Within weeks of my marriage, I was a mother. Even I did not expect it. I entered my husband’s home with a head full of dreams, a heart full of hope and a minor trepidation of being saddled with a host of relatives that I hitherto did not have. Like many a newlywed, I too…

Today a cousin sent a message that took me deep into my youth where children ran rebellious and free in their delicious little roles. I was transported to another world years away from where I sit picking away at the keyboard as life picks at us..bit by little bit. I’m flooded with thoughts of people…

I have a confession to make: I am not one of those people who see babies and go ga-ga…no angelic motherly feelings are roused in my breast when confronted with a snotty baby… bells do not ring, music does not play and my dreams are certainly not sprinkled with baby powder. Let’s face it: I’ve…

Dearest Baba, My hands are empty. I have not bought you anything, not even a cake or a childish painting…. My daughters, (your grand-children) plan and whisper… they are so excited Father’s Day is coming! I listen to them and nod encouragingly, feeling some of their excitement rubbing off on me. Just some. Not enough….

Feeling naked and cursed I reach for solace and find it in the memory of your words in your smile that tiny bit of you I have saved like fairy dust… Pinched between my fingers.

Dawn tip-toes in leaving curls of mist in my hair… Soft drops of dew on my lips and skin as I surrender… I have searched for you everywhere among the pines on every ridge, in dreams and restless wakefulness. I have felt the weight of waiting: like chlorophyll absorbing light I have inhaled your memory…

This year, like the last, I participated in the A to Z Blogging Challenge. This year I had a theme: Food, Glorious Food! No it’s not just a boring old collection of recipes and stuff. I’s got some of those, true, but it’s also about my personal associations with various food… you know, things that…

My fascination for the big cat crept upon me very quietly and unexpectedly as I was painting one day. I suddenly found them enchanting … all that sienna and orange swirling with the stripes…..and I kept my eyes open for pictures I liked so that I could recreate them on canvas. That said, I had…

Full dark no stars only a  baby moon scratches a smiley in my line of sight. The wounds are not raw not anymore only a thin scar that flares stretches tight wanting to know with barely a glimmer of hope that you were somehow right. Full dark no stars when you wake from your nightmare…

I wait for you still where you drowned me years ago at the pier of our love return you must, be it just once that bench awaits your touch.. there we sat counting stars counting futures with the sun in our eyes and the blue skies above when you wake from sleeping trying not to…

The other day at a gathering I heard two mothers discuss their children with much gusto. One was advising the other, “I UNDERSTAND children…my boy used to do just that, but I was firm…” I listened, halfheartedly and and wandered off. I have to admit that I do not understand children at all. Yes, I…

2014 started off quietly enough, deep in a quiet bungalow in rural Bengal. I thought or rather hoped that the year too would pass in the same vein. Peacefully. But with two teenage girls in the house, that’s a tall order. You know, early on in my marriage, I had taken a decision that my…