Ishani's Pen

“Butter chicken done right!”; “The perfect Pav-Bhaji!” – these were the captions, accompanied by the delicious looking dishes, in the watsapp status update of one of my dearest friends, Dr. Apurva, during this ongoing lockdown. Apurva is a dermatologist by profession in the United Kingdom and it won’t be wrong to refer to her as a “friend from heart” because, believe it or not, we haven’t met till date! Coming back to her captions, I asked her how she could manage to make gourmet stuff for herself, when all medical personnel are working round the clock. She replied, very casually, “Do you think I make these stuff for myself? Some friends are coming over.” So this was one incident that stayed at the back of my head but couple of days back, I encountered a similar thing at home, which prompted me to type out (NOT pen down) this piece. Right now, it’s only me and mom at home, along with our caretaker’s family, staying on the floor above us. I have been observing fasts, every Monday a...

I am a 29-year-old professional who has been staying away from home from the last 11 years. Being very much conscious about academics, studies, grades and future, I had always focused on my education and knowledge gaining. Even now, when we are all in the lockdown phase, I keep myself more engrossed in publication works, blog/article writing, reading books etc. This is something that I had always enjoyed doing since my childhood – I like gaining knowledge, learning new facts, helping people in some way! There may be many girls and women like me out there, whose pleasure lies in the smell of new books, in lying in bed for hours altogether and reading. However, there is one simple thing that I feel our families, relatives and the society, in general, doesn’t understand. I am also a girl like everyone else – and I also know HOW TO COOK and do all household chores! And most importantly, I don’t know cooking just because I am a girl and it is my duty to do it – ni to sasural jaogi ...