Homeless

Yes, that's what I feel now. I do have a roof over my head but it's the inner quest to feel at home in a place away from home. There were days when I missed India so much, I was going about day to day life with discontent and yearning to get back home, to belong, to conform....
I had two choices- to crib, harp, feel miserable or adapt. I chose the second option, a truce with the turmoil within, or so I thought.
I took a trip back home, only to realise I was still not at home, in my own home. I had changed, everything else was, as it was. I was lost and felt homeless. I did enjoy my moments back home but things which had never bothered me earlier, came to surface and I didn't dare to get vocal for fear of being called snobbish.

I am more at peace today, to the point of being stoic. Memories of "good old days" are ensconced deep within, like having loved and lost. It was another time , another world still very vividly alive within me but I do not delve into it. I am living my dream of dwelling abroad..and wishing I had never dreamt so.

Princess of the palace

As a kid I remember playing a game wherein we had to sing princess of the palace lost her shoe. It never made an impact on my mind, never thought of myself as a princess of any sort. But these days when I see the commodification of princesses or rather the disney princesses, I am concerened about the ramifications, being a mother of a girl.
My four year old girl is swallowed into the princess world, hook, line and sinker. In these times when we talk about women shouldering equal responsibilities as men in every aspect of life, how can I let my daughter grow up believing life is but a fairy tale, all she has to ever do is dress up & wait for some handsome prince charming! All my attempts to infuse some sanity into the pristine mind of hers' is in vain. She is under the impression that once she grows up , some prince will woo her off her feet & they can live happily ever after. We have had to shelve away her jeans and trousers and anything remotely bearing a masculine hint. The predominant colour is pink and bed linnen to glass everything has a princess imprint. Thanks to the hoopla surrounding disney princesses,my tiny tot believes muscles are for men and she is conscious about her look, hair style et al at this tender age.
I wish the Swedish fictional character Pippi Longstocking was a role model to young girls. Pippi is assertive, brave and can lift a horse with one hand! I feel, she is someone young girls should emulate and not the princesses clad in beautiful clothes and rendered useless otherwise. In a way this sows the seed in the mind of a young girl that girls are meant to be pretty, kissed, danced with and married off, which is so contradictory to today's woman.
I sincerely hope this is just a passing phase and my girl will come out of it unscathed, believing there's more to life than mere looks and princes.