Let me ask you the typical question... do you think you have it all or do you think you need more? I am really not much of a philosopher but one particular conversation between me and my baby's maalish bai whom we call maushi really jolted me and made me think.
As she likes to say, she stays in the better part of the slum area behind our building. While going about her job, she was telling me about her life and her life changing experiences... 4 children, 2 girls and 2 boys, all graduates, a couple of them married ... she said 'only i remember how we raised 4 children and educated them inspite of the poverty we had. Clothes, water and even food was limited to help save for the books and fees. But we knew education was the answer to live a better life and we did all we could for all 4 children. Today all of them have office work and we live a good life - today we have a room made of bricks, have a bulb at home and I cook on a stove! Now we are financially good too!' In her marathi words 'ata aamchi paristithi changli ahe'
... she sees the better life of so many homes where she works, but she still feels she lives a good life in her own right. It truly is appreciable!
4 comments:
Very frankly, she has the good life and the better life. I won't call a life that spends all day in office and all evening on con-calls with US, the good life. She probably got to whack the kids, play with them in the evening and make a big deal of a Sunday outing to Juhu beach. We end up spending Rs.30K on a weekend trip to Goa, all the while fiddling with the Blackberry.
Am really proud and inspired by stories like hers. I hope and pray her kids are able to move beyond the paristhiti they were born into. That is genuine growth!
yeah...very true, wht more can i say, such experiences leave me speechless...
I hear you!
Our maid lives near the railway colony and she thanked my mom fr givin her our old door wen we renovated d kitchen so now she has a front door instead of the cloth covering.
hey heathcliffs girl, thanks for stopping by and leaving a comment ... yeah, simple pleasures turn out to be a big deal for a lot of people... just trying to keep my eyes wide open since then ...
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