theflaneurdiaries.com

Tag: dailyprompt

  • A Letter of Forgiveness from a Froglet to a Human Child

    Image credit: Pinterest

    Daily writing prompt
    What’s something you’ve forgiven but haven’t forgotten?
    View all responses

    I know you love me; that’s why I forgive you despite the grave sins of your species.

    To the little boy who always looks for me, particularly when the heavens open up and shed copious tears, I want to tell you how fond I am of you. Because I know how fond you are of me!

    I know how deeply you admire me, how much mirth I bring you, how you squeal in delight, and how you beckon your mama to come over and take a look at me whenever you spot me outside your window. And I haven’t forgotten how you once made me a paper boat to ride on, even though the puddle is to me what the meadow is to you.

    Let me tell you something you don’t know – I did jump on top of that boat, even if briefly, once you stepped inside your home. I knew the labour and affection your little, soft beautiful hands had put into fashioning that little piece of art. How could I ignore it?

    First, a Complaint

    Do you know what we frogs think of your ilk, though?

    Well, I am constantly aware you are a child of the people who construct hideous buildings, taking over our homes and breeding grounds – ponds, marshes, swamps, wetlands – preventing so many of us from being born.

    You are a progeny of the species that continually decimates forests and clears grass, shrubs, and other vegetation, replacing them with hard, dry, ugly concrete. You eat well and live well; but you neither let us poor beings eat nor find shelter.

    When humans aren’t covering up the water bodies we call home, they are busy choking our ponds and pools with sewage, effluents, and indescribable filth. Indeed, the degradation of those water bodies embodies the rot of your civilization, or whatever it is you call your way of life.

    The walls your species builds (and I know you are bloody well good at building those) break up our interconnected habitats. They restrict our ability to move between feeding and breeding grounds and find mates. So, while you have these shady apps which allow you to ‘hook up’ with new partners, habitat fragmentation forces us frogs to retreat into small, isolated pockets where mating with close relatives becomes unavoidable. Yes, it shames us as well.

    And the ones among us that do survive the genocide are often run over by speeding vehicles driven by nuts behind the wheel. Or worse still, eaten up by low-IQ gluttons who know not how precious we are to the ecosystem.

    Alas, we always helped you. We ate up the pests that troubled you, reducing the spread of malaria and dengue fever. But suffering is all we ever got at your hands.

    We may not be creatures of great majesty or magnificence like your beloved tiger, but aren’t we creatures of God that also deserve a place on this planet?

    You’ve pushed us to the brink of extinction, my friend.

    On Forgiving but Not Forgetting…

    I know, I know whose child you are and what you may become yourself when you grow up but I can’t help forgiving you. Because as I said, I know you love me. Even if only a little. Who knows, when you become a father yourself, your child may be deprived of the delight of spotting one of us, except in books or on television. So, look at me, look at me, all you want, for perhaps, in the future, you shan’t.

    We may not be creatures of great majesty or magnificence like your beloved tiger, but aren’t we creatures of God that also deserve a place on this planet?

    That difficult-to-decipher deadpan look on my face is not accidental, little one. It is a pensive look, that of a frog philosopher. And I wear that look because your affection makes me sigh and smile in equal measure.

    It’s the look that says I forgive you, but I won’t forget who you are and where you come from.


  • Retail, Myth, Animal Trivia, Evolution, and a Convict: My Potpourri of Useless Facts

    I am also telling you why I like to share these useless facts and with whom.

    Two puppies beside books, dress shoes, a cricket ball, and a potted succulent
    A potpourri of the useless

    Oh, there are several of those. Just as 80% of people in the world (no, that’s not a statistic I am citing, I just made that up based on assumption) love junk food even though it’s completely useless, there’s something deliciously flighty and frivolous about sharing random facts that mean nothing to anyone.

    Here’s my list of five favourite facts.

    1) Bata is not an Indian brand. It’s a Czech brand headquartered in Switzerland.

    I like to share this with people who purportedly love Swadeshi and never strayed from a Bata showroom anytime they, or their family, needed footwear. And yet can’t help the fleeting twinkle in their eyes and pleased chuckle on their lips on learning of its exotic foreign origins.

    2) Majnun of Laila-Manjun fame is not actually Majnun. His real name was Qays.

    I like to reveal this to unsuspecting romantic fools who’ve been forever enamoured of this tragic tale of star-crossed lovers, but never knew the hero’s real name. The additional piece of knowledge I like to flex on them is that Qays became known as Majnun after he obsessively fell in love with Laila; Majnun in Arabic is a passive participle meaning one possessed by jinns or a madman. What delight to see that slight bewilderment my Arabic language trivia elicits from them!

    3) Puppies of the same litter can have multiple fathers. Elephants remain pregnant for up to 22 months.

    Fun gets funnier with these fun animal facts. Mama dogs are capable of superfecundation which means they can mate with different daddy dogs, and different sperm from each can fertilise different eggs, leading to the birth of half-siblings at the same time. Elephants are so grand and so are their pregnancies. Twenty-two months! (And some human ladies thought nine months were too long). I like to show this bit of trivia off to random people just to watch their jaws drop. As though only human mamas had superpowers. Next time, read a ‘hmph!’ into that ‘woof’ and a ‘tch tch!’ into that trumpet.

    4) Humans are still evolving. One indication is that they can now digest lactose past infancy.

    No, that’s not a new trait. It’s been around for thousands of years but wasn’t a common trait among prehistoric humans. This one, again, I like to fling at people who’ll secretly marvel at my scientific knowledge (I read it a few years ago in a newspaper purely by chance) even though they’ll still wear a deadpan, blink-blink Piers Morgan look that says…nothing?

    5) Manu Sharma, the epitome of India’s ‘Epstein Class’ and convicted murderer of Jessica Lal, has changed his identity. He is now associated with the company behind Indri, the award-winning single-malt whisky brand. From ignominy to incognito; only the rich could pull it off!

    My teenage son broke this nugget of gossip… ahem! I mean, fact. I didn’t believe him at first. But then I fact-checked and verified it, and since then, I’ve been looking for incredulous people to feed this news of Bollywood-style personality reinvention to. This is a relatively new useless fact on the list. So, I am still deciding what kind of people I can share it with.

    Many thanks to my beloved WordPress audience for reading my complete list of completely useless facts. 🙂

  • A Museum, a Restaurant, a Synagogue, Home-made Dumplings, a Live Performance, and… us

    Share a few recent shots from your camera roll, no context needed.

    Random vignettes from my life in Kochi…

    A rare idol of a sleeping Lord Shiva at the Kochi Folklore Museum, a private collection. (You would almost think the inadvertently placed cup of tea was meant for Him :))
    Kathakali costume
    Finally a Mother Goddess who looks like a real woman, not divine perfection 🙂
    Whole grilled fish at a restaurant
    Whole crab on a bed of vegetables & spaghetti
    Gnocchi
    Knowledge can be found in the unlikeliest of places. Here, Goddess Saraswati, the goddess of learning, at a cafe. 
    My first-ever visit to a Jewish Synagogue
    The Paradesi Synagogue in Kochi’s Jew Town is the oldest, active synagogue in India and the British Commonwealth.
    Home-made rice paper prawn dumplings
    A Kathakali performer on stage

    Us at the synagogue…

  • There are Three Kinds of Valuable Objects for Me…

    Sentimental value can be inherent, acquired, or thrust upon an object.

    Image Credit: Image via Pinterest

    William Shakespeare, the mysterious “Bard of Avon”, said that some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them.

    Things of sentimental value I own (although ownership is not exactly the relationship I have with some of these objects) can be cleanly organised into the above three categories. So, there are things that truly have sentimental value, things that have achieved sentimental value, and things upon which sentimental value has been thrust.

    Let me begin with the first I own (such a significant verb, own, in a world where what one possesses—or doesn’t—often defines one’s worth) and go on to the others.

    Real Sentimental Value

    The real things of sentimental value for me are the usual suspects.

    These things are special because they either belonged to loved ones who passed away a long time ago, because they are associated with my childhood, or simply because they are old and serve as witnesses to history for me.

    • My sister’s fuchsia pink diary of poems. She died by suicide at age 23, nearly 23 years ago.
    • My father’s Montblanc pens, his beautiful red Kantha-embroidered top sheet. He passed away of a brain hemorrhage three months after my sister’s suicide.
    • My grandfather’s towel, a blue, aquatic life-themed towel. He passed away peacefully at age 95 in 2015.
    • A yellow cotton dress whose fabric was given to me by a very good friend. She died in a freak accident a day after Christmas in 2020.
    • My mother’s wedding sari, a crimson Benarasi adorned with gold buti motifs.
    • My doll, dating back to 1992, and teddy bears and a small collection of other soft toys collected over the years.

    Acquired Sentimental Value

    These are intangible things I don’t claim physical ownership of. These are songs, movies and books I don’t always think of but nevertheless value greatly. They’ve created a home in my head and are special primarily because of their nostalgic value.

    • Songs coloured with the zeitgeist of childhood (songs and films from the year 1992 are most special because my memories are vivid from that point in time).
    • Movies drenched with memories of times that will never return. Some of the kitschy Hindi ones are particularly close to my heart.
    • Books by Enid Blyton such as The Naughtiest Girl series, The Wishing-Chair series, and Thirteen O’Clock and Other Stories among others, are instantly reminiscent of those days when one didn’t have a care in the world. The Sidney Sheldon novels, likewise, can take me back to my early teens in the blink of an eye.

    Bestowed Sentimental Value

    These are objects I have purchased; they don’t have sentimental value in their own right. But because they evoke memories of my childhood, I have accorded them their sentimental value.

    • Reprinted versions of Tinkle and Amar Chitra Katha comics that I read in my childhood.
    • Vintage, second-hand Chandamama magazines that a very intellectual and witty seller of vintage books from Mysore helps me procure.

    I think I need to work on my attachment to physical objects. There’s no doubt I am deeply, profoundly fond of all sorts of things because of their associations with people or times I cherish.

    For now, though, I am content holding on to them and protecting them with my life.


  • These Little Films on the Margins Dared to be Different…

    Not the best I’ve watched, but these Turkish, English and Hindi films are underrated and deserve a little more credit.

    Image credit: Via Pinterest

    I have watched a lot of movies in my life, some so good, I could go around recommending them to rank strangers like a pushy salesman. And others, so awful, I could kill the producer for spending on that trash instead of on charity.

    But since the question pertains to the most ‘underrated movie’, I assume this means a movie that’s not as popular or celebrated or well-known as it deserves to be. It means a good film that deserves a larger share of the appreciation pie.

    My list, in that case, is quite long. But because no one wants to read long posts these days, I’ll stick to just three films that I think are not as valued as they ought to be.

    Dabbe: Curse of the Jinn (2013): If you are horror movie buff like me, don’t miss this Turkish mockumentary about jinns and a curse (duh!) and witchcraft and spells and ancient codes and family secrets. While even the most feted horror films (The Exorcist, The Conjuring Universe, or Evil Dead) rely on certain tropes such as a haunted house, an evil spirit preying on the vulnerable, or a priest trying to drive away a demonic entity, Dabbe: Curse of the Jinn is exceptional by virtue of its unique storyline and unexpected twists and turns.

    Spooks aside, it is also a profound story of human avarice, desire for vengeance, and inherited karmic debt carried forward by the next generation.

    Verdict: Terrifyingly Terrific!

    The Working Girls (1974): This was an Exploitation film – a genre of grindhouse-type, low-budget movies that focused on nudity, gratuitous sex, violence, gore, and sensational marketing to draw audiences – and the film’s trailer and poster, featuring bikini-clad girls and the tagline, ‘They’ll do Anything for Money!’, make no bones about it.

    But beneath the sleaze and salacity, I found a surprisingly sensitive portrayal of life in the Recession-affected United States in the early 1970s.

    Tossed with themes of unemployment, misogyny, women’s agency, unkind landlords, and unreliable boyfriends, it’s a pretty fine celluloid salad dressed, sadly, in the sauce of titillation. Check out my full-length review of the film here.

    Verdict: Sleaze with a Spin!

    Karz Chukana Hai (1991): I adore the Govinda-Kader Khan movies from the late eighties because they are so bad, they’re good. Karz Chukana Hai is cut from the same cloth – a family drama, a ‘heroine’ who is won over, melodramatic dialogues, black and white characters, sudden out-of-the-blue disco songs, and a denouement marked by lots of ‘dhishum-dhishum’ fist blows, the police’s arrival, a preachy monologue, and the snatch of a song signifying a ‘happy ending’.

    But this one stands out because despite its kitschy character, its story revolves around a toxic, exploitative father who doesn’t care two hoots about his hardworking son or his young family.

    The father’s crass, unabashed selfishness stands in stark contrast to the son’s unquestioning subservience.

    Verdict: It’s Different!

    No, these are NOT the best films I have watched. But I do think each of these films deserves a little pat on its back because it did something different.

    Dabbe: Curse of the Jinn chose not to be another run-of-the-mill haunted-house drama, full of the usual roaring and boring theatrics.

    The Working Girls shed its Exploitation film shell, focussing on problems faced by real working-class young women of the time.

    And finally, Karz Chukana Hai, for all its kitschiness, broached the subject of toxic parents at a time when it was taboo to speak about one’s parents in anything but glowing terms.

    Given the chance, which of these would you watch first?

  • It’s Easier to Give You a Clichéd Answer But I Won’t…

    I’ll choose canine privilege and have my day as a dog—for a whole week!

    Photo credit: Alison Friend via Pinterest

    If I could switch lives with a famous person for a week, who would it be and why?

    Well, I’d be tempted to choose President Donald J. Trump. I could stop the forever wars, abandon the Machiavellian ploys to destabilise countries like Iran and Cuba, broker real (not rhetorical) peace between Ukraine and Russia, and somehow weaken the military-industrial complex and Israel lobby to such an extent that they are never again able to dictate US foreign policy. I would also expand Medicaid coverage and begin an employment programme modeled on President FDR’s New Deal (1933-39).

    I am also inclined to say it’ll be Prime Minister Modi. I would stop the crackdown on student protests, ask the Chief Election Commissioner to resign, and clean up the electoral machinery. I’d also stop kowtowing to the US, and spend government funds on building infrastructure.

    But what will come of all this? A week of good times, and then it’s back to square one, where the rot reigns. Besides, one week is woefully inadequate a time period to achieve many of the things I mentioned above.

    Then Who Would I Choose to Be and Why?

    I’ll choose to be a wealthy old dowager’s pampered Chihuahua pet. Yes! I don’t care who the owner is as long as she is the kind of person whose home is featured in glossy lifestyle magazines. The sort that eats Russian caviar and French truffles and washes it all down with Dom Pérignon champagne. The type that maintains summer mansions on the French Riviera. The kind that buys diamonds like ordinary people buy fruit. The kind that cares not a fig about how many children are dead and dying in conflict zones across Asia and Africa.

    Having such a person as my pet parent for a week will mean all play and no work!

    I would enjoy organic meats and vegetables, sleep on a real fleece bed, have a human attendant take me on walks through a pretty garden, and go for beauty treatments at fancy canine spas. I’d also accompany my human mom or dad to parties and use my extra-sharp aural abilities to hear the ultra-wealthy burp and fart, having a little snicker to myself.

    It’ll be a week of unadulterated delight living a life I might never be able to live as a human being.

    Besides, what if I were assassinated while occupying Mr. Modi or Mr. Trump’s roles while trying to do something right? As a dog, though, I’d have my cake and eat it too.

  • Don’t Buckle Under Peer Pressure!

    Acting how others want you to act is hopelessly tiring.

    Image Credit: Jamillan Jambi on Pinterest

    When I was in class 9 and a few months short of turning 14, I was admitted into a ‘cool’ girls’ gang. I started doing all kinds of things to get into their good books. Books, I daresay, specialising in shallowness.

    I’d hide the fact that I sometimes listened to Hindi music; I had my school skirt shortened; I’d ask my mother for money to buy food from the canteen instead of eating the ’embarrassing’, wilting homemade food; feel ashamed when our white Ambassador car dropped me right in front of the school gate (I was enamoured of the Opel Astra and Cielo, pretty cars of the 1990s); lied about living in our own home (we used to stay at government-owned quarters at the time because my father was a central government official); watched MTV Grind just so I could boast I did (even though I found it yawningly dull); and would pretend that I never went home and opened my books (when I mostly did!)

    I was a geek on the inside striving to be a bimbette on the outside.

    Thankfully, I grew out of that dreadful phase I now equate with an artificial smile on a circus clown. Now, I don’t care a fig for what the ‘cool’ folks will think of me. I sometimes wear an ethnic outfit with sports shoes for comfort and leave my tenacious grey strands undyed for months on end. I have also eaten out alone at restaurants with a book for company.

    Me being me may not impress others, but it sure does comfort me a good deal.

  • Italy & La-La Land!

    Both Italy and La-La Land are scrambling for the top position.

    Watercolor alpine village with farms, market, cyclists, stream, and snowy mountains
    Italy is wonderful but there’s no land quite like La-La Land. (Image generated via AI)

    If you put a gun to my head and sought an answer I could give you without thinking for a second, I’d unhesitatingly tell you it’s Italy. 

    Italy. Yes, I mean, what’s not to like? I love art – particularly Renaissance art – and Florence was the cradle of Renaissance art. I could spend days exploring the museums housing those gorgeous paintings and jaw-dropping sculptures, reading about them, and learning art-related terminology which I could later bandy about in conversations with friends. 

    I am fascinated with history and Italy is a treasure trove of historical gems. The Colosseum in Rome, the ruins of Pompeii, the medieval architecture of Tuscany, the magnificent cathedrals and palaces that dot Palermo, Rome, Florence, Turin, Venice, and Pisa, and so much more. 

    I am enamoured of food and Italy is a veritable gastronomic Disneyland. Spaghetti, cannelloni, lasagne, gnocchi, risotto, tiramisu, and what have you – even thinking makes my foodie’s heart go ‘Boom! Boom! Boom!’ 

    And then there’s so much else I could do in Italy – take a ride in a gondola in Venice, ponder by Lake Como, hike in the Dolomites, sip coffee and read at a cafe on the Amalfi Coast, lounge on the beaches of Sicily and Sardinia, and run along the alpine meadows of South Tyrol. 

    Sigh. If every place were a drink, Italy would be sparkling water – pure, fresh, inimitable and irresistible. 

    But hold on! Also on top of my bucket list is a place named La-La Land. Don’t bother looking for it on the newly endorsed world map which shows Africa’s true size. What sets it apart is the following: 

    ➔ Politicians are honest; they serve the people, not foreign interests. 

    ➔ The government spends on essential services – building roads, flyovers, airports, running water facilities, bridges, world-class schools and state-of-the-art hospitals – not on populist freebies that benefit no-one. 

    ➔ The government does not displace tribes and forest dwellers for ‘development’ purposes. It hires experts to frame policies that strike a balance between infrastructure development and preservation of the rights of indigenous communities. 

    ➔ The government taxes the rich according to their wealth, and refuses to toe their line.

    ➔ The military-industrial complex does not exist.

    ➔ Little boys and girls are sensitised starting early in schools. In addition to modern education, girls are taught neither to view themselves as ‘objects’ nor to see boys as tools of social mobility; and boys are trained not to perceive women as objects that need controlling. 

    ➔ The government follows an independent foreign policy; it doesn’t fold in an obsequious bow before bigger powers, and doesn’t engage in sabre-rattling with weaker, littler neighbours. 

    ➔ There is no state discrimination on the basis of religion, caste, creed, or gender. Discrimination at an individual level is seriously penalised. 

    ➔ People below the poverty line receive both state aid and vocational training suited to each person’s skills and interests. The former stops when individuals gain meaningful employment and earn a sufficient, sustainable income. 

    ➔ There is no separate institution of uniformed personnel known as the ‘police’ that is feared and dreaded by people. 

    ➔ Safety is enforced and suspicious activity monitored through a vast network of voluntary civilian policemen and women. Policing is incentivised. Responsibility becomes a matter of pride and good work is widely celebrated. 

    ➔ Politicians are accountable; they must hold press conferences and smaller meetings with ordinary people. 

    ➔ The media is allowed to function freely and can excoriate the government when it feels the government is in the wrong. 

    ➔ The judiciary is a completely independent pillar of the state; there is a minimal state role in judicial appointments. 

    ➔ Middlemen do not exist; farmers earn adequate incomes for their produce and are able to directly tap into the consumer market to sell their goods. 

    ➔ Fresh, clean food is regarded as a basic human right. Packaged and ultra-processed food products are heavily taxed and clearly labelled. 

    ➔ There is no penal prison system that ‘punishes’ wrongdoers; only correction centres where inmates undergo rigorous counselling that is aimed at uncovering the root cause of their criminal behaviour.

    ➔ ‘Lobbies’ and ‘mafias’ – telecom lobbies, real estate lobbies, coal mafias, pharmaceutical lobbies, packaged food lobbies – are kept at bay. The government does not collude with them. 

    You are welcome to pounce on me and begin calling out what you may think are inherent flaws in the way La-La Land is run. Write your heart out in the comments below!

    I’ll let the authorities know as soon as I get there. 😉

  • The Weirdest Movie I Watched was a Plotless, Lifeless ‘Romance’

    Can you eat a bowl full of ‘nothing’? Can you watch a two-hour film that was ‘nothing’? Well, I incidentally did.

    Vintage collage of a checkered bowl, filmstrip, castle, fabrics, and colorful shoes
    Image generated via AI.

    The weirdest movie I ever watched was ‘Albela‘ (2001), which I watched about a decade ago. I chose to watch it only because its trailers were a regular feature on TV for months in 2000-2001, years I deeply associate with adolescence, those beautiful years filled with hope and energy.

    ‘Albela‘ starred the once-stunning, now pompous-fat-cat-with-lipstick-lookalike Aishwarya Rai, and Govinda, an 1980s-90s actor who was very good at dancing, grinning ear to ear, and…well, nothing else. I can’t remember the sequence of events one bit. But I do recall one melodious song in which Govinda and Aishwarya Rai sing and dance in pretty European locations, much to the amusement of onlookers. I also recall it looked dated and may have been shot in 1997 or 1998 even though it released only in 2001.

    So what made Albela weirder, you might ask, than other stereotypical Bollywood fluff-and-froth, topsy-turvy fare?

    Well, what I distinctly remember about Albela is that in its more than two hours of runtime, I kept waiting for some semblance of a plot to unfold but it never did!

    It featured songs and characters who delivered dialogues and entered and exited the screen, but it had no story until its final pitiful minute. Even the worst films I have watched have a story of some kind - a hotchpotch of a tale even - but Albela which means unique, was indeed unique by virtue of having no story at all.

  • My Morning Routine is a Blend of the Political and Personal

    Sounds strange, but it’s true.

    Lone figure facing a towering futuristic city at sunset
    Image credit: Generated using AI

    The last few months have seen me adopt a peculiar new routine. 

    But first, the usuals. 

    I wake up, stretch, cast a loving glance at my 17-month-old baby daughter and sleepily saunter over to the living room to fetch my copper water bottle, overnight-soaked walnuts and almonds, and two baby bananas. Then I sit down to express breast milk – an activity I have religiously engaged in since I gave birth 17 months ago – even though my milk supply is now nearly down to a trickle. Then – and this is something I could not have imagined myself doing even 10 months ago – I whip out my phone and check the Persian Gulf war updates. 

    Yes, you heard that right. I only thought social media addicts and philistines began scrolling their phones first thing in the morning after waking up, but here I am doing just that. The content may not be the usual fluff and froth so many love so deeply, but the act of turning to your phone right after you wake up smacks just as much of un-intellectualism.

    Now, this is partly because I have a husband who lives and works in the Middle-East and like millions of others, our very ordinary lives too have been swept over by the ongoing, unfolding cloak-and-dagger operations and gratuitous violence that have held the region in a stranglehold since 28th February 2026. But my seemingly unending interest in politics also plays a part.

    Having been a fan of ‘good triumphs over evil’ stories my whole life, viewing the conflict in what some might call facile terms curiously affords me a modicum of thrill and respite.

    It’s the classic Goliath (read: the US-Israel Empire and its satraps in the Gulf) versus David (read: Iran and its allies in the ‘Axis of Resistance’) story for me, building itself brick by brick and reaching a scintillating crescendo with each passing day.

    And then imagine this: an ordinary woman in India sporting bedhead and a dowdy nightdress expressing milk as she listens to some riveting international podcasts (Judging Freedom, Gray Zone Live, Mother of All Talk Shows, and Legitimate Targets by Jackson Hinkle, among others) and tries to make sense of a senseless war.

    And since we are talking morning routines, this favourite activity of mine takes about 20 minutes. After that, depending on the day of the week, I head out to the gym (headphones on) or go into the bathroom (phone blaring) to take a shower and answer nature’s call, all the while keeping an ear on the chronicles of a war that should never have been.