I never thought some day I would be reading and reviewing a book on the subject of GST. I surprised myself when I felt immersed in the book because I am not into non-fiction, more so into something as ‘dry’ as finance as per my own perception. But I am not exaggerating when I say that Author Apeksha Solanki has come up with a gem and has proved that even taxes can make for an interesting and enriching read. She is a qualified chartered accountant and has a rich experience of working in the fields of both direct and indirect taxes. She makes use of her knowledge and writing prowess to make life easy for people for whom GST still remains a mystery even after almost 4 years of its introduction.
During one of the crucial scenes in Gunjan Saxena: The Kargil Girl, a daughter wants to give up on her dreams to tread the path that most girls chose back then. A visibly disheartened father says to her, “I want to give you the wings to fly and you are asking me to cut those wings.”
I was watching the movie with my father and couldn’t help but think that every girl deserves a father like hers, and like mine.
I haven’t been active on Twitter lately for self-preservation. Even when I open the app, I skim through the feed with a brisk stroke of my thumb. But a recent top trending hashtag on Twitter hit too close to home and I felt compelled to dig further.
A tweet from Dhanya Rajendran, Journalist and Editor-In-Chief of The News Minute, intrigued me. She mentioned a distasteful trending hashtag and called out Twitter India on allowing such malicious content to trend on their platform.
This prompted me to go and check what this was all about. I discovered that the top trending hashtag was one which called a top Tamil actor ‘the son of a prostitute.’ And I was absolutely clueless about where this came from. Baffled and befuddled, I tried to trace the origin of this hashtag only to discover that this was a result of “fan wars.” Fans of the Tamil film actor Vijay put every ounce of effort to spotlight this trend as a means to seek ‘revenge’ on the other team of fans.
I have a child who believes in the magic of magic. She thinks there is actually a treasure at the end of the rainbow and that in some corner of the earth, there must be a fairyland which no one knows about. She is almost 6-year-old now and the pragmatic me used to try to tell her to come out of this imaginary magical world. “There is no magic in reality”, I insisted every so often during my conversations with her. I could see the tad bit of disappointment on her face whenever I said so. A few months back, while we were having lunch, she grumbled about the taste of yoghurt that day and requested me to feed her. I sensed this could just be an excuse for getting fed by me and I happily obliged. The moment she took a spoonful in her mouth, she exclaimed.
“The curd now tastes delicious, Mumma! How did this happen?”
“Well! That’s Mother’s Magic”, I instinctively quipped amused.
“See! I told you magic exists. It is everywhere Mumma.”, she tried to convince me.
If there is anything humans have been reminded of this year more than ever before, it is the fact that nothing is over and above our health. We might rise and progress in multifarious ways, but it is all secondary to our existence. Hence, as a parent, the health of our children is always at the top of our scheme of things. It is imperative for us to be more aware to be able to give our children holistic and the best possible health care. This is precisely why Episode 2 of 9 Months Season 5 by Firstpost is an important watch because it revolves around the theme of vaccination for kids.
A few days back, I saw a post on Facebook which asked people what superpower they would like to possess. While many wished for the power of reading minds or flying in the air, my instant answer was “Power to make my house spick and span without actually having to do the cleaning.”
The unfortunate and heart-breaking demise of Bollywood actor Sushant Singh Rajput triggered debates and dialogues manifold. While there is definitely an urgent need for us to create mental health awareness, what I found appalling is that in an attempt to do this, a lot of us have missed the point leading to a counter-productive endeavour.
At the outset, I want to state in bold that this post is neither about determining whether or not Sushant Singh Rajput was suffering from depression nor is it about analyzing the cause of his death. I know nothing about him personally to make any claims and I pray he gets justice and his family finds closure.
