Thank God for 2B's Momma!

Initially I got a lot of support from my cousins and brother by way of comments but now all have fallen silent, except my dear friend 2b's mommy whose blog I visit every time I get on the NET, thank you my dear for missing me. My house resembles a hospital with both the kids and the parents in law and me to a lesser extent falling pray to the seasonal viral infection. Also it was discovered that my daughter has a raging urine infection! She has told me not to make this public in my blog so I leave it at that without going into the gory details of her treatment. She is better now and so are all of us! I am working as Guest Lecturer and taking a class on Japanese History for which considerable amounts of preparation is required and we are also preparing to leave this city in about twenty days or so, most importantly, my husband is already in Bangalore so I am dealing with a strange loneliness. These are the reasons for my lack of inclination to write, till I saw 2b's mom's gentle encouragement in the form of a comment to my last post which I translated as "GET YOUR LAZY ARSE ON THE CHAIR AND WRITE SOMETHING, THERE IS SOMEONE WASTING PRECIOUS TIME ON THE NET LOOKING UP YOUR BLOG!!!"



I am grateful for this as I was meaning to write but have been making excuses for myself. Afterall my life has not been as eventful as this for a long time. Every morning (except Thursdays and Sundays) I slip off to college and each day is eventful because I go by bus and come back in an autorickshaw and thus encounter a lot of people. Then I rush back home to a baby who is spewing new words by the dozen and says the darndest things as he has just learnt to talk in complex sentences. Then there is the elder one whose study routine is still haphazard and who is in the habit of bursting into tears the moment I mention studies! My husband adds to this confusion by calling up and giving updates from Bangalore, every day we have a new plan of action depending on the circumstances that are constantly changing there making it difficult for the poor soul to give a definite answer to any of my probing questions. I am excited about the change that is occuring in my life but I am feeling a few pangs for this city that I am about to leave. A city that I am getting intimately involved with once again travelling to a college where I had studied myself .That was the time when I got acquainted with Delhi as an adult who is allowed to travel on her own in the great big DTC buses. That was when a true bong like me learnt that bus hemesha 'aati hai' coz it is streeling or female in Hindi.

Even today I like travelling in buses not only in Delhi but in Kolkata too which is the other city that I know very intimately. The other day I was walking from the Safdar Jung Terminus towards Africa Avenue when an auto came rushing by, I stopped it and said I wanted to go to my college, he said "mujhe Nizamuddin jana hai, main aapko us golchakkar tak pahuchan sakta hoon' I said ok because I had taken a new route and part of my calculations had misfired so I was running a little late. The guy dropped me and did not take a penny, ' aapko kuch nahin dena parega, mujhe Nizamuddin jana hai nahin to main aapko le jata' the guy was actually apologizing for not taking me to my destination, how peculiar, never knew this kind existed in this city. Clearly I don't know the city as intimately as I thought I did. I suddenly felt quite queer, I will miss this city. I have missed the trade fair this year, God knows when I will be able to visit the trade fair again, another pang. Look here Diya, I told mysel, you hated this city, you have been here for the past ten years, you have NEVER stayed in one place for so long in your life! YES YES, I can't wait to get out of this city, I am really and truely looking forward to living in Bangalore but still it is like leaveing a friend behind a bustling, bumbling, flashy, boistrous and yet beautiful city.

Travelling the ten kilometers to and from college I am expose anew to the idiosyncracies of the city. I was horrified to see that Africa Avenue has been renamed 'Africa Avenue Marg' ! Some poor half literate sign painter after painting half a dozen 'Margs' must have done this . Then I enjoyed a fight we women had with a man who refused to leave the ladies seat, an elderly lady later admitted that she also felt like punching the guy but was scared because she felt she would die if the guy managed to plant a punch on her!So women are fighting back the brutish Delhi male so watch out guys! I like my teaching assignment too, I have met a few excellent women. One teacher is a slip of a girl and very blind, her teaching strategies are the most interesting and innovative. She has taught me to see the so called disabled in a different light. There is much much more, people, places all kinds of stuff. I wanted to visit the Nizamuddin Dargah, I don't know when I will be able to, inspite of the fact that it is very close to my house, I wanted to go to the Okhla barrage to catch the flocks of flamingos that come here ( as I have heard), I wanted to make atrip to the Corbett National Park. The teachers of my college are actually planning a trip there! Well, I will do all those things some other time, a new city is calling me. God only knows what wonders lie in the lanes of Bangalore I am eager to explore the city completely so that I have no regrets when I leave it.