Keep it simple silly!

Two of my colleagues had been raving about a show for a while. There were references being made to characters I didn't know existed and they highly recommended that I watch the show. And so one day, I decided to find out what all the fuss was about. The first episode of "Schitt's Creek" came as a surprise to me. It wasn't funny the way I perhaps had expected it to be (having watched comedies such as "Friends" and "The Big Bang Theory") and the setting also threw me a bit off guard - a rich family that was suddenly left almost penniless, being forced to live in a random town. Where were they going with this?  A few episodes in, however, I was intrigued. Slowly, I became invested in each of the characters and was excited to see where each episode would end up taking them. I discovered the series quite late - a few year after it released on Canadian television, but in about a month and a half, I watched all six seasons of the show, sobbing my way ...

I was getting ready for another day of cooking. With my sleeves rolled up, I entered the kitchen. I usually have some music running in the background to keep me occupied while I cook. But this day, I wanted to put on a movie instead. And today, I chose Mouna Ragam . Again. Overhearing a familiar dialogue, my partner asked, “Didn’t we just watch it a few months ago? Why are you watching it again?” As if watching it just once in a few months was enough. But why Mouna Ragam ? The movie released six years before I was even born. I don’t even remember the first time I watched it. I only have random pieces of memories here and there. My mom telling me how “ Oh ho, megam vandhadho ” was a song she loved. How she watched the movie with dad   in the theatre after they got married. And how the movie made me feel – warm and fuzzy. As a kid who watched the movie, I loved Revathy’s character. She seemed spunky. She was fun, she said what she felt, and ther...

All it took was a random Instagram post of an acquaintance who was reading a vernacular book. A rush of sorrow resurfaced yet again, making me wonder. Can you miss a place as much (if not more than) as you might miss a person you dearly love? This feeling came to me at different points of time, and in varying intensities. It happens when I see visuals of Nungambakam, where I spent five of my most formative academic years. It rushes over me when I listen to "Roja". It is there when I watch "Mouna Ragam" or when I have a sudden urge to write something in Tamil. The intensity is a lot more when I think of my parents back home - which then makes me wonder, what is "home"? Is "home" only the place which has seen me grow up and where I have lived for most of my life? Or could it also be the place which saw my personal transformation, although I have been here only for a short while? Or is "home" made up of the people who reside there, li...