Posts

Showing posts with the label Senti - Mental

31 Things you need to know when you are going through a divorce

Image
Recently, someone asked me, whether my life has gone the way I had planned it. I was at a loss for words. Hell of an irony, right? Considering as a writer, words are my bread and butter.  That got me to thinking about my life, and especially the past few years, where I was able to amass a lifetime of lessons that I had not learned in the previous 40 years of my life. Life has definitely not gone the way, I had planned it that much is true. As a young girl, my head was full of dreams of a house, with a white picket fence, kids running around, and a loving partner (you get the picture, I hope). These dreams were mostly fuelled by the numerous books and movies, I had read and seen. Of a rosy life, where things are just as they should be. Even after a painful breakup with my first boyfriend in college, I still carried those dreams in my head. Call me naive, call me dumb..but that was who I was.  A few years later, I got married to someone I loved and thought finally those things wi

Life's Lessons

Image
I have been missing from this space for nearly a year and a half, but hey! what to do, I was out living my life and learning valuable lessons along the way. I thought to share my life's lessons in a series of posts. Here's a list of 22 lessons that I've learnt in my journey from being a married woman to divorced woman, then single and now in a relationship person. Hope these help you look at life differently just as I have been able to. Don't judge yourself by what you see in the mirror. A mirror is just glass and you are so much more than that.  Life's lesson 24 Offer what you can. Show up for people and support them. Love people when they need it, unconditionally and unselfishly. Even when you think you can't, be kind. Show up for people. Because you would want someone one to show up for you when you are hurting. Life's Lesson 23 When you love someone for exactly who they are You will find out how quickly they transform and becom

Humari Adhuri Kahani

Image
As she clicked one selfie after another, to get the right picture, Sudha realized that the smile that she had bravely plastered in front of the camera was not reaching her eyes. Her eyes still looked sad and forlorn. The lipstick and the jewelry added a bit of color, but her eyes betrayed her sadness. Last week, she had stood stoically in the courtroom, with her soon to be ex- husband standing next her. As the clerk shuffled the divorce papers, there was a pit in her stomach and her heart was beating erratically. Sudha's hands were numb and the conversation between them was stilted.  Sudha's gaze moved to the bindi on her forehead as she looked in the cellphone and it took her back to her wedding day. Arun and Sudha had met in Bangalore through common friends. Though they did not know each other earlier, the chance introduction turned into friendship and both were drawn to each other. Their friendship turned to attraction and both soon realized that they were in love. 

Nothing Lasts Forever

Image
I know, I am posting on my blog infrequently these days and my blog readership has plummeted to an all time low. In the past, this would have affected me, but now, I write only when I feel I have something concrete to say or share. I now write to feel fulfilled and express myself and not to increase readership. This perceptible shift in focus has given me the flexibility to write what I want and when I want it. The year is already half over and though not much has changed outwardly in my life, a major change has happened under the surface. I have written about the changes happening in my life, in my previous posts. Today, as I look at the year that has gone by, I realize that I have grown as a person in leaps and bounds, having learnt from some of the toughest challenges life has thrown at me. The past month has been especially rewarding since I have now understood the actual meaning of "letting go". In the truest sense, I have let go. I have gone past the hurt, disappoin

Waiting to Exhale

Image
These days, my posts are all about the past and looking back, like my last post, Is goodbye just another word?  The past few years have been one of change. Good or bad? I don't know that, only time will tell, but yes, things have changed, and my world has altered beyond recognition. The change has happened at break-neck speed and it has left me running hard, literally and figuratively, trying to keep up with the change. This change threw up surprises and challenges  my way and made me a different person. Now, I welcome new experiences with open arms, as it gives me the opportunity to rediscover myself and my own strengths and vulnerabilities. I am learning to own every moment of this new adventure and experiencing the highs and lows of this new journey. After an extremely stressful one year, on the personal front, I delved into a 3-day break with close friends and escaped to a place called Tarkarli. A place where the ocean and river unite, where the choppy blue waters are tee

Is goodbye just another word?

Image
A few days back, I was listening to one of Lobo's song, " Goodbye is just another word ", and it got me thinking about whether that is true. Is goodbye just another word? Goodbye means till we meet again. When I was younger, saying goodbye to someone did not put a thought in my mind. Life was fresh, full of promises and my eyes were focussed on the future. Now, I am looking back more than ever..some would call it midlife..or taking stock. Whatever it is, I am looking at the past and have dissected it to shreds, turned it upside down, inside out and have pondered deeply about the choices I have made in life. I keep thinking of the relationships that were made and torn down, the people who came into my life, people who decided to leave and people who have stayed with me for nearly three decades. I have come to realize one thing, these days, for me, it has become harder to say goodbye. Like fleeting shadows, people have been passing through life, old friends, colleagues

A journey to find the real Me

Image
Today, as I walked out of the cinema, after watching the movie "Wild", I had no sense of time or space. It was as if my mind was in a haze, and I didn't know where I was going. I even crashed into a few traffic cones driving out of the movie hall. People came and helped to untangle my bike, but it still did not drive me out of the fog. My eyes were drenched and my heart was heavy as if it was made of lead. I sobbed all the way home, unheeded to the traffic around me. I sobbed my guts out and it felt good, it felt cathartic. We all cry, some loudly and some in the corner of their minds. Grief, I believe, can manifest itself in many different ways. For Cheryl, the actress in the movie, it manifested in taking drugs and sleeping with men, a series of self-destructive behaviour, trying to cope with her mother's death. My tears were so much for Cheryl, as they were for myself. I could identify with her journey of walking a 1000 miles through the harsh wilderness, to fi

A fresh page - A fresh start

Image
There is a sense of realization that life has come a full circle, as I sweep the cobwebs and clean the dust that has gathered on this space. My last post was nearly 10 months back and this period has been one of rediscovery and shedding off my old self. The last year has been one of rebirth, rejuvenation, testing my endurance and understanding my own strength. Last year, at this time, I had completed my 40th birthday and was lying on the hospital bed, groggy from the anaesthesia and medicines pumped in my body, during my hysterectomy . It was one of the scariest, as well as a very hopeful period of my life. Scary, cause I was worried about the outcome and full of hope because of the promise of a pain-free future. After 7 years of struggling with pain, it was a testing time to know how life will unfold. I have not been writing much in the past year, not that I did not want to, it was just a decision I took to  rest and recover and find a new direction in life. The period of hiber

It is not yet goodbye

Image
There have been many times in the past few months, when I had thought of quitting blogging altogether. My last post was nearly 6 months back. Life has been on a tumultuous ride since the past few years and I have been trying to hold on to my sanity, with all my strength. Many times, I did get an itch to write, but it slowly got drowned in the cacophony of stress, anger and disappointments. Shilpa Garg from "A Rose is a Rose is a Rose"  recently showcased my blog on her super successful blog. She wrote sweet and kind words, and I am very thankful to her for sending love and readers my way. Her blog post and the lovely readers were a motivation enough to scratch that WRITING itch. Thanks Shilpa, for prodding me to wake up my blog from its slumber. My old blog readers have already read about my struggle with infertility and I have openly talked about it in my posts  "My experiments with infertility"  and "Dealing with infertility"  . I wrote of my heartac

The Split 3

Image
Check out  Part 1 and Part 2  before you read this: Shruti walks briskly avoiding the traffic in the bustling market place. She is out to buy Lotus flowers, Tulsi leaves and Coconuts for the Ganesh Pooja next day. The Ganesh Mandal in the market is practicing their Dhol and Tasha routine with full fervor and Shruti can feel the vibrations of the pounding Dhol. She quickly finishes her shopping and hails an autorickshaw to take her home. At the traffic light the autorickshaw comes to a halt. As the driver waits for the light to turn Green, Shruti spots a familiar figure in the adjacent car. She does not recognize the car or the woman sitting next to Vikas. Shruti watches the woman talk animatedly and the way Vikas smiles at her as he replies. They are both engrossed in their conversation and don't see her.  Shruti leans back in her seat quickly so that Vikas does not spot her. Her heart is pounding and her mind is in a whirl. "Who is that woman?" and "Why is Vika

The Split 2

Image
Shruti's reverie was broken as Vikas walked in the kitchen and picked up his cup of tea and sat in front of the television, to watch a Cricket match. She sat at the dining table with her tea wondering when things had changed so much. She had started noticing his long absences just a month back. He was in the shower every morning or getting dressed by the time she got up. Most days he rushed out of the house without eating any breakfast and came late at night, after she was already in bed. On the face of it everything appeared normal and anyone who knew them would not find anything different about them either.  Shruti knew that something had changed imperceptibly between her and Vikas after the miscarriage. It was as if an invisible barrier had grown between them. Their conversations had become cursory and whenever they did talk, it was about mundane everyday things. Many times the  silence between them was so thick that she felt she could cut it with a knife.  Every

The Split

Image
Part 1 I am making the filling for Ukdiche Modak, a sweet made as an offering to Lord Ganesha on Ganesh Chaturthi, a festival celebrated by Maharashtrians all over the world. One needs to use deft fingers to mold the hot rice paste into domes, filling it with the sugar and coconut mixture. My hands are moving with practiced dexterity as my mind moves unfettered to places in the dark recesses of my mind, when my thoughts are broken by the door bell.  Radha bai opens the door and says 'Tai, saheb aale' (madam, your husband is home). Vikas walks in with his laptop bag and picks up the mail lying on the coffee table. He looks tired and had hardly been home these days. His excuse is "there is too much work at the office". Without giving a glance in my direction, he drops his bag on the sofa and goes to the bathroom to wash his face. Radha bai puts a vessel on the gas stove to make tea for us.  I had hired Radha bai to work with us full time, six months back, i