Stay tuned to our new posts and updates! Click to join us on WhatsApp 
& Telegram 
Channel
& Telegram Channel 
The L&C-Silhouette Basket
A hand-picked basket of cherries from the world of most talked about books and popular posts on creative literature, reviews and interviews, movies and music, critiques and retrospectives ...
to enjoy, ponder, wonder & relish!
to enjoy, ponder, wonder & relish!
A jaadu ki jhappi is enough to wash away the blues of life, if even for a few seconds. A handful of love, a fistful of warmth, a guileless smile, a shoulder to cry on and the golden shower from above is all that one needs to get through in life.
Enjoy Morning Meanderings with a hot cup of tea or coffee and some cookies to munch on the food for thought. 😊 ☕️
I had just begun my walk, but the other joggers had finished their walk and were now comfortably ensconced on discarded oil cans which were doing double duty as stools outside the tea kiosk. Pretty wobbly ones. The ground was uneven, sitting on the stools was precarious, but unfazed by the wobbliness of the stools, the joggers cum discussants were going full throttle. I noticed an absolutely new group of joggers who, I was told, were lecturers of an engineering college in the vicinity.
Comments and counter comments were being bandied about, interspersed with loud slurps of tea, head shaking and clucking of tongues.
“We have two Indias; one reels under a dry spell, and the other is flooded. Look at this pic,” said one wiping beads of sweat from his forehead.
The newspaper showed a family preparing food on a makeshift raft in a village in Assam.
“Our priorities are all skewed,” said one, with a goatee beard, morosely shaking his head.
“Kitney haathi!” The three year old son of the tea vendor walked up to the man reading the newspaper and exclaimed in a highly excited pitch.
“Dhat! Yeh koi haathi hain!” His mother remarked, handing a miniscule cup of tea to the man, who looked as if, any moment, he would topple off the stool. From the woman’s expression I could gauge, that she herself did not know what the animals were.
They were rhinos which had moved to higher grounds in the flood affected areas of Kaziranga in Assam.
“It is always the poor who have to suffer,” the woman remarked, deftly pouring another cup of tea.
“We are sending the Chandrayana to the moon, but are we bothered about the plight of the common man?” The man with the goatee said, scratching his goatee.
“I think, it was in the year 1972 that the king of Bhutan had decided that his country would adopt gross national happiness as a goal. People scoffed at the idea. But, honestly speaking, shouldn’t the happiness and well-being of the citizenry be any democracy’s priority?”
Morning Meanderings by Dr Santosh Bakaya
These words followed me as I walked a little further. Health, satisfaction, well-being? Yes, indeed, was it not important? I trudged on, lost in deep thought, my lips moving and heart praying for the people of Assam.
The labourers’ shacks a little distance away, were buzzing with activity. Cow dung cakes were stacked in a corner, one on top of the other, like a wobbly pyramid about to topple over and an old woman sat on a frayed string cot, cleaning and chopping sprigs of spinach, potatoes, onions and garlic. Another was stoking the fire with pieces of cow dung cakes and twigs. An absolutely bony dog slouched near the pyramid with a proprietorial air. The old woman flung a toothless smile in my direction, so full of warmth that I wanted to go up to her and hug her. And I did.
Momentarily taken aback, she looked at me with a nondescript expression and hugged me tighter – her bony arms refusing to leave me for half a minute, then she showered me with blessings galore. Her genuine innocence and the spontaneous love gushing forth was so endearing, that I was sure it would fortify me for many a day.
“Kal bhi aana,” she called after me. “Zindagi mai aur kuch nahi bass pyarr key do bol chaiyeyen. Lekin charon or bass nafrat hai!”
We live in an age of image consultants, where the word of every celebrity is carefully curated, and presented in caps and ellipses galore. I had found my celebrity, and her words were forever etched in my heart. I doffed my hat to her as the Midas touch of the sun turned her white hair to gold. A handful of love, a fistful of warmth, a guileless smile, a shoulder to cry on and the golden shower from above – does a person want anything more in this hate ravaged world? The old woman had got her priorities absolutely right, so what if the others’ had not! The jaadu ki jhappi was enough to wash away the blues of life, if even for a few seconds.
I headed home, bent on flaunting the old woman’s words to the world in golden caps – LOVE MAKES THE WORLD GO ROUND!
Watch this space for more Morning Meanderings every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday.😊
Click to read all Morning Meanderings here.
Dr Santosh Bakaya is the author of three mystery novels for young adults, and a book of essays titled Flights From My Terrace, which was recently published as an e-book on Smashwords. Her poetic biography of Mahatma Gandhi, Ballad Of Bapu has been published by Vitasta Publishers, Delhi, India in May 2015 and has been receiving rave reviews from everywhere. Although a Political theorist, with a doctorate in political theory, it is literature which has been her first love. She was awarded the Reuel international award for language and literature 2014 for her long poem Oh Hark!, which forms part of the Significant Anthology. Many of her poems have figured in the highly commended category in Destiny Poets, a UK based website and many are part of international anthologies. Right now, she is giving the final touches to her satirical novel, tentatively titled Sanakpur Shenanigans.
All Posts of Santosh Bakaya
All Posts of Santosh Bakaya
Hope you enjoyed reading...
... we have a small favour to ask. More people are reading and supporting our creative, informative and analytical posts than ever before. And yes, we are firmly set on the path we chose when we started... our twin magazines Learning and Creativity and Silhouette Magazine (LnC-Silhouette) will be accessible to all, across the world.
We are editorially independent, not funded, supported or influenced by investors or agencies. We try to keep our content easily readable in an undisturbed interface, not swamped by advertisements and pop-ups. Our mission is to provide a platform you can call your own creative outlet and everyone from renowned authors and critics to budding bloggers, artists, teen writers and kids love to build their own space here and share with the world.
When readers like you contribute, big or small, it goes directly into funding our initiative. Your support helps us to keep striving towards making our content better. And yes, we need to build on this year after year. Support LnC-Silhouette with a little amount - and it only takes a minute. Thank you
Got a poem, story, musing or painting you would like to share with the world? Send your creative writings and expressions to editor@learningandcreativity.com
Learning and Creativity publishes articles, stories, poems, reviews, and other literary works, artworks, photographs and other publishable material contributed by writers, artists and photographers as a friendly gesture. The opinions shared by the writers, artists and photographers are their personal opinion and does not reflect the opinion of Learning and Creativity- emagazine. Images used in the posts (not including those from Learning and Creativity's own photo archives) have been procured from the contributors themselves, public forums, social networking sites, publicity releases, free photo sites such as Pixabay, Pexels, Morguefile, etc and Wikimedia Creative Commons. Please inform us if any of the images used here are copyrighted, we will pull those images down.
One thought on “Jaadu ki Jhappi (The Magical Hug)”
Leave a Reply
Today’s Motivation
Christmas is not a day, but a state of mind. Peace, Goodwill and Humanity unfurls the real spirit of Christmas
Your words …your demeanor…your motherly smile are like jaldi ki jhappi for everyone around you. The old lady is not the only beneficiary. I can always feel it for myself.