Vrindavan diaries

Vrindavan- the once land of Krishna Raas Leela, reverberating with the music of his flute, is now a small town dominated by Krishna temples of all sizes reverberating with the honking of Rickshaws and Autos!

Vrindavan nowadays is flooded with people mainly from UP, Haryana and Delhi. The crowd on Christmas Eve was maddening. Aahana got nearly crushed and panicked… The narrow lanes and bylanes are cute but broken and difficult to walk through… Too many plots under construction, Dim street lights with frequent load-sheddings, swarm of blinkered bhakts and narrow lanes make honking unavoidable!

Didn’t Visit ISKCON coz I knew it would be a crazy crazy scene… Every one out of five buildings probably would be having a mandir of its own… We had our own too! 

We saw “bhakts” going ga ga over one drop of Prasad or one flower that they got in the main Baankey Bihari temple… Pundits leave no stone unturned to make you feel blessed and in demand and in return they charge a hefty “Dakshina” from the “Seths and Sethanis”… Over the years they have constructed multi-storied buildings for themselves leading a Life full of stale gyan, lazy money and super duper food…

People think God resides in Murtis in temples and that’s the irony!

Food is the name of the game here… Lassi, Chaat, Rabdi, Chilla, Milk, Pedas are what you see everywhere and wherever you go… Monkeys know the fine art… They will snatch away your glasses or phones and will return them only when you buy them food in clear negotiation… Therefore, in this business of Godliness, the monkeys come out as clear winners coz they aren’t fake and know how to earn their breads!

While the people seek Materials from God, the Pundits seek materials from people by faking all the blessings on behalf of God, forming a never-ending circle…

It was cold but much warmer than last year… Soaked in the Sun and the energy… Had fun for a good 10 days with family at the Ashram!

Soul to Soul with my DAD

Whenever I receive a compliment, I know it’s more about you,
Whenever someone thanks me, I pass that on to you…
Whenever someone touches my heart, I know it is ruled by you,
Whenever someone loves me, I know I am blessed by you…
Whenever I am sensitive, I know you will hold my heart,
Whenever I get fearful, I know you will not let me rip apart…
Whenever I look at myself in the mirror, I know you are feeling proud of me,
Whenever the Sun shines bright on my face, I know you have shredded away the nimbus for me…
I haven’t been able to get much of you in this life but you had to step up to illuminate my way,
It’s been lakhs of years that my soul knows of you and forever with you would be less on the highway…
We will cross the mountains and bridges and oceans and laugh out loud at the world again,
Coz only Love is for Real… Rest everything goes in complete vain…

The Si-Bling* factor

Today I recall an incident that’s still fresh as a daisy in my memory… That summer evening while still basking in the glory of the tag ‘newly wedded’, we walked out of a buzzing mall of Mumbai to head home in a rick. While I enjoyed my ice-cream, a little girl on the signal, maudlin and worn-out, kept gazing at me. I handed over my half- eaten ice-cream to her thinking she would dig into it, but my heart sank at what I saw after that. Thrilled, she quickly ran towards her baby brother who sat on the pavement like a little Humpty-Dumpty, too young to beg, and handed it over to him while herself watching him with twinkling-little-starry-eyes, a proud smile that did not accentuate her not-so-chubby-cheeks, and her heart melting away in anxiety like the ice-cream. I could not have experienced such deep and profound love for a sibling ever in my world.

The “si-bling” factor in my life is my younger sister, the rebellion and go-getter, who has always given me advise on my naivety rather than seek from me. I fondly remember an incident of our childhood when we had three chocolates with us. While we brainstormed on how we could distribute them equally between us, she smartly expressed to gobble up one herself which would eventually leave us with two which could now be accurately divided between us. In my innocence I agreed when my mother over-heard us and made me understand the trick. I was shocked and at the same time embarrassed.

Be it the choice of neon colors in her wardrobe, choice of exotic food on her plate or her genuine belly laughter, the rainbow of her personality has always reflected colorful and the diamond of her character has always blinged brilliantly…

Chai ki tapri

This is a paradise in the form of a little Tapri (a little hut kinda shop) very common in Indian cities that make up for a quick adda (a small gathering of friends or colleagues)… I never miss the very Indianised full milk cutting (half cup) coffee here whenever I am in the vicinity… Its situated off a busy road in the heart of the city in a bylane thats quiet and green too… Its earthy, grounded, quick and blissful 🙂

The wedding diary…

Its been a month since my li’ll sister got married…Time just flies…Phew!!! That youngest, most pampered member of our family is now a married young lady with a more mature smile and conversations that could make me shy 😉

We marwaris from Kolkata- the city best known for its rich bengali culture and richer population of marwaris (natives of Rajasthan) that are well-settled there since ages, have a very flamboyant way of showing their simplicity… We don’t shout, we yell our lungs out to display our riches in public…but our wedding was kept sober and minimalistic yet with a 3-star rating for sure!

One day of Sangeet (Geet-sammelan as we call it) and the next day of the Pheras (wedding vows) and Reception party were the two important dates marked forever in the history of my lifetime with rose scented red ink…My first ever experience of working so exhaustively in a real-time huge project (apart from my own wedding where I was just like a dummy doll…probably just like our President who is the most powerful but more or less quite power-less 😉 ) was one-of-its-kind…With many planning-cum-argumentative sessions with family, arrangements and delegation responsibilities and hiccups and last-minute corrections, the events turned out really well and were appreciated by one and all 🙂

The bride with her friends at the Sangeet party 🙂

Thats the wedding pic 🙂

With a special mention to FOOD- (I know it is everyone’s favourite topic), the items on the menu were endless and multi-culinary…If food could talk, they were singing like Lata Mageshkar ;)… Piping hot served with Love :)…The best part about Kolkata food is that it is truly and sincerely “delicious” in every sense of the word…The Pav-bhaji is more delectable than Mumbai’s, the Dosa is more exotic than Chennai’s and the Chaat is more blissful than Delhi’s…Believe it or not!!!

An Indian wedding truly is a complete family get-together…few days of fun and frolic with too many “tea-s and toasts” and lots of dressing-up! (for the evenings and otherwise too at times ;))