To my firstborn-my nephew

You lie there, oblivious to everything.
I lie here, smiling, crying, at the happiness that is to come.

There is warmth all around.
Remember this warmth all your life.
It is from the one 'person' who loves you unconditionally till her last breath.

I have known this 'person' all my life.
She helped me walk through it when I wobbled.
She lunged my confidence when the world put me down.
She cried when I cried.
She fed me when I had the whims for being fed by someone else.

When I was upset, she would pick the scooter and take me to the ice cream parlor.
She would hear me rant while i gorged on my sundae.
(No wonder, nothing beats sundaes as #1 my comfort food :P)
In those and many such other moments she rose from being my elder sister to being my friend.
(In fact she never liked me calling her didi, we were friends she would say.)

She is for me, an epitome of pure love. No malice, no cheats.
All my spoils have come from her. My first Ipod, my first branded wrist watch, my ray-bans, and much more.

She held me tight when we lost our elder sister.
I still remember that grip affirming to me she was there for me.
She still is holding it tight.

So always, always love her, respect her.
She will be your friend, guide and is your mother.

Much love munchkin,
Masi
22.06.2016

(P.S.: This is only the first of many more letter to come your way. Masi will smother you with louve. )

Those last few miles

The path in front of me is turning rusty and rough.

There are coarse stones under my feet.

My sole is gashed, so is my soul.

Bleeding, I walk ahead for the path leads me to my destination.

Mustering all the strength in me, I walk.

I am out of my stash of water.. food..strength..

I try to find him..to lean on him.

I see him struggle himself.

I steer into silence.

Placing faith in us, I keep walking.

Hoping the destination meets us before we fall over and the end reaches us.

Year of writing: 2016

The children know, so listen-in!

'The kids are not alright', is one of the episodes of the podcast series titled 'My Indian Life', a BBC Media initiative and hosted by Kalki Koechlin. All the previous five episodes have been intriguing and interesting too. This, however, touched a cord. It talks about child abuse, a paramount problem and makes for a poignant listen.

Well, while and after listening to it, my thoughts have just been going back and forth on whether to say it or not. More so acknowledge it to myself and shout out loud just so my soul would hear it. 
I was molested when I was young. Well, as is many a times, it was the friendly neighbor. I found my ways to avoid and ensure that it never occurs again. That's the small of it.

The reason I feel I need to speak out is put just two things out there:

To parents: Keep your arms, ears and eyes wide wide open. However your child, risque, rash or wayward, he or she, do not sideline your children's words when they speak of anything close to describing abuse. A child hardly understands good and bad, so unless you check out their claim, just don't disregard it. 

Second, it is happening to children, boys and girls. We, as a society make it even harder on boys to share and talk about abuse. Label it as a weakness. In fact, data shows that many men abused in their childhood become delinquents and abusers themselves. Abuse doesn't come with a gender tag. 

The path is very long but at the very least let's acknowledge, accept and report it. Only then can we pave way for victims to recover and find themselves, their voices, their strength. 

P.S.: Written originally in September of 2018.

Musings from 2025

As I sit here, on the first 'working' Monday of 2026, I can't but pause and think of what really 2025 taught me. 

Pause and Take it in! All the 21st century advancements have made our lives easy, sure, but it's given not just the means but also become a need, a compulsion for being fast-paced all day, every day. It has poured over to our relationships, our friends, our fam. Our multi-tasking, our scrolling, nothing stops. Everything is a list, everything a to-do.

 

Oh, the joy to be present in one place, see your child play, see your parents crack a joke and smile or sneer and get angry, to hear the sizzle of the hot pan as you cook your favourite dish, to finally crack that backhand and much more. As a professional too, to hear what people and communities are saying, hear the unsaid, observe and take in their experiences and let their world fill you. Just look up, life is in the moment, here and now. I hope to continue this is 2026.

Saviour complex and Need for Solution! (this is more a development sector reflection & perspective) My 9-year-old nephew and his friends have this compulsive habit, anytime I tell them something, they retort back a vociferous 'I know'! They want to feel more and more like an adult, it's cute habit. But not when adults do it. We know that we don't have answers to everything. All of our lived experiences are uniquely different, yet we like to give 'gyan' and suggest off the bat 'solutions'. Sometimes it's ok to sit with problems, let them consume you. May be then we can truly understand the nuances and appreciate the complexity of problem at hand. 

Everyone works! Most people work hard, even the smart workers are hard workers. Just because you talk intellectual, work on a computer, work in a new-age firm, etc. doesn't make your effort more valuable or make you a better or more respect worthy person. 

Everyone's work deserves respect. Your cook, your cleaner, your boss, your home-maker mother, your security guard, EVERYONE. You can ask them to be/do better but in that process don't take away or chip at their dignity.

Save More, Invest More! This economy and uncertain times are going nowhere. Plan your investments and start/build on those SIPs. Don't let that money rot in a savings account. More so to the women out there, always have your money, save and build that embankment of yours. 

Here's hoping I work more, grow more and 'give and get' more love in 2026! 

 

How Insignificant are we!

 *Content Warning: Discussion of rape and sexual assault

Catching up on the events and news from the world, I came across this article on NDTV online (link). It's a story reporting an extremely disturbing event of a 51 year old businesswoman being abused at the hands of a male client. And once you scroll down, in the same article they capture another horrible rape incidence that took place in Kolkata. No pause, no new page just merged like that.

Like how invisible and inconsequent has rape become?? An experience that destroys more than flesh — it fractures identity, erodes one's soul, and leaves one to endure a lifetime of relentless emotional torment...is an event that's just merged like another paragraph. That victim didn't even deserve her own story, her own article. In the digital age, where we see pages and pages filled with senseless gossips from Bollywood and Sports, we couldn't give the second victim her own space? What was it: Just two stories where lead word matched? or Just two events where data said 'women who knew the offender'? How lazy is our journalism? OR How lazy is our conscience?

Where do we even go from here? Only to hell I guess. 

A Serendipitous Encounter to Remember

It has been 3 years since I last wrote, so this is more of me stretching my writing muscle than anything else. I am going to share this encounter that happened with me about a fortnight ago that touched me in ways I didn't expect.

I was recently traveling back with my 1.5 yr old from London to New Delhi. I was seated next to this lady, let's call her Lady PD for now, who was also travelling back home solo. She had this soft stylish sophistication about herself. With kid smiling and giggling around, we had a brief exchange as we waited for flight to take off. That wait was about 3 hours and some, and then we were informed that the flight has been cancelled due to technical issue. Time: 12:15 a.m.

Kid had just fallen asleep in my arms. 

Crew informed that there were two options: 1. You have a home/place to stay in London, please head home. 2. You do not have accommodation, then the airline will provide you one. Both me and Lady PD fell into Option2.

Without saying much to each other, we waited as passengers hurriedly deboarded. She then took down my hefty carry-on backpack (As a toddler's mother, you carry their world in your bag-formula, food, water, diaper, wipes, tissues, talcum, medicines, a spare pair of clothes for him and self and then some more) and picked up all items around my seat and closed the bag. 

My kid's buggy was handed over at the end of the bridge. I seated him in it and then the three of us made our long way back to the baggage belts at Terminal2 of Heathrow airport. Along the way we discussed about flight rescheduling and other cancellation riddles. Amidst all of this (after almost 4 hours of first 'hello') we exchanged our names and I also noticed that she probably had a more painful knee than she admitted.

When we arrived at belts, she went ahead, got the trolley, got her bags and asked me to stay put with the kid. Once she had done that, I got my baggage. She had her 3 suitcases on trolley and I had my suitcase and a duffle (that went on top) in one hand and his buggy in my other hand. We waited and the airline staff gave us clarity on rescheduled flight, our accommodation for the night and the transport to hotel. We had to walk till a certain parking spot and board bus with our luggage. 

Seemed manageable, but alas kid woke up howling, probably disturbed by all the commotion and noise. Tried to feed and get him to sleep back in buggy but he just wanted to be in my arms. Mind you, this is Heathrow and unlike here in India, at this hour of the night it was a ghost town. There was hardly a handful of airport staff and absolutely nobody you could ask or hire for help. So, I picked up the kid and she put my luggage items on her trolley and then pushed that 80 kg+ trolley. We boarded bus and reached hotel. Time: 2:30 a.m.

At 15 degrees weather outside was cold and quite windy. The check-in queue extended till outside the hotel (about 250 people checking in takes time). There was just one bellhop who was helping checked in guests with their luggage. Lady PD suggested I go in with kid and she'll wait outside till the hotel staff could come back and help with our luggage items. We were last to check in. Time:  3:40 a.m. (ish)

Once in our room, I tucked in the kid and moved on to do some small chores. After all of that I put up my feet for the first time in that night and it was already dawn. As I looked outside, the calmness of Thames conflicting with the frenzy of a day or rather night that had been. 

Next day, we boarded bus and began the whole process of travel to airport, wait in random queues, check-in queue, security and then again wait for boarding. We boarded, settled in, talked and then caught on some sleep. Next morning, with breakfast we caught on our journey ahead (we were both traveling further from New Delhi) and plans for the weekend (or what was left of it). Flight landed in New Delhi (T3) and just like that we are on our way, our separate ways. Time: 1:00 p.m. (IST)

When I reminisce about it, there are so many, seemingly trivial gestures that spoke so loudly of the strong and lovely human she was. Her thoughtfulness: there were items I was feeding the child an orange or some drink and it would drip and before I could bend and open my bag for tissue, she had one ready in her hand. Kid pushed and played and banged around her carry-on suitcase for hours, but she did not once mention or show an objection, instead was happy to see him happily occupied. She let me give all my attention and energy to kid and handled all the luggage issues herself without ever once mentioning how arduous or tiring this was, especially given the pain in her leg. 

For me, personally, meeting a woman who was so passionate about her career, loved being the head of her big-joint family and most importantly had such a measured reaction to everything, felt very 'center-ing'. Like there can be humans who are nice to you, in a gentle quiet way. Give you space and yet take care of your needs. Show affection, ask your kid to call him Plane Dadi (PD) and yet not be overtly friendly or emotional. Give you respect and not make age a determinative between two women and their lived experiences. 

Here's hoping to being more human and more such magic of serendipity!

 

Can I?

Relationships are like this endless moors rolling over hills and plateaus, with thin and meek margins. On those margins lies the most unrecognized yet thickest segment; emotional honesty. One always hears or rather likes to talk about the roses, the clinking of glasses, the love filled dedications and on, on, on... (in their relationships)

But are there moments or days when I:

Can say I don't want to share?

Can say I don't want to wait anymore?

Can say I am tired of your hyper-ness?

Can say I need space?

Can say, act now?

The ability to question and change the routine or status in a relationship is the strongest (tangiest) spice there is. No songs, no movie nights, no date nights, just the ability to say, 'Hey! Slacker, pick up our relationship.'

For ultimately, do I really need a white knight in my life!