nonfiction Category
Life in the Quiet Moments
Posted on February 25, 2015 9 Comments
What do you do when your 15 year old son comes to you with a problem you can’t solve? What do I do? I do mental backflips. As a mother, I’m always quietly (or sometimes not so quietly) delighted when my teenaged sons decide to confide their deepest thoughts, troubles, and the issues they’re currently wrestling […]
Chasing Away Shadows
Posted on February 8, 2015 17 Comments
~ Deepam. Deepam. ~ My childhood Summers were spent mostly at my maternal grandmother’s home in Kerala. My Ammamma, my Mothermother, was brilliant, a self-educated soul who read without discrimination. Sharp-witted, insightful, funny, and loving, with little interest in cooking. She would delight in things of beauty, and my mother would secret away small presents […]
Advance Australia Fair
Posted on January 28, 2015
The 26th of January is both Indian Independence Day and Australia Day. As someone of Indian descent, and Australian nationality, I face no conflict there. There is no tugging at my conscience to choose one country over the other, there is no struggle in embracing both celebrations equally. Both celebrations are about nationhood, the forging […]
Rare Treasures
Posted on January 7, 2015 10 Comments
Parenting teenaged boys is very like parenting toddlers. Or being trapped in a hall of mirrors. Neither adult, nor child, but both at once, they leap between fiery extremes, singeing me and leaving them confused. Mornings are crammed with distractions and moving at glacial pace, while evenings are a tussle into bed, bathing-optional, clothes, the […]
It’s Time
Posted on December 31, 2014 10 Comments
The year scuttles quickly to its close, scooping with it unintended victims that lie unknowingly in its path. I stand on the precipice of a new year, teetering uncertainly, vertiginous as I glare at the depth of the chasm before me. Just a trusting leap away, new ventures await, new pathways to be trod, new […]
Letter to My Sons
Posted on December 16, 2014 21 Comments
My Darling Sons, Today, in the aftermath of a violent, unhinged man holding people hostage in the Lindt chocolate cafe in Sydney, killing two, causing physical injuries to more, and unseen psychological damage to so many more, I am heartsore. In the aftermath of a young, unarmed African American man being shot to death, ostensibly […]
Number Crunching Life Choices
Posted on December 10, 2014 14 Comments
“They’re offering me a job in the US,” he said. My wanderlust choir harmonised in the background. And so began our jarringly brief consideration of the pros and cons of an international move. We have never been ones to allow the dust to settle on us, and we were in the seventh house, in the […]
Paved With Good Intentions
Posted on November 17, 2014 25 Comments
A flash fiction piece I wrote this week elicited unexpected observations on the motivations of a character, and started me reflecting on comments made to me over the years, and the intentions behind them. When I was a very small child, I lived in a blissful world. As children do. Differences were barely noticed, and […]
Lest We Forget
Posted on November 11, 2014 4 Comments
It’s Remembrance Day in Australia today. A day of Legacy poppies, rosemary sprigs, and a minute’s silence. This day is marked by the playing of the Rouse and the Last Post, by an appropriate sermon, by men and women wearing medals of honour with pride, by flowered wreaths, national anthems and the Ode of Remembrance. It’s also […]
Rosetta Stone
Posted on November 4, 2014 28 Comments
When I was a child I lived in a multilingual house in Brunei. The siblings were overseas and far away at boarding school, and my mother was determined not to make the same linguistic mistakes with me. My parents spoke to me only in Malayalam, and the lady who helped with the housework spoke only […]
Asha Rajan 