From Deepa's Desk

This long weekend has been literally literary and filmy! Yesterday I, my husband and kid went to Salarpuria Sattva Knowledge City where Hyderabad Literary Festival is being held. For those interested, it will go on till tomorrow.  Knowledge City is a beautiful place with neatly manicured tiny gardens and many cozy looking bistros that you simply cannot resist peeping in.  The literary festival had many authors speaking at different podiums. A group of girls were enacting a drama based on the Mahabharata presumably, because we could catch only a part of it. There were also conversations happening with experts on climatic changes inside a conference hall. Some students from an art college had come there and were showcasing their brilliant works featuring the treasures of Telangana and also giving social messages for the environment.  For me, the best part was the book stall. I was pleasantly surprised to see many works of Indian authors featured there. I was walking from on...

Some evenings make me feel lost. There is that intense urge to do something but nothing interests me. I take a book, read few lines and keep it aside. I try to write something but cannot find words. I switch on the TV, hoping to watch something but find myself mindlessly scrolling through channels without watching anything in particular. It is as if the evening is telling me to not to do anything! As an adult, I find it very difficult to not to do anything at all. But in my childhood, I have spent many a glorious evening, sitting on a bench beside the gate of the building where I used to live, and I used to watch the road. Sometimes there would be friends, sometimes no one beside me, but this activity was immensely calming and peaceful. I used to simply sit and watch and not do anything else. I would see people returning to their homes from offices and it used to make me ridiculously happy, imagining the scene at their homes when they would finally get time to spend with their loved on...

It is tough being a millennial today! I find myself at the cusp of two worlds - one in which I grew up and another which is changing every second. I grew up following one set of trends and find myself facing several new sets today. The beliefs that I carried on all through my life seem no longer relevant, forcing me to question myself whether there is any sense in holding on to them.  A part of me wants to hold on to them. Over the years, these beliefs have shaped me and made me what I am today. How do you let go of a part of your identity? How do you move from a world you know to a world that is foreign? Yet, change I must. Embrace the new trends and beliefs, I should. But it doesn't come easily to me. I watch the new world with a mix of awe and despair. Awe, because the people are so different, so 'more' than I can ever hope to be. Despair, because I realize that I can never belong to the new world. It has moved on too much and too fast for my liking and I am struggling t...

This post came at a time when I was laughing looking at my son's diary. There was an entry in the last page, written by the kid in his scrawling handwriting - 'I came late to school today' and I had to sign that. It reminded me of a time when the biggest problem of the day was having not done the school homework or coming late to school. I can still feel the sense of dread and fear that struck the heart when the homework was incomplete or the teacher caught me coming late to school.  We definitely evolve during the college-years. Pending homework, coming late to school, not having studied for the exams - these become a trend to be followed and something to be taken casually. There is slight fear of the situation, no doubt, but we learn to put on our brave face and to pretend that we are not much bothered by it.  If only the gravest problems we faced in life were something akin to those faced by us in school and college! The real test of life begins when we step out into the...

As a homemaker, one of the biggest challenges of my day is finding happiness amidst the routine chores. When you have to do the same tasks every day, a sense of boredom creeps in.  One of the best lessons that I have learnt in my quest for happiness is that, it can be found not just in the destination but in the journey as well. Often we focus so much on the destination that we forget to smell the roses in the various paths that our journey takes us through.  I try to make mundane tasks interesting by adding something new to the day. While cooking, I usually listen to podcasts. Not only do they inspire me, but the dreary process of cooking turns into something interesting that I actually look forward to. Sometimes I attempt new recipes. Other times I listen to songs while cooking.  Talking about songs, they are a must when it comes to cleaning the house. I am not a cleanliness-freak and most of the times, I let it go if the house is messy. But sometimes it gets so m...

I came across this beautiful term today and it made me realize something.  This winter, I experienced neither the cold of the morning nor the warmth of the rising sun. Chores and responsibilities took over and before I knew it, winter slowly faded into the background. Today, the sun shone stronger and gave a brief glimpse of spring for sometime, bringing in the stark realization that winter is fading.  Hyderabad gave me my first taste of winter. Having lived in Mumbai for about three decades, I was used to only humid weather and heavy rains. It was in Hyderabad that I started looking forward to winter, cozy sweaters, cold mornings and nights and spicy food and beverages. I distinctly remember yearning for the sun by the time January set in.  But this year, I did not feel the winter. It came and passed away and I did not even meet it properly. No foggy mornings, no walking around my colony cozily tucked up in sweater, no photos of trees with dried leaves adding a surreal f...