Window Seat Scribbles

Vanity has a new name...and a new face...and all it takes is a click on the front camera of your phone to be deemed "cool". One of the biggest internet fads of recent times, the "Selfie" has amassed quite a number of followers for itself. Who would have thought that clumsily taken self-clicked pictures of yourself from your phone could tell the world how tuned in you were to the latest trends? Lets face it...its really not so simple to take a decent selfie! To start with, its confusing where to look...you may be staring at the screen of your phone and smiling stupidly at it, and your selfie may just turn out to be a cock-eyed version of yourself. Group selfies are even tougher, getting all of them in one frame requires creativity for sure, as on most occassions, you would be left with a ear or half a face in the picture. Full kudos to Ellen DeGeneres for being able to accomodate all those hollywood biggies in one frame, but I'm guessing not many of us look all

The word Vacation has such a lovely ring to it, don't you agree? It brings with it visions of cavorting on sunny beaches and relaxing in seafacing resorts...or for the adventurous amongst us, it urges them to pick up their backpacks for yet another trekking trip. Hill stations with their waterfalls and mountain cafés beckon us in summers, and sandy beaches or the houseboats in backwaters lure us in winters. Either way, its always fun to go on a vacation, and the way I see it, planning the trip is no less fun than going on the promised holiday itself. My family loves taking holidays. I have fond memories of looking forward to summer or winter vacations at school as they simply translated to family holidays for me. It is small wonder then, that the idea of taking a holiday even now fills me with childlike excitement! Much has changed about planning a holiday back then and now. My father loved planning our trips back then, but now, the reins of planning have been passed on to me. Of

There is something about observing random strangers that I really enjoy...I can't exactly put my finger on what it is, but I could spend an entire day at an Airport lounge just looking at people. A certain consuming interest in these people in transit grips me, as I draw my imaginary conclusions and build a fictional story around them. The nervous middle aged woman travelling alone, the confident teenager with neon coloured headphones plugged in her ear, the toddler glued to his fathers cellphone games, the young man speaking in a low tone on his phone, the elderly couple clutching at their bags...all of these and many many more have served as protagonists in my make believe world. But sometimes, a few of these faces just tend to stay with you. I find it difficult to shake off the memory of few faces, and I can't help but wonder about the real stories these people's lives hold. One such face was that of an elderly man who lived across the street from me in Delhi. It would

I have always been very particular about casting my vote. Ever since I turned eighteen, I have taken pride in being a part, however miniscule, of the world's largest democracy. I have squelched through mud and dung to get to the local school and on reaching there,stood for hours in rain or shine to cast my vote. I may be far from a political analyst, but I try to keep myself informed about the political situation to be able to vote intelligently. So imagine my surprise and indignance when one fine morning, I discover that my family's name has disappeared off the electoral rolls. We would never have known of this had we not gone to enquire the reason for not receiving our Electoral Photo Identity Cards ( EPIC ) yet. The Village Headman was apologetic ( and somewhat drunk), as he proceeded to tell us that a certain official has bungled up, that there were many more similar complaints and that the officer in question had already been suspended. It took him some time to figure out

Don't we all love our weekends? Sure, God may have ordained Sunday to be the day for rest, but trust us to include our Saturdays in it too, with all our parties and night outs...so much so that we ended up coining TGIF ( Thank God Its Friday for the uninitiated) as a welcome note to these two days of bliss. Sunday mornings are undoubtedly my favourite. I am not particularly given to Monday morning blues, simply because in my line of work, it sometimes becomes difficult to differentiate one day of the week from the other. But a Sunday is a Sunday, and having the luxury to spend it not working is always a welcome idea. Today, as I woke up to a brilliant sunny Sunday morning, I realised I had the day to myself...to spend it just the way I choose, to plan the perfect Sunday. At the same time, I couldn't help think of the many versions of a "Perfect" Sunday that I have lived through the years. As a child, Sunday simply meant the Matinee Show at the nearby single screen

Every year, as the month of March draws near, the world around us goes ballistic over International Womens Day. Talk shows, telethons, concerts, panel discussions, debates and their likes seem to prop up on every television channel. The multitasking woman of today is lauded and celebrated, the downtrodden are encouraged with charity drives and movies like Monalisa Smile and English Vinglish are given generous primetime viewership. I have always wondered how the men feel about all this. As the newspapers and magazines and social media at large would like us to believe, every other man out there is projected to be the woman-bashing types. The men are supposedly either too narrowminded to let women work, or are too lazy and egoistic to help their partners juggle responsibilities. I shudder to think what would the world have come to if all of it was really true. This is my Thank you note. To the men in my life who have been with me at various stages in this incredible journey called life

There are days when you walk into a bookstore knowing exactly which book you want. And then there are days when the book you are looking for isnt available,and you either walk out or browse around looking for a worthy substitute. Then,there are also days where you walk into a bookstore just because you feel like treating yourself to a good book without any preset notion as to what kind of book are you looking for.It was on one such day as the last that I was browsing through titles in one of the older bookstores in the city that I came across From Heavens Lake by Vikram Seth. The old gentleman who owns the bookstore knows me well by now,I have been in here in his small but well stocked shop too many times. The books arent arranged in any particular order nor are they categorised by author or titles or genre,making it very possible that you might find a James Hadley Chase leaning jauntily against a Leo Tolstoy or a Khalil Gibran.The bookstore owner is somebody straight out of a storybo

I like love stories. However, my high school years were spent looking down with pompous contempt at my contempraries who used to conceal frequently thumbed and worn out old copies of Mills and Boon between textbooks. Not that I had a valid reason to dislike them, considering the fact that I never read one. It had more to do with the notion that those books were "girly",as the term goes...and my tomboyish streak during my teenage years simply prevented me from picking up a copy.But even if Mills and Boon never found a reader in me, I guess my inherent love for love stories however did reflect on my bookshelf. Copies of Gone with the Wind, Love Story, Olivers Story did find their way to it and still remain there proudly,occasionally taken down,dusted and perused even now. With time,or now rather due to the lack of it, I have become extremely choosy about the books that I read. Recommendations from friends and a few online reviews are a great help,but then again,nothing like

A box of letters, all several pages long. Letters from my father, my friends...a couple of them from my grandfather, written in a script I'm still pretty much alien to. Some photographs, of roadside picnics and me climbing trees. A photograph of my mother...black and white and somewhat yellow...the pigtailed girl in the picture looks nothing like Maa,  except for her super curly hair and her impish smile, both of which have remained the same. A pocket phonebook with alphebetical tabs, contacts that have confined themselves to the phonebook,but vanished otherwise. My slam book (I wonder whether my ten year old facebook savvy niece has ever heard of a slam book) from high school...the pages bear testimony to our fervent attempts at being "cool." Friendship bands tumble out in a tangle of fibres and colours, and I fail to remember who tied which one. My "School Captain" badge, rusty and worn. The dupatta from my uniform, crumpled and spotty and yellowed...scribble

There are certain days in our lives, memories of which refuse to be blurred by time...these days remain etched in our memories clear as crystal,unsmudged..intact. For every medical graduate, the day they pass their Final Year MBBS examinations is one of those very days. For it is a celebration of the hardwork and sacrifices that each of them have to put in to be able to finally prefix "Dr." to their names...a privilege granted to a very select few. For five and a half years, a medical student toils through his undergraduate course while his compatriots ,who are not in the medical field go on to complete their graduation and postgraduation and get settled into their jobs. It is not very unusual for a MBBS student to be attending the wedding of his/her friend from high school, who has just completed his MBA from a swanky B-school and whose parents proudly keep announcing their childs' pay package to anybody who cares to listen. This is not an attempt to highlight or co

The romantic notion of "serving" the undrepreviliged people with compassion and sympathy once you graduate from Med School is somewhat an illusion, rather than being rooted in any reality. True,there are many successful doctors out there who do their bit for society..but fresh graduates do not relish the idea of serving some remote village unless its out of compulsion,or if they are paid well,or both.In my case,it was compulsion that forced me to for the post of Medical Officer in a rural area for a period of one year immediately after i finished my internship. Having had the most gruelling,yet one of the most memorable experiences of going through a five and half year long MBBS course and enjoying the crazy revelries that come with hostel life,the idea of going to some godforsaken nook of the state hardly appealed to me. Nahira can hardly be called a small village. The population exceeds 19000 people approximately,and its the second largest village in the district. My fir