Petals!

Summer is blazing in full throttle! For parents like me, this is also a time of getting children ready for a new school session. Loads to do, yes!  [READ: 5 Powerful to Teach Your Child to Care and Transform the World] Preparing for the new school session isn't as easy as it sounds. It involves buying the new text books, school supplies, stationery and even a brand new bag to kick start the academic year. A textbook may not be available in the market, which leads to discussions with other parents on where to procure it from and so on.  For kids, summers are a terrific start to reckon with just before the school closes for vacations. Somehow there is a sense of excitement and anticipation in the air. As a child growing up in the 80s, I used to look forward to summer vacations with my parents. [READ: Learn to behave: The Wisest Lesson I learned in 2018] From Africa, we would plan our vacation to India months ahead. A direct flight was next to impossible, which ...

The month of June was crazy busy and I had recently shared with my friends on Facebook that I have shifted to a new home. You can imagine how hectic that process can be when you also have a busy working schedule, a house to manage and a child whom you are responsible for, especially during the school holidays.  Shifting one's home is not as simple as it sounds. Yes, there is a lot of packing and planning involved but there are no ''rules'' when it comes to tackling the emotional journey of shifting from one home to another, especially for a woman and a mother. Fifteen years ago, when we first bought a tiny home of our own, we had no idea there would be so many challenges and struggles coming our way. Maybe not knowing is a good thing. Or else we would have dreaded it. Letting things flow the way it is meant to be is a better way to grow and navigate through testing times. [ MUST-READ: How to NEVER EVER give up on the spiritual path ] At the time we moved in, ...

To travel is one of my big time plans. 2010 is the year I planned to do just that. As a kid, my parents took me traveling everywhere. It could be to the lake or the mountains, where we would sleep in tents, watch the stars shine in the sky and play games without the computers or Internet or cell phones. We fell asleep, listening to the sound of the ocean's waves and the wind tugging our hair and our skin a little crunchy with salt sprays. The beauty of such rugged life remains with me like a scent that is luring and can never be forgotten.  Be What You Want to Be When I look back into my childhood, those are the most poignant memories that come to life and throw shadows on my hectic life that gives me no space to even contemplate about being who I really am.  My family believes I should take a looong break and just enjoy doing whatever I want to do.  I am not ready yet because I believe I have so much more to do and accomplish before I take that break. No matter what...

One of India’s most celebrated writers, Anita Desai visited Delhi on 1st December 2007. Taking part in the brief talk on her novels, Anita Desai made a rare appearance amidst enthusiastic fans and readers thanks to the well organized function that was put together by Random House. As most of us already know, her name was nominated thrice for Booker Price but it happened that her daughter Kiran Desai won it for the book Inheritance of Loss in the year 2006. But coming back to Anita Desai, it has been a long, interesting journey for her because she recalled how it felt to be a writer in early post colonial India. When her American publishers asked her how it felt to be a writer in India, she recalls telling them, “It is like writing in a cave.” The reason, she explained, was that she kept on writing and writing but didn’t get feedback on her writings for several years. It pained her that while her novels were studied in Universities abroad, it hadn’t been the same in her own country, Ind...