Pinku-Enchanted Life

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

Little girls are worshipped as Goddesses in Northern India, indeed in most parts of the country. Though one gets to see it most in the North (perhaps as compensation for the lousy sex ratio that their money ensures). Whatever it be, the fact remains that this year we had our little girl, Aarini accompanying us on our pandal visits. And it was a nice experience. What remained missing for the second year running is a glimpse of Janvi during pujas. Trust she had a good time there in Bangalore. I am hoping I can meet her again soon and the sisters can continue to love and greet each other with the same spontaneity as the first time all their life. A few glimpses of the pujos we visited: This pandal took the theme of the Ajanta Ellora caves and did up the whole place with eco-friendly material. Remarkable. Dad, Daughter and Durga Our neighbourhood pujo Mom and Antara (our house guest as Parry likes to introduce her) Though you can barely see whats happening on stage. I still thought its a w

I was out with two junior colleagues at work to eat golgappas and generally have fun. Heard a child bawling, wondered who it was and then while getting back to the car. Saw a middle aged woman carrying a child of 5-6 years. The child was crying er heart out. I stepped infront of them and tried to talk to her, hoping the interruption would stop her from crying further. The woman explained that the child was her grand daughter whose mother (the woman's daughter) had died and therefore the woman was looking after the child. She seemed to be of limited means and said that she couldnt afford to buy the toy the child was asking for and had instead got her a balloon, some biscuits and toffee as compensation. I was in half a mind to ask her where the toy shop was, so that I could buy the toy for the child before realizing that I would set a bad precedent. Instead I kept talking to the child and got her to forget her toy for a while atleast. She got friendly enough to smile for the camera a