A Thing of Beauty is a Joy Forever...

This is a love story. It’s a timeless love story!! This is a love story that began when I was fifteen. It’s weird and wonderful how some things, some feelings and some memories just stay with us through the years.

The house I lived in with my parents was a very simple home but I was always attracted to curios and pieces of art. I would forever be glancing at magazines that featured beautiful art. As a teenager the first time I visited my aunt (Jeroo Masi) at her new home, at Colaba-Sagar Sangeet, I felt I had stepped into a different world. It was a world I could live in for the rest of my life without asking for anything else. It was beautifully done up.

She knew of my love for curios hence took me around the house showing them to me, telling me about each piece that she had specially acquired for her new home. Lalique/s, Capodimonte/s, Czech hand-cut crystal, Lladro/s and more but… but… what I was most attracted to was a huge (nearly 10-12 inches) colorless dolphin. A piece of clear glass, cut in one and one piece only. It was a Murano!!

There I was, a fifteen year old, being given information about various pieces of art, some far more expensive than the dolphin and yet there was so much clarity in that one piece that I couldn’t take my eyes off it. Also, the information given, that it was cut out of one piece of glass held my attention. I was in awe! All I wanted at that moment was a Murano!

Did I get it? Hell no!! It was, of course, far too expensive to be gifted to a teenager who had suddenly fallen in love with it. Every time I visited my aunt, I made very sure I could sit next to the table where it was placed so that I could shower loving glances at it.. Sigh!!! :-)

Over the years I’ve been fortunate enough to see lots of Murano’s, all beautiful ones, but every time I see them I’m reminded of the time when I first laid eyes on that dolphin.

I’m forty-four now, this love has lasted twenty-nine years. I know it’s going to last as long as I live.. a life time!! I haven’t seen that dolphin for quite a many years now. My aunt relocated to Miami and when she did she took with her all the beautiful pieces of art and a piece of my heart......... <3

Forgive me for having cropped this pic but my uncle (Soli Masa) was seated on the sofa next to the dolphin and i'm not sure whether he would like to be featured in a pic online, on my blog. There are two swans flanking my baby (the dolphin). It's the only pic i have of it.

~ Bawi ~

Don't our parents deserve better???

I saw my Dad take care of his ailing parents (my grandparents) right until the time they passed away in their late 80’s. I always saw my mom love and respect her parents. I saw her making trips to Pune, all the way from Mumbai, whenever she could to visit them until the time they passed away.

Our parents, they bring us up with love and affection. They sacrifice their all just so we don’t lack the things we desire. They do their very best to teach us to differentiate between the wrongs and rights of life. They inculcate in us the correct values and principles of life so that we may live a life of integrity, honour and righteousness. Why then do i see so many souls abandoned by their children when they need them the most?

There are so many people I know of who live in the absolute lap of luxury and yet their old, ailing parents live a lonely miserable existence while they go globe trotting. They employ a full time maid for their parents and feel that their job in regard to looking after their parents is done. The maid knows fully well that the elderly person has no say in the quality of work they do. Resultantly, the elders in their care are so shabbily treated that visiting them makes you want to bawl. The house is an utter mess. The maid get to be nice and plump whereas the person in their care grows frail, bent and weak..

---Is this the life that our elders deserve after all they have done to make us what we are???

---Why do I see so many people treat their parents like third class citizens once they grow old, once they realize that their parents are of no use to them anymore???

---Do our parents become a liability for us once they grow old???

---Is it right for us to forget all their love and sacrifice just so coz they aren’t able to sacrifice any more???

---Isn’t it only right that regardless of our busy lives it’s now our turn to love them and take care of them as they are unable to take care of themselves???

---Doesn’t this generation realize that there will come a time when they too will grow old???

---Don’t they realize the type of example they are setting for their kids? Don't they realize that there will come a time when their kids too may treat them the same way as they see them treating their grandparents???

Don't our parents deserve better???

~ Bawi ~

P.S: This is my very first blog article hence please excuse the errors, if any.