It's not just on paper

Photo Credit: www.teacherspayteachers We have all grown up learning our nursery rhymes like verses of the Bible, unquestioning about their implied meaning and subtle reinforcement of conservative social structures - like the role of each parent in the family and the family's primary provider aka the father.  "Hush, little baby, don't say a word. Papa's gonna buy you a mockingbird.  And if that mockingbird won't sing, Papa's gonna buy you a diamond ring." Notice how the baby is being soothed by promises of all the lovely things that 'papa' will buy for him/her.  While in most Indian families, it is mostly the mother who soothes a wailing child. Imagine the mother singing this to her baby, glorifying papa dearest and with nil reference to the mother who is painstakingly pacifying the child.  The next example is of the very famous and loved nursery rhyme - The Wheels on The Bus Go Round and Round. In this one, when the baby goes 'Wa Wa Wa', th

It's that time of my life, when the tables have turned for me. A few years ago my parents would be hunting for good colleges and speaking to the Principals to assess if the institute was a good fit. Now, with my little one getting ready for formal schooling, it's my turn to hop around town looking for a good and reputed school for my son to study in! While Mumbai is flooded with schools, a vast majority of them offer the state education curriculum i.e. Secondary School Certificate. This board of education is governed by the state of Maharashtra and is also the board from which I completed my own schooling.  Since my graduation from school, many rules have changed in the SSC board and the curriculum too always had a reputation of being 'easier' compared to the other two prominent education boards - ICSE and CBSE.  ICSE schools were by far the most popular schools in Mumbai. However, they were also slightly premium and intellectual for the ordinary student. CBSE schools,

Rambo Circus in action despite a small audience Circus is in town! Back in the day, come December, the newspaper front page ads would scream 'Circus is in town'. However, now the scene has changed completely. No advertisements or billboards announcing the arrival of the circus.  Since the rise of 'digital' advertising platforms, the ads have been shifted to YouTube and Google search.  What triggered my thought of looking for a circus in Mumbai, was actually a billboard titled Cirkus. Not knowing that Cirkus was actually a Bollywood movie, I searched online and learned about it to my disappointment.  Then I wondered if there was an actual circus that I could take my son to and rummaged through my faint memories of circus names and came up with two popular ones - Rambo and Jumbo.  I searched for Jumbo circus and saw nothing. Then I typed Rambo Circus and there it was - a website which announced that the circus was in town only for the next two days. Then, the team would

Simba and Nala Insta filter by The Lion King If you're having a hard time pacifying your toddler when s(he) is wailing or irritable, try this trick which I myself discovered only yesterday! I was sitting idle with my mobile phone in my hand and my son was lurking around, picking up his toys which he had scattered across the floor. I started scrolling the Instagram feed and accidentally swiped left which opened up my front camera to record an Instagram story. Being a novice to Instagram stories myself, I started exploring the range of filters available on Insta.  My son too got interested to explore this new feature along with me. And then we hit upon the eureka filter - Kitten by Instagram. This filter instantly put two little furry ears and a furry and frisky nose onto my face. Looking at this, my son was ecstatic!  He's at a stage where the names of animals and their sounds are enough to get him excited and energized. He started screaming cat, cat.. I thought that this was a

Photo Courtesy: World Economic Forum Come year 2020 and the Entire World, yes, the entire world is under the grip of Novel Coronavirus and its subsequent disease of Covid-19. As a precautionary measure to contain the spread of this human-to-human transmitted disease without a known cure, many countries including India took the harsh but necessary measure to impose a Nation-wide Lockdown. While we are all too familiar with the on-goings that we see on prime-time news, which includes the horrific plight of the daily wage workers in India desperate to return to their homes amid an unending lockdown period, there are number of unique everyday problems that we could not have anticipated hadn't there been a lockdown of such a sort. Here's a lowdown on some of those Real Everyday Problems amid the Covid Lockdown 2020 - 1. TODDLERS & CHILDREN Who would have imagined that the hardest chore for a mother would be to keep her bursting-with-energy toddler occup

A hometown wedding. This is a magical statement which raises the adrenaline levels in most Indians by a hundred folds or so. For me, it surely was exciting to prepare for and attend a relative’s wedding- shopping, dressing, socializing, making merry and the like. But the excitement to visit my hometown Surat wasn’t as much as it should have been. Reasons could be as under- 1. Surat is geographically so close to Mumbai that I consider it less of a hometown and more of a backyard 2. Despite this clear advantage, I have visited Surat less than 5 times for durations less than 10 days (very unlike a typical Indian hometown vacation)  3. Being a Mumbaikar, I carried the false perception that if you’re a Mumbai loyalist, you cannot like or appreciate any other city. So now, when I did backpack and set out for this “hometown” wedding, I didn’t quite anticipate just how much was in store.  Gujarat in a train All aboard the Gujju Mail Starting

Photo Credit: Flickr Think of the word exercise for a moment. What other words would you associate with it? Sweat, gym, workout, burnout, and what not. Do you notice how, by and large, we associate a negative sentiment to it? Why don’t we most of us associate more positive words such as flexibility, strength, rejuvenation, me-time, etc. to exercising? Culturally, we have had very limited exposure and encouragement to exercise and even play sports. These are considered as “extra-curricular” and therefore, by consequence, less important and optional activities. Earlier, I too had a negative and dispassionate approach towards exercising. It was my health-conscious sister, who initiated me to the gym, then to yoga and other forms of exercises. Prior to this, my mom had initiated both her daughters to swimming, which is a great full-body workout, apart from being a fun-filled leisure activity. These were my early experiences with exercising, and frankly, they weren’t even

Umpteen unsaid words aside Battles of feelings and logic beside Many abuses arise and subside But why still do I feel hollow inside? Sights, sounds and senses around To work, play and parties I'm bound Am I really the square peg in a hole that's round? Why do I feel in emotional hollowness I'm drowned? Something mystic is concealed deep within I can't put a finger to it, it's hiding in a ditch If these are demons put to rest Why doesn't the world let them be? Isn't that the best? My hollowness can be filled with nothing but love True love that's pure just like a white dove A minor slip up or friction of ideas so simply turns a friend to stranger To reveal your emptiness to every other, isn't it a real danger? For he who knows, doesn't question And he who questions, doesn't know That time heals wounds and time builds people And slowly but surely the hollowness of your soul becomes nothing more thaṅ an apparition!

It was a rather unusually breezy morning in the summer of 2024 when I got the most enchanting ‘out of world’ experience as the communications manager of ISRO (Indian Space Research Organisation). Yes, ISRO shifted to a manmade island in the Arabian Sea, off the shores of Mumbai, to facilitate a space launch; NASA, we are catching up! As I took the last sip of coffee (and flung the disposable plastic cup in an almost full trash can) at my work pad after a tiring night shift before logging out of my employee online muster, when a weirdest piece of communication flashed my Mac. Lo and behold! an invitation to visit Mars! Was it a joke? Was I dreaming? In the meantime, a zorb descended from the sky and landed near the coast. Another email quickly followed. The message read “Get into the zorb earthling ;)”. I was puzzled. “Should report this to my boss?” I thought out loud. But not wanting to look like a fool, I quickly rushed out of the office and got into the zorb. The zorb shot