Love Roti

Born In A Golden Lap

Look, There’s A Beauty

You may not have everything in life, but you can still look beautiful and bless everything you touch…See below…

Shadow Play

Goodbye Spring!

A Leprechaun

On the night of 14 February 2019, after reaching home from work, I felt something crawling on my neck. I quickly brushed it aside and it landed on the dressing table. I was startled to find that it was not an ordinary moth, but a gold-colored beetle, something I had never ever seen all my life! Where it had come from, I had no idea. I watched it with wide-eyed wonder as it crawled upwards slowly in a leisurely manner…I quickly grabbed my phone and clicked its photos.

People say when such things happen, you should make three wishes. They are always granted.

You might wonder why someone with a postgraduate degree in Mathematics believes in these kinds of superstitions. Well, as you grow older, you realize that a lot of things defy logic and only love, faith, willpower, and positive thinking can make things happen the way you want them to.

I was, of course, too shell-shocked at that time to think of anything else. Today as I look at this pic again, I make those three wishes.

1. I hope and pray that my daughter Suroshri grows up to be a successful, happy, and wonderful human being.

2. My husband Sukhangshu becomes what he deserves to be, a famous Actor.

3. On the same day that this beetle crawled into my life, 40 Indian soldiers lost their lives in Pulwama in a suicide terror attack. Many innocent lives continue to be lost in terror attacks and wars. I wish and pray that violence, wars, and terrorism end and don’t exist even in a dictionary.

Amen!

And now, my Dear Reader, here is something special for you and your loved ones. Watch this video and make those 3 wishes that you think will give joy to your loved ones and the world around you. Who knows, they might come true, like it did for me!

N.B: As per Google, the Golden Beetle is a native of the Americas. It is not known how this particular one reached India. Something to do with Donald Trump and reverse migration perhaps!☺️

A Welcoming Bench

Yellow Semals, A Poem

Here is the link to my latest poem ‘Yellow Semals.’

https://www.poemhunter.com/poem/yellow-semals/?m=0

It was inspired from an earlier blog post with the same name.

Yellow Semals

Thup. Thup. Thup. Slowly, gently, with every gust of breeze, those huge, lovely, Semal flowers kept dropping from the tall, slim, stately tree. Sometimes alone. Sometimes in pairs, threes, fours, and more…And I watched, mesmerized…These were yellow Semals, I told myself. I always thought Semals were only of red or maroon color. I wondered why I never noticed this tree earlier in spite of having lived in this colony for more than 3 decades!

While I was busy clicking pics of the tree and its flowers, I could sense hostile stares piercing my back. I turned around and I found that my audience included an agitated old man.

He asked, “What will you do with these photos? Are you from the MCD? You want to get this tree removed?”

“No, Uncle, I am a writer, not from MCD. I have a blog. I was clicking this tree’s pics because I love its flowers. I will write about them with the hope that more trees like these come up in future.

He was mollified. But not one of the women sitting outside her house near the tree. She said, “These flowers keep falling day in and day out and I find it hard to keep my verandah clean.”

The old man said, “Do you know that these flowers are edible and make a great sabzi?”

With a wry smile, he said, “These city people are unaware of so many things.”

With one last look at the tree standing proudly with its head held high in dignified silence, I turned and began my walk towards home…

These words have been knitted into a poem now with the same title. URL:

https://www.poemhunter.com/poem/yellow-semals/

Spring 2019, Delhi

Here are some images that we Delhiwallahs always associate with Spring. Thank God, Spring 2019 is like what it was last year and the years gone by in my life…Who knows what it will be like in 3019…

I heard someone grumbling today about a Semal tree in my colony. “These big flowers are such a big nuisance. They keep falling all over the place. Someone may trip over them and fall.” An old man told me that MCD is trying to remove it as they consider it a safety hazard for the locals. It may fall any time. But many like him, he said, have protested and sent in several applications to stop them from removing it….

Only time will tell…Till then, let’s just enjoy life the way it is.