TRAVELLING COMPANIONS

I travelled with Deepika Padukone today. As I was coming to work, I sat alongside a smiling Deepika, all demure-pretty with a clip in her hair and a sunny yellow dress, posing against an impossibly-blue sky and a fairy-tale cottage with a riot of flowers in the garden.

Surprised? Don't be. Ever since I came to Mumbai, I have travelled with the likes of a fresh-faced Salman Khan (with long-hair, cute-smile and his shirt-on, looking like he did in his Hum Aapke Hai Kaun days). And with Amitabh Bachchan, when he was still a beardless and helmet-haired angry-young-man with an intense gaze and a sneer on his rouged lips. And a cherubic-fresh Preity Zinta, or an angelic-vacuous Aishwarya - often dimpling down at me or gazing down at me from both sides. Or sometimes a Shah Rukh Khan from his floppy-haired, puppy-eyed days, who looks ready to break into a K-k-k-kiran every time the vehicle stutters in a traffic jam.

No, I don't travel in a Merc. I travel in auto-rickshaws. And one of the greatest amusements is to find whose image will be there on the inner walls of the rickshaw when I climb in. Glossy, glamourous and larger-than-life travelling companions I can look at when the rickshaw is stuck in a traffic jam.

And imagine myself in the company of stars. After all, Mumbai is the City of Dreams, and a little bit of tinsel gets rubbed off on me even when I am caught in the middle of suburban roads and daily chaos.

Unfortunately, all auto-rickshaws do not have Bollywood stars as interior decoration. Some have lights and blasting sound-boxes, some have shabby velvet and some have shiny rexine. But, for me, the shine is missing from a rickshaw-ride if I don't have a brooding Amitabh by my side. Or a rosy-cheeked Aamir. Or a twinkling Juhi Chawla.

I'm not choosy. Just celebrity-struck when I'm traffic-stuck.

LIFE BEGINS AT SIXTY?

My Maa (mother), all of sixty-three, and her merry gang of gal-pals (two sisters and a cousin, with some friends thrown in) never cease to amaze me. She ushered in the new year at my place, staying till February (She usually visits me twice a year). Then she was off to my Maasi’s (aunt) home in Bhopal.

There, the two sisters are living it up (she called me up to say she’s just watched the newly released Delhi-6). They cook for each other, play games on the computer, and, of course, watch endless hours of television.

They also enjoy shopping together, anything from vegetables to tablecloths to clothes for their combined brood of grandchildren. The only sign betraying their age is the fact that they often forget to take their cellphones along; the other day my brother called me saying that he had been calling Maa for over three hours and nobody picked up the phone. She had been engrossed in Delhi-6; he was about to call in the cops.

Soon, the giggly gang will be joined by an octogenarian grandfather (my mother’s unmarried and still-adventurous uncle). Then, they plan to go by train to Allahabad, Simla and Gaya (religious and tourist hot-spots where the said grandfather is a trustee with various institutions which will provide free and safe accommodation).

Next on the agenda is, of course, Kolkata, where the heart is, if not the body. Kolkata does not just mean HOME. It means a whirlwind tour of different homes of cousins and friends and relations. Maa and the aforesaid gang are maximizing returns by packing in a week-long trip to the crowded coasts of Puri.

And that’s not all. From the sea-side, it will be straight to the hospital bed-site for Maa, as she intends to fit in a cataract operation (her own) in her busy schedule. My uncle in Kolkata, who is an ophthalmologist, will do the honours. And then, within a fortnight, Maa will be back in Bangalore, which is her ostensible residence (but she is a Non-Resident Bangalorean, my brother complains).

But this footloose and fancy-free lifestyle is only part of the story. All the members of the gang have sons and daughters, whose homes they dutifully stay in and look after the grandchildren as and when the need arises (they cook, feed, tell stories, knit fluffy cardigans and give great advice). Most of the members of the gang fight various chronic and recurrent illnesses (they carry medicines instead of make-up in their handbags). All of them have to plan carefully to arrange for their finances for the tour-India trips (they are willing to forego planes for trains, AC-rooms for non-AC dormitories).

But all of them have one more thing in common – despite the diseases, despite the familial obligations, despite the financial restraints, they want to enjoy life. To the fullest, to the farthest. Kudos to that.

COPY-KITTEN, COPY-KITTEN, OFF TO SCHOOL

Our Copy-Kitten is off to school. Well, actually, playschool. She was not too happy about the fact that there would be no beige-checked uniform, no brown-paper-covered books, no bright-yellow school-bus, nothing like her didi’s (elder sister) proper school.. In fact, she is yet to be convinced that her playgroup should be accorded the status of SCHOOL at all. It seems all play and no school to her.
But though it was a compromise, she was all set with her blue Mickey-bag (which had the coveted tiffin-box inside), her all-new waterbottle, pink raincoat and red umbrella (with the bees and the butterflies - she chose it herself, don't you know?).

The first two days have passed smoothly. In a blur of toys and rhymes, puppet-shows and songs. She has been happily chalk-scribbling all over the walls and rushing down the plastic slide in the playroom (both taboo at home), secure in the knowledge that ma and Babydidi (my trusted maid) were in the room, too.

The bawling may begin next week, when she’ll be ON HER OWN. I’m hoping she won’t cry, at least not too much. Here’s wishing her a great growing-up journey ahead. To echo Erica Jong, “May Goddess bless and Goddess keep” our little copy-kitten happy and safe and curious.