As families celebrated Father’s Day in June, I was reminded that a month ago when moms were being feted, some dads were playing true to type – and not the kosher kind. On Mother’s Day my WhatsApp group chats were overflowing with fulsome messages from male...
ma To the woman who loved what had not yet become, making promises with unfolding fabric: We shared skin, but from you I grew into my own — an inherited thing inhabited, but never out grown. You hollowed a home within yourself, doorways forged from flesh,...
Rain lashed on the windshield as my mother navigated our white Fiat car through the flooded streets of Chennai, the erstwhile Madras. I sat in the front seat craning my neck trying to watch out for any danger as she drove back home late in the night. Her simple...
I must have looked aghast at her bare feet, for Ajji smiled her widest, toothless best, and said, “Back home I never wear chappals. If I did, I’d probably leave it somewhere and forget about them.” But I was thirteen and as with most children at that age, I was...
Crisply starched cotton saris. A hand kerchief tucked at the waist. Hair in a top knot. Bustling with life and laughter. Her belly laugh lit up the room and caught everyone in its unique charm. She was Sundari – “The Beautiful One”. Aptly named, for she was...
