Tag Archives: Writing

How Would You Spend Your Last Week on Earth?

Posted on by
Reply

 

I can’t remember where I saw this writing prompt, but this sounded interesting, so I saved it and today was inspired to write a post based on this prompt.

 

I do think this prompt makes for a good interview or ice breaker question. Also, the answer you get from this question should reveal the priorities in the person’s life. Should be interesting and I should try it on S someday!

I am assuming that this end is for everyone because of some catastrophe (like a giant meteor or some climate change terror etc) and not someone personal, though, even something personal (like if I had an incurable disease which gave me a week to live), would probably follow the same lines. If it was only me dying, then I’d probably not spend all my money and keep as much as I could for my family, so that would probably be the only thing I’d do differently. Oh, one more thing – in addition to spending time with my family, I’d also write notes for them for the different times in their lives that I would not be there with them and also record videos for them.

 

Of course, nobody would answer things like “I want to spend more time at work to advance myself” or “I want to buy <that thing you can’t do without today>” or even “I want to get toned up” etc. because these are all things that are a means to an end – the end being wanting to provide for your family or even material things that provide you with satisfaction or even happiness for a short period of time. When the push comes to the shove, everyone is going to go back to the basics as it may be, with different people having different priorities in their lives. But I’d like to think, most people would love to have more time with their loved ones, be it family or friends or even someone they are not related to, but love being together with.

 

On to my answer, it will obviously be my family – they come first for me in everything I do and if I had just one week before a doomsday, I would gather them all together with me, my children, S, my parents, my sister, S’ mum etc, money not being an object since the world will end in a week’s time and there’s no need to save anymore, right? I would want to spend as much time as I can with them and soak up all the memories I can with my loved ones.

 

I would also like to take this time to ask for forgiveness to those whom I had wronged, intentionally or unintentionally and also forgive those who had wronged me and mine. I am someone who carries a grudge for a long time, so this would be the best time to forget all grudges I’ve been carrying in my heart for don’t know how long and let sleeping tigers lie.

 

Religion plays a large part in my life and I turn to my favourite God almost everytime I am troubled or even when I am happy. I’d like to think, I have a ‘friend-like’ relationship with Him, so this will definitely be a time when I turn to the higher power to find solace in such trying times. I do not really believe in going to temples or in organised religious functions, but have a more personal relationship. I believe that 10 minutes spent talking to him in a quiet place or even at at the altar at home is better than going to a temple. So this is what I will do – spend time talking to him at a personal level and try to calm my mind so that I can face the end.

So there you have it, how I would spend my last week in Earth. What about you? How would you like to spend the last days on this planet?

The Sounds of Home

Posted on by
Reply

This poem was inspired by the incredibly noisy neighbourhood I live in Mumbai. In my last trip, I realised, compared to Singapore, my home was super noisy and it took me a couple of days to push that noise to the back, but it was quite a difficult few days. Then coming back to Singapore, the silence also took some time to get used to!

The Sounds of Home

The sounds start early,

As the birds begin to wake up in the tree;

The ringing of the bell of the milkman,

The shouts of the newspaper man,

This is how we wake-up in good old Mumbai.

Then the real noisy business of the day starts their cries,

The children coming to the school next door,

Their voices eager and ready to soar,

The college students who congregate in the lane below;

Whiling their time between classes, ebb and flow.

Then of course, who can forget,

The noise of vehicles, that drive past like a jet,

This not including the general cacophony of sounds;

Like the cawing crows and vendors in the background,

These are the sounds that define my neighbourhood,

These are the sounds of my childhood,

All day, from morning to night, there is a steady stream of competing sounds,

Till they fade away from your consciousness as the noise resounds.

It’s only when you come back after a while,

You realise that your beloved city, your loved isle,

Is actually quite noisy, but you care not a tome,

You love it anyway, coz, these are the sounds of home!

(Still) Blogging Anonymously

Posted on by
2

anonymous_blogger

I decided to go way back to my first posts and see how long I have been blogging. I realised I would have been blogging on WordPress for 7 years this year (my blog anniversary is sometime in August) and a couple of years before that on Blogspot. Wow! That’s a long time to be blogging, that too anonymously.

I revisited this topic again when sometime last week, I came across an opinion piece in an Indian newspaper by a famous author who was arguing about the privacy issues that a famous Bollywood couple are facing over their new baby’s photo. The baby’s photo was published across media when the doting father put it up as his Whatsapp profile picture (as most parents are wont to do so) and she argued that in this day and age of digital invasion, especially for a high-profile couple like these two, it was par on course, and not something they should take seriously. I am not going to link to the article, nor mention any names, though any Indian who reads this, may know who I am talking about. This article again raised the issue of being anonymous on social media.

05324746-photo-protection_1_0

Today, with oversharing being the norm, being someone who hides behind an identity on social media, I am probably an anomaly rather than the norm. With the exception of Facebook and LinkedIn where I am present as myself, I blog under a pseudonym on all other media. I guess I am not 100% anonymous here – you guys do know that I live in Singapore and have two children who are twins and are around 13/14 years old and in secondary school. But I have still not shared more details about myself or a photograph of me and my family, which seems to be what most family and lifestyle bloggers (as I see myself) have on their About me page. Maybe someone who is diligent can find out who I am, but I’d like to think that I am not someone who is famous or infamous that people are really curious to know whom I am in real life.

I know it’s quite hard for me not to build traffic to this site because I can’t just link posts from here onto any of my other social media accounts, so conversely I am actually proud of each and every new subscriber as I know you’ve come here organically and because you like what I write. This is pure validation to someone who considers herself as a closet writer.

I also want to protect BB & GG from any adverse effects of my blogging. Technology is jumping by leaps and bounds and what is probably in the realm of science fiction today may be a something very normal 10 years down the line. I want them to start and live their lives on a clean slate and don’t want any embarrassing photos or blog posts to pop up when a future employer searches their name a few years down the line when they start work or even when they apply for admissions at their dream schools. After all, even today a sweep of your social media profile is done when you are looking at hiring new employees or even students and you don’t want something awkward coming up when your name is searched.

blogger_anonymity

So there you have why I chose to blog anonymously. I am still not sure if this was the right decision or not, but it’s something I chose to do and will continue to do so moving forward.

Solitude

Posted on by
Reply

 

I sit among the cacophony of sounds
Yet alone, as if out of bounds

 

People around me, happy and gay
But in my mind, are shades of grey

The happiness that I see around me
Makes me want to move away and flee

A weight on my mind, bring to mind memories blind
Those which are twined to become confined

I yearn for the moments when I can be alone
Away from everything, to get into the zone

To be alone, to be by myself
For that’s when I can hear myself think
To decide on next steps, to bring me from the brink

I want, nay need the space to be free
To ponder, to feel and to brood
Me and my solitude…

Code Switching

Posted on by
Reply

When I was a student, years back, my school had an ‘English Only’ policy. What this meant was that we could only speak English while in school. If teachers found students talking in any other language other than English, they would punish the student. However, this enforcement was possible only in kindergarten and primary schools. By the time we reached secondary school, we were effortlessly speaking multiple languages with each other – English when speaking to our teacher and a mixture of English, Hindi, Gujarati and even Parsi when speaking with each other. What we didn’t know then was that we were actually code-switching!

 

What is Code Switching? According to Wikipedia, “in linguistics, code-switching occurs when a speaker alternates between two or more languages, or language varieties, in the context of a single conversation. Multilingual speakers of more than one language, sometimes use elements of multiple languages when conversing with each other.”

Code Switching happens in societies which are multilingual in nature, so you see a lot of ode switching in places like Mumbai and Singapore which have people living in close contact who speak different languages. I guess it also happens when people who speak multiple languages live and work together. I’ve been known to speak in English, Hindi and Tamil all in the same sentence!

While working, when I have colleagues who speak Hindi or Tamil, I more often than not speak to them in those languages, especially when we want to speak things we do not want the others to know about, switching to English when another colleague joins us. I see this a lot here in offices here when ethnic Chinese people usually speak in Mandarin, but here, many do not speak English when others who don’t know the language join them.

 

GG code switches more than BB moving between Mandarin, Singlish and Standard English. I am pretty particular about not using Singlish at home, but I am sure both GG & BB code switch between Standard English and Singlish when they are out with friends. This is actually fairly common in Singapore, where Singlish (or Singapore English), a colloquial version of English is the localised version spoken here. While English is the official language of business, Singlish is the language spoken between friends and while relaxing at home with words borrowed from Mandarin, Hokkien, Malay and Tamil.

 

When people are skilled Code Switchers, it allows them to connect culturally to people immediately. When you travel, when you hear Singlish or even Hinglish (the Indian version of Singlish), you immediately know you are among friends. It also allows you to make friends easily, especially when you and the person opposite you speaks a similar language. Code Switching also allows you to fit in immediately in a new environment.

 

I realise this when I go to Mumbai, I immediately start speaking in Hindi over English, even with friends with whom I’d text in English. I assume the reverse would happen if we go to a predominantly English speaking country – we’d automatically start speaking in English and also possibly start mimicking their accent.

 

I think back and realise we do this without realising it – one of my old bosses was a Brit and when I spoke to him, I realised my accent had become more crisp, almost copying the British accent.

So do you Code Switch? I’d love to hear your views on this interesting phenomena!