#SoCS Nov. 26, 2022

Your Friday prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is “on your/my plate.” Use it any way you’d like. Have fun! Navaratri festival was observed in October. Goddess Durga is worshipped for nine days. There are many temples to the Goddess in and around our town. We decided to go to some of them and offer our…

Day 12 of the March SOLSC! #SOL2022

Quite some time ago I read somewhere that people who say they have only one life to live, do not read books 😊. It is true. Good books take us to different worlds inhabited by all types of people. While reading a book we are in that world, with people living their lives there. I…

#SoCS Feb. 20, 2021

Your Friday prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is “nerve.” Use it any way you’d like. Have fun! On the 18th we were happy to read in the newspaper that a Delhi court acquitted journalist Priya Ramani in a defamation complaint filed by former Union minister, M J Akbar. Priya Ramani had levelled sexual harassment…

#SoCS Oct. 3/2020

 Your Friday prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is “new/old.” Use either or both of the words “new and old” any way you’d like. Bonus points for starting and ending with either one. Have fun! Books are an important and nice part of my life. I do not remember when I have not read books.…

What changes ?

I have just finished a fascinating book called The First Promise. It is written by Ashapurna Debi and has been translated from Bengali to English by Indira Chowdhury. The story is set in late 18th century and early 19th century. The heroine is Satyabati and she is not like other women of her time. The…

The Ordinary Woman

Recently, I read ‘ My Journey’ by Dr Abdul Kalam. We are indeed lucky to have had a person of his calibre as one of our Presidents. In this book he writes about the smaller, lesser known happenings in his life. Smaller but very significant. He has written these wonderful words about his mother and…

The Extraordinary Ordinary

Every evening, I see an old lady walking up our road, with a bag in her hand. She delivers milk and flowers to some house, quite a distance away. Maybe all that walking has kept her fit. I don’t think she really has to go herself, but it looks as if she enjoys herself. She…

Horns of Dilemma

Two paths and only one option is really a difficult situation especially when both paths look very dark . She is in this situation. She is educated and is married to a person who is to all purposes illiterate. The decision to make her marry him was taken by the elders of the family without…

Windows in the mind

Recently, I read a very good and interesting book , ‘ A Life in Words’ by Ismat Chugtai. It has been translated from Urdu by M Asaduddin. Ismat Chugtai, (1911-1991) is Urdu literature’s most courageous and controversial writer. This book records the events of only a couple of years of her life. She writes about…