SIMPLY POSITIVE

When I was a kid, I loved listening to the tales from Ramayan and Mahabharat (after I learnt to pronounce them). I am pretty sure my grandparents had started inventing details along the way, ‘cause there is no way Nani knew if Sita was wearing a pink lehenga or a red one! I think I was around 10 when I learnt what happened after Ram ji rescued Sita Mata. They didn’t jump on a unicorn and ride off into the sunset. I guess I was too young to understand  the aftermath.  But I do know that I did not take up reading Ramayana again, on my own, till  recently when  I was gifted " The Forests of Enchantments " by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni or, as she and  I like to call it- the Sitayan. The book showed Sita in a new light. Ever since I had originally listened to  Ramayan (Grandparents version), and though my memory is  musty, Sita came across as the neighbourhood’s Sharma ji’s perfect daughter, beautiful, obedient “ sanskari”. But, this book described her as a...

So remember when I told you that my mom would eventually get tired of seeing my face around the house? Yeah well, that happened barely 4 days after my break ( post exams) commenced.  So much for a staycation, amirite? And so that’s how I started my internship at Sharada Trust as an elocution teacher. For the uninitiated, Sharda Trust a Arvind Group Initiative, based out of Ahmedabad and works for upliftment of urban poor in the areas of Basic Infrastructure, Health care and Education, inter alia.   I always thought that teaching was a demanding profession but, holy cow! on the very first day, I was tasked  with  shortlisting  students to teach elocution which triggered memories of my own school days when we used to get all excited and pumped up whenever teacher informed us about some inter house / inter school competition and became super competitive during its selection. It tested already fragile friendships and well, some survived most didn’t (I might hav...

ये जो नज़र आते हैं ये वो तो है नहीं , शिबाबा देखो इन्हे गौर से तो दिखेंगे ये और कोई , जुबान से ओह माय माय कितने प्यारे है, दिलों में यू डोंट know वो अंगारे है, sophistication इनकी सरनेम है, hypocrisy में जीते ये सारे हैं एक पल में बनती है, पल में बिगड़ती है यू काँट say when, how or why साराभाई vs साराभाई  Yup, this blog is about the evergreen show which aired before i was even born (made you feel old, didn't i) and is surprisingly very progressive. First of all, I couldn’t believe that this was an Indian show. Like why and when did we shift from this  to Saas bahu soap operas! I mean this show too had the saas bahu angle but it didn’t have science defying death scenes, 5 divorces, 6 remarriages and a conservative and overly jealous saas decked head to toe in tacky jewelry. Okay, I might have been a littleee aggressive but my grandparents watch a number of these shows and I am sick and tired of this kind of TV.  I am sure they would have enjoyed Uska Pati Sirf Mera Hai, if ...

Hey, I am back peeps!  So the past two years have been a roller coaster ride but at last, I am off that and likely heading for another one. So I guess this blog  is going to be a rant about my ahem thrilling, sleep deprived and bumpy experience. You know, after 10th, when you are riding high due to excellent performance in  boards and thinking that  cracking PCM  for engineering will be a piece  of cake? Yeah well if I had a Time Ma chine, I would have gone back to  naive 15 year old self and shook her hard like what were you thinking girl !?  See the journey started deceptively well  with  kinematics and mole concept. Then we hit rotational motion and advanced trigonometry. And it gets better! From there on it was a mainly downhill  with redox  reactions, thermodynamics, fluid mechanics and then a rollercoaster experience with organic chemistry and coordinate geometry to top it all off.   Thereafter  it was a bl...

Sooo watched any movies lately? I (ahem with my extremely busy schedule) recently watched Rani Mukherjee’s Mrs Chatterjee vs Norway and as you might have guessed, this blog is about a very mature ( unlike me !)  topic of Norway’s welfare system and differences in culture. For the unversed, the movie is mainly about children being snatched away (literally) from their parents by the social services of Norway for a variety of reasons that were twisted and false. The movie is about how a mother fights an entire country's system  to get her children back and is based on the real life of Sagarika Chakraborty.  The movie is a tear jerker and has  made its audience very emotional by the time it ends. Norway is a developed country with high standard of living, education and social development. It is also one of the highest ranked country on the world happiness index but is it really that happy? Sagarika Chakraborty’s case has raised eyebrows at Barnevernet, its welfare system...

 Does this topic even need introduction. The Title’s pretty much self explanatory. I mean I grew up watching it ( although now really understanding every nuance). It is  my and mom’s favourite show although it seems to be slowly slipping from her favourites’ list. I suspect my demands to make exquisite dishes at home has something to do with it! Can you blame me though? Why eat Kichdi when you have some mouthwatering, hard to pronounce dish in front of you! Especially when show's timing coincides with my dinner timing.😓 I honestly thought I wouldn’t be able to watch this season what with the board exams and all, but fortunately, I was able to keep up,  albeit missing a few episodes. Let’s start with the judges. My mom is a big fan of Chef Ranveer’s recipes from biryanis to dal makhni, everything is made by referring to his recipes. Chef Vikas became a household name through MasterChef while i really didn’t know much about chef Garima. But, like she is so cool though, one...

Sup peeps! I know, I know it’s been a while since my last blog but with one exam and the other coming up, I have barely got time to breathe.You guessed it right, this blog is about the nightmare for 15 year old Indian high school students, the class XTH boards! I didn’t mention 17 year olds because they have other nightmares coming up like JEE  and NEET which will be my reality in 2 years. Yeah, that’s definitely the start of my villain arc😈. Anyways, back to boards. Honestly until I started Xth, they seemed to be a huge deal. I almost wanted to fail Ninth class just so that I would have another year before facing 10th, assuming social science didn’t kill me. At the start of the school year, everyone was like ‘iss saal boards dene hai,this and that’. I hadn’t even opened any of my textbooks and I was already stressing. But frankly, the year was pretty normal. Lemme tell you none of the common misconceptions that ‘all extracurricular activities are cancelled’ and ‘extra remedial cl...