Back...

Short notice and long vacation. I was in Patna actually, attending my sister's wedding. An extremely elaborate affair, as usual. I could have felt grumpy about the evils of patriarchy, traditionalism, conservatism and the whole pomp and pageantry associated with any affair like this, but I didn't. There was just so much happiness and joy all around. I will write about some of these things in detail some time later after I am done with a bit of thinking about it.

I now need to catch with work, routine life, reading and yes, blogging as well. I am currently reading Andrea Dworkin's memoir Heartbreak, which is serving as a good reminder and an antidote after so much of feel-goodness and optimism, that things are not always rosy, at least not for everybody and beneath the surface happiness may lie undercurrents of prejudice, hatred and violence. It is extremely powerful and very witty and engaging too. I will write about in detail later as well. I probably should revisit her book on Pornography too which I had found extremely tendentious and distasteful when I read it last. I am also reading a Hindi novel called Ek Inch Muskaan written by the (then) writer-couple Rajendra Yadav and Mannu Bhandari. It is a very interesting experiment with both of them writing alternating chapters in the voices of different characters. I am feeling a little sad saying this, but I really need to work on my hindi vocabulary and comprehension skills, which is actually much worse than it sounds because my English is not so good as well. And to think that there are so many people in the world who are so skilled in more than half a dozen languages!