A humming word

/The years 2008-2013 were filled with learning and wonder. I had freelanced for Young World, The Hindu, where I met Syeda Farida ma'am (Or fondly known as Farida ma'am). This post is an ode to her./ In a world full of fanged monsters, Farida ma'am was a chubby-cheeked angel. The first thing you'd notice were her eyes - calm yet fiery and next, her tenor: a sing-song rhythmic quality that fitted her so well. I first met her at The Hindu office. It was a dream-come-true for me. She offered me coffee, which I reluctantly had and she pored over my blog posts that I printed for her to see.Her eyes lit as she smiled and told me that my interests were in social service, art and literature related articles. And, she suggested me to write in those beats . She gave me some writing tips, since I did not major in journalism. However, I enrolled in one, immediately. Such was her effect! Initially, I was hesitant to speak with Farida ma'am and a couple assignments later, we ...

Dear volunteer with a good ear, The movie, Dear Zindagi directed by Gauri Shinde, that stars Shahrukh Khan and Alia Bhatt, and the more recent, Marriage Story directed by Noah Baumbach, that stars Scarlett Johansson and Adam Driver, clearly underline the need for a therapist. A therapist is a third person who offers a perspective that your biased loved ones cannot. While depression has to be taken seriously, so has to be therapy. You cannot move about saying "Please, talk to me. I will be your ears." Sorry, you're not a student of psychology. Sorry, you're don't champion mental health problems. Skills such as empathy, counselling, trust are embedded in them through years of learning and training and they are professionally adept to handling people with anxiety and mental health issues. If a friend or relative says, I have a stomach pain, you don't say, come I will diagnose it. I have given pudin hara to my friends earlier and they were fine. Yo...

Made in Heaven, a drama series about two wedding planners, focusses on Delhi and its layered classes and the issues that silent domestic issues that plague our country. It is neither melancholic nor apologetic. It is as is It is such a relief to watch protagonists dipped in shades of grey. The story is simple. Two ambitious people run a marriage bureau: Tara Khanna and Karan Mehra. It is a 2020 version of Rishta.com, set in Mumbai. Each episode focusses on the grandeur of marriage, be it grandeur emotions or the pomp and show and camouflaging the societal issues. So, what’s new in this? The screen play, the script is so crisp that you’d root for each character and hope they realise their follies or realise their hidden strength. Tara Khanna, a lower-middle-class ambitious woman, is married to Adil Khanna, a socialite and an entrepreneur. They have an endearing friendship with Faiza, played splendidly by Kalki Koelchin, but she is not the star of the show. Neither is Jauhari, the p...

You are the dancing fox and you are the charming moon You are a dollop of winter Wrapped in June With Your characters, Rusty, Gautam, Suraj, Koki, Uncle Ken And those rolling hills and the mighty mountains Those sumptuous stories And couplets and loony tunes And the endearing tales of love That are clipped too soon

A collection of seven stories, Men without Women by Haruki Murakami isn’t different from his other books, yet it is! The book revolves around relationships, supernatural phenomenon, love, deceit, but the translation in this book lacks the poetic depth that one yearns for in a Murakami book. Few stories are exceptional—it is a habit now for Murakami (genius dripping out at the top of his hat). But a few stories give a Deja-vu feel. Nevertheless, give it a try. The stories that I enjoyed were: 1.        The Woman Driver which starts with the common sentiment that women are bad drivers, it progresses onto a deep friendship between the two protagonists—a woman driver and her employer. Their camaraderie doesn’t translate to any physical relationship and that’s comforting. 2.        Scheherazade, inspired by a character in the Arabic folklore, is about a kleptomaniac, narrated by her paramour. The intricacies of the theft a...

The word is partition literature in itself. But who was Manto behind those stories? Behind Thanda Ghosht, Toba Tek Singh, who was this bespectacled man who was against partition and believed Bombay (now, Mumbai) was the love of his life? Can he be confined to being a writer who put his flesh and blood to write about he flesh and blood during the 1947 partition? And that what’s the movie does. A writer is a writer even beyond his books—his life are the pages of his life that he writes them. It isn’t a nine-to-five job—even when Manto was a father, husband, brother, he was a writer in motion—his thoughts, his words entered pages through the humdrum of daily life. He never wrote about silver linings or about freedom struggle but wrote about struggle for freedom of ordinary people living in the belly of our cities—things that people wouldn’t talk about. And Nandita Das has molded her cinematic expression like a poet would mold words into a poem and let the actors add assonance...

It took two weeks for India to inject religion into a virus – Daniel Fernandes, Indian Comic artist (source: Instagram) For a country with population bursting at its seams, Social Distancing is an alien concept. But you know what, we, Indians, have been doing it. Yes, we got thrashed and broke few saucepans and spoons, before learning it the hard way but we finally did it. Despite, working from homes, we wake up early in the morning, put on our masks, wash our hands and are off to the market. The shops are open at 5 am and close as early as 6 pm. In India, this concept is new. We are used to having our first cup of tea and coffee at 7 am. But look, what’s the Government’s done to us. We don’t hug each other anymore but say “Namastey” or   “Hi” depending on the time of the day. We wash our legs and hands and then send Whatsapp forwards to each other about our culture. The same culture that we banished and left our homes to work overseas—Australia, USA, Canada—we are everywher...