MellowDrama

This post is brought to you by the cyclone Yaas, raging outside my window, shaking up the trees as if puppets and forcing rain to dance in every direction. Did you stay in an area where power cuts weren't the norm? Have you ever shuddered at the thought of an electricity cut? Did you completely abhor the fact that when the lights went out, you had nothing and I mean absolutely nothing to do? Well, well, well, save yourself the time and quit right here because this is an ode to the glory of windy or rainy days and rainy, windy and sultry nights when there would be a power cut, rendering the whole area, the whole house in darkness. This is in praise of all the times when there would be an electricity cut in various cities I have lived.  In Palampur that meant and if I am not wrong, till this day means, no electricity on Mondays from roughly 10 AM to 5 PM.  It also means that if there is hard rainfall or gusts of wind breaking the speedometer, the house might turn dark at any mom...

*Where the Peacocks Sing* is a memoir written by internatinally acclaimed journalist Allison Singh Gee. The book has been published by @speakingtiger whom I owe #gratitude for my #reviewcopy as well. . I finished reading the book in almost a couple of days when I finally sat down with it and I must say that it is an easy read. By this I mean the book is not taxing emotionally and the language and the flow are seamless. The memoir is Gee's account of how she- an LA girl who is half Chinese, met with her husband- a journalist and a minor Prince, fell in love and came to Mokimpur- his village and Haveli just outside Delhi. . Gee's life does a complete 360 degree turn from shiny and fast paced Hong Kong life to laid back rural life as she travels to Mokimpur with her boyfriend Ajay Singh. We witness India through her eyes. Everyday systems which we do not even register in our everyday lives like the master servant relationship bring tears to Allison's life as she witnesses ...

In t h e year 1990 I was probably running down the tea gardens outside my house in gay abandon. In the year 1990 a 14 year old boy and his community were forced in to an exile which they have still not managed to come out of. ‘Our Moon Has Blood Clots, The Exodus of the Kashmiri Pandits’ is a memoir written by Rahul Pandita, a Kashmiri Pandit and a journalist. The 256 pages of the book and the timeline at the end of the book tell a tale that many of us are familiar with but vaguely. In ‘us’ I refer to people who have known that Kashmir has faced problem (s), thanks to TV and the newspapers and that a certain Pandit community faced exodus years ago.   The memoirs are moving and it is not just in the way they have been written. The stories of brutality, atrocities on men, women and children, episodes and incidents that have been narrated are gut wrenching and heart pulling. There is kindness also but largely there is blood and hunger and loss. This sense of loss th...