Skills I May Need Tomorrow-Hairdressing

If you are ever stuck at home with an exacting teenager whose idea of beauty is perfectly coiffed hair, you are in trouble . It begins innocently enough. "Don't these honey - blonde high lights against dark hair looks fine mummy? We can do it at home. One box is enough and it's easy too.…

Masked Emotions.

Recently I was called to school to update some records. You could say I was eager as my pet Sheru, featured in the header, to get out of the house. The school campus was deserted except for a few workers pottering about refusing to meet the eye. I suppose, after months of isolation and work…

Throwback To 2020.

January 2021 and time for the annual, "Where in the world did the last year go by?" 2020 was to be my 'Year of Travel'. I was in Aurangabad in Maharashtra, exactly at this time last year. I had explored the Ajanta caves but it was Cave 16 , also know as Kailash Temple at…

A Birthday Cake Story

I love birthdays; my own tops the chart. Come December and I start tingling with this crazy anticipation. The feeling is sweeter than the first sugar rush of a hot gulab jamun on a cold winter night. Or a cake. I remember the first year I was in college. Surrounded by my new friends and…

Now and then

Thanks to COVID-19, we have found ourselves in a pickle. Squashed at home, adjusting, adapting, remembering the pre-Corona days with plenty of time to do all the stuff we always wanted to. So pickling is one of the activities done with a gusto these days. Homemade Dalle Chili Pickle. Red hot, eat at your own…

Online School In The Times Of Lockdown

Lockdown 3.0 is a reality I wake up to everyday. Not that I'm complaining. Lord knows, I needed this time away from school, children, term syllabus, piles of corrections, PTMs, the usual song and dance. I juggled my domestic goddess persona (had no excuses to hide behind this time) and built bridges socially with old…

Living In Interesting Times

It finally happened, India is under a complete lockdown for 21 days. Today happens to be Day 5 and unlike the voluntary Janta Curfew of last Sunday, this is the compulsory kinds. Stay at home! China, Italy, Spain, England, the US, practically every country around the globe is doing it or on its way. So,…

When Corona Came Marching Home.

Corona Virus with an official name COVID-19 hopped across China, Korea, Iran, skipped to Italy and finally jumped to India. When WHO declared it a pandemic, I had to google the word since my vocabulary on contagion began with outbreak and ended with epidemic. Social distancing physically continues to be propped up like Captain America's…

The Case Of The Vanishing Voice

Come winter and like clockwork my health flip flops in spite of every precaution I take. This time it was just a scratchy throat. I thought it would become alright; I had much faith in my legions of white blood cells. The next day my voice had transformed into a deep throaty whisper reminiscent of…

Surviving Sheru

He arrived in a cardboard box, all the way from Kashmir, India seven years ago, a pup no one wanted, with a desi name Sheru that no one liked. In a household with two established fur balls, he was already the outsider. He made the adults apprehensive but the kids were ecstatic; he with the…