The Rebelle blog

Such a calm, contented day today. Like every year, when this day comes there is an excitement, barrage of good wishes from friends and family and the quiet celebration with my loved ones. Last year was a lockdown birthday and so is this year. I am full of gratitude for good health, and peace of mind. I have had the means to indulge my spirits in Art and Poetry, conversations with some of my constant friends since forever. What more could I ask?  And, yet like every year, I think of my ambitions, my desires and goals and everything that I wish to accomplish with the same fervour. April comes and goes too soon. It marks a time that gives me reason to go ahead, something about the excruciating long lazy hot days puts everything else in perspective. I wouldn't have pegged myself a seasonal person, but I am. My moods aggravate and elevate with the change in seasons. Perhaps I am so since childhood but only understanding being like this in my adulthood. Funny and amusing that as I go bac...

Here I am, a couple of weeks after my birthday. I decided to put all my love for baking into a blogpost.  I bake a lot. It all started in 2013 when my mother got home a microwave oven. Until that point, she would bake cakes and biscuits in a cooker. I recall the number of experimental desserts and baked goods we attempted. Every weekend, My mum and I would scoop through her older recipe journal and begin working in collaboration. Some days were good, some were feisty, there were days when we had arguments over tweaking the recipes for lack of ingredients. The coolest part was however when the kitchen would be filled with the baking aroma. It made all that bickering worth it. Immediately both of us would be discussing the brown crust and texture, the color, and the aroma. Mum would scarcely need to time the baking. I am not so fortunate. I go by the book, the measuring spoons, and cups, the fancy mixing apparatus, and utter concentration. In the earlier phase of my baking, I ...

I just returned from a weekend trip to a city I've been frequently travelling to in this year. This trip was special. It was a grand get-together of my extended family for celebrating my Grandpa's 75th birthday. The moment I entered the venue, I was greeted with the warmest hugs and affectionate smiles by my grandmothers, aunts and cousins I typically meet only during Diwali due to our hectic schedules now. The party venue was an air-conditioned banquet hall and I started feeling cold in the very first few minutes of being there when my grandma embraced me in her super warm and cosy arms. I instantly got transported back to my childhood. She is one of the nicest persons who also possesses a calm aura around herself that she radiates with a brilliant abundance. I took my grandpa's cold hands in my own and wished him a happy 75th. He immediately remarked how grown up I looked. I had to tell him it was because of my hair, all messy and tangled from the travel when he let out...

It's my father's birthday today! And although, we don't celebrate it with much fanfare, though my mother bakes a cake each year, this year I've baked a cake for him, all by myself. I hope he likes it. I haven't ever gifted him anything on his birthday yet. But this year, I hope to give him a belated birthday gift by qualifying for the civil service exams that I undertook recently. Because, he has always encouraged me and allowed me the liberty to pursue whatever I've ever taken a keen interest in, I hope it will truly make him happy and proud of me. Here's a happy picture from some happy memories of us together. Love you, Dad.

April's coming to an end. So quick. On my birthday, while waiting for a dear friend's call I thought about life's bittersweet moments. The ones where I dreamt big, where I accomplished some task that my heart had written off as unachievable, when I genuinely felt happy and felt alive. After talking to my friend, I realised how our lives seem sprinkled with oddities and yet we sieve our ways through them?! What is that fuel that rockets our dreams? And, will I ever get to realize my dream? Actually, what is my biggest dream? I haven't thought about it; I only see fragments and bits of light in my mind, fluttering through pages and freshly dried ink. I smell words hanging in the air, and my eyes piece stories and ideas somewhere on an invisible canvas. Is writing deceitful? Do I write the truest things? Do I mean what I always write? Or my ideas find mere allegiance to words and they dissolve in the mind itself? What is it to be in love with life? Why am I asking so ma...

I have started feeling too old for birthdays now. Not only my own, others as well (my friends that is!) I wouldn't want to snatch the joys of younger cousins. Is it owing to a phenomenon known as 'GROWING UP?' I've even started receiving birthday mails that speak more about getting old and grey-haired and wise that saddens me for no reason. Not that I was always a very excited-about-birthdays person, but its nice to see people remember and call you which otherwise rarely happens these days ever since whatsapp has taken over all other forms of communication. I know that I look forward to birthdays only to hear my not-so-distant friends call me and then we catch up on all the long due conversation that could have happened had we not been so busy in our professional lives. Such lies! I have given up feeling sad because a friend I expected would call did not. Honestly, we all should brace ourselves now for such disappointments as we grow old. In fact, I remember what a fri...