MellowDrama

Day before yesterday I connected with a school-time pal after good 16 years. I did not recognise his voice and to be very honest was quite suspicious till the end if it was the same guy as he said he was. But later on I kept thinking about this particular event. There was initially an awkwardness to talk to someone whom you have not seen of or heard from for a decade and a half but it vanished as the familiar began to make its way in to the conversation. The people who have seen us rather known as kids probably are the only people who are familiar with the essence of us, with the core from where we originate. They are probably the only people in the world who know us for who we really are. As children we are at our best. We have not been contaminated yet. We have not been touched and affected all that is good or bad with/ in the world. We are still learning the ways of the world. We might be learning the ropes but haven't perfected our stances while we are kids. These people w...

Bura jo dekhan main chala, Bura na milya koi Jo  mann khojaa aapnaa, mujh se buraa na hoye Every few days I get a glimpse of how bad, shallow and scrooge-y fellow I am. And this without venturing out to see the Bura. Imperfections and all are okay but mine go beyond the permissible limit. Take my social skills for that matter. they are so negligent that I have been told recently on the face that I am lowliest of the low in this matter of great importance. Maybe, just maybe, that comment was the force behind this particular post. Hurrmmmphh!

I wasn't scared of marriage. I did not think about it could be one reason. And I did not know what all was part of the package could be another reason. But on examining it closer and having read a bit in the past few years, I realised I wasn't scared of marriage because I was not prepared, as a sacrificial goat often is, prepared for marriage. I think it largely begins and belongs with my mother as it begins, belongs and stays with other mothers. I think I wasn't scared of marriage and what all it will do to curb me as a person because I wasn't trained to be someone else after marriage. I was, since the childhood, put on a certain mental fodder that I took for granted would not change after the marriage. I am an avid reader and I was never fed the thought that I will be barred from reading when I got married. So why would marriage scare me? Brought up in such an atmosphere where I was taught by example how responsibilities of the household are meant to be share...

Dear Netra You have been now around for a wonderful six years. I formed this letter in my head much before we celebrated your sixth birthday this October but I could not bring myself to give it shape because I can only write when you are away and when you are away and I think of you I am overwhelmed with my feelings (which range from tenderness to mad anger depending on what I remember of you at the moment) for you. Anyhow, now that you are out of the house playing and it is all suddenly quiet in here, I am writing this to tell you how happening this year been. You now outrun some other 6 year olds in the building, out-dance even bigger kids, get praise from the yoga teacher for your enthusiasm and have been bringing merit batches for good reading skills from the school. This year you have acquainted yourself with perfect. You look for perfect in everything from a doll to a shuttle that would just be perfect for your green bats. You have added jokes to your arsenal. You have dev...

As your wedding day approaches and all the conversations steer towards it, I am thinking about the time I was in the same spot. Now I have been married for about 7 years, so I have the right to tell you a few things about this whole affair. I hope some of it you will laugh off and the bits that you will choose to remember will serve you well. I don't know your fiancé so I cant say whether you are marrying the man of your dreams or you are taking on the challenge of starting your life with a boy. Either ways I hope that in life you both will grow into a man and a woman who love, cherish and most importantly respect each other. I hope and pray that you both help each other in becoming the best version of yourselves and do not spend days rather a moment berating each other, recounting qualities you wish he had and virtues he admires in other women around. I hope in this marriage you find a friend, an ally.Someone you can reach out for solace and hugs; for holding hands; who splur...

So the good people at The New Indian Express have invited me to write another column for them . This one is for students at  high school  and beyond. This is a motivational column. I likes this as I likes to jibber jabber with the young peoples. This love was found at Dainik Bhaskar during Quest and Yo! days. Some of the kids have recognised me in the market places and at other old offices and I have felt like a star. So here is wishing more motivation to the writer and the reader!!!!!!!!!! Plenty gloating done, go read the article here .

I would like to think I am not competitive. I don't even know where and how to compete. As I begin this post I am trying to state things where competition happens but I am failing miserable as I hardly know the arenas. As a child I was least bothered about who stood first and who came second though I was a fairly good student. I don't think I ever considered myself in the queue to get nominated for the rank in the class. It did not matter who wore what and who flaunted what stationery sent by some uncle/ aunt living in States. What mattered to me was how many words could I spell and could rattle the exact dictionary definition. Also maybe the number of books I borrowed in a month. (I can imagine a few smirks here and there) The trend continued during the college and then university years. I was too laid back to be hurried in and out of classrooms and projects in the name of competing with the classmates. I am slow. I move slow. I often speak slowly and I think very very s...

Shagufta Ahmed Jawed. and I got to know each other at the YWCA in New Delhi where both of us were learning the ropes of the world after being ushered out of our respective universities. A few years my senior Shagufta worked hard at increasing and improving her educational qualifications besides holding a full time job. I did not know it then but starting her own business was her dream and all her efforts were aimed in that direction. She went on to establish herself in the field of commodity trading and after years of hard work and today is a name to reckon with. While she was at it, life gifted her two beautiful daughters and a son. She is raising them along side raising her 'first born' as she likes to call her business. Shagufta brings with her an old world charm and set of ethos that are becoming difficult to find in this fast paced world yet she believes in marching with the times and keeps herself updated on the technology front as well. She extends warmth and love t...

I am worrying.  About the chicken I have taken out of the fridge to cook, which I don't want to cook.  I don't want to cook it today being a Thursday and this piece of religious sentimentality lodged in my head about cooking and consuming meat on certain days.  I can't leave it as it has been now lying in the fridge since Monday and the husband fears it will rot. I also share the fear and so may be I will just get cooking. But I also have two submissions. There is no lunch ready for Netra if she comes home early today. So I am worrying about that too. I have not even started on one of the submissions. I have no ideas even. It is 11 already and the day is running ahead with its own plans and un-kept promises. A broken tap in the kitchen. Dinner preparation. Clothes strewn around the house. Unmade beds. Cluttered side table. Dust on the study table. Clothes that have been on the rope for the past two days I think I will just go cook the chicke...

The sound of rain drops falling on a surface, whoever captured that and the music in them must have been a genius. The song from 1942 A Love Story- Bajta hai jal tarang teen ki chaat pe jab, motiyon jaisa jal barse describes it best. The song itself gives a pristine feel, has lovely looking Manisha Koirala and an ever handsome Anil Kapoor. Though not one for getting wet and all the fun while getting wet or being wet in the rains, I am hooked to hearing and seeing the rain fall. It has happened after years of being unaware of the magic of the downpour, of years in haste, of years of hurry. Being in Kolkata and home alone in this weather, the monsoons, in all their grandeur I fixed myself in a spot near the French window of the bedroom that doesn’t look out to any garden or any such beauty but which offers a wide view of the grey skies. And I watched as it came in a rush like a hurried office goer who has to be present at the appointed hour. I caught myself humming O sajna bark...

There is a line between any two things. At times it is there fleshed out nicely between the dos and the dont's and sometimes we carve it out for our sanity. There is a line, a fine one between trying hard and trying little. Not too hard not too little. May be this moment I am trying too hard to be a writer. May be at that moment I was being too little of a mum. Who can say, if not I? Balance which brings calm, peace, happiness is difficult to attain; more so to maintain. It is a real beauty. I know I have achieved it off and on. Maybe that is why I crave it. -------------------------------------- Why are we so obsessed with adjectives? Why is the girl not sufficient? why does she have to be a good girl or a handsome boy or a succesful boy?

One of the most complicated and least understood developmental disabilities,  autism , is a result of a neurological disorder that interferes with the development of a child’s social interaction and communication skills. It may begin at birth and its symptoms might become noticeable within the first two to two-and-a-half years of a child’s life.  Coping with an autistic child  can be physically and emotionally straining.  The parent needs come out of the varying degree of grief, disbelief and guilt they might feel on getting a diagnosis for their child and help the child discover the beauty of life. An article I wrote for women's web lists some useful hints for parents who have just received the heartbreaking news.

A neighbour has nicknamed Netra Miss Hindi. This was done because Netra insists on speaking Hindi with her friends. She is beginning to understand Bangla and can very well understand and converse in English yet she chooses Hindi to communicate. Its only when forced to use English, she prattles in the said language. Teaching English is mandatory. We do understand why that is today but we do not know who made it that way. Speaking with your kids in English to familiarise them with the language is great and all but Hindi, our own language, our mother tongue should hold a place of pride, first in our eyes and head. Hindi is sweet. Hindi is more effective in terms of giving you the exact word for any emotion, moment or feeling than any other language maybe. Hindi is vast. And while we are talking about children, Hindi is far more easier to learn than is English with its confusing phonetics. Though I admit that English wins hands down in being an adapting language that has not shied a...

When you don't know how to cope up with grief, you innovate to take your mind off it. Death is an entirely new sort of shock to my system. I did not know how to react to it. I cried. It came naturally. But I did not cry for the gone one but for those whom he left behind. I tried quantities when his voice rang in my ears. I counted the people who came. Then I counted those who wailed louder. Then those who sniffled. Then the ones who repeatedly wiped their dry eyes. Then those who averted their gaze. Then the few who had words to offer and those who did not pretend to empathise. Then the ones who were well-versed with the hollowness that death of a son leaves in its wake. I counted the ones who caught up with friends, exchanged news, had their tea and went their way. I counted the number of paper cups we disposed off. I counted the number of meals we consumed. I counted the trips I made to the market. I counted the number of faces that instantly aged. I counted the ...

I have been on sort of a reading spree. In the past one month alone I have managed to finish reading the Grey series, The Time Keeper, A Thousand Splendid Suns, After the Darkness, as well as a Mary Higgins Clark suspense thriller All Through The Night (Though I neither found it suspenseful nor thrilling.) I had started Our Lady Of Alice Bhatti (OLoAB) before all of these. I read about ten pages and thought it to be one of those books that I would not be able to read or even skim. After putting it down for a month I picked it up to lend it to someone who wants to read it and I thought I might as well take out my bookmark. As I was taking out the bookmark I read the page it was placed on and for a strange reason I was hooked to the book. This re-affirms my faith in the fact that it is neither too late nor too early, everything happens in its own right time- a point that echoes in Mitch Albom's The Time Keeper (I loved the book and found what creative writing is about, but that...

There are those like me who sit and think of starting a writing project. Then there are those who go ahead with the plot, write and get that sweet sweet word on to their CVs- PUBLISHED. Arti Arlene Martyris belongs to this second category. She not only has two published books under her belt but one of these has been self published. Here is more from her on being published. Hi Arti! take us to the beginning of the beginnings. Hi! I  belong to Goa. Writing was a hobby until  my first story, 'Trauma' was published in an anthology by Writing  Knights Press, Ohio, USA, in 2012. Then a poem,  'Am I No More Human?' was published by Indian Ink, a bimonthly  magazine based in Kerala, India. Now my first romance novella 'Facebook  Pyar' has been published by Indireads Incorporated and Rabia of Chakia is  my first self-published romantic adventure novella. What is the storyline of  Rabia of Chakia? Like I mentioned earlier ...

http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2010/05/19/childrens-books-for-grown-ups/ http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2013/01/10/chus-day-neil-gaiman / http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2013/01/07/charles-addams-mother-goose/

After all the fairy tale drama that is ensuing in our life and honestly some of it before  (we- me and the daughter are very melodramatic people) there have been questions and often random statements by Netra that make me wonder how she must have concluded this one or that one. Like when she said very matter-of-factly  Love to bhoot hota hai (Love is a ghost) or when the husband and I are arguing heatedly, she will coolly walk up to us and depending on her current favourite, threaten the other one, Main thunder ko bolun ki aapko le jaaye? (Should I tell thundering clouds to take you away for making such ruckus). She plays with the bottles- her nanhe bachhe - for hours together and can come back with an episode that happened to her in the previous school and ask for an explanation about being bullied or left out of a game in the neighbourhood. These are the ones that I particularly find hard to answer. Human behaviour is difficult to explain, no? But then maybe she can ...

So the summer holidays are here. We are not headed to either naani's house and we have time to spill. After a couple of days in this spilling I realised that Netra should now be introduced to the princesses. Who else is good at bringing those countless princesses to life than Mr Disney. So I downloaded all the princess movies that have been made under the Disney banner. Starting with Cinderella to the current rebel and if I may say, my fav, Brave's Princess Merida. There were some after effects that I knew of and expected to occur after so much royalty being doled out to my 5 year old. But there were some more, which nothing could have prepared me for. Her Highness had been insisting on being called Princess for some time now but after seeing Cinderella, she responds only when addressed as Princess Cinderella. When I told her that Cinderella was not even a princess to begin with, I was told "Ban gayi na wo, jaise main ban gayi" (She turned in to one, like I did)...

writing is a strange thing. it gives you wings.  it lets you soar or lie flat on your back all day long it lets you lose the structure it allows you to dream it allows you to give meaning of your own to events, situations ----------------- This post was supposed to be many posts that should have been written over a period of time when I did not even open my blog. Horrible ain't I?  But as is usual, I made plans as well as in some corner of my mind made lists of tasks that I would finish and then get down to writing the blog entry on the topic that has been bothering me for a while or that interesting episode with my daughter. Alas! that time never came and I realise that it will also not ever come, waiting as I do. I also read, early in the morning, an article by a successful journalist-turned-momee-cum-domestic goddess (yes! it seems that even amongst journalists a species extraordinaire does exist. There goes my excuse for doing everything wrong or not indulging...

A party is on cards. The date has been finialised. A theme has been set. The guest have been invited.  So what are we celebrating, you may ask. Well, what better than the occasion of life! And hence the theme of the party 'The joy of being alive'. The party is going to take place in a huge colonial house in the Dagshai cantonment. The gathering is cosy and comprising of about 12 people.  Let me tell you more about my party.  Winters are on the verge and the mountain wind is enveloped in the sweet fragrance of the greenest grass and loveliest songs.  Invites were sent written on parchment with a quill, informing the guests about the venue, theme, date and time, setting the mood for the occasion. In accordance with my theme, celebrating life, a lunch instead of a dinner was planned as the intent was to let the guests savour the food and surroundings to the maximum.  The beautiful  house has a blooming garden. A table is set in a corner. It has been...