Rekha's Ramblings

On our recent trip to India, visited Elephanta caves, they are on an island, just a short ferry ride off Mumbai. Several ferries leave for the island daily, all day long at about 5-10 minutes interval. There were ferries in front of us, back of us and the scene everywhere was pretty much the same. Besides the smog, there were plenty of seagulls hovering over these ferries. The hawkers were selling chips/Cheetos and people were in turn feeding them to the seagulls. Their behavior is so altered that we didn't see even one seagull diving for a fish but all of them circling the ferries, travelling the entire distance with them looking for Cheetos, just like the squirrels at Zion national park. We talked to one of the vendors, he said Kya Kare (what to do), he is very aware of what he is doing, how it is not good for the birds, the environment; however selling Cheetos is the only thing which puts food on his table, he has no other means of making money, he has no education. It was heart...

March 12, 1993; I was in a college classroom when we heard this loud noise, explosion, only to find out later that it was one of the series of bomb blasts in the city of Mumbai, when bodies started flooding at the casualty/ trauma ward of Nair hospital. Several times, mobs went crazy, rioting due to disrupt train schedule and I couldn’t get home on time, had to seek alternate means of travel to get home while I was in college in Mumbai.  A couple months ago my neighbor’s dog attacked me and I have been traumatized since, can’t walk on our street any more. That is the extent of my involvement in anything violent or tragic.  9/11, 26/11 happens and several successive mass bombings, school shootings including Sandy hook happened, and even though I was nowhere near them, it affected not just me but everyone. My then 11 year old son had panic attacks, night mares for days following Sandy hook massacre. Then one of the teenagers from our school was shot fatally by another.  It ...

   This morning, while talking to a family member, the subject came up, why I turned out to be different than the rest of them.  I don’t know exactly when it all started.  I grew up in India, in the seventies and eighties.  My sisters and I used to watch a TV show named Rajani. Rajani was a homemaker, a mother. She was fearless, she was not afraid of anyone or anything. She saw any injustice happening, in any form or shape, to anyone; she would speak up. Not only did she speak, but she also made it her business to seek justice. She was not afraid. The show would air on Sunday mornings. I wanted to be like her, so much so that I disliked going to church not wanting to miss the show. In those days, if you missed it, you missed it, it won’t come back. I wanted to be “Rajani.” I was probably ten or eleven years old then.  Then there always was Jhansi Ki Rani, who fought for what was rightfully hers, with a kid on her back. I wanted to be like her…as the years p...

 Simply fascinated by their ability to shed everything each year, year after year and start fresh, anew each year, every year. Why weren't us humans given that ability???? Not only that, but it’s also perfectly ok for them to change colors year after year, get prettier right before it gets barren and come back even prettier and in this part of Virginia, with a vengeance!!! My Ramblings for this Friday.

 What does one do with them? I'm not that attached to the video tapes but audio.... yes. 21 years ago and for 5-6 years since then, they were the ones there when no one else was, in happiness, in sorrow, when homesick, when needed a little boost to get through yet another day, week or month before a trip back home, while driving in the darkness by myself ... Hindi songs by Lata, Asha, Rafi or Kishore Kumar or Marathi music. Little did we know that things were about to change, that the world was literally going to be at one's fingertips.... The question now is do I stay attached to them and continue to hoard a few more boxes or do I get rid of them?? Is this the difference between us and the trees?? I don't even think I have a cassette player anymore, yet I am dwelling on the thought of keeping them, as a keepsake of course. My rambling for this Friday!

   We moved recently and surprised at myself, found these in one of the boxes, I'm not into cooking and for me to even have invested in a recipe box and cookbooks...my daughter asked what was I going to do with them ; they never saw the daylight and needless to say, they never will, they are now at the bottom of a recycling bin. My sad ramblings on this Monday!      

Today is International Peace Day. While I personally have never suffered a true hardship as such (if you can call lack of electricity or running water 24/7, having to study in a candle light or having only a pair of flip flops as your only shoes for a whole year a hardship, then yes, I have had a hard life).  I did not have much while growing up but one thing I always had was a roof over my head, three basic meals, a loving family and above all, a place that I called home, I belonged to a village, a community. I had a sense of belonging. I was born in India and therefore an Indian, that was my identity.  Then opportunity knocked on the door, came to America and now I have not one, but two homes, my home where my family still resides and my adopted home, the United States of America. My children are privileged, they will always have a place that they can call home.  While I hear of the suffering of the refugees, I will never know what it is like to not have an identit...