Magic Moments

There is something about the cityscapes – the tiny lights dotting the horizon, skyscrapers, multiplexes, public parks and traffic. I am always reminded of my days in Mumbai when I watched The First Frost. I am having this phase where I rewatch my comfort dramas instead of exploring new ones. Hometown Cha Cha Cha is done, now I am revisiting The First Frost. As the title song begins and takes us through glimpses of the past and the present in the characters’ lives, it resonates deep within, I am reminded of my high school years (pre-internet era where we would just play Solitaire, Mario, Dave, Aladdin, and Minesweeper on Windows desktop) and my life in Mumbai. City life especially life in a metropolis as a single woman with family living miles away is melancholic, solitary, interspersed with occasional outing with friends, office dinner parties with colleagues, and some travel opportunities. Daily life is un-phenomenal, routine, sometimes a bit of drudgery having existential questions t...

   a story of friendship, passion for research, a life cut short  There are several quotes in this book that touched me, held true, audaciously. The cover is beautiful – and was the first thing that drew me to this novel. Next was the blurb – a female friendship, one of them missing in the Himalayas, societal expectations and female angst/rage. It is a novel of self-reflection, of friendship, of male chauvinism, and a search for explanation to the mystery. At 25 pages mark I wanted to write pages on my life and my best friend. I didn’t, except annotate at places, and kept reading. It is divided into 3 parts – Mansi’s POV, Bhaskar’s and Tara’s POV. Tara is missing for weeks, and Mansi finally gathers courage to leave her life with her husband, in laws, work – taking a short sabbatical – to trace Tara’s whereabouts, if not for a glimmer of hope for her survival, for absolution of her own guilt. She shuts herself for days in Jora, spacing out watching the TV, and sleeping in...

I do not want to renew my domain. Magic-moments.in. A URL I had long associated with my blog, but it’s an unnecessary expense I feel now that I am not regularly writing. It is not that important to me anymore. What’s more important now is to have a writing routine, practice typing words done daily, with a goal of a wordcount, and hone them on stipulated days, polished enough to publish as an essay or blog. It’s not content churning but a healthy habit of articulating well through my existing vocabulary while also learning new ones. New ways of seeing. Making and cultivating my own voice. Be it clauses after clauses, never-ending, or simple crisp details, several full stops in a single line. As my reading has grown over the years to be more diverse, my writing has not. It has rather degraded back to the rudimentary level of decades past, I feel. Books I choose to read these days have depth, make me reflect, take the pen and scribble in my journal, or type on Substack or here. Apart fr...