"A few stray thoughts".....this title comes straight from the columns written by the famous columnist late Mr. Behram Contractor,who wrote under the pen name Busybee in the evening news MID DAY and later in the Afternoon dispatch and courier, many years ago.
I remember that on Saturdays, his column titled "Round and about" always began with the line..."and for a Saturday, a few stray thoughts and a few general observations, and a few points of view, all my own work...!" The Saturday column used to have his many opinions on different topics and experiences of his own expressed in just a line or two and they essentially started with the word "like". Busybee wrote for 36 years and his excellence in writing and journalism is well known to the world, but what made it appealing to me was the fact that his column was so simply written. For a Marathi medium school girl like me, it would be an achievement then to have read an article in English and to have understood the whole of it...including the humour in it. Simplicity requires great intelligence.
Yesterday morning, I woke up and habitually peeped out of my window. I saw the society sweeper cleaning the compound. His broom was brushing away fallen leaves, dust etc making the ground cleaner and cleaner with every sweep. I kept watching. An ordinary menial job, so to say, was being performed by the cleaner....every day without fail. The building compound looked spic and span for at least some time of the day till another set of leaves started falling from the trees, and the other trash started accumulating.
Can I appoint someone to clean my mind everyday....without fail? The clutter would be cleaned regularly to give me a spic and span, and fresh mind at least for some part of the day! Well, surely, I can be that sweeper myself, at the service of my own mind. Can we then call sweeping a menial job?
I sat in the window in the afternoon expecting rains to fall. The sky had choked since morning faking imminent downpour. It has become a regular feature this monsoon. But finally, it rained, though little but it rained yesterday afternoon. I sat in the window with a book in hand and calmly taking in the cool breeze. It felt heavenly.
These days, whenever I sit late night watching some film on HBO or Sony Pix, my father peeps into the room and inquires if it's an Audrey Hepburn film. Yesterday, I thought of giving my father a trip down his memory lane by showing him the " Roman Holiday" starring the beautiful Audrey Hepburn and the gregarious Gregory Peck. The innocence of the whole film was so touching. The old world charm of the film made my old father really happy, and my purpose was served. That I love the film to the hilt is another story....some other time about the innocent and vulnerable Princess....Audrey.
My lemongrass plant has given up. I watered it too much I guess. Now, I am left with just the moneyplant which has grown so well. I remember having picked up a tiny branch of it when it almost came under my feet. I planted it at home. The tiny branch has now flourished into a freshly green, leafy creeper. Moneyplants need minimum attention and care, they say. ...and the Lemongrass - less water and more sunlight - my sister admonished me. Oh, all I wanted was the happily settled Lemongrass at my window. Looks like too much care spoilt it.
and the final point of view, that I am no Busybee and that today is not a Saturday but the fact that I still remember his Saturday Column beginning and that I get inspired to write in somewhat his style only shows how great works make an impact for years.
