The Convicts

I have two friends who don’t see eye to eye. On the rare occasion that you find them in the same place, they will be at each other’s necks. One is Zidd and the other one is Samajdhari. Both of them love me dearly. Although I must admit that Samajdhari detests my affection for Zidd. “Who do you love more?” they asked me once. How do I answer this question, I wondered. Imagine a partner, who was two timing, caught and questioned by their partners, “Who do you love more!” To be honest, Samajhdari had been in my life before Zidd. But when I was molested as a kid and felt that the world had abandoned me, my relationship with Samajhdari took a hit. We broke up for a few years. That is when Zidd entered my life and cared for me. Zidd would vehemently protect me from people who always had things to say about me- 'Girls don’t get angry!' 'No will marry you if you ruin your face in Karate fights!' 'It is inauspicious for girls to break coconut during auspicious occasion...

Source: Stock Photos I think I will like rain more if I sit in the balcony and drink cups of coffee, if I read books, if I write. I hate getting into muddy puddles and I hate the mud on my feet. I hate feeling cold when I am drenched in rain. *** I think I will like you more if we go to the movies, if we go out on romantic dates to watch desi plays, if we have intellectual debates on why my brain is weird. I think I will like you more if I see you from a vantage point; being close to you is scary. I hate it when I feel cold after loud, messy fights. I hate it when I fight with you about who manages which chores. *** I stepped out in the rain today. I can’t always avoid it. My feet were muddy. I was feeling cold. But the thought of the balcony and cups of coffee kept me warm. **I wrote this last monsoon or in 2018. I don't remember clearly. But I wanted to record the thought here.

Dear All, This is how I start my formal, official mails- “Dear All”. I wish I could have started this, ummm, this letter more informally. (I do not have a better word for it- It is more of a cry than a letter, not directed at anyone specifically but at everyone.) I cannot start this informally though. The matter that I wish to convey is of a sombre nature. This lockdown has been difficult for everyone. It has been especially difficult because we have been hearing of the death of some very well-known names. Sushant Singh Rajput passed away today, and it is said that he hanged himself. Finality of death is such that it has caused us human beings to dream up an afterlife. It is the ultimate full stop! End of a 34-year-old, at the peak of his career, with so much to offer. After Sushant’s death, people have been speculating if it was really a suicide. A friend’s friend said, “When you are an over achiever, you are involved in things that have some big consequences. We do not know ...

Source:  https://www.behance.net/gallery/35154617/JokerMad-Hatter-Design Today, 10th of Oct is "World Mental Health Day" and even google bhaiyya does not want to make a doodle for it.  The struggle is real! So I wrote on facebook the other day about mental health and I got all sorts of comments. And I wondered why I inflicted this upon myself. You know how people put a caption beneath their pictures- “Felt cute, may delete later.” I should put a disclaimer with all of my opinions “Felt right, may change later.” Approximately 0.1% of Indians have cancer—I verified this information from 2-3 different surveys ( https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/ pmc/articles/PMC5826535/ ). On the other hand, 6% of Indians suffer from mental illnesses. And yet, we know so much more about cancer than mental illnesses. I don’t blame us Indians for it. I blame only one Indian who came up with this concept that if someone has mental illness matlab he is yeda, gandu, charyo, pottan,...

Haal-e-dil Aaj kal yun hi muskurati rehti hu Jhalli se rehni wali main, Baar baar Sajne sawarne main lag jati hu! Khanabadosh sa mera dil, jo yaha waha kuch dhunda karta tha, Ab theravh chahta hai. Bheed main bhi akeli rehne wali main, Aur ab akele baithe baithe has deti hu! Kisi dost ne bola, lagta hai ise pyaar ho gaya Aur tab ehsaas hua ki haan, barso baad khud se phir ek baar pyaar karne lagi hu!

Dear Pakistan, I have had this nauseous feeling inside of me for some time now. I had consciously stirred away from all the books that described the partition in great detail. And if I did read about it, it was objective and from a third party perspective. I refrained myself from having any feelings about it. And why should I have them? I was born in 1988 in a small town of Maharashtra- an Indian state far away from the India-Pakistan border. Yes, my best friend had her ancestral roots in Sindh but we seldom spoke about it in detail. I grew up hearing about ISI intermittently. From what we kids heard about it, for us, ISI was equivalent to a terrorist organization. You were always the enemy. How I hated you during the Kargil war. And yes, almost everything that went wrong in India was attributed to you and your ISI. And then this happened: It was 2003. I was 14. I was in Thailand as a part of the Indian contingent for the 20 th world scout Jamboree. I met people from ar...

I go to my office, I sit at my desk. I type mails on my laptop. Tip tap tip tap, such sounds the keys make! Analysis and meetings and arguments and reports; Inside I am draining, I feel so low. I feel dizzy, I want to lie down. I cannot explain to the world, It is my krypton- This vitamin D deficiency makes me all woozy. But I fight it every day, I am a supergirl, you see! My best friend is a batwoman. How is that, you ask. Oh that’s simple- she wears a mask. She lost her parents-no, not physically. But in spirit, they weren’t available emotionally! They told her she couldn’t do it, she was not smart. The world said the same, she had a broken heart. She fought depression for a very long time. And yet she is now a business woman, totally worth every dime! There was a little boy I knew, A boy who lived! His name wasn’t Harry Potter but he shared the same story He survived a brutal attack, it was very gory. The world sneered at hi...

I am all for being tolerant and patient towards different belief systems that exist in this world. But once in a while, I am confronted with something that completely rattles the logical faculties of my brain and I am left wondering- Am I a dumb person who fails to see the enlightening truth in other person’s argument? Let me take you through some incredible situations that I have been in or that I have come across: #1 Kya Aapke ladke ko plumbing aati hai? While a friend was being interviewed for arranged marriage, the guy’s parents asked her- “Kya aapko cooking aati hai? (Can you cook?)” My well-educated friend, with a high-paying job, gave them an incredulous look. She did not know what to say! The guy’s parents were probably clever enough to interpret this gesture and so the mother quickly corrected, “We are not going to ask you to cook daily but one should know how to cook in case there is some kind of emergency.” I told my friend that the only reply to this que...

I am high! (Epiphany-1)  I have been depressed, down in the dumps. There have been times when I did not want to live the life I am living. It is during such times that people get addicted to alcohol or get involved in substance abuse. But, with time, I have realised that nothing gives you a high like the one that you get when you reach a pinnacle from an abyss. Bouncing back from an absolutely hopeless situation and achieving something seemingly impossible is the best antidote for such depression!

In mathematics, there is a dependent variable and an independent variable.  y=f(x) Here, y is defined by the relationship it has with x. When the value of x changes, value of y changes; y depends on x.   In life, it is pretty much the same. You are defined by the relationship you share with people in your life. How you react to their actions defines you as a person. So when one of the x’s that defines you, changes, you change as a person. Sometimes, people change so much, it becomes difficult for you to relate to them. You don’t recognize them anymore. And still, their actions provoke spontaneous reactions from you. Unless you are ready to let go of that ‘x’, you are now dependent on a complete stranger (who until some time ago was very close to you.) You may see the person, you may talk to the person but you simply don’t know that person anymore!

(This article was written on 1st of May, 2014) Recently I visited the tiger reserve at Pench, close to Nagpur. Pench was a pleasant surprise- It is summer and Nagpur is known to be ruthless during summer with temperature that goes up to 45 degrees Celsius. But pench was- excuse my poor vocabulary- simple and beautiful. I felt exactly the way I did when I was a school-going kid. Like every school-going kid, summer vacations were my favorite. I loved the smell of summer, I loved it when the day would be open for all the possibilities in the world, and I loved reading books on mango trees right outside my aunt’s house. Pench stirred the very same carefree, happy emotions inside me. It smelled of summer, of dust, of trees! I really wanted to stay in Pench forever. For a brief moment, I flirted with the idea of building a house in Pench. Living in wilderness- what wonderful life it will be! The next minute I was jolted back to reality- I want to achieve certain things in life; ...