Wordside Woman

                            The Reality Called Depression To most of the upstanding citizens of our society, depression is still an uninspired excuse given by delinquents and deadbeats to wash their hands of responsibilities. These empirically shaped mortals obsessed with productivity have a problem with wrapping their head around abstract illnesses. Even considering the possibility of its existence among their peers or within oneself is viewed as a betrayal of their carefully cultured misplaced convictions. Unless there are festering wounds, lethal cuts, exsanguination, detached limbs, misbehaving cells or at least a cytokine storm, one doesn’t qualify to be addressed as “sick”. The community doesn’t make things easier for the depressed either. The well-meaning aunties in the neighborhood and opinionated uncles making unsolicited visits to your house fuel you on guilt trips that more often than not end with self-lo...

  SHADOW   Directionless, I walk through lighted corridors, I force myself to move along, Unyielding to the luring offers of the shady corners, Heaviness slows me down to a crawl, Let me stop, bleed away a little of my beingness, Reduce myself, shrink myself to naught, Make myself light, I look down and realise there are two of me, We meet where my feet begin, I run back and forth to no avail, Can’t seem to outrun it, My constant creepy companion, Reluctantly I lie down, And we became one in an embrace.  

  A Word to the Practitioners of Non Scientific Disciplines from a Peer      Having your existence and worth questioned recurrently in life can be a mind numbing and soul crushing event. When the same happens in the field of academia it is belittling, embarrassing and intellectually lethal at best. The practitioners of non-scientific academic disciplines are, now more than ever, being forced to validate their existence in the academic world, repeatedly, to no avail. Considering this eventuality to be premeditated on the part of the scientific community to project their relevance by contrasting it against the “opposing group” will do no good to anyone. It is time we stopped pointing fingers and took responsibility for ensuring that our disciplines be made current, in keeping with the course of the global civilisation’s path ahead to the future.      So, how do we alter our roles as mute spectators, indulging in stodgy running commentaries on life al...

  JAN 28TH FRIDAY 2022 Some days are confusing. The weather is confusing, the temperature is confusing, sometimes the destinations are also confusing. The past three weeks felt like Summer and today its windy. I could feel dust beneath my feet despite the fact that Amma had moped the whole house. It irritates her. I worked online today. I can find more and more greys in her hair with every passing day. Time has an obvious as well as insidious presence in our lives. It is rarely that you experience the latter. Today was one of those days when I had an excruciating awareness of it.  I've been staring at the screen for a long time after writing the first paragraph. It seems I have run out of ideas to write. It is as if there is a pause in my existence. How do you write about pauses? The feeling of being the only stagnant thing even while time is taking everything else forward in its torrential flow. It is both a privilege and a curse. I can find dust accumulated between the ...

  JAN 12TH WEDNESDAY 2022 CLUSTERFUCK!!!!!  I cannot think of a better word to describe the past Sunday. Whenever I have let others take decisions for me in my life, it has more often than not turned out terribly. This was just one among those classic instances. The very thought of it disturbs me viscerally. I don't wanna talk about it. But, what really struck me is how perceptive my parents are. I had braced myself for the volley of questions awaiting me from my parents. Even as a child I used to share every little incident with both my parents. Actually, I used to talk with mum more, considering she was the one readily available. She would always be there awaiting my return every evening from school and later college. Unlike other mothers she wouldn't rush me into doing my homework. She loved listening to me speak about my teachers, friends, enemies, and several such insignificant things. Sometimes I would feel that she was living vicariously through me. Growi...

JAN 2ND 2022 SUNDAY       It is another beautiful winter evening. I am sitting at my table, my laptop open, trying to delude myself into believing that the past ten days were productively spent. It is an exercise in futility, as I am well aware. But I need to make an attempt to get out of the rut called routine. It is dangerously reassuring and unsettling at the same time. Lets leave it at that. I can hear my mum watering the plants and dad typing away something on his laptop. The niggling in the pit of my stomach will soon takeover my sense of peace. I need to write a little before that happens.      Sometimes things happen to us in our life, things that can make you question the permanence of the sense of security that you would have taken for granted otherwise. You begin to appreciate a lot of things that must have come across as insignificant, not worthy of attention. So the question is, is it a good thing or a bad thing? Frankly, I don't know. My ...