Desert Rose

My heart has been beating a tad bit faster than many around me since I was born. It handles a little too much blood at a time and quicker than normal. Nothing major, but innocent murmur trouble. It is not the kind that needs any medical attention – thank God. But my stamina and control over breathing have always been a tricky domain. From my teenage, I’ve been conscious about fixing health in general. I’ve been doing something or the other in this direction for years now. This urge got stronger with some major milestones we encountered in Geolin (our family) through my undergrad years. Pappa George was forced to join the Parkinson’s party and Mumma Lin took her membership in the ‘C’ club as they call it (Cancer). Both are happy, healthy, and fighting odds like warriors to date  – thank God. My sister has also had her share of health hurdles since she was a little girl and is still figuring it out. So over the years, the obsession to stay healthy has been a constant thought i...

What was I even thinking? Some days you just can't stop wondering about this. Some soups we get ourselves into, leave us questioning our own self over and over again. Some people we choose make us wonder about our capacity to analyze or make choices. Some of these situations are such a mess that though we make ourselves believe that we have moved on, very often we keep going back trying to understand why it took that path.  Whoever it may be or whatever situation it was, we definitely knew what we were feeling. But then - what were we thinking? Or, did we think at all? In some way or the other way, most of us are trying to sort something like this at all points.  A couple of days after me and my friend spoke about this aspect, I happened to read a note I'd written to myself in one of my older notebooks.  "What was I thinking? - I clearly wasn't thinking. Why wasn't I thinking? - Because I was busy feeling and I guess some aspect of it was good at that moment."...

The sight of a board that says "Waiting Room" mostly gives me a headache. Does that happen to you? The long lines at the billing counter, a delayed slot at the doctor's appointment, the wait for your order in a restaurant (the worst kind) and what not.  Well, for that matter, when I was in labor, the duty doctor told me to hold a bit as she wanted me to "wait for my doctor". Neil was born five minutes later !<Yes, thankfully my doc made it too> So yea, waiting is always tough! I'm sure majority of us felt all this and yet, now we are all waiting. Some to cross borders and meet their loved ones ; Some to get started with that job that they were supposed to join; Some to write those exams once and for all and get done with it;  Some to exit life situations that they now realize is no more than a suffocating hole; Some to finally start doing that thing they've been putting off forever; And all of us to just be able to step o...

21 days. There were countdowns everywhere. Different kinds of them - cooking experiments, art and craft, reading, reviews of contents to watch on digital platforms, ludo tournaments, zoom calls, home work-outs, cleaning and rearranging spaces and so on. The interesting part is that most of us knew that these 21 days will not be the end. In fact we were sure that there will be more to it. But still there was the countdown. There was hope. In a sense, we've lost count of days but countdowns are still on. Quarantine activities and #hashtags are still trending. Economy has collapsed. People around the world are going through all sorts of tough situations. Some people are dying in bits and pieces and so many are just dying. Freedom has now taken a new definition. But we feel hope. We have faith. For many it has been about realizing that while searching all around to experience the profound, it was right there in their homes. For many it has been about re...

There are these things which seem so little or trivial but actually is so strong in its impact and intent.   At the end of every big discussion we realize that it's after all a list of small things that needs to be looked into.  When David and I started talking a few years ago, there were certain casual statements and major discussions that flowed between us which gave us both the confidence to look at a future with each other. I remember this one time, when we discussed children - funnily enough we both didn't seem too sure about whether we wanted to have children, and if we did, we had no idea when. But we both seemed to agree on what the child's name should be like and that seemed to be the most organic part of the conversation. Fast forward - And Last month, we welcomed our little one to this world and we were definitely feeling a whole lot of things. There obviously was so much excitement to tell the world about his arrival and so we did with the expected...

There are times when it is all about dreaming to go far and wide. There are too many frames in the mind of how lovely it would be to take journeys  where the nights live on forever and friends made will give you stories for a lifetime. Then comes the time to actually go far and wide - not being able to contain the excitement. The journey surely being more beautiful and rewarding than it looked like in the dreams - the time when the nights live on forever and the friends will do all the magic. And then comes the time where journeys begin to look different. Sometimes it even feels just perfect to be alone while experiencing it and sometimes it feels like a journey to find a place or person that will become home. Then for many comes the time when it feels like they have arrived in that space - place, person, passion or the like. At the end of so many journeys, you stumble upon that sense of belonging and all the experiences along the way feel like they were just ...

She woke up every morning convincing herself that it is a good time to be. After all, most things come to her doorstep without her having to go out and get exhausted; There was enough content to watch on digital platforms – so much that she spent more time on the decision than actually watching; Education was taking interesting turns with alternative learning systems to beat the conventional ones – so now we’d see more kids on the block who crack life better than we did apparently; Innovation in design and technology blew her mind with every aspect of daily life getting so much easier; Equality, empowerment, tolerance and what not – everything is in the air or at least on social media; Medicine is developing at a good pace to deal with all the increasing sickness in this world; Mental health is being taken seriously and therapists are all over the place - so obviously happier people with sorted life; People are making conscious shifts to organic products, sustainab...