A Voice for Change

 More recently I read the book 'It Ends With Us'. I found the title intriguing, the blurb simple and not at all attention seeking. Like someone comfortable in its own skin, the book had no glamorous binding or attractive coverpage. I picked it for precisely these reasons. I hate books that shout out loud saying, 'Babes, come buy me!' I like to pursue the lost in oblivion kind of people and books. Now this book started off on a good note and then it took me on a boring ride into the sexual encounters of the protagonist. Gosh!! I just wrote the dreaded S word. So dreaded is it that my auto-correct too writes Sequel if I type Sexual. Boss, I'm a shy Indian who doesn't even whisper the S word forget saying out loud except in the biology class and gender inquisitive government forms. When I talk of love though it has a physical attraction to it, certainly it doesn't end in pushing down my lover's pants the moment he parks into the garage or we find a lonely s...

 Talking has been a hereditary trait while listening to someone talk logic, I have cultivated very often. The writing world has myriad of ideas on how to get that pen running amok on your paper, on how the click-clacking of typewriter can be music to your ears. In these blog series, I bring forth to you words of wisdom straight from the horse's mouth-unadultered, unfiltered.  More recently, on 15th Jan 2022, precisely I had the opportunity to interact with the vivacious author of Rewriting My Happily Ever After, Dr. Ranjani Rao.  Ranjani, is a Singapore based writer who has recently self-published her first full length memoir. She is a scientist by profession and a writer by passion. Talking about her writing journey, Ranjani says she is a self-taught writer having attended only few writing workshops to bring a method to her writing. Otherwise, being a science student, thinking, exploring and then writing came naturally to her. Every writer begins as reader is her strong ...

 "Ma, please hand over my dupatta!" "Ma, Bablu's online class is a little late today." "Ma, today please make khandvi for dinner. I'm craving to have it." "Also, MA.. " "Haan meri Amma, got all your instructions right and now will you please pick up bag and leave for the greener pastures." My mother in law of eight years smirked at me. She didn't have a soft heart to cajole or pamper me but definitely a tender soul that accepted me as a daughter over whatever the law said. Ma, had changed over the years from being a pesky MIL to a no nonsense mother to my husband and specifically Me! Being into an intercultural marriage, we both had our shares of anxiety over accepting the other. We had to share a man- one whom she knew from the first cry and one who I would accompany till my last smile.  "Oh, I would teach her all our customs and see no one would ever know she is not one amongst us." She had promised my husband.  ...

 These aren't the days of mentioning the fridge even when our overflowing prejudices are frozen! Yet, born head first, I derive immense joy from doing the inevitable. Today, I will tell you the story of my fridge and my frozen prejudices. Don't you turn cold to it! When we bought the not-so-new house, I wanted to go subtle with everything. Budget-friendly attitude is more to accommodate my EMIs than my 'Minimum is Sufficient ' attitude. So, we bought a single-door fridge than a double-door one. Enough of our family of three.  'Think about it. It was not that expensive. We can stretch. Go for the double door.' The hubby had advised.  With an air of spiritual sophistication, I denied it. 'Darling, what is the need for double when single is enough!' He shrugged. 'Don't you then complain when one of your friends remarks!' 'Oh no. I will shove a shoe in their mouth and show them what Minimalist Attitude means. And if well-educated people like ...

 The other day, Dad called and said, "Appu, Pathare kaka is no more." The tremble in his voice clear yet it was unclear to me who was Pathare Kaka? Any of my father's cousins? His friends? Our old or new neighbors? None. My RAM seemed in no mood to answer. Before I could conjure the identity of this dead and offer a sensitive condolence to my Dad, he hurriedly hang up saying someone was calling. God bless that someone else!  Going about my futile, mundane activities, my mind went through various images of aging, old men but none accepted the tag of Pathare Kaka. He must be really important that Dad had called me on a sultry afternoon amidst no where. These are his post retirement snoozing times! Empty as a gas balloon my thoughts soared higher and higher to get an eagle's view of my social circle. The mind encircled numerous rounds of childhood memories to locate Pathare Kaka. Five year old me-Nah! 10yr old me- no, no! Twenty year old me- this was only about Chavas an...

 The urge to buy something comes in the form of an acute diarrhea. You have to make a purchase or you spoil your mood for the rest of the day. Not to reveal the intimate details but the foul mood infects your fellow sufferers. I suffer from this form of diarrhea once in every two days. With controlled efforts, the bout may be prolonged to every third or fifth day but if then not intervened, the mess is visible to public eye. In the times of insurgency, the local stationary store comes to my rescue. Every commercial complex or for that matter even residential complex houses a stationary store. They are like the potholes encountered after every few meters. They are innumerable yet indispensable. Every galli, nukad or mohalla boosts of a stationary store replicate with everything from pens to pins and books to boards. The brands of objects vary from the richness of the locality but certain products bind the rages to the riches. They are the Karl Marx of Indian society uniting the slum...

 A cure resides in the offender! On an untypical day, you find the mother popping pills from the saccharine loaded shrikhand dabba. You peep and probe and your investigating eye is awarded. The mother is using the dabba to store her diabetic medicines. The biggest irony of her life. What joy the dabba must be deriving from storing the comfort it carries in its afterlife! In its overtly sugary living it lures the devastated bodies into a fatal temptation. Yet, in its journey towards reincarnation, the mother gives it an opportunity to escalate her cure which was deterred by consumption of creamy  delicacy. Mothers know it right. They set the karmic wheel in motion. The dabba benefits from their generosity and wide vision. Our mother gives a an afterlife to every animate and inanimates of the house. Like the dabba, the Bhaiyya's worn out t-shirt is hanging on the younger Babli's shoulders. Oversized, yet she has to adorn the shabby fabric. Then when she overgrows it, like a war ...