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Photo credit: Swapan Haldar |
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Photo credit: Piya Mukherjee |
Sunday was the day of an important festival in India. The traffic in Delhi, which is always busy, had gotten even busier. Travelling to meet someone, I sat through the jam patiently. There was no other way.
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Credit for the painting that forms the backdrop : Manjit Singh Chatrik Photo credit : Soumi Haldar |
A conversation aboard a flight to India. A conversation between our resident author, Piya Mukherjee, and her co-passenger about perhaps the most debated subject – religion. We are not forming an opinion or advocating a choice, we are merely saying what we believe in. Religion is a personal choice. Live and let others live.
On the second leg of a long overseas flight, I settled down into my seat exhausted and sleep deprived. Not the right time for a conversation by any means. Just then my co-passenger enquired if I was traveling alone with such young kids, how old were the kids and how I was managing all by myself.
This is a Public Service Announcement = P.S.A.
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Photo Credit : Shruti Srivastava |
Our new author on the block, Shruti Srivastava, in her own words, “I strongly believe that everyone is sent on earth with some purpose in life.I am grateful to many who have been significant in my journey of life. My educational background of Psychology keeps the yearning in me alive to understand human behavior and relationships, inclination towards spirituality gives me direction and painting a sense of achievement and pleasure! Chatoveracuppa real life stories inspired me to write one….and discovered that I could do a decent job of story telling!”
I pondered over it and then asked myself, “Do I really need it?” Here, the answer was a ‘yes’; and so, my Mom got me a matty cloth the next day, taught me some basic stitches and then used it as a table-cover for a long time.
He wears a couple of stents in his heart along with his salt and pepper hair, both very sportingly. He tells me often that he looks at least 10 years younger than his age. I kind of agree with him. A man of few words but of brilliant eloquence when he speaks. A man of principles and he is too rigid about them. Like Ma aptly says he cannot even lie to save his own life. Very true.
I inherited his looks, his voice (to an extent only), his handwriting, his mannerisms, his determination, his endurance, his sense of contentment and his nature to worry all the time (Yes my dad and I are enough to worry for an entire nation). My principles are not as strong as his and Ma taught me to lie enough to save my life.
I realized he had pampered me just too much when on my first day in the boarding school I realized I did not know how to tie my shoe laces. I was 12 years old then. I realized his sense of achievement when I got my first job while he was recuperating from one of the heart attacks. I realized he was too possessive about me the day I told him about the husband. I realized he believed in me the day he gave my hand off to the husband. And I realized I had to share his love for me the day my kids were born.
The husband comes from an equally modest background and knows well what it means not to have it all. So now that we are attempting to instill that into our kids, we are also realizing it is not easy. As a parent you want to provide your children with everything that you have access to and in turn forget that it could be overwhelming for them. Or that they can take the provision for granted. How do you balance it? How do you provide such that it is just right? How do you draw the line? Isn’t it true that we, the new age parents, are the ones that introduce our children to the plethora of choices and then blame them for getting addicted to it?