P U B L I S H E D W O R K
A Eulogy for My Royal Blue Botanical Pyjama Set
Helter Skelter Magazine, 2020
(Excerpts)
...which is now a lovely shade of faded memories from the lockdown.
At the onset of my least favourite time of the year — seasonal wardrobe change, I decided to escape to Bombay, because I’d rather pack one tiny suitcase than pack up my entire winter wardrobe into many large suitcases. Oh, I forgot to mention that my least favourite time of the year also coincided with the outbreak of a bad bad virus. Yes, I travelled to Bombay, from Delhi, during a pandemic. Notify the jury, I’m guilty. What was meant to be a week-long rendezvous with friends soon became a four-month-long unpaid internship as Chief Stupid Officer at COVID & Co. The thing about unpaid internships is, you hate them throughout, but miss the experience once it’s over.
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During a pandemic, you want to be home. Home can be in a house with your parents, it can be on top of a hill if you’re lucky, in a city you call your own, or where your dogs are. In any of the scenarios, I wasn’t home. For four months, I lived out of a suitcase and had five sets of clothing that I wore in rotation. One of these was a royal blue pyjama set that I had rarely ever worn before because it was too pretty to sleep in. Embellished with scenes from a jungle, this lovely set of jammies became my confidant on bad days and a place of comfort on the worst days. They became the versatile team captain of my five-player entourage. From workwear to a chef’s coat, and sometimes even a cleaning crew’s uniform, my ‘for special occasions only’ pyjama set became an all-occasion piece of clothing.
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We are both home now, and I have concluded that for me, home is where...
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