Anita

 I am yet to decide what is peculiar about her,the way she recites the english alphabet or the way she lovingly wipes the plants.She is 11 or maybe 12,is not sure,accompanies her mother every morning who works as a household help.
Often breaks into a quick jig with my toddler,and interestingly bends to scan the colourful newspaper supplements.The question today was sudden and left me blank,"didiji aapke paas itni kitaben kyo hai ?"
I gained composure and said "mujhe padhna acha lagta hai"
To which she said "mujhe bhi".

I asked her then,'why does you mom insist that you help her in her job?'
She replied like a seasoned cynical grandmother,"main kaam karti hoon tabhi mujhe sham ke school main padhne milta hai."

I couldn't say more and was left to delve deep inside.
I am guilty because despite the exploitation the child goes through i told myself she is lucky atleast they are sending her to school.
The next moment I hated myself for being part of a system where millions of children like her suffer quietly.Children whose every wish is pre-loaded with a dear price they pay.
Another day she told me that if she doesn't earn for the family in some way they will marry her off to anyone for a little financial help.
How easy it is then to talk about women empowerment in cosy living rooms or elite seminars and how difficult it is to really buy it for yourself?
Some of my learned friends once suggessted on something similar that its better to have children working rather than begging or prostituting.

So this is my salute to Anita ,and million daughters like her,who don't give up.who find a by-pass to our society's hypocrisy,who teach us to be thankful for the boons in our lives and inspire us to not to be blind to the naked truths.

Wanderer..

I have surprised myself often by my strange reactions and perspectives.Yet again I came up with something which every one who has been to Delhi would call plain weird.I realised that my apartment complex in the big-bad city was far more quieter than the posh sector-living of Chandigarh.
The cocooned life of a metropolitan apartment (the one everyone cribs out),we don't know our neighbours,it is so lonely and isolated blah blah didn't atleast have ten wrong people ring your doorbell in one hour.It was away from the constant howls of hawkers and loud conversations of neighbourhood backyards.
I wonder am I really missing Delhi?
The question is difficult but frequent.I am now in the so-called well-planned city beautiful,and yes there are umpteen number of things that I get to do only here,like watching the sunset with a hot cuppa from my balcony,but yet there is something amiss.
I was born in a small sleepy hill-station and have lived most of my life there.The laid back slow pace of things was my way for more than two decades.Yet I wonder,do 6 years in Delhi erase all of that.Is a silly part of me missing the privacy of anonymity,the noise ,chaos and traffic.So where do I really belong now?The city where I was born,the city where I currently live or the city I think about often?Do I really belong or now my spirit is that of a wanderer..

DELHI GOODBYE

Your dreams are peculiar

of success,betrayal and

fake love

in the corridors of  power.

The long winding lanes

of the old
as complex as human relationships.

The striking fast metro of the new
as fragile and mechanised as new love.

The temples,the mosques
and the fabled sufi
all call you home,
yet the longing in your heart
as strong as of a lonely pebble in the desert.

Delhi goodbye for now
maybe another time
I'll come back
to seek ....
what I leave behind.