The Public Diary

Sometimes we just act on an impulse, not giving enough thought to what it actually entails and its consequences. Many  of these instances are related to childhood when we don't possess knowledge to process the real meaning, only to realise it later in life. One such memory that I have is of the house in which I spent my initial months. My parents used to talk about that house saying 'सत्तसोनौसी'. I used to believe that it is a name of a city where they must have resided in. I had even imagined a milestone board that we see on highways marking directions for a particular city. Despite having seen the house from a distance, since we shifted soon after my birth, I could never connect the dots to decipher it actually. It was only in teenage roughly, that I understood what my parents referred to was सत-सौ-नौ-सी 'House no. 709-C' just like numbers are said in Punjabi. Needless to mention the messed up lyrics that only kids have the confidence to sing out aloud. Given the

I'm not really a fan of yellow dal (moong dal). So, whenever it finds place in our pressure cooker, I have to cater to my hunger needs myself. I prepare some alternative that I would be having as a full meal, which was red sauce pasta this time. Whilst others ate their dal and roti, they tasted my pasta too, but dad wasn't even tasting it. Upon my insistence, he took full spatula of pasta and poured it into his bowl full of dal.  This shook me to my core. I mean what taste would he have gotten of either pasta or the dal. Leave alone individual tastes of both, I couldn't even think of eating such a mixture. (While searching images, I found Moong dal pasta recipe. Where's the world going?) But I guess this lack of choosiness in meals is a blessing. Imagine how easy life is when you can eat about just anything eatable. Even I myself get tired of my picky nature. I often complain to my family that at least you have the choice to corner me out and eat your pumpkins, chana da

Don't worry. This is not a doctoral post that would go above your our head. Living in this body sometimes makes you wonder about the alternative ways in which this body could have formed, doesn't it? I call them 'Anatomical wonders', which these are not per se.  Or am I only one getting these weird thoughts? I hope not. Starting right from the childhood, just like any other kid on the block, I used to be scared of darkness. The transition from sleeping in a room with so-called 'zero watt bulb' lighting as a baby to sleeping in a completely dark room, relying merely on moonlight or may be street lights, instilled a sense of fear. Especially, if everybody else in the room is asleep but you aren't.  Add to it the fact that my sibling, with whom I used to share the quilt, had this habit of sleeping with the quilt covering her face all upto her head. It used to make me feel like the ghost would notice me outright. To solve this potential trouble, I too tried to

Somebody tell google to not keep expectations. They hurt. But I guess it's such a bad student. It keeps on notifying, "Expect rain around 8AM" and then be so brutal to my sentiments that all I can see out of the window is bright sunlight. Don't know how Google is dealing with its own life, given these high expectations.  Limited knowledge is a blessing in a way. Imagine the kind of scenarios Google would be evaluating, given it is aware of all kinds of diseases - the causes, symptoms and consequences. You don't have to know everything everytime. But this Google is stuck with endless knowledge base that is only growing  day by day  second by second, I must say.  And here we are. Still going into thought clouds and questioning ourselves endlessly in mere happenings of daily lives. For instance, a few weeks back I was afraid if I have kidney stones. I searched for its symptoms, I had one or two of them. I checked our anatomy and placement of kidneys, the pain was rou

What could it be that made me take up blogging back again? Not some extrinsic motivation, but influx of considerable number of ideas on this topic. It happened to me about a month ago. I was so overloaded with professional work during those days that I feel I've suffered some loss of memory and even time. These days I am so consumed in accomplishing multiple works in a short span of time that my focus is diverted. Not that I've started to forget people, or something, but I used to remember the minute details of tasks that I executed during the day, which is sort of absent now. A few months back, there was a religious ceremony at my workplace. All of us reminded each other about it two days before. On D-day, I was clad in jeans-top - my usual attire - completely oblivious of the date. Then I spotted one of my colleagues, all decked up, wearing fancy suit and other cosmetics. Without any word spoken by her, I couldn't help, but utter, 'Oh it's that day'. I was lac