Life - or something like it

Her wrinkled face and hazy eyes look out wistfully at passersby as she sits on the dusty pavement. Her nine yards 'Saree' is draped over her head and a few glass bangles tinkle as she raises her palm to catch the coin dropped in her palm by someone who has taken pity on her state. The old beggar woman sits there everyday  in the same place, her cloudy eyes searching for a loving face, in this fast moving world. I have seen her everyday for the past 20 days. She sits outside the building where my driving school is based, with the look of resignation and helplessness in those milky eyes. Some days I drop a few coins in her hand and other days I get her Bananas and other soft fruit which she can eat with her toothless mouth. In the hustle and bustle of life, not many of us stop and think of people like the beggar woman. A few coins dropped in needy hands takes care of the guilt and we forget them on our way to better and brighter things. For most of us, they are a part of th...

How many kids do you have? Arre married for long and no kids? You don’t want kids? It is time you both  started a family. When are you planning to have kids? Planning chodo and now have a child. My husband and I have faced this litany of questions all the years we have been married. Most of the times these questions are asked by family and friends, and at other times by nosy busy bodies who have too much interest in other people’s lives. I had been thinking of writing this post for many days now,but always stopped as I did not know how my family will react to this post. I finally gathered the strength to write the post, for all the people who have been in my place and have had to struggle with the agonising fact that they will never be able to have their own biological child/children. Writing this post has acted as catharsis for me. After 12 years of marriage, I had to face this brutal truth. I had to undergo a battery of tests and procedures over a period of two years w...