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A Tale of Familiars
Posted on May 27, 2015 10 Comments
In January of 2012, my my mother’s younger sister, my small mother, my Cheriamma went kicking and flailing out of this world. The end of her life was as she had always lived it, full of fight, and on her own terms. Cheriamma was a brilliant, beautiful, eccentric woman who encountered academic failure for the […]
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 […]
The Other Side
Posted on February 25, 2015 4 Comments
She wakes with a start. The air feels stale and cold. In the darkness, she fumbles for the bedside lamp, and jostles the bottle of whisky that stands vigil. Night must have fallen while she was asleep. The gentle click of the lamp reverberates in the silent room, but there’s no light. The power must […]
Durga Puja
Posted on December 16, 2014 16 Comments
Om Ayim Hreem Shreem… Eyes closed, palms together, I give in to the murmurings of the meditative mantra. Wisps of sandalwood incense invade my nostrils, transporting me to the innumerable other times that I have sat like this, blanketed in the bhajans and bell tolls of a temple celebration. Aromas of soap, talcum powder, hair […]
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 […]
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 […]
The Fortune Teller
Posted on November 5, 2014 35 Comments
I sit sweltering, legs crossed, feet bare, hands cupped in my lap, back bent. The cool black marble floor of the front room of my grandmother’s house chills my thighs through the thin fabric of my salwar kameez.
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 […]
Yes-Yes
Posted on October 29, 2014 20 Comments
We were gathered, a rag-tag group of kids, giggling and squealing. Engaged in the forbidden, we knew in the deepest recesses of our hearts, that our mothers would furrow their brows and waggle their index fingers. Cross-legged or legs folded under us, we sat on the floor of the walk-in robe of Ajita’s parents’ bedroom. […]
Aliens adrift in a new world
Posted on October 14, 2014 13 Comments
It’s been nearly two years now. Two years since a home was packed neatly into a shipping container and transported across the world. Two years since lives were packed neatly into suitcases, friendships folded and vacuum sealed, family washed and dried and placed at the back of cupboards. Two years since we’ve woken to the melodic […]
Asha Rajan 