Nekhbet

Sitting in the sea facing balcony and seeing the sun set always gave Neena the particular feeling of nostalgia. No matter what, she could never forget her past. It was vividly embossed in her. Such was her life. She never imagined she could see Bombay and she would never even have heard of this land of dreams- Mayapuri, if not for Chako, her husband. Chacko and Neena belonged to the same parish. She met him for the first time on a Easter Sunday. They had an instant connection. He became her bestfriend.  Growing up in an orthodox Christian family in Kerala, with a zamindari father where no one dared to go beyond his words, she had no choice of her own or any women of her family. When she turned 18, her father received proposals for her hand in marriage. It was then for the first time in her life that she spoke against her father. "No", said Neena. Her mother and grandmother stood transfixed. "I am leaving with Chako". With a heavy heart and a silence, she left that p

  It seems a long time ago that we started our lock down with guess the movie name, guess the song name, guess alcohol name and such quizzes. From there we moved on to group prayers and pass the prayer chains. Now we are at online seminars and webinars, movie releases on online platforms, slowly transitioning into online classes and exams, hoping a new normal. What has kept me sane during these times have been conversation with my soulmate, PP. The nostalgic and bittersweet conversations always end with us reminiscing over the moments we had together. It comes as a surprise to people when I confess that we have been together only a year, in our 9th grade, and we are still on. You can't but help admire the cosmic coincidences that happen. I thank the stars that made my class teacher (Sindhu miss, my neighbour) in 9th put PP in between me and Rajalakshmi (again my neighbour). She would have probably thought that being neighbours made me and Raju best friends or something. Nothing c

It is not everyday that you stumble upon things. You come across a YouTube video in your recommendation and you found the best troll video of the decade. You are browsing through your Netflix account (Of course, we exist, who have their own Netflix account. Not all of us are Parasite ;)). You walk around the supermall isle and randomly find interesting stuff that changes your home? It did happen to me the other day. My brother wanted cereals for his breakfast (I get it. Its lockdown. He doesn't want to end up breaking the door to go out once this is done). I decide to get ragi flakes for him. Why? I am evil. But none us liked the taste of it. That was when we found some soggy fried chana. What followed was a beautiful symphony (at least in my mind) as I moved across the kitchen, gracefully messing the kitchen counter with peels and ends off the chopped vegetables, sprinkle of the salt and masalas on the floor, umpteen number of vessels all for the sake of preparing a humble salad.