"A labyrinth of Unpolished Scribbles"

  Recently, while traveling in a private bus, I came across an incident that has been stuck in my mind ever since. A mother and her daughter, who seemed to be around 10–12 years old, entered the bus after a few stops. Since the bus was crowded, they didn’t get seats and had to stand. The girl was wearing a sleeveless frock with frills, and as the bus moved, her frock started flying up because of the wind. She looked very uncomfortable. Her mother noticed this and told her to come and stand between the seats to avoid the wind. Seeing this, I adjusted myself on my seat to make space for the girl to sit next to me. It was a two-seater, and I thought it wouldn’t be difficult to share. But to my surprise, the woman sitting next to me stopped me. She told me not to move and said there was no need to give the girl a seat. She added that the girl’s mother shouldn’t have let her wear a dress like that if it was going to cause such problems. I tried to explain that the child was feeling unco...

  As I sit down to reflect on the past year, I am overwhelmed with emotions – pride, joy, and a sense of accomplishment. It's hard to believe that it's been a whole year since our precious Rael entered our lives and turned everything upside down, in the best possible way. In this blog post, I want to share our journey of parenting, the challenges we faced, the decisions we made, and the lessons we learned along the way. Though my  husband and I were both well prepared  when Rael arrived, we questioned whether we were capable of taking care of her, of being her primary caregivers. However, we were determined to give it our all, to ensure that we were the ones providing her with the love, care, and attention she needed. Taking care of all her things right from the beginning all by ourselves was really beneficial in developing a beautiful bond with her. We were able to read her completely and knew exactly what she wanted, making it easy to handle her. My husband had a strong...