Magic Moments

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...

It is difficult to make sense of time passing when I am not writing the events down, jotting it somewhere, may be just in an attempt to blog relevantly again. Adulting is realizing badly that you won't have time to write unless you make time for it actively, consciously. And it had taken a backseat for me for the past few months - from September last year till now, to be precise.  September Cherry had come. We three had a lot of fun exploring Chikmagalur : peeking into the temples of Halebeedu enroute, drenching ourselves on the short trek to a peak, and frolicking alongside a beautiful lake surrounded by fog covered luscious green mountains. We went to high energy twisty adrenaline rushing rides in Wonderla, spent hours dipped in the pools, waves, the joyrides and the fun and excitement of being half submerged in water and having buckets and buckets being poured over, oh the thrill of it, was my very first experience, soon to become an addiction with water- pools, sea beach frolic...

Let's talk about boundaries. How do we understand and realize our boundaries in a relationship? Parent, sibling, partner, friend- which ever relation might it be, how do we put a finger on what is an excess? How much exactly is too much? Tracking your daughter’s phone without her permission- is it okay or are you over protecting? Or are you crossing a moral boundary of privacy? Calling your partner repetitively in the middle of the night to ramble your emotional dilemmas, without a bother about his/her sleep cycle and health- isn’t it a misplaced sense of entitlement? It’s a child’s behaviour, seeking attention and importance, in my opinion. Imposing on your friend, seeking more of her time than she can spare, since she has to go back home to her partner, are your boundaries in their right place? The more you justify your behaviour, the more you are at fault. A person plays a lot of roles- someone’s child, sibling, roommate, and so on. He’s an individual too. We have to set ...

My mother hasn’t called me up since last Wednesday. It’s just been two days and I don’t want to sound like a baby in the crib seeking attention, but it’s getting me feeling sad. Away from home and always in this feeling of constant transition has drained me a lot. Friends and well wishers are around but there’s this emotional need that has grown with time and has me craving for home. But what is home anyway? I have grown my own safe haven of familiarities and comforts here in these few months. But still, this feeling persists. ~ On gratitude front I have a lot to talk about.   Last Monday when I and my hostel mate were travelling from Delhi to Dehradun by train, life turned happening. Our AC chair car was stopped at Roorkee station for an uncertain time period. Upon inquiring we found a certain luggage train had derailed and the tracks were being repaired. And it could take hours. Slowly and steadily, by and by, the crowd grew thinner in our berth. Everyone start...

A book of poetry is never as you expect it to be. The foreword and preface made me request this book, and I thank Netgalley for this beautiful read. The introduction to the book was so full of wretched emotions that it choked me speechless; it spoke of pain, heartbreaks, and aches that dulled over time but never really went away. I knew I was in for a very emotional and cathartic experience. I knew I was about to learn the poet’s most vulnerable self, read the deepest corners of her heart through her work. All masterpieces come from a place of pain. And you can never ignore that which overwhelms you, gets on your nerves, reverberates in your mind, echoes your own being and leaves you with the lump in the throat. The prosaic poetry evoked memories of numerous helpless incidents in my life. There’s repressed hurt in the verses. There are confessions of deep-seated love inspite of all the hurt. There are regrets and guilt. And finally, yet unbelievably, there was liberation a...

George’s life is beautiful. We are introduced to a happy family, a loving younger brother, true friends, prospective lovers, friendly townsfolk and an average career in the Building and Loan.  “I know what I’m gonna do tomorrow and the next day and the next year and the year after that. I’m shaking the dust of this crummy little town off my feet, and I’m gonna see the world. And then I’m gonna build things. I’m gonna build airfields. I’m gonna build sky-scrappers a hundred stories high. I’m gonna build a bridge a mile long.”   Such are George Bailey’s dreams- but he ends up living in the town Belford Falls running the small Building and Loans, helping the townsfolk have their own homes, giving up his higher study plans for that of his brother’s, living in an old dilapidated abandoned house with his wife, earning a meager income just to survive decently. A greater tragedy hits when he loses a large sum of money owed to the bank. He is devastated by the bankrup...

Author: Cherry Looking around the railway station, I wondered how I would spend the night and the entire next day in the congested compartment of the train. Being used to traveling in first class flights and luxurious cars, I could not fathom taking a train. My driver fiddled with his key and was evidently impatient to get out of the humid station. The train pulled up at the station and I climbed in with my two huge trolley bags. I found my seat, slid the bags under and sat down. The seat opposite to mine was occupied by a man who seemed to be in his late thirties. He was lying down and on the ground was a folded wheelchair. He was reading The Holy Bible. In his branded coat and limited edition watch, he reeked of money. I did not quite understand why he would want to read The Bible when there are millions of other books. When he caught me staring at him, he gave me the brightest of smiles and said, “It is the only book that teaches to live and the meaning of life.” “Li...