The Synthesist

  Motherhood, I have realized, is a lifelong game of losing and finding. You lose sleep… and find strength. You lose control… and find surrender. You lose the woman you once were… and somewhere between spilled milk and tiny fingerprints on the clean walls, you find a newer version of yourself waiting quietly. I learned this most painfully and most beautifully on an ordinary afternoon with my twins - Saket and Smriti. They were around one-and-a-half years old then with unstable feet, endless curiosity and a suspicious talent for making household objects disappear. Honestly, I don’t know why I spent money on toys. Because nothing fascinated them more than my kitchen vessels. Steel tumblers were drums. Lids were frisbees. And my chapati rolling pin? Apparently a national treasure that needed to be hidden daily. That afternoon, my neighbour rang the bell asking if she could borrow the rolling pin. I walked confidently into the kitchen pretending I was a woman who definitely knew where ...

  At 36, life did not send a formal appraisal note. Instead, it unfolded slowly beneath the weight of routine and responsibilities, with reshuffled priorities and a questioned sense of purpose, eventually leaving me standing at an unsettling crossroads. The kind HR professionals would recognize as more than just a midlife phase. It felt like one of those appraisal cycles where everything on paper looks perfectly stable. Role unchanged, designation untouched, but deep inside, the “employee of the year” energy had silently resigned without even serving notice. That was the moment I began to walk, not as a symbol of change, but simply as movement, one step at a time, in the real world. One hour every morning through the narrow, winding streets of Muttrah, a place where time seems to pause just long enough for you to notice what you usually ignore. At 6:30 a.m., the city is not asleep. It has already lived a full chapter. The first people I encounter are the civic workers. Broo...

  Some memories appear very simple, yet deeply personal, the kind that quietly shape who we become. Such memories do not fade with time. They sit quietly in a corner of the heart, polished by gratitude, glowing brighter as the years pass. When I think of my Appa, my mind goes back to a Saturday afternoon in 1994 at Sathyam Cinemas, then he took me for what I now realize was my very first movie date, an experience he planned with more intention than I understood at four years old. To the world, it may have been an ordinary outing. To me, it was magic. Every Saturday, Amma would get me a simple new dress. Not designer outfits, but just enough to make me feel special. I would proudly wear it wherever Appa took me, from swimming class to the movies. Since she worked on Saturdays, those afternoons quietly became our special “Appa and ME” time. Back then (even now for many), Sathyam Cinemas was not just a theatre in Chennai . It was an experience. It felt grand, almost intimidati...

Choolaimedu isn’t just a place on the map for me, it is where my roots quietly grew into who I am today.  From the carefree lanes of childhood to the grounded lessons of adulthood, this neighborhood has shaped my values, my faith, and my sense of belonging.  At the heart of it all stands Shri Prasanna Venkatesa Swami Temple , a space of calm, prayer, and countless unspoken conversations with the divine. Even though life has taken me far away now, every memory pulls me back here to familiar streets, familiar faces, and a faith that never faded with distance.  Sharing the link below for anyone who would like to experience the calm, devotion, and timeless beauty of Shri Prasanna Venkatesa Swami Temple.  A small, special moment between the 7th and 9th minute of this video, you will  also spot my parents 😇 https://youtu.be/8XS_37W_ZeA?si=UdOu8v3oTUefvzAx  Choolaimedu will always be my HOME — not because I lived there, but because it lives within me. And today, ...

                           Love that began before sight It was 24 May 2013. A date etched into my soul like a scar and a miracle rolled into one. I was in my second trimester, carrying not just one life, but two. My heart danced with the rhythm of two more heartbeats, my body stretching with dreams bigger than anything I would have ever known. I was going to be a mother of twins. My heart was full. But life, as it often does, had a curveball waiting. Complications had crept in, uninvited. The doctors explained the risks, their words muffled by the pounding of my heart. I was just a 23-year-old, naive, wide-eyed, and barely beginning to understand the depth of what motherhood truly meant. Uprooted in a foreign land, surrounded by unfamiliar faces, I felt displaced and alone. Clueless about what lay ahead, I was thrust into a world of medical jargon and life-altering decisions. I underwent a medical procedur...

  The Melodic thread of my Life   If I could define the soundtrack of my life, it would begin and end with a raga — Reethigowlai. Some songs stay with you like scents from childhood, clinging gently, unexpectedly comforting you through different phases of life. For me, Reethigowlai has been that ever-present fragrance, soft, soulful, and unforgettable. My home was always filled with music. Not just any music, but music that had a life of its own. My parents, both avid music lovers, treated (still treat) songs like sacred relics. From the crackle of a transistor radio to cassettes spinning in tape recorders, from Doordarshan’s black-and-white nostalgia to colorful channels like SCV and Sun Music, every corner of our home echoed with timeless melodies. One song that etched itself deep into my childhood memory was “Chinna Kannan Azhaikiran”*. My dad often tuned into it on the radio. A soft hum that would rise in the stillness of early mornings or settle quietly in t...