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

The Truth About The Paradox Of Life

Salads were the newest additions to our menu list as starters. It owes its origins to friends we visit often like a second home. The mundane sprouts could be part of creative jewellery with pomegranates and cheese cubes that had never occurred to me till I saw them beautifully and colourfully occupying the centre table. The rainbow salad on a different occasion was also mesmerising. The presentation and the warmth with which they served added to the taste as much as to the refreshing memories. As I uncovered the lid of the container on my kitchen slab, I observed that the moth beans had sprouted, and rootlets were visible. I could eat them as much as I could plant them. I decided to plant a few and serve the remaining for breakfast. They lay embedded in the soil with air, water and food in plenty. After a few days, I observed most had not survived. They had turned black and lay on the verge of extinction in that darkness. The paradox of plenty providing in excess is not good. The para...
1 comment
Read more

10 UNSURPASSED COLLECTION OF BOOKS DEFINING MY CAREER

Some people discover their passion early. As a child, I often wrote with chalk on the doors of our home like a teacher, taking classes for imaginary students sitting on the floor. Some months later, real friends became my students, comfortably seated on the chairs—a clear sign of progress. Finding a passion to pursue is just the beginning. The journey ahead requires skills and hard work. It was the high road to BECOMING (Michelle Obama). 1984 (George Orwell) the year I became who I am— it marked the beginning of my journey as a Dentist. My journey had a trail of milestones. Clearing the Combined Pre-Medical Test was the first such milestone, gaining admission into one of the most prestigious dental schools, yet another.  What followed was graduation, then post-graduation, and more milestones. I was EDUCATED (Tara Westover). Both personally and professionally, the environment around me changed. I was evaluating and learning. Years later, when my little birds flew away, an empty ne...
Post a Comment
Read more

Flipping Pages, Flipping Fates, My Tippan Moment

  My call was gladly received by my sister, who was in the midst of a monotonous job of setting a question paper for her students. She needed a distraction, and I willingly obliged. These days, we enjoy our telephone conversations more than usual. The reason is that we dwell upon the stories from the past that have been handed down to us from our previous generations. They are not stories of valor passed down the generations in musical forms to infuse courage. They seem like tall stories stretched by imagination, not only to us but also to innocent bystanders. These have become so believable to us by being repeated many times during our family reunions. The stomach-churning laughter they induce keeps those anecdotes so lively until today. Tippan Chacha (uncle) was a guest who came from far away to take a departmental examination for promotion in the city where my grandparents lived. Our grandparents were glad to have him visit them. As for one of their broods, my mother, younger th...
Post a Comment
Read more