Heart upon my sleeve

I’m angry, I’m upset. I want my ‘adhalpad’ (Like Druv, the Pole Star’s, ‘Permanent and indispensable position’ in the sky). I feel like the unfortunate fool who stood near the door in a busy Mumbai local train, being pushed out onto the platform when it wasn’t his destination yet. “Stop, wait, I don’t want to get down here,” he said, but no one heard. So he took the next train. “This time, I’ll go and stand safe at the other end,” he thought.  Little did he know that at the next station, the platform was on his side. And fate was not. He was at the door again, resisting the force that heartlessly pushed him down. The force was stronger and he had arrived - at the wrong place again.  He was a hopeless optimist though. “This is not such a bad place, you know. You could stay here,” said a stranger on the platform. But he just smiled and walked away. He did not want to be there. He wanted to get back on the train; some train. But there was no train. He ran from one platform to...

I was cleaning up my kids’ wardrobe; segregating their clothes - winter clothes, Goodwill clothes, play clothes - when I started observing. Only about 40% of clothes had been utilized a 100%. No surprises that these were the ones that were easy to iron or needed no ironing at all. And they were all dark in color.  Also ironically, the least utilized ones were the ones that looked really good on them.  These were the save-it-for-special-occasions clothes that had eventually ended up in the uselessly-outgrown stack.  The hand-me-down pile going out of the house was really small. Most of my boy’s old jeans were ripped near the knees. Most of my girl’s jeans, though 3 sizes smaller now, she still wore – as Capris.  Talk about forever size zero! The girl’s side of the wardrobe had encroached onto the boy’s. (Who hasn't gone to get a blue shirt for their son and bought three new dresses for their daughter along with it?)  For the girl, the inter...