Sudeepta Writes

“Change your route you silly girl. Can’t you see the stupid cat just ran crossing your way”, my mother shouted at the top of her voice making herself audible and clear, even from a distant balcony where she was standing to wave me ‘bye’. The shouting had two obvious advantages: first it was audible to me along with others nearby, so that there would be minimum chances for me to disobey; as that would clearly indicate my disrespect for her in front of the society which she knew I wouldn’t dare to. Also it would portray her as a ‘messiah’ for being a true well-wisher, for not only her daughter, but for the entire society at large. It was also a rule of thumb not to shout names when a person was leaving home. I often argued with her asking if calling of names would ease the ill omen to identify its prey. My mother had hundreds of such ‘do and not to do’ list. My grandmother had thousands! Majority of them, I would shun them with my logics, science and justifications. Some I would make m

Where is our ‘Flying Jatt’? “A Flying Jatt” is a lesser known movie released in 2016 where the concept of ‘Desi’ super hero was highlighted. This was enough to draw attention of the leading newspaper, off course in a negative sense with the ‘lauki’ scene being highly exaggerated. We Indian would love watching the ‘Videshi’ super heroes and their stunt with an unquestionably high degree of focus and attention but, the stunts of an innocent ‘Desi’ superhero would definitely be out of the exterior boundary of our acceptability especially if the superhero is a mamma’s boy. Well, my focus is not on the ‘Desi’ vs ‘Videshi’ concept but a concern deeper. Staying in the capital city of Delhi, working in a prime and centrally located office for the last 10 years, I had never experienced such hazardous effects of pollution. The sky turned ugly with a prominence of black colour spread across, not only during the night but even during day. The stars preferred to go unnoticed and so did