The Public Diary

We all seek teachers in our lives. Be it in the form of a human, life or, nowadays more dominant, digital devices. We are constantly learning from our environmental constituents.  I too have a similar teacher at home, the one that has been teaching me for almost 3 decades now. None other than my mom. (Please don't start masculinism fight that I'm not giving due credit to my father. It's just that all I have are motherly notes for this post.)  I was in the quest for my lost appetite. I had taken treatment from half a dozen doctors, but none showed long lasting results or were prescribing me continuous intake of tablets. There we were, in the clinic of another doctor of the city. Along with a few changes in my dietary habits, this doctor wrote the tablet with similar salt, but of different brand name. (On a side note: Comes out that this doctor was once the student of the previous doctor.)  So, I started the medicinal course as prescribed: One tablet out of which was t...

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...

What is the best time to have critical experiences? None, right? It had been a really hectic month. Professional pressures and unfavourable events really take a toll on your health.  About a month ago, I had my first encounter with low blood pressure. That too at the time when I was driving activa back to home. I, suddenly, started to feel like fainting out of nowhere. Concentrating on one object was troublesome. I thought it will go away, instead, it rose with passing kilometres. Then, it dawned that not only am I risking my own life but of the others on the road as well.  So, I stopped on the roadside and felt like calling dad to pick me up. To get some relief, I closed my eyes, but it still felt uneasy; removed helmet to get the burden off my brain, literally but not symbolically. Then got my mask down to be able to breathe in more oxygen. Somehow, I got a little bit of control back and within minutes I was able to concentrate again. Source: iStock I'm not sure if it was du...

When life happens to you, you can't help but only change your ways. Hold your sympathies. I'm not talking about something tragic, but only the natural changes in your enthusiasm over a period of time.  You may feel so deeply about a thing, a trend or even a person; give it enough time, you will outgrow it.  Married people related to this one at the drop of a hat, didn't they? This craze of these days is unmissable. Earlier, when a daughter took birth, parents instinctively started to save money for her wedding day. Gone are those days. Now, even the parents of sons have to start collecting each penny as sending your son to Canada (or insert the name of any other foreign country) is as much a liability as marrying your daughter off.  Pardon me for the unintentional patriarchism if I didn't mention sending daughters to offshores. Then, there are people who are crazy about old songs. They call it the golden era and the only melodious songs to have ever been composed. Somet...

My nephew was taught to conserve the environment through plastic by his school teacher. Howsoever strange it may sound, I thought of giving it a shot. That you can help Mother Nature by putting used plastic to some more use. The idea didn't attract me initially, but I have this habit of reading everything printed on wrappers - from catchy slogans, ingredients to manufacturing addresses. On one such e-commerce company's wrapper was written a statement about buyback price of that wrapper being Rs. 15 per kg, if returned in a clean and dry state. (By virtue of experience in this field, I now know that it is mostly on 4 LDPE plastics.) The monetary reward led to the idea catching my fancy. I believe creative ways of making money give me a kick.  I was pumped by my sibling who enlightened me with the concept of eco-bricks. I was as naive as you at that time. So, I heard patiently. "You take an empty plastic bottle, stuff it with unrecyclable plastic wrappers. Keep on filling it...

I’ve always wondered if being kind actually does good to you or does it take a toll on you when you’re being selfless? But I guess people are wired in a particular way and they actually don't have many options. They'll end being that way, no matter how hard they try to behave otherwise. So, it happened to me a few days back when I saw my phone flashing a call from the person who had been the cause of much mental agony for the past half-year.  Unwillingly, I picked up the phone to see what it could be now that needs to be said (for I never got any call from them earlier, instead I got to know what they said about me from other sources). I asked about their well-about, letting out my voice as if nothing had happened. All of a sudden, they became more than sweet to me. It was our first one-to-one conversation since. That day onwards, I started getting calls from them almost daily, asking for help in work-related issues.  Call it naïveté or what, but I gave them solutions to the b...

Of late, I wasn't satisfied with the way my brain had started thinking. I was often found complaining about my workplace and how unfair life is. Briefly, I was getting a bit thankless (to put it modestly). Deep down, I knew it was a toxic habit so I was contemplating ways to soothe and pacify my mind. I started getting engaged in activities for they say, "Idle mind is devil's mind." I thought of starting meditation as well as it is claimed that it helps in calming the mind. Then one day, I saw a video on Youtube. The speaker was telling about what we should and shouldn't talk about. One amongst the key points was to not to complain. 'Nobody l ikes to pay heed to an always complaini ng person, ' it rang a bell. Amidst all of it, a few weeks ago, I went to my village-place on an occasion. Man, what to say about the quantum of work people undertake there. I saw people literally sweating themselves out in what they call their 'routine chore...

Lately, I noted that all of my recent posts fell under the label of 'Philosophical'. I started this label to help me categorise my blog posts into boring (they depict meaningless philosophy at least to me sometimes) and non-boring ones.  Does this imply that I'm becoming boring? Or am I ' Boring by birth' ? I don't know why I got this instinct to slide in my one of the favourite bio(s) that I had put on Whatsapp which was even copied by a dear friend. No doubt like-minded people become friends. Or it's another change that is coming in me. Like I've written earlier as well that I change a lot. And things might not turn/change for better always. I'm afraid if it's a change for worse this time.  Perhaps the writer in me is growing up like we all grew up from listening to stories to taking things of concern seriously. I can recall how I had so many anecdotes to share, how I used to be pumped up for certain things and now I hardly ge...

Gosh! What all can life do to you... Don't worry. Thankfully, life's been enough kind to me and I just have pathetic reasons to justify that... Have I stopped writing? Have I stopped drawing? Have I stopped being at content and happy? Have I stopped doing all such things in which I used to take pride? I hope the answer to all of the above is 'No'. One activity that I merrily used to do was reading newspapers. I'm not sure if it had been the driving force behind the two of my interests, namely writing and drawing.  Writing because reading keeps your mind envisioned and reading newspapers (especially the editorial section) provides you TOPICS to write about. Not to mention the subtle improvement in your vocabulary. Drawing because, in the days of fierce competition, innovative photographs find a place in the columns of the newspapers, inspiring the artist within me to pick up pen(cil) and paper.  Sample this It's also got a place beside my...

Just as I promised that I’ll down my guard of inhibitions in my next post, here I’m delivering that promise. If you remember I had slightly mentioned about a lifetime experience. My mom had asked me to not to make a hue and cry about it but I want to write down that experience to recollect each feeling if someday in future I wanted to, so here it goes. It was 22nd October 2018. I have disclosed n number of times that I travel daily by bus ­­– the safest mode. That day I was carrying a new purse to my office so I tried not to burden it with the weight of my elbows. So, I carefully placed it on my lap. I had a minor burn on my finger, so I applied an ointment on it. Urgh! The bus driver applied break and the sudden jerk wiped off a little bit of that ointment. Call it intuition or whatever, out of nowhere I was recapping the important phone numbers which one might need to remember in case of an emergency. I don’t know if it’s a ‘girl-thing’ to imagine oneself in difficult...

I had second thoughts that if I should write another post on the similar lines of the previous one. But then, with my last blog, I have left my readers lingering with the question “What are the changes - or you can say phases - that you’ve gone through many times?” (Just as I mentioned in my last post). To begin with, I really don’t have many memories of my childhood. All I remember is that I used to play, most of the time, or all of the time for that matter. I don’t remember if I even talked much or not. I’ve always been the one listening to the stories of the others; not the one telling its stories. So I can say I used to be the silent one. Then I shifted to another school and God knows why this change occurred but it did, and it was a bad change. Only the people around me would know how they bore me. I had airs - for no solid reason; I used to think of myself very highly, carrying my ego up on my sleeve. Giving warnings like you don’t consider me your friend so I won't...

I am well aware of the fact that I’ve changed drastically around half a dozen times in my life  (in terms of behaviour) . But this time I fear getting changed. Because, this time my interests are getting a woman-like, instead of a girl-like (much to my dismay). The reason I am saying so is because: 1) I ‘sort of’ developed a hobby of cleaning all the stuff in my house. Huff! It’s so time-consuming, demanding and tiring, and most importantly never ending . My weekends are gone in wiping the mess and dirt out. And by the time (or say a period of time) I am finished with one round of cleaning, the dust settles down again, awaiting the second round of cleaning. Earlier I used to be out of the last ones to realise that things have gotten dirty and need to be cleaned. “Cleanliness is just the process of putting the mess of one place to another” ~ Nidhi Ralh.                           Such ...

I planned to write this post at the last year’s end or this year’s beginning but some things needed to be done before I wrote this one. While the last post showed the darker side of my lifecycle, here’s the one which points out several systems  that prevails in this country called India.  ‘What has happened to her? From talking about here-and-there stuff, why has she moved to the darker side now?’  If this is what you are thinking, never mind I’ll switch back to my old silly self. It’s just that I’ve been holding on to this sort of stuff for too long and thought of finally penning them down. Sometimes, I wonder if it has got something to do with the education imparting system where the theoretical part is stressed more than the practical/result oriented part.  You may find a graduate of a field with almost zilch knowledge of the field level work. It makes me feel like the prevailing system is a mess, where the studies are harder as compared to forei...