Mango Icecream and Sabudana Khichadi in the time of Banking.

Back in the days when I was in middle school, the 1950's,  life as we know it now, was much simpler and slower.  The place we lived in was then considered the outskirts of Pune, and the major road passing by, Tilak Rd, was still developing. Various banks were opening branches there, with their own buildings, and even competing with each other in a very civilized way, to attract new account holders.

One such , was what I will call BOM, who succeeded in getting my mother to open an account. And she was then the proud owner of a 3 digit account number. Contrary to what one saw around or heard, my mother was very comfortable with banking procedures et al, having  learned and done so from a young age for her father. Also , folks at the bank came to know her as the lady who came driving a sea green Hillman car herself, with much honking, something unusual in those days.....

 Long queues and tokens were unheard of things, and service was so personalized, that I remember an occasion when she desperately needed to withdraw cash, but got held up somewhere in one of our schools. She made a phone call to the manager, who told her to come by when she was free, and  sign, and collect her cash.  I remember sitting in his office with her, and the manager smiling and asking her to sign here and there and handing over what she had wished to withdraw. He also smiled at us children , enquired after us , marvelled at our English.  One would often run into the bank staff on occasional Parvati Hill temple climbs. This was a big thing for Puneites then, and many folks were regular climbers. Unlike today, there was a real belief that banks helped and were on your side.....

When something was credited to one's account , bank staff then wrote proper details as to from where the stuff came. Unlike today, where  someone writes "By Tr" and you are grateful that something got credited at all.  

And then there was the occasion when my mother decided to give a treat to the entire bank staff  on a summer evening in April, once the March closing had taken place. Homemade mango ice cream, churned in a pot, by us children taking turns sitting on a stool , salt added to the ice etc, along with some wonderful Sabudana Khichadi sprinkled with coriander and coconut. And then some great traditional coffee redolent with elaichi et al.

The entire ice cream pot and a big dabba of Sabudana Khichadi was lugged to the bank after office hours, steel plates and ice cream cups were rented and  we all helped serve this and had a good go at it ourselves.

Years passed. By an by, the gentleman who was then manager, graced the highest echelons of the bank, the particular bank relocated on the same road to another building, and the customer base grew by leaps and bounds.   The aforementioned system of indicating credits as"By Tr" without details was initiated, and the bank got a earful from my mother on how it was not acceptable.  For many years after, her passbook always had details mentioned.  And the older employees of the bank, were secretly tickled when she tangled with the new style bank managers. 

Cut to the beginning of this century.  My mother was no more.

All the paperwork fell on me (and continues to still fall) being the only child in India. I was the second named on her account, and  one went about doing formalities etc.  Many of the newer staff did a double take when they saw the 3 digit account number and tried to relate it to me, and I had to tell them that it was from a time when banks begged you to open an account,  cheque books were free, and people weren't comfortable talking blithely in crores, simply because most people never saw such amounts.

Times had changed. Banks were now doing a lot more than before, a lot more id's were being asked for, there were queues for everything, and the watchman glared at you instead of smiling. Computers had arrived, consequently there were more cubicles with partitions, making communication more difficult thanks to bad customer window design. Passbooks changed in shape, machines now printed the updates, and in the great leap forward some things  (like coding rules for account nos) were missed out on.

Confronted with  some unexpected and unexplained large sum credits and immediate debits(the next day)  , all this , ongoing for 6 months, I investigated on one of my trips to Pune.  Ended up visiting the head office computer rooms, assorted in-charges. Then went to my  branch  manager, who called in a bunch of staff. I wasn't worried about the credits, but the fact that someone other than the account holder could , without holder permission, perform a debit; by calling it a "reversing"....

It turned out that it was a clear case of bad standards followed in codification of accounts. The manager guy who okayed the codes didn't have a clue. I was then in IT , realized what had happened and asked if they had a users manual from whoever made software for them. Naturally things were getting uncomfortable for the manager. The problem was ultimately detected,  righted and lessons in codificaton were hopefully learned. But the fact that animated  detailed discussions were taking place for long periods of time in the managers glass walled first floor office with other staff and me, did not escape the staff outside.

I finally left the place, the matter resolved to my satisfaction.

 As I stepped out on to the ground floor , a white haired gentleman from the staff, stepped forward. Smiled. Mentioned  my mother's name and asked if I was her daughter. (I am told there is a resemblance) . When I nodded, he smiled, and looked back at some of his colleagues, sitting in "Fixed Deposits"  , who also had smiles on their visages.

"You know what, you are just like your mother ! We knew her as a customer for so many decades .  She never bothered about posh and fancy designations and decor,  but never tolerated low standards of service, and never hesitated to straighten some folks out. We've been noticing over the last few days....!"   

Maybe this was a person who was a young new employee back in the ice cream and sabudana khichadi days.  Those were days when you stayed on and retired with one bank.

And so, despite my skirmishes, letters to head office,  and several complaints, I stay on with the same bank, with a sense of belonging, like a parent, hoping that the errant child improves :-)).

It brings back old memories.  Of my mother, the old smiling manager (now no more), today's older bank employees,  and of course, tucking in Mango icecream and sabudana khichadi, in the bank, with everyone, after office hours, on a balmy summer evening  in April, almost 53 years ago.....

 

This entry is a part of the contest at BlogAdda.com in association with imlee.com

The Mother Brain

The interrelationships of the various organs and systems within our body, and their similarity with the way our lives are organized and led, has often fascinated me. I first heard of hormones when, as a child, I made fun of a hirsute neighbor lady, and was sharply rapped on the knuckles by my mother, who explained things to me. There were some things you couldn't then do anything about.

Puberty happened, then a settling in into motherhood, changes in life, niggles of middle age, menopause, and the hormones are now old friends.

The first great piece of knowledge I acquired, was that there is more to hormones than just estrogen, progesterone, androgens, and testosterone. The dada types are the pituitary (administrative head type) hormones, the adrenal (trouble reaction tension) hormones, thyroid hormones and stuff like insulin.

Clearly, the Brain is the manager here. The various organs involved in generating hormones are like the children of a mother. All with attitude, none similar, sometimes going out of control, but many times saved by the sister/brother hormones from going astray, since they are all in it together so to speak.

Like in any family, let's say , some are girls, (estrogen-types), some are boys (androgen types). In addition, some are fairly high strung, some are headstrong, some love to eat , and even live to eat. Some of the children appear to be a bit mature for their age, and always consult their mother, when in doubt. But with all the variety, its a family that is together, thanks to a invisible virtual management by the mother.

I have always felt that the Brain is like a Mother. It has these little nudges it gives to set in motion stuff, that affects the performance and behaviour of its children, the various hormones. And the children know, that all of them must learn to get along, in some sort of dynamic balance.

And so the Mother Brain uses the Pituitary kid to send messages to the girls and boys, regarding their correct behaviour . If the levels of the estrogen girls and androgen boys fluctuate out of limits set by the mother, she knows, and adjusts things in the neighborhood. Like any mother who gets more alert as pubertal ages approach, the brain and pituitary too, change track sometimes, and set in motion more complicated checks and feed backs.

Then there are some children, regardless of age, who are so willful, they simply love to fight at the slightest provocation. There are also those , who prefer to turn their backs and run away. It's always fight or flight, as they say. These adrenaline kids, keep playing with situations in their lives, with the help of fellows like ACTH ( named so in the style of acronymed Bollywood movies ; viz; DDLJ,HAHK , or maybe the movies copied their acronyming style).

It's the mother's job, to ensure that the fighting kid doesn't go out of control, and the timid turn-your-back-and-run kid, starts learning to face things, and so she gets all the feedback and sends out messages again, sometimes with the help of other hormone kids that the kids listen to.

Of course there are gluttonous kids. They are always hungry. They gorge on things like pasta, bread, cakes,jilebis, gulabjamoons, and all fried stuff. Some kids don't really gorge on stuff like this, but have ancestors who did. The liver and gallbladder kind of throw their hands up in disgust, and the cells all over the body close their doors to any more glucose. As an energy factory, we are in trouble.

Much like the Mumbai roads and drains in the throes of a wild monsoon; they gorge on so much junk,plastic, trash and stuff, that the drains simply close up. Anything more is summarily rejected, and so we keep being flooded with rainwater and dirty stuff .

Much like the gluttonous fellow's blood being flooded with sweet stuff like glucose, that has been rejected by his cells. The kid loses all ability to judge how much is enough ; food or insulin. And the Insulin fellows get disturbed. Sometimes even non-glutton types suffer from this, but it is a bit complicated.

Like in any united family, everyone chips in to help, and the most influential kid decides the outcome, within the limitations set by the Mother Brain.

Just think, there are high strung folks, timid folks, guys messing around with digestion and insulin, and some kids behaving in ways contraindicated to their bringing up. A mother faced with so much tension, might do a couple of things.

One, gird herself up again , despite her now advancing age, and other weakened faculties, to tackle the wayward kids, kind of overextending herself energy wise and otherwise, causing various organs like the heart to overwork and puff up with over pumping.

Two, she could get all upset, depressed , start imagining things, get easily disturbed, palpitate, and take a break from managing the kids, causing a general mental and physical slowdown,in the house, which isn't good either..

And so the mother, the Brain, decides that the time has come to change the environment a bit to make things easier. Like adjusting the carburettor of a car to make the engine run slow, because the current setting has too many dangerous carbon byproducts lining the pumping cylinders.

So the Mother Brain with the assistance of the eldest, the Pituitary, , kind of sends memos down to the Thyroid gland, cranking its working downward or upward. The end purpose is to to ensure that all the children can live relatively healthily, in a peaceful useful manner, and so the thyroid gland adjusts the carburettor screw so to speak, resulting in folks being called hypothyroid (engine slow) or hyperthyroid (engine fast).

Like in all families, despite all the efforts, some of the kids get classified as gone cases. But the Mother Brain , like in real life , never gives up, keeping a sideways eye on what is going on at all times, keeping the other kids in the loop.

It is amazing how the Brain Mother Authority, senses the children's abilities, shortcomings, strong points, reactions to external forces etc, and nudges each of them into adjusting in an optimum way. True, exciting times may reduce, food may be boring for sometime. Sometimes the limitations put on some child, affect a particular organ or a particular body function too; but it is understood, that it is either that, or a complete catastrophe. And there will be , comparatively, a sense of overall peace amidst the kids.

Hormones are like that. Children of the Mother Brain. All in a balance, living as members of one family, adjusting with each other in a fine way, so as to not trouble any one too much. Of course these are not all the children. There are several more cousin types, too many to name here, ( some making their grand appearance only during special times, like our Union ministers during calamities ) which also get influenced by Mother Brain to change behaviour during certain situations..

Depending on the social and cultural milieu one hails from, the question may be asked as to why not "Father" Brain. In some cases , probably a Father figure control applies. But I have always thought that a mother is always more in touch with the minds of children. Its not whether she is always at home or at work. The thing is the awareness is there. Always.

And then there is the final convincing reason from the chromosomes. Mothers are XX. Human beings are basically designed to be XX. Due to a genetic situation, one of the X's, loses a lower limb, and XX becomes a lame XY, a male.

I know someone who calls XY, as langdaa (~lame)....

It makes sense to have a fit female brain, than a lame male one.......

By the way, ever heard of Father Earth ?

An eternal S-walk.....

No, this is not about the Slutwalk likely to happen in our capital.

This is more about , my household help S., and her eternal trudge , to get her life organized, so her children can get what she never got.

I've blogged several times about S. She is my household help for the last 25 years. Sometimes I think she is a lady ahead of her times. Illiterate, but very smart in a native kind of gutsy way, she was married off early, had 3 sons , 1 daughter, all the while suffering at the hands of a drunkard, violent, useless husband. Her parents, went and brought home their daughter (with kids) and gave her a life. Very revolutionary for those days.

Today she has a 2.5 room very small tenement which is her own, and she, her 3 sons, 1 daughter (all adults), three daughter-in-laws, and 3 grandchildren, stay there, possibly in willful dynamic equilibrium. She educated her kids, who now work. Her daughters-in-law are both more educated than their respective husbands, no one discusses egos, because everyone is so happy and busy with life and S. is very proud of them.

Very clearly, this matchbox of a house is not going to be enough . The grandchildren are growing up. Recently, S heard about a special government scheme for folks from the Scheduled Caste Category (she belongs) , where, those below a certain yearly income could register for and be allotted, a tenement which would be heavily subsidized by the government.

The main thing you needed for this is a "caste certificate". She has hers, because her late father, who worked in an academic institute as a mason's helper, was very aware of such things, and got hers made, a long time ago. The main thing required there is details about the father. Amazingly , no caste information about the mother is asked for.

S., has put in her application for the tenement because she qualifies income wise. She now wants her adult children to apply, particularly her daughter, who is back after being cheated in a marriage, and now works in a women's hostel cafeteria.

S's children studied up to the 7th grade elsewhere away from Mumbai. The thing is to get their school leaving records which might have a record of caste. They also need their father's details. A father, who has not bothered to look up his children for the last 20 years.

S, needs to go to Pune to make some application , and then go to her husband's village, to check out records with the local authority, the Talathi. Records may or may not be there. She doesn't think her husband will help or will even be bothered. The Talathi will probably have to be paid a price for allowing folks to peruse his records. S knows all this because a relative did this kind of thing in his village.

And so S., suddenly disappeared last week, without informing me , and landed back over the weekend. She occasionally does this after informing me , when she has to attend a court case in Pune, where she is trying to oust a fellow who is occupying a room belonging to her in Pune, and claims it is his, and she has a lady lawyer helping her.

When she told me about this tenement scheme and the caste certificates, I had asked her to check with the same lawyer lady , for help regarding this. Last week, S., took that to heart,and rushed off with her own documents to check with the lawyer. She particularly wants her daughter to apply for a place, so she has some security , post-S.

After doing her own S-walk, nay, hard S-trudge, to some old schools and stuff, she has convinced the lawyer to handle this for her and put in applications for caste certificates for the children. Which will mean lawyer fees, some more trips on demand to Pune, but this is any day better than a lone woman battling out the bureaucracy in the village. Those of us who she assists in housework on a daily basis, have agreed to help her out financially with the fees and stuff.

The irony is, that the mother who gave birth , nurtured, and educated her children single handedly working 7 days a week, 365 days a year does not count here at all. Else the children could have got their certificates based on hers. The government in all its patriarchal "wisdom" insists on the father's caste certificate. And here is a good for nothing father, who really doesn't deserve either S., or the wonderful children.

I hear about people who got false certificates made to enable college admissions in a special quota, and I recently read about the false caste certificate scam in New Delhi, where people paid 5 lakhs (5,00,000) for such false certificates, and supposedly the perpetrators of this scam have been arrested. I wonder if anyone even asks for the father's details here, other than name.

And then I wonder, why the mother's name and certificate is not enough in such cases. Her children work in places where missing a day means a cut in salary. Much as they want they cannot accompany her everywhere.

A President, a ruling party chairperson, an opposition leader in Parliament, all women. Four Chief Minsiters of states, all women. Day in and day out they spout forth on corruption, power, scams, and when they have finished talking about large sums of black money, they raise the gas prices and talk about the Aam Aadmi (~common man).

I wish someone thinks about the ordinary woman, makes laws that are useful to her, and educates her truthfully about them.

I wonder if I have my information wrong. I know that today, particularly for schools admissions and stuff a mother's signature is acceptable and on par with a father's. Maybe there has been an update on the rule for caste certificates.

Until then, the S-walk continues, the saree wrapped on both shoulders, pallu covering her head, changing buses and trains in the thick of rain and traffic, standing endlessly outside government offices, with papers in an old cellophane bag, accompanying the lawyer lady, doing affidavits, giving a thumbprint whenever asked.


So many S-walks over the years. So many obstacles.

But she learns from each.

She holds her head high. This is one walk I support.

Celebrating Kashibai

March 20,2011 (This entry won the 2nd prize at the FemInspiration Contest hosted by Women's Web.)

Celebrating " FemInspiration" 100 years of celebrating Women's day . My entry for a contest celebrating that .... .

36 years ago, the place where I came to set up house, was considered the back of beyond, heavily wooded, a gated community, (where gate was more important than community) with just one main outer road, very few shops, but a wide range of assorted shanties that cropped up almost overnight beyond the boundary wall. One was setting up house for the first time, and looking for household help, was imperative.

That's how Kashibai entered our lives. She came to us by word of mouth.

Probably then in her early twenties, she belonged to the same village in Gujarat as her husband. The father-in-law was a railway employee, a sweeper for the Central Railway, based at Mumbai's suburban Dadar station. Although he lived in some kind of railway accommodation, he had acquired some kind of tenement near where we lived, and that is where Kashibai and her husband lived , with their young son.

The husband had some sort of temporary shift job of sweeping and cleaning on platforms , and Kashibai worked houses in the mornings , till he left for his work. A very cheerful, uneducated , yet street smart and aware lady, she understood my need to have her come very early in the morning before I left for work, 2 hours away by train. For someone who was just getting started with her own household, she had great empathy for the various disasters and mess ups that happened in my kitchen.

Then one day , her father-in-law passed away, while on duty. Once the formailities of death were completed, her mother-in-law, decided to return to her native place in Gujarat. Consequently Kashibai's husband was taken in his father's place.

Soon after that , she came and told me that she would have to leave her job at my house. Both of us were unhappy about it; me, because we had developed a relationship of trust, and she because she said I never treated her as someone lower down the so called societal ladder, which was not what she experienced in other houses .

I also learnt something then that I didn't know. About Kashibai. And her son.

Turned out, that her son was differently abled, had movement and growth problems, wouldn't be able to go to school , and so on. So far she and her husband were managing , since he would be home early mornings till she returned and she would then be home after he left. The child was well looked after .

Now that the husband's job was permanent with the Railways, with benefits and stuff , he had well defined timings, and this being his first year he couldn't afford to be absent or late.

Simultaneously, the area in our vicinity, which was hitherto considered equivalent to almost a jungle, appeared to be developing , and one could see several high rises, roads and vehicle densities increasing in the area.

Someone informed Kashibai, that larger salaries were to be had, if you worked with folks who lived there. A full day of work, at someone's house would earn Kashibai more than what she would earn in 5 houses like mine , without the travel to every different house. Some one had told her about some school in the city where her son could get some treatment and she needed to save up.

The question was where to leave the child, with both husband and wife slogging away in search of good money. And so she got one of her brothers from her native place to come and stay with them. He wanted to learn, and she promised to send him to a night school.

I wondered as to why she didn't get a female relative to come who would also manage the house and cooking, and in a way share in her own work.

Kashibai shook her head. Leaving a young woman at home , alone like this was not advisable, from the point of view of outside dangers, but also from possible family complications, that could arise from two people like her husband and the relative being left alone like this in a small house.

And so they started off. Kashibai , now working, nay slogging at a fairly upmarket house, where she was supposed to do all kinds of housework, till evening, as well as giving massages to the lady of the house. She got paid a decent sum, something that wasn't the norm in my community. Her husband would leave very early in the morning and return by late afternoon. Her brother would basically be at home during the time no one was, and look after her son, and study, for the night/evening classes that he attended daily.

Kashibai and her husband, managed some savings, and their free travel family passes, being a railway family, surely helped, when she had to take her son to the suburban Mahalaxmi station, to travel further to the Institute for the Physically Handicapped.

Kashibai and her husband are now much older and both are retired. He ,officially from his railway job, and she, after a lifetime of slogging and difficult decisions, because she was getting on in years and having some medical problems. The brother who came to stay with them, studied up to the Plus two stage, and now has a job as a peon.

I often wonder at the native wisdom inherent in everything Kashibai did.

She never went to school herself, and her husband had the bare rudiments of it. He was lucky to be bequeathed his father's job as a railway sweeper, since his father died on duty. She was really the one entity that held the family together, and in a society where sometimes education , money and an ""up"bringing" still teaches nothing to men born with silver spoons, her husband is to be applauded, for not letting his ego come in the path of anything that was decided, keeping their only child in mind.

Maybe he got his thinking from his parents . From his mother, who possibly visualized clashes with her daughter-in-law, once she was widowed, and decided to move back to her native place; and preferred to value happy relations from a distance. She and Kashibai have very cordial relations to this day, and have often helped out each other during emergency health situations.

Kashibai's brother looks back at the time he came to stay , as a time well spent, because he got a chance to study and later get a job. He always wanted to come to Mumbai. Not many people in his village got that chance then.

The little child, developing at his own destined pace, grew up , always with someone at home caring for him, and was never left in a situation where he was locked up by himself. Differently abled or not, he had a mind, and he had emotions, and these were nurtured by the whole family in an excellent way.

I wonder what would have happened if Kashibai would have come under the influence of someone who attributed her son's disability to the rage of some God, and got her entangled in a series of religious events. I wonder what would have happened if there was someone else in the immediate family who would have probably enjoyed playing a faulty spoke in the family wheel, creating problems on a different level.

I like to think that Kashibai would have faced this, with great courage, good sense, and in a determined fashion.

She doesn't even know there is an International Womens' Day. She doesn't participate in any kind of rallies where you hold placards, and hands, forming chains, and possibly walk behind some leader-type , flaunting political glares on television the next day.

We meet sometimes, by chance in the vegetable market. I ask after her son, and she asks after my children. We crib about the price of onions, milk, corruption, crowds in buses and trains, and the sad state of Mumbai's roads.

Then she goes back to her crowded home, to tackle another thing. Now that the brother is married, and his wife is expecting, Kashibai likes to fuss over the young girl's food likes and dislikes.

And I go back to mine, to prepare lunch, and possibly sit down to reading a bunch of papers and some magazines, displaying photos of extremely photogenic well made up women, posing just so, all giving their take, in back and white, on what Women's Day means to them, possibly before leaving for a seminar on the same subject, somewhere in this city....... .

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Just my small tribute to the Kashibais of India, on Women's Day 2011......

The Art of Giving

40-50 years ago, beauty parlours were not as de rigeur as they are now.

Beauty parlours and other explicit admissions of trying to improve an original model, were really not part of our growing up

The sort of society we belonged to, we wore conservative traditional outfits on celebratory occasions, some very sensible clothes at all times, and uniforms when in school. Things had to be decently below the knees, unnaturally loose, and incapable of emphasizing any part of the anatomy. Sleeves were mandatory, and a lack of those was frowned upon, and considered "forward".

As far as your hair was concerned, (as well as all other females in the family), well, it grew; and that was that.

There weren't shampoos as such on the scene, and once a week, our mothers did their stuff, oiling, scrubbing, massaging, washing (with some special nuts), combing our hair, after which it was always solar dried , as you went about doing some family errands on your bicycle, wisps of hair flying here and there, as you endeavoured to navigate through the throngs with one hand, your hair glinting in the noon day sun.

Almost everyone had to plait their hair, and sometimes turn it up and tie it, if it was in the school rules. Hairstyles, per se, were non existent. Our mothers put their hair up in buns, and our were plaited. No one wore lipstick in my house, or even in my friends houses. On school annual days, when staged plays demanded makeup, it used to be a secret wish that maybe we could sleep with all that wonderful makeup on; only to be dashed by having to scrub it off on reaching home.

No one peered into a mirror and shed tears over a pimple; it would go the way it had come. Facials were not part of the scene, though daily baths were incomplete without a face wash made of besan(garbanzo flour), fresh cream(skimmed off the top of just-boiled and cooled fresh milk), and turmeric powder.

Somewhere in the sixties, mothers became less strict, or more observant , depending on who was looking. Education was a happening thing, women had routinely started working, and appearances became important. The first beauty parlours were often oriented towards women of western sensibilities. Slowly , as the clientele increased , many more places opened up, and college girls and others started thronging there.

The same mothers who avidly plaited our hair, introduced us to places where tweaking of eyebrows resulted in an improvement of the original model, and hair was "styled" to suit your face. Beauticians doing their thing before wedding receptions was a mandatory thing now, and brides even went for a hairstyle and makeup rehearsal in some cases, a few days before the event.

And so when Meera announced the opening of her parlour in our vicinity, we were very pleased. A part of her apartment was cleverly altered to be useful as a parlour with a separate entrance. Her husband did interiors and he cleverly converted an extra room into a parlour, which at night, often doubled as a guest room , if you didnt mind mirrors on one entire side.....

Up a set of dark and cool stairs, you entered into a small set up, where hindi songs played on the radio, and pleasant smells pervaded amidst Meera and her assistants bustling around, a smile here, a reassurance there. A grateful goodbye nod to a departing lady, and Meera would close shut the cash drawer and get back to the work she was doing.

Little girls now came demanding "Princess Diana cuts" , and duly sat on a huge cushion on a chair, to see those happen. Their mothers stood around chatting about schools, and shopping, and left with a delirious child who was always given a chocolate candy from a container kept high up somewhere on the shelf. Teenagers, convinced about being shortchanged by the Maker, insisted on getting all kinds of transformations. Flips, curls, straightening, Perming, coloring, streaking, anything to look like those on , say TV.

Her mother stayed with her, and kind of ran the house so she could attend freely to her parlour. Of all the numerous languages spoken in India, we both spoke the same one, and it came to pass that I was able to get some old magazines in our language that her mother wanted. We'd discuss our children , their schools, their hobbies, their naughtiness. My daughter swam competitively, and she advised her on a nice cut, easy to maintain after 3 hours in the pool, and yet in fashion. At one time there was a bride getting intricate henna designs done on her palms and forearm, and my daughter, then 8, looked at the whole thing very wistfully and with great longing, followed by a nudge-nudge, and accusing look at me.



Peace was finally achieved after Meera guaranteed her there and then, a completely free, full arm henna design, the day she gets married !

Meera and I soon became friends.

So it came to pass that the year my mother turned 80, she happened to be staying with us that month. She would observe my teenage daughter spend hours fiddling around with some creams and her hair and similar things. She would shake her head, but then indulgently smile as grandmothers do. She would encourage me to take off, while she was around to mind the house and family, and go visit the parlour and get things done.

I was mentioning this to Meera once and she called me a few days later asking if my mother and I would come by one morning. We agreed, and my mother looked forward to meeting Meera's mother too. I did not realize it was a Monday, and a slow day at the parlour. My mother fasted on Mondays and took only fruits and milk.

We reached , and Meera took my mother around to show her the tiny parlour and the facilities. She mentioned that her mother was performing some puja (Worship ritual), and would be with us presently.

Then she took me aside.

"You know, I have actually kept this hour free. I thought we'd give your mother a special 80th birthday facial. I am sure she hasn't had one.....Would you cajole her into trying one ?"

I was overcome. What a wonderful gesture.

I asked my mother, and she never had a chance in the face of Meera, and her assistants, all clamouring to give grandma a birthday facial. She went through the various steps and then lay down as Meera sat behind her with all her jars and stuff, a bowl of ice, and slowly and with a great amount of feeling, massaged her tired face and neck. Pads on her eyes, music in the air, and someone massaging her tired neck..... she slipped into dreamtime. Gently cleansing the face, Meera applied a herbal face pack and went to attend to some other stuff as it dried.

After some time,. I noticed that , other customers were coming. I noticed the time, and asked Meera, if it was time to check the face pack.

And we suddenly heard someone snore.

The eighty year old tired body, had been lulled into a deep sleep with all the wonderful massage and therapeutic finger touches. My mother was absolutely fast asleep, on the only couch in the parlour.

I opened my mouth to say something.

Meera held up her hand.

"Let grandma sleep. Its absolutely OK. It doesn't hurt if the face pack dries for for some more time. We'll wait"....

Saying so, she got started on some customers who had come for stuff NOT requiring use of that couch. She pulled the curtain to avoid troubling my mother with the lights.

When my mother actually woke up ten minutes later , with a start, she took a moment to figure out where she was. Then got all apologetic. Meera sat down to complete the facial, treating the old, tired ,thin skin, like she would a baby's new, thin skin.

Grandma stood up, adjusted her saree, took a deep breath and closed her eyes. Both she and Meera looked at each other. One after having given a facial to her oldest customer, and the other , in wonder at the young girl her daughter's age, who had such wonderful fingers, and attitude.....

We went in to meet Meera's mother, who was in on the whole plan, and was ready with a great cup of tea and fruits. The two Grandmas chatted, probably about their grandchildren, and the old days, and about Meera.

Not a single of Meera's customers , then waiting, complained about the delay. They thought this whole idea of an 80 year old grandma having a facial was brilliant. Meera's mother came to see us on our way out.

And Meera excused herself and returned to her work, but not before bending down and touching my mothers feet; something we all do when we meet elderly people our parents age.

My mother is no more, but she never forgot this wonderful gift. She came home that day, had a light meal, and nodded off into a deep nap that afternoon.

I am sure Meera will do well in life.

It's not about how good she is at her craft, it's not about how efficiently she manages her resources and her money, It's not even about how quickly she learns new technologies and methods in her field.

Its because Meera is a "giver"....

Its all about knowing how to give, when to give and where to give.