My Thoughts Keyboarded

“Where are all the Golu Park dolls?”, I asked my mom over the quiet lunch.  “enda kanna. It  must be on the loft” ,  she looked at me curiously . Without waiting for my reply she continued “Do you want me to pack that so you can take it Singapore? “. That was a lovely gesture I thought.   She understood that I missed Golu and I might be interested to have them. Only she could understand me without much words. “Nothing ma, just wanted to see them”  ( pic courtesy : Google ) After lunch I managed to get on the big stool made specially to access loft, and like a director of a movie, she guided me to the location among boxes of stuff.   Golu is a 9-day festival where we adorn the home with beautiful mud idols of god. Park is basically a miniature village usually set up around Golu on sand. Its decorated with plastic houses, trees, villages, trains etc. “ Paathu kanna there is so much dust, why don’t you wear a kerchief mask, you are allergi...

You know the embarrassing feeling when you open the door to the toilet at the same time as another person. Don’t swear on me yet, I guess the next worse thing is Looking directly into the eyes of stranger for more than 2 second. I say up to 1 second is still acceptable for Singapore.  So this happened to me, when I pooled in an Uber cab (BTW its just 5$) on my way to work. I was upset about a problem with my living situation and was banking loads of anger, ready to snap anytime. Which is why I avoided conversation with fellow passengers. We stopped at the traffic light and my gaze fell on the construction truck next to us.   Behind the truck was array of workers presumably on their way to work. If you have lived in Singapore, for longer than expiry date of bananas, you have witnessed this for sure. From the crowd who were catching up on their sleep, he looked right back at me. To my shame it lasted longer than 2 seconds. He had a dark serious face with thick bea...

They say when you pray for rain, have enough faith to carry an umbrella... but what if your faith is wavering? Perhaps your umbrella may be broken or you are so tired to even carry yourself out yet alone an umbrella. Perhaps you are scared to show your umbrella to people who might ridicule your faith. All said and done you knew in your heart that if you could make yourself carry that umbrella with unwavering faith, it would rain. I am here right now at the path way to my future and all that follows this statement is conversation to thyself. When it’s not my time   I remember the trip I always wanted to take. Money, was always the main concern. However when I stumbled on that advertisement from the travel company offering a package tour at 50% slash rate, I found a different excuse. I convinced myself that I don’t have enough holidays left. God listen to my prayers and she bought that advertisement to me. The time was right, perhaps I wasn't ready. When I have given up...

“Vatsa stop watering rose pot. Too much water would drain the nutrients, water these tomatoes instead” shouted Sarala Paati (my grandma). I was playing with garden hose, experimenting different water fountain patterns with thumb. I must be 7 or 8 years old then. “Bring me that chisel and dig right here” she ordered. I was always the chosen minion amongst the bunch of cousins spending summer at Sarala Paati’s home. I would dig until my hands pained and dirt crept up under my finger nails.  I longed to go back to playing and asked “Is this ok? “, every few seconds. Invariably, without lifting her eye from pruning the plants, she would reply “dig a little deeper”. She must be awfully bored to do this, I thought. By afternoon most of the adult napped providing us enough time to do unsupervised activities. We did everything from shooting vegetables to setting fire to the trash pit with powder from old fireworks. I made a bow and arrow for shooting vegetables. The stri...

His voice pierced through the humming of the bus and snatum kaur singing from my earphone.  Few heads looked up with mine, to see who is making the noise. We were sitting on the top of double-decker bus, which was making a steady pace on the highway to work.  Sitting in the front seat was the loud toddler in uniform, who clearly seemed different and special . He was repeating some gibberish in a familiar nursery rhyme tune. Sitting next to him was his father, who neither responded to his loud singing, or to the murmurs of fellow passengers. He caught me looking at him and smiled at me and I responded with smile. He turned around kneeling in his seat to face me. He stretched his hands to reach and I extended mine. He got excited now, and started singing louder, holding my hand in swaying movement.  His hands and eyes did not coordinate, and he kept looking at the passing trees. Listening closely I realized he isn't singing gibberish but the actual r...