I controlled myself from crying....

This week was a very hectic in the sense that every evening we had to do some or the other thing after attending classes for nine hours! Anyway, yesterday we went to an old age home under a Christmas Outreach program organised by our Polytechnic. And I will remember that day for the rest of my life.

There were around 14 old women in the Home. The Old Age Home was very big and clean. They all had one room each to themselves. Some of them had a nurse looking after them 24 hours. They all were very much educated and had held respected positions in their time-- one was the Dean of a college in Mumbai, one was the principal of a school, one lady was related to Late Feroze Gandhi, so an and so forth. When we went there, it was a surprise for them. And a good one too, they said later on. We had a talk with them, we danced and sang carols for them, cut a Christmas cake for them and played Antakshari with them.  And we also gave them a small gift of French mugs.

When we were doing all this there were some who were in their respective rooms and did not come out, or rather they could not come out. One aunty had an extremely weak back. She had problems sitting up straight and was trembling to the extent that she couldn't speak coherently. She asked us to sing her favourite carols for her and though I couldn't understand what she was saying, I could see that she was singing them too with us. She wanted to sit up straight and have a talk with us but constantly apologising to us for not being able to do that. She got very happy with the gift though she said that we shouldn't have brought them coz we are younger to them and it's them who should give us and not vice-versa. She showed us a picture of Jesus which was her favourite and a ballerina's poster on the wall. I just controlled myself and my tears. She was diabetic and had problems chewing the cake but she did not deny the cake that we brought for her. And when we said sorry to her she said that she wanted to have the cake and it's okie. She was waiting for one of her friends who had promised to come over and meet her and was upset about it. We all just wished that the friend could come asap...

Another aunty had some problems in moving so she was in her room too...she too smiled at us all the time and was really happy to see us. One another was an asthma patient and had her oxygen mask on her so couldn't talk to us then....

One of them was a SRK fan and another aunty had a small pillow with a picture of Madhuri Dixit on it's cushion. One of them liked singing and one of them assisted the cardiac specialist of one of the most famous hospitals of the city ( she actually did a nine to six job with him and believe me, she was over 75).

Later we got to know that each one of them or actually each one's children had paid 17lacs to keep them there plus they had to pay for the food too. They all were from so-called-affluent families. Some one's son/daughter lived in the most posh area of Mumbai but in their big sea-view homes they didn't have place for their own parents; in their foreign bank accounts they did have 17lacs every year to pay to keep them in an old age home but not pay their medical bills and get them food from home everyday. Not only sons, the daughters on the same level in this matter. Four daughters-- three of them abroad-- but their mother in an Old Age home. One of my friends commented on this, " Hey you don't know na...their husbands might not be allowing them to keep them. They will put their marriage in problem kya?" What do you mean by allowing? Who is he to allow me to let my parents live with me in their old age? I would rather not marry such a man who doesn't allow me. And when the girl is so rich as to settle for ever in Australia, she can very well keep her mother with her. And if she can't then in my eyes she is the most ungrateful human on this earth.

I became numb after coming out of the place. I was just thinking as to why they are here? Not because they are poor or their children can't afford to keep them. They were there coz they didn't have any patience to talk to them, no time from their busy social life to take care of them, themselves, no gratitude in their hearts to at least return back to their mothers who had surely done a lot of things for them.

This was my first visit ever to a place like this. I had always heard about them but one can only understand what it means to be in an Old Age Home by at least going there. Before leaving one of them said, "If you really love us you will surely come back." And then and there I promised myself to keep going there.....I controlled myself from crying.

An inspiration to all of us

Very often we postpone things that we can easily do at that particular moment. Very often we make lame excuses just because we are not in a "mood" to do it. Very often we underestimate ourselves. Very often we just don't try doing it.

You might be thinking why am I worrying over it. The reason behind it is that there is a small fest going on just on the ground floor of the building where I live and study. The fest is organized by the S.P.J. Sadhana School. Right from the papdi-chat that I ate there just now or the chuski that my friends ate or the chocolate moose that I tasted from a friend's cup, was all made by the students. From the bookmarks that I bought or the penstand or a small stitched pouch for my phone, everything was made by them. Apart from that there were saris, jwellery, other accesories-- all handmade by someone whom we in our common language term "mentally challenged".

If they can do so many things, how are they challenged? I would rather say that I am challenged that I at the age of 20, going on 21 next month, don't have half the abilities of what they have. Really, I mean, how much do we take ourselves granted for. There is no limit to it. Sometimes I think why do we do this with our ownselves when we would not like anyone take us for granted. We all would like to be acknowledged and appreciated. But this seems to be really difficult considering the fact that we don't acknowledge our ownselves.

Another source of inspiration these days for me is my one of my classmates who ia Visually Impaired-- Garima Goyal. And believe you me, she is one of the best, rather the best student in the class-- a medias class where every thursday we are supossed to watch a new film, analyse it and write answers about it in the exams. She clicks pictures and takes the maximum notes in the class on her laptop. When we went on a trip to Uttarakhand this November, she went for almost all the treks that were organised and went River Crossing too.

Now this is what you call determination and a longing to LIVE life. When you believe in Yourself, people will automatically come to your help. So when the children come up with a fest like this, you will surely go and get yourself something not only to help them but also to remind your ownself. Similarly, when there is a film screening, one of us sit beside Garima and describe her the visuals. It's very rightly said -- God helps them, who helps themselves.

Oh it's a long time...

This post is not meant to express something. This is being written to come back to the "blogging business" that I started some time back. Because of the kind of schedule I am having or may be I got too lazy to write, I just didn't write and I missed it, regretted it, and longed to come back to it! I read one of my friends blogs today and the love for writing in on here just got rekindled! Thanks to the friend.

Well...now let me tell you about the friend only. His name is Karteek Narumanchi (it is a different matter altogether that i got to know his last name only yesterday, being friends with him for the last six months now). It was shameful I am telling you.

How I became friends with him is something that might interest you coz it generally does when tell people that I met him on the train! And that we talked for about three to four hours on the train.

Now I really don't know how I do that but it's just that may be I meet the right kind of persons all the time.(touchwood!) My friends ask me, each time i talk to a friend over the phone, "Is he the one you met on train?" And many times my answer is "Yes!" Sometimes on the long train journeys, sometimes on local trains or sometimes on bus journeys.

Now I met this particular friend-- Karteek Narumanchi-- on my train journey from Cuttack to Hyderabad. (Now let me also tell you that he is not my first train friend , and that I had made a friend on a train earlier and that he proved to a really good choice). And when you find another good looking, 6"3' tall guy in front of you-- whoever you are you would think if you want to talk to him. But this time I let it be coz you can never be lucky twice so I just decided to let it go. (Coz I know once if I start I wouldn't just stop talking!) But I actually got second time lucky. He started the conversation and within no time we became friends and exchanged e mail ids. And I added to my list of friends another intelligent person

People find it a lot wierd when I tell them that I have two friends that I made on train journeys and one on the bus. They ask me several WEIRD questions like-- "How do you do it?", "Are you crazy?" And I tell them that I am not crazy, it's just that I love to talk to people and that I can stop smiling to a person who is even a little responsive. Smile is one language that is understood by all the people in the world, in spite of the religion they follow, the region they live in and the SEC class they belong to.

When you travel in a local train of Mumbai ( actually i would love to call it Bombay), that is crowded like anything at 5:00 pm in the evening, you don't need to plug in your iPods. I just need to sit and watch and observe people and the people, I tell you, are so interesting. They will tell you something random but worth listening to. This is the ultimate reality one can watch. And I think it is this obsevation and interaction that we need to have to understand people and become cosmoplolitan in it's true nature.