I’ve just devoured a box of Lale’s fried chicken (a recent favourite) and now sitting back in the wonderment that how fried chicken could make a person so completely content? I mean this is a cooked carcass of a bird that’s probably died a long time ago. How could the death and the fried aftermath of another living thing provide so much happiness to another? Especially to a Hindu. Continue reading
Dear Reader, I May Be Silent But I’m Still Listening
Dear Reader
I know I’ve been a bit quiet on the blogs this year. Even Suruj has started to miss her occasional spots of fame; gently ribbing me about not writing anymore lately.
Beginning of this year, I had created a new section on this blog A not-so-flowery, genda-ful life, naively excited about the things I had planned to share under this column. Little did I know then what I was in for, come the following months. Creating an independent platform outside of mainstream media, a space for individuals to say exactly what they wanted to say without any influences or inhabitations suddenly became this overwhelming task where it was about everything else but me. Continue reading
Big Cars and Tiny Women on My Island
Let’s talk about size today, dear reader. More precisely, the size of women.
Working on construction sites in Sydney is a bit like wandering through a global food expo. You’ll find subbies working in packs from all corners of the world. You’ve got your Italian form-workers, Czech crane-operators, Greek steel-fixers, Vietnamese welders, Samoan concreters – you pick. Being a young cadet and usually the only female on sites, Continue reading
Dear Mum, Can I Be Pretty Too?
Recently at the Sydney Airport, I swung by the Clinique counter in Duty Free to pick up my usual lip colour before flight. A lovely lady in a lab coat with the prettiest of pink lipstick serving me, told that my shade was out of stock. But she could suggest some other colours that would suit my skin tone. I hate trying on makeup in stores but she was so insistent that I couldn’t say no. She pulled out some disposable brushes, the sort one would see at hospitals for scoping samples to test for scabies or something Continue reading
A Not-so-Flowery, Genda-ful Startup
“Gender? As in male & female?” “No as in G.E.N.D.A.”
“Oh is it an acronym?” “No. As it’s Hindi for marigold.”
“Sorry the what?” “Marigold…you know the flower..yellow orangish ones…?”
“Yes..ss.” “It’s a Hindi word for marigold – Genda”
“Ohh. So what’s the project about?” “Ummm…it’s not really a project.”
“…but it says The Genda Project??” “yeahh..it’s just a creative name..you know..like the show Continue reading
Be Whoever You Want To Be
Around New Year’s Eve, there are 2 kinds of people. One who excitedly embrace and get swept in the New-Year-New-Me-Yay frenzy and the other who roll their eyes at the resolutions popping on their timelines because Continue reading
Save The Desi Boy Child
“Do you smoke?” asked my Friday night date as I chugged back mouthfuls of Fiji Gold draft. When I got a sceptic smirk to my negative answer, Suruj’s warning about beer on first dates floated through the clouds above. Tsk. Through out the evening the question was asked twice again, smartly, in between conversations, in case I might ‘slip’ and admit to smoking (because how could it be possible that I drink beer and not smoke, right?)
Though this had to be one of the better setups I’ve been to this year. Continue reading
Change is in the Island Breeze
I drive past one Tuesday afternoon and notice heavy machinery rolling onto that vacant lot next to the highway. I don’t think much about it with all this roadworks happening in Nadi. Next evening though I see construction hoardings and safety signs up around the site. Shit. I must have missed out on the industry grapevine about this job. Lucky bastards I think. Continue reading
Perspective
It was either Technical Drawing or Home Economics. I chose Technical Drawing and like most things in high school, I sucked at it. My lines were wobbly, my text never straight and my circles despite the sharp Staedtler compass set never perfect.
When we were past drawing squares and circles, we came to a unit called Perspective Drawings. And for the life of me then, I could never understand why the heck they made us draw the same bloody thing like 3 times. In an isometric view then in a 2-point dimension and then Continue reading
The Right Time To Tie The Knot
The institution of marriage is getting, if not already, archaic. Approaching 2015 and there are hardly any reasons to get married these days. Everything marriages used to provide in the ye olde days is now respectfully and legally available without having to tie the knot. Home equity loans available to single people, designer sperm banks, pre-screened ‘play’-mates…
Okayyy…so perhaps it isn’t so out of fashion here in this palm-swaying island nation of mine but nothing so pristine about weddings here either. Continue reading
Shyamni 