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A Box of Questions this BHOGI

The Hanuman temple at the end of the street where my parents live has been our go-to temple ever since I can remember. Whether it is a prayer for someone ill or a ThankYou for a milestone reached, sometimes 'just-like-that' and sometimes for a heart-to-heart, this Hanuman has been a constant in the lives of those who live nearby. A month ago, the temple was decked up for Hanuman Jayanti and my dad couldn't stop raving about how majestic our beloved Hanuman looked, how exquisitely the ceiling had been painted with tulasi and flowers and what a beautifully festive look the entire street had taken on. There was a constant stream of visitors for Him that day- each one being fed with a sumptuous lunch. Would this be any Hanuman Jayanti anywhere in the world? Probably! So why go on harping about this one? Because the choicest flowers were hand picked and strung together by a Muslim. The lunch was joyfully prepared by boys whose caste and religion no one knows. The entire cost fo
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Bangalore To Dhanushkodi In Navarathri

As you drive past Krishnagiri and onto Salem, you turn a rocky curve and suddenly you are hit by an unlikely sight- a mountain of green surrounded by fields of green and then some more green. You can count at least 5 shades of green- of shrubs, grass, trees and more of the same. As you whizz past this wall of green, you notice a lone white cottage. The next 4 days we reveled in much more! They say all the beautiful moments of a journey happen between the planned bits. We were lucky, cos we didn't make many plans, except to get some good food every meal. A 7 hour drive to Madurai from Bangalore on a Sunday morning landed us at Dindigul for lunch. Shrii Saravana Bhavan is most obviously a joint trying to sell on the name made famous by the HSB people from Chennai. The only reason we entered here was because the heat outside was crazy and they had an AC dining area. And then the 'meals' arrived. Sambhar, Kozhambu and Rasam like I have never tasted before. If you are ever ca
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Selfie at Elliot's

Growing up in Bangalore, we would often joke that the only thing missing in Bangalore was the beach! But we would quickly dismiss our fancies thinking that the sea shore would ruin our enviable weather: those were the days when we didn't know that all you needed was the land mafia and lots of concrete to destroy the weather (amongst several other Bangalore niceties).  In any case, I married a die-hard Chennai-ite this day 7 years ago and found myself in a life-long tutorial on 'going to the beach'. Over the years I have been treated to molaga bajji and appalam, the stomach churning merry-go-round, the scarily PINK candy, the kadalai fellow who always has a prominent role in every beach scene in every tamil movie and serial, the helicopter toy that will stop working the minute you have brought it home, the blinking devil horns that are quite eerie, the 'vetti' catch ups that happen at the beach..... the latest addition being the spring potato! The one thing that
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Happy Independance Day!

Come Independance Day and we love to come together and sing Vande Mataram and Jana Gana Mana. "We are ONE irrespective of caste,creed or religion or region etc etc etc." But I sense that this is a time when we want to come together by getting rid of our identity as being a Hindu or a Muslim or a Christian. Religion does not define me. We want to rid ourselves of our identity as a Tamilian or Kannadiga or Bengali or Kashmiri. It isn't region or language that defines my patriotism (Subramanya Bharathi: You should have written patriotic poetry in a language everyone understands!) We definitely want to rid oursleves of our identity as a Dalit or Brahmin or Kshatriya or Baniya. Caste is a complete No-No. It does not matter that I am an engineer or doctor or lawyer or artiste or sculptor. All professions recognise that August 15th is a holiday. I may be a mother or father or grandmother or aunt or cousin. It is "I" that matters. Not my identity in my f
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Happy Doctors' Day!

 I just found out that yesterday was Doctors' day... I've grown up with a few doctors in the family, a few friends are now super duper doctors, and since I've also been ill every now and then, I've been treated by unrelated unknown doctors. So here is my 5 pointer check list for lay people like you and me: 1. The next time you whine about how long you have to wait outside the doctor's office, kindly- yes PLEASE please also make sure you whine while you wait in a long queue outside the box office. After all, both are a matter of life, health, happiness and death NO?! 2. The next time the doctor prescribes antibiotics "unnecessarily", please don't take them. When you go back after 3 days with a condition that's worse off, I love watching the doctor bang his/her head on the wall once you've left. 3. If the doctor said that bump on your head is boil, it most likely is- Oh wait it can't be that simple. Dr. Google says it's a malignan
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MY ALONE

A few days ago, my daughter walked off to a birthday party saying "I will go my alone." MY ALONE was her new English phrase for the week meaning 'all by myself'. Not just 'myself', "ALL BY MYSELF"! And as I watched her walk down the hallway to the neighbour's house, I felt a funny feeling in the pit of my tummy. Of all the funny-feelings-in-tummy motherhood brings you, this one was new. WAS MY BABY GROWING UP? You see, mothers are usually programmed to be blind to any of these so-called hints of growing up. So obviously it surprised me that I was thinking this at all! Growing up in Mommy language usually refers to other things like: 1. Baby Being toilet trained after months of cleaning up and mopping up and coercing and making sssss sounds while the bored baby sits on the Potty. 2. Baby Being able to chew food -accompanied by a lot of "CHEW CHEW CHEW" and nudging the food stuck in the cheek. 3. Baby Giving up the feeding bott
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Raise you voices for some happiness!

Has it become so difficult to be happy? or even just optimistic? In the days following the O-so-talked-about "India's Daughter", we have been engulfed by a sense of rage- at the government, at the system, at patriarchy, at men, at some women and unfortunately at anyone who talks well of anything! I was chided yesterday for being cheerful. I am chided today for being optimistic. Mind you - I was taken in by the same rage - at the audacity of the defense lawyers, at their attitude that seemed to be not unique to criminals but rampant in our society. I shared the link to the leaked video on my facebook page, urging my friends to share it and take responsibility for being a part of the system that bred such criminals, a society that continued to breed the horribly chauvinistic attitude that women were dispensable. It made me angry and I made that very clear. And then I heard another side of the story as well- some said the real purpose of the documentary was to "put
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