC or Subway, I have to go to Mc Donalds because your "aloo tikki" or "Mc Veggie" looks like my "Mc Chicken" and so we can all hang out like that one big group!
          All these times I have been patient with your "How can you eat this?" or "Please wo gandi cheez mere paas mat la" with expressions that I don't even give while puking.
         So you think you are being kind to animals by not eating them up right? Maybe you really need some eye opening to be done!
       
         I won't defend my non vegetarianism. That's how I have been all my life. Some of my nonvegetarian people have turned vegetarian ( 99% for getting into that size zero figure) and so I do not think it is something I cannot change. It is something as of now I do not WANT to change.
       
        That classic arguement made on your side that "Humans are designed to me herbivores" because veg gets digested easily and not non veg may not be so true after all.. Our stomach does not digest cellulose (found in wall of plants) at all! Does that mean all fruits are not designed to be eaten? When you eat the peel of any fruit it comes out of your system as it is! Do not say peels are not to be eaten because I haven't seen many of you peeling  apples or that tomato in your veg burger.


        People ,from times immemorial, have been eating what is available in their vicinity. So I m from the coastal city and I eat fish and poultry. As simple as that. If you think farms are all over the country then again FYI that is only after the Green Revolution. We actually had a drop in population due to shortage of food in 1940s!! Imagine if that time we nonvegetarians had also added to the burden of shortage of crops! You actually have something to thank us for.
        
       Then a section of you eat eggs in breakfast and call yourselves eggetarians. Some of you eat cakes which have egg. When I point out that you are actually eating chicken's kid, you tell me "It is not born so its ok, you are killing a living animal". But don't you all support that "Feoticide is heinous as murder" while talking the same about a human?  
     Some of you believe that the egg sold is actually sterile and wasn't going to become a chicken anyhow. But the fact is that most eggs contain live embryo inside. Even if they don't then you should know that the hen that gives this egg is kept life long in small cages and when rendered useless, slaughtered. Some cruelty there eh? 


      Some of you have been sharing and commenting on this photo on facebook.. How dare you tag me too?

when u eat non-veg, plz do think about this.....bcoz whichever animal u r eating is the son or daughter of some living being !!


Well then do you know that our own Indian scientist Jagdishchandra Bose proved that plants can feel pain and and understand affection? Do you know plants move in the direction of music? Do you know that they grow well if you talk lovingly to them every morning? Well why would you? You have eaten plants all your life and not worried about hurting it? Only because it is nobody's child huh? so applying the same logic as yours ,does that justify killing orphans ,my dear ?




          

                                 
So will you now stop eating vegetables and fruits too?

I see you flaunting that pretty leather bag, making that style statement with your new leather jacket and belt and also valets. Where did they come from? Do you really think leather industry waits for animals to die and then take away their skin? That way you would have to wait for years to get your leather shoes my dear. And do you seriously think aged cattle can give you such soft leather? No no my pretty! It is the soft skin of that little calf that is hardly a few days old! PETA gives you more info on the same HERE

You find it too heartless when I eat fish. It's smell repels you in the market. And yet you use a perfume which is made by killing a bigger fish? You eat cod oil capsules for improving your eyesights ! 


You brush your teeth with toothpastes which contain carageenan which is also a living creature of the waters. Your toothpaste also contains bones of slaughtered animals (except vicco and Amar brands) 


You go awww and oooh over that pearl set you see in the shops. Well the pearls too are obtained by killing a living being inside the shell.

you just killed an organism before getting this!


You and your mother start all about the vegetarian goodness when I come to your house while she is draped in that silk saree. Does she know that the silk she is wearing has killed so many silkworms just to get those silk filaments which your mother can wear one day and sit pretty?

those are the cocoons which the lady is unraveling to make your mother's silk saree..



And why is it that I see you wearing those pretty woollen sweaters as soon as the winter starts? How can you make the poor sheep suffer without that hair? Do you know the diseases the sheep gets because its hair was sheared to make that sweater and blankets and socks for you? Shame on you ya! 


Why does a goody goody person like you kill so many honeybees to get that honey ? It is so unjust that they work (they are called busy bees for a reason) and gather so much honey and you simply steal their food by burning their honeycomb? How would you feel if someone stole your grains and burned your house? 


Do you shave or do you paint?  guilty ! They are brutally hand snatched hair of pigs. camels etc! 


You won't be so naive to not know that all female mammals produce milk only after childbirth. What made you think that the cow or buffalo (whose milk you drink everyday) gives milk perennially? These animals are made pregnant very often( imagine the pain they undergo during childbirth) and given injections to produce milk. The calf produced by these pregancies is often killed while making cheese (how dare you eat that double burst pizza and that extra cheese sandwich?) and other products. 


And are you out of your mind to walk on that grass in the college lawn and gardens?? Didn't your dharam get bhrasht by killing all those living creatures under your sandals??


So now you know you are meting out cruel treatment to animals, far more than you know. Does this make you feel that you are still the one not harming animals? 


So unless you have become a vegan and have absolutely never caused harm to any animal (including the mosquito,cockroach etc ) please do not give me such lectures because I really don't have the time to give you all the facts again and I actually might never see you for food anytime.


Yours Sincerely,
Nonvegetarian


P.S : Vegetarians stop eating my food's food! -- A tweet by Suruchi :P :P  somehow I wanted it to be in the post but then the post is already long :P 


P.P.S: I found this page HERE which sort of helped me with this post.. Try it if you want a cruelty free lifestyle!


P.P.P.S: Just had Maggi Chicken flavor and contrary to what I thought, its yummm!! :P:P :P