Scribblings by Nancy

When Pain Touches the Beautiful The recent attack on tourists in Pahalgam broke my heart, not just for the victims, but for the land itself. A land already soaked in pain, where locals and soldiers have long sacrificed their lives. And now, even those who come simply to witness its beauty fall prey to violence. Whoever it is - local, soldier, or tourist. It’s always heartbreaking. Always a loss of something deeply human. An article in The Hindu struck a deep chord in me. It suggested that perhaps it’s time we rethink our education system. Maybe we need to shift focus, not just on marks and careers but on emotional regulation, social responsibility, and secularism. “What if our children learned to manage anger before they learned algebra?” “What if compassion became as important as competition?” Rooted in Responsibility I owe a lot to my upbringing in the hills and to my alma mater, where we were nurtured to be socially responsible individuals. Community work was part of school life. We...

Dearest gentle readers, Ha! Don’t I sound like Lady Whistledown from Bridgerton? Well, well- I may not be half the writer she is (yet), but who knows? Someday, I just might get there. Now, let’s get down to business.This post is a follow-up to my recent one on breaking generational chains. So many of you reached out with heartfelt messages and questions, and I felt compelled to continue the conversation. Before we dive in, I want to make something clear: I’m not a therapist, nor am I professionally trained to say any of this. What I share here comes purely from my own lived experience, late-night reflections, and the bits of research that have helped me walk this path. I write as someone who is still learning, still stumbling, and still choosing- every single day,to be a chain breaker. Your responses moved me.Some were raw, others reflective, and many echoed the silent struggles we carry through generations.In this post, I want to revisit a few themes from my earlier piece, especially ...

  Amigos, I’m in my late 30s, and let me tell you, life has been handing me some serious revelations. Things I never noticed before, things I was too naïve to understand. It’s like the universe decided to slap me awake with raw, undeniable truths. And now, here I am, on this unexpected journey of healing. I know many of you have already walked this path, but for those still living in the comfort of ignorance, wake up! We have important work to do. Let me tell you what my wake-up call was. It happened in a simple meeting with our pastor -yes, you heard that right. He was sharing about his past, about the abuse he endured, and how it quietly shaped patterns in his life that continued into adulthood. Patterns that impacted his relationships in ways he didn’t fully realize. BAM. That hit me like a bolt of lightning. It all suddenly made sense. For the first time, I had a real answer to the “why” behind so many of my behaviors, why I shut down in difficult moments, why certain friendshi...

Control!   Does this resonate with you? Honestly, control is something we all yearn for -control over marriage, parenting, relationships, work, and so much more. But the irony is, the tighter we grip, the more things tend to slip through our fingers. I’m not a control freak by any means, but lately, I’ve realized how much we all crave this sense of control. I seriously get frustrated when my son chooses to play video games instead of tackling his never-ending homework over the weekend. I get so pissed off that I put my foot down and sternly remind him how important it is to stay on top of his schoolwork. But it’s exhausting to go through this every single week. He only seems to listen when I become that “dinosaur mom” , a version of myself I really hate to be. So, I chose to let him be. I chose to let him make his own choices and face the consequences. But it’s not easy. Can you imagine how a bird teaches her baby to fly? She doesn’t catch the baby’s wings and force it to fly....

I’m always amused by those old Malayalam movies where a character steps off a rattling bus into a sleepy village, and everyone he meets greets him warmly. Neighbors ask how he’s doing, even the shopkeepers pause to enquire about his life. He walks down the same familiar road he took as a child, leading to a house that has remained unchanged over the years a safe, constant place, his home. I’ve always yearned for something like that. But my life has been quite the opposite, I’ve moved to a new place every decade, and the idea of one unchanging home has always felt out of reach. In my life, change has been the only constant. Whenever we move to a new place, it feels like walking into a room full of strangers. You’re awkward, trying to find your place, and you have to introduce yourself and start building relationships from scratch. And without fail, there’s always that one question: “So, where are you from?” Well… that’s where things get tricky. I was born in Munnar, Kerala, and that’s w...

Every day, women show up for their families, their work, their dreams. But today, the world finally pauses to celebrate them.  Now, I’m not someone who waves the flag of feminism in the way it’s often perceived. Maybe because I grew up with equality. At home and in school, we were equals no special privileges, no biases.I was more of a tomboy back then, and honestly, I didn’t even realize how different boys and girls were supposed to be, according to society. For years, I ran around with scraped knees and short hair, never thinking twice about how girls were ‘supposed’ to be. But then, one day, society made sure I knew.At a family wedding in my hometown, I was humiliated in front of a group of people by an elder in the family. Why? Because my hairstyle was deemed inappropriate for a girl. That was the first time I felt the sting of society’s dos and don’ts for women the first time I realized that the freedom I felt at home wasn’t necessarily the norm everywhere else. But today, I d...

Ahh… yet another weekend, and here I am with a new reflection. Everyone’s childhood  pretty much shapes the adults we become, I guess most of my dear friends crossing their 30s and 40s would have figured that out by now. I had a pretty amazing childhood. An awesome family, a good school, wonderful friends, and the best place to grow up. But even in all that goodness, there were a few pitfalls, little things that have somehow taken up a large chunk of my adulthood. One of them? Perfectionism. My mom was a staff nurse — smart, capable, and disciplined. She was a perfectionist in every sense of the word. Even the way she draped her saree was perfect,not a pleat out of place. She was loving but strict. We had rules, and I, of course, was the rule-breaker . She pushed us to be perfect. Our studies were top priority, our clothes and manners had to be just right, and even our pocket money was accounted for down to the last paisa. Keeping the house clean wasn’t just important, it was non-n...