The Good Conductor

We didn’t know his real name, and it didn’t occur to us to ask.

Taklu Conductor was the highly uncomplimentary name that one of the girls gave him. And it stuck. Before long, we were all calling him that. It was a name inspired by his bald pate, taklu being the streetside Bambaiya Hindi word for bald. As smooth as a baby’s bottom his head was, we told ourselves giggling.

He was the conductor on the school bus that took us from home to school and back. Other conductors were indistinguishable, their buses known by a landmark on their routes. Ours proudly went by the name of Taklu Conductor’s bus.

And rightly so, for Taklu Conductor was miles of streets ahead of the others who did the same job.

As a conductor, his duties weren’t all that hard. Maintain law and order in the bus, and assist the driver when he was reversing the bus to ensure that no one was hurt as the bus reversed. But it was the dedication and delight with which he performed these simple tasks that won him hearts.

He took charge of us, ensuring that no one put their hands out through the bars of the window. Fights over who got how much window space, and who had the window seat and who had to make do with the aisle seat didn’t last long either when Taklu Conductor was the mediator. On his watch, girls learned to share window space. Those who sought to push the window panes forward or backward learned soon enough that it didn’t please Taklu Conductor.

Woe betide anybody that dared to tease or belittle any of us girls. Taklu Conductor would be Fury unleashed, an angry father, no less.

With him on board, boring rides on the city streets were transformed as Taklu Conductor regaled us with interesting anecdotes about things that had happened in his village. We marvelled at the different kinds of adventures he had had, the wondrous events that had befallen him. At other times, he led us in singing the latest Bollywood melodies and the oldies with equal felicity, transforming the bus into a great Picnic-on-wheels.

Once an unexpected digging on the roads led the driver to take an unscheduled detour and route to drop us off at our stops. Taklu Conductor fretted non-stop, suggesting alternative routes that would get us home at the earliest. This was pre-cellphone era.

A girl once vomited inside the bus, an action that provoked the wrath of the driver and frightened the girl even more. Taklu Conductor cheerfully offered to clean up the mess, provided the driver shut up and stopped upsetting the girl.

For our sake, he stored in the bus cabin a fully stocked first aid kit, which came in handy, whenever somebody was hurt or whenever somebody attempted acrobatics in the bus.

Many a school girl afraid of her teacher and keen to play hooky changed her mind about bunking school at the thought of missing Taklu Conductor. The girl who did so anyway received a stern lecture on the significance of the education she was receiving, something he never had growing up.

But he was learning. He had a copy of the English primer, probably something his little daughter, who also studied in our school, had outgrown. Taklu Conductor would try to teach himself to read and write with it, with us, his volunteer-teachers, egging him on.

It wasn’t for nothing that we were the envy of our other school mates.

Today when I see my children off at the school bus stop, I am not entirely at ease regarding their safety and I quell my anxious fears through prayer. Back then, none of the parents of the girls on Taklu Conductor’s bus had the slightest doubts or fears about their children’s safety. Taklu Conductor inspired that kind of confidence.

He was a Mother Hen on whose watch nothing untoward could ever befall his wards. A simple man, who had the undisputed affection of all the girls who took his bus.

When I came to know about Tata Motors’ contest, inviting bloggers to talk about a person who has touched their lives, a simple, ordinary person who is #madeofgreat and who touched others with his simplicity and goodness, I was reminded once again of Taklu Conductor.

Today’s school children, and parents too, need more Taklu Conductors on their buses, and in their lives.

If you were touched by my account of Taklu Conductor, and wish to leave a comment, the organisers of this contest would like you to answer a simple question: 

What do you think of Tata Motors' association with Lionel Messi?

The best comment can win you an Amazon voucher worth Rs 750.

So go on, answer the question, and don't forget to say something nice about Taklu Conductor while you're at it. Wherever he is, the Good Conductor has certainly earned every bit of praise he can get.

Product Review: Garnier BB Cream

I’m not the kind that usually signs up to review this kind of a product. I’m not much of a cosmetics user. I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of times in a year that I wear lipstick, and while I might buy creams and face washes (for some inexplicable reason, I have a strange fascination for both these products), I rarely use them completely. More often than not, their Best Before date is up before I have used them to the fullest.

Makeup is an equally challenging beast. Supermodel Tyra Banks once said, “I like the confidence that makeup gives me.” Personally, I’ve never felt the need to squeeze confidence out of a bottle. And it’s not as if, you know, Maybe I’m born with it.

To this day, I am clueless about how makeup is used, and what should be done to highlight one’s cheekbones. In fact, I didn’t even wear makeup to my own wedding.

I find it more than a little disconcerting when a woman’s looks become the yardstick by which she is measured. Just how beautiful does a woman have to be before she begins to see herself as beautiful?

And so when Indiblogger offered the opportunity to review this product, I jumped at it. Maybe I wanted to know what BB actually stood for. The ads had staunchly refused to tell. The packaging continued the element of secrecy. Eventually, I had to Google the answer.

Then again, maybe I was lured by the desire to get perfect skin.

I’m human, like that.

I decided, why not squeeze out every drop of the almond-coloured cream, and see if it was good to the last drop. If it worked, this Diwali, the family might not need to put hard-earned cash down on Chinese lights that barely outlast the season.

The proof of the pudding would emerge if somebody pointed out that I was glowing. I just hoped they wouldn’t ask me if it was Luoov or Duoov.

It was the ease of use that appealed to me. Wash your face with a facewash, it said, then dab some BB cream. Light and circular strokes. Easy peasy.

I tried it, and it did feel good, and smelled nice too.

The BB cream is certainly going to need every ounce of its willpower to keep me feeling this good. Not an easy job, given the extent of pollution in this city; besides, it is Diwali pataka time, and October.

I won’t turn into a Garnier BB Cream bhakt overnight. Old habits die hard, and Best Before (another kind of BB) dates might sneak up on me, before the BB cream achieves its full effect.

Even so, this product has my aye-aye for its no-fuss stance.

“Fill it, shut it and forget it,” said a two-wheeler ad, decades ago.



Garnier BB Cream offers exactly that promise to your skin.

An online market for Raghurajpur

Time is Money, they say.

I say, it depends on you are.

In 2007, the richest man in India earned Rs 10 per second. That equals Rs 2,59,20,000 over 2592000 seconds. A month, to be precise.

So his time is certainly worth a lot of money.

Now pit that whopping figure against a mere Rs 5000 earned by a humble craftsman in Raghurajpur in Orissa, for a month of back-breaking, wrist-straining, eye-stinging and head-hurting labour. While the villagers, every one of them a skilled artist, are adept at making a variety of handicrafts, the art that has catapulted this humble village to the limelight is Pattachitra.

Pattachitra literally means painting on leaf or cloth. These paintings are made by hand over a large piece of treated cloth. Colourful and intricate images of gods, goddesses and the abundance that is Indian mythology, not to mention the beauty of everyday life, are the hallmark of pattachitra.

Connoisseurs understand the value of these works, understand too the effort that goes into them, the legacy of centuries of tradition and culture that they represent. Unfortunately, while the art itself is celebrated, the humble craftsmen who literally gives up his life for his art, lives and dies neglected, impoverished, struggling to eke out a living.

The beautiful pattachitra paintings are bought from the craftsmen for Rs 5000, then sold for any amount between Rs 10,000-15,000. Ultimately, this buyer, only the middleman, will sell it for Rs 30,000 or Rs 40,000, an amount of money that the artist will have to slog six-seven months to earn.

Every stroke requires masterful accomplishment. Despite the lack of training, the art has been meticulously passed down the generations. In today’s age, however, few would wish this kind of a life upon their children. Any wonder then that many of the most crucial elements of our fine arts heritage are dying out.

If there is anything that has sustained the artistic tradition, it is no thanks to us. Much as we pride ourselves on belonging to a nation whose artistic and cultural tradition dates back thousands of years, we have not done anything to drive awareness about the plight of these artisans.

It is not easy for artists with no financial backing, to continue to battle obstacles in the struggle to keep their art and families alive.

Orissa has been unfortunate in not having benefited from the wave of development and progress that has enveloped other parts of the country.

These artists need support. Our support, if we would but give it.

Now Tata Capital has embarked on its Half Stories campaign. Stories of unfulfilled dreams, of deadends in the way of life’s journeys. Photographer Pankaj has been scouring the expanse of India, looking for stories to complete, using the power of crowd sourcing.

The fifth stop in the Half Stories journey, Tata Capital has hit upon the novel idea of designing, creating and establishing a website for the artisans. One that they can learn to manage themselves.

A website would take the Raghurajpur story to the world, to people who appreciate beauty. People who would value the hard work of the artist who spends his time and energy in creating something beautiful.

A website would bring in customers, prospective and current ones, face to face with the artists. It would foster a greater degree of appreciation for the craftsmen, ensure customization of art objects for the buyer and a steady amount of work for the artists.

A website can make it possible for the customer to meet the artists, without the middle man clogging the exchange.

Let’s make this website a reality for the artists of Raghurajpur and keep the pattachitra tradition alive.

Tata Capital's efforts have already yielded the amount required to build the website.

Now it is up to us to create awareness about this so that the artists can be assured of lucrative work once the website comes into being.

(This post was written for the Half Stories campaign held in association with Indiblogger.)

Speaking a thousand words

Tata Capital's DoRight campaign is certainly doing the right thing by actively seeking to do that which is good, that which exemplifies the value system and ethos of the Tata group, to which the company belongs.

The Half Stories campaign sees Pankaj, an itinerant photographer commissioned by Tata Capital to traverse 2000 km across the length and breadth of India, to look for ordinary stories in the lives of ordinary people. Stories that clamour for our attention on the strength of their mere simplicity. Stories of struggle and difficulties which deserve to come to fruition, but which fail to achieve their simple dreams for lack of a crucial resource: money.

As I write this post, the Half Stories campaign has already touched the lives of three people in Dharamsala and Manali in Himachal Pradesh and Rishikesh in Uttarakhand.

For its latest Half story, Pankaj found himself in Mumbai, where he was privileged to spend time with the speech- and hearing-impaired children of a school called Koshish School for the Deaf. Named after the Hindi word for effort or attempt, the school admirably tries to train these children to live their lives by working around their disabilities. 

Here Pankaj encountered ENT Dr Ajay Kothari, also a trustee of the school, who trains the children to communicate their thoughts and ideas to the world. The school itself employs numerous means, including the graph method, lip reading, touching the throat to make out the sounds of the vowels etc.

Having spent time with the children, Pankaj zeroed in on Shahin and Chetan, two young boys who were fascinated by the camera he carried. And so was born a new seed of an idea. What if these two young boys were given cameras and the freedom to show us their unique perspective of the world? What kind of treasures would it reveal?

Over the course of three days, Pankaj offered them some basic photography skills on lighting, composition, aperture etc and the passion and enthusiasm of the boys filled in the gaps for them. In order to equip them with the means to capture their vision for the rest of us to see, it was necessary to give them their own cameras.

The effort required Rs 31,500, an amount that was mobilised quickly when other ordinary hearts across the online space came to know of this unique wish-granting campaign of Tata Capital.

Suddenly it wasn’t such a noiseless world at all. Shahin and Chetan had a fantastic opportunity to show us, noisy, talkative people a slice of the world that we have never seen before. It was an entrancing sight.

Surely if photography skills were taught to more of these children, it would enable them to express themselves like never before. The lack of sounds and words would no longer limit their world. Photography could also pave the way for a career option for the talented among them. 

A photograph could actually speak more than a thousand words.

In the days to come, the Doright campaign will continue to touch other lives, and complete other Half stories. Let’s hope more of us bolster their efforts to do the right thing.

My Babies Strongest

A baby is the purest being, the only one that qualifies to be called an angel by virtue of its very existence. Babies epitomise innocence. They are as God made them, unmarred by sin, unstained by artifice.

As parents, we are overwhelmed by the responsibility of bringing up our children right, even as we feel ourselves consumed by our love for them. We promise ourselves that no matter what other milestones we may or may not clock in life, no matter what goals we may or may not tick off our bucket lists, this bringing-up-baby business is something we will get right, even if we have to spend our whole life doing it.

Before the birth of La Niña, I attended a breastfeeding class at the maternity hospital at which I had registered to give birth. The lecture was organised by the Breastfeeding Promotion Network of India (BPNI). The lecturer emphasised the importance of breastfeeding, the most basic nutrition for babies in a practice that dates back to the dawn of civilisation.

Having written an article on the subject of breastfeeding for the first magazine I worked for, I was aware about the benefits of breastfeeding for the baby. But the lecturer opened our eyes to the benefits of breastfeeding for the mother too. I was a willing student, and hung on to every word that she spoke. Her words resonated within me, and gave life to a resolve that I had not yet encapsulated in words. There and then I decided that I would breastfeed my baby exclusively for six months. I would be her primary source of nourishment and nutrition. My body would assuage baby’s hunger pangs and thirst. My milk would be the blood that flowed in her veins.

It was a resolve that gave me many sleepless nights. Well wishers who came to see the baby over the next few weeks chided me for what they referred to as “irrational” behaviour on my part. They told me that they had formula fed their children in their time, and that their kids had suffered no harm as a result.

Others told me that while I may choose to indulge myself in the day by breastfeeding her, I should formula feed her at night to ensure that she slept well, thereby affording me a good night’s rest too. The unspoken assertion was that in refusing to formula feed her at night, I was disturbing my wee one’s slumber by not slaking her hunger pangs effectively.

The logic was incorrect. The truth is that breast milk is easily digested, causing babies to wake up and cry for more, whereas formula, being hard to digest, induces a longer period of rest.

It was not a line of reasoning that appealed to me. I was prepared to sacrifice my sleep even if she woke up three times each night for her feeds and kept me up for 45 minutes each time. I was determined to breast feed on demand, no matter how often the demand was made.

My maternity leave exhausted itself four months after La Niña was born. I was forced to resume full-time work, a fact that challenged my decision to breastfeed her exclusively for the first six months of her life.

A quick phone call to the BPNI lady showed me the way to continue breastfeeding even as I fulfilled my duties at work. The lady instructed me in the right way to express, store and transport breast milk. It was a huge commitment on my part, but I could not have done it without the cooperation of my in-laws who looked after La Niña with intense dedication, and my boss, who let me excuse myself thrice a day, for 30 minutes each time, so I could express milk for my baby.

I had told my boss that I would need to take time off for expressing milk only for two months, until La Nina turned six months old, but she encouraged me to do it for as long as I wanted for the benefit of my child. For the next five months, I was always lugging an array of small steel containers in which to express the milk, besides an icebox in which I stored the steel containers. It was inconvenient, but the positive implications of my actions were quickly evident.

Thrice a day, I would go to a spare room in my office clinic, and there amid the sterile and spartan surroundings, I would express milk for my child in the steel containers. I would store these containers in the fridge during the day, then get some ice from the office canteen for my icebox, and carry the steel containers containing my ‘liquid gold’ home. 

Once home, I would sterilise six steel katoris, by washing them well and drying them over the heat of the gas burner, the way the BPNI lady had taught me. I would then pour the milk from the steel containers into these katoris.

The following day, my in-laws would pull out one of these containers about 15 minutes before La Niña’s feeding time, and warm the milk by keeping the containers in hot water. Breast milk should never be microwaved or heated on the gas. La Niña’s indulgent grandparents would then feed her the milk using a spoon.

We had already decided against using feeding bottles for a number of reasons. The plastic is never 100 per cent safe, nor is the silicon nipple. Nor does extensive boiling of the feeding bottle apparatus make it as clean and safe as breast milk.

Having observed the power of breastfeeding firsthand, I was doubly motivated to do the same for El Niño. Today La Niña is five years of age, while El Niño is two-and-a-half. Our paediatrician’s file for both kids consists of no more than 5-6 sheets. Almost 90 percent of our visits to the doctor have been to get the kids their vaccination shots. On the rare occasion that the kids have fallen ill, as a result of a sudden change in the weather etc, I have observed with gratitude that both of them have recovered within a day or two. Another pleasant byproduct of the fewer doctor visits is that their immune systems have not been forced to endure doses of antibiotics.

I have seen many kids falling prey to infection after infection, their parents forced to take time off from work once too often. The Husband and I have almost never had to take time off to take the children to the doctor.

I have now become something of a breastfeeding evangelist. Whenever I espy a pregnant woman on the train or bus, I gingerly and tentatively bring up my own experiences, and if she seems receptive, I let her know about the many positive effects of exclusive breastfeeding for both mother and child. I tell her of the physical, mental and social development of the child, of the strengthening of the child’s immunity, a gift that lasts almost all through life.

With my breastfeeding efforts having yielded such great results, I was determined to ensure that the effects of the immunity did not wear off. My father had introduced me to the benefits of eating amla, and I sought to share this treat with my children. They didn’t take to it with the same gusto though, so I learned to make amla candy. Now they can enjoy the benefits of eating amla all the year round.

I haven’t stopped at that in my endeavour to boost their immunity. When they stopped being covered by the all-encompassing power of mother’s milk, I introduced them to Dabur Chyawanprash. Fortunately, it wasn’t an acquired taste. Having seen me and their paternal grandparents enjoying a spoon of this mixture every once in a while with obvious relish, they too began demanding a tablespoon of the same.

The first time they tasted it, the expression on their faces underwent a radical roller-coaster upheaval. But they soon took to this part-sweet, part-spicy taste. They are the only kids I have ever seen that lick the Chyawanprash spoon clean with the concentration that most other children reserve for lollipops.

I also make sure that my children eat enough servings of fruits and vegetables and dry fruits every day, that they play around and sleep well too.

When it comes to boosting the body’s natural defence mechanisms, mothers must ensure that nothing is left undone.

My kids are healthy and well.

What more can a mother ask for?

A whiff of memories

I stand at the kitchen counter, looking at various bowls filled with partially used flour, sugar and butter, and bottles of baking soda and baking powder. La Niña, my daughter, in whose presence every instance of mundane cooking or baking is transformed into an episode of La Niña ka tadka, watches expectantly and excitedly. She knows that she and I are continuing a tradition that began in my childhood home with my mother’s jugaad oven.


The timer beeps and I switch off the mains and, with mittened hands, pull out the cake pan from the oven.


And just like that, my childhood comes rushing in.


And I recall my Mum’s kitchen. Growing up, we had a very small house. So small that when we visited someone, I would try to imagine just how many times our home would fit into their house. Twice? Five times? Six times with two bathrooms to spare?


Understandably, the kitchen occupied a negligible corner of that small house. And yet, within that small space, my mother used to conjure up treats and every day meals almost as if by magic. Our kitchen had no window, and since we had only one gas cylinder at that time, it was the pumping of the old Primus stove until the cylinder was replenished. In spite of the sweltering heat in the kitchen, Mum would cook those meals with a smile, seeing them as a labour of love for her family.


I remember the sorpotels (non-vegetarians may continue reading, no gory details here) that were a staple of our Christmas and Easter celebrations. Mum would grind the red chillies, cloves, cinnamon, garlic, ginger, cumin, peppercorns and turmeric using the stone mortar and pestle, referred to as paata in some Indian languages. She would wet the whole mixture with vinegar. As soon as she uncorked the bottle of vinegar, it would be like someone pressed a button somewhere deep within me. My mouth would start watering and I would begin to feel hungry.


Of course, vinegar is known to have that kind of an effect on the taste buds. But it wasn’t just that. Mum could create that kind of magic even with the most basic of dishes. She could make the tang and piquancy of each ingredient stand up so sharply that M, my younger brother, would be able to tell just what had been cooked that day when he was as far as a hundred feet away from the front door – guided by his nose alone. 

I admired him for this skill. I was rather nose-deaf (my contribution to the English language) when it came to guessing ingredients by smell alone. I can, of course, recall the peculiar odour of each ingredient when it is raw. But mix them together and I would be hopelessly lost.


Thanks to these aromas, we could literally smell Mum's presence in our home, and we would know instantly when she was away. Strange how the vanishing of a smell could bring gloom.

But other than the smells generated in the kitchen, there was the unique, motherly smell that was her own. It consisted not only of the perfume she wore on important occasions. It was also the distinctive smell of her, comprising a mixture of sweat and soap, of hard work and hope.


Dad, our original Mr Fix-it, had an individual smell too. It consisted of spirit and Fevicol and Araldite, his tools-in-trade for the numerous fixing jobs he did around the house. Whether the tap in the kitchen gave up the ghost or the radio-cum-tape recorder breathed its last, whether my doll's nose came unstuck or whether an Algebra problem defied my comprehension, he was at hand. 

Fixing. Mending. Repairing.


For all my childhood, we never ever had to call a plumber, carpenter or any kind of handyman for any job. There was no problem that Dad couldn't solve, something that remains true to the day, and the smells of the material he used to make things good again were proof of the same.


During the summer vacations, we would play outside the house and not return home until it got dark and Mum had called us back for the third time. Then we would return home, my brothers and I, all sweaty and smelly. We'd be smelling dirty, and yet we would be blissfully happy, the joy of having run around and shouted ourselves hoarse, the delight of unrestrained play.


After a bath, it was the carbolic smell of Lifebuoy that I would revel in. Even though we must have bought that soap no more than three or four times, I could recall the smell so strongly. It would always make me feel fresh and healthy.


Babies also have their own smells, something I discovered when M was born. That smell was more than Johnson's Baby Powder. It was pure, sweet, innocent. The smell of God's willingness to give the world one more chance.


As a mother, I discovered that exclusively breastfed babies can bless their mothers with an unexpected bonus. Pee and poop that do not smell offensive.


Very early in life, I discovered that inanimate objects also had their own distinctive odours.


Mum used to store the items from her trousseau in a special package, with numerous naphthalene balls for protection and an old unopened pack of some foreign soap (I think it was Camay) somewhere in the package. There would be embroidered bed sheets and pillow cases, table cloths with exquisite applique work, cross-stitched pillow cases, and crocheted doilies, table cloths and place mats. They were all things that she had made herself. Every time she bared that treasure trove, I would be entranced and completely consumed by the task of admiring the beauties within. That smell was special to both of us.


I would drink in that smell, and with that action, I would imagine that I was imbibing more than just that part-musty, part-fragrant smell. I would see myself as partaking in the joy of a young bride-to-be as she painstakingly made and put together the bricks of her life with the man she loved.


Books too had their own smells. Of course, books are not, strictly speaking, inanimate objects. My older brother and I used to smell books. We used to dig our noses into them and inhale deeply. We would make the words and thoughts expressed within those pages, the ideas and the ink, a part of our own sensibilities and sensitivities.


We would breathe in that sometimes musty, sometimes fresh off the printing press smell and make it a part of our system, our being, then slowly breathe out to make room for more. Then brace ourselves to breathe in that scent again.


I wish there was a way to bottle up those fragrances. I’m no fan of Christian Dior and his ilk, but if someone found a way to bottle up those fragrances, I’d buy a lifetime’s supply at once.

But there were some odours that were so horrible, I wished there was a way to do away with them. These included the smell of rotting garbage, on days when the jamaadar didn't come. Then we would have to wrap up the garbage bag and take it to the neighbourhood municipal bin. There was no Ambipur in those days to help us wish malodours away.

Another odour that terrified me was that of cooking gas. In those days, Doordarshan, our only TV channel, aired many public service ads about what to do and what not to do in the event of a gas leak around the home. It was then that I learned that cooking gas has no odour of its own. And that the peculiar odour of cooking gas that we smell, something like a mix between rotten eggs and dirty socks, is added to give consumers a warning in the event of any leakage.


There are many of these smells that I haven't smelled in ages. I can barely describe them any more. And yet, sometimes they creep up on me, as silently as a thief in the night, and before I know it, I am wallowing in the memory, luxuriating in nostalgia.


La Niña returns to find me still standing by the kitchen counter, a happy smile on my face. I give in to her entreaties and cut a huge slice of the cake for her. She beams at me and picks up the piece. She takes it to her mouth and is about to bite into it when she stops short. She lifts it up to her nose, and gently inhales the aroma of freshness, sweetness and her mother's love.


And just like that another memory is born, on the strength of a whiff.

This post is a response to the contest, Smelly to Smiley, run by Ambi Pur, in association with Indiblogger.

Roma, mi Roma

Rome has always been on my list of things to do before I die. There is something about Italy, specially Rome, that calls to me.


I try to rationalise. I tell myself there is so much of history in its streets, so much of art in its museums and art galleries, so much promise of adventure. But it isn’t just that. After all the rest of the world also has its fair share of things to see and do. Then why does Rome call to me?


I don’t know. It just does.


In the days when the Husband was trying desperately to woo me, he had, on getting to know of my desire to see Italy, magnanimously declared that he would take me to Rome someday. Excited at the possibility of love, and dizzy at the thought of ticking off a significant goal from my bucket list, I thrilled to his words.


And yet six years and two kids later, Italy remains as distant a dream as it has always been.


A mere palm away from India on the political map of the world, as seen in the much-thumbed copy of the Atlas that I had inherited from my older brother, I liked to think that there was something very symbolic in the span of a palm that separated me from my dream destination. It’s all in our hands, they say, don’t they?


And yet I’ve allowed myself to get caught up in the routines of corporate life and domesticity so much that Italy has almost receded from my horizon. And it is with an effort and a wistful look at my own bucket list that I am able to relive the excitement and the finality that prompted me to put it down on paper in the first place.


A dream delayed is a dream denied, I’ve heard it said. I hope it is only a dream deferred.


They also say that a dream shared is a dream that has a better shot at coming alive. I intend to share this dream with my children. Could there be a better way of drumming up enthusiasm? I will share my enthusiasm for Rome with them with prodigal liberality. And the Husband, an avid photographer, will learn to love that beautiful city through his camera.


This is what we shall do when we finally get an opportunity to say, Ciao, Roma.

I am not, of course, going to bore you with the details of the flight and other related issues. That’s what Yatra is for.


Having checked into the hotel, we will keep our valuables safe in the hotel safe deposit locker. Rome does have a reputation for being infested with thieves.


Schedules and itineraries are a great help on most guided tours and packed vacations, but I don’t see them as being of much help on the streets of Rome where every cobbled street and piazza might beckon us to stop what we are doing and explore them.

We’d brace ourselves for walking. As far as possible.

We’d visit the Coliseum at Rome, and sense the crowds that shouted themselves hoarse on its bleachers all those centuries ago. That massive arena would take our breath away and we would marvel at the sheer audacity that drove the construction of this great structure. And find our voices shushed at the memory of the violence that it witnessed in its heydays when men fought each other in gladiatorial contests or faced wild, hungry animals for the pleasure of some murderous spectators.


We’d make sure to catch the Galleria Borghese, considered the best museum in Rome. Located in a 17th century villa, this museum is a must-see for the wealth of artifacts it houses. The collections encompass a range that includes antiquities, the Renaissance and the beginnings of baroque art.

The Piazza Navone is where one can literally sit down and watch the world go by and still end up feeling totally enriched by the experience. This area, surrounded by baroque palaces, lots of pavement cafes, huge fountains, and the crowds and hawkers that will guarantee that I don’t miss home, is supposedly Rome’s most iconic public square. 

Built on the ruins of an ancient arena, the site is home to three fountains including the biggest, the Fountain of the Four Rivers, which depicts personificaitns of the Nile, Ganges, Danube and Plate rivers.

When hunger gnaws at us, after we worked up an appetite walking along the streets of Rome (and walking is the best way to see this city) we’d satisfy ourselves eating, no marks for guessing, authentic pizza and pasta. And along the way, upon some corner, we’d find a bakery that would entice us with the sight of its freshly baked breads and cakes and by the aroma. And we’d eat chocolates and ice creams by the tubful.

The Campo De’ Fiori would also be an important sight on our agenda. This famous market is known to morph into a raucous open-air pub at night. On second thoughts, better not. Not with La Nina and El Nino.

But we would certainly head towards the Spanish Steps, 138 in number, which are supposedly the best place to sit and watch the world go by. Together they make up the widest staircase in Europe, and that alone makes it worth a dekko in my book. Remember “What is this life if full of care, we have no time to stand and stare?” There are some amazing frescoes to be seen around here.


As a Catholic, I would definitely want to see the Vatican Museums. This 5.5 hectare complex consists of two palaces which are joined by two long galleries. We had better pack good walking shoes. We’re going to need them.

We’ll need to spend a few days in St Peter’s Basilica to be able to do justice to it all. And of course, the Sistine Chapel where I shall see Michaelangelo’s work for the very first time. So much of Rome’s architecture would require us to gape open-mouthed, our jaws dropping in sheer awe at the sight of all the finest that man’s ingenuity could be capable of creating.

We shall visit the Pantheon, once a temple, now a church. It is one of the best-preserved ancient monuments. The very word, pantheon, has entered the English language as a synonym for all the gods. So that should serve as an indication of the magnificence of this temple. After all, the ancient Romans built it for all their gods.


When in Rome, do as the Romans do. So we will find time to amble around the many antique markets that dot this great city. If we’re lucky, we might find something that suits our taste and budget.


And of course, even though the Husband will probably want to bop me over the head for roping him into this, and the children will be bored out of their wits, I shall grab for us all the experience of watching a real, live Italian opera.


Before returning home, before saying, “Arrivederci, Roma,” we’d close our eyes and stand at the Trevi Fountain with our back towards it, and we would toss a coin into the fountain, an act which legend decrees will help ensure our return to Rome.


For return, we must. The best part about Rome is that, like the greatest cities, it has so much to offer that a hundred guide books couldn’t quite contain. And so we must make multiple visits to this city of which Mark Twain once said, “The Creator made it from designs made by Michaelangelo.”

The First Man To Wear A Sanitary Napkin

Necessity isn’t the only mother that Invention has. A far more popular mother is the one that urges the research and development departments of thousands of corporate firms. This mother is better known as profit or the pursuit of higher revenues. Even in cases where Necessity has given birth to Invention, there have been so many instances of the offspring being adopted by this other mother, she who thinks nothing of exploiting her children for lucre.

Recently I came to know of the third mother of Invention. The one barely anyone has heard of. Her name is Selfless Disinterest.

I had read of Arunachalam Muruganantham a few months ago in an online newspaper, but the man’s inspiring story became more real when I saw his 14.59-minute video HERE. Unsophisticated, with halting English, but superb wit, he has nevertheless earned himself the right to share his inspiring story as a visiting professor and guest lecturer at many business schools.


His claim to fame: the manufacture of a low-cost sanitary napkin.

We women, who have the money to walk up to a medical store and whisper of our desire to be carefree and stay that way, know little of the horrors suffered by 95% of women who, if they had the money, would spend it on food and other necessities. Spending it on buying a sanitary napkin seems like a waste of money when so many other needs are crying out loud. These women end up using rags, leaves of plants, husk, sawdust, even ash, to stem the monthly flow of blood.

I cannot even begin to imagine the physical distress and pain that they invite upon themselves, not to mention the indignity of having to struggle, with shame, to cope with a perfectly natural circumstance. The women also expose themselves to the risk of pelvic diseases, resulting from contamination.

When Arunachalam caught sight of his young wife hiding some rags, perhaps already used, from her husband, he asked her why she didn’t wear a sanitary napkin. He was told that it would upset the monthly budget.

So Arunachalam used precious money from that shaky budget to buy a packet of sanitary napkins. The bewildered, bemused and patronizingly pitiful expressions on the faces in the store did nothing to suppress his zeal. He was a man on a mission.

Bringing home the packet, Arunachalam dissected it into the parts that made up the sum. Surely there was some high technology at work here, he told himself. As he says in the video, he thought it might contain some hidden chip or integrated circuit that would justify the prohibitive cost. But all he found was cotton of different textures, all wrapped up in a rectangular package and glued together.

Arunachalam went to a textile mill nearby and bought cotton, which he fashioned into a rudimentary sanitary napkin. But here he faced an unexpected hurdle. Being an average male, he had no idea about monthly cycles, and was disappointed to know that he would have to wait for his wife to get her periods before she could test them. Her judgment, when she tried it, was Unsatisfactory.

Back to the drawing board Arunachalam went. He made some more. Again the wait. He tried to enroll his sisters in the testing, and was crushed to know that his enthusiasm was not shared by others. Some medical college students, asked to assist in the testing, were not comfortable with his proposition either.

And then in the interests of a cause that had little to do with his sex, let alone himself, Arunachalam tested it himself. He wore the sanitary napkin, filled a bottle with animal blood and led a connecting tube to the napkin, such that as he walked, the blood, a little at a time, would get deposited on the sanitary napkin. In the video, he laughs, calling his efforts the consequence of the Trial and Error method.

Driven on by a goal that nobody else could even begin to understand, Arunachalam invented a machine that would manufacture the low-cost napkins. His efforts were not without drastic consequences. His wife served him a divorce notice. His mother left him. He was thrown out of his village.

Today this winner of the President’s award has given 706 such machines to 23 Indian states, resulting in direct employment for 7000 rural women. And most importantly allowing 3.5 million women to embrace low-cost yet effective personal hygiene during their periods.




Anshu Gupta of Goonj is doing something similar. Mobilising people everywhere to donate items of clothing that they no longer need, Gupta’s team repurposes them into sanitary napkins for rural women.




The lasting benefits of these low-cost sanitary napkins are things that only a woman could ever fully appreciate, given the shame, the lack of awareness and the silence associated around the subject of menstruation.

The efforts of Arunachalam and Anshu remind me of an old Tamilian verse whose loose English translation I read decades ago. It says:

This world lives because
Some men do not eat alone,
not even when they get
the sweet ambrosia of the gods;

there's no faintness in their hearts
and they do not strive
for themselves.

Because such men are,
this world is.




This entry is in response to a contest organised by Indiblogger in association with Franklin Templeton Investments.
Franklin Templeton Investments partnered the TEDxGateway Mumbai in December 2012.

The Perfect Road Trip (Day 21: Ultimate Blog Challenge)

Until I got married, I wasn’t a great one for road trips. I was one of those who believed in the romance of train travel. Of packing puris, sukha batata bhaji and vegetable pulao into steel dabbas (that was pre-Tupperware era). Of the elders in the family sharing stories about children, the standard of living in the face of rising prices and of course of the incompetence of the government with total strangers who, for the space of that one night spent in a moving train, became as close as family.

When the Husband and I started dating, I realised that he had a passion for Goa. (I am Goan, of course, but here I am talking about travelling to the state of Goa, an all-time favourite on his quick getaway list). I suspect that one of the reasons why Dil Chahta Hai is one of his favourite films is because the three leading men played by Aamir Khan, Akshay Khanna and Saif Ali Khan choose Goa as a destination for a road trip and a getaway.

Insisting on us travelling to Goa at every opportunity that we had for a holiday, the Husband added the proviso that, in order to heighten the experience and the joy of the travel, we should travel by road. My attempts to espouse the beauty of travelling by the Konkan Railway failed to make an impression. Not for him the hassle of buying a ticket two (or is it three?) months in advance and then waiting for leave to be sanctioned, only to end up cancelling the tickets at the last minute and leaving the Great Indian Railways richer for it. We would go to Goa, said the Husband, and we would take our trusted chariot, read, Maruti Swift, along.

As things turned out, I found myself expecting my first child, known to readers of my blog as La Niña, soon after marriage. Three years later, El Niño arrived on the scene. So holidaying was put on the back burner.

It was only after El Niño turned two in the first quarter of this calendar year that the Husband and I decided it was time to initiate the children into the joys of travelling. And what better place to start with than Goa?

We made exhaustive plans. Since we were travelling with kids, travelling light was out of the question. But that was okay. The carrier atop the roof could be rigged to accommodate all our baggage. The stuff we needed quickly could be stashed away in the boot.

We decided to take the National Highway No 17, the approximately 600-km sometimes concrete, sometimes dirt road (thanks to the monsoon and infrequent repair work) that would take us to Goa, the land of my forefathers and one of his dream destinations.

The perfect road trip, for us, would mean one in which the Husband would do the driving. Partly because he loves to drive, and partly because with him in the driver’s seat, I am more at ease. No hired driver would see the cargo in the back seat as precious the way he would.

The Husband would drive safely, no overtaking on the numerous curves that punctuate the road along the Western Ghats, but still at a good speed, with the intention of reaching Goa before it got dark. But we would still take time to stop once in a while and let the kids stretch their legs or even empty their bladders. Or even stop by at a highway restaurant and grab a bite to eat. Of course, we never travel without biscuits, fruits and drinking water for the kids.

I would be on the back seat, holding the two kids together as they sometimes slept through the journey, or at other times, knelt on the back seat waving out to strangers or even admiring the lush countryside that is the Konkan region.

The windows would be wide open. Why switch on the airconditioner when God filled the hillsides with fresh air? As city-bred people who breathe polluted air all the year round, we should be drinking in the fresh air of the countryside in big, gluttonous gulps. And that is exactly what we would do. Of course, our trusted Ambipur would be in place, in case any malodours sought to creep up on us.

The children would be thoroughly entertained by the spectacle of the natural beauty unfolding around them. There is something beautiful about watching the trees whiz past. La Niña and I would get excited over every Gulmohar tree or coconut tree we saw. And I mean that. Excitement over every single one of them.

El Niño would perk up at the sight of a cat, a dog, a cow or a monkey along the way. I secretly hope no other members of the animal kingdom show up. This is all the excitement I can take.

We would also be armed with music. The Husband likes to drive while listening to music. So he has already saved the family's favourites on two 8 GB pendrives. But beyond that, his eardrums will also be treated to some awesome live music, courtesy the three untrained but still jolly good singers on the back seat.

Above all, between holding the kids tight, and answering their never-ending and incessant questions, I would also find time to pray. That God may keep us safe, that the Husband may drive safely as may others that would be out on the road. For no road trip can be perfect if the safety of the passengers is at risk. 

And when we are travelling with our kids, I would appreciate it if any adventure, if at all it came along, came in small, manageable doses that are U-rated.

That is my idea of a perfect trip.



(This post has been written for The Perfect Road Trip contest on Indiblogger, in association with Ambipur.)