Both question - how did I become this?
Both question - who pays for this?
My Scribbles
Thursday, August 21, 2025
Hidden costs
Thursday, February 22, 2024
Mumbai - A sensory explosion
For us lot, it is never just this. It is an amalgamation of so much more.
Every morning I step out of my house to get to work. This is a 20-45 minute commute depending on when I leave. And everyday my senses are challenged. I live in an apartment complex with ~160 odd flats and I am greeted by an elevator that has the smell of fresh newspapers, amul milk packets, a calvin klein perfume and definitely that of a dog.
I get into an auto which is either a fresh smell of agarbathis or the stench of an unbathed driver. Your destiny chooses you here. Then I navigate the roads -
First stop: fresh fried aloo wadas merged with black grey fumes from a tempo that last did its pollution check 10 years ago and with the rotten smell of the discards from a thousand households.
Next stop: the roadside fish market merged with the spices from the sahakari bhandhar (provision store), and again from the rotten smell of the discards from another thousand (this time floating in the canal nearby).
Third stop: The smell of fresh flowers that the hawkers sell to hang in your cars to ward away evil, with the smell of the paan that the riskshaw driver adeptly opens with one hand and pops into his mouth and with the rotten smell of the discards from another thousand people (this time somehow has made it into the landscape as mosaics in a small hillock).
Fourth and final stop: I reach office which is situated in one of the poshest areas and you would expect it to reek of everything fragrant, what with the multi national companies and five star hotels. But no, here you are welcomed with the unique mix of the fragrance from the flowers from a Nagalinga tree , the smell of temporary stress relief (cigarettes) , the smell of chanels and armanis and yes, you guessed it right - the rotten smell of the discards from another thousand people(but this time cleverly decorated with concrete). It flows like a river underneath the complex. You hide it from sight but alas you cannot prevent it from smartly escaping through vents and snaking into the air.
This amalgamation is the truth for many of us. For a non-mumbaikar, this is a lot to take in but for us, this is the norm and the truth. But it will not be long before even for us, this becomes unbearable. Till then, I shall continue to bear this daily journey that is interspersed with moments where I literally hold my breath.
Sunday, August 8, 2021
Thank you!
I write this letter to you, thanking you in advance for the beautiful men you will be nurturing and growing. I am so proud of the fact that you will be teaching them to be kind and gentle, respectful and loving, strong and supportive. I brim with pride when I know that the boys are in good hands and you have helped them understand what “NO” means - for trivial nothings and for the non-trivial bigger non-nothings. I see that each of your boys is seeing at home an example from his father on how a woman should be treated - He sees his father as a friend to his mother who is an equal partner - right from helping out at home, to taking care of each other. I know that you know that this is important as he is not going to learn this anywhere else. You have also made them realize that they have an immense responsibility to walk hand in hand with the other sex.
I am so proud of the fact that when these boys grow up to be those wonderful human beings and they look back at the stories of horror on the opposite sex, it leaves them in utter dismay, but they heave a Sigh of relief with the thought - “Not on my watch, not now, not ever”
Saturday, July 24, 2021
The wrinkles
Do we have to smoothen these and erase a part of the past? Do we have to make them disappear? Ageing is inevitable but ageing elegantly and beautifully is something we should still hold on to, no?
Wednesday, August 12, 2020
The UN speaker and the Socialist
The wandering moss
I am the one who picks up and moves. I am the one who receives the hugs and goodbyes. I am the one who is always brought up to think that change is the only constant. It feels weird to be the one who is staying back. It is a feeling of stability that is reassuring and annoying at the same time. It's a feeling that am not used to.
I get restless, listless, depressed,bored - of the scenery, the routine, thankfully not the people.
People use the phrase, put down your roots. I never seem to have and somehow feel that I never will.