Mithra

The last goodbye …? ‘We always knew that it would never work out between us, didn’t we?’ she asked forcing a smile on her face. Krishna simply nodded his head and looked ahead at the beach. It was a starry night with the full moon shining bright in the sky. He could see the high tides in the ocean and the angelic white waves lashing the shore. They both were sitting on the cool sand without facing each other. They were close enough to feel each other’s warmth but conscious enough not to let their hands touch. Once again there was a painful silence between them. ‘Why did you want to see me today? I remember you telling that you didn’t want to see me again,’ he said bitterly. Dhyuti bit her lip and swallowed his hatred. It was not entirely true. She had actually yelled that she did not want to see his face again. She turned to her left, facing further away from him. ‘I thought we owed each other one last goodbye. We broke up over the phone but somehow it was just not enough...

What makes a woman beautiful? She stared hard at the picture. It was the 37 th selfie that she had taken for the day. She changed the angle of the phone and took another selfie. Once again, she was not satisfied. Looking through all the pictures that she had taken in the past half an hour, she chose the 13 th one and uploaded it as her profile picture on Facebook. Then began her endless wait for likes from people she might have not even seen in years. Sounds familiar? Well, this could be an incident from anybody’s life. Of all the time she spent in looking at herself from the lens of a 13MP camera lens, she should have tried to see herself from the window of her heart. Within seconds, she would have realized how beautiful she was… Woman – the embodiment of beauty! The tragedy in today’s world is that one does not feel beautiful unless you receive approval or appreciation from someone. Anyone! Somehow, the society lives with a perception that a woman should alwa...

Boring work-life and no life outside work ! As I listen to “Malare ninne kanathirundhal…” from the Malayalam movie Premam, my mind goes back to my days of working as a Technical writer in Bengaluru. Well, I had watched this movie on my office laptop between editing articles and documents. Let me admit that I cannot understand Malayalam, although I can recognize just a few words. Yet this song makes me fall in love with the voice of Vijay Yesudas again and again. Bengaluru… my city, my home that I left behind on July 24 th last year. I miss it terribly! Last year on the same day, I was cribbing about the traffic on ITPL road, when crossing Graphite India signal was like opening the doors to heaven. Back then, I was working for the first time in life and it felt good for a few months. As engineers we are always eager to get out of college and start working. Once we start working, we are cribbing about going back to college. Basically we all suffer from multiple personality di...

Happy Valentine’s Day I hit the send button and heaved a sigh of relief. I had at last finished the project report and mailed it to my manager. But my relief was short-lived because the clock on my screen showed the time - 19.10! A good 19 hours and 10 minutes delay! Damn! I had missed the deadline again and this was the second time in the past six months. The HR manager would certainly highlight this in the appraisal although I had met 27 other deadlines very sincerely during the same period. But I would worry about this some other time because I wanted to just relish this moment of finishing that report. I logged into my Facebook account and there it was screaming on my laptop screen: Happy Valentine’s Day! I was scrolling down even before I finished reading the second word. I was aware that today was Valentine’s Day because there was no way the E-commerce portals and advertisements would let you forget the day. I knew that there would be no message from Nanda,...

Men, Marina and Mappillai ‘World will prosper in knowledge and intellect, if both men and women are deemed equal.            -          Subramania Bharathi These were the words of the famous Bharathiar who was a champion of feminism in the early 19 th century. I was instantly reminded of this man when I saw hundreds of women safe in the midst of thousands of men on Marina beach. They stood united for a common cause – Jallikattu . In December 2015, the youngsters of Chennai had displayed their unity and humanity during the floods that disrupted the life of a metro city for weeks. Yet, what I saw today on Facebook and YouTube videos was nothing compared to those numbers. The recent mass molestation in Bengaluru had certainly left me shaken and disturbed. Why did those men behave like savages? Was it the darkness? Was it the alcohol? Was it the short skirts and figure hugging clothes? Well, I had ...