In the last week of July my grandmother passed away. Given how much her body had been wrecked by pain isn't he last few months, this was a welcome release. When the family comes together to mark the passing of 93 years of a life spent contributing to the community, working for female empowerment and producing a repertoire of literary works, it is a somber but not a sad occasion. My family was proud of its head of family and we treated the shraddh as a celebration of her life. So young though my daughter is, my husband and I thought she needed to be a part of this occasion. My ancestral home is about 6 hours from Guwahati (past the Kaziranga forest). The quickest way to reach there is to fly into Jorhat and then take a taxi for a one hour ride over non-existent roads to Golaghat. The flight quickly decimated our collective energy. We reached the Delhi airport at an insane 4 AM - took a one hour flight into Lucknow, then Calcutta, then Guwahati and then, finally Jorhat. All t...
Tales from an urban woman becoming a first time parent