Em's Twisting Kaleidoscope

I went for my first swimming lesson today after a long time; and by a long time, I mean almost ten years. It's not that I am completely unaware of how to wade through water, but let's just say I'd rather be doing it only in situations when I'm forced to save my life. That is my experience with swimming. I do it in rare situations so as to not die. Anyway, I stood at the edge of the pool, too scared to get in. I mean, it was 12 feet deep. I don't mind dying but I'd rather not die with water flooding inside me. My instructor told me to get in. A strict as she was, I went down the steps. After a while she asked me to show her what I know. I stared at her. What if I drown? She told me to try so she could at least she what she had to teach. Grudgingly, I complied. After years, I swam with all I had towards the nearest support, after which I looked nothing less thana person who had just faced death. My eyes wide open, I looked at her accusingly. My instructo...

I've had a fascination with this red dress for a long time. Well, i got the dress when I was a teenager but other than one odd party, I never wore it. I don't know why, but I just kept the dress. It was a bright dress, strappy with a deep neck but a knee length skirt. Movie material, right? When I started dating.. dating.. hm, yeah.. i guess, well, when i got into my first (and only) relationship, I just never had  a chance to wear it. When we initially started going out, I wasn't really asked out. So, there was never a first date, you know. We went from being classmates, to partners, to friends, to best friends to something completely different. And by then we practically already did everything together. So what was a date and what wasn't couldn't be told apart, y'know? Even now, it's not like we pick out what's a romantic date and what isn't. So afterwards, I thought one day really special, I'm going to wear it and feel like a fucking prin...

The night the announcement of banning higher denomination currency notes in India was made, there was a sudden frenzy. My phone was exploding. Everybody was glued to the live news of the announcement. People were worried about how they were going to survive. I was worried about how the poor were going to survive.  My mom suggested we go have a coffee. And so we did. We drove through relatively empty streets as it was late at night to come to a relatively bustling cafe on Carter Road in Mumbai's Bandra surburb.  As we sat down to order, we heard a worried voice talking in an agitated voice over the phone, "Buy shares. I don't know. Put it in the Swiss account." We couldn't decipher anymore as he moved away, but one thing was clear. People were figuring out ways to clear their hoarded cash. ATMs were jampacked with people trying to withdraw an amount of 400 so as to get notes of 100. The next day, every petrol station had a queue of about 250m outside ...

Dear Eman, I meant to write this to you a week or so ago but could not find the time or rather was little too lazy. However, I feel it is imperative I write this letter to you today. I first wish to remind you...tell you... well, i hope, that whenever you read this letter you read it with the same openness of heart that you have in you today.  I'll start with the hope that the world hasn't robbed you of your optimism and happiness.  What prompted me to write this letter was when I recently saw you smile at strangers and wish airport employees and hawkers Happy Diwali. These gestures made me realise you're still preserved from the toxins of the world where people forget to aplogise for ramming into each other and well Trump has won the election, etc etc But then I figured what if you change? You know you'll grow up and get busy and then what? So here goes. Eman. Please. Never be so caught up in work to forget to smile at someone around you. Never be...

This isn't a regular post. I'm not going to tell you one of my stories about a place I travelled to and what I did there. Today, instead, I'm in one of those moods when I want to talk about where I feel like being. Where I currently am isn't a bad place but recently I have been feeling the urge to travel. To just pick up a bag and leave. But where do I go? Do I go backpacking across lands hitherto untraversed, admiring green mountains, flowing rivers and deep valleys? I don't know. I just feel like being in the midst of nature with nothing but my music for company. It could be a lone beach house or a mountain top, I don't much have a preference, so long as I get to spend some much-needed alone time. Let's for one second imagine a secluded beach house with a white bench and a tree right outside. Wouldn't that be the perfect place to sit and read or write as many blog posts as I wish to write or just listen to music like I wish to? Let's imagine...

Why have I never written about the best holiday of my life? I don't have an answer but I do have a solution. This. The best holiday of my life was the best for one reason because it was just that. A holiday. There were no schedules, no to-do lists, no places to see list- it was a vacation, a vacation in Thailand. So we had just shifted cities from Chandigarh to Lucknow owing to my dad's job and I'd had a horrible bout of chicken pox, so my summer hadn't exactly been fun or relaxing. There were two weeks for school to start and we had just come back from my grandmother's house after dinner when I suggested toy dad that it felt like a good time to go on a holiday. We looked up countries which offered on-arrival visas and viola! there we had tickets booked for four days later to go to Pattaya and Bangkok for a good week. No extensive planning, nothing- we just made a spontaneous plan and followed through and had the best holiday ever. Pattaya is a beautiful town...

Dubai. There is no way to tell , when you're in the middle of the city, that it's in the middle of a desert, an actual desert. It's overflowing with skyscrapers so tall, New York City would get a complex. The Shaikh Zayed Road is basically the main highway which cuts in between this huge pyramid of gigantic concrete towers. It's what they call a concrete jungle,  no kidding. If you told someone a few decades ago they could transform a desert into what Dubai today is, they'd tell you you were off your rocker. But then they would be one of those maniacs who underestimate the power of money, will and sheer brilliance. Dubai tells you what the human brain is capable of doing. You could never tell going to the beautiful beaches in the middle of the city that they weren't wonders of nature. Bt that's not the only wondrous thing about the Emirates (I pronounces it Eh-mi-rah-tees when I wrote that. Haha.) The United Arab Emirates was also the first time I found...