#8. Home Visits and CityScapes, April 2022

Missing home, missing NaPoWriMo, & Bird Song

Hello!

A lot of you may already have noticed that I gave a miss to sending out the March edition. With travel restrictions easing across the world, I, along with a lot of my friends saw travel plans materializing, some of which had been on the back burner ever since the pandemic began.

Visiting Bangalore after 3 years has been emotional, to say the least. I have been accused of overtly romanticizing my life esp. on social media, and this time I chose to spend these moments quietly. While I was there, one recurrent thought I was having was: Could it be possible that the city had changed greatly but still not at all?

Reading Corner

This month I am reading Ghachar Ghochar, a novella by Vivek Shanbhag. Originally written in Kannada and translated into English by Srinath Perur, Ghachor Ghochar is witty in unleashing a family drama and ends with suspense that I did not see coming. The style of writing was easy, and although the length of the book is small, it keeps you engaged and hooked till the end. How does money play a role in shaping the dynamics of a family? This premise is explored in detail: some relationships change when there is an upgrade in class, and some relationships remain the same in spite of upgrades in class. Honest in its storytelling, the story in Ghachar Ghochar is relatable and makes for a perfect travel read.

Writing Corner

This year, I am skipping taking part in NaPoWriMo - my creative ideas around poetry have stagnated over the past year. Writing poetry began feeling like a chore, I was repeating myself in my poems and wasn’t spending as much time writing them as I was reading them. However, if you would like, here’s a poem from last year’s NaPoWriMo.

I miss the afternoon 
spent in summers that
brought eerie-stillness.

In the village, often 
the pond stood still, 
while the leaves
from the large banyan
tree
took guard, waking up
with the slightest
touch of breeze.
-Still

Learning Corner

1. If you're so smart, Why are you not rich?

2. Unread Messages by Sally Rooney

3. Getting Runner’s High without running

4. Making Milk Tea in Hong-Kong Style

Lounge Corner

Spring is here and so are morning Birdsongs.

Thanks for reading,

Pratiksha