Personal essays, reflections, general musings
I grew up watching a driver shift gears in an Ambassador, listening to stories of my grandma who learnt to drive at 55. I wanted that — the freedom, the control, the confidence of going wherever I wanted. It took me decades, two
driving instructors, a pandemic, and a Maruti S-Presso to get there. And then, finally — four hours each way to Sakleshpur.
Only three girls were in the class. The instructor who walked in that first day would become my brother. I did not know this yet. Neither did he. But the universe apparently did.
It began with the wrong MRT station. We were staying on Orchard Road. Dhoby Ghaut was two minutes away. Instead we walked ten minutes in the wrong direction and took the longest route possible. Not one person told us. Every time we passed that Holiday Inn for the next four years I laughed.
I wanted to be present for every ritual, every prayer, every step of the journey the tradition says the soul takes after the body is gone. I wanted to light the fire. Instead I watched.
This is not a dramatic essay about crisis or collapse. It is about something quieter — the slow accumulation of small moments that eventually add up to a realisation. Dependency, even when it comes wrapped in love and good intention, is a trap. Even the loving kind.
I could see all of it in the Mahabharata — the jealousies, the manipulation, the disrespect toward women, the power of money, fighting for what is rightfully yours. And then I looked at the modern world today.
The most unexpected thing astrology gave me was not a prediction. It was relief. For years I carried the question of my career as though it were a verdict on my character. Then I found a different explanation — and it changed something.
If I could give my daughter one gift — not a thing, not an experience, but something that would stay with her through every season of her life — it would be financial independence. Her own money. Earned by her own hands. In her own name.
There is a kind of exhaustion that does not show up on your face. You still show up. You still manage. But somewhere beneath all of that is a heaviness that has been there so long you have stopped noticing it. Like furniture you have walked around for so many years you no longer remember choosing it.
She worked in my home for six years. Every time I see her — cheerful, unhurried, arriving with a smile that has no business being there given everything she carries — I think the same thing. Would I have her grace?
