88- MARATHI IS NOT MY MOTHER TONGUE, BUT ...

 Almost five decades have gone by since I was a student at the St Annes school in Pune.   I always got the first rank in all subjects, including Marathi which was a difficult subject for the non marathi speaking  students.

Every score in every subject was the hard work put in by my mother, who made sure that my two brothers and I would get all the guidance we needed from who ever was able to help us.

Most of the time, my late mother,  Morwareed or Moti as she was better known, would facilitate our study hours, make sure we had good nutrition,  and a good atmophere to learn.   She herself had managed only studying upto the eighth standard (which was the second last grade before cambridge school graduation, in her time).   My mother always wanted all her three children to enjoy whatever she had been denied due to financial constraints.   

My mother would revise every subject with each of us,  and for Marathi and Hindi, she would request our neighbour, the Pagadaloo family's eldest daughter, who was a teacher, to guide us.  The Pagadaloo family lived in our huge bungalow as tenants, and they were a flourishing family of, I think  nine children, and their matriach, Sivama.    I recall that their father had passed away when all the children were quite young, and the mother and older sibling, took over responsibility.   The father had taught my father driving in his ambassador taxi, and my late father always reminded us how well he had guided him.

I have forgotten the name of the oldest sibling who was the main person who helped us to compose marathi essay assignments,   but I shall never forget her kind and encouraging words.  She never refused to help us in any assignment, and was a very extraordinary guide, for the few times that we would go to her for marathi essays.

My late mother was a very compulsive personality and would pursue any task with all her resources and achieve the result she wanted.  So it was that she wanted us to be able to be fluent in Marathi speaking, not only to get good marks at school but she realized that as maharashtrians, we needed to know the local language well,  to survive and flourish in the state of our birth.

So, she would take all three of us and sometimes the pagadaloo kids, or the parsee neighbour's kids, or even the sindhi neighbour's kids, whoever was willing to come for watching a marathi play at the Bal Gandharva Rang Mandir at Deccan gymkhana.  And we would all travel by PMT bus.  Those were the sixties and seventies, when television was not yet easily available.

So, all of us would be standing in the long lines at Bal Gandharva theatre, one zorastrian lady, my mother, conspicuous in her parse style saree and three of her kids wearing outfits that were not the regular marathi audience wear, with shoes and socks and me, the girl, in a pretty embroidered frock.   So it was that we had to sit through the entire three to four hour marathi stage play, often not comprehending the language but yet listening and learning.  Mr Raj Thackeray would be pleasantly surprised if he ever has a chance to converse with me in marathi.

Our foursome was  a regular at the marathi cinema theatres which were in the city area, near mandai,  far from our camp home.  Pinjra shall always be the film that touched my soul, and I have watched it at least ten times, with tears in my eyes every time.  Because of the incessant efforts of my late mother, all three of her children, are fluent in marathi, which often leads to raised eyebrows from whomsoever we converse with, especially at government offices.

Now that I look back at the immense efforts my mother made to educate us,  I realize her contribution towards making me the person I am today.  I shall always recall with fondness the slim cane she used to whack us with, to make us learn our spellings.   Thank you my dearest mother,  you were the best mother in the whole world, and I miss you.

59-TRAIN TRAVEL and TRAVAILS

Having to travel from Mumbai to Pune due to family constraints, prompted me to write this blog, and put down my personal experiences about intercity train travel, only confined to these two cities.

Personally, I prefer to travel by train between the two cities, rather than by bus or taxi.  No traffic jams, so I reach my destination on time.  Lots of people to observe,  sales persons come along throughout the journey,  a toilet is always handy.

The train has a soothing rocking movement, and it makes the traveler comfortable, but the train should not be overcrowded. The sound of the train is also quite musical.  CC F AA F,  common time count, with 2 crochets and a minim,  the speed changes from andante to allegro to presto, but always a tempo.  In my mind, when I doze off, there is an entire orchestra accompanying the steady beat of the train.

Starting off at Pune station, one has to be in the general compartment by one thirty to get a window seat, and not one of the aeroplane type seats that are parallel and facing the same direction and so very uncomfortable.  The journey begins at three fifteen, but you can eat, drink, sleep, or just stare at the people entering.  The main torture is that the lights and fans are off  and are switched on only at three.  The announcements are made incessantly and can hardly be deciphered, over the din of the hawkers busily shouting out their wares inside and outside the train.  One blind man walks up and down along the platform, with two noisy toys, one a whacker and the other a rod turner.  I envy the dogs sleeping peacefully under the seats on the platform, in the cool shade, and I also envy the guys walking along or sitting around to see off their relatives, the guys with the latest craze in haircuts, clean shaven, with only a plateau of a crop of hair.  They look so cool while I am perspiring in the hot train.


So many hawkers make a living in and around trains. There are two blind men and one blind woman, who sell Lonavla chikki and jelly sweets, walking along the train bogies with their heavy black reczine bags.  And five or six others, selling chikki, two for rupees fifty.  Some of the hawkers are donning blue tee shirts with the logo "Neelam", announcing their sales pitch loudly, garam garam wada pau, garam samosa, holding their loaded plastic trays adeptly in one hand, kulfi sellers carry a colourful bucket type of container, middle aged women hold tokris on their heads, selling small packets of chana singh, a young boy shouts 'timepass' as he moves along with a very large blue plastic bag, filled with ten rupee packets fried wafers, kurkures, pipes, etc.  What intrigues me the most is that there are innumerable hawkers selling water bottles, with the bottles in large cardboxes over their heads or shoulders, and the brand names of the bottled water, Aqua Power, Oxy Active, Rail Neer, Quench, Splasher, Kinnley, and so on and on. One female hawker sells copper tongue cleaners, ear cleaners and rings, another female sings aloud to sell some Hindu religious books.  The platform has fixed stalls selling cold drinks and bananas, and makeshift stands for guavas and bhel.  The bhel stand has a large tray with small packets of puffed rice and farsan, chopped onion, raw mango, sweet and spicy chutney packets, very attractively decorated with large chillies, tomatoes and raw mangoes.  Rupees twenty for one mixed bhel is value for money, if you don't mind eating from a newspaper poodee.

When the train is about to start, it blows its horn, and proceeds.

After the journey begins, the best natural views are between Khandala and Karjat.  The scenic western ghats with deep valleys and green mountains, with the clouds and mist and waterfalls, are the best part of the entire journey.  Young adivasi lads and lasses get into the train at this point, to sell jamuns, cucumbers, guavas, karvandas, mogra, gajra and the scented yellow chaafaa flowers.  The only man made intrusion along these scenic views, is that of the towering electrical pylons that support high tension wires, which look like tall slender females, dancing with their arms held wide.

I enjoy watching 'goods trains' with their 52 foreign containers in tow, and sometimes chilled tankers of milk.

When the train winds towards Badlapur and Diva, the air is full of a chemical stench, garbage is visible all along the tracks and a narrow water stream can be seen, looking black and blue, and full of garbage.  The ninth tunnel between Diva and Thane is the last one on this route.  The wares that are now hawked are cheap earrings, plastic and crocheted mobile covers, mobile headphones, lighted toys, wallets and plastic files and pouches.

Most of the passengers alight at Dadar.  A dirty half naked urchin comes through the bogies, crawling on the floor, begging.  That is a sure sign that CST is near.  Our olfactory senses can detect Masjid station as the aromas of freshly ground masalas permeate the air.  And then the destination has arrived and the train slows down and stops, as though it is a live creature that has now reached bed time.

As I move out of the platform to access the local train platform, I feel very relaxed as I walk below the ceiling fans with twelve feet long blades, turning so calmly above everyones'  heads.  But the peace is shortlived as I have to adeptly dodge the crowd milling around, walking in different directions, some towards the stationery trains, others towards the exit, while yet others are just talking on their mobile and walking right into others.