TATTOO

In a state of excitement and misplaced enthusiasm, I entered the tattoo parlour. It belonged to a friend of mine who had repeatedly requested me to visit his place. I saw a couple of girls boldly tattooing a design on their lower neck and ankles. These girls would yell if a mosquito bit them but now were somehow tolerant to pain. Fashion makes for a bearable suffering. The parlour was covered with photographs of my friend with famous tattooists from LA Ink and Miami Ink. He had indeed made a name for himself within a short span of time. His doodling skills had paid him off now. His appointments were most sought after by the teens in our small town. I had secretly thought of getting a small tattoo on my forearm and surprising my folks at home. It would be a small one and be hidden under my formal long shirt sleeves. I did not want to make a statement but I just felt like getting a tattoo done. I selected the names of my wife and kids with graphics and set up a session the next day.

Mrs Joshi was a sad patient of mine who had suffered from Diabetes and Hypertension as a result of stress and depression. Her face was wrinkled with worries despite her relative young age. Otherwise she came from a loving family and a caring polite middle aged husband. One day I probed her and tried to reach her sorrow. She said that I would come to know the reason on next follow up. She was accompanied by her son who immediately giggled on entering my consulting room. He was well built for his age. His eyes did all the talking. He was retarded since birth and could not articulate words properly. He was gazing at me with kind eyes. He looked like an innocent baby. I told her to accept her fate and move on in life. She cried and told me that she had no problem in raising the now grown up child as she had before. Her plane of dreams of a career, social and personal life never left the runway.
She was exceedingly worried about the frequent disappearing spells of her son from the house over the last few months. The child in him had grown up and tired of a bonded existence, he used to just run away from the house, escaping reality.Trains and Buses were plenty in our town. Sometimes, he would disappear for days much to the consternation and anguish of parents. Somehow, he would be escorted home and his parents would heave a sigh of relief.

I was curious to know the reason as to how her kid would return home despite having no communication skills. I was really perplexed.

She took her son's hand and showed me his forearm.
A 8 digit phone number was tattooed over there. This tattoo had somehow always saved him from getting lost in our cruel world.
The tattoo on his forearm etched my heart.
I had a very difficult night that day.
I tried hard to fight my tears.
I cancelled my tattoo appointment the next day.

BUNDLE OF JOY-

He yanks at our blankets early morning with a million dollar smile on his cute but naughty face. If we do not respond then he pats our cheeks with his small but effective palms and throws all his weight on our body with a big giggle. Its wake up time for us. We see the clock face showing 6am. We rise reluctantly otherwise a sharp cheek bite would follow as per as Dooglu's protocol of waking up his parents. The lull of the early morning is just about to shatter as my son Dooglu is on the prowl. I think, his body clock follows some another country. He is smart enough to gently nudge Chaitra, he never wakes her up as she is his favourite. All the time, he runs behind her yelling 'Chaitaaaa' 'Chaitaaaaa'!


As soon as he wakes up, he wants to listen to the latest Bollywood item numbers which set him tapping his feet and with arms swaying, he goes into a trance like mode. He shrieks with joy and claps his hands. Suddenly his demeanour changes into a serious mode with his eyes becoming glassy and all the dancing stopped midway. He becomes like a statue under a strain. This is his potty time. As he is being cleaned up, he makes it a point to roll all over the bed making it difficult to put new diapers for him. After milk and cerelac, he is all ready for his morning sojourn.


He has a fleet of vehicles to choose from. A red Ferrari, a yellow Tri-cycle, a Mobike or a simple Pram. He decides according to his mood. As he is being ferried around, he waves to his admirers like some big star. The morning walkers group dote on him.Everyone stops by to pull his cheeks. A customary slide and swing ride is a must before taking him home. I think, he secretly communicates with the doggies as they gather around his pram wagging their happy tails. He heads back home merrily banging his small fists on the elevator door.

At home, after a tub bath he begins his routine of mayhem and destruction. Any item lying on the floor is perceived as an edible delicacy by him and it promptly enters his mouth by dexterous maneuvering of fingers. We have to be on guard at all times. The fan regulator is pulled out by him and he frequently plays with the switches like toys. The remotes are dessert for him as he chews the juicy rubber knobs off them. Mummy's hair and dupatta are his staple chewing pastimes. The tonic and oil bottles are deftly opened by his sharp teeth. The water bottles too meet a similar fate and the water spills on the floor with Dooglu playing around the puddle. The CDs are used by him to scratch the floor. The books regularly fall from their shelf. He takes a book, pretends to read the last page and slyly bites off a corner for chewing. The fruits in our tray bear tiny teeth marks. He does not spare anyone. The balcony is solely used by him to fling toys outside our house. The watchman scolded him the other day but he just smiled like an assassin.

At meal times, we lock him and the maid in his room with a virtual "do not disturb" board outside. They watch TV and finish the meals. Any distraction and he starts running away from the meal. He takes a post meal walk in our house like an old grandparent checking on everyone. He has started saying a few basic words now at full volume. His noisy chatter sounds like music to our ears. In the evening he again goes for his rounds in a pram and seeing his parents off to work. We have to give him a round in our car before waving him good bye. He is contended then.

He is fast asleep in his cradle by the time I reach home.
As I see him peacefully sleeping, he smiles at me coyly.
He knows, his daddy's home!
I look at him and hug my wife.
He may be a naughty kid but he is our bundle of joy.

CONCRETE JUNGLE.

The morning begins with the sight of the walkers proudly ambling in my balcony porch. They walk in pairs like lovers muttering sweet nothings in their ear. They are the Doves who visit my home daily as a thumb rule. After a customary stroll, they start flapping their wings scattering loose feathers all over my hall. Then they get busy making love and after a week or so an egg is laid at a chosen corner in my empty carton of tennis balls. The mother viciously guards it till a small Dove hatches out much to the joy of my daughter and son who clap to celebrate the arrival of the newborn. Soon, the newborn flies away. The Doves are peaceful but they lack civic manners shitting all over my floor and silk carpet. I wonder whether they can be trained.

There is a big Bee-hive on my terrace tank. Occasionally, the killer Bees wander to our house and set a flurry of activity. The newspapers and Chaitra's badminton racket are the chosen weapons to swat them. A pillow also is used to thrash them. One day, I got stung by a Bee and trust me folks, it hurt. We are indeed scared of them.

The Lizards multiply in fury, hidden in the crevices of our false ceilings. A Lizard evokes revulsion and elicits the loudest shrieks from my family members. We have a bamboo stick to tackle them and scare them away from our house. It normally takes about 11 minutes to scare one away. When I was young, a Lizard in the loo just came from behind the bucket and leapt on me sticking to my shin. It was the scariest moment of my life. I washed my shin for 2 hours with dettol and a soap bar. Then onwards, I always check the wash room and then proceed ahead. they say an egg shell kept outside the balcony scares them but we have not yet tried that remedy.

The Rats are our rare nocturnal kitchen visitors but usually they do not trouble us as they just take their stuff and scoot outside. They have relative hypoxia at high altitudes and hence shun my 12th floor as an option for abode. They are happy in the basement of the car park. A Rat once chew some cable of my car and set my wallet aback by a hefty amount. I call them 'Hit and Run' rats as they hardly stick around.

The Mosquitoes and the Ants with the Roaches have been successfully tackled so far by my friendly pest control guys. They come dressed up as terminators with a steel bag on their backs and a spray nozzle like some machine gun heroes. They are effective though. Their swagger is awe inspiring. They behave like some members of anti terrorist squads.

A solitary Cat is my wife's friend and comes daily on my 12th floor climbing stairs to have her saucer of milk. The lapping tongue finishes the milk in minutes and she vanishes. That is the depth of friendship in today's world. A Cat teaches us lessons in life. She returns next day.

A Doggie is occasionally baby sat by us much to the delight of my young ones. He pees all over my hall proudly although it is not his territory. I am helpless at times. The joy makes it acceptable though.

My mother has a garden in our east side balcony. It has colourful flower bearing plants. A small Sparrow comes there on weekends. It chirps sweetly songs of joy and happiness. A few Butterflies take a fancy and visit our blooming flowers. It is a delightful sight. The Squirrel plays around in the pots. The garden buzzes with life.

A pair of Mynas bring us good luck at times.

I look at my family and compare them with the fauna around. My dad is the 'Lion' whose roars tremble each and everyone around. My mom and my wife are like kind 'Cows' who provide care and comfort to us. Chaitra is the sweetest 'Parrot' who keeps on chirping endlessly. Prithvy has just started walking and destroys everything in his sight. I call him the cute 'Monkey' as he is the most mischievous of all.

I am like a 'Mule' slogging around with the burden of expectations.

This is my life in a concrete jungle.

THE LIBRARY.

The summer vacations had just begun. Me and my brother were so excited. The birds would be free to fly, albeit for a short time. We hated school and its rules and homework. The vacations brought about cheer on our dull sunken faces. Waking up at our own leisure and sleeping late at night was a pleasurable thought.

'Jalaram Library and Paper Mart' was our most desired and favoured hangout during the vacations. We would ride on our tri-cycle when my brother would sit and I would pedal with my foot to reach the library.We would reach before the opening hours and wait patiently for Chandubhai, the owner to come and open the library. He was a frail myopic person with soda glasses and a constant cigarette dangling out of his lips. His coughing bouts were attributed by him to the allergy of paper dust. He never used to blame the cigarette for his state. Any case, he was the most respected person in our locality, we used to literally revere him.

The comics and books were all arranged neatly in alphabetical order. We used to go in groups and collect our comics. Mandrake,TinTin and Phantom ruled our fantasy lives. Later we would exchange comics with each other. As we grew up our taste matured to Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew. We would make small clubs like Famous Five and Secret Seven and play detective games. It was our own make believe world. We were happy children then. Some books were covered in brown covers and were hidden from public view. I was always curious to know their content but Chandubhai never revealed their contents, much to our dismay.

We passed out of school and got busy with our college lives never to return to the library again. The heavy tomes of Medicine occupied most of our lives. A solitary newspaper was our only connection with the outside world. I missed my old library. We shifted our residence and my brother went abroad. It was decades since we went to my old residence.

The library was no longer there. It was just a dull paper mart where old papers were weighed and money given. English papers fetched more money by weight as compared to vernacular papers. I could not fathom this too. I met Chandubhai who looked like a pale shadow of his past. He was contended, had prospered in this paper business and boasted of a swanky car, parked outside his shop. He said that the advent of media age had taken a toll on his library business. Children were no longer interested to read like before. We understood his view point.

The library was our life line during the vacations. Seeing it shut down upset us. With a heavy heart, We left the place.

As we were leaving, we saw a tri-cycle on the road with the younger brother sitting at the front and the elder brother pedalling. A sense of 'deja vu' was felt by us.

I just hugged my younger brother and cried.

KODAK MOMENTS.

The round tables and plastic chairs in their bright colours excite the children. A sitting statue on a bench elicits a lot of snaps with the proud parents clicking their children with their cell phone cameras in a frenzy. Maybe, they would frame this snaps. The meals offer small innovative toys as bribes to entice the children. I avoid greasy food and hate the guilt inducing thick shakes and sugary ice cream. I just sit there awaiting my kids to finish their meal. I normally would never venture into such joints but the kids drag me there. They are attracted to this place as the bees to the flowers. Some parents actually enjoy eating also. Anything goes. The screen was coming to life with the vivid colours and animated figures attacking us with their swords and guns. We would swerve to avoid the impact of the bullets and shrapnel. The 3D movie was driving the kids nuts. They enjoyed and begged me to take them to such movies more often. I headed to the nearest chemist shop to gulp a couple of Naprosyn tablets to cure my Migraine. The glasses with the smudge of finger prints from the previous users distorted my vision. No amount of vigorous rubbing with my hanky would help. The exchanged glasses were even worse. The kids hardly noticed that I was seeing the movie without my 3D glasses. I tried to doze off but the screeching background music helped me stay awake. The sand lot in my building is a much favoured spot by my son. Every morning begins with a predictable bawling which only stops when I take him down to the sand lot garden. He sits on my lap and we swing and his happiness knows no bounds. I make him ride the mini slide. All the time, he is giggling with joy. I spend half an hour in the morning with him in the garden. I do not remember me as a child on a swing. We were sports fanatics and the garden was considered as a abode of the girls. A bat and a ball used to be our constant companions. Maybe, God was trying to fill in my lost hours of childhood by pushing me daily to the garden. The kids are always ecstatic in such activities. They want us to take part in them. We have to. The smiles on their rosy faces are captured by us as "Kodak Moments". We have to live for such moments. Meanwhile, My kids are scanning the paper's movie section for the latest 3D movie. I pop the painkiller pills prior to the movie and enjoy the movie rolling in the cushioned seats. My wife is unlike me and is a kid at heart. Hope, she does not read this blog!

MA'ID.

The maid was going on a leave to her native town. We were all sad but the saddest person in our family was Prithvy. He had taken a particular affinity to Lata, our new maid who was his care taker and followed him like a shadow. We were not sure whether she would return back. This was the problem with maids in Mumbai, a trip to native town meant a permanent good bye. We would have to search a new maid and Prithvy would take time to adjust. Mansi was the most worried, as her trips to her dental clinic would become more sporadic. A shut down clinic for the last 6 months, during maternity was constantly on her mind. I was also concerned. After a week of failed efforts, A bell rang one fine morning. Lata had come back. We were overjoyed. Prithvy broke into a welcome dance waving his arms wildly. We, in our urban life are so dependent on maids. The domestic maid, cook and the care taker maid rule and dictate our lives. They are all well treated by us. All their mistakes are instantly pardonable. They enjoy immunity as our home ministers, wives revere and respect them out of fear. Our domestic maid routinely flicks small denomination notes and yet we turn a blind eye. Such is our dependency! Lata is atypical and a honest maid who really takes care of my son and daughter well. When she feeds Prithvy a bowl of cereal, she will push us all out of the room as we distract him. She puts on a music channel on TV and my son finishes the meal without any fuss. She rocks him gently in the cradle using her latest bollywood song filled cell phone as a lullaby. We are amazed at her ingenuity. She takes him out on a stroller in our garden twice a day. She also prompts him to speak easy words. Also when he is unwell, she gets really worried and skips her meals. In all, Mansi is able to concentrate on her clinic. We too keep her happy and treat her as one of our own kith and kin. During Prithvy's birthday party, she missed out on all the fun as she was attending him who was blissfully asleep oblivious to the surrounding din. How noble of her! I feel really proud of her. As the cake was being cut, I could sense Prithvy scanning the big crowd for her Lata. We immediately told the compere to announce her name and called her on the stage for the cake cutting ceremony. As she climbed the stage, Tears welled up in her eyes. She felt over whelmed by our kind gesture. We recognised her role in our son's upbringing. We returned home pretty late that night, Lata was putting Prithvy to sleep in his cradle with a bollywood song blaring from her cell phone. Prithvy slept, smiling. There is a 'ma' in every 'maid'.

A BOX OF MANGOES.

The hot summer begins with the mouth watering hopes of a good mango season for the most of us. I do not eat mangoes, although they start cropping up at my place quiet early at astronomical rates. I eat them a bit late in the season for some reason which will be clear as you folks read this blog.

Mangoes are a part and parcel of our foodie culture. The wooden boxes with straw and ripening mangoes are displayed proudly in each and every household as a kind of status symbol. A sweet and mildly sour fragrance greets us when we enter our homes in mango season. The kids like them very much and devour them like no tomorrow. They also like playing with the straw. Each and every meal has 'aamras' as an accompanying dessert. The diabetics forget their illness and secretly gorge on mangoes. I see a spurt in their sugar readings during this season and they just smile at me expecting me to understand the seasonal effect on their diabetes.

Asha is a very dear patient of mine. She is an aged lady with Diabetes and Heart ailments. She has to be recurrently admitted in the hospital in view of complications. Although our profession thrives on other peoples' miseries, I decided to stop charging her in view of her poor financial status. She had a teen aged son who was a spastic and had to struggle to make her ends meet. A meagre pension of her deceased husband used to be her only life line. She sometimes even used to skip meals which she said helped her sugars from rising. I always was moved by her plight.

During the mango season, she was in a better mood as she used to fetch mangoes from her native town and sort them out in boxes and sell them door to door. At least, the mangoes offered some financial respite to her. The first box of choicest juicy plump mangoes would be packed by her and delivered to me. Its pretty late for the season, yet I tell her that I have been waiting for the mangoes eagerly. She smiles up with tears in her eyes. A few kind words never hurt. She implores me to call her if I need some more mangoes but I never call her as I do not want her to incur a loss as she will never charge me.

This box of mangoes is a symbol of her gratitude towards me. It signifies labour as she huffs and puffs while climbing the floor to deliver her box. Normally, I distribute the boxes which I get, to all my staff of ward boys and ayah bais who lovingly accept them.

This box goes straight home. My family relishes them. Even if they are sour, they taste better than the sweetest mangoes of the entire season.