Our cook has some ambition!!!!

She cooks really bad food. One day she made "gobi" in cooker. No it wasn't meant to be a gravy.........The other day we had to remove excessively burnt "jeera" from the paneer sabji before we could eat it. Some times when we come back from office we feel as if it's a 'langar' at our house because the food cooked would last us six days.

Well our experience of staying forever away from homes has taught us not to expect much from cooks but she is exceptionally extraordinary. :)

However, she is a great mom to an almost sixteen girl, and a to be matriculate boy. She is not a cook (and cleaner, and washer-woman) by choice however,.....well perhaps nobody is. Her hubby was a cabbie but one fine day stopped going to work.

She had to pull her son out of the private school and use the cheaper government school. However, as has been found in research even the poor in India prefer sending their children to private schools. "The Beautiful Tree" by James Tooley captures this empirically across a number of nations.

So, our cook started to work - and experiment on us - to sustain her family and to send her son to a private school. Remarkably, this is not just a street-side private school. It's some kind of a convent on the air-force road in Gurgaon. And she pays more than what i used to pay for my day schooling at MontFort in Delhi.

This, however, would have been a dream a few years back. To find so much work (employment) in Sukhrali Village of Gurgaon would have been impossible. With the job boom in Gurgaon, there is work for so many of cooks, taxi-drivers. Some would like to quickly jump out here and say 'so u're happy seeing these people as serving you, is this what u call progress?' No, certainly not but this is how it begins. And i can see the signs of it happening.

Geeta's (our cook) son would go into a better profession. Although he is studying currently he also has a part time job in one of the hospitals in Gurgaon where he has to do some normal checks in procurement etc. His 2k is a big contribution in the family income. And the girl child .......she has almost completed her studies .....plus a vocational IT course and is hopeful of landing a fair enough job. Well this is progress in society according to me. Wouldn't you agree?

Lakshmi in Vaishno

Vaishno Devi is perhaps one of the most well known pilgrimage centers in India. Many people visit this place in the state of J&K every year. 

I went there as a tourist and explorer and less so for any religious sentiment. In fact since i am a Sikh, many people from my faith might get offended if i suggest that i had any religious inclinations.

I enjoyed the foggy weather, the cold breeze, and the trek to the shrine. What i also enjoyed was the presence of an active (relatively speaking) economy in that remote place. There were a number of opportunities for locals and others to earn money (lakshmi) for their living.

As soon as you begin the trek (or even before) there are small shops/kiosks selling prasad (offerings), head covers, sticks to help you walk comfortably, water, raincoats, and Gulshan Kumar's bhajans. 

Then you have the mules/horses/porters that help the infirm or the time-constrained to cover the trip easily. (* I was slightly disturbed to see some visitors being carried in carriages lifted by four men on their shoulders. On a steep terrain it is a very difficult task.) 

For the ultra busy, or for those looking to experience something new, helicopter services have also been launched. Pawan Hans and Deccan provide these services on all days except when it is foggy.

Interestingly the markets are captured not just by the small business but also by big chains. I was amazed to see numerous Nescafe kiosks (Nestle) doing brisk business. A popular vendor was selling ice-creams as well. On the half-way stop a Cafe Coffee Day (see picture) store was competing with the local jalebi-samosa sellers.

Mobile phones were ubiquitous and the networks were fair enough. The horse masters were using their phones to listen to music while carrying out the extremely boring and mundane task of ferrying passengers on the same route day-in day-out.

I got to visit the shrine in the night. Visit would be an exaggeration. I got a glimpse (you are shoved in and shoved out of the holy caves) of the shrine and what struck me was that it was a shrine not just of Vaishno Devi but also of Lakshmi. 

And i found this reality interesting. Lakshmi is present in the Vaishno Devi Shrine and she is present literally with the natives of the remote hills. The shrine is the main source of income for these natives who find it difficult to get employment in a state badly hurt by insurgency. 

True that pilgrims have sustained this area for long, but the level of activity there today is much higher. It is good to see the micro-elements of a to be super-power trickling to the remote regions.

I also wonder if shrines can be opened up in all the remote places in India!!!!