Kavyanjali

  Have you ever wondered why you encounter  the question "what do you do?" more than "how do you do? " (Maybe an Indian thing of poking one's nose into another's life). If you are a married woman and a mother at that, you will get this question more often. I have been fiddling with this  question for so many years now until one day the realization finally dawned upon me.  It is hard to keep up with the societal standards. It is harder to meet people's expectation about you. And the hardest part is answering the million dollar question 'what do you do?'   Well, it may sound a bit vague but the real intended question here is, how is your career graph going? At this juncture, everything else in life appears secondary. So it is pointless if you try to answer the question by listing out the things that you do on a day to day basis.  It doesn't matter if you learn new things each day or are teaching and moulding the future generation. It least conc...

    Dear Words,  It’s been long… so long since we last sat down for a cup of tea and discussed our rhyming schemes and story lines; named our characters and sketched their quirks; munched on our biscuits pondering over what title we should  bestow on our latest poem.  Remember our late night musings and secret whispers about some new idea to elaborate and  write upon? You used to make a chain out of my thoughts and urge me to jump out of my bed and pen it all down at midnight. Although my sleep was all broken, there were neither complaints nor  regrets. Since the day I can remeber, we had shared this special kind of bond between us; with unrealistic ideals and eccentric behaviour.  When people went out and had the time of their lives, we stayed back and  had our own parties in the cozy corner of my house along with our pals ; the pen which was always high and a stack of paper which always felt this emptiness deep inside. That was our kind of ...

In the month of June, when the sky wept and the rain overwhelmed the lands, I was born and thence I fell in love with rains. Every time I hear the rain splatter against the roof, or watch the tiny droplets chase each other down the window glass, my heart warms up with severe nostalgia. There was a time when my cousins and I would sit on the verandah of our house, watching the rain trickle down the roof tiles and make paper boats with old news papers. The boats once ready to sail would be set off to the never never land which was apparently somewhere down the drains. But all the fun would last only till the thunder strikes along with the fancy lightning and everyone would scream and huddle around in some dark corner of the house. The elders would calm us down saying that its just the sound of battle between Gods and Demons and we have nothing to worry about (Maybe because we weren’t participating). Rains started to get more fun during school days. Whenever the schools reopened, the road...

Seriously, reduce your screen time and you won’t regret it. Technology is brilliant and phones are super smart, agree. But what has become of us? We have become extremely clingy and dependent on our dear phones like ‘until death do us part’. The fact we are oblivious of, is that we are turning into maniacs obsessed with a small electronic device, who seriously need to get a life. De-clutter  Smart phones have solutions for everything. Track your finances, manage your tasks, create playlists of your favorite songs, set reminders for important events, find routes to your destinations, spot nearby cafes, hotels, theaters and malls; just install a few apps and everything is right at your finger tips, only a swipe away. Yes, these are of course the positive sides which we prefer to see, given the highly optimistic people that we are. But on the root level, are these apps really simplifying our lives? Or are we voluntarily becoming slaves of technology?  The better way to think abou...

From where I am from, cooking is considered more than just a surviving skill. But I didn’t even know survival cooking. It all seemed so confusing. From measuring the ingredients to be added, to adjusting the flame of the stove, every thing just went over my head (No. I am not stupid even if it may appear so). I tried to avoid crossing the threshold of  kitchen as far as possible. I used to be the kind of person who opted to remain hungry rather than cook(obviously because I was fortunate enough to have a kind mother who cooked everything I liked and always made sure my hunger strike demands were addressed). Cooking was like the nightmare I wanted to wake up from, so badly.  A quarter century of my life had passed and on one fine Thursday evening, when the moon had marked his presence on the sky I finally got a kitchen all to myself. Pages were turned and a new journey had begun. The one I had to lead on my own. But I had to begin from scratch.  A bit of text book knowled...

With the advent of social media and it’s overwhelming feeds, a new wave of fear has shrouded us all- The ‘Fear Of Missing Out’. It’s more like a feeling of being glued to the ground when everything else around us moves on. A kind of anxiety that we are not able to partake in the fun that others are having out there. But is it really that simple to be neglected or has it taken on our lives unbeknownst of us all? FOMO or the ‘Fear Of Missing Out’ is not just another hormone induced teenage drama, but a real phenomenon that is affecting our mental health irrespective of the age groups we belong to. It is becoming quietly common to have this phobia of missing out.   Our social media feeds are bombarded with statuses and stories of people known and unknown. We enjoy reading/watching whatever is shared by our friends, acquaintances, celebrities, public figures or other people we follow, oblivious of its darker side, where it takes a toll on our emotions. The indefinite scrolls and swipes...

‘Just let it go’. It’s always easier said than done. Isn’t it a bit hypocritical to ask others to let go of things when we know for a fact that we haven’t let go of many such things we ought to have, a long time ago? Alas! we are all such hypocrites. Because, when it comes to bad experiences, unpleasant memories and traumas we are like a child holding on to his favorite toy. No matter what, we never let it go. Never. ‘Forgive and Forget’ they say. But one thing is guaranteed that even though we may forgive, we will never ever be forgetting any of the bad experiences which emotionally broke us, the injustices we had to face, the mean things people ever said to our faces or the traumatic incidents we had to deal with. We may forget all the good things that happen in our lives but we never forget the bad ones. The memories of bad experiences become a part and parcel of ourselves that eventually we begin to identify ourselves with those pains, memories, and sufferings. The walk of life is ...

Somewhere on our run to meet societal standards or on our hike to fulfill worldly expectations or in our quest to be someone who we are not, we lose our self-worth. In the taunts, jeers, scorns, scoldings, judgements, advice and opinion of others, it shatters down into a million pieces leaving behind a frail, insecure, loathsome and broken mess. From childhood traumas to the difficult transition into adulthood, each and very bad experience that builds up inside, impacts negatively on our self-worth. It even makes us forget the real us in this journey of what we want to become; turns us hateful towards our own being.  We all have qualities, good and bad. There is no specific scale or standard to measure these qualities as they sprout from individual perception. But we are so keen on balancing this good and bad and we constantly keep struggling to outweigh bad with good. Why? Because we all want to be good; to be noble; to be saints. But to be practical, none of us, living this wor...

  It is human to judge. Forming opinions, having prejudices, making decisions without taking into consideration the whole of the factual matrix; secretly or overtly, we all do it. Being judged is something that many of us despise the most. On the contrary, judging others is something we secretly love to do. So how is it fair when we judge others and unjust when others judge us? When we complain about others being too judgemental, aren’t we unaware of the fact that, those others and us, we all possesses within, the same human behavioral pattern? Whether we accept it or not, by default we all do judge. But when we judge, all we take into account are the obscure outer details. Maybe due to lack of time or patience, we fail to go deeper into the facts and look at the bigger picture. And what do we end up doing ? We arrive at hasty decisions and senseless conclusions.  When a person is judged by their deeds, we neglect to look at the circumstances which drove them, or their ba...

Have you ever felt that you are a disappointment to the older generation? If yes, you are not alone. An entire generation is standing by you, sharing the same hurt. Not speaking for everyone, but a majority of us feel like we are often misunderstood or not understood at all. A series of misunderstandings and disappointments make us feel like we are are huge failures; that our life is a big disaster. Instead of celebrating and cherishing each moment in our lives, we focus on the negative aspects and a valuable period of our life is lost in sulking about the fake problems that we ourselves create.  Parents implant the seeds of their unfulfilled desires in their children and if they fail to bear fruits, they get disappointed in us. They raise their expectations in us, so high, that sometimes we break our wings trying to fly those heights. Every older generation does this to the younger one. Tomorrow, we may also do the same to the next generation. But the question is, shall we not try...

  24 hours a day, 168 a week, 8760 an year, but we still can’t find enough time. The clock ticks the same everywhere. But why is it that, no matter where we look, some of us (well, most) can never find time for anything?  Someone asks us to complete a work within a given deadline and we fail to do it. Why? Because we didn’t get enough time. A friend calls and says “long time no see” and our immediate response is “I so badly wanted to talk to you but I didn’t even get time”. So what’s the big deal with this time? Why is it so hard to find?Truth is, we never really attempt to find it. And what we do is, we blame everything on time. We make it seem like we don’t get 60 minutes every hour like everyone else does..  Time is not something that you buy or rent or own. But it is something infinite and it continues to exist even when we cease to. We can’t store or preserve it. There is no reservoir of time that we would run out of. We just need to know how to effectively utilize ...

All the things that we do in our lives, we do, expecting for a favorable result. Even when we do something selflessly or unconditionally, the truth is , deep down , we all expect a bit of an acknowledgement from others. When things don’t turn out to be the way we expect, disappointment shrouds us, sucking away all the pleasant thoughts. Hence, our entire life is a tale of expectations with the morals of disappointments. We humans, always stand on a pile of expectations. But what we never expect is the fact that there will be times when we stagger. Sometimes, life leads us to a different path than we expect. There will be times when our hard work doesn’t pay off. At times,we may fail to fulfill the aims that we set in our lives. So, everything doesn’t always go as we planned. Yet, we cling on to our expectations. We stick to making plans and sketches of our entire lives. Life is not always going to be the way we dream about it. We stumble, we fall, we fail, we crash and we even...

No. I am not. Neither are you. No one can always be correct. Not all our deeds are justifiable. Our behavior is not accepted by everyone else, all the time. Why? The answer is simple. There is no strict standard for ‘right and wrong’. It depends on various factors such as our bringing up, our morals, the outlook we have towards the world, the society we live in, the influence of religion, the circumstances that shaped us, our experiences, our attitude towards life and the list goes on and on. It differs from individual to individual. So basically, we can’t point out right and wrong in others’ sense of right and wrong.  We are all different persons. Different souls; different bodies. Hence the way of doing things, looking at things, thinking about things, differs from person to person. On what ground could we possibly judge if something done is right or wrong? In generic terms we may, but strictly it is not possible for, what we think is right maybe wrong for the other person. ...

          Most of us easily fall prey to provocation. No matter how highly evolved we are, we still have difficulties minding our own businesses. We are still like those monkeys waiting for the cap seller to throw caps on us, so that we can throw ours back at him. But all we throw is crap. We are bothered about so may things in life and what is disturbing is the fact that we don’t even know how to ignore them.            Maturity doesn’t always come with age. Sometimes we have to work on it. Maturity is not a physical trait; hence, simply because one ‘acts mature’ doesn’t mean they are. Maturity is the ability to make peace with life; to handle things from getting out of control; to be stable even in adversities; to learn to be the bigger person.  Tame your Ego — Our Ego is so precious to each of us, that we can never ever see it crushed. Someone tries to mess with our ego and we are already hurt.We need to stop ourse...

Perfection means striving to be better at your each step. To be perfect is to be flawless. But can human nature really be beyond any flaws? Unless you are the Almighty God himself, of course (But it is still debatable). But being the humans that we are, we are programed to point out flaws in everything which doesn’t settle with our way of thinking, or our own way of doing things.  But if we think about it, it is this urge to get better, to improve, that we are here in this technology driven world. This spark for growth which kindles within, is the key element that has made innumerable inventions and discoveries possible. Without this thirst for betterment, we would still be where we were billions of years ago.  Contentment is being happy with the things way are; being satisfied with what life has to offer. It is a state of mind difficult to achieve but not impossible. The more you expect from life, more are the chances of getting disappointed. So when things happen in the leas...