CHANTINGS OF THE HEART

Has Frankenstein returned? Are we heading towards Doomsday?  Mary Shelley is long dead but her novel Frankenstein written way back in 1818 till date has the capacity to send shivers down our spine. As a student when I was going through the novel almost a decade back as part of my graduation syllabus I was wondering why Shelly did make the innovator powerless. Why did the innovator not have the capacity to control his own creation? Why did he have to flee and die an untimely death? Well Shelly must have had her own ideas about making it dark, grave and fearful giving it the true Gothic feel.  Two centuries later Frankenstein has returned. Yes, Frankenstein in the form of COVID 19 or Corona Virus has returned first to haunt its own creator. Though Shelley ensured that the innovator who under fear of losing his life made a female counterpart for the demonic Frankenstein yet killed it later much to bewilderment of Frankenstein. Shelley in her novel could contain the procreation of the spec

It's been a month and five more days!  Husnahara's pale yellow eyes were looking outside expectedly. She looked at the overwhelming blue sky from amidst the torn plastic covering of her house. She was lost in her own world. The sky looked beautiful with shreds of white clouds, only if she had the wings to encompass the sky and fly around.  The announcement was made yesterday. Yes, that was what she heard. She was hopeful something good would happen today.  Since morning Husnahara remained busy, she scrubbed the already clean degchi  (saucepan for cooking rice grains) washed it with care and filled water in it. She then mixed some cowdung, mud and water and rubbed the chulha (fireplace). Work done she rushed to the tubewell and took a quick bath, lest they arrived and she became late.  She took out an almost new sari and wore it with care. Hasnahara had received it during Eid from one of her employers. She also kept the empty cement bag ready. She then took out the palm size mir

Well Lockdown or otherwise I always had inclination towards mouth watering dishes be it at home or outside. Now completely cut off from the rest of the world and maintaining social distancing in the right way. I am at the mercy of my phone and the soulfood internet. Imagine my condition when my ever encompassing tongue and the taste buds are crying for attention and all I can do is look at interesting videos on cooking channels and slurp imagining to taste all the delicacies.  Well I am trying to recreate magic in some of the dishes I have been watching these days. Some to outstanding results, some to just perfection while the rest having some disastrous results.  Now with most of the shops closed, I am at the mercy of the available ingredients which stock up the home basics. If I want to have a dish which would catch the viewers fancy I am sorry I am incapable of doing so. Let me tell you why, neither do I stock up basic things like food colour as I never felt the necessity of using a