Desert Rose

I miss them. The salad bars in Pizza Hut. I often overthink it – why do they not have them in India?! You might tell – Aren’t the pizzas more their thing, then why worry about the salad?   Well. Go to the salad bar and then let’s talk! That plate of salad is what I feel is absolute education. In Pizza Hut, there is the scheme of paying for a plate and taking as much salad as you can in one short in that plate. As straightforward as it may sound, it is an exercise that challenges you and tests you on everyday skills! The presence of mind to hold a napkin in your hand with the plate before you start – Initiate with purpose. Holding it firmly and doing the mental calculation of what goes where and the approximate quantities – Planning. Starting the layering and making those calculative moves – Be it the base layer of lettuce to avoid the runoff from the coleslaw and pickled beet or making sure the olives are embedded in the salads; silently recollecting the errors tha...

Some days we get it all wrong. Sometimes we just have one of those days, where things happen to you over and over again, as if someone up above is testing to see if you really want to have a good day. At least I do. A little something that's been brewing up inside my head leads to everything else. And then even before I realize, I just want to run and close myself in a room. I sit down and go through every scene of my 'bad day'. What all did I do? What did not go too well? Why did I say it or do it? I try to justify myself as much as I can ; as hard as I can. I repeat great lines to my own brains - " It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all - in which case you fail by default." or shorter ones like - "Life is tough darling, but so are you.". I deceive myself like I'm going to fix myself and look for options for distraction and engagement. It keeps going for a w...

She woke up that day with a smile.   Thank God. Lately days are bright and happy. Yet that day, it was something else. After a minute or two, she realized. The reason.   She was amused because she thought it was all long back ago. She thought she'd forgotten details. Days which once mattered the most.   And here she was, messed up hair and tiny eyes, and the smile. How a tiny bit from the past make us come alive without us realizing. How those pieces we thought were buried deep down or removed from our system find their way back on the days that makes most sense to those memories.   How we see the innumerable happy moments over the few that probably caused the drift. After all she's a wild child with stains.   Sometimes imperfect. Sometimes unclean. But so damn shiny underneath.