Life is easy kya karein

These days the bed time stories are all about my childhood "Jatras". Jatra is a Gujarati word which means a trip to religious places. In Bengali, Jatra is a popular folk theatre form. Jatra comes from the word Yatra which means a journey. As a child, we went for a lot of Jatras with my Grandmother Bai and the entire family. Every Jatra is clearly etched in my mind as a soulful experience without a fancy resort,Tibetan chants and a spa. Our context of travel was oneness and being one with God or a journey towards becoming one with God. Never had these fancy words in my vocabulary then nor this 'holier than thou' attitude. They were the only vacations I had as there was no luxury of Nani Ghar or Mamar Baadi. Nani is the maternal grandmother and Mama is the mother's brother. Both these relations are very close. Most married women used to travel to their parents house with their children during vacations. People did not marry in the same city or town and for a marri...

Thoughts and feelings have a way of going away. Yet we give so much importance to them. There are so many thoughts that come in the whole day. I cannot even imagine recording so much. Low energy phase is on. People are chilling in the winters. The climate is telling us to back off and release the pedal. It is the same noise of the construction of the Metro and building repairs around me but the dust and noise is bothering less. Last week of the year is that dark part of the night when you are in deep slumber. A friend said that if  a year passed by too soon, then it was a good year. Bad times pass slowly. All along, I used to think, if the year passed by quick then may be I did not do enough.  All mothers who think they are cool moms are actually hyper moms who micro manage their kids' lives. Then the other category of mothers always think they cannot relax because they have children. I want to know what the children ate at a party. When children are invited for a birthd...

Wedding season is on. It is a big deal for us. Our weddings are not solemn affairs. It is all haphazard and there is fun all around. We jump from one ceremony to another. Some involves the Pandit and some involve elders of the family or young girls or married ladies. There is no seriousness to any affair. People are laughing and joking. There is no Master of Ceremonies and no speeches given. People just flow from one room to the other in the Shaadi ghar. The photographs are not structured where each couple stands with their spouse and there is a pecking order to the relations. The photographer knows this too and doesn't insist on coupling for pictures or trying to balance the number of men and women in the pictures. There is a lot of movement and freedom. There are traditional wedding songs being sung for every step of the ceremony. In Gujaratis, the wedding songs have lot of humour on the Pandit, the bride and the groom and all their relatives. These songs are sung while the lad...

When I wrote about make up, I shared how I felt about it. A friend said that make up is always a couple of notches above the normal look, so as to look good in photographs. The result is not for the person but for the captured image. Whoah! I wanted to feel good for myself not for posterity. Weddings these days seem to have become all about photographs. I mean I dare not say 'snaps' or 'photos' or 'pics'. It is all about 'images' now. I remember the photographer in Jharia, I can't remember his name but I remember the face so clearly. He was of medium height, dark, curly hair and thick black glasses. He wore dark coloured shirts too which were not a norm. For weddings, men wore white or cream Kurta Pajama or safari suit. All these shops like 'Manyavar' and what not, did not exist then. Grooms did not match their clothes to the decor or the bride or the theme or the flower decoration on the stage. In fact, the bride did not know what the groo...

I have this funny relationship with makeup. I do not like to put it on myself. I admire women who are well groomed and well made up. I feel pukey when I see someone with layers of makeup. My definition of good makeup is less and subtle. I am no expert in this field. I feel if someone is good in drawing or painting , they can put the eyeliner properly. I can't do it. I can manage lipstick and have learnt Kajal. Kajal is kohl, a very beautiful aspect of makeup for Indian women. I have not even mastered that. In fact, do I have mastery in anything at all? The answer is a candid 'No'. I am not even the Jack of all trades. I should not be categorising myself and each person is unique but I seem to do that. I have friends who are makeup artists who put lovely pictures and videos on social media. The made up brides and women look nice and not so nice but I definitely admire the workmanship of my makeup artist friends.  Attended a wedding last weekend. Right from the bride to h...