What is a Senior Citizen? contributed by Manya A Senior Citizen one who was here before; the pill, television, frozen foods, contact lenses, credit cards… and before man walked on the moon. For us ‘time sharing ‘ meant togetherness, not holiday homes, and a chip meant a piece of wood. ‘Hardware’ meant nuts and bolts and ‘software’ wasn’t even a word. We got married first and then lived together and thought ‘cleavage’ was something that butcher’s did. A ‘stud’ was something that fastened a collar to a shirt, and ‘going all the way’ meant staying on the double decker bus all the way to the bus depot. We thought that ‘fast food’ was something that you ate in Lent; a ‘Big Mac’was an oversized raincoat and ‘crumpet’  was something you had for tea. In our day ‘grass’ was mown, ‘pot’ was something you cooked in, ‘coke’ was kept in the coal house and a ‘joint’ was cooked on Sundays. We are today’s Senior Citizens, a hardy bunch when you think how the world has c...

Resident's Writing Group I had discovered many talented story writers when I first arrived at Awaas in January 2019, I hoped that the writers  would contribute to the Awaas News blog but on receiving stories from several residents I think they merit a page of their own and this is it! To begin with I will choose the subject and our writers will interpret it in their own way. I am not looking for good English or for correct grammar. It is the story that matters! Sometimes a little editing may be necessary for brevity or to avoid repetition. It remains for me to say THANK YOU to the contributors and hope that they enjoyed expressing themselves and sharing their experiences with Awaas readers. SEPTEMBER STORIES WALKING IN THE RAIN  by Prakash Gupte July 26th 2005 4.15 pm. I was at a Mahim studio working on a travel brochure design. Afternoon was partly sunny but suddenly it became dark with dense cloud cover all over Mumbai. I sensed it would pour hea...

Shraddha Shraddha is a period of fifteen days in the month   of   Aashadh   when people of the Hindu faith remember   family members who have died. Remaining members of the family make a Puja, a religious ceremony, for the departed person. They prepare food gifts ( known as Prasad) and place them on the roof of their houses or the balconies of their flats for the deceased person. Mr Ashok, the Awaas manager, and his uncle, honoured Mr Ashok's father. The residents were given a desert of kheer, boiled milk with rice and dried fruits. Jellabies were also given to everyone.  The next day Mr Rameshwarlal Toshniwal, the founder of Awaas Seva Sadan, was honoured as 'Father of   Awaas' and it’s residents. His photograph was decorated with a garland of marigolds and chrysanths and incense sticks were lit and flowers placed before his picture. He was also presented with a Prasad of sweet foods. .

'Back to School' We were very fortunate to have among the residents a 'commercial' artist. Mr Sainath keeps insisting that he is no good at what he calls 'fine art',  but  he is excellent at drawing. He has done some sketches of residents which I hope one day to use in a montage.  Mr Sainath takes a twice weekly art class. At first he was very shy and kept asking me for ideas but now he is more confident and organizes the lessons. They started off with basic colouring, graduated to colouring stress reducing pictures and led to painting free hand dra wn pictures drawn at the request of the 'students'. They also  have made collages from flowers and followed demonstrations on drawing a peacock and a tree in blossom. Mr Bisham said it was the first time he had painted anything since he was about 8 years old! Mr Sainath  painted a picture of the Sun   in the Madhubani style of Bihar  and taught the class about the local tribal W...