Chupke Chupke...Shhhh..

She was young and smart and by no traditional beauty standards a pretty young thing. She had an air of charm and her charismatic personality was her make up. How did she end up falling in love with the most arrogant, bratty man from her apartment is unknown to anyone who knows her well. It was probably the peer pressure to have a boyfriend. Even her best friend was always busy talking about her string of relationships and seemed to have forgotten Amrita completely until her next breakup. Amrita had no excuse for falling into an abusive relationship. She was smart and she was the one who would warn others not to date jerks. Her first red flag came up when she was trying to talk to him about a stalker who was making her life miserable. He acted like he was not even remotely interested in the topic, while she was sobbing, seeking his support and advise. She learned to handle the stalker with her parents' support. The next red flag came up when she took him out with a couple of fri

Today, while putting up washed clothes to dry, I was reminded of my school days. As much as I am a happy person, there are always things I do not like to do. Instead of being unhappy about doing things I detest and cannot avoid, I look forward to the reward at the end of it. When I need to wake up early for an exam, I would look forward to the afternoon after the exam when I can have a wonderful nap. That was enough to keep me in a cheerful mood. As much as we would love to live in the moment, life always brings to us many unwanted situations. I hate folding clothes. I wait for it to pile up high enough to catch my attention. I blast my current favourite song on my laptop. Make some sincere attempts at dancing and fail. And in 10 minutes the clothes are all in place, neatly stacked up in their respective places. I do not enjoy waking up too early and rushing off to my office by 7.30 in the morning. I look forward to getting back home and see my son excited that I am back home afte

We have Epics like Mahabharata and Ramayana to guide us in our lives. We are taught by Kunti's actions that you cannot take back words and the implications of letting out anything loosely will have everlasting impacts. And yet, every day we tend to let out words to hurt others. You can apologize later that you did not mean it, but those words can never be taken back. You can always control what you say and how you say it. Sometimes bad thoughts enter our head. We can always filter out what comes out of our mouth, right? Especially when you are angry, my best approach is to stay silent than to speak harsh words. I am smart. Don't doubt the fact that I could give you some exceptionally witty comebacks, but I choose not to. I choose my words because I have learned from experience that it hurts forever. Our elders say "Naakula Shani irukku". Shani God is always wrongly connected to be controlling our actions. It is easy to put the blame on someone for our actions. Not

If you know me personally, you would know that I like to walk fast. I enjoy walking long distances, talking. My best friend, Archana, and I have walked a lot, together. She is faster and fitter than I am, but she matches my speed. Now, as I am recovering from my knee injury, I get frustrated when even the shortest of distances take longer than usual. I try not to get into a rant mode, but this is irritating at times. I know it will take time, and in that time I may have some moments of doubt whether I will get back to 100% of what I used to be. This morning, after a long time, I had a call with Archana. She is in the Trumpland. I am in Modified India. I have a long distance friendship with her. We both know it is tough, and still, we want it to work. We have been in this relationship for more time than I can ever remember now. She will give the exact duration if she was writing this :). There is something about having a best friend that makes you feel warm and having a smirk on your

It is crazy how quickly weekends whizz past us. My To-Do list is increasing by the day and it appears as though I have not enough time to do it. Okay. Yes, I do seem to miraculously have time for youtube and Netflix though. And not much time to write. Hmm. Sounds strange how time manipulates me into thinking I have enough of it to do all that and then move on to my list. But when I am done with binge watching, I end up cramming to complete chores and yet do not complete anything. Evil time -  How you cheat us right in front of our eyes! And while pondering on this, I ended up watching a video on how people who procrastinate end up working faster on the solution and are also more creative. Wow. That is enough encouragement, right? I have seen it work when it comes to my professional life. And I have also realized I am a different person at home. I have kind of known this all my life. I have been a different person at school and college and a completely different person at home. While

We are all constantly in search for happiness. We seldom see the small joys of life. Today I was able to lift my left leg up and put my pants on. Yay! I felt like I have achieved greatness with just this trivial task. Is it wrong to bask in small joys? Absolutely not. These small moments contribute towards happiness. You always have a choice of pondering over sad situations over and over again or moving on and living life happily. It may seem too easy to say and impossible to achieve, right? Well, yes, not always, but most of the times you can try this successfully. My son looks at his classmate's scribbles and exclaims, "WOW!". To him, that is art. He is encouraging his peers and he is all but a couple of months shy of 3 years. I enjoy when he relishes his chocolates. I enjoy along with him when he kicks the ball high up in the air. I enjoy it when he dances. He enjoys these moments too. Breaking my leg allowed me to spend more time with my kiddo. So I was happy instea

As I limped back to my office today, I realized that when you do good, you will get it back in some form or the other. I am a regular with my Breakfast and Lunch menu at my office cafeteria. I have a paper plain dosa in the morning and a nice, crunchy salad for lunch. The two gentlemen who prepare this are very friendly and always greet and receive a smile. They know I am a regular and even after 5 weeks of absence, they recognized me. I am one of 5000 employees who walk in and out of that office every day. They serve hundreds of customers every day. What are the odds of them remembering me? Just a small smile and a heartfelt greeting every day made so much difference. I was limping my way to the dosa counter and he enquired about my health and why I had missed 15 dosas! My colleagues helped me escape the counters and brought me the food coupons. For lunch, when I walked up to the salad counter, he asked me about my leg and said he would bring it to me himself and that I should take