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Warning - This piece needs to be taken with a pinch of salt! Wedding season is here again in India! Large, lavish, in-your-face glossy weddings that wipe out a large chunk of a family's savings. Usually a four-day affair, weddings or "shaadis" in India have no less paraphernalia than shooting a small film or organizing a rock concert.  Mehendi, Sangeet, Bachelor parties, Haldi ceremony, pre-nuptials to post-nuptial events, Indian weddings these days follow the Punjabi template popularized by Bollywood. With a lot of song, dance, glitter and DJ music, and sulking and bitchy relatives to boot. There have been recent additions to the razzmatazz. Now a professionally shot pre-wedding session of the couple has become something of a must. One can't really expect an Insta-crazy generation to let go of this golden opportunity to pose in various outfits against stunning back-drops. Its a legit opportunity to flex, after all. This takes care of the social media views, and the o...

An Excerpt from the story "Half-Cup Moon" Pihu squirmed in her seat. Her “better-half” Akash was behaving obnoxiously, literally like a high-on-hormones teenager. Watching him flirt shamelessly with the resident hottie Chandni, Pihu was bubbling with indignation. How did things get this bad? There was a time Akash wouldn’t look at anyone except her. Nikki smiled sympathetically across the table. She was aware of the tension between Pihu and Akash, but she was wary of coming across as patronizing towards her friend. Pihu smiled wanly and looked the other way. The room felt stuffy, smoke-filled and claustrophobic. She needed a break. Nursing her drink, she made way to the balcony. It was quiet and secluded here. The party was in full swing, with groovy music, drinks flowing freely, and spicy starters being passed around. Couples were either dancing or cozying up in corners. From the bay windows she could observe Farhan and Diti sharing a smoke, and later a kiss. L...

Prolific writer-activist-thinker Arundhati Roy's memoir, an ode to her mother's formidable personality, is cleverly titled, Mother Mary Comes to Me. Below the title is a picture of young Roy nonchalantly smoking a bidi. Irreverence, thy name is Arundhati Roy! At 372 pages, it is a tome, a sweeping saga that recollects both her mother's remarkable life, as well as her own. Is it a Memoir? Yes and no. Though the book title refers to their mother-daughter relationship, the book - at several junctures treats each one of them as independent and exclusive from one another. In fact, for a good part, her mother finds no mention at all, and the reader is engrossed reading about Roy's exploits and struggles through Architecture College, early attempts to find her vocation and calling, her dabbling with cinema, acting, scriptwriting; her romantic liaisons with the luscious JC, Sanjay, Pradeep et al. A life as extraordinary and unapologetic as Arundhati's mesmerizes in itself. ...

Festivals are happy times, right? Time for merriment, revelry, celebration, enjoying yourself... Wrong! Studies show festivals call for a steady spike in stress levels. Cortisol shoots up, starting with preparation for festivals, and remains high throughout, in the quest to do everything perfectly, "at least during the festival". Guess who bears the brunt of this? Yes, its the one who takes emotional labour for everyone she cares for - the woman of the house. She wants everything to be perfect, so works her ass off tidying and cleaning things. Then she wants her family to be fed well, so spends hours toiling away making delicacies in the kitchen. Rangoli to be painted - there she is with the brush. Festoons to be hung up - she's balancing herself on a stool. Furniture rearranged, flowers put up, puja room decorated? Yes, only one person who signs up for all this. Then there's the stress of the whole family at home, stepping on each other's toes. She has to appease...

That Pujo feeling! Kaash phul swaying, clear skies with a smattering of clouds and crowds everywhere....Pandals being constructed, idols given finishing touches! Last- minute frenzied shopping, beauty parlour visits, et al. This year, Ma Durga arrives early at the end of September. Which means hot, sticky days and muggy nights with intermittent drizzles. Fashion therefore, has to prioritize comfort above everything else. And we women know how the pressure to look good often makes us squeeze into uncomfortable outfits. So do we say goodbye to traditional flowing wear? Of course, not! With a little bit of imagination, traditional wear can be the best bet in heat and humidity. Let's see which sarees are hot this season: Source - Dora by Phoenix Cotton, mul and linen sarees with quirky prints or floral design. Think soft fabric that doesn't make you break out in a sweat. Painted with florals or eclectic motifs. Or printed with quirky symbols like the yellow taxi or the Howrah bridg...

Just returned from a solo trip to Shantiniketan! My first trip without family or friends! I had gone for a couple of days to attend a literature festival at a resort on the outskirts of Shantiniketan.  Since it's almost sharatkaal, the kaash phul was in full bloom along the roadside! It had just rained, leaving everything verdant all around with different shades of green! I started out from Bolpur station to my resort in a toto, passing fields and stretches of green. The resort - Raktakorobi Karugram was in quite a remote area, and there was no mobile network in my room, so my first reaction was, "Where have I landed?"  Thankfully wi-fi solved the problem a bit. The atmosphere was of calm and solitude, and gave a feeling of peace. My next day passed in the festival, making new acquaintances, talking about my book, and networking with like-minded people. It was an exhilarating feeling, listening to interesting discussions, as well as being appreciated and feted for my talk...