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An Unforgettable Ganesh Chaturthi!

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This year’s Ganesh Chaturthi was indeed special! Since two years, our apartment complex has been playing host to the Lord Ganesha. A group of boys in the colony and their friends look after all the arrangements – right from collecting funds, to bringing the Ganesha and ensuring daily worship. For one whole week, the evenings went by in attending the Pooja, availing the delicious Prasad offerings and meeting people from the apartment and the lane as well. Some new acquaintances were formed while existing friendships blossomed even more. After a long while, the lane reverberated with the sounds of children playing and having fun. It was a wonderful week – a time to dress up, meet people and strengthen the bonds of a budding community! I started this blog by saying that this year’s festival was special. There’s an interesting story about it. The day when Ganesha is brought home, or to the pandal, is a very special day for me. I have fond memories of rushing out of my home whenev
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Extra Days Need Extra-Strong Coffee!

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  Somedays you need that cup of extra-strong coffee. Because you realize that no matter how many routes of escape you keep in hand, it really catches up with you that life is hard. You plan and organize, yet things will go out of hand. You read inspiring books and listen to motivational podcasts, yet one small, negligible event can trigger the ever-simmering gloom in your mind. You listen to spiritual discourses every day that keep reminding you to rise above the petty matters of life and think from a bigger context. Yet one criticizing remark is enough to remind you of everything that is going wrong with your life. You meet and deal with a lot of people and assume that you know how to handle difficult ones, and yet when the time comes to stand up against toxic people, you cannot, because a part of your mind that has always been subdued by such people tells you (in their voice) that it is your fault like always. You plan a to-do list and find that there will always be a lot
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The Grand Delusion Named 'Safety'

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  I am ashamed to say that I have not been following up with the Kolkata rape case. The reason is quite petty and selfish – I am too weak-hearted to read or hear any details about the victim. I have been reading many posts on the social media, condemning the dastardly crime and asking for justice. Yet I kept quiet, not wanting to get involved. But only because Nirbhaya has already broken me. So did Priyanka (from Hyderabad in 2019). I do not have stomach to read or hear about any more crimes. Today, a friend sent a YouTube video wherein a doctor living near the hospital recounted the horrors that the hospital is facing. I kept listening until she came to the point where she started describing the victim’s condition. My finger automatically slid across the video to many minutes further. Because I can’t. I just can’t. And to think that someone actually went through all of that. Acts like this shake up our very belief in humanity. We should not even compare ourselves to animals, for
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July Musings - On Blogging And Happiness!

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Of late, I and my kid have taken to watching the series Young Sheldon, a delightful plot revolving around a child who is a prodigy in the making and is trying to stand out in a world where he will never fit in. In today’s episode, I came across an interesting concept where some people wonder whether they are happy and they ever will be. It drove home some points and I started thinking about what makes me happy. Instantly the answer came to my mind – blogging. I have been at my happiest whenever I blogged. Not a novel, not a story, but a simple blog, a blog reflecting on some life-lesson that I learnt or which shares some anecdote from my daily life. It has been a while since I wrote a blog on my site. There are many challenges, the most prominent being lack of readership and viewers. My blog at the most gets ten to twelve views and I am not even sure whether those were reads or just views. It sometimes amazes me that my WA status wherein I share the link to my blog shows me 40 to 5
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Week 1 Of A Reel-less Existence!

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It has been a week since I uninstalled FB app from my mobile. I log in once or twice in a day through my laptop, either to post a blog or to refer to my reading and writing groups. I did post a snap two days ago to promote a new plot I have started on.  I could re-discover many of my hobbies that got left behind in the course of following reels. I reconnected with online crossword, an activity that I thoroughly enjoy. I started reading articles from Speaking Tree, a column of TOI that I used to eagerly look forward to every day. I have been trying to get started on newspaper reading but haven't had any success in getting a paper delivered to the area where I live. I hope to get it started soon.  I caught up with my habit of doing some warm-up exercises and Yoga. I read some good books. I even watched a TV series and loved it. I spent some time with the kid assisting him in his summer activities for the school. I also updated my cooking blog site after a long time. All in all, I fee
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Day 2 Of A Reel-less Existence!

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Today was the second day of having uninstalled FB app from my mobile.  I did log into FB from my laptop to post a book review and then to check my writing group for updates. But that was it. Uninstalling FB has brought in several unpleasant realizations.  Firstly, the reels were taking up almost 80% of my day. 80%! I myself was amazed at everything I could do today which I would have postponed or procrastinated if the dreadful reels were there.  To start with, I could finish a story that I had begun ten days ago. Not just that, I could also edit and submit it to my writer's group. While I was writing only 500 words every day, today I could write three times more than that and brought the total word count of the story to 5k. I got so excited that I shared the word count of the story as my status in WA. (WA is allowed. It's not as addictive as reels!).  I could get some cleaning done. I also did some exercises. I got started on reading a new book and also started making plans for
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FB Uninstallation Diaries

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Today, on a whim, I decided to take a major step.  I uninstalled FB from my mobile. Now you may think there's nothing remarkable about this. May be. But it's a big deal for me. You see, I am a homemaker. Most of my entertainment and social life exists only because of my virtual avatar in FB. I am an introvert in the non-virtual world and an extrovert in the virtual world. FB became the place where the extrovert-me found people to hang out with, have conversations, share mutual interests and become a part of a tribe.  I lost myself in the virtual world. There was always something to post, something to be commented upon, some photos to be liked and loved and what not… And let us not get started on the story-sharing. Whatever I came across in the Social media and liked, I had to share that as a Story in my FB profile. Then I would check how many viewers the story has gathered. I would check how many comments my post has got. I never realized that everything had gradually bec
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