SPIRIT OF MUMBAI

The cheerful faces of excited children blushed the red roses at the World Vision India  Partners Meet in Mumbai on 27th February. I know there are too many adverbs in a single sentence but can not help praising the World Vision India. Such was the exhilarating , refreshing and mood-boosting atmosphere at the partners meet that, all of us first time visitors are grateful to World Vision India for absorbing us in their Multi-Dimensional activities. World Vision India is a Christian humanitarian organization working to create lasting change in the lives of children, families and communities living in poverty and injustice. World Vision serves all people regardless of religion, caste, race, ethnicity or gender. Spread across 174 districts in India, World Vision works through long-term sustainable community development programmes and immediate disaster relief assistance I am passionate about children-cause so I grabbed this opportunity to blog for World Vision India...

"Oops, I have forgotten the keys , we have to return Home and collect it" - Sandhya, my cousin-friend declared with alarming hurry. We were already late due to the office-rush hour and to top that lateness, we had to return home. Our mobiles were constantly buzzing with friends, threatening to call 100 , 101 , 102 ,... if we didn't reach the venue within a second. As if we possessed couple of time-machines. Now that's typical of school-friends. They take you for granted. They think of you as Omnipotent and Useless in the same instance.  We pacified them with the coolest promise of Magnum Chocolate Infinity Ice-candies, if they didn't kill us on arrival. They bargained for 2 candies each, we cursed Foreign Direct Investment in retail but our taste-buds were already in raptures.  At last, we reached the venue for the get-#together / reunion of school-friends, exactly an hour after the scheduled time. We were fashionably late but still received the warmes...

    Itani shakti hame dena dataa, mann ka vishwaas kamjor ho naa !                 Hum chale nek rastepe humse , bhoolkar bhee koi bhool ho naa ! Kinley 2014 TVC               The morning school prayer was over and the first period was in full swing, when we reached the school. The peon led us , latecomers to the Principal's cabin. We were six in all, we the Pandav ( gang of five school girls ) and a boy from other class. The boy was quite infamous for his bluntness. He blurted that , he was half way to the school and suddenly he could not control his bowel movement , so he had to return home. He even had a sweet excuse for his rush. He had eaten 2 Besan-laddus. The principal scrunched her nose and asked him to join the class. We were fascinated by the boy's story but did not dare to repeat it for obvious reason.                    " Just...

                "Aey you, Ponytail , get out. No more ponytails in my school."- bellowed Mr. Zuralh .  Mr. Zuralh was our P.T. Sir / Instructor. He spent most of the P.T. time in searching for the girls with ponytails, shouting and sending them home. We hardly got any time to play or exercise on the school-playground.              We, the girls hated Mr. Zuralh so much , that we forgot his real name and referred him by the nickname Zuralh . Zuralh means cockroach in Marathi. He had wild, bushy mustache, which was always frizzy. Whenever he spotted a pony-tailed girl his mustache-antennae would bristle. He transformed into a Wolfe, ready to pounce.               Many of us, who had short hair, tried to braid it but alas , it was impossible. We dreaded going to school , whenever we had a P.T. period. Our heads would ache , our legs would sprain, our shoulders ...