Being Social

Aditya and I had made some decisions that lead me to shift to Delhi, leaving my five-year stint at Mumbai. I had shifted in December and he had shifted few three months before. I was excited, primarily because the process that led to this shift was exciting and not because of the destination it was leading to. I had never wanted to live in Delhi, you know, for the obvious reasons - safety! Hailing from outside of Delhi of course, my ideology was biased by media. Which was why the city was a circumstantial choice and not an individual preference. Albeit, like I had mentioned, the process that led to this shift - thrilling experiences of sneaking away from home to spend time with Aditya, search for a house here with him, buy household products and along with the anticipated excitement about the (unknown) post-wedding lifestyles - made me want to give a genuine attempt to live in this notorious capital city. I had no expectations about my post-wedding lifestyle mostly because I did not

I enjoy writing. I have around eleven essays that I had written through childhood and adolescence. The topics covered random domains, right from hugs and eunuch to science and technology. They were both written and read by me. I used to not write for an audience. I find pleasure in taking time to pen down words on topics that fascinate me, and I have thoughts on. When I first started writing essays, I thought about how I wanted to write: I lacked the imagination to write in the third person, so, to sway away the 'I's, I had ignored the first person and started off in the second person, only to come to a realisation that it sounded too authoritative and instructive for my style. So I had to settle for first-person writing, which gelled well. I used to (and still!) visualize myself as a columnist, sharing her knowledge and pondering with her fellow audience. But the role of an audience stopped within my head. I never intended for it to become a reality. Sometime between

*When I was young, I mean in my school and college days, I used to write down my thoughts as articles, with a hope to get them published in newspapers/magazines. But I never took the next step. Recently while shifting from my old house, I found these handwritten articles. I have decided to publish them on this blog, however embarrassing they may be! Below is one of them.  Disclaimer: All these articles are unedited and facts unchecked. So stupidity and structural inconsistencies will be inevitable.* All you need is a ..... HUG! Once in my class, our lecturer who is a (self-proclaimed) psychoanalyst as well, threw at us a question: What would you do, if you see that your friend is depressed and is crying? Many answered, "I will console him.", "I will crack jokes and try to make her smile.", and so on. But it was only one student who said, "I will probably give him a hug and let him talk about the problem." Donning the role of a psychoanalyst, my le

Over 65% of my research is done and this is my opinion about marriage - It is a union for convenience. It maybe for economic, cultural or emotional. In the past it seems to have been predominantly for economic and cultural convenience, fed by the need to expand one's own community and sustained by the ability to procreate. Then later on, encouraged by our human trait to find meaning in actions, marriage came to be a ceremonial significance of 'eternal love' for each other - the emotional convenience. Yet the amusing thing about us human beings is that we can sustain living neither with our own-selves alone, nor with a family or a community or a person. Why because, on one hand, loneliness is like an empty vessel. It makes too much noise in our head and keeps reminding us of how disconnected we are from social beings, and how much probably are we missing out by way of that. On the other hand, with every 'interconnected' relationship outside of wedlock, our only ap

Hi Jacob, I do not know who you are. I do not know your last name. All I know of you is that your are Jacob, and that you had called the Axis Bank customer care centre at 2.53PM today. Why am I writing all this to you? Well, you had been one of those good samaritans and had blocked my (lost) debit card. For the record, I hadn't even noticed that I had lost it, till I saw the message from Axis. Thank You so much Jacob! Thank you is an under statement I know. But I am not sure what else I can do. For, those were the only details the customer care had. They neither had your last name (then I would have stalked you online, of course merely to reach out to you), nor your phone number. Again, thank you Jacob. I feel indebted.

Mom Calling: Hey! how are you? What plans for the evening? Me: Nothing much. Just going out with my office friends. . . . Time: 21:30pm Mom Calling ..... Me: Rushing to a quite place (mostly the toilet area of the mall) Mom: Hello, are you back home? Me: Yes! yes! long back! . . But all this while, I was out with my 'DATE'. Meanwhile, my parents were doing this: My dreaded situation? Let's say I have finally hit it off with this guy I had found through an online dating site. All has been going good for the last 2 months when I get this set of profiles to choose from, from my parents. Being respectful of their attempts and to tag along with the 'societal norms', I pick one of the profiles for I had already dodged their last 5 attempts. Then suddenly the chosen profile side had also agreed to mine! O M G! What do I do now? Do I see both of them? Do I continue with my guy, tell him of my situation, and as well go on a date with this