Mayhem in the polling booth and more

My Polling Booth Debacle There must be some 6 spiders in the top left corner of the corridor where I was standing to cast a vote last week. I know because I was twiddling my thumbs and counting random things in an attempt to avoid participating in a conversation. You really don’t want to get …

The Angry Contractor

The living room of the Nairs was in pin drop silence. "As I said, no talking!" Vinit instructed his wife, who giggled. The tall and lean Shanmugham Contractor arrived a few minutes later with his assistant. He hurriedly parked his Kinetic Honda and cursed the heat and the bad roads. "So what have you decided, …

The Six-yard Signature

Do you remember the first saree you wore? Did it belong to your mother? Or was it your own? My first was a Mysore Silk saree, a feather weight saree in deep purple. My father bought it for me when I was 17. He wasn't too happy about it, so he followed it soon with …

Where are the lionesses?

We have had two seasons of the Women's Premier League. The ladies on the cricket field are now paid just as much as the gentlemen in India - a landmark in pay equality! Mitali Raj, Smriti Mandana are household names. And Bengaluru gave the most rousing welcome to the RCB Women last week. Yet the …

Mishraji

Mendakram saw his master, Mishra, standing by the window and shaving a pencil with an intense look on his face. Mishra was tall and lean, his dusky complexion accentuated by his greying hair. Mendakram admired his softspoken master, the small town man who had made it big in the buzzling city. What an intelligent man …

Book Review : When Padma Bani Wifey

I read Anupama's When Padma Bani Paula a few years ago and enjoyed the light hearted way in which Anupama highlights ageism and the challenges that a conservatively brought up Padma faces right up to the day of her wedding. And now Anupama is back to narrate another phase of Padma's life! Seven years after …

Notes By The Sea

For quite a few years, I was under the impression that I am a Pluviophile. Like a character in a Victorian-era novel, I romanticized the idea of cold, rainy days, curled up on the couch by the window with a book and some piping hot food. But when one such rainy day actually arrived, rarely …

Epics, Men and Women

Men and Women in Mythology - A Perspective I have been blessed with a bumper harvest of patience and empathy. And as we all know, too much of anything is dangerous. So I am often pushed to a corner, wringing my hands in an attempt to understand the assholery behind a human face, all because …

Emotional Intelligence and Mental Health in Men

It has been a couple of days since Virat Kohli announced his intention to step down from the post of captain of the Indian Test team. While the news was quite disappointing, I couldn’t help but observe the silver lining to the cloud. So many men took to penning down their sadness about his exit …

What If? – A North Indian Love Story

Don't blame me for writing this movie script ... it all began when Karan Johar made Meenakshi Sundareshwarar, the aesthetic eyesore for every South Indian. He got me thinking. What if, in a parallel world, Atlee plans to make a film starring Karthi and Aishwarya Rajesh in the lead role? Presenting to you ... Lucky …