Category: Feelings
-
Only For A Moment
Most mornings for me lately start with a playlist of Eric Nam‘s music. I hum as I cook, do dishes, pack lunches or walk around the house. The lyrics take me to places I haven’t been in a long, long time. They wake up parts of me that have been sleeping for decades. I imagine…
-
Essay: On Loss and, Love
I talk as I walk to the voice on the other end which is a tad weakened as it traverses the eight thousand miles from India to make its way to me. I strain to listen, filling in missed syllables knowing the words she would have used from our years of association. By the time…
-
Saaptiya?
The children troop in, one after another, tired, messy hair and cold. The routine is the same every day. I insist they put their boots away, hang up their jackets and use the bathroom before snack time. I stand by the kitchen island, three bulging school bags lined next to each other. I am methodical.…
-
Ten Years. Many Lessons.
This week marks ten years since we went from being a couple to parents of twins. Each year I struggle with marking the day. Obviously, it is of import to me. It also is of import to my children in ways I cannot measure or understand. I consciously stay away from anything celebratory. I…
-
Empathy
I remember to wear my turquoise fleece top to my dental appointment. The office is well appointed and lighted but cold. I check myself before I get in the car. Insurance, HSA card, and license are all in there. The wait is short and I am in my chair before I know it. It is…
-
Letters To My Daughters: Move On
Dear Ammu, Pattu, and Laddu, Tonight, Ammu dissolved into tears and I stood by powerless, rudderless. What happened today is not the first. It will not be the last either. It happens to all of us. People we want to be friends with don’t feel that way about us. As you stood sobbing, your eyes…
-
The Moon Is A Taco And Other Things
I am clearing up the crumbs from breakfast when Pattu’s clear voice calls out to me from beyond the patio door. I take my time, finishing up what I am doing before I walk. She holds up her boogie board, a line drawing that looks suspiciously like an advertisement for a fast food chain. “That’s…
-
BBC Asia Radio Interview
The alarm went off at 3:00 AM and I stood sipping coffee in the cool back patio of my sister’s home while my Amma sat on the recliner inside listening intently to the radio online. She made a picture. Her eyes narrowed in focus, her glasses perched midway on her nose. Her coffee cup sat to…
-
You Are Not Alone
“What is on your mind?” exhorts Facebook when I turn to my phone in a moment of despair “Craptastic (pun intended)” I type and then backspace, watching each letter and my life disappear into an unseen void. My fingers are smudged with dosa batter drying into a white powder that flakes off as my hands…
-
On Politics, Liberalism And Being A Snowflake
The year was 2000. I filed my first tax return. I think I was owed money from the government. I am not sure but I did not follow-up or deem it worth my time to find out. I was young, unencumbered and singularly apolitical. In the few years I had been eligible to vote, I…
-
Paying Tributes Over Time and Space
I eye the phone longingly. My fingers itch to dial Amma’s cell phone number but I desist. I can picture my family this morning. All of my dad’s siblings and their spouses gathered to observe the yearly anniversary of my Thatha’s passing. I imagine the kitchen busy, bustling. I can almost see my aunts and…
-
Coffee And Conversations
She walks down rapidly, a speed that belies what time it is. Her face is scrubbed, a hint of damp from washing her face and drying it. Her fingers are cold as they reach for my arm. Her lips are deliciously chill as they land on my cheek. “Good Morning Amma!” Pattu exclaims as she…
-
Inequities
The view out the balcony mirrors my mood. Patches of grey sky peek in between the dense upper branches of the tree by the apartment block. Dead limbs hang limp. Tiny buds peek through the very tips of the healthy ones. I hear raised voices again from the other side. I feel my body shake.…
-
Reflections on being a stay at home mom (SAHM)
Hold that thought right there. No, this is not another post debating the relative merits of working or not working. Or being a mom or not. 🙂 I set the pan with water to boil for my afternoon coffee. Laddu is straining to be taken off the high chair where I have her squirming and…
-
Right here. Right now.
The baby swing in the back yard sways in the breeze. I notice Ammu and Pattu in my peripheral vision trying to dislodge a ‘popsicle’ from the faucet on the outside of the house. It is bitterly cold. My nose burns. I feel alive. I glance absently at the stretch of road visible from my…
-
Lullaby and goodnight
If there is one thing I regret in earnest since laddu was born, it is that I cannot sing to save my life. As I hold and rock her back and forth as she expresses her frustration the only way she knows, I wish from deep within that I could croon to her. That the…
-
Unharried moments
In a couple of hours, we will wind down what has been an uneventful yet memorable two weeks of staycation. Each day started predictably with the twins snuggling in bed with us. What followed was largely dictated by the weather and where their rich imaginations led them. Some days they built towers with blocks mimicking…
-
Warning: Hurt feelings ahead
“If you hurt my feelings one more time…” Pattu looks at Ammu with threatening eyes. Ammu replies hardly looking up from her coloring book “I hurt your feelings already. I hurt you first!” Saathi and I grin across the dining table and file these conversations to retold and enjoyed years later. My mind however is…
-
Lost and found: Life goes on
Balancing a load of folded clothes in my hands, I spy the letter for the twins I have to file away in their memento box. Picking it up I gingerly make my way upstairs. Stowing away clothes, I take the letter to my room and open up the grey suitcase that houses things old and…
-
I was never the same again
The mountains shimmered in the evening sun. They looked gray, forsaken, eerily beautiful. The roads stretched like ribbons weaving in and out of the mountain town. Desolate. My eyes were vacant. My mind numb. I looked into the barrenness of the horizon and saw myself. There was no pain. Just emptiness. A good part of…
-
Leaving a trail of sentiments
She flitted into my life, like a butterfly one day in the past year – bright, cheerful and full of energy. Her expressive eyes filled her face imbuing it with a spark that rarely left a person untouched. Her hands told a story of their own as her voice modulated up and down animating the…