Yesterday my mother who wanted to attend to a dental problem was walking along the way and it was just 7pm and drizzling.
Just as she turned into our street a speeding auto came behind her and a man inside was signalling something to her but she just continued to walk as there was not a single soul nearby.
The auto had passenger inside. Both stopped near my mother and grabbed at her neck to snatch her gold chain she had on her. On reflex she grabbed her neck and the gold chain which had snapped nestled into her palm though the fastening hook had fallen down somewhere. She said she was pushed in the confusion and she fell on both her knees. As she fell down the auto sped from there. A scratch on one knee and wound on the other were found when she found enough strength to walk back home which is not much of a distance from there. She kept telling me that she dint lose her gold chain.
We could wash it with Dettol, a disinfectant, give her an aspirin to put down the pain but we could see she was in a state of shock over the incident.
We kept vigil over her for the night and early morning. I can see she is a bit afraid after this incident but life goes on as usual. I just hope she just forgets it quickly enough but I doubt very much if she will cease to remember such a ghastly incident.
Why do people want to trouble citizens especially elderly ones. What if she had broken her hip bones in the fall or any bone for that matter? I shudder to think about the physical and mental torture after such events take place. The lure to make some easy money is what is behind such daring attempt to rob people on roads.
This is why I tell her and others not to wear costly jewellery. The loss of gold is not the issue but the loss of peace of mind or some physical injury to the person is what rankles me no end.
Ensure your own safety and that of others around you. It pays to maintain a low profile and not flaunt your wealth enough to attract all the wrong people to you.
Mahalakshmi
Friday, July 30, 2010
A Mother is A Mother Is A Mother
When I took out a new saree to wear for work yesterday, I found a matching blouse to go along but it's edges were not stitched so that would mean bare threads hanging loose which is a strict no-no for saree wearers. The threads would keep coming off the weave and leave the saree weaker in fabric. So we have to get the edges stitched when its new.
I must have been blinking what to do because my 83 year-old mother took the saree from me and asked me to wait for 15 minutes. She just went across our street to her tailor's shop to get the edges stitched. We in India are blessed if we live in a locality which has all kinds of shops around.
As she came in smiling with mission successful, I could not but kiss her hand for her motivation to see me in a new saree.
I wore the saree to work and through the day I could feel her love and affection wrap around me.
Jai ho to a mother's love.
Mahalakshmi
I must have been blinking what to do because my 83 year-old mother took the saree from me and asked me to wait for 15 minutes. She just went across our street to her tailor's shop to get the edges stitched. We in India are blessed if we live in a locality which has all kinds of shops around.
As she came in smiling with mission successful, I could not but kiss her hand for her motivation to see me in a new saree.
I wore the saree to work and through the day I could feel her love and affection wrap around me.
Jai ho to a mother's love.
Mahalakshmi
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
The Hindu - my favourite newspaper
The Hindu has been my companion for the past 45 years now!
My grandpa's brother (my kunju thatha as we all used to call him) who was blind could never do without asking someone to read out the day's news aloud to him every morning.
I remember, how when I was just 9 years old and on a trip to Anantapur visiting him, was asked to read out the daily newspaper to him. At that age I might have struggled to read English yet I remember I was bold and never bothered about mistakes. What I liked was his own comments after I had read an interesting para from a news item.
(Early on I learnt the fact that if there was one news item there were as many opinions as there were readers reading it!). Even now I read with interest some letters to the editor on a news item just to find out the many viewpoints published on the same topic.
I still remember I was the one to read about Nehruji's death in May of 1964(?) on one of my annual trips to his place and the personal inputs which kunju thatha gave us all about the life and times of Nehruji.
If I can speak, read and write English better than even my own mother tongue Tamil, then its thanks to The Hindu and later on, other weeklies, monthlies which I got used to reading like a second habit.
My mother who is 83 years old reads the newspaper and magazines each and every day without fail. Its just like some divine duty to read something for some hours each day. It becomes a habit and very hard to kick. Yet it is such a wonderful habit that you dont have to have company or feel bored at any point in time if you have something in hand to read!
Recently one of my sisters wrote in a common mail to us, how our maternal grandfather, the Late Sesha Iyer, who migrated from Selvarayan Hills in Yercaud to Secunderabad went in search of a library first, so that he could lay his hands on books there!
He went to learn the local language Telugu and soon began to tutor children in the neighbourhood to earn a living in a new place. That is how enterprising he was. No wonder my mother imbibed his reading habit and we all in our family, from her.
We continue to read something each and every day.
I must confess I love my first cup of piping hot coffee with The Hindu in hand first thing in the morning. I cannot and will not stir out of the chair until I have read through the main and supplement papers. I get restless on the days when the paper is dropped off later than the usual 6.15am!
Unfortunately we women have kitchen work to start, but this habit of catching the day's news means starting my kitchen work a bit later than many who dont read it first thing in the morning. (I envy all the men who are lucky, as they leisurely read what they want, with a loving wife serving coffee and tiffin from time to time. Ah! how I wish I were a man in my next birth).
If I miss reading it early in the morning for some reason I never get an opportunity to pick up the paper and read it during any other time of the day. Also the main paper and the supplements get divorced so soon as the day progresses! So its a compulsive habit at that particular time each day. I miss it most it rains and the delivery boy arrives late or when I am travelling but make up by reading any other available local paper or magazines. Nothing like it.
Twice we were forced by some enterprising salesmen to change to some other newspapers and that too for one year! I missed my Hindu so much that I would go searching for it anywhere during the day just to catch a glimse of at least the headlines in it!
I was waiting for the annual subscription to the other newspapers to get over so that I could switch back to The Hindu.
I have got wiser and turn away these young sales persons trying to convince me to change to any other newspaper in future.
Twice bitten thrice shy :D
Mahalakshmi
My grandpa's brother (my kunju thatha as we all used to call him) who was blind could never do without asking someone to read out the day's news aloud to him every morning.
I remember, how when I was just 9 years old and on a trip to Anantapur visiting him, was asked to read out the daily newspaper to him. At that age I might have struggled to read English yet I remember I was bold and never bothered about mistakes. What I liked was his own comments after I had read an interesting para from a news item.
(Early on I learnt the fact that if there was one news item there were as many opinions as there were readers reading it!). Even now I read with interest some letters to the editor on a news item just to find out the many viewpoints published on the same topic.
I still remember I was the one to read about Nehruji's death in May of 1964(?) on one of my annual trips to his place and the personal inputs which kunju thatha gave us all about the life and times of Nehruji.
If I can speak, read and write English better than even my own mother tongue Tamil, then its thanks to The Hindu and later on, other weeklies, monthlies which I got used to reading like a second habit.
My mother who is 83 years old reads the newspaper and magazines each and every day without fail. Its just like some divine duty to read something for some hours each day. It becomes a habit and very hard to kick. Yet it is such a wonderful habit that you dont have to have company or feel bored at any point in time if you have something in hand to read!
Recently one of my sisters wrote in a common mail to us, how our maternal grandfather, the Late Sesha Iyer, who migrated from Selvarayan Hills in Yercaud to Secunderabad went in search of a library first, so that he could lay his hands on books there!
He went to learn the local language Telugu and soon began to tutor children in the neighbourhood to earn a living in a new place. That is how enterprising he was. No wonder my mother imbibed his reading habit and we all in our family, from her.
We continue to read something each and every day.
I must confess I love my first cup of piping hot coffee with The Hindu in hand first thing in the morning. I cannot and will not stir out of the chair until I have read through the main and supplement papers. I get restless on the days when the paper is dropped off later than the usual 6.15am!
Unfortunately we women have kitchen work to start, but this habit of catching the day's news means starting my kitchen work a bit later than many who dont read it first thing in the morning. (I envy all the men who are lucky, as they leisurely read what they want, with a loving wife serving coffee and tiffin from time to time. Ah! how I wish I were a man in my next birth).
If I miss reading it early in the morning for some reason I never get an opportunity to pick up the paper and read it during any other time of the day. Also the main paper and the supplements get divorced so soon as the day progresses! So its a compulsive habit at that particular time each day. I miss it most it rains and the delivery boy arrives late or when I am travelling but make up by reading any other available local paper or magazines. Nothing like it.
Twice we were forced by some enterprising salesmen to change to some other newspapers and that too for one year! I missed my Hindu so much that I would go searching for it anywhere during the day just to catch a glimse of at least the headlines in it!
I was waiting for the annual subscription to the other newspapers to get over so that I could switch back to The Hindu.
I have got wiser and turn away these young sales persons trying to convince me to change to any other newspaper in future.
Twice bitten thrice shy :D
Mahalakshmi
Sunday, July 25, 2010
The Incomparable Lata Mangeshkar
Lataji.
May this godess of sweet music live on in the hearts of many more millions of music lovers all over the world.
I go into my own world of bliss by always switching on to some soothing music from Lataji. I have a favourite list of songs. Mostly soft melodies is my kind of music and most of them sung by the one and only Lataji.
The youtube be blessed as I can also see some of the beautiful heroines mouth her songs. But my preference is to just hear her sing while I work away without the distractions of having to see the picture along.
Yesterday I was, as usual, listening to some of my favourites and among them a few pairs of songs sung by a male singer and then followed by the same song sung by Lataji. Oh, what an uplifting of the song when sung by Lataji. The song sounds so divine when she lends her molten golden voice to the lyrics and the tune. None can ever equal her. Even Lataji herself at her advanced age can never hope to recreate what she sang decades ago.
I mention here a few songs to bring out the sharp comparison between two singers singing the same song.
The first one is the famed paarampaaric Hindi Bhajan "Paayoji maine raam ratan dhan paayo" by Pandit Paluskar first and then the same one followed by Lataji. Panditji sings it excellently and brings out the raga beautifully yet when the same is sung by her, the purity comes through markedly, so pure that you are transpoted to another world of spirituality. Such is her power to mesmerize her listeners. Many of her bhajans are sung so divinely.
The other one was listening to "Maayi ri, mai kaase kahoon pi, apne jiyaa ki" from the film "Dastan". This is a special favourite of mine as my favourite music director the late Madan Mohanji has composed music for this one as for the many of my most favourite songs. Madanji has sung this song in his voice filled with so much emotion and with so much feel that you tend to overlook the small off-tune lines in his version of this song. Then what follows in that sweet voice, is pure bliss and an experience which is an out of the world kind.
There are a few others like "Yehsaan tera hoga mujh per" from Junglee which I watch on Toutube due to the resemblance of the actress Saira Banu to my niece who was the first born and most loved baby girl of our family (of 4 sisters) for a long time until another beauty queen was born to another sister of mine.
To continue with Lataji, the other one I remember is from the film "Samjhauta" it's the title song which goes something like ths, "Samjhouta ghamon se karlo".
(What a coincidence! They are right now airing the Hindi film "Junglee" on Doordarshan National channel today just now. Bless my husband for tuning in the TV right on time. I will certainly catch up with this song very soon on TV in a couple of minutes from now).
I could go on like this but I think I have got my feelings across sufficiently enough on this topic.
Enjoy the purity of Lataji's sweet voice if you have time and the inclination to.
Just before I close this blog down, I would like to mention the new male singer on the horizon - Amanat Ali of Pakistan.
He bettered even the original singer who sang the unforgettable song from the film "Masoom" - "Tujhse naaraaj nahi zindagi, hairaan hoon hain".
The sharp comparison came through even more when Amanat Ali while singing this song for the Sa Re Ga Ma Programme on Zee TV competition and another singer got up on stage, grabbed the mike and almost croaked the song just to show that he too loved the song and inspired to sing it on stage. The imperfect version was heard out in patience by the entire live audience even while celebrity actors and producers were agging on Amanat for an encore, which he obliged and wow! was it some treat to the ears! Obviously this comparison showed what a bad, good and super redition of songs was! Amanat got inspired and emotional only to come out with better stuff this second time around. Many had tears in their eyes. One actress was shown wiping away her kajal/eyeliner alongwith her tears. Such was the effect of Amanat over his audience that day.
Such singers are born very rarely on earth for the listening pleasure of people like you and me. Amanat's rendering of a Pakistani national song, "Aiy watan pyaare watan, paak watan.." is my most often listened among this young boy's renditions.
If you do get a chance to listen to this young talent, do not miss it.
Cheers!
Mahalakshmi
May this godess of sweet music live on in the hearts of many more millions of music lovers all over the world.
I go into my own world of bliss by always switching on to some soothing music from Lataji. I have a favourite list of songs. Mostly soft melodies is my kind of music and most of them sung by the one and only Lataji.
The youtube be blessed as I can also see some of the beautiful heroines mouth her songs. But my preference is to just hear her sing while I work away without the distractions of having to see the picture along.
Yesterday I was, as usual, listening to some of my favourites and among them a few pairs of songs sung by a male singer and then followed by the same song sung by Lataji. Oh, what an uplifting of the song when sung by Lataji. The song sounds so divine when she lends her molten golden voice to the lyrics and the tune. None can ever equal her. Even Lataji herself at her advanced age can never hope to recreate what she sang decades ago.
I mention here a few songs to bring out the sharp comparison between two singers singing the same song.
The first one is the famed paarampaaric Hindi Bhajan "Paayoji maine raam ratan dhan paayo" by Pandit Paluskar first and then the same one followed by Lataji. Panditji sings it excellently and brings out the raga beautifully yet when the same is sung by her, the purity comes through markedly, so pure that you are transpoted to another world of spirituality. Such is her power to mesmerize her listeners. Many of her bhajans are sung so divinely.
The other one was listening to "Maayi ri, mai kaase kahoon pi, apne jiyaa ki" from the film "Dastan". This is a special favourite of mine as my favourite music director the late Madan Mohanji has composed music for this one as for the many of my most favourite songs. Madanji has sung this song in his voice filled with so much emotion and with so much feel that you tend to overlook the small off-tune lines in his version of this song. Then what follows in that sweet voice, is pure bliss and an experience which is an out of the world kind.
There are a few others like "Yehsaan tera hoga mujh per" from Junglee which I watch on Toutube due to the resemblance of the actress Saira Banu to my niece who was the first born and most loved baby girl of our family (of 4 sisters) for a long time until another beauty queen was born to another sister of mine.
To continue with Lataji, the other one I remember is from the film "Samjhauta" it's the title song which goes something like ths, "Samjhouta ghamon se karlo".
(What a coincidence! They are right now airing the Hindi film "Junglee" on Doordarshan National channel today just now. Bless my husband for tuning in the TV right on time. I will certainly catch up with this song very soon on TV in a couple of minutes from now).
I could go on like this but I think I have got my feelings across sufficiently enough on this topic.
Enjoy the purity of Lataji's sweet voice if you have time and the inclination to.
Just before I close this blog down, I would like to mention the new male singer on the horizon - Amanat Ali of Pakistan.
He bettered even the original singer who sang the unforgettable song from the film "Masoom" - "Tujhse naaraaj nahi zindagi, hairaan hoon hain".
The sharp comparison came through even more when Amanat Ali while singing this song for the Sa Re Ga Ma Programme on Zee TV competition and another singer got up on stage, grabbed the mike and almost croaked the song just to show that he too loved the song and inspired to sing it on stage. The imperfect version was heard out in patience by the entire live audience even while celebrity actors and producers were agging on Amanat for an encore, which he obliged and wow! was it some treat to the ears! Obviously this comparison showed what a bad, good and super redition of songs was! Amanat got inspired and emotional only to come out with better stuff this second time around. Many had tears in their eyes. One actress was shown wiping away her kajal/eyeliner alongwith her tears. Such was the effect of Amanat over his audience that day.
Such singers are born very rarely on earth for the listening pleasure of people like you and me. Amanat's rendering of a Pakistani national song, "Aiy watan pyaare watan, paak watan.." is my most often listened among this young boy's renditions.
If you do get a chance to listen to this young talent, do not miss it.
Cheers!
Mahalakshmi
Labels:
Aiy Watan Paak watan,
Amanat Ali,
Dastak,
Junglee,
Samjhauta,
Soft melodies
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