When Silence Speaks...

 “Guilt walks on all fours.  It creeps, encircles, and climbs. It presses its thumbs to your throat. And it waits.” That’s the heartbreaking beauty Sepetys brings to her historical novels; and also why she is one of my favourite authors. Her writing is a work of art that rips apart your mind, body and soul, and then puts them back together; leaving you whole again with a knowing that something in you has shifted permanently. This book made me wonder, how many such Stalins, Hitlers, Ceaușescus, Mussolinis, Francos has the world birthed to date? How many such stories are still hidden behind an iron curtain even today? I cannot believe that something like this existed in the same world I live and breathe in. I did not know about Ceaușescu before this book. I deliberately stopped myself from googling about 1989 Romanian Revolution, or searching for pictures of Nicolae Ceaușescu and his wife Elena while reading this novel. But in the end, when I saw their smiling faces p...

So, an interesting conversation with my mom made me realize how little we know about our parents and this even after I spend hours at times listening to various accounts of her childhood. I am reading this book by Shanon Lee “Be water my friend” (not the book in the picture). Well, this morning while I was chatting with my mom, I started sharing some of Lee’s quotes without stating his name and we were having all these philosophical discussion, and she goes “So, where did you come across these, which guru are you listening to?” I say it wasn’t any monk but it was by a famous martial artist Bruce Lee; he was known for his quick feet and I started kicking my legs in the air trying to mimic kung-fu (which btw was more like me as kung-fu-panda). But knowing that mom hardly watched Hollywood movies, I did not expect her to know Lee. And hence my over exaggerated demonstration of his larger than life skill.  She smiles and says “Yeah, I know him, he was lean like an iron rod but so quick...

I have been meaning to write this post for a while now, but somehow words fail me. I started writing, and stopped at the first two sentences, erasing and rephrasing, re-iterating the process every time I attempted to write this.  8 months later, today on Father’s day, I think I finally am able to put words into meaningful sentences.  It’s weird how most of the times, I just need an inspiration, an idea or a feeling to write pages together without any effort; and then there are times, when my mind is cluttered with so many thoughts ,eager to be put on paper that I find it hard to form a single straight sentence. But I feel like writing today, so here it goes. My best friend lost her mom to a health incident few months back. When I spoke to her she asked me how did I handle it when my dad passed away few years back. I could not explain it to her then, I just said you will learn to live through it. That was when I first tried to write this blog. Even after so many years, ...

Sometimes you go down the rabbit hole of self evaluation sub-consciously,  without even realizing you are actually feeling that way. Usually takes a good friend to notice the signs and snap you out of it. And my sweetheart did that to me today.  I am one of those who is very content and happy with life, quite comfortable in her skin and pretty confident about all the decisions; irrespective of them being right or wrong. I never felt apologetic for who I am and where I am right now.  Me being single has been my strength all along and not something that I am ashamed of. I never saw it as my failure in life, no matter how much others tried to hammer that thought into me. Remember, I come from an asian society with strong cultural views. It wasn’t easy, and it took me through some pretty rough days in the beginning. But I came through. It’s not like I have not been in love or relationships, I just chose when to stop being in one. I don’t know what put me in the defensive...