Hello,
November is here and just like that, we are in the middle of the holiday season. (Clearly, I am upbeat about Thanksgiving-Xmas this year). In 2020, I created my own little tradition of baking an Apple Crumble or a Berry Crumble every year for Thanksgiving. Since then, I look forward to this month when I get to bring extra bags of sugar, and butter and have a lingering smell of baking in the air. Thanksgiving is also a time for me to take stock of the year, and practice gratitude. Hope you are grateful for the year you have had so far as well!
Reading Corner
Has there been a time when you have started a book but did not get around to finishing it? For a long time, I would feel guilty and push through. Reading ‘Free Food For Millionaires’ was one of those. I bought this book three years ago, and haven’t made much progress on it. The protagonist is a second-generation immigrant, who lives in New York and fraternizes with affluent people, which gives her a sense of entitlement towards seeking and enjoying the nice things. I have never had a problem with flawed characters, but when characters show no characteristics of being capable of change, it gets my goat.
I am trying it once again but I am not sure if re-attempting to finish it is a good idea.
Writing Corner
Ronald Roy is an ongoing series featured on TOAT.
Click here to read the previous episode.
Episode 3
Ronald Roy
‘Compassionate. World Traveler. Learner. Human Being’
When I searched for Ronald on Instagram, I saw that he had 600k followers, a metric that was not hard for me to believe. A brief scroll on his profile showed location tags in Mt. Fiji, Australia, Mexico, and most recently Kathmandu. Nearly all of his photos were well-shot, with good lighting and exposure, and looked very professional. When I saw a couple of sunrise photos among the Kathmandu ones, I smiled. I knew the story behind that photo. I was probably among a small size of people who had heard it.
I sent him a request to follow.
Komal, my friend who hosted the Party was already a follower. And so was Nirupama. Who had sent the first request? I thought to myself. My mind immediately conjured images of Nirupama and Ron, standing next to each other, wearing a woolen sweater, with the backdrop of one of Ronald’s photos. I felt a slump in my stomach.
He accepted it right away.
I felt elated. I didn’t come across people like him every day, and I was happy just to be seen by him. We began meeting often, at some pretext or another. Given his busy travel schedule, I was happy to make time for him whenever he was in town. In preparation for meeting him, I would look up places he was at so that I didn’t appear dumb when he shared his experiences with me. For a long time, I had placed him on a pedestal. I looked up to him, generously offering my adulations to him at his long-winding travel stories. Gradually, I became comfortable with the image of me standing next to him with a snow-clad mountain in the backdrop. I had dethroned Nirupama from the image.
What he saw in me, I don’t know. And he made no attempts to tell.
That was the first red flag I chose to ignore.
Click here to read the next episode.
Learning Corner
Some interesting things that I found on the internet
Lounge Corner
Bake a Crumble with me!
Thank you all for reading!
Pratiksha
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