Vignettes

A fellow Passenger

Rajesree was sitting next to me on a four-hour flight from Mumbai to Bangkok. She is a Maharastrian woman in her early 40s with whom I could converse in Marathi. She told me that this was her first trip out of India. She had gotten her Indian passport only 10 days back.

This one-week trip to Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore was a surprise gift from her husband. He wanted her to join her four lady friends who were taking this trip. He told her two days before the trip that he had bought her ticket. She did not know any details about her itinerary or what she would like to see or do. She was going to depend on her friends.

She was nervous about leaving her young son behind as he had important exams. Only one exam was remaining. She was also hesitant because her husband had never gone out of the country and she did not want to go before him. He told her “ladies first” and she accepted!

I found out that she had met her husband, a Punjabi, in college. They had a “ love marriage” i.e. not arranged by the family. Her Maharastrian family was initially opposed to her wedding, but her Punjabi in-laws were very accepting of her. They did tell her to change her name to a Punjabi name as is customary in many traditional Indian families. The woman changes not only her last name but also her first name picked out by her in-laws. She felt that her in-laws were very considerate because they wanted her to keep the word “Raj” in her name, now she is Rajender Kaur.

She was truly happily married even after 21 years and was praising her in-law family who all treated her well. She was still in love with her husband as indicated by how much she blushed telling me the story.

A French trio

We were having dinner in an air-conditioned restaurant on a stuffy night in Bangkok. On the next table there was a man and two women about our age enjoying wine. They were conversing in French. I asked them if they liked the “house wine” that was on the menu. The lady who was more fluent in English than the rest said the red was better than the white. She jokingly assured me that the French know their wines.

She said she and her husband live in India in Auroville ashram. She has lived there for past twenty-five years, her husband joined her more recently.

Auroville is an experimental community near town of Pondicherry in the southern Indian state of Tamilnadu. This town was a vision of The Mother (Mirra Alfassa) and was established in 1968. Her vision was to build a community where people from all over the world could live in harmony. It has been a famous tourist spot in that part of the world as many people are intrigued by it’s philosophy, which has lasted for so long without imploding. When I visited it with my mother many years ago I remember it felt like I was somewhere in Europe and not in India. However I had not met any residents of Auroville personally.

According to the lady (we did not exchange our names) there are currently 2500 residents of Auroville, about a third of them are Indians and a third are French. The rest are from around the world. Residents have their own homes but many things are done on a community level. The French lady said she is involved with recycling and her husband is a handyman for the community.

This is an interesting concept in living! The only thing I found amusing when I looked up information about Auroville is that alcohol is not allowed on the premises. So my friend has retained her taste for wine for twenty-five years!!

Meera 1 February 2019