Back in Delhi

Was walking around the gallies in Karol Bagh after a satisfying bout of shopping, when a young woman in a cycle rickshaw stopped us. She had a little boy tucked in her lap and was looking rather distraught. "Can I use your phone," she asked me? I hesitated a bit so she added that her sister had run away from home that morning and was essentially incommunicado since then. So, I asked her for her sister's name and number and called her. I said, "Is that Kaushalya? Apni didi se baat kijiye," and gave the phone to the elder sis. "Kahan ho tum? Aisa koi karta hai? Ma ne neend ki goliyan kha li hai, jaldi ghar..." Kaushalya, obviously irritated by the blatant emotional blackmail, hung up on her big sister, mid-tirade.

Usually I have no sympathies for big sisters, being the youngest by far in my own family. But am older and wiser now (wolfish smile), and big sister looked very upset so I said, "Pehli baar ghar se bhaagi hai, ya vaise bahut bhaagti hai?" Weak laugh. "Kaafi bhagti hai," she said with a smile. "Wapas to aa jaati hai na?" I asked, also with a smile. "Haan, aa to jaati hai. Uski shaadi hone wali hai agle mahine." "Usko shaadi nahin karni hai, kya?" I asked. "Aisi baat nahi hai. Ladka uska manpasand ka hai, lekin jab bhi tu tu main main hoti hai, bhaag jaati hai."

"Aisa hai to wapas aa jayegi, aap fikr mat karo," I said and tried calling the runaway again. She disconnected the call. So, I told the big sis, I would try calling from another number later and try to send her home. She smiled and said Thanks and left looking a little reassured.

I reached home thinking I would call the kid in a while. I kept postponing calling her. Eventually, I never got around to calling her. I felt this awkwardness intruding in a personal situation, which I didn't feel standing next to her sister in a galli in Karol Bagh. For a brief moment there, we were not strangers but two people connected by an instinctive understanding of human foibles and a sharp sense of empathy. She left reassured, maybe because I was able to make her see that the little act of rebellion was normal. Maybe she accepted that from me because she guessed that I have been a runaway younger sister too in my day. Who knows?

Labels: people

posted by Jivitha @ 10:40 AM 3 comments

Wednesday, November 29, 2006

Doodhwala

My doodhwala--lone-ranger-waging-a-losing-battle-against-milk-stealing-red-cat--is driving me crazy. Till last week, he would pop in every alternate day to persuade me to pick up the milk in time. He suggested I lower a basket in which he would place the packet and I should then pull it up. I said brilliant idea, but the reiterated the problem that I am so gone in lala land in the mornings that I do not hear doorbells. Therefore, he should deduce that if I do not hear the bell I cannot possibly lower any basket.

His efforts since then have become even more fervid. This week, he upped the attack by giving my landlady a blow-by-blow account of how the red cat managed to swipe the milk despite his best efforts and messed up her letter box. Now he has taken to maniacally ringing the bell in the morning. He then dashes outside the gate, stands under my balcony and shouts, "Doodh rakh liya hai, uthalo! Mein yahan khada hoon taki billi andar na ja sake. Uthalo, uthalo, UTHALO, UTHAAAAAAAAALO" without pausing for breath. Of course, this method is working like a charm. Believe me, those cries cannot be ignored. I dash out of the bed, run straight to the balcony and yell "aa rahi hoon, aa rahi hoon, ek minute." (I am sure one of these days I am going to run straight over the balcony banisters and join him on the road.) Then, I execute an about turn and dash down the stairs and pick up the milk. The doodhwala gives me a satisfied smile and toddles away. I think I am going to switch to black tea.

Labels: people

posted by Jivitha @ 11:24 PM 1 comments

Thursday, November 23, 2006

The denizens of R K Puram

I spent the first twenty years of my life in R.K. Puram. Went back recently to meet my old neighbours (who are practically family) and spent some time nosing around the old haunts. My school, a hop, skip, and jump away from from my house. (My mother would wave me away to school from the terrace every morning, to many jeers from the other colony kids and my eternal embarrassment. How fervently I used to wish I could take a bus to school and travel for hours if need be like the other kids. Anything to escape being sent off with love. I'd rather she kicked me out every morning saying, Nikal ja, shaitan ke bachche! I would have got some sympathy, at least.)

The old water tank. The park. The shortcut through the old government school and the park has been sealed. I don't think I could have squeezed through the iron rungs, anyway. The trees, big and shady even then are mammoth now.

Many more cars; not so many scooters, forget rickety Chetaks that one saw mostly. Kalra's lending library is gone. (Not that I had a membership there, I lost the book my sister had borrowed and she got me blacklisted for, like, a lifetime. She actually hauled my puny ass to bloody Kalra's and hissed, "Is ladki ko kitaab kabhi nahi dena, varrrrna!" Darpok Kalra didn't even let me sniff at his books after that.)

The chinese meals-on-wheels is still there. And to its credit still looks as though it will roll away one day mysteriously. Panditji in the sabzi mandi is still going strong. The saste kapre ki dukaan is very much there.

Then, someone whizzed by on a scooter. That was Satti, said my little bro. Satti, as in Satti, Toti, Taari, the three monster brothers of the colony, I asked? Yes, he grinned. The Satti I remember was this thin, lanky boy, dashing madly on a scooter always on the verge of falling off. I am sure he took many tumbles but amazingly never did so in front of any eye witnesses. Or was that Toti? Anyway, this Satti, was fatter and compared to his grand prix days, practically sedate.

They lived in the building next to ours and didn't figure so much in my life. I had bigger problems to contend with in my building. My next door neighbours were the Saxenas, with six kids, including a Papoo and a Baboo. I was terrified of them because I was a total dabboo madrasi. My hindi was so terribly accented, I can only cringe when i remember how i said "Baldi" for "balti" and called Siddhi "Suddhi". My revenge is that my hindi is first-rate now and I can put any heartlander to shame. So there. Anyway, I was terribly bullied by Papoo who despite being match-stick skinny and dark to boot, thought he was Shammi Kapoor. He would walk around with a Shammi Kapoor bracelet and sweater around his neck and make those amazing neck contortations which made him look like a penguin having a grand mal seizure.

Anyway, then there were the Sharmas. Mr. Sharma had two wives (don't know how he managed that) and at last count, five kids. The last was a boy so one can safely assume he stopped at that. They were shamelessly opulent, loud but not kind or particularly generous, which made them very difficult to like. I think that was the first time I realized how different I was. My mother and aunt got along famously with Mrs. Sharma and her daughters but I would just shuffle my feet and exist on the periphery of the sisterhood. I used to be miserable because I couldn't be so effortlessly flirty and feminine like them. And I still can't be like that. I can be sarcy and wry on my good days. But pert and spoony? No way.

My affliction continues to this day, I think. I am a sore disappointment to my landlady (a very ladylike Sardarni) who was looking forward to many woman-to-woman tete-a-tetes with me. I only end up manfully respecting her privacy---when all she wants is for me to dig for information so she can talk--or worse offending her by offering to do things for her in a matter-of-fact way instead of showing some finesse.

Luckily, my mother is in town and she told me happily, "Teri maa badi mazedaar hai!" Story of my life.

Labels: childhood, people, R K puram

posted by Jivitha @ 9:05 AM 1 comments

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