Honemoon, Selfie and Everafter

 

She stood on her tiptoes, turning her profile just so, lips pursed close to her new husband’s cheek. Her hair flowed freely in the soft zephyr over the calm ocean. A short, bright-yellow chiffon frock swirled around her well-proportioned figure. Her husband with ubiquitous knee-length shorts, tight T-shirt chosen clearly to show off his rippling muscles, stood a little stiffly until she prodded him to relax. Unobtrusively, she pulled his hand around her waist and lifted one leg in the universal pose of romance.

Are you wondering whether I have changed my genre from crime and ghosts to romance?

We were married thirty-six years ago, when public displays of affection were present but not common. I don’t think we had an official honeymoon either (though living alone in Mysore is a honeymoon in itself). We began taking “second honeymoons” only after our twenty-fifth anniversary and have continued for the last eleven years, as if to compensate for all those busy, non-celebratory anniversaries before.

As the years pass, I find myself shedding inhibitions like a strip-tease dancer. We make it a point to travel, and lately we’ve been indulging in cruises. My wardrobe has grown less stilted and far more energetic. (The knees may protest on long walks, but I insist on walking shoes that match my dress.)

The opening scene, however, was not us. It was a young couple we met on our most recent trip to Phuket via a cruise. We took a boat from the mainland to an island in the Straits of Malacca. It was a warm December day, and the boat held an eclectic mix: two honeymooning couples, two families of four, an elderly mother with a sulky youngish daughter, two athletic young men and us, the second (or rather, the twelfth!) honeymooners.

The journey took an hour and a half, filled with snacking, drinking, and indulging in every possible photo opportunity.

As is the wont of older people, I observed everyone and provided a running commentary to my long-suffering “lord and master” (who pretends to hate gossip). Being in a romantic frame of mind (it was our anniversary trip) I focused on the honeymooners and decided to write a mental thesis on them.

The first couple were openly, exuberantly in love. They tripped over each other trying to get the perfect pictures and enlisted every passenger at some point to help. We complied indulgently and happily. They were the very essence of newlyweds: gazing into each other’s eyes, holding hands, hugging whenever possible. The groom fetched cold drinks and snacks; the bride smiled, pouted, teased. Their affection was open and refreshing.

The second couple was different.

They too posed for photographs, but here it was the groom who took charge, perhaps too much so. He behaved like an excited boy, leaping at every beautiful sight, clicking away enthusiastically, though not at his wife. Instead, his lens focused on distant mountains, forests, and waterfalls.

The bride, like me, noticed the other couple. Unlike me, she was clearly put out. She tried repeatedly to divert her husband’s attention from the scenery toward herself. She succeeded briefly: he allowed a few posed photographs. But once the duty was done, he returned to the helm, DSLR in hand, absorbed in photographing the non-animate world.

I noticed this. So did she.

In her inexperience, she sulked and snapped at her bewildered new husband. She looked disgruntled, cast occasional glances at the other couple, and appeared ready to snap off her groom’s head as he obligingly photographed them.

We eventually reached the island, swam in the calm, unruffled sea, and frolicked like children let out of school.

The first couple splashed, cavorted, and romped in the shallow water against the golden beach, clearly having the time of their lives. The second bride sat at the water’s edge, letting gentle waves tickle her toes, while her untamed partner gambolled in the sea, camera held high above his head, still clicking away.

A couple of days later, we saw the second couple again, this time getting out of a cab. She wrestled with a large suitcase, yelling, “Come fast or we’ll miss the flight!” He paid no attention, peering instead through his DSLR at a hedge in bloom, clicking away happily.

I sometimes wonder which of these marriages will survive.

In these days of Instagram marriages and TikTok divorces, I’ve become cynical. The overtly romantic couple lived as though life were a movie—but would that film endure the long run? The impatient bride and her shutter-happy husband already seemed to have lost the first sheen of romance. Would he grow into her expectations? Would she learn to share his gaze?

Then again, why get married at all, if not for photo ops, petty tiffs, sulks—and the inevitable making up?

 

Dare to traverse!

 

There I was again staring at a blank word document. A few months back I had my book published. It took me more than two years, a humongous amount of angst and doubt interspaced with self-introspection, misgiving and distrust and the final moment of uncertainty. I refused to touch the pen (metaphorically speaking!) for the next couple of months. I felt my vocabulary had withered and died or had got lost somewhere along the way. 

The doctor in the family decided that she had to push me off the diving board otherwise I would forget how to swim. So I was tempted with some crazy platform where I had to draft a poem every day for twenty-one days. Other than the haikus that I write for my Instagram posts I haven’t authored a serious poem in the last twenty years so it was a challenge.

Starting something creative is thrilling, a spark of inspiration, a blank page, an idea that feels alive in your mind. But finishing it? That’s where the real art begins.

I went, switched on my computer, opened a word document, and looked at it blankly. Nothing came to my mind! I opened a folder of my old poems and went through them, searching for inspiration, nothing happened (they were so different that I wasn’t able to believe that I had written them!) I then just jabbered on the keyboard and the Eureka moment came upon me!

The fight that my mind, body and soul were having at that moment, turned into a constructive argument and my first poem was born “Arguments.” I celebrated the potent new animation that infused into me and I was excited! Could I do this? I wondered.

The next twenty-one days were a rollercoaster ride. There were the highs and lows of creativity. The words flowed in incessant chatter, their noise clamoring for space in my restless mind. “It was more of a fight between the mind and soul though body put its tentative touch hither and thither! The mind, arrogant and impetuous refused to bow before the sanity and calmness of the soul, hence the continual battles in this whole collection.

At its core, creativity is the ability to connect seemingly unrelated ideas and form something new. It’s not about “being original” all the time, but about remixing, rethinking, and reimagining what already exists. Think of creativity as a muscle, the more you use it, the stronger it gets.

Every creator faces moments of frustration, the dreaded “blank page” or “empty mind.” The key isn’t to wait for inspiration, but to start anyway.

Am I a creator? I think each one of us is. Creation is not limited to writing, painting, stitching, or sculpturing. I believe each of us at every moment of our lives are creating something. Whether this is meant for us personally or to be shared amongst friends or with the whole world is your personal choice.

It could be as mundane as planning how to spring clean or could be a deep creative urge to make a vase, it could be the simple task like arranging flowers or making a decision of what to wear. Each of us have our own unique way of exhibiting our artistry. It is when and how we indulge in it that is important.

We often celebrate beginnings, the fresh energy of a new project. Yet, completion demands something quieter but equally powerful: discipline, patience, and the courage to decide it’s done.

Creativity isn’t a straight line. It’s a loop of doubt and discovery. Halfway through, we second-guess everything, the colours feel off, the story drags, the song doesn’t sound how it did in our heads. That’s normal. Every artist hits that wall where excitement fades and persistence takes over.

To complete something creative is to practice trust, trust in your vision, in the process, and in your ability to bring something imperfect but real into the world. Perfection is the enemy of completion. Art lives when it’s shared, not when it’s endlessly tweaked.

Creativity is not a rare talent; it’s a human instinct. Whether you’re designing, cooking, writing, or simply finding new ways to solve old problems, you are creating. The world doesn’t need more perfection; it needs more imagination.

So finish it. Write the last line. Add the final brushstroke. Export the track. The act of completion is itself a creative victory, a declaration that you’ve made something new exist.

It is no longer avant-garde to float around on unfinished stories leaving enticing tendrils of knowledge for the reader to act on, now is the time to be decisive and firm.

“I am a creator, look at me, learn from me, and appreciate the beauty of my creation! 

Because the world doesn’t need more ideas trapped in notebooks; it needs creators who finish.

Because the world doesn’t need more unfinished dreams, it needs creators who dare to complete.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When the world exhales

 

There is that time between midnight and three in the morning when the world exhales. The wind hushes. The moon holds its breath. And if you listen closely enough, you might hear it, the whisper of something ancient, something forbidden. The shadows become darker and bigger and your imagination takes you for a ride.

The tiny forays into the dark portal of the anti-god beckons you with muted sounds and curling tendrils of mist. I have been in this dimension many a times in my life. In my earlier write ups I have categorically stated that I believe in Ghosts. They do exist for I have had many an encounter with them.

I believe that Ghosts are always in the state of limbo, neither here nor there and they (most of them) are not wicked. I have yet to meet an evil one like the ones we see in movies. The ones who try to destroy you. Most of them have been forgotten souls who are lost in the abyss of chaos and do not have the energy to pull themselves out of it.

They say every spell begins with a whisper, a sound too soft to be heard, but too heavy to be ignored. It seeps through candle smoke, slips between shadows, and coils around the listener’s heart like a serpent waiting to strike. Those who hear it never forget. This is the voice of black magic.

I have heard about black magic for years; I have heard the aunts whisper about it and shut up the moment I come into the room. I feel I have felt it too but other than the typical signs of suddenly finding various artifacts related to black magic, I cannot honestly say that I have any proof of it.

Every culture has its version: the witch in the forest, the priest who defies heaven, the scholar who reads one page too far. Each of them, in their own way, becomes a keeper of dangerous knowledge.

I have toyed with my desire to explore this dark world, not exactly for power but rather how to mitigate this force. But there are no temples for black magic, no holy texts to recite. It hides where light falters, in the cracks of forgotten libraries, in the corners of dreams that end too suddenly. It calls not to the pious or the pure, but to the curious, the desperate, and the broken.

Those who answer the call never mean to. It begins innocently, a question whispered to the dark, a candle lit for comfort. But the dark always answers, and never for free.

Black magic is not chaos for its own sake. It is hunger given form. It promises not peace, but power, the power to unmake what fate has written.

I have heard so many stories about this taboo subject, about mothers who control their sons, about wives who wield power over their husbands, about men who worship in the graveyards for monetary gains, about politicians who touch the feet of sadhus who practice this and so on. But like the veil, the actual deed or the actual fulfilment is undulating, misty and flimsy.

But each society has means to fight the curse. That unexplained illness, a spate of bad luck (appliances breaking down; favourite dress being burnt; just twisting of an ankle on a flat road!) all these cannot be just explained away by logic and science. Thus we have the black eye removal ritual (it differs from place to place). But when our puny and tentative efforts cease to help us what do we do? Then the mind searches for ways and means to fight. We start believing in different pujas (very ironical for puja is positive, how can it fight the negative?)

Every tale of black magic ends the same way, with a price paid in silence. Some lose their minds, others their names. A few simply vanish, their absence explained away as madness or myth. Because power, once tasted, refuses to be forgotten. It lingers in the air like smoke from a candle long extinguished. And sometimes, on the coldest nights, that smoke curls back through the cracks of the world, searching for a new breath to claim.

They say light is truth, but that is a lie. Light blinds. It burns away the subtle shades where meaning hides. Only in the dark do we see things as they are, raw, unguarded, alive.

The irony of black magic is that it reflects us, perfectly. Its rituals, whether imagined or real, are mirrors for our most human urges: fear, curiosity, vengeance, love. The flame may burn black, but its light shows us our truest selves.

So when we speak of black magic, perhaps we are not speaking of darkness at all but of depth. Of how far we are willing to go to find meaning in the unknown.

Black magic is not evil. It is simply honest. It whispers what the world tries to silence. But honesty, when spoken in the language of shadows, can tear the soul apart.

Black magic is not an invitation to summon what sleeps beneath. It’s a story about power, mystery, and the price of seeking too much. The wise only listen at the door; the foolish try to open it.

Which one are you?

So when you hear the whisper, the one that sounds almost like your own voice, remember this:
Every door can be opened.
But not every door should be.

 

 

 

 

Closet Confessions

 

Its that time of the year folks! When it is time to rummage through your collection of clothes and decide what to keep and what to throw. To pick out the five sensible dresses that can be worn to function coming up!

Twenty years ago it wasn’t much of a problem. I always ran out of clothes specially during the post August time of the year. All the functions (parties and festivals) came after that. They were followed by innumerable weddings (both friends and family). We were busy till the end of March, after that the summer heat took over and before we could take a breath of relief of the monsoon, one was back again buying sorting matching jewelry and clothes!

I have officially gone into the old age league (not in my mind but according to my passport!). I have stopped wearing uncomfortable clothes (this means sarees, tight blouses, fitting dresses, jeans, and anything similar) I waft about the house in short frocks (loose and comfortable); blaming the rains I continue to indulge in frocks and shorts (so very pleasant!) when I go shopping or visiting. I ignore the looks given by the younger generations at my attire (I have reached the pinnacle of “don’t care” attitude.)

Once upon a time (not a fairy tale!) I used to be fastidious about what I wore at home or to parties or any social gathering. I had different stack of clothes, stay-at-home, stay-at-home-but-could-be- going-out, full-day-out-excursion, relative-visiting, peer-group- meeting, older-friend’s-hangouts and so on and so forth.

At present, the largest pile is stay at home! A small one for shopping, an even smaller one for visiting, a miniscule one for entertaining visitors and one or two for festivals.

I was always an introvert. I never shone socially. The parties in my twenties, thirties, and forties, which I indulged in because we had to be hosts, were busy seeing that everyone else was enjoying and everything was going smoothly. So food, music, and pushing people onto the dance floor was my duty. My part of entertaining myself were the drinks and starters (I still do indulge in these, even when I am alone!)

Now I am at an age when the children of our friends are getting married so wedding invitations are piling up. We need to decide which to attend and which not to.

What is the problem then? You may well ask. I have enough clothes (sarees) and jewelry to last several lives. well, first thing is, I am out of date with what the people at weddings are wearing. I am assuming the safest bet is wearing sarees (not exactly the most fashionable) I made up my mind some time ago not to buy any more sarees (they were really going over board with the prices!) jewelry is fine (You can at least resell them)

Most people in our “now friends” list have not seen me in sarees, so that’s a blessing! The quandary is, I know my sarees! I am trying a new thing now. The fashion for blouses have changed, there I am on a spree of making chic blouses for my old sarees and hope to get away with them.

The greatest obstacle is to choose five sarees out of a hundred (at least!) that are appropriate to the occasion. The trend of having an almost a week of celebration for a wedding has not died down. There is a poker night, a cocktail night, the Haldi day, a mehendi, a reception by the girl’s side, a reception by the boy’s side, the wedding itself and I am sure you can add some more out of your own experience.

The poser continues as one has to choose accessories. The jewelry, the handbag, the sandals et al.

The most fatal of all conundrums is whether I should stick to a saree or go western (just to shock) or maybe wear a sexy lehenga or the newfangled Shararas and Ghararas.

The riddle remains. I have a month and a half to sort all this out and may God help me!

My days of parties may be over but once in a while life throws me a poser which is difficult to handle and I hope the multiple choice that I am faced with has an option of ‘none of the above’!

  

 

 

 

Blasting the walls of truth

 

“Cover your head when you enter the temple!’” or “Go touch your grandmother’s feet!” or “Don’t slouch!” the list is endless. It really was irksome as a teenager. The list of dos were as long as the list of don’ts! Unfortunately, I belonged to a generation of non-rebellious teenagers (there were exceptions!) so I normally did try to tick of the list of dos, though honestly I did not tick off many items on the don’ts list.

I am sure (Though I was unaware) My children went through that phase and were heavily irritated with me. I don’t know what it is that makes young adults (especially young adults who are new parents!) think that they are here to rule the world. Both the young and the old must listen to their views and tirades.

I distinctly remember thinking that children must obey parents (forgetting that I was once that disgruntled child!) I also recall chiding my mother for mispronouncing words or making it a point to correct my father about some item in the news or his perspective about a certain subject.

It began sometime when I turned twenty and this state of affairs continued all through my thirties and early forties. Then suddenly something clicked in my psyche, and I became an adult adult!

Doubts started creeping in as to the veracity of my perceptions. Is truth the most important thing? Is a lie not another aspect of truth? Where does the gray world triumph? Is black and white the absolute authenticity? Are the lines drawn by society the only way to survive?

Truth is important, for it exists and lie is a creative outlet of our desires maybe another facet of truth. But is it every human being’s responsibility to reinforce their ideals? Is it really necessary to hurt someone while trying to do so (believe me you are doing that when you try and correct someone’s perception!) does it matter how we pronounce ‘potato’? (…. a rose by any other name…)

If you look at nature broadly there are no black or white, there is colour everywhere and even the shadows are gray. Love and hate are there but so is like, admiration, intolerance and mild detest. We do tend to forget the mild emotion which are there like undercurrents in a deep river and focus on the eddies of love and hate which are only on the surface. They are short lived and transient; weak and ineffective; slow and ineffectual. I realized then that the passion that drove me to rectify the world was actually a zealous desire to shout out “Hey! I am right and the rest of you are wrong! It is best that you accept this, or I will ride rough shod over you and crush you and your ideas to a pulp!”

When civilization was born, it was obviously an effort by mankind to separate us from animals. Rules were made, lines were drawn, and we congratulated ourselves that we were superior beings and thus must live under control. Our mind must be the master and bodies, and emotion must be subservient. Passions and desire must be muzzled and leashed and only what looked right must be allowed to surface and every other aspect must be thrust deep into the pit of inequity and kept there for eternity.

Yet, the more I think about it, the more I realize that civilization did not erase our instincts; it merely taught us how to disguise them. We continue to be driven by pride, envy, love, and fear, but now they are clothed in etiquette, in ritual, in the language of “ought to” and “should.” What once was a raw growl has become a polite disagreement, but the energy behind it is the same. Perhaps that is why we spend so much of our lives policing one another with lists of dos and don’ts, because it reassures us that we are “civilized,” that we are in control, when in truth we are only arranging the furniture on a restless sea.

And yet, there is beauty in this struggle. Rules, rituals, and corrections are not only burdens; they are also bridges. “Touch your grandmother’s feet” is more than a command, it is an invitation to connect with the generations before us. “Don’t slouch” may sound like criticism, but it is also a reminder that the body reflects the mind, that presence matters. Even my own exasperating need to correct my parents was, in its own way, a clumsy attempt at connection, I wanted to be heard, to matter, to prove I had a place in the world.

Now, when I watch my children bristle at my advice—or when I catch myself biting back the urge to lecture, I smile. I know the cycle continues. Each generation learns the hard way that truth is less about winning arguments and more about living with kindness in the grey spaces. Black and white make for neat lines, but it is in the shades between that relationships survive, that love softens pride, and that wisdom grows.

Maybe that is what it means to finally become an “adult adult”, to stop seeking victory in every exchange and to begin seeking harmony. To recognize that sometimes the greatest truth is not in speaking, but in listening.

 

 

 

“Dinner? Again? We Just Ate Yesterday!”

 

Have I ever talked about one more bete noir of mine before? I have a feeling that I have hidden this aspect of my life in shrouds and I do not like to unearth this side of my psyche unless forced to!

I have been told that the best way to treat delusional trauma is to speak about it with your psychoanalyst. And since I live in India, where going to a psychiatrist is considered more scandalous than coming out of the cupboard, I’m appointing you all, yes, the whole world as my psychoanalyst. Consider this my therapy session.

For the last thirty-five years I wake up planning the days menu. That is three full meals and snacks as and when required. There have been breaks (I have to confess!) when we have been on holidays (though I still have to decide what to eat) when I have been ill and when we go out on our frequent meal hunting episodes during the week, but mostly it’s been me, my kitchen, and the menu.

The most difficult part is the menu of course specially when the children were young. If one wanted rice the other would like roti, if one wanted Italian the other would want Spanish and so on and so forth. Now we are just the two of us. You would think that life is a cake walk in the paradise of eating, unfortunately our inner desires which had been strictly under check through our growing up years has broken through all the locks, all barriers have been broken down and we do not hesitate to speak aloud our thoughts!

I have no problems with breakfast; I have a varied menu to choose from; I am an expert at the dishes that we both like; I do not even have to plan for it. I can whip up a mouthwatering breakfast any day.

Lunch is the tricky part. For thirty years I have had to fend for myself for lunch. The brats had tiffin, lord and master also had tiffin or ate at work café. So I either fasted (If I was trying to lose weight!) or made myself a sandwich. Now with Work from home I need to plan an elaborate meal (means other that rice and dal at least three different items). I do cheat a lot – when I am in a cooking frenzy I cook more than required and spread it over the week or rehash old stuff to look like new!

Dinner of course is something I would love to obliterate from the world! I always run out of ideas here (Unless we are going out) I would be quite happy to settle for soup and pasta or a baked casserole. Unfortunately, I have a hungry partner who wants a full four course meal even after a seven-course lunch and there again I am at the grind stone!

 Some people find cooking therapeutic, the slow chopping of onions, the simmering of masalas, the gentle bubbling of something wholesome on the stove. Me? I find it exhausting.

Before you even touch a pan, you need to decide what to eat. That alone can feel like a full-time job. Scrolling through recipes, trying to balance nutrition, budget, and what’s actually in the fridge, it’s draining.

Thirty minutes to prep, forty minutes to cook, ten minutes to clean up. That’s nearly an hour and a half for something I’ll eat in 12 minutes. Is it worth it? I could be doing something better (scrolling reels, playing games, or gossiping on WhatsApp!)

One pot turns into three. There’s chopping boards, knives, plates, and somehow, a mysterious sticky patch on the counter that wasn’t there before. This part of cooking is something I do like so I am not complaining!

I think I was born a sous-chef: happy to hover, clean, and assist, but allergic to being the one in charge. Once in a while the partner (now a days anyone you cohabit with is a called a partner not husband, boyfriend or lord and master!) loves to cook. He has almost given up on me trying to cook mutton the way he likes it, so he cooks it (takes about three hours and the kitchen turns into a battlefield, I am not complaining!) I enjoy it a lot.

Somebody presented me with a fridge magnet as shown in the picture. My Niece who was a little girl that time looked at it with interest and then read it out and spoke aloud, “This means you never cook!”

There’s so much guilt attached to not wanting to cook, like it makes you lazy, irresponsible, or less “adult.” But here’s the truth: food is about nourishment, not performance. If you hate cooking, that doesn’t mean you’re failing at life. It just means you value your time and energy differently.

Some people garden. Some people knit. Some people make pasta from scratch. I don’t. And that’s okay.

 

Shifting Horizons: The Generational Dilemma

 

 

Growing up in the seventies and eighties in India felt remarkably similar no matter which state you came from or which language you spoke. Middle-class children across the country were raised with a shared set of values: discipline, respect for elders, and a firm belief in the power of education. Childhood meant simple pleasure, playing in the streets with friends, sharing meals with neighbours, and celebrating festivals with unrestrained joy.

Summer holidays were sacred pilgrimages to our grandparents’ homes. Mornings began with a glass of milk and a dose of advice: “Read the newspaper every day; it will improve your language and thought process,” our grandfathers would say. (I agree with them now, but back then I only wanted to rush off to play or sneak in a comic book—which, incidentally, was frowned upon.) Grandmothers would try to teach us cooking by explaining our favourite recipes, perhaps hoping we’d absorb their culinary wisdom.

Looking back, the gender bias is obvious. Girls were asked to speak softly, sit properly, and argue less. Not having a brother made me louder and more assertive in school, as if I had to defend myself. Yet, in the company of elders, I became the picture of obedience, eyes downcast, mind wandering into my stories.

Our news came from newspapers and the grapevine of telephone calls and tea parties. We were passive recipients, overhearing scandals and successes rather than actively scrolling for them.

Today, I marvel at how much has changed. Millennials, Gen Z, and now Gen Alpha live in an entirely different ecosystem. Letter writing is nearly extinct. Phone calls are rare. Newspaper reading? Almost gone. Communication now thrives through apps, messaging, shopping, gaming, meetings, each transforming language itself. “You” becomes “U,” “you’re” becoming “u’r.” As the younger generations say, “Not a big deal.” Perhaps they’re right.

News too has transformed. People get updates from apps or from irresistible reels crafted by professionals or simply by anyone with a smartphone. The fourth estate is no longer a single institution but millions of citizen journalists, each with their own lens. Yet this democratization is also dangerous, fake images, AI-generated videos, and political propaganda swirl together, convincing enough to deceive the untrained eye. Truth feels negotiable, and democracy can slip into the tyranny of a single narrative.

the truth is being twisted to suit the news. The fourth Estate has by and large been so corrupted that we have to stop believing our eyes and ears.

And yet, even in this fragmented digital landscape, we find comfort. In a world of remote work, fewer neighbours, and fading festivals, reels and short videos tell warm stories of resilience, mental health, and shared struggles. Strangers online can feel like kindred spirits.

The world—technical, economic, and social—is vastly different from what it was forty years ago. But human creativity persists. We adapt, innovate, and find meaning. So here’s a cheer for Gen Z and beyond. If I’m reborn as part of Gen F, I hope to witness an even more stupendous and brave new world.