Category: Life
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Meaningful Melodies
Today’s prompt over at Writing 101 takes me back a good decade or more. To a time when I had just discovered music beyond what I saw on television or heard on the radio. It brings back memories of rainy evenings spent browsing the music section of a store I frequented then. Of being lost…
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Hurtling through the past
A place belongs forever to whoever claims it hardest, remembers it most obsessively, wrenches it from itself, shapes it, renders it, loves it so radically that he remakes it in his own image. – Joan Didion The year was 2000. The city was Bangalore. I remember speeding through the roads in the dark, the lamp…
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Just write
It is late in the evening. My almost 2 month old is sleeping in her bassinet. My ears are tuned for sounds of her stirring. Twenty minutes. That is all I have wanted for myself today. Yet, those precious few minutes eluded me all day. Posts kept writing and rewriting themselves all day. You see,…
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Hey! I can touch my feet and other notes
A little over two weeks postpartum, I am discovering things about me I had forgotten. Like how I can actually put my socks on myself or how I can see past my tummy to my feet and gasp! I can actually bend down and soap my feet. The learnings have mostly been pleasant and there…
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Grandmothering
I stand by the patio door, baby in my arms watching you flit from tree to tree in pursuit of a white-winged butterfly. You look care free and unfettered following the dictates of your heart. In your white and blue PJs you look much like a butterfly yourself. You watch it light on the fence…
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D-Day
It is 10:00 AM. Tonight is when I get admitted at the hospital. I sit in front of my laptop with a cup of warm barley water by my side. The to-do lists are scrolling through my head but all I feel is malaise. It is chilly inside the house. I pull my sweater closer.…
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Milestones – 5 years!
I feel you before I hear you. Your tiny hand is on my forehead. My eyes flutter awake to your “Can you wake Appa so he can put me in bed?” I absently shake Saathi who sleep-walks you to bed before he falls back in his a few minutes later. I am wide awake now.…
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Time honored traditions
As I turned the lights out last Tuesday night, the last thing imprinted on my mind were the plastic bags with fruit, flowers, parupu thengai and silver vessels laid out on the kitchen island. A day of meticulous preparation and gathering of items needed for a puja the next day at the temple. In my…
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Milestones that sneak up on you
Sometime late last year, I browsed the local schools online trying to find out what the process was like to register for Kindergarten. I got on mailing lists. I marked dates on my calendar and let it be. One fine morning I woke up to a gentle reminder that registration was coming up. The choices…
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Foggy thoughts
Driving down a winding foggy stretch of road, I gripped the steering and blinked multiple times to get used to the sea of white around me. As the road dipped and curved, I slowed down and focused on the dividing yellow line to give me an idea of where I was on the road. The…