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Showing posts from February, 2022

Of Existential Questions and Mortal Pursuits

Marriage market. That farce of meeting prospective future brides and grooms. And their families and relatives and friends and foes. That pretentious role-playing of being the demure lass, or the successful lad. The expected hospitality. The search, the extensive never ending ego-shattering search. The despair when time passes and no one clicks and a plus one gets added to one’s age year after year. The nagging words from relatives, the society at large, the cultural pressure. The peer pressure from friends getting engaged. Pangs of guilt ridden envy seeing friends plan their wedding trousseau. And career growth underappreciated by near and dear folks. It’s a lonesome time, solitary existence.   Thankfully, I haven’t experienced any of the above. But I have lived through most, through my friends’ experiences - sad frustrated narratives shared intimately. Looking back, I consider myself lucky and privileged that my parents didn’t focus on marriage until I had a postgraduate degree and a

A Slice of Life

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My husband has so many real life stories of people down his sleeve, that it amazes me. He loves non-fiction. He is inspired by success stories of small town folks who make it big in their entrepreneurship journeys. Recently he's been reading a book on the Munjal Brothers - The Making of HERO by Sunil Kant Munjal. Shoe Dog is one of his favourites. So is Shantaram. So is the movie Guru, and the life of Dhirubhai Ambani. The grit and commitment towards achieving one’s goal. He devours Shark Tank India and comments that the ideas and the urge to solve problems is far better in the Indian version than the original one. He tells of housewives, of middle class background students who have learnt the tricks and maths of running a business solely by learning on the journey and teaching themselves. Few have created a business in the pandemic, and few have honed their technical skills learnt in college to craft a masterpiece patented product. Such abundance of ideas. He gets so excited while

Queeristan by Parmesh Sahani

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  Queeristan (Amazon Link) Thanks to Audible Free Trial I listened to this amazing non-fiction on LGBTQ inclusion in Indian workplaces. Author Parmesh Sahani identifies as gay Indian, working closely with Godrej higher management and employees for years to create an inclusive workplace, both legally and in spirit. This book is a result of those years of experience, research, collaboration with individuals from difference spectrum of the society and organizations who has successfully transitioned into a queer friendly one.   Indian history is inclusive. From the Khajuraho temple architectures, to Konark to the Rig Veda, there is existing proofs even 2000 years ago of Indian inclusiveness of queer. It’s the draconian British law that criminalised it, which was scraped in 2009, came into effect once again following a sad judgement in 2013 and eventually was scraped off for good in 2018. I am in awe of the lawyers who fought this legal battle- colleagues and partners – Arundhati Katju

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