Anecdotes and Realizations

 When people ask "Oh? You want to be a writer? Do you read?" I generally have my bookshelf as proof. But, taking inspiration from Phoebe from Friends, I've decided to read classic literature. I read an analysis of Yeats' work (yikes, did y'all know about the Irish nationalist part?) and I really liked "When You Are Old". Check it out if you like. As part of this journey, I picked up a copy of Wuthering Heights by perhaps not the most famous, but certainly one of the Bronte Sisters - Emily Bronte.  I must say this book surprised me. I was expecting a book full of unkown old Christian allusions, archaic English with little to no meaning. And while yes, the writing is reflective of the time period it was written in, the style itself is quite easy to comprehend. The characters are vivid and the situations surprisingly relatable to the 21st century.  The book I found, I could not summarise very adeptly. So here's a three-line summary of the internet for y...

 Hear ye hear ye! The boards are coming and there's no stopping them anymore. The life purpose for all children Indian, the only reason we were put in school for the 10 years before this and the examination for the value of our lives so far. We grew up in our simple schools - studying for the sake of parental validation and not getting yelled at. In 9th grade, we laughed about the importance given to these god-forsaken exams and tittered about the stress our teachers and seniors were under. And now, we repent. The boards seem to have a symbolic meaning to the Indian population. Sort of like a growing of age. Its like a Robert Frost poem. It could have just been a homeless guy lost in the woods or it could be the "contemplation of man's relationship with nature and societal pressure". This exam seems to be our crossroad, except there's no GPS, it's a one-way road, and choosing the wrong road is the end of your life. The fear of the board itself is secondary, in...

Bodies. Such a big part of our social profile but one over which we have the least control. As soon as we see something, we feel like sharing our Vishesh Tippani. We feel that the world will be left in a sorry, despondent state unless we heroically step in and tell them what we think about it. We feel that telling people exactly what we think about their life is an act of grace. We are after all doing it with good intentions.  Look, I get it. In prehistoric times, if you were looking for a partner, a ripped,six-foot man would have been useful to protect you from well, being eaten by a bear, a mammoth, or whatever was around back then. But today, when the biggest threat from the wild is mosquitoes and where we can protect ourselves, perhaps a spouse could be someone more than a weapon.  Everybody's looking for that ripped, six-pack, muscled-up guy or that flat-stomached, heavy-breasted girl. Your beauty is relative to whatever people hold as the most beautiful in the world. The...