'Criti....que not Criti....cize'

A tradition started 12 years ago. At the cusp of adulthood, but while in school (class 12, to be precise); when romance novels were Where Rainbows End, Dear John, Message in a Bottle and  P.S. I Love You ; when promises were made and felt rather deeply by the heart (not that they aren't now) -- Karwa Chauth was taken up with a whimsical approach. Karwa Chauth -- a day of fasting (without consuming even a drop of water post the sargi)  usually undertaken by Indian married women every year post Dussehra and before Diwali (that's how I always remember it) -- assumed more importance thanks to Bollywood with its smattering of Karwa Chauth in many of the movies I grew up watching. Also, I found the north Indian rituals and festivals amusing as a South Indian (Keralite). For someone who witnessed wedding rituals lasting for not more than two minutes back home, the Big Fat Indian Wedding, popularised by Bollywood and stories by north Indian friends alike, fascinated me no end.  W...

A cousin from Amrika  landed home today. While I waited for him eagerly, the moment when we finally met approached sometime around 8.30 pm on a Saturday. With a flight to catch the next day, he was somewhat racing against time. And tada, he walked in. While 3 years didn't make much of a difference when we finally met, I was secretly glad that he had let his unibrow grow, uninhibited. Guess that's the thing with people you grow up with. The camaraderie is something that you can't define. Tidbits from the conversation: S: What you upto these days? D: I am freelancing. S: Tried Upwork? D: Did create a profile. Yet to work on the details. No one seems to be interested in giving me a job in Bangalore. S: Engineers don't know how to write. They need people to put to words what they 'think' and want to convey. There's a lot of scope for technical writing. D: Yeah, like one of those teams who told to explain the step-by-step process of explaining to a 70-year-old pe...