The blue sky

A project called the German driving license I had been vying for it for more than a year now, and finally, when it landed in my hands, I felt on top of the world. I feel elated, proud, and independent! What is it that you say has made me so happy today? It's the license to drive in Germany! It's the much coveted German driving license for which I have spent a lot of time, money, and energy! I have not celebrated my birthday this year yet. Though it was on October 4th, I refrained from celebrating it around that time. I had promised myself that my birthday gift would be my German driving license, and I have successfully achieved it in this birthday month. Now it's time for a big party, and my parents will be coming in the next week. The process of getting to this day was not easy. The first thing that one has to do is do an eye-test, a first aid course, and then go to the local Drivers and Vehicles Licencing Authority (DVLA) office to submit these documents along with a tran...

It's almost the end of October. It's also the second-last day of the Blog Marathon challenge that I started on 01.10. Many people had shown interest to join me in this challenge, but sadly no one completed the challenge, due to festivals, and personal goals. I started the challenge and I am proud to have completed it successfully. Tomorrow is the last day and then I will be relieved and will have completed the word given to me. Commitment is commitment, come what may, isn't it? Today the time in Europe is set back by one hour and people can sleep one hour longer till the end of March. But the evenings will be shorter and by 5:30 pm it will be almost dark. That's something I don't like about wintertime. There is a change in weather, the days become shorter, and a feeling of sadness creeps in somehow. I don't know if it's in my head, but shorter days mean the shorter presence of the sun and if there is no sun, there seem to be no signs of life. But life has to...

Yesterday my son came with his German friend for dinner. I had prepared Upma for dinner because we had noodles late for lunch and no one was feeling very hungry. They both were talking about a third friend with whom they fought. That friend cursed them and said bad words to them it seems. I have no idea what exactly transpired between them. But they both came home leaving that third friend alone. That German friend had bread and butter for dinner at our place, they played for some time, and then my son and my husband accompanied him home as it got dark. Today morning that German friend who came yesterday went to that third friend in the morning and they both called my son out to play. My son very happily, forgetting everything that happened last evening went to play with both of them as if nothing had happened. I am now kind of used to this behavior of kids. One time they fight and the next moment they forget it and come together. Can we as adults ever do that? Are we able to forgive a...

I am a very light sleeper. I wake up to the slightest sound and light disturbances and have a hard time getting back to sleep again. I have to sleep in my bed on my cushion on the same side of the bed every night. I can't tolerate any change in that, but otherwise I am quite flexible. When I visit my parents in Mumbai or visit my in-laws in Pune, I take at least a week to get used to the surroundings there, though it is not completely new to me. Count the stars the first few nights. I count the dogs barking outside or the insects making noise outside. I also count the different wavelengths at which my husband and the other people in our family snore. All my family members can sleep at the drop of a hat, and I am the only odd woman out who is a night owl.  My mother-in-law says that I think too much and that is the reason I can't fall asleep soon, but I have stopped wasteful thinking long ago and have become calmer and more mature and patient, at least I think ;) Today, the cir...

  After getting bored of watching the Marathi serials on Zee Marathi, I completely stopped watching them. The stories have no logic and no effect to hold on to the viewer's attention. Even if I watch it after two months, the story hasn't really moved ahead, and I completely lost interest and stopped watching it. I get updates from my son and husband sometimes, when they watch that 20-minute episode in 3 minutes by fast-forwarding it! Extraordinary Attorney Woo, a Korean series on Netflix, was a welcome change. The series was released a few months ago. I had watched the teaser, but didn't delve deep into it. It has 16 episodes, and currently it's just one season. We watched one episode daily after dinner. It was quite a long time, about one hour. It's a story about a brilliant junior attorney who has an autism spectrum disorder, which is a developmental disability, and that hinders social communication and interaction with people around her. She joins a firm and fin...

When you go on a vacation to a foreign country or a different city or state, what do you bring back home as a souvenir from there? Do you have the habit of bringing some or the other thing from that place, or do you prefer to just go, visit, eat, click photos, have a good time and come back? I don't remember the exact moment when it all started, my love for fridge magnets and its collection, perhaps from the first trip to Germany in 2002. And then I kept going back there in the coming years. My trips outside Germany to Croatia, Turkey, Russia, the Netherlands, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Norway, Luxembourg, France, Switzerland, Austria, and Italy helped my love for fridge magnets grow exponentially. I told all my friends who traveled to different destinations than these to get magnets for me. So even though I haven't really travelled to Brazil, Spain, Bulgaria, the United States, China, Japan, Scotland, and Ireland, my friends and family got me fridge magnets which adorn the...

प्रिय आबा, कसे आहात? आज तारखेने जरी तुमचा वाढदिवस असला तरी तिथीने तो दसऱ्याला असतो आणि मला तुमची त्या दिवशीही आठवण येते आणि आजही. तुम्हाला सगळे अण्णाजी म्हणत, पण माझ्यासाठी तुम्ही आबा होतात. मी तुम्हाला आजोबा कधीच म्हटलं नाही, पहिल्यापासून आबा अशीच हाक मारली. दीपा हे नाव देखील तुम्हीच मला दिलंत, नाही का? दिवाळी च्या दरम्यान माझा जन्म झाल्यामुळे ते नाव तुम्ही मलाच बहाल केलंत. आणि मला तुम्ही त्याच नावाने हाक मारत होतात. शाळेत जरी मी मृणालिनी असले, तरी घरी आणि आजूबाजूला मी दीपा वेलणकर होते.  तुमची स्वच्छतेची आवड, वक्तशीरपणा, सदा ज्ञानार्जन करत राहणे हे गुण मी आजही विसरले नाहीये. जर्मनी मध्ये लोकं खूप वक्तशीर आहेत. आणि मीही जेव्हा वेळ पाळते तेव्हा लोकं माझे कौतुक करतात. तेव्हा मी त्यांना नेहमी तुमच्याबद्दल सांगते. तुमच्यामुळेच हा गुण माझ्यामध्ये उतरला आहे असे मला वाटतं. माझा मुलगा, म्हणजे तुमचा पणतू हा इकडेच शाळेत जातो. मस्त जर्मन बोलतो, त्याला सुद्धा वेळेचे भान असते आणि तो दिलेली वेळ नेहमीच पाळतो. त्याला तुमचा अजिबातच सहवास मिळाला नाही . पण आजी ने त्याला पाहिलं आहे, आणि त्याच्याब...

It often gets lonely here in Germany when, back in India, everyone is enjoying the feasts and festivals. It's Diwali today, and it is a normal working and school day for us. We have a small Maharashtrian community here, and we will celebrate the Diwali festival next week together. But the fun, frolic, camederie, and festive vibes are all missing for today, at least, when it is the actual festival day. I remember my childhood days in Dombivli, where my grandmother made every snack item at home, and I often helped her. Visiting the temple, wearing new clothes, especially stitched for Diwali, and meeting and inviting friends and families to have the Diwali faral (snacks) was the typical routine at that time. Bursting crackers with my other three besties, Deepali, Vishal, and Rohit, was a ritual. Eating together, tasting snacks made at each other's houses, and exchanging them was also a regular. All that doesn't happen here. No one invites us home during festivals, and I don...

I was introduced to Rasika through a singer friend, Ketaki Vaze. Ketaki and Rasika knew each other from the time Ketaki was in Munich, and Ketaki introduced Rasika to our channel, Vaachan Ranjan. Rasika is an artist. She paints, she sketches, and she makes many things out of craft. She is also a brilliant reader. She emotes so well that one gets involved while listening to all her stories. I got to know later that Ketaki and Rasika are a part of the Natyavaachan group, and they meet online on weekends to do readings of famous Marathi plays. It's no wonder both Ketaki and Rasika are such brilliant narrators, and it shows in every story that they both narrate on our channel, Vaachan Ranjan! When Rasika approached me to write something for the Diwali magazine of Maharashtra Mandal Munich, I was thrilled. She very specifically told me to write on a topic that is very close to my heart. She didn't give me any chance to while away time thinking about the topics to write about. She as...

On this journey through life, we meet a lot of people. We go out of our way to help a few of them. And then forget about it. And the surprising part is that the people whom we have helped forget it too. I am sure you must have come across many such people in life who came to you in times of crisis, but once their work got done, they conveniently forgot about it. What do you do in such cases? Do you stop helping people? Or do you continue doing the selfless work of helping known and unknown people? Human nature doesn't let us sit still, isn't it? Even if our hearts are broken by someone or our confidence has been shaken by someone, we still want to believe in the goodness of people. We still want to be hopeful and look ahead to the future. We still want to trust people and carry on with our duty of helping people. Because man is a social being, he needs to be with and around other people, and as experience has shown, not all humans are the same. Everyone comes here with his or h...

Yesterday was a busy day. I had a whole day of training from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. with breaks in between. Usually I do my walking after work at around 4 pm, but yesterday it was not possible. It was also rainy, and I had to cook dinner after the training to be ready in time for the Hindi class at 7 pm. I have taken part in a challenge on Fitbit with my friends where the person who walks the most steps in a week wins. It is a great tool to get motivated and do your daily routine of some walking and kicking some steps towards your goal. Yesterday, I had hardly walked 1000 steps and I felt very bad about it. Sitting is the new smoking, they say! All my other friends were done with their parts of the walk, and I didn't want to be the spoilsport. I decided to make time and squeezed in a walking workout of 30 minutes before having dinner and heading for the Hindi class. I felt extremely happy after the workout. As we all know, after a workout, the brain releases a hormone called endorphines ...

जोदि तोर डाक शुने केउ ना आसे तोबे एकला चलो रे। If no one answers your call, Then walk alone, (be not afraid) walk alone my friend. एकला चलो, एकला चलो, एकला चलो रे! जोदि केउ कोथा ना कोय, ओरे, ओरे, ओ भागा, यदि सबाई थाके मुख फिराय, सबाई करे भय- तबे परान खुले ओ, तुई मुख फूटे तोर मनेर कथा एकला बोलो रे! If no one talks to you, O my unlucky friend, if no one speaks to you, If everyone looks the other way and everyone is afraid, Then bare your soul and let out what is in your mind, (be not afraid) Speak alone my friend. यदि सबाई फिरे जाय, ओरे, ओरे, ओ अभागा, यदि गहन पथे जाबार काले केउ फिरे न जाय- तबे पथेर काँटा ओ, तुई रक्तमाला चरण तले एकला दलो रे! If they turn away, and desert you when crossing the wilderness, O thou unlucky one, trample the thorns under thy tread, and along the blood-lined track travel alone. यदि आलो ना घरे, ओरे, ओरे, ओ अभागा- यदि झड़ बादले आधार राते दुयार देय धरे- तबे वज्रानले आपन बुकेर पांजर ज्वालिये निये एकला ज्वलो रे! If they do not hold up the light when the night is trou...

It's OK to give up. It's OK to be overwhelmed by circumstances. It's OK to admit that things are not in your control. It's OK to get tired and sad. It's OK to admit that not everything is going right. It's OK to take a break from things and then prioritize. It's OK to ask for help and move ahead in life. It's OK to show your weaknesses to people you really love. It's OK to sometimes say "sorry" and admit that you are wrong. It's OK to be lazy and avoid doing household chores. It's OK to just be with nature and not utter a single word. It's OK to feel anxious about the rapidly changing circumstances. It's OK to feel defeated and lost. Because not all days are the same, and there are bound to be highs and lows.

मला एकंदरीतच संगीत, गाणं खूप आवडत असल्यामुळे शाळेत असताना मी गाणं शिकू लागले. आवड का कशी निर्माण झाली ठाऊक नाही. आमच्या घरी कोणीच एवढं संगीत ऐकत नाही. पण मला मात्र ते खूप आवडतं. पाचवी सहावीत असेन तेव्हा. डोंबिवली पश्चिम इथे फुले रोड वर एक संगीत शाळा होती. त्याचे नाव होतं गुरुदत्त संगीत शाळा. मी माझ्या पहिल्या गुरूंचे नाव मात्र विसरले, क्षमस्व! ते बऱ्यापैकी म्हातारे होते आणि खूप वर्ष गायन, वादन शिकवत होते. आम्ही तेव्हा लहान असल्यामुळे ते किती ग्रेट आहेत ह्या गोष्टींकडे दुर्लक्ष करत असू आणि आमच्याच जगात असू. एकाच वयाची चार पाच मुलं एकत्र आली कि काय गोंधळ घालतात हे तुम्हाला चांगलंच ठाऊक असेल. गुरुवारी एक तास क्लास असायचा, संद्याकाळी ५ ते ६ असा. त्यात अर्धा तास आमचे सर त्यांनी किती करून आणि गाऊन ठेवले हे हेच आम्हाला सांगत, पुढे गाणं जेमतेम अर्धा तास होई आणि पुढच्या तासाला नवीन मुलं आली कि आमची घरी रवानगी. दोन एक वर्ष गेले असेन मी तिकडे. आमचे कार्यक्रम होत असत, ज्यात आम्ही मुली, मुलं गायचो, तेवढेच थोडे कौतुक होयचे. मग आला मला कंटाळा. सरांकडून स्वतःबद्दल तेच तेच ऐकून, संगीतामध्ये पुढे माझी क...

Recently, I came across a video of a brother-sister pair from Zanzibar, Tanzania, who lip sync to Bollywood songs, and I was quite amazed at their love for the Hindi language. I read about this duo online. Kili Paul and Neema Paul, who are siblings, have learned the Hindi language and live in a remote village in Tanzania, where there is no proper electricity. I am not sure about the authenticity of the article, but it seems Kili had to travel a few kilometres to get his phone charged. He is a content creator on social media and is a Tiktoker. Kili was invited to India, and he met up with many Bollywood personalities and social media influencers. He loved every bit of his trip to India, and he enjoyed Indian food. He has a great fan following and apparently has over two million subscribers. My son already knew about him and I was the last one perhaps to get on the bus of his fans. I find the videos very cute and I respect the duo for learning an Indian language, which many Indians shy a...

I grew up in Dombivli as a kid, and I remember the excitement during the Navratri festival. There was a hotel called the Samrat hotel near my house, and there used to be a big Garba event there. I went there every year with my neighbors, the Wankhede sisters, who stayed on the ground floor. They were just like older sisters to me from a different mother. I went to see Neetu Tai, the youngest of the three, to get my drawing assignment done. She was a great artist, and she painted so well. I always got good grades on drawing assignments, thanks to her. She was in a different school, but I knew all her friends and was often at their place for some other pretext. Those three sisters always took good care of us kids, and we (I and a few kids of my age) were their responsibility. They introduced me to the dance steps and helped me get a grip on them. At about 9:30–10, there used to be aarti of the goddess, and the first beat of the drums used to start immediately after that. And that was a s...

महाराष्ट्र मंडळ कार्लसरूहे मध्ये वर्षात तीन सण साजरे होतात.  जानेवारी मध्ये हळदी कुंकू असते ज्यात बायका आणि मुले उत्साहाने भाग घेतात. खेळ, गप्पा गोष्टी, उखाणे, खाऊ, चहा असा मस्त बेत असतो. मार्च एप्रिल च्या दरम्यान गुढी पाडवा कार्यक्रम असतो. त्यात दार वर्षी जवळ जवळ १०० ते १५० मंडळी कार्लसरूहे मधून आणि आजू बाजूच्या गावांमधून येतात. दर वर्षी आम्ही एक थिम ठरवतो आणि मग सगळा कार्यक्रम ह्या थिम च्या अवती भवती फिरतो. त्या कार्यक्रमात लहान, मोट्ठे सगळेच भाग घेतात. मुलांना एक व्यासपीठ मिळते, ज्यावर ते आपले विविध गुण आणि कला सादर करू शकतात. एप्रिल २०२२ मध्ये मी मुलांकडून गणेश स्तोत्र करून घेतले होते. मुलांनी खूप मेहनत घेऊन अतिशय सुंदररित्या ते स्तोत्र म्हटले होते. इकडे तुम्ही मुलांनी म्हटलेले स्तोत्र पाहू शकता. Ganesh Vandana आणि ऑक्टोबर/नोव्हेंबर मध्ये दिवाळी कार्यक्रम असतो. त्यात फराळाचा एक बॉक्स आणि दोन तास छान रंगतदार कार्यक्रम असतो. जेवायला दोन तीन फूड स्टॉल्स असतात आणि गप्पा, गोष्टी, मस्त चहा आणि फराळ अशी संध्याकाळ रंगते. ह्या वर्षी हा कार्यक्रम ०५.११.२०२२ रोजी दुपारी ३ त...

I found this beautiful quote on Facebook a few days back, and I saved it to my favourites. Sometimes there are nice little positive things that people post, and that makes my day. Usually, I end up scrolling mindlessly, losing my valuable time. But there are some surprises, too, sometimes! I loved the colour scheme and combinations that the artist (painter) used to depict this beautiful quote. The author is Maya Angelou. I quote from Wikipedia. She was an American memoirist, popular poet, and civil rights activist. She published seven autobiographies, three books of essays, several books of poetry, and is credited with a list of plays, movies, and television shows spanning over 50 years. She received dozens of awards and more than 50 honorary degrees.  Angelou is best known for her series of seven autobiographies, which focus on her childhood and early adult experiences. Many of Angelou's most celebrated works have been labelled as autobiographical fiction, but many critics c...

My mother-in-law is a sweetheart. She is a voracious reader and has a strong presence on the social media site Facebook. She is a member of many groups where stories are written and shared by the authors in those groups. She reads a lot and then forwards the stories to me. I usually contact the authors, seek their permission, and then ask my team of readers to read it for our channel, Vaachan Ranjan. She helps me immensely by curating stories for the YouTube channel. Today she sent me this small poem that she got as a forward on WhatsApp and told me that it would be a good topic to write about on my blog for the Blog Marathon that is currently underway. It is in my mother tongue, Marathi, but I will try to describe it here in English for a wider audience.   * अर्जंट पाहिजेत .* इच्छुक व्यक्तींनी संपर्क साधावा * एक शिंपी पाहिजे ,* * जो एकमेकांची तुटलेली नाती शिवु शकेल * * एक इलेक्ट्रिशियन पाहिजे ,* जो एकमेकांशी न *      * बोलणाऱ्या दोन ...