Gaddi Sabzi Tax

Gaddi Sabzi Tax

Today was chaos, our maid didn’t want to work, the cook wanted the evening off and on top of it we had the mother of all rains deluging the pind! It seemed as if with the change of the government and all what we were going through Mother Nature just decided to take control and replenish the water levels. I think the big lady upstairs just thought She had to take control and just step in, as the Punjabis were just not getting the plot on climate control.

So, apparently sugar is being sold cheaper at Mithapur. And, I just did not make up this name. There exists a true name and it’s the next village to us and with whatever Modiji was doing tomorrow, sugar was being sold cheaper. They all needed time off to go buy and stock, as the tax tomorrow would make everything expensive. Forget atta, dal, they needed cheeni to make life sweeter for them.

Bittu, had enough money he said to go buy sugar for the next couple of months and he said with the saving he would be able to afford the gas cylinder next month. He told me in such serious, clear terms that I had no heart to explain him what was actually happening. It wasn’t GST to him, it was gaddi, sabzi tax that was going to be implicated and was going to affect him and the poor, prices were going to go up and he just didn’t know what to do. Asha , my mata rani , phoolan devi rolled into one wanted to buy sugar because the nasha in the chai came with the cheeni ! And, I needed to make her happy .

On top of it the present government was going to take away the blue cards. It is sad, that a handful of politicians that use us against each other manipulating the basic needs of one that can all be taken care by generating employment, by creating a framework of education, technical skill that should have been set yesterday (or the last century).

They crippled us, and the current generation making us dependent on the sops and now the rug was being snatched.

GST, which is overdue since two decades shot down by the same government when Dr Manmohan Singh introduced it is being re packaged and being sold to sell an uniform tax but the phasing out is so confusing that the entire country is in panic mode.

There is pre GST sale, a post GST sale, Facebook is inundated with calculations, tax videos that I may like to watch; I think Zuckerberg is doing this after heavy revenues! The news channels, even the regional Punjabi ones to the local kirana shop and my favorite cloth merchant is telling me to buy clothes as everything is getting expensive.

I just know life is changing and things will take a time to settle down, but in the meanwhile we are hoarders of everything.

The best part of the entire tax-shaxx that this pind wali bibi understood and the only thing that leapt to me in the fine print is that coffee isn’t getting expensive.

Well, justice served finally.

Chai and more chai !

Mornings in every household are crazy and chaotic and maddening and especially if it’s a Punjabi household and its only made bearable with endless cups of chai. Trust me, this is how it works for me, and I maintain the semblance of normalcy (this is debatable) only by gulping by the large cups of English tea and then the staple masala tea. I wonder how people can go to the gym, do surya namaskar, do neti and then eat oats. I am heading towards an early grave with my chai and addiction to paranthas with achar. However, before that I fend off doorbell chimes, and meeting people but all I wonder is whether work force of mine is landing up.

Every day I wait for my maids and cook just like a darshan off the Gods, my old bones cant take it anymore and the non stop rivulets of sweat (may this replenish the receding water tables) just don’t make it possible for me to work. The Congress refuses to give us electricity and the sweats collected may help in planting the rice nursery. I could actually be sitting on a gold mine, I could start a party called passena dal and well could save Punjab’s water crisis.

Why did they never think of this? And, now I am regressing from the topic, just be kind it’s an old age woman thinking and mumbling.

My maid came and instead of a cheery sat sri akal she just told me point blank that she is here for work but would not be bending and cleaning the floors. Her back got sprained last night, putting up a kundi connection and I immediately gathered my old bag of bones to help her, fussing and telling her beta eat a biscuit and have chai.

My, panacea for all cures.  Well, so much for watching the news and wondering whether the conservatives won or the Labor party was sweeping my former masters or whether Trump was sinking into another controversy. All this was swept under the rug and I quickly gave her a painkiller to fix her back but she refused saying that an old lady, Pyaaro in one of the mohallas had the wonder-woman power.

She just pressed her toe on the back and voila! It got all right. No one was supposed to eat any medicine after that.

Why did I ever send to my son to medical school, I wonder? Is it the rapid Modi shift, or is it just that we are a nation that is steeped in our tradition and its culture that is still old, ancient and is superstitious!

The day kept on getting more and more interesting and some mothers came complaining of a ‘bhuubhuu’, a mysterious affliction that attacks the throat and they swell up. I told them, it must be tonsils, lets send them to a pediatrician and they would all get relief. They, as usual laughed it off saying that George’s father had the best answer and he used to put salt underneath the milk pot overnight and next morning one just had to mix it with water and drink it and nothing else was needed.

So much for, tonsils or mumps or adenoids, or any of my suggestions. It just didn’t end there, the last straw was when one of them told me, to beat the heat I just needed to eat a kulfi and simultaneously drink chai.

Now, I was laughing to no end and felt happy that at least all my cures for stress, life’s worries just flew away with them. The chai, I could have, care for a dande wali kulfi(that’s the only kind which works).

Pindi wali Bibi 

Ravneet Sangha

Messages and musings

Every day we all get a thousand messages and forwards and so much spam and some messages are there which are that if one doesn’t send to ten more friends all would go wrong and disaster would fall, Sundays wont come, lady luck wouldn’t smile or the worst luck would come one’s way. We all are guilty of falling prey to this gimmick as it plays on our subconscious and we succumb to this. One such forward has been playing on my mind, no it’s not giving me money, nor am I raising money by forwarding it to save a young child. Mujib Akhtar, salute to him, has beautifully penned it.

He expresses in such a great manner that never laugh on anyone’s troubles, no one goes and invites problems to their lives, nor do they ever come with any warning.

We never have a premonition that something is going to wrong, just that when troubles comes, it comes in threes. He further says, that even if one is intelligent and wise, it doesn’t make him the King, look at Birbal, he was the wisest one but never became the Emperor. It just doesn’t guarantee anything, kismet , destiny plays an important role in our lives.

His next lines are the best, he speaks in the softest Hindustani mix, a perfect mix of Hindi and Urdu, that one cannot hug oneself, nor can you cry on your own shoulder. We all need someone, and to live for another is called life. It is these small interactions that make us alive and we can carry on with our karmic journey.

Give time to only those who make time for you, seek you, cherish you truly, rest only remember you at their convenience. Relationships are not based upon profit or loss nor can one measure them, life can make you rich monetarily. The size of the roti eaten is more or less the same in each household, the car maybe a Maruti or a BMW but the distance is met. You might wear a Titan or a Rolex the time will be the same, you might own an Apple phone or a Samsung people who care, love are the only ones who will call you and reach out regardless.

One will fulfill one’s needs but desires always remain till the dying day. We all want a better body, a better hair, a bigger house, a bigger car, the newer gadget, and more money. It’s endless. Rich people spend more than half their wealth just maintaining the impression that they are rich and to project the image.

I have found his words resonating and true to our society that is getting shallower by the minute, using each other to further this crazy worship of Mammon and to win an unattainable quest /prize that is more money, more affluence and a bigger larger projection of wealth an d if we trample over one another or one’s feeling, it doesn’t matter as humans are expendable. Why take revenge, it is just worthwhile to change oneself? Man wants wings to fly, to become Icarus since time immemorial but have you ever thought birds actually find a place on earth to make a nest?

We strive for the unknown, for what is unattainable but in the meanwhile forget what is ours to keep. It’s not the heat that is making me write, its just sheer logic some days. Logic can take you through the mundane. But if you want to know the magic of life, you need to transcend logic-Sadhguru.