Witty Bean

The woman hitched up her skirt and continued kneading the dough. Her kids ran around, chasing each other in a quiet pantomime of the real game. They knew too well about bruises and broken bones - presents from their father if they were too loud. The woman cast a sour glance at her husband, asleep in the corner of their shack, his skinny chicken legs peeking out from under his discolored Long Johns.   Outside, the snowstorm raged on, driving the sky to an ugly gray color.   Rather like one of my bruises, the woman thought, with a little flash of anger. She rubbed the small of her   back (which still hadn’t recovered from the “rearrangement” her husband had done two winters ago).   “Mama Mama”, a little voice squeaked next to her.   “Da, my little p rintsessa ?” “Do mice wear shoes?”   The woman didn’t know what to make of that. Mice? In this Russian winter? Her first thought was the beating her husband would give her if he noticed any h...

The moonlight gently hit the sloping roof of the house and then popped inside the open window. The bedroom attached to the window was rather average. A dresser, a closet, a door leading off to the en suite bathroom. Nothing special. Standard pictures of happy smiles adorned the walls. A large bed took up a corner of the room where 2 shapes lay sleeping. An adventurous moon beam glided over the man’s face. He mumbled something and rolled over, pulling the smaller figure of the woman closer to him. Nothing much happened for a while after that. The moonlight danced around; touching this and that, illuminating corners and dust bunnies and the lone earring that had fallen behind the bed. It was a rather peaceful scene, a quiet night punctuated by the soft snores of the woman (who would deny any such thing, when awake). A sudden furtive movement showed two shadowy figures at the open door of the bedroom. They were huddled together, not touching anything. Just standing there. And watchin...

There is a force on earth as strong as gravity. It holds us ransom, much like gravity does. But it unlike gravity, this force transcends time and generations, casting its dark shadow on entire family trees right from the root to the tips of unborn buds. This force - if it had a physical form; would be black and pulsating, knotted and hideous. It would scar everything it saw and ruin everything it touched. But despite existing solely in our hearts, it causes the same destruction. I’m not talking about a mythological force or a supernatural one. I’m talking about the real and very complex human emotion of prejudice. Or in simpler terms - hatred. Hatred starts innocuously. A passing remark by a parent/ a lazy comment by a teacher. A skewed TV show, a cruel act witnessed. But the child is listening, and the child is watching. And the seeds are growing into ugly saplings, birthing prejudices and intolerance. To an extent, this is unavoidable. And honestly, impossible to prevent....

My kids are finally back in school after their summer break. Well, my daughter has been in preschool all along and just switched from her Summer- complete timepass schedule to “Academic” timepass schedule. She’s 4 and therefore legally allowed to have all the fun in the world. My son went back to school today as well. 3rd grade and all that cool gangsta life. He was anxious, excited, worried, hyper excited, sleepless, sleepy, OMGexcited about his first day back. We’ve been up since dawn, choosing outfits and eating the world’s slowest breakfast. So finally the kids are inside their classrooms and I drive home in a dreamlike state. Feeling light as a feather, eyes full of stars and house devoid of kids. For someone who’s always either had a child attached to my hip/boob or following me all the time for the past 8 years, this is such a pleasant change. I’m feeling adventurous. Damn, do I actually get to sit down and drink coffee like a human being rather than chase kids and reheat the m...

Novelist Margaret Atwood writes : “Why do men feel threatened by women?’ I asked a male friend of mine. “’They are afraid women will laugh at them’, he said, ‘undercut their worldview.’ Then I asked some women students, ‘Why do women feel threatened by men?’ ”’They are afraid men will kill them" I read this a long while ago, and somehow among the millions of other similar stories, this one stuck with me. Every day we read about violence against women, against children (girls and boys), against the elderly. Most of the perpetrators are men. Maybe it's centuries of patriarchy, maybe its raw physical superiority, maybe its the knowledge that they CAN get away with it. But it never stops. Remember the Bollywood/Indian movies of the 70s/80s/90s? If a woman was raped, her best outcome was to have the rapist marry her. Today thankfully, we recognize that no woman deserves to be hurt in that way. Today we march/protest/write so that every woman knows her true worth. I've...

Love. Boy meets girl. Sparks fly, they fall hard for each other. A predictable crisis, which they overcome with their six-pack abs and hot burning eyes. Exchange rings/vows. Promise to honor and cherish. For better or for worse. A lilting tune, some clichéd gyaan and they waltz into the sunset, leaving us sitting in the audience, wishing we all had a love like that. A lot of movies/books are written keeping the female audience in mind. They make the heroine deliberately bland so that we can mentally insert ourselves onto that empty canvass and imagine that Ranbir is speaking those burning words of passion into our ears. Filmmakers want us to buy their drivel and what sells better than fantastical and grandiose expressions of love and sex. We come out of the cinema halls smiling because just for a moment, we actually had a different, far more exciting life. So here's the bad news. That kind of love? DOES NOT EXIST. And even if it did, you would be so tired of singing in diffe...