Give me 2 mins...

If using public transport is not convenient for some of us, use pool VS individual car/cab rides. It has now become an environmental emergency.
              
Let us keep our status symbols aside and use them. Leave for your destination a few minutes early. Be ready for a detour.

Help us have better air around. Raise voice against unnecessary garbage burning in your local community area. Ask questions, take steps to stop it.

This year while most of us celebrated Uttarayan and women had haldi Kum Kum celebrations I was alarmed at the return gifts made of Plastic given on these occasions.

While it is considered impolite to refuse a return gift in a social setting. Gently suggesting better alternatives to the host and setting an example by gifting environment friendly gifts is need of the hour.

Same rule applies for return gifts for birthday parties and marriages. The amount of gift wrapping glitter plastic gets trashed on such occasions is scary. Plus this hardly gets re/upcycled.

Don't buy plastic , don't gift plastic unless and until there is no single alternative to it. Return back plastic bags to your local grocery shop or send him your storage dabbas in one trip get them refilled and bring back home some valid reason to feel good.

Yes it will cause tiny inconvenience, bit isn't it worth it? Question harmful lifestyle choices to people close to you and gently suggest organic and environment friendly alternatives  

Open your eyes, get alert, be aware, be the change... Our kids are watching us and learning. Let us set an example. Earth can do without us , it is we that can't do without her.

Enough of viral fever and cough and cold waves every month. Enough if cases of pollution related disorders and health conditions. Let us start living before we die...

- Prajakta Sathe
www.sprajakta.blogspot.in

Free hugs...

I recently went to Pune to just meet and hang around with friends and meet a few acquaintances on Facebook (in real time)
While doing that I made sure that I posted about none of those meetings on Facebook. I met close to a dozen people in 4 days and in a one on one setting with a minimum 90 mins to a few hours of talking with them...
I realised these actual meets gave me much joy that watching these people do their stuff on social media and giving them likes.
To spend time with a person and share the physical space along with the vibes and the TIME makes such amazing difference to our experience world. I was in awe of and humbled by the stories that all of us carry with us to tell. I have not a single pic of any of them neither wish to mention their names since they know we met and how?
One thing struck... Just like any Artist can't be bigger than his Art , a Gadget can't get bigger than a Human... Period. The earlier we accept it the sooner we start living...

What is the gadget doing to us?
As children of our parents ,
As mothers and fathers of our own kids...
Our friends family and the non/existential nature around us.
Do sounds of tenderness , mirth, giggles, gibberish first words, or cries of tantrums /boredom/frustration of learning of those tiny voices become muted and hurt?
Are we letting voices get muffled by the clicks and beeps of messages ?
Relationships redefined by blue ticks at late hours rule and rock our world???
Would those Gifs , emojis , smileys help ease our pain of loneliness?
We become a part of each other's world by sharing Posts, stories, statuses and pictures...
Why do we feel the need of taking our phone on the dinner table?
Why do we look inside the flash world when our sons and daughters tell us about their awesome day in school?
Why the hell do we keep checking the screen inspite of zero updates on Insta and null feeds on FB and then feel bad that life isn't happening for a few seconds and that we are going nowhere...
Where would we go to feel cold?
Whom would we reach out to for warmth?
Would we value presence... silence...
Would we ever relearn to read feelings , body language or the unspoken word?
Would we give take and share and celebrate TIME?
Would we stay still or even move and walk and talk without thumbs strutting and palms fidgeting through widgets and swaps and scrolls?
Would we decipher sunshine without adjusting the brightness or appreciate simplicity without filters?
Would we care to ask someone for real as to how Are they doing and if they want to talk? Or meet up?
I phones I pads I pods Chromecast Amazon fire shooters virtual reality interface spects Apple watch and lots more...
We wake up to screens to switch off the alarm then look in our calenders for schedules and call a cab for work throught an app and work on our laptops while commuting and make presentations online and take conference calls and do strategy planning and come home to sit on the table each one of us with a friend online giving likes commenting and watching others...
All of these Gadgets got lucky...
They got to use us...
We became Robots with intelligence but no cognition of reality...
Would we stop?
Ever?

Prajakta Sathe

Linen...

Windows to my soul...
Secrets - neatly tucked in sombre quilts of presence...
Thoughts hung to dry; dripping with pitter patter drops of emotions ...
Longing , stretched to press and fold; to be  stacked one above the other...
Sandwiched between desires and cravings...
Some whims arranged on hangers to quickly throw on , on days of uncalled for solitude...
Love... Spritzed on this wardrobe of existence...
Search, quest, yearning make sounds on a keychain of a cresent shaped pearl tub ...
I am bliss!
- Prajakta Sathe

If only...

There lay 1000 suns amidst the thought of asking you out and the possibility of even considering to sit across a table with those jet black eyes staring the hell out of me asking all curious questions without a single word...
Not because you were monogamous in your failed marriage to a girl out of your religion , not because I have been polygamous in my successful marriage within my community caste and subcaste too...
Not because you unjudged me for being happily uncommitted in a legal bond not because I excused you for now exploring physical perks of non matrimonial crown...
Not because you told me you are attracted to me not on face but on hush hush blue ticks at wee hours unbothered...
Not because the experimental kiss that happened between us was awkward from your end and totally working and hot on mine...
Unbothered because you cared to tell me no it's not working and that you can't do it to your best friend's wife...
Unbothered because you knew that I had already married my boyfriend's best friend once and that craziness runs in my blood
Not because it definitely unbothered me if  any faintest resemblance of her to me un-nerved you or maybe absolutely not...
But because it unbothered me if I could yet again fall for another best friend of my husband ...
History repeating itself till lessons were learnt was a scary realisation and both you and me were tired of running on and off this track with our historical baggages in tow...
Of questions about our present , about plastic fences that we pseudo cared for scare us even as we deny...
About synthetic conditioning that we were raised to believe in , about morals that societ reforms sulked about and about my genuine trust about human resonance...
Sure of my craziness of leaving it all and running off with a vibrationally synchronised soul about letting everyone love anyone and celebrating anyone loving everyone
About the shock, disbelief and unacceptance about my evolution from my crushes on different attributes at different times on different men...
If only we could take a step
If only we could learn to trust
If only we could build up a whim
If only if we dared to dream
If only we could hold the hand
And walk some steps...
With no sacred fire , zero precious metal rings , nil signs on pieces of paper
Live for an experience to be etched in our blueprints just to learn a lesson and move ahead in life without creating additional drama around things...
If only I could be humanly divine as you just like how divinely human I am...

Galaxies in my cup...

Missing you Never happens out of the blue
Midnights of cold enforced solitude when mugs of hot chocolate and fluffy blankets fail miserably to provide the expected rise in mercuries from Mars and Venus...
I keep remembering the comforting darks that we spent on our favorite recliner, watching mushy rom coms , chick flicks, dramas, thrillers , actions, horrors sometimes wearing each other's clothes...
Me in your boxers and you in my singlet...
On nights of off season or in season rains when there is no moon to look at or no thinking that you may also be looking at it from where you are, connecting us in strange ways because monsoon here and there pours waters that taste differently
On rainless noons where sun blazes fire to shame , my hormones unable to tame yearn to undo your weaning
And noons remind me of your full shirts that I hated... Because you looked drop dead handsome in them and then I wouldn't want to let you go for work looking all dapper in that powder blue crisp formal shirt and khaki beige killer trousers...
I also hated you in short sleeved tees... Because then I could skin feel your   impeccably carved biceps that made me want to be in your arms for another minute way past your till your sleeping patience ran out , but you'd still stay in and lay there doing what you gorgeously did...
Run your fingers through my hair while we spoke nothing feeling your heart beats as my head rested on your chest...
I also hated you without shirt... Because it showed marks of a kiss here and a faint scratch there... Your flat stomach and the scar on your neck which reminded me of the tree bark you lifted to save me from an accidental leg slip on our way down from Karnala bird sanctuay... I hated you always... With clothes or without and you loved me nevertheless...
The door bell rings incessantly on some days and random mails , parcels couriers drop in not allowing me to day dream about you about us about how your honey almond  eyes gleamed when they caught me staring at you in between routine random talks ...
On chirpy spring mornings when the cuckoo peps the world in candy floss and yet my world spins for a toss when some lay man in the lift wears the same Issey miyake making my heart skip a beat on the whim of a whiff...
I remember the post work mandatory hug that smelled ohh so good and familiar and calmed me down with the fragrance...
I remember how we'd skip dessert to quickly brush and get in bed and how one of us burst into a laughing fit blaming the other to be extra horny since the paste taste was still there...
Someone forgot to rinse well said our notoriously inviting stare...
No it's not gross that I still remember how you tasted early in the morning unbrushed unwashed on my palette, your morning breathe was musk and so was our post workout love making...
Uninhibited , unhygienic, crude, raw...
I remember that I ate my food fast but you ate it faster and so we d never dine out we d rather cook at home ....
Which meant that I cooked and you d do your man thing
You d watch the match or the news or the history channel or YouTube
I d lovingly serve you d ravenously eat and then we d savor our lips for dessert  and make out on the couch
And as we happened some things didn't
Like I expressed myself through words I tried to understand that maybe you couldn't
I wanted to know where we stood , who we were and our woulds or coulds
I wanted to know if there were any boundaries expectations or labels to what we were
Some things needed to be named as we grew near
I asked you smiled and then we walked a few miles
It was a walking date , maybe twist of fate
You chose to close you read out three poems which stated your current state of mind , those poems weren't yours...
I was looped into an uncalled for rewind.
To want a closure not a seal was just a small wish not a big deal
I wanted to know not command where we were what was our stand
You kept being gentle I kept being sweet
We drifted apart clean and neat
Now you visit me unannounced and straight only in memories where the new me still waits...