A Small Film With a Big Heart

A small film with a big heart. Sounds super clichéd even as I write that sentence down, but honestly, that's exactly what *Modha Rathri* is all about.

A groom from Dubai named Maruthu and a bride named Muthu from a small village are forced into an arranged marriage. Here's the plot twist, though: the groom doesn't want to get married because of the trauma of losing his late girlfriend, who died by suicide after her family opposed their relationship. The bride, on the other hand, is madly in love with her boyfriend of a few years and is constantly trying to flee from her own wedding.

On their first night, Maruthu catches Muthu red-handed inside their attached bathroom, trying to escape through a hole in the bathroom wall. What ensues is a madcap, subtle romantic comedy involving Muthu's current boyfriend dumping her, Maruthu's family getting hold of Muthu's farewell note to her family, and a priest who intervenes and tries to convince both families to simply accept the newlywed couple.

The movie ends with Muthu complaining about her entire life to an obviously mildly lovestruck Maruthu, while the cot meant for their first night is promptly carted in front of them by the carpenter.

As the movie ends, with the newly married couple laughing at each other, you, as the viewer of this harum-scarum movie, will also end up laughing.

Like I mentioned already, a sweet little small movie with a big heart is what you'll find upon watching *Modha Rathri*.

Image sourced from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modha_Rathri 

How to Avoid Becoming Cranky Sebastian

Slow weekends are extremely important for a “brain reset”, “energy recharge”, “shake it all off and look forward to a brand-new week” vibe.

I don’t know about you, but if my weekends are jam-packed with activities and I don’t catch blissful 40-minute-long siestas on both days, I stroll into the new week like a crabby crab.

Picture a very cranky Sebastian snapping at Ariel everywhere, instead of having perky conversations with her. I would be cranky Sebastian.

Why not Ariel, you ask? Well, I love my sugars far too much to ever look like Ariel — in this lifetime or the next. I wonder what she eats all day long for that banging figure. Seaweed?

I digress, as always.

Coming back to the topic at hand — slow weekends, with or without sugar, but definitely with two solid afternoon siestas — are very important for me. They ensure I can fart out jasmine-scented farts and poop rainbows for the rest of the week. You get the picture.

I did a beachy breakfast this weekend with a dear old friend on Sunday and went crazy inside a playzone on Saturday. All in all, a slow weekend indeed.

What do you do to reset your mind and body after a strenuous work week? Drop a comment below and let me know.

The Polar Bear Life Is Looking Increasingly Attractive

As I walked to my parents' house this morning, I walked past a group of very fit middle-aged uncles (cough, cough — sudden realisation that I'm middle-aged too as I write this sentence) and immediately felt a sense of guilt for piling on a solid 4 kilos this week at work.

The food consumed — infinite cups of sugary filter coffee, tea, and tea-time snacks ranging from sundal, bread and chilli pakoda to cookies of every variety, along with one healthy bowl thrown somewhere in the middle of all that — it's quite natural that the weighing scale would slap me nicely across the face.

My once tucked-away double chin is now prominently hanging down, and I look pregnant with food babies — two months minimum.

It's not a good look on me overall. This whole going-to-office-and-working vibe, along with the eating-out-of-boredom vibe, doesn't suit me at all.

I couldn't weight train today, and even 3-kilo dumbbells felt like agony. The insides of my mouth feel so parched, I could put the Sahara Desert to shame.

Post 11 a.m., the office air conditioning gets so hideously freezing cold that even polar bears from Antarctica would run away from sitting at that desk and working.

On that note, I'd choose the polar bear life over the 9-to-6 in-office grind. I definitely resemble one now.

I wonder how expensive it is to build igloos.

The Bad-Boy Biker I Was Searching For Was Me All Along

Losing my husband five years ago was equivalent to losing parts of myself. Thirteen years with one human being is short when compared to marriages that last for fifty years and beyond. Our bittersweet love story hit an abrupt halt with his passing, and I have felt a vacuum ever since.

The past five years have been deeply lonely yet liberating, chaotically busy yet empowering. All this alone time with a chattering little baby has given me a brand-new perspective on life.

I realised the bad-boy, tattooed guitarist and biker I was searching for in a partner was actually me all along. I am that bad boy (in a woman's body)—free of spirit and mind, always ready to explore the unknown, and forever twenty-one in my head.

As a good friend mentioned to me a mere month after my husband's passing, "You are Poopie now, Gayatri. He will remain inside you forever." ("Poopie" was the pet name my late husband and I called each other.)

Five years later, I couldn't agree more. Here I am, getting one tattoo after another, chugging espresso, and chomping down Portuguese custard tarts—my late husband would have cried laughing. I realise my taste in food was always his, in fact. Except for my love for butter chicken, of course—no one can take that away from me, not even him!

There is always a silver lining to human misery, and mine was finding myself. My inner voice tells me to survive, to keep putting one foot in front of the other, and to take it one day at a time.

I don't overthink things deeply anymore. I simply flow with life and trust my gut feeling about people and situations.

Let a Woman Go Wild for Lunch

Let a woman go wild for lunch and she will. I purposely didn't pack lunch from home today and rediscovered my two long-lost best friends — carbs and sugar.

Started off very healthy, of course, with a dish called a "breakfast bowl". True to its name, it had just the right amount of protein, perfect to kickstart the day, which I decided to eat for lunch today.

Then I moved on to a bakery right next door and popped in a butter chicken croissant, chilli chicken quiche, a dark chocolate cookie and a hazelnut cappuccino.

Ah, the beauty of slow lunches bang in the middle of a typical working day — what a pleasure! This world is brand new to me, thanks to my remote-working setup for the past two years, which has abruptly come to an end.

To take myself out like this on solo dates, people-watch and eat like a little piggy. Sigh and sigh! This is the life.

For the next 30-odd minutes, I'm not going to think about the pile of documents waiting for me on multiple trackers to sort out and complete.

For now, I'm a free bird, flying wild, wilder than the great blue skies can envelop me in. On that note, no wonder my personal trainer wants to quit on me.

Her question of, "Why don't you ever lose weight?" has finally been answered in one gluttonous working afternoon.

When the World Assumes Every Child Has Two Parents

My 7-year-old had to write an essay on his parents for his English test earlier this month, and he wrote about his father in the present tense.

“My father’s name is Raj and he is a musician,” he wrote.

Perhaps it was easier for him not to bother explaining to all and sundry that his father has been long gone now. When I asked him why he had written about his late father in the present tense and not in the past, he replied very logically, “But that would not have answered the question, Mumma.”

And the rest of the essay spoke about his activities with me. Mumma took precedence after that one sentence about his late father.

The world simply does not accept or include families like mine, where there is just one parent and that is the reality. I have lost track of the number of times I have walked into a Passport Seva office or an Aadhaar office trying to explain that I am the only surviving parent today and that there is no point having his father’s childhood home address on those documents.

I have to take his death certificate, our marriage certificate and my child’s birth certificate to explain our current family dynamics, and even then, his late father’s address and mobile number are firmly plastered across those documents.

For the longest time, his school ID card had “Deceased” listed under the parent’s name. After I raised the issue with his very supportive teachers at school, his current ID has no mention of a parent and simply has my mobile number on it.

I stumbled upon an Instagram post about the importance of fathers and how important it is to celebrate them while they are alive. All valid points.

But what about a very young mother with an even younger child who had to double up and be both parents? Where are the celebratory posts for a single mother? Or a single father, for that matter?

It is time the world accepted all sorts of families — families like mine. It is time to stop simply assuming that a family has both parents and asking a 7-year-old to write an essay on the topic of “Parents”.

Thank God my child is more logical than me. The very question stung me, but my little grandfather-child handled it in Rajinikanth style, as always. I’m assuming my child’s mind-voice when he read that question was, “En vazhi, thani vazhi.”

What a champ this mini-man of mine is. All heart when heart is needed and all logic when logic is needed.

I couldn’t be more proud.

The Tale of Two Offices

The tale of two offices — one of many work anecdotes from the city I have called home for most of my life.

My current office, coincidentally, happens to be on the exact same road as my very first PR office in 2012 — the erstwhile Hanmer MSL, now rebranded as MSLGROUP.

The point is, this afternoon, post-lunch, I sat inside one of the cafes on this burgeoning, bustling road to have a cup of coffee and kill my lunch break.

As I sat there staring into space and wondering why I was wasting so much money on bad-tasting filter coffee, a familiar voice and a hand slapped me from behind. I turned around and bumped into an old colleague from 14 years ago, whom I ended up chatting with for a solid 10 minutes, much to the annoyance of the friend she had come to lunch with.

I spoke endlessly, as though I had met my long-lost sister, because that's honestly who she is — home, from another time and place. She chuckled throughout our conversation and ended with, “I love how unhinged you are, Gayatri.”

I replied even faster: “Since 1987, Saloni. Since 1987.”

Home away from home — that's what all my colleagues have been, both past and present. Especially the ones from the past, when my unfiltered mouth was truly appreciated.

Aaah! To be a trainee again — what joy!

Now I'm just lucky to still be employed with the mouth on me.

Here's to many more hot coffee afternoons and unexpectedly bumping into dear old colleagues from the past.

The Artists Who Make Us Feel Like Divas

A moment of appreciation for these artists called hairstylists. I've written about this talented breed plenty of times, and today, I'd like to mention my latest one, whom I've been going to religiously ever since they first opened their salon in Adyar.

I'm talking about Bon Bomb Hair and the enterprising husband-and-wife duo who own and run it — Lucy and Siam.

Like all my hairstylists over the years, these two have also put up with all my eccentric requests — make my short hair even shorter, give me bounce with the two little twigs I have on my crown, colour it purple, colour it another shade of purple... My requests have gotten crazier and crazier with time, and Lucy has been nothing but patient with me.

During my last visit, about two or three weeks ago, I cribbed about how much I was catching a cold and cough, thanks to the length of my hair. She chuckled, obliged and then quite rightly pointed out, "Look at everyone in this salon right now and look at you. You have the shortest hair."

She took less than ten minutes, as usual, because she's an absolute pro who has been in the industry for well over a decade. By the time she was done, she looked at me and agreed, "Yes, your face is seen more clearly with this length of hair. You will feel lighter and bouncier with this as opposed to trying to grow it."

Here's to many more years of my crazy requests, with the lovely folks at Bon Bomb obliging! Here's to looking like a diva — in my head, at least — for the foreseeable future, all thanks to Lucy.

The Little Man Who Never Let Me Down

To say I haven't had a man in my house or in my life in the past five years would be grossly incorrect, because my seven-year-old mini-man has shown me some solid spine well beyond his years. So far, he's not flaky, not inconsistent, not unreliable, and he's a little man of his word.

There's not a single teacher or parent who has met him who has told me a single bad thing about his nature. His preschool teachers told me that he could sense those who were slightly differently abled around him, and he would go out of his way to help them.

I remember watching this four-year-old take the stage as the narrator for his very first play. Instead of delivering his lines first, he dragged the little boy who wore the same costume as him up beside him, made sure he was standing alongside him, and then delivered his lines.

I probably dropped a single tear in that moment.

We've seen a world of pain and happiness together over the last five years, and I couldn't be more proud of the little boy he's growing up to be.

He senses sadness in me simply by watching my face. Of course, he's a tornado as well — jumping up and down door frames all day long, squishing and wasting bars of soap inside buckets of water, and getting up to a laundry list of similar monkey behaviour.

Even then, my boy is more of a man than a slew of inconsistent, flaky, unreliable "gems" I've met over the past three years.

Cheers to being Riaan's proud mumma, every single day for the rest of my life.

Still Waiting for My Angel

How relevant is *Iris* by the Goo Goo Dolls even today? I think we’re all waiting for an immortal angel who chooses to give up his or her magical life to experience the vulnerable, painful and beautiful rawness of human love.

That’s all we really want — an angelic partner who gives us undying love.

I’ve experienced that loss in love twice, in different intensities, over the years — first when my grandfather passed away, and then when I lost my husband.

There’s a deep void that I feel in all the moments I don’t fill with work and mommy duties. Perhaps I work just so I don’t have to feel their absence — because it is deafeningly loud over the weekends.

It’s a basic human need to have a loving partner by your side, and I feel only half-complete in the middle of all the chaotic noise of work that I somehow create for myself even beyond office hours.

To love and be loved — it’s such a simple and beautiful feeling.

I wonder why people don’t want to open up anymore. What are they really scared of?

I’m still waiting and still hoping for my angel to heal the wreckage that is my heart.

Until then, there’s hot chocolate.

Actions Speak Louder

What do people really want?

Are they looking for a genuine human connection, or just another phone number to add to an already overflowing contact list? It’s a question that has perplexed me for close to three years now.

It’s funny how people assume you can’t see through their intentions by their actions and words. Especially someone like me, who has lived two parallel lives — all before turning 40.

I’ve simply stopped expecting and started accepting.

Actions > words.

If the actions don’t match the sweet words, it’s a no-go.

Where and why have some of the most basic human traits suddenly disappeared — stability, consistency and reliability? Is it really too much to hope for these things?

My answer, for the moment, is: I guess so.

All I know is this: if you put bad karma out into the world, it has a funny way of coming back to haunt you — and when it does, it rarely knocks gently.

So, good luck with all those sweet words backed by zero action.

They’ll only get you so far.

Every Tattoo Tells a Story — Find an Artist Who Understands Yours

Every tattoo tells a story, and it’s important to find an artist who understands yours.

I’ve been going to Rinchen from Iruzemi Tattoo Studios since 2023. He studies you as a person, asks you why you want to get the tattoo, and then goes ahead and does complete justice to the design. He interprets your ideas beyond your wildest imagination and elevates a basic concept into a masterpiece.

My Tree of Life idea was no different.

He added a bird to represent freedom and change, moon phases to represent change, cycles and new beginnings, and even incorporated mandala elements in the form of the circular, symmetrical patterns around the tree and trunk. The repeated geometric and floral detailing gives the tattoo its beautiful radial symmetry. He also added a piece of the tree falling away to represent broken pieces.

It took him just 1.5 hours to complete the entire tattoo on me — a record-breaking speed for both him and me! He told me I took it pretty well. Apparently, third time’s the charm. 

I highly recommend Rinchen and Iruzemi Tattoo Studios for all your tattoo dreams. The studio is clean and neat, with a warm, cosy ambience and lovely music playing in the background at all times.

Here’s to finding artists who don’t just ink your ideas, but understand the stories behind them. 

Vishwanath and Sons Review

How many times is Suriya going to play the billionaire philanthropist playboy? Sanjay Vishwanathan — was that his name in Ghajini too? 

Radhika's portrayal of Sanjay's anxious mother is top-notch, while Mamitha Baiju's performance felt a little over the top — although perhaps that was intentional, given that she plays the unrequited, one-sided lover.

All in all, Vishwanath and Sons is a sweet, one-time watch — light, breezy and quite forgettable. The movie showed a lot of promise in exploring the whole single-father angle. Instead, us grown-up 90s girls are treated to a still-handsome Suriya, who has clearly aged like fine wine. 

The three kheer kodoms I ate while watching the movie are definitely giving me acidity now. No wonder I'll always remain a kheer kodom, despite all the backbreaking cardio and weight training I do all week long. 

A family drama with a lot of drama and a good amount of comedy — at least as long as Radhika is alive and kicking in the movie — is how I'd sum up Vishwanath and Sons.

Image sourced from https://www.imdb.com/title/tt35836025/mediaindex/

All Heart First, Work Closely Behind

A moment of appreciation for us agency boys and girls who rolled up our sleeves, did a lot of dirty work across clients and verticals, and somehow managed to make friends for life along the way.

We didn't look at colleagues as competitors or as people we had to "one-up". We looked at them as people in the same boat as us.

Perhaps I'm biased because the first ten years of my career were spent in agencies before I moved to corporates for the last five. Perhaps I'm not a true-blue corporate employee after all. I'm still that agency girl who likes building interpersonal connections across the entire organisation, from the office boy to the agency head.

I've carried these same ideologies into the big, bad world of corporates over the last five years. Perhaps people wonder why I talk endlessly without shutting up, and perhaps the canteen boy is surprised when I ask him what he has studied.

I owe this eccentric personality to my agency upbringing. Or perhaps it's just my family. Or perhaps it's a mixture of both.

All heart first, followed closely by work.

Work is never-ending, but what's important is knowing the people behind each of those documents. Putting a name to every face, finding out their stories and understanding the person behind the designation.

I suddenly recall an introductory call my team and I had with a senior leader who was based in the U.S. He asked each person to introduce themselves. When he came to me, I said:

"My grandmother told my mother to make me a lawyer because I talk too much. By that logic, I'm in the right business of people. I still talk too much, and perhaps that's why I chose Corporate Communications and Public Relations as my calling."

Every human has a story, and every story needs to be written about at some point.

And I think this is why I do what I do, despite the hard days.

When the Baywatch Theme Song Woke Grandpa Up

I just stumbled across the remastered version of the *Baywatch* theme song and, for the entire two minutes, I was transported back to my grandparents' house in Trivandrum, next to my sleeping grandfather, whose eyes would pop wide open the moment the *Baywatch* theme played on TV.

Suddenly, all his grandchildren were sitting alongside him in the TV room, staring at the washboard abs and curvaceous bodies of David Hasselhoff, Pamela Anderson, Yasmin Bleeth and David Charvet.

Perhaps my love for the ocean and water began here — staring at these gorgeous men and women saving lives one evening at a time and making it all look so, so dreamy.

I wanted to wear that red one-piece. I still haven't found it, by the way. I own a swimsuit in every other colour, though. And I definitely don't look like Pamela Anderson or Yasmin Bleeth because I grew up on a steady diet of ghee-laden meat and carbs. So that's that.

I would not dare say "better late than never" because there is only one Pamela Anderson and one Yasmin Bleeth. I'll let them have ocean supremacy for life.

Coming back to my grandfather now — a retired sailor who was enjoying raising one grandchild after another and who thoroughly enjoyed his all-day siestas because he was a poor sleeper at night.

It was hilarious how the *Baywatch* theme song would slap him wide awake and make him super attentive. I wonder who he was looking at — Pamela Anderson or Yasmin Bleeth. I guess I'll never know now.

All I'm left with are crazy-happy memories of a quirky old man who never left my heart. Such a pity he couldn't be around to meet any of his great-grandchildren.

The Guilt of Not Being There

I saw a Filipino advertisement this morning while scrolling through Instagram about a single mum who is a nurse and her son, Mikey. The little boy is left to his own devices to get ready for school, do a school project and even rehearse his lines for a fancy-dress competition, without his mother because she keeps getting called in for ad hoc duties due to the nature of her job.

Other mums who actually pick up and accompany their children to school keep passing remarks at him, calling him "poor boy", "Where is your mother?", "Your shirt buttons aren't done properly. How can you go to school like this?" and so on.

By the end of his fancy-dress competition, his overworked mother actually makes it to school to pick him up, and they are seen embracing each other in a tight hug after an entire day of absence, starting from his breakfast onwards.

It hit me so hard because I realised that when my boy was just a little over three years old, I had to rejoin work, and he had to fend for himself emotionally, without a mother who was truly present.

Of course, my parents really stepped in during that time to raise him, while I was just a corporate slave drowning myself in work, simply to distract myself from the grief of losing my husband.

I wasn't there for my boy emotionally when he needed me the most because I wasn't there for myself. I wallowed in so much self-pity that I couldn't see beyond my own nose. I couldn't even function as a whole human being. How could I possibly be a mother?

I was pretty useless for a good year. Maybe two.

The guilt of being emotionally absent from my three-year-old is something that kills me even now. Which is probably why I go out of my way today to entertain him, because I see the years I lost with him.

I hope he forgives me.

Or, better yet, I hope he doesn't remember those mad, grief-filled days of mine when I would wake up screaming from an afternoon nap.

To Staying Young and Wild, With or Without a Partner

Everyone and their grandmothers advised me to try dating apps the moment my husband passed away. And guess what? Everyone and their grandmothers are exactly who and what I found.

There are the scammers who claim they'll come and visit you in a week. Then there are the enthu cutlets who actually do fly down to see you in a week. There are the endless texters who "want to go with the flow" at 40+, and there's everything in between as well.

I'm sure there are wonderful, honest-to-God lovely people out there too, whom I've met and with whom I've either remained friends or mostly lost touch. Because, let's face it, this is a dating app, not "let's build a collection of random friends" like a Barbie doll set where the entire collection is complete.

A job, a man, a house and a baby will all find you when you're ready and when it's absolutely the right time. Until then, I'm off the apps for good. Swiping right and left is just not for me.

For those who have found love using these impossible apps, good for you. I'm genuinely happy for you. As for the rest of us, let us also remain happy, because the skies and the oceans are still a lovely blue and the whole world remains within our reach to explore.

All we have to do is pack our bags and get out.

On that note, such lovely gyaan I give day in and day out while I hardly practise any of it myself. But it's on my bucket list, starting this year, to go back to doing wild and youthful things — such as standing in the middle of a 1,000-person concert and singing along with the band on stage, maybe getting on a bike again and hopefully not needing pinhole surgery for a busted shoulder, and many more demented things such as these.

Here's to staying young and wild forever, with or without a partner!

The Great Tutor Hunt: Raising a Seven-Year-Old in the Age of Academic Anxiety

It's so heartwarming and an absolute delight to listen to my half-Bengali, fully-fraud Mallu child speak almost fluent Tamil. “Ay, chinna paiyya, unakku Tamil pesa theriyuma?”, “Podum”, “Venda” and so on.

However, the flip side of this language knowledge is a never-ending flow of tuition masters and ma'ams who just keep quitting as he settles into learning with them. Home tutors are a dying trade, unlike when I was in school and college.

My life's greatest dilemma is no longer weight loss, perimenopause, going to the office and so on. It is finding the right tutors for my son.

Schools are aggressively competitive now, at such a tender age of six and upwards. Children compare marks, teachers pass remarks and, altogether, it's a daily circus that both parent and child have to deal with every single day for the next decade. It's a nightmare beyond the worst nightmares.

At this point, I'm half willing to listen to him and pull him out of school, or let him be an electronics teacher, as he says he wants to be. Plumbers and electricians in the US are paid as much as corporate workers in India. I'm tempted to let him drop out of school, but the good little Indian mommy in me disagrees. Sigh!

In the battle of brain versus heart, the brain wins this round hands down. So, while I'm filled with joy listening to my boy sing “Thalapathi Kacheri”, I'm also anxious that he continues to learn languages with the same energy and gusto, regardless of the cacophony of tutors who walk in and out of his life.

Each time a good one quits, his little heart breaks, and mine breaks along with his. 

Life indeed is hard for a seven-year-old today.

Things You Should—and Shouldn’t—Say to a Widow

Things not to say to a 34-year-old widow with a two-year-old:

“Be strong.”

“No choice now but to move forward bravely.”

“Get re-married ASAP!”

“He’s your angel in heaven, watching over you for life.”

Things you can actually say:

“Find a good therapist. You need it.”

“Take all the time in the world to mourn this loss.”

“I don’t understand what you’re going through, but you will come out of this. I promise.”

“You’re a singha ponnu — you can raise a child, you can step out to work, you can move mountains. Go ahead and do whatever you want. We’re with you every step of the way.”

Now, coming to the idiotic things that you must not say to a young widow, an old widow, a middle-aged widow — or a widower, for that matter.

The strength came from the partner they just lost. So please don’t ever ask them to “be strong”.

Not in that moment.

And definitely not ten years later.

Remarriage is a deeply personal choice. Please proceed with your matchmaking with people whose hearts didn’t break into a zillion tiny pieces.

And then there is grief.

Grief is not linear.

You’ll find yourself crying in the middle of eating a baked New York cheesecake from a Starbucks takeaway box, on a sunny Sunday, sitting at your kitchen counter.

You’ll also burst into tears when you see a band setting up a stage in the middle of a busy mall.

There will be days when you think you are doing absolutely fine, only to be blindsided by something completely ordinary.

A song.

A smell.

A place.

A random conversation.

A photograph.

And suddenly, you are right back there.

But the good news is that, with the passage of time, these triggers become less violent.

They become calmer, almost as though they have always existed somewhere inside your brain.

You feel the sadness and choose to flow with it.

Sometimes it feels like a heaviness in your chest.

Sometimes it comes as silent tears.

Sometimes you don't even know why you're crying.

And that's okay.

Simply accept those feelings of unforgotten love, and eventually, you find your own version of healing.

Maybe you'll wake up one day feeling absolutely calm about the tsunami of destruction that is your love life.

Or maybe you won't.

Guess what, though?

Both feelings are completely acceptable.

There is no correct timeline for grief.

There is no rulebook for how a widow or widower is supposed to feel, behave, heal, date, remarry, work, parent, laugh, cry or move on.

All you have to do is accept what comes.

And go with the flow.

The Clarity of Grief: What Losing My Partner Taught Me About Friendship

The people who leave you or misunderstand you when you need them the most—when you are in absolute turmoil—belong to a special category of vermin (oops, people) whom you never forget for the rest of your life. It is strange how people you have grown up with and known for decades can suddenly just flip off your radar.

For me, it all happened exactly five years ago. That terrible moment in my life brought immense clarity about who my real friends were, and who never truly were to begin with. Death, especially at a morbidly young age, is distressing enough on its own. It becomes even more overwhelming when accompanied by the sudden, lifelong responsibility of fending for another human being.

It is funny how people choose to come and speak utter rubbish to you at such a heartbreaking time. The comments thrown my way ranged from, "Oh, you shouldn't have kept rubbing the fluids that came out of the body while it was placed in the crematorium." To this, I promptly replied, "That was not a dead body or a piece of meat. That was my partner and the father of my child, and he looked like he was in discomfort." This absolute "gem" came from someone my late husband deeply adored.

His death brought to the fore the terrible decisions we had both made as a couple when it came to befriending people. He definitely had a few select, lousy characters around him, and apparently, so did I. Those relationships and friendships ended the moment he passed, and I haven't looked back since.As a good friend of over two decades always tells me: "You're an empath, Gayatri. That means people will always come to you with their life issues and drain you; they are called energy vampires. Pick your circles very carefully and stick to them. You can't solve everybody's life problems, and you shouldn't—it's not your job. You have plenty on your plate."

Perhaps he is right. I have always felt for people more than they have ever felt for me. I have had girlfriends cry on my shoulder over one-night stands that didn't turn out well, yet none of them were anywhere in sight when I lost my partner of 13 years. They were clearly questionable friendship choices. I never reached out to those folks after my husband passed, because I see their personalities with so much more understanding and clarity now.

Terrible life experiences are important for character building, but ultimately, it is your battle to fight alone. Dumping it on friends and family is not the solution—not now, not ever. In my late husband's words: "Figure it out." That is exactly what I have been doing ever since my life changed five years ago.

Coming back to the main point of this piece: always remember the ones who chose to leave when you needed them the most, and make wiser decisions when it comes to your social circles.

The Ball Pit Chronicles: Welcome to the Next Level

Riaan dragged me to one of his favourite playzones bright and early this morning. As usual, we were the first customers, meaning he got to sweep the entire play area with his socks alongside the cleaning staff. The thing is, it was much more crowded than usual this morning because another Riaan was celebrating his birthday in the same area.

Bunches of mothers stood together, discussing baby milestones. Hearing snippets of their conversation, I was super tempted to butt in. The place was flooded with nannies, mothers, fathers, and an assortment of fluffy-looking children—honestly, fluffier than the balls in the ball pit. I definitely wanted to kidnap one or two of them... okay, three, not going to lie.

Going back to the group of mommies, they were clearly all first-time mothers. Their chatter went something like, "They're no longer babies; they've entered their toddler phases. It's so exhausting." I had to stifle many chuckles at that point and resist the urge to interrupt with, "Welcome to motherhood, sisters, where every level gets more exhausting than the last and you never get to sleep for the rest of your lives."

I had walked into the mall very grumpily this morning after a poor night's sleep, complaining heavily to my own mother: "I haven't shopped in a mall for months now. Suddenly, malls only mean playzones and a child who keeps screaming for me. I didn't sign up for this for the rest of my life. When will this end?" And lo and behold, I immediately bumped into toddler moms talking about exhaustion. Cue so many more giggles.

Sigh. Children—those necessary evils we voluntarily signed up to care for, for the rest of our lives (or hopefully less, I'll let you know).

Vietnamese Cheesecake Insomnia

A gigantic Vietnamese cheesecake has been had,

While in the moment I felt glad,

The insomnia that has kicked in is mad.

Gigantic desserts, bigger than your face,

That can't keep up with your metabolic pace,

Must be avoided at best,

So that you can rest.

The caramel ice cream that accompanied it,

Was also a hit.

I'm still dreaming of those creamy textures,

The perfect symphony of biscuit, cream cheese, and butter mixtures.

A gigantic Vietnamese cheesecake has been had,

While in the moment I felt glad,

The insomnia that has kicked in is mad.

The Trauma Brain: Powered by an Automatic, Unstoppable Engine

Trauma brains and overwork—my absolute favourite topic to write about because I've lived through it. Sometimes, I continue to live through it, thanks to immediate work or life issues, or lingering grief from my late husband. The point is, whatever the trauma, I wake up the next morning with a smile so bright that even a high-voltage Surya bulb would be terrified of me.

Ex-colleagues from my previous organisation were bowled over to learn that I had lost my husband just four months prior to joining the company. It was during that period I realised I have Deadpool inside me, and I was doing a far better job than Ryan Reynolds in real life—no disrespect to Mr. Reynolds, of course! My personality suddenly got amplified from funny to funnier, and loud to louder, and I had absolutely no control over it. I remember calling myself "the wild widow"—in my own head, of course. If I had said it out loud at that moment, I might have been taken straight to an asylum.

The point is, my trauma brain erases pain so quickly that I could put ISRO and NASA's space rockets to shame. Even before those wonderful machines can reach their destinations, a smile wider than a lunar crater is already plastered across my face. This ability came to me naturally five years ago, and now there is no going back. I call it the "trauma brain"—an automatic switch that flips on and off, an engine that is always running and ignites all on its own.

How wonderful is the human brain, honestly? The way it helps us adapt to any and every life situation is simply amazing.

The Rambo Circus of Working Parenthood

Aah, Friday—the smell of freedom after a murderous five-day week of office and school. It is murder every single day with a variety of files and strange (and not-so-strange) homework to close before the end of every working day. Sometimes, work and school are both in crisis, with notebooks running out of pages or five different photographs of transportation needing to be taken to school before the new week starts.

The list of tasks is never-ending. As I always say, someone is always crying somewhere, and mummy always has to come to the rescue—both mommies: the mommy at work and the mommy representing the school. The work has to be finished quickly with a "there, there" maternal tap on the back to encourage good behaviour from all stakeholders involved. Children, the whole lot of them—the one at home and otherwise!

It's a lot to absorb and conquer before 9 PM every night. But what is life without juggling and overwork? I didn't sign up to be a little potato waiting to be boiled in a pressure cooker, ready to be mashed inside the bhaji and presented on a plate with pav. No, I'm happy to be the maker of the bhaji who presents the plate of pav bhaji to a customer. I've always loved to be in charge—however chaotic.

On that note, welcome to the crazy life of every single working parent in the world. We are jugglers of work and life. At this point, someone needs to pay us to be the circus clowns at Rambo Circus because we throw so many multicoloured balls into the air and catch every single one of them without dropping. At least the clowns get clapped for and applauded by a wonderful audience, while we undergo quiet labour without so much as a whistle, let alone clapping. Sigh! 

Anyway, thank God it's Friday, and I'm grateful to close yet another murderous week of school and work drama.

Why a Culture of Professionalism Matters

Self-respect and choosing not to be a doormat are entirely within your hands. When an individual, an organization, or both treat you poorly and fail to value your story or the difficulties you face just to function for their sake, that is when you quietly move on. It is very simple. 

Of course, everyone wants financial freedom and independence, but it certainly must not come at the cost of your peace of mind. Being a victim of the system is absolutely not my style. It is a pity that organizations and people simply assume we will stay indefinitely, listening to their nonsensical outbursts without reacting.

What is even more pitiful is a complete lack of professionalism. Keep your personal problems at home and do not vent them onto your team. It takes less than a second for someone to realize you are having a bad day. I have worked through the anniversary of my husband's death every single year for the past five years without blinking an eye. You can call that either toxic positivity or the ability to separate emotions from work. 

Work requires you to be a professional, not an agitated individual projecting life problems—no one cares, and honestly, no one should except you. It shocks and surprises me to witness emotional outbursts every now and then, which only push me to exit quietly. 

As I mentioned before, an organization or an individual that does not value you as a human being will definitely not value your deliverables.

Big Tears, Broken Jets, and Cooum-Scented Breath

Yesterday was both a mini and a gigantic bummer of a day for Riaan and me. His favourite Tamil and Hindi tuition teacher had to discontinue his classes, my fitness trainer is probably about to quit on me, and Riaan’s brand-new toy jet—which he only started flying a week ago—abruptly stopped working. All sorts of heartache set in by nightfall, accompanied by big, fat tears.

"Why is my life so broken, Mumma, just like my jet?" my seven-year-old asked, his cheeks stained with tears.

I sighed and replied, "Sometimes toys and people abruptly exit our lives when we least expect it. That’s life. We just have to accept it and move on."

He continued his tragic monologue anyway: "First my father died, then my jet died, and now my teacher is gone." If drama had a middle name, it would be Riaan Drama Bhattacharya. I just hugged him tightly and let him sob it out for about half an hour. Big, fat tears flooded my shoulder, accompanied by occasional wafts of smelly cheese breath directly in my face.

I patiently waited for twenty minutes before finally telling him, "I'm sorry to break it to you, and perhaps this is terrible timing, but your breath smells like the Cooum River. The stench is so bad that even a crocodile wouldn't enter your mouth if I stuffed a giant dead duck inside."

He cracked up in the middle of all that crying—hysterical laughter cutting through the tears. "But I don't want to brush my teeth tonight!" he protested.

I sighed again, enduring another five minutes of his "That jet meant something to me, Mumma!" wailing. My little boy and his life's big problems. Welcome to yet another day in our life.

The Anchor of My Soul: How Motherhood Rewrote My Story

I had yet another meaningful conversation with my personal trainer of close to a year, and today's topic was babies and marriage. She is getting married in January and once again strongly urged me to settle down. I nodded, smiled, and heard her out on how I must go about finding the right man. As always, I didn't disagree with anything she said and remained neutral. I listened to her post-marriage plans and everything she wants to achieve personally and professionally.

Somewhere in the middle of that therapeutic chat, I admitted that I have healed a fair amount, all thanks to my child's antics. While it is wonderful to have a loving partner, having a child is what truly increased my sense of drive. Suddenly, I threw myself with immense passion into everything I was doing—professionally, personally, artistically, through extra-curricular activities, and exercising. It felt as though I was on steroids, and at the center of it all was my son. I suddenly discovered a newfound zest for life and everything that goes with it.

This morning, for example, I woke up with very bad vertigo and felt my head spinning each time I put my foot outside the bed. Watching my clumsy movements, my child immediately mimicked the way I was walking (which was hilarious, obviously) and said, "Please don't die on me and make me an orphan." It brought a bittersweet laughter, quite frankly. As he said that, I realized this is why I am alive and why I throw myself into everything with such aggression. I didn't know this perfectionist side of me ever existed, and it has truly come to the fore ever since the birth of my child.

I live for him, and in him, I have found my healing—a very unfair responsibility to lay upon an almost three-year-old, but it is what it is. My son will always be my "sonshine," in this lifetime and hopefully the next. I am simply elated that he chose me to be his mother in this world.