माँ तुझे सलाम

Today I was talking to two of my colleagues, a guy originally from Vietnam and a girl originally from China. Both are in their forties and are settled in America now.
Our topic inevitably drifted towards ‘the migration - causes and implications’ as we all have migrated to USA from different countries.
Everyone shared his/her story.

The story of the Vietnami guy (let us call him T) was like this:
T was living with his family in South Vietnam. His dad was a Hiring officer in the government. They had a big house in a big city of Vietnam. Basically he belonged to an upper class and educated family.
One day he was playing guitar in the backyard. He was happily singing the American rock music as every teen-ager would do. Suddenly the police came and arrested him. His offense was that he was singing ‘bad’ ‘American’ songs. His father went to the police station and got him released. Such incidents were normal in day to day life.

Then the famous war of Vietnam started. During the war, the North Vietnam government arrested T’s father and put him in the labor camp for almost 12 years. Meanwhile T’s mother was taking care of the whole family. She was allowed to meet her husband once a year.
To add to the sorrow, the South Vietnam lost the war. The communist government started harassing T’s family. They were asked to evacuate their own house for no logical reason. When they refused to do so the government cut their electricity and water supply. The government even tried to stop the food supply to his family. The discrimination was everywhere.
The government brainwashed the school kids in favour of communism. Many kids, including T, fell into the trap. T’s mother was really shattered when she realized that her son is supporting those people who kept her husband in the jail.
She asked her kids to leave the country. T’s brother was the first one to escape. He went to Italy. T and his sister tried to escape but failed 4 times. Finally they succeeded to escape to the USA. They were kept in the refugee camp where T met with a fire accident. The left portion of his body is badly burnt.
He started his new life in this country. Eventually his father got released and his whole family came to USA. It has been 25 years since he is living in this country and he never feels like going back to Vietnam.
The story of the Chinese girl was not very different. Back in China, she belonged to a joint family. She used to stay with her grand mother, her parents and her uncles. One day the Chinese government asked them to evacuate their big family house. In return they got a very little money. All the brothers had to separate. Her grandmother was just not ready to listen. She stopped having food in protest of this decision. All her sons tried to persue her but after 10 days she passed away.
I was shocked listening to the stories.
I am so lucky to have a galore of fond memories of my country.
I guess we realize the value of the freedom only when it is absent.

Reminiscence

आज मी आख्खी दुपार पक्ष्यांची चित्रे बघण्यात घालवली. मला आत्ता उठुन बर्ड वॉचिंगला जावस वाटतय. ऑफिस मधे काम करत असताना अनेकदा माझ्या मनात विचार येतात की मी कितीतरी गोष्टी अनेक दिवसात केल्या नाहियेत. मला माझ्या मैत्रिणींबरोबर मनसोक्त भटकायच आहे. अचानक मैत्रिणीचा फोन यावा आणि गाडी काढून निघाव अशी एक ट्रिप करायची आहे. ट्रेकिंग करायच आहे. माझ्या कायनेटिक वरुन लांबच लांब चक्कर मारताना गार वारा श्वासात भरुन घ्यायचा आहे. आईबरोबर बाल गंधर्व च्या कट्ट्यावर बसून गप्पा मारायच्या आहेत. नाटक बघायच आहे. पावसाळ्यात सह्याद्रिच्या रांगामधून फिरायच आहे. लहान लहान ओहोळात पाय बुडवून चालण्याच सुख परत एकदा अनुभवायच आहे. एकाच गाडीत कोंबून माझ्या बहिण-भावांबरोबर प्रवास करायचा आहे. मनाचा वेग चकित करणारा आहे. मी गेल्या ५ मिनिटांत US to India back and forth असंख्य ट्रिप्स मारुन आलेय.

A Beautiful Day

I like to write when I have an exceptional day. Yesterday was one of those eventful days. I got up in the morning. Pankaj was ready to leave for office. I started with my daily errands. At around 8:30 am, I was all set to step out of the house when I realized that I do not have the keys. I started looking at every possible place in my house but no luck. Did I throw the whole bunch of keys in the trashcan? I started imagining myself searching for the keys in that Waste Management box down in the parking lot. Yuuk!
When did I use it the last time? I was trying to trace back but as usual my memory dumped me at the time of crisis. I gave up and called Pankaj. I was damn right. He went to the office with both the set of keys. That includes my home key, car key, office key and other, not so frequently needed, keys. Thank god. At least the keys were not in the trash. Pankaj was too busy to come home at that time. I decided to call up my boss. Waw! What a reason to take leave. "Boss, I cannot lock my house so I cannot come to the office today" :) But my schedule at the office was pretty much packed. I realized that I could not afford to take even a half day off. Pankaj and I decided that we will leave the home unlocked and I will use the duplicate car key. He will come and lock the home in his lunch break. I left for the office. I was late at work and there were a lots of emails and calls waiting for my attention. At around 11:30am Pankaj called me. He had gone home and had locked the door and everything was fine. Hushh…I was relieved. I replaced the receiver on the phone and saw my boss walking towards my desk. He had a document in his hand. Great! I was expecting a very important document from him.I am going to India in December. Being an alien in USA I have to go through the ordeal of the visa processing in my home country. I need an original copy of my visa document (I-797) from my employer for the visa interview. And there he was..with the document..no..wait a minute..with the ‘colored’ Xerox copy of the document? Shoot…He very sweetly explained that this is what he can give me. His attorney has advised him to keep the upper portion of original copy with himself. He can give me the bottom portion and a color copy of the whole. I tried to explain him that it will not work. The visa officers in my country have their own rules and moods. But my boss had nothing to do with them. He was happy going by his attorney’s advice, the same attorney who once had given me a green-card application form instead of H1-B visa application form. I was patiently explaining him that he does NOT need the original copy but I do. The document I-797 clearly says that the upper portion has to be kept with the employer. And my boss was doing right. At the same time most of the people from their own experience say that the visa officer needs to see the whole document. My task was to make my boss believe on something that is not written anywhere on any official document. Moreover I myself was convinced that what he is saying is right. I decided to send an email to the US Consulate at Mumbai to confirm the requirements of the document. As per my thoughts (this is very important because Pankaj’s thoughts on the same matter can differ by 180 degrees) I found a pretty good way to handle the tricky problem. I badly needed a break and it was already past noon so I left for the lunch. The immigration matter always makes me feel edgy and that day was no exception. I was driving away my negative thoughts while driving to the lunch place and BANG! A big, white Ford Ranger encroached my lane and hit me from left. I reduced my speed honking furiously knowing I could not go any more right since I was in the right most lane and there was a wall next to me. My front tire rim had hit the curb hard. When I regained my balance I realized that the truck did not even slow down after that reckless bang. I also realized that my car could still run. So I decided to go behind that moron. I caught him at the next light and shouted at him, asking him to pull his car in a nearby parking lot. I was down there in my civic and he was way up in his big truck. He conveniently ignored me and ran away as soon as the light went green. I was left with his license plate number and the description of his car. I stopped in a parking lot and checked my car. Thankfully there was not much damage. I called 911 and filed a case of ‘Hit and run’ giving them all the possible details. The police officer on the other end did not sound hopeful.
It was more than an hour since I had left office. I hurriedly packed some veggi-puffs from a nearby bakery and went back to the office. The afternoon was relatively uneventful. I decided to leave for home at 5. But it was not my day. The phone rang. It was Suzanna, one of our clients. She had some problems in the production process. I pushed my purse in the drawer again took a deep breath and started working on that issue. At 6:30 I disconnected the phone with a happy ‘Thank you’ note from Suzanna.
When I reached home I discovered that Pankaj was not at home and I did not have the keys. I called him and discovered that he is playing racquet ball with Sumeet and the game was at such a point that he could not leave it. I went to the court and got the keys from him. Finally I entered my house. I felt better when I realized that Pankaj had promised me to cook the dinner that day. I relaxed on the couch watching ‘Everybody Loves Raymond’. Pankaj came home. He was talking to me normally. But I could sense that something was wrong with him. I asked him a couple of times and he started off. He was very angry on my boss for not giving me the document. He was also angry on me for not pushing my boss enough for getting that document. At that point I lost my patience. And then whatever happened was the worst part of that day. We fought like cats and dogs. It went on for almost 3 hours. I slept tired of crying somewhere around midnight. The long day was finally over. When I woke up in the cold winter morning I had forgotten about our fight. I cuddled up in Pankaj’s arms for the warmth. The problems were still unresolved, the tasks were still incomplete but should that stop you from being happy? The sunshine got a brand new day with new hopes in our life. We decided to make it a beautiful day.

भय इथले संपत नाही

काही गाणी मनाला खोलवर स्पर्श करतात. त्यातल हे एक गाण.
अचानक जुन्या आठवणीमधे ओढून नेणार.
कवी ग्रेस चे शब्द, हृदयनाथाच सन्गीत आणि लताचा आवाज ह्या तीन गोष्टीनी कुणी मन्त्रमुग्ध नाही झाल तरच नवल!
त्यात ऐश्वर्या नारकर ने साकारलेली महाश्वेता डोळ्यासमोर उभी राहते. बर अल्फा टी व्ही च्या सिरीयल्स आणि घर हे एक पक्क समीकरण असल्यामुळे हे गाण मला नकळत घरी कधी घेऊन जात हेच कळत नाही. आत्ता आई जवळ असती तर दोघीनी हे गाण किती एन्जॉय केल असत! असो.
मला वाढदिवसाची भेट म्हणून हे गाण दिल्याबद्दल थॅन्क्स टू सिद्धार्थ!
आणि मला हे गाण ऐकायला एक छानसा आयपॉड दिल्याबद्दल थॅन्क्स टू प.

भय इथले सम्पत नाही
मज तुझी आठवण येते
मी सन्ध्याकाळी गातो
तू मला शिकविली गीते

ते झरे चन्द्र सजणाचे
ती वरती भगवी माया
झाडाशी निजलो आपण
झाडात पुन्हा उगवाया

तो बोल मन्द हळवासा
आयुष्य स्पर्शुनी गेला
सीतेच्या वनवासातील
जणू अन्गी राघव शेला

स्तोत्रात इन्द्रिये अवघी
गुणगुणती दु:ख कुणाचे
हे सरता सम्पत नाही
चान्दणे तुझ्या स्मरणाचे

भय इथले सम्पत नाही

वळण

आम्ही लॉन्ग वीकएन्ड साठी बॉस्टन ला जाणार आहोत. प बरोबर फ्लाईट मधे मस्त गप्पा मारता येतील ह्या विचाराने मला छान वाटतंय. त्याच्याबरोबर वेळ घालवायला मला नेहमीच आवडतं.
आपली आवडती माणसं बरोबर असली की वेळ कसा पटकन जातो नाही!
शाळेत असताना आम्ही मैत्रिणिंनी EsselWorld ला जाण्याचा plan बनवला होता. आमची अट एकच होती आम्ही ६ जणी कुठल्याही मोठ्या व्यक्तीला बरोबर न घेता जाणार.
तो plan कधीच successfull झाला नाही. पण आम्ही मैत्रिणी कुठेही भेटलो तरी तेवढीच धमाल करायचो. त्या काळात 'ठिकाण' महत्वाचं नसायचं.
शाळेच्या trips तर अगदीच फालतू असत. एका वर्षी आमची trip जव्हार आणि डहाणूला गेली होती. तिथला काळा समुद्र आणि दमट हवा कुणालाच आवडली नव्हती. पण ह्या गोष्टींचा विचार करायला तेव्हा वेळ कुठे होता! आम्ही सगळ्याजणी गप्पा, गाणी, खिदळणे आणि खाणे ह्यातच दंग असायचो.
भूगोलाच्या पुस्तकात कॅलिफोर्नियाच्या फळबागांची वर्णनं वाचून मात्र असं वाटायचं की एकदा तरी कॅलिफोर्नियाला जावं. दहावीत असताना शाळेने South India ट्रिप काढली. किती तरी सुंदर आठवणी बरोबर घेऊन आम्ही शाळेतून बाहेर पडलो. कॉलेजमधे गेल्यावर वाटायला लागलं की जगभर फिरावं. तेव्हाच्या ट्रिप्स वेग़ळ्या कारणांसाठी special आहेत आणि आता प बरोबरच्या ट्रिप्स् अजूनच वेगळ्या, सुंदर आणि exciting! आयुष्याच्या प्रत्येक वळणावर आपल्याला वेगळ्या गोष्टी हव्या असतात. ते वळण संपायच्या आत त्या त्या गोष्टींचा आस्वाद घ्यावा. पुढच्या वळणावर तुम्हाला काय आवडेल काही सांगता येत नाही.