I found you one noon,Just behind the septic tankYour roots wedged Into a crackat the confluence of Two corroded pipesCarrying rivulets ofmineral rich shitFrom the toilets of menWho distinguish themselvesBy walls and caste and religion.You winked at me, all pretty in your pink,“I couldn’t tell whose is which,Shit’s just shit”."But, but", I stammer,"Why did you [...]
"Like a compass needle that always points north, a man’s accusing finger always finds a woman. Always." –A Thousand Splendid Suns, Khaled Hosseini. A 34-year-old male actor recently died by suicide and everywhere I see, grownass men and women are addressing him as that 'poor boy'. The 'boy' was highly educated, by some reports even [...]
The Ridley Scott directed G I Jane (1997) is one of my guilty pleasures. Watching the elfin Demi Moore transform into a buff, tough-as-nails Navy Seal, cigars, buzz cut, moonlit one-armed push ups and all was thrilling for the 24-year-old me, nearly a quarter century ago. With no one else to share my nascent feminist [...]
Pic courtesy: Dodoardo My mother died of cancer close to 20 years ago. We saw her dying, bit by painful bit, in the last year of her life and we shifted consciously from praying for her recovery to praying for her death when her suffering and pain became too much. Nobody ever tells you that [...]
It all began with my love for the song Aji akdo na humse piya (don’t act snooty with me, my love) Ke hamne bhi ba paas kiya (I too have a BA degree) https://youtu.be/KYW9on_otz8 I hadn’t ever heard the song in entirety before. But it struck me as cute that a woman was asserting herself [...]
All of a sudden, what happened, they asked?They didn't remember the things they had said,Red lipstick makes you look like a Grant Road prostitute.Your hair is the only beautiful thing about you.Why don't you colour your hair? You'll look so good.White makes you look darker than you already are.Where's the bindi? What are you, a [...]
Seminal, Adjectivesem·i·nal | \ ˈse-mə-nᵊl \Definition of seminal1: of, relating to, or consisting of seed or semenseminal discharge2: containing or contributing the seeds of later development : CREATIVE, ORIGINALEg. A seminal book The egg that made me was in my mother's ovaries when she was a 7 month old foetus in my grandmother's womb. Yes. [...]
I remember a conversation where an acquaintance accused me of being casteist for using the phrase 'tam-bram' cuisine. I fought back energetically, saying but it's what my mother cooked. I am brahmin born, in a Tamil family. What am I supposed to call it?But this is our problem, those of us who are Sawarna. Our [...]
Pic source: Google I read a post on pressure cookers on a recipe sharing group. It was a cute rant about how people have no idea how to use one optimally; how it irritated the heck out of the poster when recipes said things like cook for 'X' number of whistles. That was completely against [...]
I love it that ancient botanists- herbalists were very literal people. But they might as well have placed neon signs on this plant when they called it Hadjod or Asthisamharaka or Bone-setter. Like, no imagination required. If ancient Raju sprained his ankle from playing ancient games, ancient daadi would grind some Hadjod and apply a [...]
