Khatte Mithe Pal Jeevan ke, nostalgia, experiences, family, humour

“ Oh my God! I am having severe headache!” I said to my husband, getting up from the bed. He was quick enough to jump to the conclusion,” It is because you were reading till very late last night! How many times I have told you to sleep early!“ Now, this was not what I was expecting from him. I was just sharing my pain, and even though he was generous enough to investigate and point out the reason, it was in no way going to relieve me from pain. I started thinking, why this happens? When we share our pain with someone, in return people start analyzing the cause of suffering, mostly concluding that it’s our own fault. My mother is a glaring example of this. Whenever I complain of some illness, in addition to getting worried, she is quick enough to find the reason and prove that I am the one who should be blamed for it. In my childhood days, I was very much prone to throat infection. Every time I had throat infection, Mummy would attribute it to the curd or ice cream, which I might ...

I was in an extremely bad mood. As I entered home after a bad day in the office, I found the kids fighting; and acting as an arbitrator in their fight was the last thing I wanted to do at that moment. While I was fuming at my kids, the housemaid came with intimation for two days leave which acted as a catalyst to my anger. Since the maids enjoy certain privileges, and can not be scolded, I started finding faults with my children and husband to give vent to my anger.  When I returned to my room I was considering myself as the most dejected soul and the most stressed person on earth. To show everyone that I was not in a mood to talk, I picked up the magazine section of a newspaper, in which an article about happiness caught my attention. It said that one should try to derive pleasures from little things in life. So how can one get little pleasures in day to day life? I started to recall the instances that give me pleasure. Here is the compilation of few such moments, which have giv...

A man, having been chased by an insurance agent for months together, slapped him so hard that the agent fell on ground. The man got worried and rushed to help him get up. The agent got up, dusted off his cloths and came smiling to the man, saying,” mazaak chhodiye sahib! Ab to insurance karwa leejiye ! (No more kidding sir! It’s time you got your insurance done!)” I had read the above joke during my school days, but was able to understand it in its true sense only when I started with my job. Elders say if you work hard, you would get success, money, fame etc.; what they don’t tell you is that there is one more thing which comes free with a decent job, the ever-chasing insurance agents! After marriage, boasting about my financial knowledge which I had acquired through financial columns in newspapers cost me a lot, as it made my husband believe that I would be the right person to face the insurance agents (or maybe he pretended so, to get rid of this ever chasing species) B...

Different people have different perceptions of happiness. People often think that they would be happy upon getting a certain thing, but what they fail to realize is that in pursuit of bigger happiness, they abandon thousands of moments of little happiness, which when added together are going to make them happy. In addition to our share of big moments of happiness, life also showers upon thousands of small moments of happiness, which we often fail to appreciate.My little moments of happiness are as below: 1.      When I was posted in Shimla, I was wondering how I was going to survive the freezing cold weather there. In Shimla, once the continuous rain throughout the day forced me to go to bed early. Upon getting up the next morning, when I glanced out from the window casually, I was mesmerized. All the things in sight were covered with snow. Flakes of snow were falling silently adding to the beauty. The first sight of snowfall fille...

In life, many times we realize that a task looking arduous is not actually that difficult, when started.  On the contrary, some tasks looking plain sailing prove to be strenuous, when started. All the wives would agree with me that the efforts put in by them in numerous small household chores, which keep them busy throughout the day, are underrated by their husbands. I realized it when my maid took one month sabbatical from work to visit her village. Though after so many years of marriage, I have become quite used to the preaching of my husband on everything I do, the situation seems to be intolerable when you are already trying to make up for some mishap like broken crockery or spilt milk and somebody starts lecturing  on how you should have been more careful. Yes, my husband helped me in household chores(by putting water in filter, cutting salad, setting the table etc.), but with the newly granted access in the kitchen, he also assumed  the noble charge of my self-a...

Happiness is a blessing, true, but there are some things you realize, only at the time of hardships. I always used to joke about how my husband helped me in the household chores. Whenever I asked him to make tea, he would go in the kitchen and scream from there,” where is sugar kept? Where is tea kept?” after answering two-three queries, I would say,” you come out of the kitchen. I will make the tea for both of us.” Like any other lady, I never minded being busy in small household chores like cooking, preparing tiffin for my daughter, etc. Like a typical mother, I had never imagined that the house could run without my contribution. But I was proved wrong last year, when I suffered from severe backache. The doctor, after preliminary examination, prescribed many tests, the results of which horrified me. When I went to the doctor with the reports, I was concerned,” would I be all right?” “Why not?” The doctor said, “But strictly follows my instructions.” I could have...

On that cold and windy morning when even the Sun had decided not to show up, I was feeling like not leaving my quilt easily. But the unpleasant ring on my mobile forced me to open my eyes. The call was from an international number, but the caller said in a Punjabi accent ,” mubaraq ho ji! Main aap ki telephone company se bol  raha  hoon !Aapki pandrah lakh assi hazar ki lottery lagi hai hamari company ki taraf se! (Congratulations! I am calling from your telephone company! You have won a lottery from our telephone company amounting to Rs. Fifteen lakhs eighty thousands!)  On earlier such occasions, I used to disconnect the telephone, but this time I thought to have some entertainment in the otherwise boring morning,” Meri lottery! Badi khushi ki  baat hai! Main abhi aap ke office ja kar paise le  aati hoon ! ”(Wow! I won a lottery! I am so excited! I will just go to your company’s office and collect the money!) Now, either the man on the other end was too in...

As a child, I had an opportunity of staying at many places because my father had a transferrable job. But I was always fussed about the fact that he had a state government job, which meant he could never be posted out of the state. Those were the days when it was not common to go on vacations to hilly states or seabeahes like today, so our school vacations were spent in our grandfather’s house. I remember telling my parents that blessed would be the day, when I would see the world out of Madhya Pradesh. A central government job gave me opportunity to venture out of the state, but not much impact was felt during the time of probation, as the life was mostly limited to training institute only. So, when after probation I was posted to Shimla, it seemed like a complete change in my world climatically, socially and culturally. This posting was not totally unplanned, as by this time my marriage was fixed and my future husband was posted in Shimla, but it was the period from posti...

“How was the pizza, beta?” I asked my daughter, to which she threw a counter question, licking her finger,” as delicious as ever mamma! Can it ever happen that you cook something and it is not great?”    Her statement brought a grin on my face, as I was driven down in my memory lane to remember what I call “ My cooking disasters ”. The most memorable incidence dates back to the time when I had joined Engineering College and as my father was posted at other city, I used to stay at my uncle’s home accompanied by my brother, who was two years senior to me in the same college. Though I used to help my  chachiji    in cooking and other household chores, like any other studious girl, I was not very expert at cooking which was proved when my  chachiji   went to her parental village nearby and could not return on the same day.    As eating in restaurants was not common those days and home delivery was not even heard of, this left the responsibi...

“Mom! It’s your marriage anniversary! “My daughter was bubbling with enthusiasm. “How should we celebrate it? I want to make it your most memorable anniversary!” She said. I smiled as I told her,” I appreciate your spirit, beta! But I don’t think you can break your own record by making it more memorable.” She looked puzzled as I started telling her how as a 4 month old; she had made our second marriage anniversary memorable. As I said, it was our 2 nd marriage anniversary. We (my husband and I) had decided to celebrate it privately with the new member of our family, who was the centre of our attention for the past four months. After taking a stroll at The Mall Road, Shimla, we chose a decent, budget restaurant on Mall Road to have dinner (That was the most we could afford before fifth pay commission pay hike). We entered the restaurant proudly carrying the cutest child on earth (as new parents we didn’t know that all the parents find their child the cutest).  My dau...

I was waiting eagerly with my son. The waiting hours seemed to be too long, but finally we had a sigh of relief. Our wait was over! My husband and daughter were proudly coming to us with their prized possessions in hands. Don’t get me wrong! They had not completed any marathon and returning with prizes! Actually they had been standing in the queue to buy the books for my daughter. The school had authorized only one shop to sell the books and there were many parents like us who had waited up to last day to buy the books and now paying the price by standing in the so called queues consisting of unruly crowds pushing each other in order to reach the counter. Standing in queue is a pain, but when your turn comes, you feel like a winner. As I recall my memories regarding queues, each of them leaves a smile on my face. ·         During my school and college days, buying movie tickets was a great achievement as multiplex culture had not come and online ...

On our way from Shimla to Kullu, I phoned my mother-in-law and said,” Don’t wait up for us for the lunch; we have got late on the way!” “Why?” was her natural response. “Because we are coming by taxi; our car has gone faulty”, I replied. When she asked as to what had happened to the car, I said,” actually a truck hit our car lightly so we are coming by taxi. But don’t worry; we are safe and unhurt!” Her reaction was of panic as expected, but I convinced her that only the car was damaged and we were all safe. What I didn’t tell her at that moment is a tale that still sends chills up my spine! I cannot forget that day. We were going to visit my husband’s native village in Kullu from Shimla by car. My husband was driving and I was sitting on front seat while my daughter was lying on the back seat of our car. We were happy to have started early as we could reach our destination on time. On a blind turn, we noticed a truck coming from the opposite side. The...