The Carton of Happiness:

Take a sleepy man and put him on a roller coaster. What you get is the first year of fatherhood. The sleep won’t let you be active and the roller coaster won’t let you sleep. If at all you do, then what you get is an unbelievable mix of dreams and nightmares. And I stood exactly at that juncture, when I realized we were on the last three boxes of Lactogen. The carton stood empty. Vivaan was one!

And Viv had it all; from a tricycle he couldn’t yet ride to innumerable action hero figures, to cars and trucks. But nothing ever managed to hold his attention for more than a couple of hours. Every toy ultimately landed up in his storage bucket which the toys were soon outgrowing. When Viv was on the last few boxes of Lactogen, a brainwave hit me. Why not put his old toys into the empty carton? That should free up some space in our already cramped household. When I got the carton out, a very strange thing happened. Viv squealed with delight. He jumped right into the carton and got his favorite toys into it as well. To make things better for him, I tied a rope to the carton, and pulled him around. He had never been this happy with any of his toys.

Molested, assaulted, raped?

The entire world is up in arms. There are people with placards and black bands, holding hands, united in revolution. There are journalists writing up incriminating articles in the papers and there are the television presenters, with their uncanny ability to drag a debate till infinity, moderating discussions. It’s a liberated world; it’s a world which feels for the woman, it’s a world which recognizes her pain, her trauma and her anxiety. She has been molested, no because it left like an assault, but not still because she has been raped!!!

Love and God: The power of Devotion

The air is garnished with fragrant smoke from incense sticks, Sindoor has colored the world red, the drums play popular numbers at deafening decibel levels, and there is a lot of dance with humanity indulging in everything considered a taboo otherwise. The air is ripe with devotion. Everybody is busy worshipping faith in human form in their own special way. There’s revelry, there’s rowdism and there is God; sitting mute witness to the suffering of heart patients, expectant mothers and studious students. God being worshipped by everyone from stars to the dusters and faith left in the background. Everyone is so busy worshipping and praying they have forgotten what really binds them to their God, faith - the invisible force that brings a devotee closer to the creator.