(Written for In Plainspeak‘s November issue – read the original here) The first time I heard the phrase ‘Butterfly Effect’ was in Jurassic Park, when mathematician Ian Malcolm uses it to explain Chaos Theory: ‘A butterfly flaps its wings in Peking, and in Central Park you get rain instead of sunshine’. Can such seemingly disconnected events…
Food and diet philosophies
I’m standing at a Safal store, staring at their limited stock of fruits with utter dismay. I have apples at home. I also have bananas and pears. And papayas. I need another type of fruit, but they only have pomegranates, which I just had, and they have honeydews, which I’m not sure I should have…
Crimson Skies, Held Up by No Women
I swear I promised to not watch Chekka Chivantha Vaanam expecting anything because I’d been so disappointed by Kaatru Veliyidai. I resolved that I would not dissect the movie’s female characters. I’d heard good things about it, I’d stayed away from reviews, heck, I hadn’t even listened to the songs – I was expecting only to…
Sowkiyama?
A theme I come back to over and over in songs that I like is how easily they flit from one emotion to another. If you go back years on my social media feeds, you will see me praising one song or the other for this feature. Ruth aa gayi re. Rasathi unna kanaadha nenju….
Alaipayuthey and the politics of flirting and marriage
It’s the year 2000. The first quarter. Trailers for Alaipayuthey are out, and so is the music. I’m 13, and my brain and body suddenly burst onto the stage where romance, relationships, attraction and pleasure are at play. Rahman’s tunes, brought to life by the stunningly handsome Madhavan, send me into a tizzy. The family…
Celebrations!
It’s been a quiet month here, but that’s because I was busy with publishing the 100th issue of my monthly online literary magazine, Spark! Read it at www.sparkthemagazine.com. Spark was founded by my sister, Anupama, and me in 2009, when we were both lazing around while on a break, at my parents’ home. That winter…
Sustainable Menstruation with the Menstrual Cup
I was in the office loo, panicking. I could feel the seconds ticking by, and I knew that many minutes had passed since I got in. I wondered what my colleagues were thinking about my long absence. But I was most worried about how to pull out the menstrual cup that was stuck inside me….
My Own Little Singlish Dictionary
So long ago, in 2006, when I was a naive college-goer new to Singapore, I came up with this post on Singlish, the Singaporean form of English. This was written in only my second year in the country (I went on to live there for seven), and in the years to come, I would have…
Whose House is it Anyway?
I woke up with a start to some extremely loud (not to forget really annoying) Tamil religious movie song. Heart beating wildly, I opened my eyes and wondered what had hit me this afternoon. I looked around, trying to find my bearings, and realized I was home. Well, technically, my parents’ home. But still, home….
Iran – 2016
My 2016 vacation to Iran will, for sure, be one of the top three destinations I will have travelled to in my life. There are many things fascinating about the country which often don’t make it to popular media (and hence into our list of dream destinations!) The country has so much to offer, and having…