ट्रॅफिक सिग्नल

ट्रॅफिक सिग्नल वर थांबुन रोड क्रॉस करणाऱ्यांची लगबग पाहण्याची मजा काही औरच असते . काही सेकंद चा खेळ असतो तो. :)

आज ऑफिसला येताना ट्रॅफिक सिग्नल वर थांबली होती आणि एक छोटा शाळेतला मुलगा रोड क्रॉस करण्याचा प्रयत्न करत होता. वय तस कमीच होता त्याचा पण कॉन्फिडन्स जाम आवडला मला. अगदी आरामात चौकाच्या सेन्टरला ट्रॅफिक हवालदाराशेजारी जाऊन उभा राहिला तो. ट्रॅफिक हवालदाराने थोडा वेळ दुर्लक्ष केला कारण तो वेहिकल्स ला गाईड करण्यात बिझी होता. 

सिग्नल सुटायला काहीच सेकंड होते आणि मी विचार करत होती , आता काही ह्या मुलाला रोड क्रॉस करायला नाही जमणार पण पुढच्याच क्षणी ट्रॅफिक हवालदाराने त्याचा हाथ पकडला अन त्याला रोड च्या दुसऱ्या टोकाला घेऊन गेला. 

काहीतरी मोठं मिळवल्याचा आनंद होता त्या मुलाच्या चेहऱ्यावर. छान हसुन धूम ठोकली पट्ठ्यानं. इकडे जराही विलंब नं करता ट्रॅफिक हवालदार परत आपल्या ड्युटीवर रुजू पण झाला होता. 

हे सगळं बघुन मी मात्र जाम खुश झाली होती. म्हणतात ना दररोज काहीतरी इन्स्पिरेशन हवं असतं आपल्याला, आज ते मला ट्रॅफिक सिग्नलवर भेटलं  होता. :)

                                                                                                                                  

                                                                                                                                            - सौजन्य 

                                                                                                                                      पुणे ट्रॅफिक पोलीस 

आयुष्यावर बोलु काही

आज सकाळी जरा लवकरच उठली. हरतालिका , मग पूजा आरती सगळं उरकुन ऑफिसला जायचं होता .  फराळ करून ऑफिसला पोचली तर रिसेपशन लाच टीम मेंबर भेटली .

ती  :"काय मॅडम आज बर्थडे आहे वाटतं ?"
मी : "नाही ग , हरतालिका आहे ना मग जरा मूड होता ट्रॅडिशनल घालायचा . आवडतं मला कधीतरी . "
ती : "झालं  ना लग्न!  भेटला की हवा तसा नवरा !  मग आता काय ग उपास करतेस तु ?"
मी : "अग लग्न आणि नवरा म्हणुन नाही ग , ह्या सगळ्या ट्रॅडीशन्स आपण विसरून जाऊ नाहीतर . कितीतरी सण आहेत ग जे फक्त कालनिर्णय मध्ये आहेत म्हणुन माहित आहेत आपल्याला . आपणच आळस केला आणि ह्या सगळ्या गोष्टींना ओल्ड ट्रॅडीशन्स म्हटलं तर पुढच्या पिढीला कसं  माहित होईल हे सगळं . "
ती : "हाहाहाहा खरंच तु अगदीच जुनाट विचारांची आहेस . जग कुठे पोचलंय आणि तु अजुनही ह्या सगळ्यात अडकुन पडली आहेस . "

हे सगळं बोलून पुढच्याच क्षणी ती निघुन पण गेली .

मला खरतर नाही आवडलं तीच मत पण तिचा स्वभाव तिचे विचार ह्यावर मी नाही कंट्रोल ठेवु शकत आणि तसं करावं तरी का . प्रत्येकाला व्यक्तिस्वातंत्र्य आहे . आपलं मत मांडण्याचा हक्क आहे .

पण तरीही समाजात वावरताना आपले वागणे बोलणे कुठेतरी मॅटर नक्कीच करत . घरातल वातावरण नकळत का होईना तेच संस्कार मुलांवर करत असतं . आपण अगदी सहजच बोलतो , "आमुक आमुक घरातली लोक खुपच भांडखोर आहेत . तमुक तमुक घरात खुपच धार्मिक लोक आहेत . " थोडक्यात काय , आपले विचार आपल्या वागण्यातुन प्रतीत होतात .

मग असं म्हणायचं का , की एका घरातली सगळी माणसं सारख्याच स्वभावाची असतात ? नक्कीच नाही .

माणसाचा स्वभाव हा त्याच्या विचार आणि संस्कारानी नक्कीच बदलु शकतो पण प्रत्येक माणसाचे काही डॉमिनेटींग गुण असतात जे  त्याच्या व्यक्तिमत्वाला दुसऱ्यापासून वेगळं करतात .

खरंतर स्वभाव आणि विचार ह्या दोन खुपच वेगळ्या गोष्टी आहेत . बघायला गेलं तर दोन्हीही गोष्टी माणसामाणसाप्रमाणे बदलतात . उपवास करणे हा माझ्यासाठी चांगला विचार आहे पण कदाचित माझ्या मित्रासाठी ते अंधश्रद्धा असु शकत . कधी कधी स्वभावाने खुप चांगली वाटणारी माणसं विचारांनी तेवढी परिपक्व असतील हे कशावरून? एखाद्याचा स्वभाव रागीट आहे म्हणजे तो माणुस कधी चांगला विचार करतच नाही का?

थोडक्यात काय व्यक्ती तेवढ्या प्रकृती . कुणाचा स्वभाव आपल्याला आवडतो तर कुणाचे विचार . शेवटी माणुस हे तर फक्त प्यादं आहे ना ह्या आयुष्याच्या खेळामधलं .

वसुधैव कुटुंबकम

         ऑफिसची वेळ म्हणजे ट्रॅफिक तर असणारच . त्यात शाळकरी मुलांची शाळेची लगबग. आज सकाळी सिग्नल क्रॉस करताना असाच  चार - पाच मुलांचा ग्रुप माझ्या गाडीसमोर आला. अगदी कचकटून ब्रेक दाबला मी. अगदीच घाबरून गेली होती. त्यांना काही बोलावं अस वाटल पण पुढच्याच क्षणी हसू आलं. सगळ्यांनी एकमेकांचा हात घट्ट पकडलेला. कुणी एक पाऊलही पुढे टाकायला तयार नाही. गाडी थांबल्यावर सगळ्यांनी सोबत धूम ठोकली. 

          त्यांना पाहुन मला माझ्या लहानपणीची एकीचे बळ ही गोष्ट आठवली. सगळे सोबत असले की अशक्य गोष्ट पण साध्य होते. किंवा कुठलंही काम करण्याचं धाडस वाढत. अगदी वारुळात राहणाऱ्या मुंग्या आणी मध गोळा करणाऱ्या मधमाश्यापासुन जंगलात राहणाऱ्या हरणांचा पण कळप असतो. 

           कुटुंब, या शब्दाची जर कुणी डेफिनिशन विचारली तर माहीत नाही माझ्याकडे त्याच करेक्ट उत्तर आहे की नाही.  माझ्या मते ही एक रेलॅटिव्ह टर्म आहे. होय. कुठलाही समुह जो एका सारख्या ध्येयासाठी सोबत राहतो तो समुह कुटुंब असतो. 

            आता बघा ना, आपण एका घरात राहतो, सुख दुःख एकमेकांसोबत शेअर करतो. म्हणजेच आपण दैनंदिन जीवनासाठी हक्काच्या अश्या लोकांसोबत राहतो. ते बनते आपले कुटुंब.  आता समजा आपल्या कुटुंबातील कुणीतरी शेजारच्या गावात कुस्ती स्पर्धेसाठी गेलाय. अगदी झाडुन सगळा गाव त्या व्यक्तीच्या सपोर्ट साठी येते. कारण तिथे माझ्या गावचा विजय झाला पाहीजे असच सगळ्यांना वाटत असत. मग अशा प्रसंगी ते गाव आपल कुटुंब बनत. देशांतर्गत जेव्हा क्रिकेट खेळ सुरु असतो तेव्हा माझा देश हे माझे कुटुंब बनते. 

             थोडक्यात काय, वसुधैव कुटुंबकम !

My Travel Diary #Pune-Shirur

I generally find myself more busy on weekends as every alternate weekend I travel to either Mumbai or my hometown. This weekend it’s my hometown.

Though I consider myself as an exception to typical IT professionals who spend half of their weekend in Bed and rest in Shopping Mall, I couldn’t get up at 6am and travel in this cold winter. J So I decided to travel Friday evening itself. There is one more reason for going home on Friday. I get two whole days to stay at home. J

I was hoping that the bus won’t be much crowded as my assumption was we found them full only on weekends…rather I was assuming that only IT people travel on weekends to make them full :P  But I was wrong. The bus was almost full. I was lucky enough to get one empty seat beside an old uncle mostly in his 70s.

Uncle sitting beside me asked me one question while I was planning to sleep for some time to give some rest to my eyes as I was coming directly from office.

Uncle: “Hi Dear, where are you going?”

Me: “Shirur.”

Uncle: “Oh!! That’s not so far. What do you do? Do you travel every day?”

Me: “I am a software engineer. I work at Pune. I generally travel on weekends.”

Uncle: “Hmm!! That’s good. Where are you from? What your parents do?”

Me: [OMG!! So many questions L considering his age, I couldn’t disrespect any of his question.] I am from Ralegan. (It didn’t take much time for me to tell him about my village as I gave reference of Mr. Anna Hazare.)  My Father is a farmer.

Uncle: Farming. Great!! Was he working somewhere or doing farming from the beginning?

Me: [Please Uncle, Let me sleep. I am too tired to have any discussion at this point in timeL]  No, he is doing farming from the beginning.(It took 5 minutes for me to explain him that my father is a B.A. English Graduate and doing farming by choice.)

Pause for 15 minutes. I was happy thinking that Uncle is not asking any more questions and I could sleep now, but his silence broke very soon.

Uncle: “When did you get these spectacles?”

Me: “When I was in college.”

Uncle: “Do you think working on computer whole day will harm your eyes more?”

Me: “[I smiled. I couldn’t avoid it. It’s my profession. I am doing it for my Bread and Butter. J] Yes, I have to take care of them”

Uncle: “I can tell you one exercise for eyes. Do it every morning. Wash your eyes with cold water. Each morning upon waking fill your mouth with water and hold for a few seconds with your eyes closed. Spit it out and repeat 2-3 times.

I was working with Philips India 35years back. When I was young, the time when I used to stay in Mumbai, I used to go for run, everyday 10 km. We were a team of around 25 people. Nowadays I have relocated to my village and go for a walk around 5km every day.

I feel your generation is very lazy. For most of the time you keep yourself busy with gadgets. There are very few who would like to spend time with nature. “

“Do you feel Computer causes memory loss?”

Me: [What? For a moment I was startled with his question. Then realized what he actually meant to say. ] “Ummm!! Not actually. ”

Uncle: “I will say yes. If I give you my phone number now, you will save it in your mobile and lock your phone. You will not even try to memorize it once as you know; you can get it whenever you need. And here is the trap. I still remember, we used to memorize the whole math chart. There were no calculators allowed. Today everything has a shortcut. So you have stopped memorizing multiple things. All you need to remember is where you have kept your mobile. (and then he smiled)”

“Do you keep interest in philosophy?”

Me: “[I was in a dilemma weather to say yes. But he didn’t give me much time and asked his next question]”

Uncle: “Do you know the difference between Philosophy, Applied Philosophy and Application of applied Philosophy?”

Me: “[OMG!! I can tell you similarity. All have Philosophy. I do keep some interest in Philosophy but this was something beyond my understanding.]”

Uncle: “I will explain it for you.

You got a Thought that is Philosophy.

You got a Situation that is Applied Philosophy

Applying your thought to that situation is an Application of Applied Philosophy.”

Me: “OK!! J [Frankly speaking, I could relate his sentence but was not in a mood to discuss it further.]”

Uncle didn’t ask me any more questions after this one and I slept. I got up when I reached Shirur. By saying final good bye to him I got down the bus.

My Travel Diary #Pune-Mumbai

It has become a routine for me to go to Mumbai every alternate weekend to meet my sweet niece.  :) Last Month on one Saturday I was travelling to Mumbai. I was sitting next to an old uncle in a bus. He must be in his 70's.

I was little upset with myself that I couldn't manage to catch the morning 7.15 train :( and from my old experiences I was knowing that the bus would definitely take more than 4 hrs. For me it's too boring to spend 3-4 hrs sitting idle in a sit because I don't have smart phone to play games for hrs :P and I couldn't listen songs for more than a hr as it becomes too noisy in the running bus that it always gives me a headache. Even I couldn't sleep for continuous 3-4 hrs. I couldn't even look outside because I didn't get window sit....... :'(

I called my sister to tell her that I will reach Mumbai before 12 PM(just to remind her not to forget to cook lunch for me also :P ) . I told her whole story of how I missed my train and all. After 15 minutes of long chat, I cut the phone.

After almost half an hr we started  from Pune station, Uncle sitting beside me pulled out a polythene bag and started eating 'Farsan'. He offered me saying he didn't have breakfast in the morning and have to take his medicines. I felt bad that he has to have Farsan as a breakfast.  But Uncle didn't give me much time to regret for this and continued his talk.

He was saying....

"I stay at Kasaba Peth with my wife. It's very difficult to manage everything because she couldn't walk  properly because of knee pain.  Because of her illness only we have shifted to Mumbai so that our Daughter can take care of us. But we don't like to stay at her home all the time so we keep on travelling between our home in Pune and our Daughter's place in Mumbai."

Me:" Ok." [Just smiled :)] After a long pause of 10 minutes... "Is she the only child of yours?"

Uncle: "No no dear, we have a Son. He is a software engineer and settled in Washington, USA. We have a loving grandson and last year only me and my wife visited USA to meet them. We stayed there for long 6 months but I feel the weather didn't suit us. It's too cold there after 3 PM and we couldn't get out of home after that [I just smiled :)]  and also we feel bored there as there is no one to talk with like in Pune. We had to come back as my wife's health started getting worse there."

[Pause of 15mins....]

Uncle: "My Son won't come back to India as he wants to settle in States and started kind of hating Indian lifestyle. He told us about his decision when last time he visited India, the time I met with an accident. After that accident only I started facing memory loss problem....no no...it's not Amnesia..I do remember everything. It's just that couldn't recollect them instantly. " [My expressions changed suddenly..."How the old couple is surviving having no one to look after them whether they need constant watch."] 

He continued....

"Our Daughter is a Journalist and this is the reason she wanted to settle in Mumbai. She was in Dubai for 2 yrs. She is a smart and intelligent girl...She has many good contacts..In fact I would like to give you her card. You can call her anytime you need.[It was impossible for me to hide the smile on my face....In fact I liked the fact that he was feeling so proud of his daughter.] "

He was talking continuously....He shared so many personal things about his family like how they sold almost all their property to buy a home at Dadar for his daughter. How much he love their current house in Pune and how much sad he is feeling now that he has to sell the property. How Pune has been changed a lot in last 10 yrs...How public transport in Mumbai is far better than in Pune. How politicians are using People like us for their own advantage...............and the list continues.

I was hardly speaking anything...was playing a role of a good listener  :)

By the time we reached Dadar it was almost 1 PM. Saying a final goodbye we got down from the bus and started walking towards our respective destinations.

Meanwhile I received a call from my sister asking at what time I will reach as she is waiting for me to have lunch together :)

To Whom To Blame?

  Today morning I was waiting on bus stop for office bus. While I was totally busy in my thoughts,  a voice startled me.

  A small girl around 5 yrs old came to me and started asking for money. I opened my purse and offered her a coin of five and to my surprise she whispered something as if she was giving blessings to me. I saw she was holding something which was covered in her shawl. I thought the poor girl must be holding her younger sibling. After receiving a coin from me she moved to one of my colleague standing with me.

  Suddenly a teddy bear(Toy) fall down from her shawl and I opened my mouth in awe. This was what she was holding rather hiding in her shawl.

  Suddenly I started feeling both angry and bad for the girl. She was begging to survive and was using this trick to gain sympathy from people like me..so that she can earn more. Maybe it was not her fault and she was taught to do so :(

Learning Ethics!!!

Last weekend I went to an Engineering college for some work. It’s a well known college in the town as it’s been named with the local politician who is the core trustee of the institution. It’s around 3-4 Km inside from main highway. I got down on highway at college road waiting for an auto rickshaw. Finally after long wait of 45 minutes, one auto rickshaw came and was ready to go to the college. He demanded 100 Rs fare for just 2.5 km. I started arguing but gave up too early as he was saying he won’t get fare while returning so he has to charge double.

From outside it seemed to be a good college with big campus. Football ground, basketball-volleyball court, Gymkhana everything was perfect. Forgetting about the struggle I have had to reach the college, I entered the main building of the campus.

From the construction I realized that it’s not a very old college. Someone told me it started just 2-3 years back. I was getting happier while walking the corridor reading quotes written on big posters hanging on the wall.

Suddenly I stopped walking reading the lines written on one of the poster. It stated “The human brain is the most outstanding organ. It functions 24hrs 365 days, right from the time you are born until you fall in love”. I felt silent after reading those lines. How can someone put posters with such quotes in college? Hasn’t this noticed by any of the staff or trustee member? Why no one raised any concern about this? Does the admin authority that has put this poster know the meaning of the sentence? Is it really worth putting such quotes on display? How the audit team will react to this? Or will they not?

So many questions rose in my mind and I started fighting in my own thoughts. I decided to meet principal and tell him about my concern.

Though it seems funny reading above lines, school or college is not the place where you can put this. The college authority should be more concerned while sharing any content publicly as it represents their college status and such things make big impact on students mind.

Let’s teach something that will enhance their personality. Love is such a nice concept and you don’t need to stop your brains for that.

Anyways there are social networking sites for such funny messages and at least schools and colleges should not participate actively in this.