I read the banner this
morning while walking towards the park. “All womens meet - To spread awareness
of women empowerment and rights -Venue :
Senior citizen’s park - Date & Time : 15 Jan 2014, 3 PM”. This is being organized
by local womens’ welfare organization. I liked the the initiative, more so the venue, women
will be safe & secure there.
While walking, I imagined
them inviting me to address this gathering. Me having such a good track record
in that area, I couldn't completely rule out that possibility. What would I
speak at such a short notice? “Maaji”, whom I met many years back, came
to my mind. I can surely project her as a role model.
This was during my travel to Chicago. I exited hell and entered heaven after the security check, of course after a short & nice body massage by
the airport security staff at “Bombay” airport (Things have improved a lot now a
days in "Mumbai" airport, I’m talking about mid 90’s).
Waiting for the boarding
call, I went and sat next to Maaji, I didn’t know her before, just felt like going and sitting next to her. Within
5 minutes she gathered all back ground information about me & my trip. Only
then she was comfortable to answer some of my questions, which I had raised earlier! Maaji was extremely cautious.
This is Maaji’s 3rd trip, that too alone. She can
speak English just good enough. Rest all she manages in Hindi, heavily “Gujaratised”.
She hails from a rural village and they have reasonably good amount of
agricultural land. She lost her husband 5 years back, he had been suffering from
multiple chronic illnesses, and was bed ridden for a long time. She had to single
handedly manage their family of 5 children. Provided basic education to all of
them, the youngest son managed to study more, got a job in the US through a
distant family friend and settled down there. Her purpose of these visits is to
meet her son and his family and spend a week or two with them. Maaji is independent, bold and good in managing her own.
Since the flight was not
full, we managed to get adjacent seats at our choice. While having dinner (or was it breakfast?) I saw Maaji struggling with
fork & knife. She sensed my amusement. It seems she learnt a bit to use
these complicated things from her grand children during her last visit. These
are the rare opportunities she gets which she wanted to utilize fully. Even at
this age, Maaji was keen to learn new things, making good use of available
resources and opportunities.
We had transit at
Frankfurt and for some vague reason, our passport & visa was getting checked while
going from one concourse to the other. There were 2 counters, Maaji took the
lead and stood in the counter which had only two or three people in the queue,
as there was a long queue at the other one. I just followed her. The German “gentleman”
at the counter stared at us when our turn came. He said “10 steps- back- look
up- read”. Maaji understood this better than me. I faithfully took 10 wide
steps, as wide as possible to meet German standards and looked up and read. No
wonder why the German was so furious. The counter where we went was for only
Germans ! The other one was the one meant for Foreign Nationals. Maaji was
quick enough to admit her mistake to me and begged her pardon a few times till
we reached the counter designated for us.
I went to sleep for a
while near the departure gate, as there was time for connecting flight to
Chicago. I suddenly woke up hearing some commotion. Maaji was again at the centers
stage. She was shouting at the airlines people at the gate in Guajarati ( not
that I know Gujarati, but it was neither Hindi nor English. When someone gets
angry, I have seen him switching to his mother tongue so that he can convey feelings
more effectively with no need to search for words! ). I went near the scene to
check what had happened. Airlines people informed Maaji that her check-in
baggage would not be loaded in this Chicago flight but only in the next one. She could not tolerate that. She managed to get more senior people from airlines involved
and finally got her baggage loaded in the current flight, though the flight was
delayed by 45 minutes. Maaji fought for her cause even in unfriendly
environments.
Later I asked Maaji why she
was worried much; they would deliver the baggage to her forwarding address next day. She told “ I know that. But what will happen
to the Rasmalai carefully prepared by me for my people ? Won’t it
lose its freshness more?”. Maaji was so caring for her loved ones.
I saw her later at the
Chicago airport while collecting baggage. As we walked out together, I saw a large group waiting outside anxiously to receive Maaji – her son and his family plus his
friends and his friends' families. I quickly bid farewell to Maaji before hugging starts
and Rasmalai gets distributed then and there.
“Maa(ji) Tuje Salaam”.
I concluded my speech and realized that I am not at the podium. But my morning walk just got over without being conscious of walking.
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