Today, I had the absolute pleasure of watching “Chakravyuh,” directed by Atul Kaushik. It tells the tale of the 13th day of the Mahabharata. Nitish Bhardwaj played Krishna. What a play.
Last weekend I had a show at Worldmark, Aerocity. I have performed this piece many times, but I am used to performing for an audience in a compact space. Today, it was a food court—a huge open space with a pond in the middle. People were eating food, and children were running. I was overwhelmed for the first time.
#RetirementFunds #CompoundInterest
I spent my entire afternoon at the Partition Museum. It’s been two years since its inception. Located at the beautiful Dr. B.R. Ambedkar University in Old Delhi, it’s the saddest place I’ve ever visited. The experience is heavy. As you enter, you first encounter Sindh and the Sindhis—mostly Hindus—and their culture. Then you see the independence movement, followed by the Partition itself.
Something truly fascinating happened yesterday afternoon. There were forty of us gathered at Bada Gumbad, Hauz Khas, celebrating the life of Amrita Pritam. The storyteller, Harshit, shared tales from her life and invited the audience to contribute anything they wished. That’s when a young Sikh man, originally from Kashmir, told this story.His family lives in Kashmir, where they also write in Urdu. His grandmother could read Hindi and would translate Amrita Pritam’s work back into Urdu, keeping the translations with her. Her only wish was that when she died and was cremated, the books of Amrita Pritam—along with her handwritten translations—should be burned with her, so they would stay with her even after death.She passed away last year. Following her wishes, they placed her on the pyre with all the books of Amrita Pritam and the translations she had cherished. After the cremation, when everything had burned and the pyre had turned cold, her grandsons went to clear the remains. Everything had been reduced to ashes—except for one small piece that remained intact. It was her favorite poem by Amrita Pritam, which reads:Jahaa.n bhii ik aazaad ruuh kii jhalak dikhaa.ii de,samajhnaa vo meraa ghar hai.This is from the poem Mera Pata by Amrita Pritam.The grandson kept this small page with him and brought it to the walk. It was the most surreal experience I’ve ever had on a walk like this.This young man was born in 2006, a year after Amrita Pritam’s death in 2005. I wonder if she knows how many of us still love her, gathering in her name, singing her words, reciting her poetry, and shedding tears over her love story with Imroz. What a woman! What a life she lived—that even children born after her death speak of her with such emotion, as if she had lived right next to them. The absolute magic of Amrita Pritam lives on!
That’s me sailing on a boat on the Ganga. I was in Varanasi for a couple of days. This was a history walk and boat ride on the Ganges. Our guide, Saurav, kept telling stories as we sat, watching this ancient river flow. I’ve explored many cities in India, but Varanasi was different. As you pass through the 84 ghats by the river, it’s serene to see an almost 6,000-year-old city glide by—like time itself. That’s when death first peeks at you. Manikarnika Ghat burns ablaze; it always does. They say, “Iski mitti kabhi thandi nahi hoti”—its soil never cools. People come to die in Varanasi, to be cremated here, believing it grants Moksha. Is Moksha that easy? I wonder. I wonder how death feels when you see it so close every day. I asked my Rapido driver how death feels to him in Varanasi, where people come to die. He said, “Sabke ghar mein aayega, dar nahi lagta. Ghat mein roz laash jalti rehti hai. Meri bhi jalegi, ek din.”—It’ll come to everyone’s home; I’m not afraid. Corpses burn on the ghat every day. Mine will too, one day.
Yesterday, I spent my entire afternoon at Thakurbaari, the place where Rabindranath Tagore was born and took his last breath. It resembles a movie set. Photography inside is not permitted. Standing on the top floor, gazing at the sprawling mansion, I could almost envision hundreds of people bustling through Thakurbaari during its heyday—the kitchen, the linens, the low-sitting dining table. Everything feels like a fairy tale. Not the Cinderella kind, but one where people save each other and themselves—without a prince or a damsel in distress.
I spent my whole afternoon at college street today. Finally went to Dasgupta and co. It's a 138 year old book shop. They still keep books in wooden Almirahs. I sat to read and buy books. Calcutta makes me so happy. The afternoons are slow. So many shops stay closed. People nap. The tram moves slow. There is a book tram too. They still use Bells there. Every city has a character, a shape , a personality. When I walk through the lanes of Delhi. It feels like it wants something from you. Delhi asks what you can do for it? Calcutta is open to conversations. It listens.
How do you let go, what was never yours? Like deep one-sided love. Like those deep yearning of joy and tenderness, you felt on winter mornings. Which only you felt. When you walked through that hotel he once visited with his beloved, you wished you were her. Yet, the pain stings you. Like a bee. Like a dead flesh. You try to rationalize. Every night your brain says, you will end it, all. Yet every morning the love blooms, that becomes suffocating by afternoon and almost kills you at night. You know his routine, his food habit and the color of the shirt he will wear today. Red or Green, you always know. But you are never a part of it. Just an audience. And how it hurts to be one. You read everything he did. You make his tastes yours and again he chooses someone else. You again try to be her. Your life seems to be a battle of becoming a beloved to someone who does not recognize your presence. Each day his absence is the only presence, you live, fight and cry with. You tell yourself how strong you are. How you don’t care. How he is not good enough for you. But each time he chooses someone else, you tell yourself how you were never good enough.
I had to go to the post office today to do a speed post. And suddenly an era that passed by stood before me. As I stood in the line, an old man asked me if I had a pen, when I was asked to write the name of the sender behind the envelope. He suddenly reminded me of the India, I grew up in, where people talked to each other. Where, when you stood in a line, no one kept staring on a gadget in their hands. It felt like a piece of home. We are the last generation that saw a telephone and saw how fast it transitioned itself to a smart phone. I have stood before the post office missing someone I never met, writing letters, to talking to people live whenever I wanted on my smart phone. Now we don’t miss people, we don’t imagine what they might be doing. We scroll through timelines, we know places they visited, friends they met and clothes they wore. We don’t long for people anymore.
Now, that you have decided to marry me, let me think of what things might be like? If we go to Lodhi Garden, there is a lake, we can sit by. I love looking at the ripples that it makes. If you are talking to me and I seem lost, shake me by my shoulder. I will apologize for been inattentive. I get so lost at times. Pardon me, then.
![A Strange Friendship [#AVeryShortStory]](https://sk0.blr1.cdn.digitaloceanspaces.com/sites/5572/posts/492442/teachernkio.jpg)
The loneliness of human beings is a strange being, and people can handle it so many different ways. A poignant story of a strange friendship.
If I am asked who the one person is to whom I owe most of what I am, I’d say my Maa. A strong woman who did not break in the face of her odds.
Shaming women for asserting themselves and calling them ‘bad’ girls happens all the time. But I would rather do my thing than be one of the good girls! There is something about Indian society and its obsession with good girls. We often tell young girls that if you are silent and giving, you are good. And then, you are loved. In other words, we tell young girls that if you are good, you would be loved. Good basically means being nice, polite and giving. Growing up in the ’90’s these were the lessons taught to me. Good girls are not taught that boundaries are to be drawn. They are there for everyone, and she is loved by everyone. And popular media stressed on this thought.
What Matriarchy taught me: An Indian woman who grew up in a matriarchal family, Paromita shares lessons the strong women in her family taught her.
From her first poem as a class 3 student, Paromita Bardoloi has come a long way. A Featured Author at Women’s Web for April 2017, she shares more about herself here.
Long back, in the long summer afternoons of my childhood, my grandfather had something to say to my father. He said, “Not everyone is worth every gift.” My father was a very kind man. His goodness, came back to harm him. Even in your goodness, you need to be wise. You should not be good to a fault. This is how I see my father now.
Dear Daughter,
As I sit to write this, the smell of fresh mehendi is all around me. Yes, tomorrow is my wedding. Daddy sneaked me to his study where I could take some rest with everyone obsessing around me. Daddy’s study is my favorite place on earth. There is a small bed attached to it. It was meant to take a small nap at times, but for all the last 24 years of my life, I have just spent lazy hours in this small bed reading, writing, thinking, lazing, and maybe falling in love with Ahmed!
Not sure if I am the only one. But haven't you all seen reels and videos of men marrying two women and how happily they live? Armaan Malik tops the list but if you scroll through Instagram, you will see how it is a growing trend. There is this Rajpoot guy ( forget his first name) who is married twice and they make videos on YouTube and how the first wife truly loves the second wife.