Padmaja's

I was brushing my hair when the phone beeped. It was from a new tinder match. After two messages, we were ready to meet. First, let us name this guy number 2. Now let’s go 10 minutes back…. Sitting alone in a PG room with nothing to do, I thought about having a cup of coffee in the nearest CCD. I was getting ready when this guy pings me. He evidently lives in the same locality and was coming back to his home. Should I go with a stranger I know nothing about? We haven’t talked also. I heard Delhi guys are bad, what if……. Let’s go back 24 hours…. I just reach my room and start making Wai-wai. I have been chatting with this guy for two days. This is guy number 1. After a wedding party, he calls me up. He is elder than me and is also a tinder guy. Conversations continue till 2 AM. We decide to meet the next day if  possible…. In the morning…. Staying in a room for the whole day and having nothing to do seems like a punishment even my enemy shouldn’t get. Having wasted a lot of MB seei...

My life is all about impulsiveness to the horror of my grandmother. Life is best lived without planning, enjoying unexpected turns and expecting nothing from others. And travelling. Travelling not to exotic locations but to places you know just a little about and where google also fails. It is a different kind of rush. Travelling alone or with a few people whom I like best is a great way to spend a Sunday. If that Sunday happens to be a birthday, everything falls into line quite naturally. Birthdays make me depressed and I don't know why. Birthday is a time to reflect what I have done the whole year and how I am going to spend my year. Hence on Saturday, I made my mind to go to Trivandrum alone. Going alone especially on a birthday is seen as a disease or a totally outlandish thing to do. But believe it or not travelling alone has a liberating impact. Things you never thought you can do alone now seems like cake walk. Boyfriends are long gone things and having a father who encoura...

When cleaning my room I came across this big white plastic bag. It contained blue inland letters , cards, parcel wrapping and letters. All were for me. I read it once more and then burned it. People once wrote letters and then internet came in. E-mail made letters seem like snail mail. Hence the letter's journey to oblivion started. It didn't take  much time to fall in love with letters. We are blessed in a way to belong to a generation where we once sent answers by competition post card. Though, there was not much letter writing involved but  process of going to the post office and buying competition post card attracted me as a child. Though it was my father who bought things from the post office , I loved imagining the scene. After matriculation exam, I started going to the post office by myself. After a trip to the post office near my home, post offices everywhere looked, smelled and felt identical. My attachment towards letters and post offices continue to grow. H...

Being in a place like Kerala, I am in this phase of insatiable lust for everything. Be it reading papers, magazines, studying or travelling. There is always room for more. As our semester exams ended on 17 th of December, I couldn’t wait to go out somewhere. So hence on 18 th , I went for a small trip to vagamon hill station situated 60 kilometres from Kottayam. Travelling for the first time when you have no idea how to get there can be tricky. Hence, I along with my friend started out the journey quite early at around 6. 30 AM. We first took a bus to Pala, then Erattupetta and from Erattupetta to Wagamon. I now feel we could have got a bus directly from Pala KSRTC to Wagamon. As we proceeded towards Wagamon, the scenery started getting better and better. The hills on the other side looked magnificent and I couldn’t take my eyes away from it. It looked like a painting.  Seeing the plains below was an exhilarating experience. The air started becoming cooler and pure....

“Letting go doesn't mean that you don't care about someone anymore. It's just realizing that the only person you really have control over is yourself.”   ―   Deborah Reber ,   Chicken Soup for the Teenage Soul I don’t know why but I always had problem making friends. Was it because I am too boring, can’t crack jokes or was it something else? I longed for an answer and at the same time envied people who were popular among everyone. I longed to be like them. I wanted to be the live of the party but then at the same time I disliked having too many people around me for no reason. I cursed myself because I didn't think and didn't act like my class mates. I eat clumsily in public and I am okay with it. But I try to eat like every other girl. Why should I have different opinion than what is circulated in the mainstream media? Can’t I just be like everyone else who loves selfies and KFCs? Why should I continue feeling guilty about the things I did long back? Why do I...

There are varied types of news. Some appear like a breeze and some like hurricanes. And there is some news that is unpredictable and gives the intensity of an earthquake that shakes the earth underneath our feet. Just a few days back, our academic director, KM Srivastava came to Kottayam to take us to Malaya Manorama, a reputed Malayalam daily, to make us familiar with the concept of integrated newsrooms.  As the day progressed, I realised that he was a true gentleman . He taught us to think beyond the conventional and to see the different sides of everything.   The next thing we know is that he suffered a heart attack and is no more. It made me aware of the fragile nature of life. The nature of life is such that we are always walking on thin ice. We do not know when it will break and take us inside the icy cold water freezing us to death.  This forced me to unwind my life. Have I accomplished anything worthwhile in the last 23 years of ...

A trip to a place where nature is in full glory is always refreshing particularly when it is a getaway for the week end. Getting to such a getaway also demands a bit of work. Early on a Saturday, I and my friends, set out on our trip towards athirapally waterfalls. It is situated in the Thrissur district of Kerela. From Kottayam, it is nearly a five hour long journey. Thankfully, one of our classmates hailed from the area and hence things turned out to be smooth. Our hostel is located at Athirampuzha near Mahatma Gandhi University which is on the outskirts of Kottayam town. I am always in a dilemma whether this place is a town or village. There is a university and a medical college nearby, but the surroundings are fields and tree gardens we took a bus to Kerela state transport depot and got into a Thrissur bound bus. The bus drivers here are very smart. The roads are narrow and full of bends; still they drive very fast, often giving jerks to the passengers. We passed through Kottayam...