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Showing posts from 2017

"Red Wedding" on the Scale of Poshness

"Does it really make sense to spend so much on a wedding that you feel bankrupt the day after?" asks the subtitle for Seema Goswami's column titled "Red Wedding" in Brunch today. Sensible question, one would say. Except that the examples of extravagance Goswami chooses to cite in her article are so many levels removed from the reality for me that I couldn't relate to them at all.  Regular weddings are passe. Weddings are now supposed to be destination. So she says "... if the budget is tight... it will be an exclusive beach resort in Thailand or an opulent palace in India. If the money is no object, then the map will expand to include Florence, Venice, Vienna, or any other Historic European Cities." Of course Goswami means that choosing an exclusive beach resort in Thailand is extravagant too. However, for me, a sentence more relatable would have gone thus "... if the budget is tight... it will be Ajmal Khan Park. If the money is no obje

Becoming Myself - My Toughest Challenge and Biggest Achievement

I have spent my entire life waiting for that one moment of inspiration when words would burst out, unbridled. I thought that it would happen in moments of intense pain, or may be when I feel a deep, passionate love for somebody. I waited for it to happen at times like these when someone’s advice refused to let me sleep. “Maybe it is not always advisable to say it out,” said a very dear friend, someone who has my best interests in mind, someone who I can trust with my eyes closed. This was a surprising piece of advice, simply because I never realized how and when I transformed from someone who needs to speak out, to someone who needs to be more restrained. If I need to choose one word people have used about me in the past, I would pick “nice”. People liked me for this one trait. My presence didn’t make anyone uncomfortable, people “didn’t mind” having me around. I was the dhania powder in curry, the sada-bahar in the garden. But there is a price one needs to pay for being dhania