Under a cloud

(This is how it happened…)

She looks like as if she carries Antelope in her body. Loaded with diamonds, I mean. Interestingly, she is in a red sari and her husband is in a red sweatshirt. They are twining.  She makes a dramatic entry and chides her husband as he puts the cabin baggage. “ Can’t you put it properly… thik se rakho nehin toh bag bhi kharab ho jayega. (Keep it properly otherwise the bag will be spoilt).

She occupies the middle seat, her husband is having the window seat, I am on the aisle seat. She occupies her space, puts the seat belt and then snatches her hubby’s phone and forces him to click selifies with her and then dismissively tells him, “ Agar mera phone mein accha photo click ho sakta toh mein aap ke taraf dekhti bhi nehin.” (I would not have looked at your phone if  my phone was good for taking photos). Immediately pics are sent to whatsapp family group with hashtags. She talks about some hashtags which I can’t decipher.

She looks at the inflight shopping brochure and scratches a little corner of the brochure  and reads out the list of free gifts and tells to herself, “ Will they give us all these just like that or I have to buy something to get all this?” Not too impressed, she puts it aside.

She takes out the phone, browses through youtube channel and reads the title of the video 10 Easy way to get face glow.

I am pretty sure, she has not heard of Modiji’s secret of getting a face glow : am tempted to tell her, “Haseena all you need is paseena.” Lady, if you sweat by hard work, your skin will glow.

Even as I am furiously typing this on my mobile phone, she asks me, “Are you a writer?” I say, “No, I am a journalist.” I feel guilty for a nanosecond cause I am writing about her. But then it’s life around me and there is no way to escape from life. She asks me, “ You came for JLF (Jaipur Literature Fest).” I nodded and she says, “Your face looks familiar.” At this point, the air hostess comes to us with the serving trolley with their curated menu.

P.S I was right. She belongs to a diamond jeweller family. She told me about her famous relatives ( owners of diamond jewellery brands) in Ahmedabad. And the marriage that is happening in their family. I kept on nodding. I am yet to own a diamond. The sky outside the plane window though shines like a diamond.

Low-cost happiness

When I booked my Bangkok ticket for Rs 48,000 in October 2014, my friends got into a collective mourning phase. So, for almost two weeks, they kept on telling me , “Oh, for this amount (and a little more), you could have gone to Istanbul, London, Paris…” Their never-ending list covered almost all parts of the globe other than Antarctica (that was really generous). And in typical Indian way, they never forgot to add, “This money is too much for Bangkok. You got a really bad deal.” Well, the Bangkok trip was done only to make my very close friend happy as she wanted to spend her birthday with me in a third destination. I am an old soul who doesn’t believe in always calculating, adding and subtracting in life.

But my friends’ constant talk of my Bangkok ticket did something to my psyche. So one of my bucket lists for 2015 was to experience joy, happiness at low cost. So, I chose to go to Jaipur to be a part of the much-talked about literature festival. And I decided to make it a low cost one. The natural choice was to go by the Indian Railways. I am challenged in many spheres of life (the list will be longer than UPA government’s scam lists).  With great difficulty, I opened an IRCTC account but I could never log in as it kept on telling wrong password (The password was a combination of my name and my ex love’s name. May be the Indian Railways found that it’s not ‘ethical’ for a married woman to have such a password).

But then there are always somebody or the other to come to my rescue. So, by the grace of the universe,  one of my colleagues offered to book my ticket from his account.  When he asked, “A two-tier AC ticket?” I said “No, no…book it in three-tier AC (I wanted to go slow on every penny).” The hotel in Jaipur where I stayed was definitely a drool-worthy deal. It’s a nice small heritage property (however, In Jaipur/ Udaipur, it’s very difficult to find a non-heritage property (every hotel’s name ends with ‘palace’ and this was no different). The highly involved owners of the ‘palace’ hotel make sure that it’s well-maintained. The only drawback is that they don’t serve non-vegetarian food. So, I missed having an omelette in the breakfast. But it was a small price to pay for a wonderful deal.

The organisers of Jaipur Literature Festival definitely deserve a toast for keeping it free. So, for four days I got to listen to writers/thinkers/philosophers/scientists from across the world on a variety of subjects without spending a penny. There can be no greater happiness than reveling in knowledge.

When you are in the Pink City, it’s natural to indulge in some shopping. I have a put an embargo on buying clothes. So, I bought a beautiful bed-cover, bangles for myself and my cook and ear-rings for my cook’s daughter who also works at my home. The shopping sojourn deserves another post which will give a slice of life in India.

I came back to Ahmedabad as a much happier person with loads of stories from the lanes and bylanes of the Pink City and of course from Diggi Palace (the venue of the Litfest). And all this did not cost me much. Who says happiness needs to have a big price tag?