Better said than done!

Author : Susan Deborah      Blog : Meanderings and Reflections      Date : 5/16/2013 12:48:00 PM

'The really important kind of freedom involves attention, and awareness, and discipline, and effort, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them, over and over, in myriad petty little unsexy ways, every day.- David Foster Wallace -I have the habit of putting up a quote as my Facebook status and today's quote was the above one. It prompted a zillion thoughts in my wee head. Wallace, indeed sums it up pretty well, "The really important kind of freedom invo(...)'

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That suffering is a virtue . . .

Author : Susan Deborah      Blog : Meanderings and Reflections      Date : 5/15/2013 12:50:00 PM

'For a while now, I'm trying to trace patterns that exist in many aspects of the society we live in. One of them is the exaltation of supreme sacrifice and suffering. From the local vegetable vendor to the grand soaps on the telly seem to sending messages that often praise suffering and the need for it in an individual's life. Come to talk of it, I've sensed certain relatives' face falling (albeit not visibly but me being me can pick these unconscious emotions that involuntarily get (...)'

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With or Without?

Author : Susan Deborah      Blog : Meanderings and Reflections      Date : 5/2/2013 1:36:00 PM

'When you happen to go to God's own country, you would hear people placing an order for tea/coffee add a word to the waiter - 'Without.' To someone unfamiliar, the 'without' might sound strange but those who have been living there for a while or have relatives there know that the word, 'without' stands for 'without sugar' and extending the without to a metaphorical level - devoid of the sweetness that has left their lives some time ago. It is a well known fact that Kerala has often b(...)'

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Quirky family members and squirming expressions

Author : Susan Deborah      Blog : Meanderings and Reflections      Date : 5/2/2013 11:49:00 AM

'When one is a teen, everything done by parents and extended family seem unacceptable and often one tries as  best as possible to keep them away. As one grows older, we turn more acceptable towards our folks but the squirming still remains and my guess is that by the time we're very old and of course a bit wise to recognise our own quirks that we start leaving our people alone.Well, I'm at a stage where I see those quirks and do squirm occasionally. Take for instance that uncle (...)'

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Wondering on a Sunday evening

Author : Susan Deborah      Blog : Meanderings and Reflections      Date : 4/28/2013 1:17:00 PM

'It happens all of a sudden. I am listening to La Vie En Roseand my mind wanders off on a tangent of what ifs . . .What if I wasn't born?Or What if I didn't start a blog?OrWhat if I didn't name my blog Meanderings and Reflections?OrWhat if I never ever had anyone reading my blog?OrWhat if one fine day I couldn't write?OrWhat if I never heard Edith Piaf singing soulfully?OrWhat if I was someone who didn't have an ear for music?OrWhat i(...)'

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When the statistics speak . . . You ought to listen!

Author : Susan Deborah      Blog : Meanderings and Reflections      Date : 4/19/2013 6:47:00 AM

'I like to check out the statistics of my blog. Well, who doesn't. I enjoy seeing the countries from where people read my blog and imagine how they would respond reading something that I had liked to write. Well, off late I have been observing at the posts that get the maximum hits overall and the top three posts were:1. Forgiving and Forgetting . . . I could add a clause there2. Working hard to reverse stereotypes3. Good stereotypes and Bad stereotypesNow, I assume that if people la(...)'

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Power corrupts and even the love of God cannot save you

Author : Susan Deborah      Blog : Meanderings and Reflections      Date : 4/18/2013 10:00:00 AM

'A ring is lost, (no no, Not the The Lord of the Rings). You are careless enough to misplace it and forget all about it until one fine morning you discover your rings to be lost.Reaction: You panic and try searching every where. After all gold is a precious metal and you cannot afford losing it. You think of all the years that you had toiled or maybe your parents/husband has toiled to get that wee ornament. Sentiment and panic create havoc in your senses. What do you do?Suspect:(...)'

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Do you remember your WORDS?

Author : Susan Deborah      Blog : Meanderings and Reflections      Date : 4/5/2013 6:59:00 AM

'Burying myself in the watery landscape of Amitav Ghosh's The Hungry Tide, I lift my head to wonder when Piya asks a question, "How words are lost?" The line, for a moment, tore me away from the tides and made me ask myself, "How do we remember words and how do they inhabit us?" The question has been rising up and down in the undulating terrains of my mindscape much like the tides in Gosh's novel. I wonder when the word, 'scintillating' find root in me or when did I caress the word, (...)'

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Water, Women and Mothers

Author : Susan Deborah      Blog : Meanderings and Reflections      Date : 4/2/2013 11:45:00 AM

'On the day of Holi and the day after that, the taps in our house were dry. We didn't have any water stored as well. I hit the panic button when the routine gets disrupted and especially if the routine has to be carried on sans water, things get a bit out of hand. And to top it all, we had guests. At first I had assumed that the problem would be solved within  half a day or so but to my dismay, it hadn't. The first reaction to the crisis was that someone had left a tap half-clos(...)'

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When reality cracks memories . . .

Author : Susan Deborah      Blog : Meanderings and Reflections      Date : 3/21/2013 8:20:00 AM

'A memory is best when it remains a memory. If one tries to imagine a place and the way it looked like in the memory and hence revisit, then one is in for a rude jolt. Bombay is one such memory for me. My formative years were spent there and after we left, we never visited the place again. Every time when Mumbai is mentioned in the news, my ears perk up and my mind is alerted. It's an involuntary response. To relive those memories and travel back in time, I picked up Suketu Mehta's M(...)'

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Up, up and away . . .

Author : Susan Deborah      Blog : Meanderings and Reflections      Date : 3/19/2013 4:52:00 AM

'It's not an exaggeration if I proclaim myself as an Airport's child. I was born in an Airport colony with the sound of aeroplanes taking off and landing and my amma pointing out to the skies and feeding me mashed rice and potatoes. I was never a fussy eater says amma and obviously when one is shown the skies for small electronic birds, one would be awed beyond one's senses and something as trivial as food would become an enjoyable exercise. I grew up in another Airport colony lookin(...)'

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Pray, tell me the antonym of housewife/homemaker

Author : Susan Deborah      Blog : Meanderings and Reflections      Date : 3/14/2013 6:10:00 PM

'In vain, I have been trying to come up with a logical antonym for housewife/homemaker. While many find the the term housewife derogatory, the term homemaker is no less. Both terms mean the same anyway albeit the term homemaker can refer to a stay-at-home husband as well. Well, now to the post's main concern. What is the suitable antonym for housewife/homemaker?While one can easily say that the opposite of housewife is working woman, I don't find that convincing. Well, let's try to m(...)'

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Relaxation has a new definition

Author : Susan Deborah      Blog : Meanderings and Reflections      Date : 3/10/2013 2:04:00 PM

'Writing academic essays can be quite taxing and often one needs a break which is short, does not involve getting up from one's seat and also quite colourful. Since most of my papers are written during the night, after 10 pm or so, I don't see much when I look outside the window from my sitting position. Facebook was one such break for me but sometimes the overpowering pictures and messages that are done-to-death tire me. Now I have found another unique way of giving myself power-bre(...)'

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An un-woman post on Women's Day

Author : Susan Deborah      Blog : Meanderings and Reflections      Date : 3/8/2013 4:50:00 AM

'My domestic just left. I was wondering whether to ask her to leave without doing any work as today was International Women's Day and she deserves her worth of salt. But if I ask her to leave, I will have to do all the work and I was not ready for that. And, yesterday the domestic didn't turn up piling a lot of work. Truth to be told, I don't much like doing household chores. I do them if there is no choice and I sometimes surprise myself by doing lot of work. But today I was simply (...)'

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6-Word Memoir

Author : Susan Deborah      Blog : Meanderings and Reflections      Date : 3/4/2013 7:06:00 PM

'I am glad to be participating in a blog hop, 6-Word Memoir, initiated by Blogplicity, one of my favourite blogging groups on Facebook. In this tag, one writes one's memoir in 6 words. Can you imagine just 6 words!This tag was passed to me by Martha J. M. Orlando, whose blog Meditations of my Heart has always enabled me to reflect and ponder about many things in my everyday life. You can find her 6-word Memoir here in her alternate blog titled Moments and Musings.My 6-word Memoi(...)'

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Show me your friend . . . err . . . Facebook wall and I will tell you who you are!

Author : Susan Deborah      Blog : Meanderings and Reflections      Date : 3/4/2013 9:39:00 AM

'The generation of my parents always insisted on bringing our friends home for they thought that by seeing our friends, they can gauge their son's or daughter's character/personality traits. Well, the old adage still holds good for by seeing the friends, one can definitely try to assess an individual but going a step ahead, it would be relevant if the adage would slightly be rephrased as, 'Show me your Facebook wall and I will tell you who you are!"Now, for the personality traits goi(...)'

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Relishing kalla katta ice-gola dripping with tangy memories

Author : Susan Deborah      Blog : Meanderings and Reflections      Date : 2/28/2013 4:39:00 PM

'Today for the second time in February I had kalla katta ice-gola. I don't know how to translate the name 'kalla katta ice-gola' but roughly ice-gola refers to crushed ice and kalla katta is the flavour into which the crushed ice is dipped. The word 'kalla' in Hindi is the colour black and 'katta' refers to the sour taste. Now, to the post.Kalla katta is an integral part of my formative years. A man selling ice-golas would be stationed outside our colony and every time I came home fr(...)'

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Baring it all

Author : Susan Deborah      Blog : Meanderings and Reflections      Date : 2/10/2013 1:58:00 PM

'Yesterday I sat up and read five parts of intimate chronicles of a blogger whose blog I follow intermittently. As she bared her soul and life, I was pulled into the vortex of her life. She is a brilliant writer and I couldn't but help feel immense pain reading what she had written. For a long time, the contents of her posts continued to colour my thinking and I wept quite freely for her, for the world, for pain, for everything that seemed unfair. You know how it is when you sta(...)'

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The uncommon truth about common sense!

Author : Susan Deborah      Blog : Meanderings and Reflections      Date : 2/6/2013 5:04:00 PM

'While one may complain about common sense being uncommon (For the ignorant, this is a saying by Voltaire!) Well, everyone I have known or presently know has uttered something about common sense in atleast one of their conversations with me. Needless to say, I commonly use the term ‘common sense’ in my daily interaction with my spouse (mainly). Casually glancing through the entry ‘common sense’ in Key Concepts in Social and Cultural Anthropology by Nigel Rapportand Joanna Overing, I (...)'

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Hurry. Grab. Avail. Discount.

Author : Susan Deborah      Blog : Meanderings and Reflections      Date : 2/2/2013 6:14:00 AM

'The lingo of advertising has always fascinated me. Even trash can be marketed so very well by using magic words that enchant and attract the customer. More than the usual ads, the discount and sale time ads always thrill me. I receive a couple of newsletters from online shops and almost every time the words 'discount, grab, avail and hurry' are used quite often and unsparingly. No matter how many times one sees those words, they never fail to make you stop for one second and make yo(...)'

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