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...

  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...

I think I was watching the trailer for the second season of this romantic anthology series called"Modern Love". As usual I was not paying attention to most of what was being said. My focus was on catching a glimpse of Kit Harrington. And then I heard one of the characters say something like, " We can only be as happy as we allow ourselves to be", and it got me thinking for a while. I, in fact even texted it to someone I know, who is yet to acknowledge that text. (Its been two days.....I know.... but I am used to being ignored like that.....sigh!.....)  The word "happiness brings" to my mind a series of interviews that were aired in Kappa TV, hosted by Dhanya Varma, called "Happiness Project". Though it was indeed all about happiness, I loved how she interviewed the people without ever letting a feeling of redundancy to creep in. Unlike several other interviewers I have come across, she never pried into their personal lives or dug up scandals from...

    I didn’t know if I was his friend or just somebody he talked to over the phone when he did not have anything better to do with his time. Whatever the case might be, I had gotten a good and patient listener to my rantings and whining in him. Most adults will agree to the pricelessness of such an acquisition in life. Also, he never seemed to judge me, mostly on account of the fact that he simply didn’t care. His aloofness was comforting to me for some reason. In his words, he lived in a bubble of his own making through which he did see the world, but chose to observe only what he felt was worth his while. It’s been ten years since that message I sent him on a particularly depressing day, during the first year of my bachelors. Now, years later, I was beginning to read Truman Capote’s novella Breakfast at Tiffany’s when his descriptions jogged my memory, and that day when we met for the first time as acquaintances after spending eight years in the same school as ...

     She thumbed through the pages of the booklet, looking at the intricate designs of bead work and laces. I was sitting in a corner of the redolent room that was teeming with activity. Every ten or fifteen minutes she would quickly glance at me and pass a smile. We had barely talked that day. Suddenly I felt a chill from the air conditioner. A toddler on all fours was gently tugging at one of the packets in my hands. I got up from where I was sitting and went up to her, leaving the bags behind on the couch. She sensed my presence behind her and pointed towards two photographs without lifting her head from the pages. I wanted her to look beautiful that day. By the time we stepped out from there, three hours had flown by. The Indian winter was slowly making its presence felt.            A number of auto rickshaws stopped beside us as we walked, but we shook our heads in unison and they left muttering a few incomprehensible word...