The blue sky

I stay on the main road in a small town near Stuttgart and I often hear the sound (siren) of police vans, ambulance and the fire brigade which Tanay and his friends from the crèche have lovingly named as ‘tatu tata’. Whenever one of these three vehicles is heard on the road, all the other vehicles on the road stop make way; move aside, no matter how congested or small the road is.

A small act of kindness, no doubt brings joy in the benefactor’s life, which cannot be measured in terms of money. But when we are at the receiving end, the happiness is even more, because we haven't expected it in the first place and another reason is that it might come from a source, which is totally unknown to us. You would be thinking, what philosophy doses am I giving here, but now, I will tell you the reason for writing these lines.

The concept of book spine poetry appeared in 1993 with Nina Katchadourian’s Sorted Books project. Katchadourian began collecting interesting titles and arranging them in clusters so the spines could be read like a sentence. Thanks to Uma Chellappa for introducing this wonderful piece of creative writing on her blog. Check it out here.   http://mymaidenattempt.blogspot.in/2014/08/book-spine-poetry-1.html   http://mymaidenattempt.blogspot.de/2014/08/book-spine-poetry-2.html   The second post of hers set me thinking and since last 24 hours, I am trying to find some time to sit and write something of this sort. Finally, after a deliberate attempt, I am ready with my maiden attempt at Book Spine poetry.   My mother-in-law, who is currently visiting me, also helped me with it. Let me know how you like it.   The Notebook (of) the pilot's wife (unravelled) the Secret (of) revolution 2020 (created by) the jewels...

My dear daughters and sons, You all celebrated the day of my independence from the colonial British Raj with great enthusiasm. How old have I been now? 67 years old? I will always be thankful to your ancestors for giving me a new lease of life and freeing me from the autocratic rule. I had hoped that I would flourish, make lots of progress and see India emerging as the super-power, but alas, my dreams are shattered by the sad reality.

Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art... It has no survival value; rather it is one of those things that give value to survival - C.S.Lewis This quote holds true in my and Arpita’s case. We both are from Mumbai. We studied Arts in college. We love Literature, Arts, History, Mumbai, Life and liveliness. But we had never seen each other in India. Only when destiny brought us together in Germany in a common group did we realize that we share so much with each other.

I have always been a person who enjoys people coming home. Be it family, friends, relatives, or just acquaintances, I like to be host to them and talk to them and entertain them. In Dombivli, when I was a school going kid, my grandmother’s siblings often visited us and I absolutely loved the time, when my favorite aaji, Sakhu aaji (grandmother in Marathi) came home to stay. I pestered her to stay longer and longer and never wanted her to go. She had a soft corner for my dad, as she was the one who took care of him when he was doing his military school in Pune.

My day started on a bad note today as I learned that my favorite Hollywood actor, Robin Williams is no more and he died of depression and committed suicide. A person who tickles the people’s heart with his indomitable spirit and energy and laughter cracking persona, dies of depression? Really!? Is this possible? What made him so sad and made him leave his countless fans behind in a world, which can never see him play a character again?

I quote Wikipedia’s definition on Raksha Bandhan. ‘ Raksha Bandhan is a Hindu festival that celebrates the love and duty between brothers and sisters; the festival is also popularly used to celebrate any brother-sister like loving protective relationship between men and women who are relatives or biologically unrelated. It is called Rakhi Purnima , or simply Rakhi , in many parts of India’. The earliest memories of this festival are from school times, where we girls rushed to tie rakhis to a few ‘mischievous’ boys in our class and they ran away from us saying no, leave us alone. But there was one boy called Tushar Shetty, who never shied away from getting the rakhi tied and he very sportingly and lovingly displaced the maximum number of rakhis tied on that day.

Recently we were invited by Tanay’s friend, Enya’s family for a chat and snacks. We were actually invited for her birthday but as Tanay was not keeping well, we couldn’t go and hence to make it up, we were invited again, which was a very sweet gesture on the part of the German family. We reached there, parked the car and Enya, Tanay’s friend was already waiting for him on the road. They both squealed with joy and from that moment on they were inseparable.

Friendship day has come and gone. Like every other year. I am miles away from my best friends, but close to their hearts and in their thoughts and prayers, I am sure. The crazy friendship bands have got lost somewhere, the silly gifts also ruled out, and personal meetings, way too hassled. It is just the technology now which is keeping us together. Whtsapp messenger, Facebook and mails are the forums which we resort to when we want to ‘talk’ to our friends. They are just one call away, but do we call each other and hear the voice of each other? No. Pinging is easier than calling now.