Skip to main content

WHAT ALL'S FOR FREE





Why? Do you do that early in the morning, leaving me at the mercy of the notorious invaders? I said, slapping the mosquitoes that charged through the open doors and windows.
I want you to see the early morning skies and natural light and feel the fresh air. It is so beautiful outside in the garden.

Many good things are for free. Enjoy them as they are, quipped my mom.

Yes, I nodded in agreement.

Everything is so expensive these days. This tectonic shift in inflation made me yearn for all I could get for peanuts, if not free.

I remembered reading an article written by my mother's maternal uncle published in an old magazine, Saptahik Hindustan wherein he had compared the expenses incurred at his mother's wedding (which had been documented by his grandfather in his account books) to the present times.

That was not a solitary incident. A  father narrated how his father-in-law gave him money to arrange his wedding when they migrated to India just before the partition. He carried a thousand rupees in his pocket and bought gold jewelry worth a hundred rupees for the bride-to-be.

In yet another incidence, a mother delved into the price of the land in which their massive house stood, costing a mere six rupees a gaj(one gaj being almost 9 square feet).

Today, as I wrote on my laptop, I remembered my slate cost two rupees fifty paise and my Apsara black HB lead pencil a fifty paise only. Peanuts.

It just took me a minute to remind my mother that nostalgia is also free.





 
 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

WHATSAPP FORWARDS

"You will not read any of my WhatsApp messages and so it is useless to send you anything.” My mother said to me. I acknowledged her by my silence mentally reciting," I read all that you sent to me". So, here I am busy reading all about Indian spices and medicinal herbs used as daily household ingredients, thereby indulging in more studies on naturopathy as compared to any other ‘pathy’ which has side effects. I speed dialled my mother when my patient refused to undergo the procedure of scaling to clean her teeth in favour of 'alum', or "phitkari," a desi nuskha. No wonder patients shirk away from scaling. I ruminate. "I just called you up to confirm if you WhatsApped something to my patient "I vented. Ever since, I have been scrolling through all her erstwhile messages to know more about natural healthier medicaments, their benefits and roles in dentistry and health. Oh! WhatsApp was not there when I was a student. No wonder, my gold ...

THE FRUIT OF LABOR

Notification alerts continued one after the other and I knew it had to be my sister. Next morning her WhatsApp did not seem so interesting. Thank God! I never got up at midnight to see these. There were images of mud, plants and potatoes. Nothing new, I put it aside without a thought and sipped my early morning tea. As I read further, scrolling down the images was her excited note on her home grown organic potatoes. Now that was a bait I asked her "miraculous, since when have you started all this". "While composting for my garden I had accidentally left a potato in the garbage ditch. This was my discovery just today" she answered and I could imagine her admiring those potatoes. "Great guns," I responded. The matter rested after this for a few months. The feathers were ruffled again as she posted images of tomato, eggplants and potato plants neatly planted along the sidewalls, her today's endeavor .Thanks to our family group messaging system, ginger a...

INHERITANCE

As a student I had to commute in local buses as prevalent during those times. My wait for the arrival of the next bus forced me to notice an old lady curiously observing me. I pretended to ignore her but still found myself to be a subject of her curiosity. Undeterred she stared, unabashed I turned my back towards her, only to find her blatantly changing sides to face me again. Realizing my awkwardness in avoiding her she questioned me about my grandparents and excitedly mentioned my mother’s name to confirm my filial descent. She then introduced herself as an old neighbour of my grandparents who had seen my mother as a teenager and my resemblance to her. Thank God! I whispered as I took a seat and bade a farewell to my new acquaintance. Genetics and not Facebook turned out to be the most potent tool in uniting the long-lost, figures in my mind.  As I was having my morning walk session, I could see groups of people performing yoga and yet another group indulged in a discourse on a...