The Word Route

My emotional moment during my breastfeeding journey came when my child stopped feeding at 4.8 years. All these years, he suffered a lot of health issues, mostly respiratory issues. He was diagnosed with childhood asthma (considered common among babies these days). I was advised by my first paediatrician to continue feeding him till he turned 2. Extended breastfeeding helped me tide over his asthma over a period of time, including his dry skin problem. So I can vouch that if you can continue feeding your baby till he/she is two years old, it’s the best health gift for them. My Journey Breastfeeding came naturally to me after my son’s birth. I did not have any particular struggles while breastfeeding him – no medical issues/latching problems. In the beginning, my answers to my friends’ queries as to when am I going to wean him, were quite vague. I had started initially by saying that I would feed him until he turned 2. After he turned two, I changed my answer to 3 years. It was so natu...

From the moment I conceived, it was my fantasy to have a super tactile bond with my child after he/she would be born (for the longest possible time, I felt it would be a girl!). After my son was born, things became different and the first three months were extremely painful feeding him or holding him thanks to my C-section stitches. So, all maternal feelings vanished into thin air and all I could think was sleep or having “me-time”. There was hardly a chance to cuddle up with him! Post-partum depression had hit me big time and me not being able to calm down a screaming infant had dipped my morale too. Motherhood was nothing like I had imagined it would be! Besides I was terrified that my son would not accept me if I didn’t develop a bond early on. Of course, that did not happen. It was a mom’s fear that had spoken. After he entered the infamous toddler phase, I became the quintessential “villain” for my son – the usual “don’t do this and that”. Yet again, my dreams of becoming my son’s...

I have borrowed the above statement from a famous adage: "The early bird gets the worm". We all learned this proverb in school. It applies to every walk of life. In the case of children, this adage gains more significance as they cross various milestones in life.    There are some habits or values which we want our kids to imbibe early. These are called modelled habits. This is the main reason why we introduce certain habits and values early. For instance, right from brushing teeth twice a day to eating three meals a day (differs in every culture and community) to having a bath and doing household chores, we should have book reading sessions of short duration daily so that it becomes a part of their routine too.   Books are great to enhance imagination and also engage a child constructively. Most of the time kids these days would prefer the screen. But what a visual medium does, is to kill the imagination of a child. Whilst reading a book, the same child...

Tribhanga: Tedhi Medhi Crazy Cast: Tanvi Azmi, Kajol, Mithila Palkar, Kunaal Roy Kapoor, Vaibhav Tatwawaadi, Kanwaljeet Singh, Maanav Gohil, Shweta Mehendale Writer/Director: Renuka Shahane Rating: ****/5 Read the review at:  https://topleadindia.com/2021/01/16/tribhanga-review-celebration-of-the-flawed-real-beautiful-pieces-of-life/   The word "Tribhaṅga" denotes the standing pose of the body curved in an S shape, found in traditional Indian sculpture and classical dance forms like Odissi. In the Netflix movie, it symbolizes the imperfections reflected in the lives of three generations of women. Director Renuka Shahane has beautifully sculpted each character in the movie while depicting that it’s often the flaws that make us what we are and the same need to be accepted in order to love unconditionally. Each frame of the movie unravels the myriad shades of each of the three characters, right from the writer protagonist Tanvi Azmi to her Bollywood actress daughter Kajol, and ...

                                       Manny forever! Cast: Sushant Singh Rajput, Sanjana Sanghi, Sahil Vaid Director: Mukesh Chhabra Rating: ****/5 The reel opens to a montage of Sushant Singh Rajput playing the guitar with his own lines: “Perhaps the difference between, what is miserable, and that, which is spectacular, lies in the leap of faith… #selfmusing”. In the montage, lies the hidden message that Sushant probably wanted to give to his fans. The movie is set in the steel city of Jamshedpur where Kizzie Basu (Sanjana Sanghi) is a young teenager who aspires to lead a normal life. But there is a small glitch: she is suffering from cancer. The opening scene is of a funeral where Kizzie stands in a graveyard wearing a tube connected to her nose from her oxygen tank. A sombre scene where she hugs the elderly gentleman who has just lost his wife. She stands listening to the eulogy and ...

Irrfan acted in parallel, mainstream, international cinema and struck a fine balance between the genres so that each of his work appeared fresh and never repetitive. “All the world’s a stage, And all the men and women merely players; They have their exits and their entrances; And one man in his time plays many parts…” An actor par excellence, Irrfan Khan literally lived up to world-famous playwright Shakespeare’s famous lines. The choice of his roles-negative shades to comical–reflected the unique traits and versatility of his personality. He did it all and made sure each of his characters stood apart from each other. Right from his debut in  Salaam Bombay  in 1988 till his last movie  Angrezi Medium , he has been known and recognized for his passion and dedication towards his craft. Whether it was the role of a letter writer in  Salaam Bombay , a goon Ranvijay Singh in  Haasil , Maqbool in  Maqbool , Inspector Uday Rathore in  Ro...

Chaaron taraf band khidkiyaan, sunsaan raaste, Hawayein chal rahi thi, patte bhi gire pedon se, Maidaano mein char rahe kuch jaanwar, Chidiyan chehek rahe the. Jo awaazein kabhi motor ki shor mein ghul gaye the, aaj sabhi zinda huye. Band gharon mein jaan aayi, Bachchon ki shorgul, cooker ki seetiyan, Kahin thahakon ki awaaz goonji. Chai ke pyaale, puraane gupshup aur naashte ki mehek har jagah chhayi. Khidkiyon se jhaankte huye kuchh chehre,  Ankhon mein aas lagaye baithe,  Kab ye virus chala jaaye, kab hum azaad panchhi ho Bebasi ki leher mein ummeed bhi thi shaamil. Bachhon ki khushiyan jaise garmi ki chuttiyan aa gayi, Ghar mein khel kood, FM par gaane, TV par Mahabharat aur Ramayan ka laut aana, Wahi chutkule, wahi kehkahe, wahi masti ki leher  Wah! Bachpan ke din laut aaye! Par iss baar chuttiyan lambi lagti hain, Mann mein khushi bhi, asmanjas bhi, Ghar mein surakshit raho, virus se bachke raho: yahi naara hai desh ka! Khushiyan fir se laut aayengi, ummeed hai y...