Part Of Being Sane Is Being A Little Crazy

Diya Diya forced herself to relax while the attendant spread a mud pack on her face. She’d been nervous all week thinking about today. This was totally unlike the little beauty parlour she went to every month for eyebrow threading and the occasional haircut. No, this was a spa and they didn't just cut hair here. They styled it. And that was only the beginning of all the treatments a woman could get done. Normally she would have been too intimidated to even set foot inside, let alone enquire about the prices which she was sure would be too high for her budget. But this visit was a gift from her dear mother for her 30th birthday. Luckily for her, the gift card was for a particular package which meant she would not be gaping like a fool at the exorbitant rates. Once again, Diya tried to relax telling herself that these women were being paid by her. She employed them and as much as she was sure they were secretly laughing at her naiveté, Diya wasn’t the one working for a living...

Radha Radha knew that Lakshmi was eyeing her sari, though no expression showed on her face. All the maids thought she was arrogant for not talking to them but Radha had never been one of those people who thought her caste made her a better person. It had just been easier not to talk to anyone when she had first come to the city. Besides, these maids never had anything much to talk about except gossip and no one knew better than her how much damage could be caused when women gossiped! It was gossip that made her believe in Chandrasekhar. That he was a famous author, pretending to be a wastrel and swindler for his latest novel. He had been so charming, she had fallen for him completely. Her parents had died when she was 13 and she had always wanted someone to take care of her. She had been so happy. Until the day she woke up to find that he had disappeared and her house sold without her knowledge. He had turned out to be a swindler, pretending to be a famous author. She had been l...

Lakshmi Like every other day, Lakshmi woke at 5 am in the morning. As a domestic worker in a sprawling metropolis, she had her share of worries. But today a new trouble stood out from the general sense of anxiety that usually ran in the background: the problem of rent. Lakshmi and her family of 5 - her husband Kumar and the 3 kids - shared rooms with another family in the run down building. They were lucky not to be living in the slums like some of the other maids but with the landlord raising the rent yet again, she wasn't sure how much longer they could live there. She went about her daily chores mechanically, all the while puzzling over how to raise the extra money. Maybe she could ask a raise from one of the women she cleaned for. She had worked in some houses for more than 3 years and everyone agreed that she was fast and quiet, not like some of the others. She remembered that Mrs. Patel had wanted her for some extra hours on the festival weekend, that little bit wou...

Science fiction means different things to different people. Some are enthralled by FTL space travel, others dream of the day humans can travel through time - if only to kill their grandfathers ;) Me? I wanted robots. Not just any robots mind you. I wanted a III laws obeying, Asimovian robot all for myself! I know other writers have written robot stories but I was always intrigued by Asimov's robots, and the Three Laws of course. For Asimov's robots were special. Unlike other writers who portrayed robots as evil or as creatures who would eventually destroy humans, Asimov conceived of robots as tools of humanity. And just like other tools, their effects depends on how they are used. The Three Laws are used by Asimov to explore the relationships between humans and robots as well between robots themselves. The many ambiguities inherent in the laws also make for a wide variety of stories ranging from alternative histories to murder mysteries from Asimov. So while others wait...

If you have ever moved to a new city, state or country, you know the feeling of strangeness that pervades your first few days or even weeks sometimes. You miss some aspects of your old home but find and appreciate good things about the new one too. Pretty much the same thing happened to me when I moved from India to the USA 18 months ago. I missed - and still do - street food, the hustle and bustle on the roads and inside colonies, movie songs blaring from autos and buses, kids going off to school in the winter mornings and so many little things that you never notice while living at home. Basically I miss the sense of being surrounded by life all the time. Life in India is always noisy and colorful. But at the same time, I love many things about the American way of life. There is a sense of calm and order, people respect your privacy even in public spaces and I certainly don't miss the constant ogling and catcalls from strange men on the street. Given the snowy winters of Mich...

Two years ago, I was a care-free working (though I'd just quit my job) girl who hated cooking. Back then, if someone had told me that I'd be a fabulous cook someday I'd have laughed in their face. Really, you're talking about a girl who has burnt the rice in a pressure cooker because she was so absorbed in a book that she didn't hear the whistles. My poor mom came home to find the kitchen in a cloud of smoke that day! A girl who couldn't make a cup of tea or coffee to save her life. And yet, flash forward to today and I'm a girl with an actual  recipe blog. I can cook several cuisines and I'm always on the lookout for new dishes to make at home. On the way I've burnt my fingers a few times and chopped or nicked them several times over - inspite of challenging my mom that I would learn cooking without hurting myself :D Other than fantastic new dishes and how to make them though, I've learnt quite a few things about cooking that has changed the ...

If the internet came with a warning label, it would say "DO NOT READ YOUTUBE COMMENTS" For tech-savvy geeks or those born after 1995, it might seem to be the most obvious thing in the world. But to those people who don't spend the majority of their lives online, reading the comments section of YouTube for the first time can be quite the rude jolt. It is a cesspool of hate, abuse and inflammatory statements spewed by trolls and jerks. Indeed, there are few people who can wade into the comments section and come back out with their faith in humanity intact. If you dare to try and read the comments on a few videos, you are generally guaranteed to lose two things (at the very least): Brain cells Any and all hope for humanity Now Google has tried to clean up the place with some G+ integration - forcing users to use real names or at least pseudonyms - which appears to have made some improvement. Still, there are far more productive ways to spend your time than r...