Timing

Just as I was wrapping my head around being a mother, was the time I lost my partner of close to 13 years. The timing was horrible. 

I felt like a resident of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, taking a nice early morning dump. But instead of enjoying my morning session, an atomic bomb was dropped on my head.

Perhaps my 2 year old had to grow up very quickly. I could hardly be human, forget parenting. It completely took a backseat as I focused on rebuilding the broken pieces of our life.

I worked just like my late husband would had he been alive - relentlessly and without a break. Within 2 years, I was rushed to the hospital for breathlessness and fatigue. That was clearly not a good plan.

And so I decided to course correct. Now, I work and parent, juggling both like a headless chicken. Mother's can never have it all, especially working mothers. We have deadlines to meet at work and tests to catch up with in school.

My weekdays are all over the place. I have no idea when it begins and when it ends. The weekends just fly by, before I can breathe in a warm glass of cocoa. 

I also try to stay in shape and kill myself in the process. What a tiring life this is. I hear menopause is just around the corner, or is it a decade away. Time will tell I suppose.

Send sugar free chocolates and prayers, my child and I need them. 

2025

What a bummer of a year it has been,

From where do I begin,

Underwhelmed, disappointed and shocked,

These were the emotions that flocked,

Unsolicited advice being the most annoying of the lot,

Let me write my own plot,

I've done it so far,

And got this far,

So please keep your wisdom to yourself,

In the far corners of your own brain's shelf,

4 years of single parenting,

4 years of lamenting,

Whether I'm failing with the biggest job role of my life,

Perhaps this feeling of strife,

Is simply a waste of time,

He is at his prime,

Utterly naughty and full of ideas,

A saint and a thug,

All rolled in one,

No longer a little bun,

Here's hoping for a better 2026,

Where everything would eventually click. 

The Maniacy of Human Love

Remember Geet and her changing personalities in Jab We Met? Her cheerfulness and sudden moody withdrawal, all thanks to Anshuman. That's the maniacy of human love.

You can move mountains for each other. Change cities, change jobs, leave home - all for that one person who feels like home. That's love. It's all in or nothing.

Half-hearted, half-baked swiping left and right is an illusionary world created by tech geniuses who are now minting money out of people's loneliness. 

I do see traces of that love even now within family. Can another human being behave the way I did for my late husband and vice-versa? Time will tell I suppose.

While technology has connected a lot more people much quicker into our lives, the sad reality is that once the butterflies stop fluttering in both tummies, either one or both are ready to eject.

Where have spines gone? Along with the willpower and the perseverance to have hard conversations? Dead, along with my late husband. 

We all deserve a chance at love, but the question is are you willing to put in the work once the chole has gone cold? Will you reheat it in the microwave and fry fresh puris or bhatures to be devoured with that re-heated chole?

I know, I will. Waiting for someone to fry those bhatures for me now and we're good to go. 

Love. It's a warm mug of hot chocolate on a rainy day. A mother fighting through her PCOD pain to get her child ready for school. It's a grandfather popping in and out of your house at all odd hours just to see what his grandson is upto. It's a cousin buying you a superhero figurine from an obscure mall, having zero knowledge about superheroes.

Love is all around us. All we need to do is breathe and soak it in. 

The Ups and Downs of Single Parenting

Being a single parent means getting all your child's love in the place of two. It also means having to double as both parents. When my late husband passed away four years ago, my son Riaan was two years old. 

I often wore his father's clothes and footwear in those early days of his demise. And Riaan would question, "Why are you wearing Baba's flip-flops?" I would confidently answer, "Because I am Baba now."

Four years later, I can tell you, it's never wise to replace a parent. If you're the mother, be the mother. If you're the dad, please be the dad. One parent can never take the place of the other. I can never become a man, even if I pretend to be. Not in this lifetime anyway.

When I started taking Riaan to playzones after his father's passing, he would watch other children playing with their dad's and look visibly upset. That's no longer the case. 

Does he miss the absence of his father now? I'm sure he does. Perhaps it's a conversation to be had for his later years.

For the time being, he has wiped out all memories of his father, probably because he feels cut up by his sudden demise. He cracks morbid jokes on death and moves from one day to the next.

I try my best to compensate for the loss of his father by throwing myself at work and showering him with enough and more material goodies. Even then, I know it's still not enough. 

Some days I'm absolutely fried. On other days I'm at peace. But I know this is a battle that I cannot win. I can never take the place of his father and he will never experience his biological father's love. 

It is what it is. And the faster he and I can accept this reality, the better. 

Single parenting or any parenting for that matter is not for the weak hearted. Bringing a child into this world means ensuring that he or she makes something of himself or herself in this world. Only then can you go upstairs in peace.

The Beauty of Mortality

I'd choose to be a fragile, hormonal human over being a hot, sexy vampire who lived for centuries on end. Death, makes you value the life that you had, the love that you received and the love that you're capable of giving.

You realise how large you heart is and how much will power and determination you have to make things work. It makes you look at life with different lens. You're suddenly bolder, braver, more vocal and unabashed, because you've personally witnessed the fragility of life.

Your personality is split in two. One before the death of your loved one and, the other after you witnessed your loved one passing away. Both lives are equally fulfilling. One created wholly by you and the other complete with those precious memories which can only be relived in your mind.

You're young, yet you're old. Always on the verge of sanity and insanity. Flirting with happiness, still a little sad. It's like eating ven pongal. You can taste the comforting ghee and yellow moong dal in every bite, even if you can't see it. 

That's death, the lingering taste of ghee mixed with dal. It walks along with you every step of the way, reminding you of everything you've overcome and everything you're yet to create.

Embrace mortality. Drop some white chutney into that mix and you're good to go. Every day. 

Human Empowerment

My grandfather has been my role model ever since I was 4. I think it's safe to say that this family has been born with a silver spoon all thanks to the hardwork of that one man.

We lived in a sprawling house in Trivandrum with an even bigger compound. We were surrounded by trees and shrubs on every side with every imaginable animal possible inside our backyard. 

From a very young age, the subliminal message that I received was, hardwork is the only pathway to acquiring all the material possessions your heart desires. At the same time, never brag about everything you've achieved - professionally, personally and materialistically.

He was quiet about his achievements and loud with his affection. More a friend than a grandfather, I couldn't imagine a day without him. 

So when people ask me today if I'm a feminist or support female empowerment, I chuckle. As a human being we should empower each other. And one sex cannot survive without the other. History has shown this to us time and time again. 

So why do we still send silly memes and forwards on one gender putting down the other? I simply don't get it. Therefore, I choose to no longer be a part of this debate.

I'm a single mum, to a 6 year old boy. I idolised my grandfather and appreciate all the women in my family who've stayed at home to raise children. 

Women empowerment is redundant. Let's start thinking about human empowerment and how we can pour our creative and intellectual energies into bigger and better things. 

Jiggly Bits

Own your jiggly bits,

Every single inch of it,

Be proud of your thoppai and those birthing hips,

That grew your child, with a little help from potato chips,

Own your flab,

As you bite into yet another chocolate slab,

Fat kids will always be a little fat,

However much you pretend to be a gym rat,

God made the world round, along with you,

The fat is what fights flus,

And gets you back on your feet,

So just eat,

Minus the guilt, 

Simply accept that this is how you are built,

Own your jiggly bits,

Every single inch of it.

Food and Workouts

Broke my trainer's heart,

By telling her I eat a handful of chips each night, she instantly made me do 10 more squats,

I eat two pieces of dark chocolate too, 

I confessed, she increased my dumbbell reps by two,

Excercise and food don't go hand in hand,

We have to turn our taste buds bland,

To have washboard abs,

Grinned like a Chesire Cat as I wrote those words, for at present I have only jiggly flabs,

Filled with chocolate and oil,

Despite all that toil,

It is what it is,

I love food and food loves me, without something edible, my brain goes fizz.

Beauty And The Beast Can Never Be Rubbished

I think I was 21, when an older cousin, very rudely announced to me, "Real life is not a movie Gayatri. You cannot do such things." Honestly I still hate her now as much as I hated her in the moments that this sentence tumbled out of her ghastly mouth.

In my head, I'll always be 21. Who cares that I'm hitting 40 in less than 2 years. Forever young, is always the way to go. 

This morning though, that illusion burst in my head, all thanks to a dreadful Instragram reel that I saw. It revealed the real story of The Beauty and the Beast. I wish I had never seen it and I wish someone poured acid in my eyes, as I watched it.

The greatest fictional love story of all time, rubbished in less than two minutes. Whoever made that reel has all my curses. My entire childhood and adulthood's idea of romance was based on this iconic tale, as old as time.

I've seen the cartoon 50 times, the live musical once and the movie twice. In those few minutes, my not so favourite cousin's voice echoed in my mind. My heart didn't break, but my spirit certainly did.

This just cannot be. Gaston could not have been Belle's first love. I just cannot believe it. And so I choose not to.

I'm happy to live in a world filled with fairy tales, hot chocolate and crazy little boy play zones. Of course life is a movie if you want it to be. Take charge of it and burp out pixie dust along with unicorn flavoured poop. 

Now that that's settled, let's quickly move onto bigger life problems now. Next! 

Find Your People

The world is full of psychos, ourselves included. It's very important to find your bunch of psychos and stick to them. Those bunch of special people who've figured out the cuckoos in your head and don't flinch, get scared or run away. Those people are keepers.

Let the rest run. There is no such thing as an "almost person", "could have been", "almost happily ever after". Just no. This is not a romantic comedy with Adam Sandler trying to make Drew Barrymore remember their life together every single day, aka 50 first dates.

Those things exist only in the movies. Very sad realisation. But I've at least realised it now, close to 39 years later. In real life, romance is your mom-friend telling you in detail, the homework to be completed during the pooja holidays. Your mother pinging you 10,000 times a day asking if you've eaten. And your father investing in the mutual funds for you. That's real life. Solid. Constant. Steady. 

Let's not forget the siblings and their spouses, who also pamper you shitless and make you feel 10 years old, all over again. By you, I mean me, of course.

Go and find your people. And drink hot chocolate after you drown yourself in a bowl of luscious butter chicken. 

For everything else, there's HIT workouts and weight training. One minute of those bone crushing workouts and all your sadness will fly out the window, like it never existed.

Peace! ☮️✌️🏳️🕊️

Fluctuating Scales

The last two or is it five kilos,

Keep going up and down, like a blow,

To the ego, this proves that the metabolism,

Is on a perennial break, like a beautiful illusion, almost a prism,

That keeps you hoping against hope,

Almost like gripping onto a slippery rope,

As I popped luscious butter chicken,

With makki di roti for lunch, and then dessert after dessert, like I was grief stricken,

With the seasonal flu,

Not all grief is of the mind, some are of the body, that make us feel blue,

And so I ate,

And I ate,

Like I'd never seen food,

Each morsel lifted my mood,

A chocolate brownie, followed by a Biscoff cheesecake,

That ended with some pakodas and tart, today I'll take a break,

Back to the grind,

I've made up my mind,

It's a Monday morning,

There's no time for mourning,

Breakfast has been skipped,

The mouth will be closed and I'll remain tightlipped. 

Overcome

I think we're all in pain,

The least we can do is try to stay sane,

Fight those demons we must,

We certainly should not combust,

Mind over matter,

Even if you feel like the mad hatter,

Chocolates and weight training work for me,

It gives me the courage to free,

Those rabid thoughts,

Throw in a couple of squats,

And there's no time to feel sad,

Every drop of sweat makes me feel glad,

Strength begins on the outside,

Only then can it trickle inside,

Stay kind,

And just don't mind,

The white noise around you,

Just say boo,

And lift those weights,

You'll quickly start thinking straight.

Almost Seven

Almost seven,

Life together has been close to heaven,

My toothless wonder,

Makes me ponder,

With his 10,000 questions per second,

As I answer one, he's ready with the next, his chattering mouth, his weapon,

My personal All India Radio,

Sometimes I wonder if my house is a studio,

From morning to night,

This is my plight,

I can hardly think,

As his questions keep flowing in a wink,

What I don't like is that he's growing in a blink,

Where's my tiny baby with his diapers that stink,

Don't become seven so quickly,

I still want you to be that sleeping baby, tiny and picky,

Strange this feeling of watching my little bean,

Turning into a beanstalk, and into a wannabe teen,

100km/hr the speed of his mouth,

Anyone's ears will turn south,

My tiny chatter box,

With too many toy blocks,

I watch with you pride,

As you make the whole world ride,

Around your tiny fingers and mouth.

Little Hurricane

I've lost track of the number of times,

Your face has bashed roughly into mine for no reason or rhyme,

Was that blood mixed with pain,

Or the feeling of my teeth as they strain,

Into the obscure corners of my lips,

What joy to be a boy mom with you perennially stuck to my hips,

Or calling out for me every two seconds,

Like a baby dragon who beckons,

My house is a mess,

Toys in excess,

A tube of Fevicol to add to the confusion,

Smelly baby hands, however much I wash them, cleanliness is an illusion,

He's either sweating from running around too much,

Or spilling food everywhere as such,

When do they grow up to become less monkey like,

He's a little tyke,

He's also the apple of my eye,

Even if we don't meet eye to eye,

On many things, 

My ears ring,

With his constant nattering,

His speech both flattering and unflattering,

Off to bed I go,

Where we'll hopefully not have another row.

Take A Chill Pill

There's a fine line between turning into Gupt's Manisha Koirala v/s being Kajol. Choose to be Kajol, whatever your brain is telling you. Be a sensible, mature adult at all times. Let go when you have to let go.

Reciprocity is a two way street. Follow this mantra for jobs and personal relationships. Stop putting so much of yourself into a person or a situation if you don't see the same effort being directed back to you.

This is the only way that you can be, the aforementioned level-headed Kajol. There is no need to feel down and out. Accept people or situations as they are. Don't fantasize or glamourise them or the situation so much in your head.

That being said, there's no need to be bitchy or mean either. If you've been born with rainbows for poop and cotton candy for your thoughts, continue to be that person. You do not have to put out evil into the world, simply because you receive it.

Perhaps it's the perennial rain or the fact that Chennai has suddenly gotten a few degrees colder, I'm feeling very sage like. Or perhaps I'm getting older and wiser. 

Zen-mode is always the way to go. Embrace it, practice it and become a mini Buddha. Peace! ☮️

Fried Goodness

Tomatoes and onions are considered grocery essentials in most houses,

As for me, when fried goodies deplete, I start my grouses, 

What kind of a day have you even had,

If fried goodness hasn't been shared,

Chips, ribbon pakodas, murukkus and Bengal biscuits,

I begin to nitpick,

The moment my stock is empty,

When I open my snack cupboards, it must be filled with fried goodness in plenty,

All night long the farts must be pungent,

The nasty smells have to be abundant,

And then I know, I've had a good day,

Bad thoughts, far far away,

Inside my veins you will find fried goodness,

Aong with sugary delights, as opposed to hemoglobin fullness,

Aaah fried goodness,

Have you ever experienced anything with this much greatness. 

Pani Season

The sun's never out during the Pani season,

Everyone's coughing and sneezing for no reason,

Where did all that mist come from,

We wonder, as we experience our brains growing numb,

Bright as light days are replaced,

With a perennial fog, that has us feeling amazed,

The typical Chennaites that we are,

We continue wearing summer clothes like superstars,

And then we complain about itchy throats,

As we croak,

Most mornings I sound like a broken record,

My voice chords,

All muffled up, 

Someone even asked whether I've manned up,

On a late evening call,

I chuckled nonstop, perhaps sounding like an unpleasant squall,

Pani season in Chennai,

Has us all feeling like unguided Samurais,

Perhaps we like it, perhaps we don't,

Yet none of us want to get off our warm-headed thrones. 

Trauma Bonds

Just as painful as the name sounds, trauma bonds are are those unpleasant memories that you create and hoard in your head, until the end of time.

These people and events are played on loop in your head and it slowly and steadily chips away at your confidence and peace of mind. Trauma bonds appear in the form of vivid dreams or a sudden memory recall. And in those moments, it's totally normal to feel down and out. 

The important thing is to allow that feeling to pass, accept the situation as it is and keep moving forward. 

I'm a strong believer of karma. I believe that what you put out into the world, both good and bad, will come back to haunt you. It can be anger, jealousy, hatred, love, a sense of competition, protectiveness, these thoughts and feelings that you project onto another person will come back to you with full force. 

So when you dream that sweet, vivid dream at 4.30 in the morning, accept the harsh reality of it not being true. Allow yourself to feel like shit for a good hour or two and then get on with your day. 

While the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow is merely an urban legend, you can always create your pots of gold in tiny pockets. Hold onto those pockets, stop brooding like a Vampire and get on with your life. Stat!

The Battle Of The Sexes

The most irrelevant of all battles, the world has witnessed over centuries is most definitely the battle of the sexes. Recently someone looked me quite rudely on the face and declared, "You like bad boys. But you don't like the repurcessions that come along with trying to maintain any sort of equation with the bad boy"

He was right of course, regarding my fondness for bad boys. He was grossly incorrect with the second part of that sentence, my dead husband being case in point. He was a rebel with and without a cause. Close to 13 years and one child later, it's safe to say, of course I know how to maintain relationships, of every kind.

In hindsight I realise the following should have been my reply to him. "You like independent, self-made women, but don't like the fact that she comes with a sharp mind and tongue that she uses at will"

The whole concept of Adam and Eve has been diluted with time, thanks to ridiculous apps and just the fact that people are impatient and don't want to put in the time and effort, to build something long lasting.

Therefore, the battle of the sexes is as irrelevant as the skies trying to survive without the sun and moon. Men and women are two sides of the same coin. They have to come together to create something fruitful for themselves and ultimately for the world around them.

I prefer having a healthy debate with an opiononated human being, irrespective of the sex, as opposed to someone spineless who just chooses to ghost you.

The lack of spine that you display, will ultimately come to bite you back really hard on the ass. And in that moment, I hope you decide to either quickly grow a spine or just take accountability for everything you've ever put out into the world.

Let's be the generation that ends the battle of the sexes. Let's accept that everyone is important and plays a part in this world. Let's give and receive love and respect. 

Peace! ☮️

Icecreams for World Peace

Choose icecreams on a sunny day,

Pounce on it, on a muggy day,

As well,

And you will find, all is indeed well,

Sore throats and moody weathers are temporary,

Icecreams however, are forever, so reach out for that diary,

Or non-diary, whatever rocks your boat,

Eat one today and feel your brain gloat,

Over all the things you did right,

Despite your plight,

Forget and forgive, those who pissed you off,

It's time to cut out and shut off,

Those negative thoughts,

Instead focus on that creamy delight that's exploding in your mouth, like a piece of molten lava, hot, hot, hot,

Grab an icecream today,

And feel better in every way.