Fighting Fire

The scene was set. It was that time of day when neither day or night exists. It was moments before dawn would break and shatter the wholeness of the dark night. The two kings stood facing each other, separated only by the thin line that distinguishes light from dark and day from night.

Like fire he burned, bright and golden, his steady arms radiating that shine and power possessed only by the sun. His fierce eyes, rimmed with dark kohl looked restlessly ahead at his enemy. The time of beckoning was here. One could not see his features clearly for there was a strong light illuminating from him, but mainly because he was their king and they feared him deeply. They had heard that in the battlefield, a brief look at King Agni could lead to a death so painful, that even the Gods dared not to show mercy on the dying man. It was hard to believe that that same king of kings was the provider of their world of warmth.

In the black of the space stood firmly King Shvet, poised like a statue, cold white fumes emanating from his body clad in silver armour. He stood still, much like the stillness of a cold winter's night. If one looked very carefully, occasionally one could trace white puffs of air flowing out of his lips, indicating any signs of life.

Just as the moon and sun adorned the sky, time stood still and the battle cry was sounded.

To Agni, it was a distant call. He was already in the air and his clawed hands were raised above his head. His body blocked a part of the infant sun as he met the king of the night at the line of change in the sky. Shvet's once immobile body now moved with sharp swiftness. His silver armour shone and clinked as it cut through the cold air. Heat thrust itself forward towards the icy night and the spectators helplessly witnessed this wondrous display of light and dark, the red flames meeting the silver fumes with sparks.

The might king dropped to the ground, cracking it where he fell. The line began to blur.

I woke up to greet a brand new day.

Ek Baar, Akele

Kabhi apni parchai se bhaag jaane ka mann chahta hai
Run, like no one's looking
Go away, without caring
Nobody calling out to me, to just vanish like I have always been invisible...

Itni bheed mein lagta hai main gum hoon
Ab tanhai mein khudko khone ka mann karta hai
I find myself dissolving into the crowd...afraid that I am not who I thought I was
Convinced, that I am not who you see
I want to dive into depths of myself while no one watches

Kabhi chashma uttaar ke dekha to sab dikhne laga
Kabhi sheeshe mein khudko dekha toh laga koi hai jise mein janti hee nahi
Take away the mirrors, take away these things that surround me
Even my reflection, my shadow...There is no one's company I seek

Aaj maine ek akela panchi udte hue dekha
Aur achanak se apni yaad aa gayi
In that moment I felt like I am missing out
Could I ever dare to go missing?

Pehli baar, imaarto ki beech sukoon mila
Logo ke nahi, 
Is there a somewhere where no love, no friendship
Can even touch me?

Aaj apne naa hone pe yakeen aane laga
In a crowd, I went looking for me.

Feeling Mumbastic: When it rained like Mumbai in Delhi

This morning was quite a wet one. Wild Wild Wet, I'd say. Delhi's not the most prepared for any sort of emergency, natural or man-made, in spite of the fact that it's the capital. So rain like this is both disastrous and hilarious.

It was quite a sight. My mom and the maid were running around the house with piles of newspaper and a puny, squeezed out dusting cloth. All the doors and windows of the house were open and the water came pouring in, as if in buckets. The electricity went out and within a few minutes the invertor gave in. So now we couldn't help but open a few doors to let the light in. My sister was shouting at my mother in concern since water and marble aren't really mom's best friends. My mom, on the other hand, was too caught up in saving her house from drowning. We live on the first floor.

Since my sister, jijoo and I had to leave (it seems strange now why we just had to leave), all the umbrellas in the house were gathered and distributed. By all I mean two. A third one was reserved by mom for the purpose of house conservation. There was brief dialogue over why going to the passport office in such weather was imperative (for didoo and jijoo) and why office work could not be done from home (for me). Fast distracted by the tonnes of water falling from the sky, the conversation was submerged under the sound of cloud bursts and we all left. While sharing an umbrella, my sister and I (of course the damaad gets his individual one) found ourselves drenched from front and back respectively.

As soon as we got into the car, the impended dialogue resumed. Why were we going anywhere, my sister asked. I was busy laughing. Jijoo desperately wiped the screen of the car while he drove.

I made it to office somehow and the parking was now submerged. Getting in was quite a treat. A welcoming committee of housekeeping boys and guards stood at the gates, furiously sweeping the water out from the main entrance. My CEO was the only other person in office. I walked to my desk drenched from head to toe and looked down.

I was wearing my bathroom slippers.    

I am Generation Why Not?

Aren't we a very 'public' generation? They call us generation 'Y' but I'd say we are more the generation 'Y NOT?' Seriously, nothing is off the table.

I don't quite mean it as a compliment. I mean, I guess it has its benefits but how open is too open? And honestly, it's a bit scary when everything goes.

We update every breath we take on facebook and twitter, but no one really knows who we are. You may have 1200 friends on facebook but only 1 or 2 are with you when you need friends. The world knows where you went on vacation, but no one cares to know why a vacation was needed in the first place.

We talk about sex like it's a new flavour of ice candy available at the corner of every street. We wear less, talk more, stay out and don't know where we come from. We like noise, we like speed, we blink faster. We love colours. Our senses are out of control. We talk of peace a lot. About wanting it for the world, but we hate silence. We tell people we don't know that we love them. We love but we don't care.

We stand for everyone's truths because it's convenient not to stand for anything. We revel in ignorance and call it being chilled out. We really know how to chill out. We hang out. We pass out. We freak out. Inside is not a place we know. Inside is not where we go for answers.

We are easy. Sometimes, we are easy-going. We see the bigger picture and forget the minor details. We click a lot of pictures. We are cool because we don't care. We don't care about what we wear and what we say. We use people and words carelessly. We think innocence is passe and so by the time we are twenty, we are actually thirty-one.

We pout. We kiss and tell. We laugh out loud. We paint towns red. We hoard. We are outsiders to ourselves. We 'have a life' because we party. We live on virtual websites.

Eyes Wide Open

Some days are not ordinary. Some are just about average. Some exceed your expectations and on some, you barely make it through. Today is one of those and all those days.

I woke up in the morning feeling inadequate, unhappy and dissatisfied. There is nothing that I am doing wrong but nothing felt right. I don't suppose anyone can relate to this bizarre emotion, perhaps everyone can. But that doesn't matter much today. Nothing does. This feeling of restlessness is all-consuming and selfish.

On most days I forget why I am here. I forget what I want and what I want to do. These days turn into months and then years. Then finally a day like today appears and I am filled with sorrow and helplessness. I don't ask any questions today because I know the questions and I can clearly see the answers. But I am overwhelmed by the wave of time that has overtaken me and this emotion that leaves me without warning, without a snooze alarm, awakening me less often than it does. Yes, comfort is comfortable. And contentment is overrated.

Someone else operates me today. I am not who I am when I am sleeping the rest of the days. Perhaps this is who I am really, and must be at all times. But sleeping comes naturally, and waking is such an effort. And I waste today in pin-pricking myself into wakefulness that I want should last this lifetime. Poke. Poke. Poke.

Eyes wide open.

Harry Potter will always be 'the boy who lived'

So I just saw the last Harry Potter movie (Deathly Hallows Part II) and still recovering from it. This is an important moment in life right here, not just for me but I think for many of us.

The first time I had picked up a Harry Potter was when I was in class VI, around 12 years old. At 22, Harry Potter has been a part of my life for ten years, and will be forever more. In a sense we've all grown up together, Harry and me, Ron, Hermione and the rest of the gang at Hogwarts. We've seen Sirius enter Harry's life and then leave, we've seen the wise Dumbledore lead and die and we've seen the end of Voldemort.

This being an emotional moment, here's a list of five things I will miss about Harry Potter:

1. Dumbledore

Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore
1881-1997

The wise old man of Hogwarts will be missed most by me. My favourite character with the best, deepest dialogues. I feel sad but I must remember, in Dumbledore's own words, "For the intelligent mind, death is yet another adventure." Thank you, professor, for everything.

Tom Marvolo Riddle
Lord Voldemort
1926-1998

2. Voldemort
You-Know-Who will always remind me of all that is wrong and evil. How power corrupts and how there is always a choice and that choice makes all the difference. Truth alone triumphs. every, single, time.

3. Magic & Quidditch
I will miss the spells, some of my favourite ones being 'accio', patronus charm, and also the dark arts. No other sport will be ever as exciting as Quidditch on brooms. Will also be missed: Snitch and Firebolt.

4. Hogwarts
This magical world of Hogwarts. Moving portraits, living ghosts, magical feasts, moving staircases; what a school. One question: Will I get admission?





5. Dementors
These terribly fascinating creations. Two thumbs up to Rowling for having created something as frightening as these flying skeletons in cloaks. Brilliantly depressing stuff.



There are so many other things, but this is all I can think of right now and it's tough to type with tears in ones eyes. This is a series of books I will preserve and make my kids read. This is a series that defines our generation. This is my classic. I heart Harry Potter. Forever.

Bi-Cycle Diaries

So, I am twenty-two, and I am learning how to ride a bicycle. I can understand how amusing this could be for all you bicycling experts out there, who mastered this art (yes, art) at ages 7, 8 and 9. Clearly, I felt at that age I had better things to do than cycle and it was only till very recently that I realized what I was missing out on.

A few days back I decided I wanted to cycle. I don’t know why I wanted it, how I could achieve it and when I’d do it, all I knew was that I wanted to cycle. In the words of Freddie Mercury, ‘I want to ride my bicycle, I want to ride my bike.’

Step one was to arrange for a bike. That was going to be the only difficulty, I had thought. One phone call and that was taken care of. Step two, find a teacher – that was easy, my boyfriend readily agreed, even when it was decided the time to cycle would be 6 am (true love, huh?). What a sport. Step three was to bike.

Day One: It’s ALL about the bike

The wake up call was dreadful. Neither of us wanted to get up and were waiting for the other to cancel. But somehow we were on the road, the new cycle by our side and on the road by 0602.

I don’t care what Lance Armstrong says, for me, it was all about the bike: because it was too high for me. I had to hop on every time and it was tough to ride, knowing I may not be able to touch my feet. It’s funny, I was scared of falling, if only a few inches!

It was a workout, for me and Aman. More so for him, because he had to hold the bike and run beside me, and hold it again as my steering wavered and I headed towards a neighbour’s BMW.

He says he let go for full three seconds and I steered well, right before heading abruptly towards my right and falling. I figured that was progress.

I needed to rest so I stopped. Rest for Aman, or in this case any cycling expert, meant, well, cycling. I can’t believe my Everest is his leisurely, walk in the park.

I know it’s going to get more frustrating as we go along. I may fall and I know I will get impatient. I have learnt an important fact of life on day one: no one likes abrupt breaks on their path to freedom or happiness (or anything that resembles them). It is only satisfying if it is a smooth ride. And right now, my ride is far from smooth.

But I am happy. I am doing something I gave up long back. I don’t know if this is worth writing about, but then everything is. One thing is for sure, this diary is to remind me of a moment, an episode in my life where I decided to learn something new, and hopefully, irrespective of my age, I will continue to do so.

I have been coming up with some theories as to why I want cycle, all of a sudden, out of the blue. I feel it may have something to do with wanting to complete unfinished businesses, tie the loose ends. I may have given up on things worth holding on to and not given up on things and people I should have fast let go of.

As I grow older, I am coming to realize the lack of control I have on my life or anyone else’s for that matter. The only thing I want to control for now, is that steering. I want to ride my bicycle. Perhaps, this is a call of nature, my nature, an expression of my innate child-likeness, the need to be free, to be faster than I am on my two feet, with the wind singing songs in my ears.

And my last theory, it is the need to achieve something tangible, to conquer a skill, and as I said earlier, to finish something I should have a long time ago. But will I? 

Mera joota hai Japani and all that

Songs from the dinosaur era blared on the radio and I was forced to listen. What was worse, I was forced to appreciate. You had to, when you were visiting an uncle who had a cute son whose attention you would do anything for. Pretending to like archaic music was the least of my worries right now.

Col S.P.S. Khanna, aka Laali uncle sat in his arm chair sipping on his whisky (on the rocks) and I sat facing him, on the close-to-comfortable sofa chair with a glass of roohafsa in my hand. Roohafsa, I had realized over the years, was the safest drink at a family gathering. It suggested you were amiable, you didn’t drink ‘hard drinks’ – which meant you were a ‘good girl’ – and most of all, it meant you were born of this generation, but comfortable with things of the past. Yes, roohafsa was the perfect mending-the-generation-gap drink.

Laali uncle was a man of few words, and too many drinks. In our family circle, drinking had always been his thing. The first few moments with him were always a little tense and awkward. There would be monosyllablic conversation, mostly yeses and nos, and an occasional ‘very fine, very fine’. But then, after he had downed his fourth drink, I would see a transformation, a metamorphoses; soon, our Laali uncle would be narrating stories of his army days, his eyes so bright and his decibel level so high, most others would stop talking and listen in rapt attention. Another drink and the music would get louder and he would be humming tunes, another and he would be singing along. Once, he actually took off his left shoe, held it in his right hand and with his drink in the left, he danced to ‘Mera joota hai Japani’! My mother later joked about how he had changed his mind about taking his trousers off (since the song also said, ‘Ye patloon Inglistani’), since both his hands were preoccupied.

After drink number seven, you’d see uncle twirling around on the floor, his arms spread out, like a sufi in a trans. By the time the night was over, Laali uncle would be nothing like the original. He became the showstopper, the performer, and we, an enthralled audience. I often suspect he was the reason I became inclined to drinking; that glass of whisky, an elixir, a magic potion of transformation.

I looked at my glass of gulaabi liquid in contrast to uncle’s jewel gold one and sighed.

Just then, there was a loud clambering sound, as if to break the silence (uncle was on his second drink only), and he walked in. My stomach lurched into my lungs and an involuntary gush of breath left my mouth. Short, spiked brown-black hair, perfect Greek god-ish cheek bones, a slightly podgy nose, chaffed lips (oh those lips!), and a tiny goatie peeping from underneath, sheltered by his lower lip’s voluptuous curve. I felt a sudden urge to tickle it and I wondered why. This man was perfection. He wore a plain black tee with jeans and held a givson in his right hand. Before I could study the details of what possibly hid under the tee, he spoke. And I melted. In my head, a tiny version of me broke into a slow dance.

An Ode to Ordinary Love

(There is nothing ordinary about it)

Could our love ever be the stuff of legends?
Would they read of it with wet eyes and broad smiles?
But we are simple people, you and I.
Simple people feeling extraordinary things.

Could we sing of it?
And would they hum the chorus?
Would it leave their lips but never their hearts, this love of ours?
Of us forgetables holding hands.

Would they talk of us when we are gone,
Like you do of me when I leave?
And I of your absence, limbless and incomplete?
Would they ever know about you and me?

Would they care for the music in our laughs together,
Or the way our fingers played?
Would they count the lines we carved on each other's palms,
One for each year we spent in love?

They would never chase the tears
Running down our faces to see where they ended,
The times of us ordinary lovers
Spent on sandy beaches.


*Dedicated to the love of my life, the cheese to my macaroni, the sun in my sky.

YOUTH EMPOWERMENT PROGRAMME 2011

As most of you would know, I did this course (Youth Empowerment Programme) by Chinmaya Mission in 2009. I would recommend it to everybody. I can call myself educated only after doing this course -- it really did put to shame all the years that was being taught how to read and write in school and college. Unfortunately, we might be literate, but the youth of India is terribly misguided and confused -- what's worst, we are UNINSPIRED.

A personal request to all to either sign up or pass it on to youngsters you may know who are interested in
1. Doing good work
2. Finding themselves
3. Are confused -- have time at hand and would like to use it well

This is largely a service program -- serving the country. We need youngsters who can tell wrong from right and who are inspired and creating an army of such inspired leaders is the objective of this course. Please take a minute and give it some thought.

The course fee is NIL (This is not an over-the-top MBA program. We are looking for inspired leaders in the literal sense, who are ready to give back to society).
The venue is Chinmaya Vibhooti, which is an hour's drive from Pune. (Don't expect traffic noise and skyscrapers)
The time period for the course is Two and a half months of training (at Vibhooti) followed by 12 months of service at various centres of Chinmaya Mission all over the country.

It is a wonderful platform for learning and implementing, through service in the field. Though a year seems like a long time, in a lifetime of 80 years, you can proudly say you gave a year to the service of your country.

Little Women

Chapter Twelve: In the End

Didi took a notebook out of her bag. She leafed through the pages and then plucked a photograph
from inside it.

On the left side stood this boyish girl with short-wavy hair and a stubborn look on her face. She stood in direct contrast to her pretty-in-pink sister, who smiled purposefully at the camera. Between them stood a man of rugged handsomeness, with a moustache set perfectly between his nose and upper lip, thick, black and its ends curled fashionably. He wore a smug look of pride. On the right stood a woman with a quiet confidence, smiling pleasantly as her perm made her thin face stand out, almost like she belonged in a pulp-fiction film poster.

When I turned the photograph, a vivid memory on paper, I felt my father’s pen in his handwriting. It said:

My Girls
The son and the moon,
And the blanket of the sky.
My little ones and the Mother,
How lucky was I.

Our lips curved into smiles as we read this, but our eyes gave the tears away. All this time we had wept over having lost him, but we never realized what Dad had to let go off...

His whole universe.

Little Women

Chapter Eleven: Lost and Found

Day Five

Well, it was only fair I got lost at least once during this journey. I am homeward bound and it is only fitting that I can’t find my way home. This time, I am not afraid of having lost my way. Maybe, somehow, I am turning into a traveller. Or maybe it has something to do with what lies in front of me right now.

Having asked for directions, referring to the map and still being lost, I just looked for the best spot in sight and parked the Bullet. I now sit on slightly wet grass, over-looking a lush green valley growing into a massive mountain of browns. If I peer closely, I see small streams, like waterfalls, amidst a billion shades of green and brown. Behind me are stretches of tar, swerving through the mountain as they lead the way for cars packed with holidaying uncles and aunties.

If this is what lost looks like, I don’t mind being lost all the time, at all. I feel like Dad. I know we have ‘lost’ him, but I now realize that there is a part of me that is him. In a sense, we will live forever.

Father holding daughter’s hand,
An interdependent feeling of growing together,
Tell me, Dad, should we walk or run?
You and I, a force forever.

The child in you,
Now here resides,
In the hole that is in me
And that keeps me alive.

We will grow wiser,
And you will remain,
The same old boy,
In the spaces of my young mind.

Let’s not stop and wait for the others,
We don’t run for them, but we travel together,
Hand-in-hand, heart-in-heart,
Brothers this moment, and friends in another.

We protect and preserve
The forces that bind us
A memory in a photograph
Because that’s all we have.

But we will act, not lose face or suffer,
Sing, dance and pray to be heard
Dad, take my hand, we’ll walk awhile longer
You and I, the force grows stronger.

==========================================

I quickly packed my bags for the night and rushed to the car. I drove like a child on a sugar rush, indicator now, accelerator then. It was a long drive to Maa but with a little help from the radio and my crazy thoughts, I didn’t have much problem passing time. The traffic helped too.

Eeshu was coming home today. She has finally called to tell us she’d be reaching in the evening and she wanted to see us both. I hadn’t heard her voice in almost a week and we both weren’t used to that. I couldn’t wait to be pampered by Maa and showered with Eesh’s stories. That adventurous one! I always knew she’d do something to make women all over the world proud. At least I was proud. She did what she wanted to. I always knew she could do it, secretly.

Maa and I met, broke into a dance and I lunged to hug her. “Me too, me too!” Eeshu appeared out of nowhere. “I was supposed to welcome you! What are you doing here already?” I gave her tight squeeze. “Surprise!” she beamed.

It was an ideal day. All three of us, with our legs warming up inside the blanket, Maa feeding us great food and showing off her art work. It was great to see Maa so driven about something after so long. I felt how Picasso’s kid must feel, if he had one. My crazy baby sister had loads to tell as well. Mom would have tiny heart attacks every time she told us she got lost, or her bike broke down, but in all, we were all just relieved that she was back in one piece. Her friend Anuj, of course, was more relieved to have his bike back, in one piece.

Little Women

Chapter Ten: Wake Up!

I woke up with a start and reached for a pen and paper on the bed-side table. I started to sketch and the lines just flowed. I had dreamt of an image, a waterfall gushing into a still pond. The water landed on a lotus flower, that remained unperturbed by the heavy force of the water. I did not know what it meant, but within me, it stirred a sense of peace. I wanted to capture that picture in my mind onto paper. It became an incessant urge within me.

I hunted for my canvas and painting artillery. I had not painted in a long time. I impatiently squirted the paint onto the easel and my fingers began flowing. It was the journey of a life time. Sometimes the brush walked and at other times it ran. My fingers traversed the canvas for nearly four hours.

I finished the painting with a feeling of discovery. I had found something, and this time, I would not let it go.

=============================

Day Four

I was looking in the wrong place! While I was busy moping over my luck, there was someone waiting to help me. Little Kajal had been silently watching me and shyly came to me with her hands behind her back. She leaned on my bike and waited to catch my attention.
Her father owned a chai stall closeby and their house stood adjacent to it. That was my place of residence for last night. It was the most wonderful experience for a traveller. I had transitioned from a tourist to a local, overnight!

A family of six, six-year-old Kajal is the naughtiest of them all. Her laughter is contagious and her fearlessness, an inspiration. It makes me think whether I too was so bold when I was young. I am not sure I like growing up at all, at this point. I can feel the fear and cynicism creeping in. Perhaps I need a friend like Kajal to remind me to stay a child forever.

This family’s hospitality amazes me. It also amazes me how big-hearted people can be. I feel almost disgusted of having lived in a city - so much for progress and modernity. This is a better life, a simpler one. But I am not too sure how I’d survive like this for long. I am, unfortunately, a spoilt, city child.

Kajal’s father also got his friend to fix my bike. This means it is time to leave. When I tell Kajal this, she cries. I hug her, but I wonder why this child weeps at my exit, having known me barely for half a day. Did she think I was here forever? We are all on this journey, travelling our own paths. But when they cross, we are thankful to have met, I want to tell her. I am starting to realize now, that perhaps the same rule applies for my father’s exodus.

Little Women

Chapter Nine: Inside Out

Don’t panic, I told myself while I, well, panicked. I rummaged through my stuff. Dad’s gloves were missing. I could not have misplaced them, how could I have? He had given them to me. “Are you looking in the right place?” Ashinde repeated. Where could they have gone? I had kept them next to my jacket before I had dozed off last night, and now they weren’t there. I couldn’t think straight. Those gloves meant everything. It was almost like losing Dad again. The thought itself made my heart sink. “Calm down, little one. Where did you see them last? Think.” “I don’t know, they were here in the room...I showed them to you this morning, did I? Did I give them to you? Do you have them?” the words tumbled into each other. “You are looking for something, but you are not looking in the right place.” “Stop saying that! It’s not helping! They were my father’s. I told you how precious they were to me!” I dejectedly dropped myself on the bed and held my head in my hands, trying not to let the weight of my feelings translate into tears. In a half hearted attempt, I lifted my jacket with one hand and fidgeted inside the pockets. I found the gloves.

“See, Little one. This is what happens. You look everywhere and you have the gloves. Stop looking outside the pocket when it is inside. It is inside and you search outside. And then you cry about it like a baby. And now you found your Dad! Happy?”

Relieved, I repacked and got ready to leave with Ashinde by my side for a little while longer. He had decided to get off mid-way, giving me reasons I didn't quite understand. The ride was noisy, with Ashinde having something to say about everything, and then abruptly stopping, to give some room for introspection, I figured.

I would have to be the lone ranger from now on.

=======================

Day Three

Having survived two days in a land away from home, I am failing to love this feeling of discovery. Before leaving the house, I knew this journey would have been tough, but just how tough, I am now starting to see. I am, at this very moment, sitting on an uneven milestone, my broken machine parked next to me. I have a feeling it has something to do with the carburetor, or something else. May be I will find someone to help me. Am I looking in the right place? Or maybe I will have to find a place to stay around here, since it is getting dark. I suddenly feel insecure and in need of protection. I am starting to miss Mom.

Little Women

Chapter Eight: Maternal Hassles

I had phoned both my daughters. The elder one had cut my call and the younger one’s phone was switched off. I had even messaged them, which is rare, me being a luddite of the first order. Why have phones if you don’t want to be contacted? “All grown up, but still a reason for worry, these children”, I mumbled. A mother’s curse is that she can never have peace.

I made my way to the kitchen in an attempt to divert my attention from the possibilities of what my offspring could be enduring thousands of miles from home, somewhere in the Himalayas. Dinner for one tonight, nothing too exciting, a toast with butter and some soup is good enough.

It was time for some television, I decided. I had to snap myself out of mother-mode and I definitely needed to feel independent. Both my daughters seemed to managing perfectly without me, why couldn’t I do without them? All these years, they were dependent on me, and now, all of a sudden, I am the dependent one? Perhaps, life was coming full circle.

My thoughts were interrupted by the door bell. It was my neighbour Mrs Madan. She wasn’t the most pleasant woman in the neighbourhood. In fact, at times I felt she was almost delighted my husband had passed away, leaving me to lead a life companion-less, just like her. I did not want to be around her, but my social conditioning led me to open the door, smile, make conversation and feed her some soup. She tried her best to convince me to join kitties, but I knew what these get-togethers were really about. Middle-aged ladies coming together to gossip, create and disseminate rumours about other women, turn every woman’s house-hold problems into an entertaining episode of a soap opera, or better yet Desperate Housewives. Popular topics of discussion included: extra-marital affairs, incompetent daughter-in-laws, weight issues, recipes, all in all, nothing that interests me.

I yawned twice, and a third time when I was done being polite. She finally took the hint and headed for the door. “You are lucky Radhika. You still have a daughter who comes home to you. You still have to look forward to her wedding...” And in that one statement, all the bitter things she had said in the past vanished. I realized this woman who lived in the house across the street, was more than anything else, alone.

That night I vowed to not let the loneliness make me bitter.