Living on the edge

My mother was first diagnosed with breast cancer, stage 2 in 2017, just few days before I appeared for my first UPSC CSE interview. I remember she coming to Delhi and being with me as a support system for my UPSC journey. I couldn’t have managed clearing exam without her. Now when I think of it, she was living with the disease since then. Immediately after the interview, I rushed back home. Her treatment was being done under the able hands of Mr Pathak, in Nagpur. We would travel every week to Nagpur for her follow ups, her chemotherapy and radiotherapy sessions. The whole process lasted more than 3 months. Considering we lived in the remotest corner of our district, it would take us more than 4 hrs of one way journey to Nagpur. Driving our way through potholed roads. She was (and still is )so brave and positive during the entire period, that it still amuses me as to how she breaks stereotypes so easily. Since then we regularly carry out her check ups and any signs of relapse. There ...

When I was out on various field ventures, one thing was rather palpable and was crying out loud- how my fellow males owned every public space? The roadside tea shop served tea to a bunch of workers who invariably were male and it is only this counterpart that would stay back with their other male colleague and have a chat of their own. The gathering under a peepal tree in a village had elder male members only. The hotel spaces, the government offices, banks are mostly filled with men in our families who embark upon journeys to fulfil their destiny. The extensive sport grounds of cities hosted mostly young male crowd playing cricket or football. And my recent experience of my office reflects of visitors mostly being male, of being the only women officer most of the times in a room filled with male counterparts. How does one address gender equality then?   We have always lived In a world where visibility mattered. As human being we are social, believing in great civilisations...

 What goes through the mind of a person who has recently been victimized or felt so? Is she afraid? Is she helpless? If yes, then of what? Does she feel anger or does she feel satisfied as she has fought whatever she could fight? But is it merely about resolving the issue amicably or does it go beyond that to bring an attitudinal change? A change she expected through education, through the sheer exam she had attempted and cleared. This is the least she could expect considering the outside was much uglier. And she knew the inside would be no different. But the fundamentals were very clear and those here had the opportunity, a golden one, to be the best version of them.  But why does she live in an ideal world? She should know, time and again, through her experiences that theory and reality are two different things. Alright!! I understand that they are two different things indeed but shouldn’t we be at least moving in that direction. To expect not so sickening attitude fr...

A few days ago I came across something really wonderful! something that reminded me how fulfilling reading was! It said and I quote        “if there is a single skill that will get you through life above all others - more important than cleverness or passion or imagination - it is the resilience. Without it even the most brilliant person can be crushed.         And no one can develop resilience in vacuum. You have to fail in order to learn how to recover from failure.”  UPSC is a journey that will churn us in understanding this truth, through a personalised experience. Each finding her/his own path to discovery. Civil Service Exam(CSE)’18 brought me huge success. Securing an AIR 33 was not unthinkable but definitely uncertain. It is through these probabilities that when one sails during the process, does one realise the true worth of life and mind you, brings the much needed grounding, humility and respect for surround...

We live in a society where your identity is based on region you come from, caste you belong and gender you are born in. It is a society which perceives and sustains relationships on the basis of status and prestige. It is here that are stories are made, created, rebuild, broken and yet carried on!     I had long been contemplating to write on people but it was so damn difficult to not just understand emotions but also to pen it down in words. No words felt right. I wrote and rewrote and yet nothing worked. That's how surmounting it was! We might want to be unbiased and non-judgmental but that never is the case. We preach one thing and follow the other. We think we do our best! But what is enough and what is the best is defined at our convenience. Thus this story is perhaps no ordinary to tell. To talk of a person who had so many facets and shone so brightly will take more than just one article. Ananth Kumar itself signifies boundless, the one with no end. He was born with a...

When I was in the first year of law school, one of my friends criticized reservations so starkly that it made me feel uncomfortable to have any further discussions with her on the topic of reservations, to such an extent that I blatantly accepted what she had to say about the issue altogether. Privileged as she was not only socially (belonging to an upper caste) but also economically. Her discontent and anger was on reservations snatching away the seats of well-deserved candidates. I think after that I never took much efforts to analyze my own thoughts about reservation. Several years have passed by but the reservation issue still lingers in my head and surfaces quite occasionally in my day-to-day life. So what are reservations? Why is it always the most controversial issue? Why do most political parties fear to even touch upon this topic even while utilizing this issue to fatten their vote banks? And why are Patels in Gujarat seeking for reservation for their community? A community t...