Mental Excursions

When endings happen in silence We celebrate success but failure is a private funeral. We have inaugurations, ribbon cuttings, housewarmings, but rarely do we speak of closures or endings. There are no ceremonies for what quietly falls apart, no polite announcements for what no longer works. No wonder then that when a relationship dies, it is seldom acknowledged publicly. Haven’t we seen that couples who once had grand weddings, when they speak of their divorce later, do so with a faint touch of apology, explanation, or sometimes accusation in their tone? As if endings must justify themselves in ways beginnings never have to. Why am I thinking of all this today? Valentine’s Week, that carefully curated emotional calendar of all things rosy, officially ended last Saturday. Each day had a name- Rose Day, Propose Day, Chocolate Day, every gesture assigned its slot, every emotion given a stage, finally culminating in the grand exhibition of it all- Valentine’s Day. And then came Ant...

My heart does not beet for it! Beet Harvest II (or Harvesting beetroots II), a painting by the Polish artist Leon Wyczółkowski (1852–1936),   National Museum in Warsaw. This tale began with one beetroot tikki (Indian style cutlet). Most of the time, fried, unhealthy foods are tastier than their healthier-cooking-method versions. But this pan-fried, dark magenta, supposedly healthy, roundel on the plate had not even made an effort to be palatable. Sitting on its own high horse, it had presumed I would relish its spiced-up avatar as I chewed it wondering, why! To me it felt like it had already lived a life and should have been ordained moksha . You know how insistent Indian hosts are, “Beetroot is so healthy. You must eat it.” People eat and serve beetroot dressed as salad, emulsified in soup, grated in raita, crushed with spices in chutney, shaking hands with hummus, in a dip, killer-sweet in halwa , or some other reincarnation. They begin with extolling its virtues as if they...

The Slow Death of Perfectly Useful Things For years, I have typed fast, chasing thoughts before they escape. Then one afternoon this week, my keyboard decided to follow the Buddhist way of living - slow, intentional, deliberate. I was eating dal and typing at the same time- delusionary multitasking. The universe waited till I lifted the bowl to my mouth- drinking dal straight from it to hasten the process, the bowl perfectly poised over the keyboard, my eyes on the screen. Yuk! is all I could say as the bowl tilted at the wrong angle, crashing on the keyboard, and a sea of hot sabut moong (whole moong beans) splashed all over. The next hour was spent cleaning. When wet and dry rags failed to do the job, I had to call in the armoury. I removed the batteries and focussed on the increasingly delicate act of cleaning something I had never operated on earlier. Cotton swabs, sanitiser, toothpicks, pushing, prying, coaxing. The keys that felt slow, uneven, or did not spring back, needed...