Pinku-Enchanted Life

The bangla word for a relative is aatiyon . What it really means is someone who is close to your aatma, your soul. Someone with whom you feel a sense of solidarity, wholeness. Pishi, my father in law's eldest sister was someone I heard about a lot through stories relayed by my in laws and husband long before I had the chance to meet her in person. I also tasted some of her awesome cooking from the portions she would thoughtfully bring across for her brother whenever she visited. My first introduction to her happened about three years ago, when finally my father in law chose to tell her about my existence. It was a moment which I had both dreaded and anticipated equally. Comparisons, remarks, judgement all of it would have been natural and to be expected. Yet the complete openness and ease with which Pishi met me allayed my misgivings and gave her a special place in my heart, for keeps. My subsequent visits to her place on various occasions only helped streng...

Pim, Pimpum, Chota, Chotkas, Hiya, Kutti, Rini, Rinush, Pumpum, Aarini You answer to all these names. You have the wickedest grin and the cutest smile You can say Byeeee and Hieeee with a glee that’s unmatched You grab me and give a tight hugga that makes my heart burst with joy. Your mimic call to  your Dad "Marrieeeeeee" to rhyme with my Parryieee lights up his day Your curls bother you too much and the sweep of your impatient hand delights us all You give AC a glimpse of the daughter he never had with your cuddling up to him Sanchali wears a bindi just so you will take it away with your lil fingers You bring a smile to your ailing Daddum Even your otherwise silent Thammam always has something to say to you Diddum thinks you are the smartest, naughtiest, cutest, bestest girl on earth Buttercup feels you are the only one around whom she has to be careful You my dear miracle maker are all of this and much much more. Today a...

Dear Baba, Its Father’s Day this Sunday and all the advertisements are telling me to remember you, tell you that you are the greatest DAD, write you a letter to mention that you were, are and will always be my original Superman, etc. Yesterday the Archies show window in a mall had so many Best Dad gifts that for a moment I thought why would anyone need so many? And then the wicked thought came that perhaps with divorces so much on the rise, kids would need to buy for different dads – the best one, the better one and the fun one. Something like that. Oh by the way I hope you know that I have started the letter all wrong, I am supposed to call you DAD not Baba. Baba is old world, its unfashionable not like Dad – Dad’s smart and modern. Anyway I am too old to change my ways and since you haven’t been around for about twenty years now, I have no way of changing it and getting you to respond to ‘Dad’ so Baba it will be for me. I have been missing you a lot lately, it’s ...

Four years and a few months ago, I had rushed after work to the eastern part of the city to house hunt. We were planning to get married and one essential part of the plans was to have a place of our own to start with. Till then both of us were living with respective parents. It was an attempt at trying our hands at setting up home a second time having tried our best and failing the first time round with other partners. Everything about this second attempt had a bitter sweet tinge. The bitterness came from already knowing that marriage is not a ‘happily ever after’ and the sweetness from the fact that we had grown to love and respect each other and were expecting to remain friends above everything else. He had checked out a couple of places already, some too dingy, others way above what we could afford. The property dealer took us to the gates of a corner house late in the evening. The landlord an elderly Kashmiri gentleman asked his man Friday to take us around the first floor whi...

I had planned to write a long post on this much awaited trip. The plan had been to relive the whole thing once again through the blog. Work. Baby. Dog. Home. Laziness. All however conspired to make a whole month pass before I could even get on to the blog. So finally I am here to write about Aarini’s first trip abroad. We landed in at Bandaranaike International Airport at about 4 pm. As promised by makemytrip a brand new Nissan Bluebird and an effervescent Pious Silva were waiting for us at the exit gate. We were happy to be on holiday. A forty km ride into main Colombo through markets thronging with Christmas shoppers took a good part of two hours. We were however too busy marveling at the sites, checking the similarities between our island neighbours and us to mind the trip too much. The first night of our trip was spend at The Grand Oriental Hotel which was set up in the 1800’s by royal decree and has since then been ceaselessly entertaining guests. It also ha...

Dear Miracle maker, You are almost nine months old now. That’s as many months outside of me as inside. Makes me feel a little queer but immensely proud too. From being a lil Rajma (the first time the doc showed you to me in an ultrasound that’s what you looked like, a small rajma bean inside a big empty bag) you have now grown to be almost two feet tall. From being unable to turn on your side you can now climb up tables, chairs, infact even things that are not meant to be climbed, like fabrics. When Dadda and I first got to know about your quite entry into our life, the times were turbulent and they continue to be so…but your smile which changes from innocent to wicked to naughty to ‘know it all’ keeps us on our tracks. You are as much a Miracle maker now as you were when inside me. Before you were born we didn’t know what gender you would be, you see the laws of our lands forbid it cause some Goddess worshippers can’t tolerate it when girls are born into their families. I am hoping th...

This blog happened when life felt like it was falling apart, or atleast the known predictable parts of it. Moving out of a marriage, trying to correct my professional and personal life at the same time, rediscovering my strengths and correcting my weaknesses – they were turbulent times. Till then I had been a ‘good girl’ by opting to get out of a marriage I had overnight turned into a monster. It didn’t matter that I had tried my best without a murmur of protest for close to three years. It didn’t matter that my then husband drank like a fish and nothing in the world would get him to stop and reconsider his drinking habits – neither pleadings nor threats. I was the black girl who had brought ill name to the family by being the first ever to ask for a divorce. Its completely fine to keep having fights, walking out and then reconciling under pressure from family and friends again and again. But DIVORCE was not acceptable. The letter I wrote to my uncle in an attempt to make him understan...