Rekha's Ramblings

  Nothing. I did nothing today. A couple of weeks ago, I took my camera out for a walk and was gone for almost three hours. After I came back home and while I was looking through the pictures, my sister called. She asked me what I’d been up to. Without thinking, I blurted, “I did nothing today. I got nothing done. Now I have so much to do; I’m behind on all the chores.” After we finished talking, I went to the kitchen, the pile of dishes was looking at me. As I started washing, my mind wandered back to the earlier conversation with my sister. Why did I tell her I’d done nothing ? Have chores and household tasks become the only markers of my productivity? Do they get to define who I am? Is that how I now measure my worth? Hmmm, long pause. The answer was yes but that’s because I had been conditioned to think that way. Wandering without purpose, even for pleasure, felt like a waste of time. If photography were my profession, maybe I’d see those hours as productive. But simply...

I don’t know what triggered the Facebook algorithm, but I notice that many of my followers are authors, and for some reason, a lot of you are from the UK , some are from Canada, Nigeria, Sweden, a few from the USA and only one from India. Forget being accomplished, I don’t even consider myself in the writer category; I blog every now and then and I feel extremely honored to be in the company of all of you authors, poets. Anyways, here is the reason for this blogging, ramblings. My daughter recently told me that one famous author who happens to be one of my favorites; was holding a charitable auction for names for characters in his upcoming novel. Pardon my ignorance, but that was the first time I ever heard of such a thing. Hmm.!!! My first reaction, “I would love for my name to be one of his characters even if it means she is convicted of a crime.” (This particular author writes crime thrillers and courtroom dramas). But then he would have to change his plot or storyline to reflect so...

This year, I am celebrating 25 years of being a mom, mommy. I started looking back at the journey, sort of reflecting on how I got here. And some of the things I discovered while looking back were pleasant , some not so.  There were so many expectations of me, as a mother, from me and from others; some I met, some I could not or did not want to. There are some things I would keep the same and some I would change if I could. At the end of the day though, it was a good journey, I love my three children who have had a hand in making me a better, a more informed person if you will than I used to be.  The teachings were mutual; I may have taught them a few things, but I have learnt a great deal from them as well. Anyways, these are my ramblings spread over next 25 days, my own way of a celebrating my milestone. This is not about offering advice, rather about sharing stories, as a mom, as an immigrant first generation mom.  Disclaimer – My husband was very much a part of our ch...

On our recent trip to India, visited Elephanta caves, they are on an island, just a short ferry ride off Mumbai. Several ferries leave for the island daily, all day long at about 5-10 minutes interval. There were ferries in front of us, back of us and the scene everywhere was pretty much the same. Besides the smog, there were plenty of seagulls hovering over these ferries. The hawkers were selling chips/Cheetos and people were in turn feeding them to the seagulls. Their behavior is so altered that we didn't see even one seagull diving for a fish but all of them circling the ferries, travelling the entire distance with them looking for Cheetos, just like the squirrels at Zion national park. We talked to one of the vendors, he said Kya Kare (what to do), he is very aware of what he is doing, how it is not good for the birds, the environment; however selling Cheetos is the only thing which puts food on his table, he has no other means of making money, he has no education. It was heart...

Reflections: I love reflections and reflecting. Reflections because they are just beautiful and reflecting because it allows me to be a better person, to better understand others, other situations and prepare myself for the things that I cannot change, change the things that I can change. I have come to do this a lot lately and I think have come a long way from where I was a few years ago. I always saw things as they were, as they appeared and said what came to my mind, I only knew black or white; there was no room for gray. But a few years have been added to my age, more experiences, some good, some not so good and have learnt to find gray areas, not everything can be black or white. I don’t blurt things out as I used to; have learnt to add a pause , think about what I am going to say . In most cases, I still revert to my old self but in some cases, I end up not hurting their feelings, I guess you could call it a victory. So, every time I see a reflection of something, I pause and...