Flowers, food and fun

The last Sunday of November is a very important day for a group of about 40 women in Chandigarh. For the last 25 years, they have been converging at the house of Gunita Gill, to admire her love's labour: chrysanthemums in a riot of colours and varieties of sizes, and even shapes. "Diginity", that's what this one is called, Gunita told some of the ladies who were in raptures over one brilliant big bloom.
Gunita is a clinical biologist who chose to give up her work at the city's General Hospital, to write straight from her heart in a language she loves--her mother tongue, Punjabi. Equally, she chucked it up to keep her beautiful home the way she wants it to be, with change being the only constant. Everytime you enter, there is something new, and it is always a piece of art, ethnic at that, from some part of the country. Someone once told Gunita that her drawing room reminded them of Pupul Jayakar's. For those who are not familiar with who Pupul is, she was the czarina of Indian arts and crafts, shaping the government's approach to art and artists during the days Prime Minister Indira Gandhi revived so many such crafts that would have otherwise died quitely.
All the 40 ladies are professional women--doctors, professors, media persons, officials and what have you. The binding factor is the love for simple sweet things of life--to positively appreciate and encourage the passions of the others, be it a block printed silk kurta or a phulkari, or a print framed and put up, or a little terracotta piece from somewhere. Equally, all will unabashedly enjoy what Gunita lays out attractively, and lavishly on her table. The menu, Gunita likes to believe, is the same year after year, as are the flowers. But to this, I say, yes and no.
There is invariably one new variety of chryasanthemum in her collection. When she had the first party in a two-room apartment's tiny balcony, there were about 60 pots.Now there are more than 2000 of them, and plenty on the beds, the baskets, and whatever else she can find around the place. Her keen eyes keep track of the new stuff that someone displays at the city's annual Chrysanthemum show. Gunita, however, never exhibits at such dos. There is an exclusivity that is zealously guarded by her, for these close friends.
She works on them round the year, and unlike most house owners, she does not supervise her gardener. She has him help her, simply as errand boys would. They are her babies to tend to, she will not pass that pleasure to anyone else.
Through all these years, she has a partner and companion in Manju Dutta, the Director of Dental Services in Haryana when she hung up her high heels a few years ago. Her passion for these flowers is matched by Gunita's , and towards this end, they are a twosome. Manju shows her flowers in a strip tease kind of a way-- very few people at a time!!
Gunita's party is always an all-female affair, with her husband Dr Amod Gupta, an eminent professor of Ophthalmology, relegated to his room on the first floor, if he is not out of town for a conference or seminar.Amod's own passion is uvititis-- the spelling may be wrong, but it's a super specialisation in eye. Gunita knows her chrysanthemums would not be nourished, without his help, but that won't make her change her mind about...

Like an addition in the flower variety, Gunita's dining table too has one or another surprise element. Today it was methiwale poori, with channa, in addition to the long list of goodies.
To sustain an interest in celebrating these blooms and the lovely winter that is kissed by the mountain breeze from the Shivaliks, for 25 years, through joint pains and the like is not easy. But Gunita does it with a smile. We have yet to figure whether it is for the love of us all, her friends, or the love of the chryasanthemums !! But who cares anyway !!

To Sir,with Love

This was the kind of cliched headline, Prabhash Joshi, Resident Editor of the Indian Express in Chandigarh,where I started out as a trainee centuries ago, would never have forgiven me. He loved originality.But try as I may, I cannot come up with a better one. He left us on Nov 5. All of us who were trainee journalists with him knew what Joshiji was made of --best of values. That day, each of us must have recalled the many little things he may have told us.Always fondly.

"Vijaya Rani" was how he affectionately called me.

It was the eve of the railway budget, and as the reporter on night duty, I had to get reactions from various segments of society to whatever was in the budget. I was not even two months on the job. Very simply, I wrote an imaginary piece, reacting as a housewife, a teacher, a handicapped man, the father of a disabled kid, a senior citizen and what have you. The box item appeared pretty prominently with my byline. At the editorial meeting the next morning, Joshiji complimented me on it, and asked me how I had managed it. Happily I told him that it had not taken me five minutes! If he was shocked, he did not show it. He told me how we had to call up or meet real people and get their views ! And never then or after did he make me feel silly about it. More than that, he never allowed any senior colleague--or my contemporaries for that matter-- make me feel bad about it. That was Joshiji.

A few days later, the roof of a Satsang Bhawan under construction collapsed. The sad part was there were many people sitting in the hall under construction, and singing their bhajans. The IE had the story properly, only while I had said 18 dead, the paper said 3 injured. I complained about the change. Joshiji complimented me for the job of rushing to the spot--remember I was alone on a night shift, with not even two months of work behind me!-- and asked me how I had arrived at 18 dead. I counted them myself, I told him.He told me they had simply fainted, and after I got back to office, the first aid etc, they were all fine. Thank God for the news agencies' experienced reporters, we did not look foolish with that exaggerated story.

But that was the last major guffaw. Then came a court notice from an upstart lecturer at the university. I was scared.Joshiji told me that I should walk past him with my nose held high."Tell him we will have the country's top lawyers fight it out, because we are right," he said.

But it was not just as editor that he influenced us.Long before HRD was part of the corporate world including media, Joshiji made it a point to interact with all the staff and their families. Starting himself, he set the trend of a monthly dinner at a different colleague's place, with the food cooked by the lady of the house, if necessary, with the help of wives of other colleagues. Bachelor girls, Neeru(Nirupama Dutt) and I joined hands! And he knew everyone's every story, and our love stories!

Joshiji introduced me to a Brit journalist friend of his. He invited me for tea one evening. A few days later, it was a dinner outing. "These things start with tea and end up in tears, Vijaya Rani" he told me lightly. But when Pramod Pushkarna and I started seeing each other, Joshiji was okay with it. And when we got married, he wrote an editorial in Jansatta, because those days there were not too many cases of a girl from Kumbakonam marrying a boy from Phalodi in Rajasthan!

That Joshiji was a great cricket enthusiast everyone knows. But I wonder how many know that Kapil Dev's talent was spotted, and in a way nurtured by Prabhash Joshi. All of us in the Express then had celebrated Kapil's birthdays in our office, with Joshiji playing the fond father to the birthday boy.

When hockey player Dhyan Chand died, we did not mourn officially in the Express office.But Joshiji went up to our Chief Sub, Namboodiri, and gave him all the money that he had deep down in the right pocket of his kurta. He had given a great headline."Unto God the Last Goal", and those were not the times when such brilliance was recognised with awards! And equally, Joshi belonged to that tradition where elders blessed youngsters, and from time to time, gave shagun!!

Most of us were young. We had a senior colleague, a special correspondent, B K Chum. He wrote special articles and columns, which were on subjects like agricultural prices, waters etc,whereas we all broke news. Jokingly, we youngsters would talk of Mr Chum as recycling his own stories. Joshiji strongly discouraged such behaviour, on grounds that Mr Chum was years senior to us. He may forgive journalistic errors, but was a stickler for good conduct, and great values. Now when we have got to where Mr Chum was then, we know that journalism is more than merely breaking stories.And we have grown up imbibing good values. Thank you, dear Sir.

Here was one editor who was rooted to the Earth. A visit to his house showed us what simple living and high thinking was all about. Mrs Joshi (Usha) made lovely food, and we all sat around and enjoyed it, with Pappu,Lali and Sopan running around. If they are great human beings, we know it is because they were lucky to have a father like Joshiji.

I can go on and on and on. May be some other time. May be, I would rather keep some of my sentiments to myself. But then, none of these will be new to those who knew Prabhash Joshi.Thank God, for having made people like him. Please God, make more like them.


(Thank you, www.currentnews.in for the photograph of Joshiji)

Why Marmalade & Mixture?

Life is like marmalade. Bitter sweet. Life is equally like "Mixture", a south-Indian snack, made with crispies in different shapes, fried or roasted, pounded rice and puffed rice, cashew nuts and peanuts, brightly coloured-sugar coated 'saunf '--aniseed,crunchy and crisp curry leaves, all tossed in salt, chilly powder, ' hing' and other spices.
Anything one writes will definitely have to do with life, and so be sometimes bitter-sweet, and sometimes like mixture. And if one is down in the dumps, feeling low or ill, one may not be in the mood to spread a spoonful of marmalade on a toast and have it with a lovely, exhilarating cup of perfectly made Darjeeling tea. Nor to munch the mixture down to the last grain. But then, one will recover, sooner than later, and want marmalade on toast, or mixture or both !
One hopes those visiting this blog want to polish off to the last word! The windows of "Marmalade & Mixture" will forever remain open to allow all the cultures of the world to blow in with their wonderful ideas.