The Yellow Butterfly

J of #AtoZChallenge  When I was in school my idea of college was heavily influenced by movies especially Ishq Vishk (which was far more realistic than Dil Chahta Hai, Kuch Kuch Hota Hai and even Remix!) I remember my two years of Junior College in bits and pieces. It was almost like walking into a colourful, youth movie set. There were all sorts of teenagers wearing cool outfits, some wearing no-brainer normal outfits, some trying to be fashionable and some just being themselves. I think the idea of 'not wearing a uniform' was itself daunting. I couldn't believe I had to make an effort of thinking what should I wear every day to college. And feel as if I was going to be judged every day! I would secretly feel like Gabriella from High School Musical and would wonder if people would randomly start jumping and dancing all around!  My college was a huge quadrangular building with dark, cool corridors, breezy second and third floors, an air-conditioned auditorium,...

                                                                                                                                        I of #AtoZChallenge It's a classic case of 'Lost and Found!'  I realized that I had often lost I and found I.  Over the years it had been normal. To lose I.  To find I.  Eventually I always learnt something in the process!  Only I didn't know when was I lost and when I was found.  It was the 'butterflies in the stomach' feeling that I always got.  Before losing I.  And just before finding I.  Did I look forward to getting lost? Or did I...

H  of #AtoZChallenge  'Happiness can be found, even in the darkest of times,  if only one remembers to turn on the light!' (image courtesy: Google images) I was amongst the 'first receivers' of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer' s Stone and Harry Potter and Chamber of Secrets books in India; the British  editions published by Bloomsbury! My Gaurav Kaka bought them in London when he was coming back to India and had gifted me. I was in my sixth standard back then; some eleven years old. SAME AGE AS HARRY :)  Only back then I didn't know what I had received! Though I was amongst the first receivers of the book, I was NOT amongst the first readers of the books! It took me a while to realize that I was sitting on a goldmine! My creche Mavshi, Jyoti Kakee and Jui Tai had taken the entire group to watch the movie Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. The movie shook me to the core! Harry's journey to Hogwarts, exploring the magical wo...

G of #AtoZChallenge Ganpati's Aaji-Aajoba, Parvati's parents, are Earthlings.  Every year Ganpati visits Earth twice and lives as a fellow Earthling.  Aaji Aajoba make sure to invite all their relatives and friends over to the house to meet Ganpati.  Then all the family friends sing and dance around Ganpati and entertain him thoroughly.   Just because they know how foodie Ganpati is, Aaji-Aajoba lovingly make 'special Ganpati meals': modaks, shrikhand, different sorts of bhaajis and pulavs every single day!   Every year Ganpati goes back to his parents chubbier and fluffier.  This year while Ganpati and Parvati were underwater and were on the way back home, Parvati playfully cupped and squeezed his chubby cheeks and chuckled, "Your fitness freak Baba is going to freak out more than ever!"   Mushak giggled, "Kheeekikheekii.."  Parvati looked at him crossly, "You too are looking fluffier than usual!"...

F of #AtoZChallenge My first school was Yashomandir. At age four. It was a Nursery school in Mulund East.   The uniform was a red pinafore with a white shirt. My mum would fold a handkerchief in a triangle and pin it (with a safety pin) on the left-hand side.  My school name-badge would be pinned on top of it.  The Principal of our Yashomandir was Teacher-Aaji.  I never made an effort to know her real name because for me she was Teacher-Aaji. Whenever I meet her, I still address her Teacher-Aaji.  She was a tall, pathicha kana taath (spine-straight) woman who had the looks of a commanding yet a kind Principal.  My class teacher's name was Rita Teacher.  My memory of walking down the street to Yashomandir is fresh to the extent that I still remember how the sunshine felt, how I hopped and skipped to school holding my Aaji's hand, the warm breeze that flowed, the hide and seek the sun played through the shady trees.  I even ...

'E' of #AtoZChallenge I never figured whether I started loving elephants because Ganpati was (and has been) my favourite or whether I loved Ganpati because he is Elephant-headed.  OR  Whether I started loving elephants because I had my own little elephant since I was a year old.  His name is Appu, he is around thirty-one years old now. He is from Dubai and was given to me by my Surekha maushi on my first birthday. He is soft and grey and has black beady eyes and he has a tiny, cute, flat tail. Over the years he has had multiple surgeries because I would always tuck him in my arms and take him around everywhere I went be to the doctors, to the dairy, while visiting the relatives; and also because I always hugged him and slept every night for the longest time! He has sock-made-tusks stuffed with cotton (which have been stitched over and over by my mum through all these years).  Appu was not just my playmate and a companion, but he was my brother!...

'D' of #AtoZChallenge Sherry and her sister, Freny were sitting in the old, dimly lit living room of Daisy’s Aunty house. Daisy Aunty was Sherry’s bua, her father’s sister. Daisy Aunty had died at the old age of seventy-eight. She had no kids and no husband either. He had died long ago when she was just twenty-six. Her dead husband had left her an old house with an unkempt garden. When Sherry and Freny were kids Daisy Aunty was forced to babysit them. Daisy Aunty never liked kids! And she never really liked Freny and Sherry. She always snapped and yelled at them for being too noisy and giggly. She always yelled out, ‘No!’ Not there!’ ‘No! Don’t touch that’ ‘Don’t talk too loudly!’ ‘Don’t talk too softly!’ ‘Don’t laugh!’ ‘Don’t giggle!’ ‘Don’t cry!’ ‘Hairane chokriyo! Badhu traas!’ The girls would wonder why was she so grumpy! It’s not that Daisy aunty had a loveless life. Though she didn’t marry again, she had a few boyfriends over the years, after her husband died. ...