The Drama Queen

It was our recent trips to Kashmir(last summer), Sikkim and a part of the northeast that made me so solemnly wonderstruck by the mighty Himalayas. They just stand there, as if teasing you to dare and get closer to them. I am in love with the awe-inspiring ranges... scared, aware of the dangers, know that they are tedious to fathom, but still in love. I had to express myself... I was so full of emotions. I couldn’t think of appropriate prose to do justice to its beauty. So, just tried to rhyme a bit, this time. Hope you will be able to envision it through my words.... Thank you! And it smiled.... It stood there, mighty and strong, Adorned by snow and trees and rocks. Like it played its own tune and song, And wouldn’t let anything go wrong. And.... it smiled. The mystic fog tried to cover it in its arm, Like a beautiful veil. It peeked through; meaning no harm, Showing off its eternal charm. Hence.... it smiled. The halo of the sun stood in command, ...

Go on, then! Wish us a Very Happy Women’s Day! Get us those vibrant flowers. Get us that rich luscious cake. Get us that exotic gift that we were desperately waiting for throughout our lives. Celebrate our womanhood! In short, shower us with all the love that you felt for us, your entire life.... on this one day.  Just remember this... we are JUDGING you while you’re doing this. I know, I know... you might think that we are all being overly feminists and the like. Trust me... we are only being us. No, YOU don’t get to hand US out a day. WE get to choose our own days, rather. We might be perky on a Monday because we had an overdose of children over the weekend. We might be be chirpy on a Wednesday because there is a Ladies Only Bollywood Night at our favourite club... just to spend time with our girlfriends. We may be feeling low on a Friday, of all days, because PMS, you see! So yes, we are capable enough to decide our days based on weather, waxing schedules, child coming sec...

14th February, 2019. Valentine’s Day. The whole country, along with the world, was celebrating Love... the fuel that is much needed in today’s compassion-deprived era. The social media was flooded with mushy romance. The streets and malls were screaming bargain discounts for couples. The moral police was on a high alert mode. In short, everybody was contributing towards Valentine’s Day. But, for a select few, they had to come and spoil the party. They had to overpower Love with Terror, not just Hatred. They have scarred this otherwise symbolic day of Love, forever.  The 40+ bravehearts, who lost their lives, while in the Line of Duty, have made us rethink about our priorities. We can buy, probably, everything else in the world except for Health and Peace. And these brave Jawaans had to pay a hefty price for this peace. They laid down their lives, so we could celebrate Love and Life. They made the supreme sacrifice, so we could sleep peacefully in the comfort of our homes. The...

SRK made us believe that We Live only once. We Die only once. We Love, also, only once. Well, coming from the King of Romance, most of us fell for the trap... until we got trapped into the realms of life. It is like coming out of a dream with a jerk. There are no guitars playing the music around you, no extra dancers appearing out of nowhere, all doing the same dance steps magically, or no soft breeze caressing your hair while you are shying away from your beloved or no bells ringing from the heavens to misdirect you! Be it the harmless flirting during the high school days or the little serious affairs during college or the more sincere ones after that or a live-in, marriage still remains a gamble. Arranged marriage can be compared to a murder while Love marriage, a suicide mission! Love before marriage vs Love after marriage. Love for our friends after the girlfriend/ boyfriend enters our lives. Love for one’s own parents after the spouse comes into our lives. Love for that ...

Physical fitness and exercise have always been a rage. We generally see a spike in this activity around the New Year time. There is no parking space near the gyms and yoga classes, for the first week at least. The running tracks are crowded like flea markets. People are hustling and bustling like there is no tomorrow. This is all, thanks to the outrageous New Year resolutions made by three quarters of the world population. They hog throughout the year and keep postponing getting back into shape till the next year! To overcome this rush and for the sanctity of the Runners’ Association, some kind people keep organising runs throughout the year. So, any weekend you feel the urge to get going, pull up your socks, tighten your shoe laces and get going, literally. There is no dearth of the number of races that one can sign up for. There are several support groups, to promote this noble cause. Thanks to the social media, it feels like every third person is running. And running and r...

Well, as couples, or parents-to-be or parents, we have always gone through this dilemma.... how many children are ‘good enough’, if at all we are planning to have any. You are always under the pressure of family and extended family and neighbour’s family and family of family for when are you going to have the baby. Sometimes, it is almost to the extent that it is the only purpose of their lives. I am sure we have always seen parents either judging others or have been judged themselves for having the number of children that they have. Having none will get you tagged of not being the maternal types; which is considered to be the sole reason for a woman’s existence by some. One offspring is too less, even though it is helping in the cause of controlling the world population. Two is just right, even though ‘it is not really required’. Anything beyond that would have been welcome in the by-gone era but is totally frowned upon in today’s world. Basically, you will be tagged.... no ma...

Having just come back from the ‘Mother of all Religious Visits’.... a dip in the mighty Ganges... I am feeling all pious and invincible, myself. I was told that all my ‘sins’ have been washed away. My interpretation: I am ready for a new stock in my new pot of sins!  I am totally sentimental when it comes to being religious and all. Religious, yet flexible. The customs whose logic I find irrelevant in today’s world and have the sanity to not pass on to my kids, I try to peacefully and respectfully discard them. At the same time, I am not judging someone who is still blindly following the age-old superstitious traditions. My reasoning says that the other person is yet to be enlightened. I also have the utmost respect for all the religions with ‘Live, and let live.’ being my ultimate mantra for life. I have been to various Churches and Gurudwaras and Dargahs and Jain and Buddhist temples, all in a hope to find calm. It is present everywhere. It is present inside you. We just ...