A children's picture book and a poem for each week

hello,

Firstly im sorry that im unable to respond to emails. my bad. but I want to say they mean a lot to me. Thankyou Thankyou Thankyou for trusting me with your words and resonances. it’s a privilege and such a joy.

I just came back from a dinner. A dinner where three South Indians living away from home went to eat Dosas at a newly opened MTR in Kathmandu. What a joy it was, remembering home, being excited about how the Dosas were just perfect and yes the almost-there sambar. I have officially found a new portal back home.

Dosa.

I can eat Dosas everyday. I can eat Dosa with dal, with any sabzi, with tea (a staple from my mother’s kitchen) or just Plain dosa with sugar sprinkled in it. I can Dosa for breakfast, lunch, dinner and anytime of the day. Yes, I substituted the word ‘eat’ with Dosa. Dosa is not just a name of a dish, it’s a feeling, an emotion, a friend, a verb and just love. I know, that if you are reading this and you love Dosas then you are smiling. because you know what im talking about.

I never liked the crisp paper thin thing they make. I have come to conclusions many times, that it’s not even a dosa. Yes, it’s quiet a topic of debate. but I don’t like debates, so I will agree its dosaaa too (only in times, when I really want a dosa and that thin crisp thing is the only thing available).

The Dosa portal transports me to My Mother’s house in so many different times all at once.

So here’s a book that holds a precious story, about the joys of being in our mothers’ house.

and here’s a poem I wrote after I read this book for the first time -

The joy of being queer
In my mother's house
Queer in ways
bell hooks says
"queer not as being about who you're having sex with (that can be a dimension of it); but queer as being about the self that is at odds with everything around it and has to invent and create and find a place to speak and to thrive and to live."
💚
That's my mother's house
Where i eat in plenty
Where i sleep in plenty
Where afternoon naps
Are not optional
But a must
Where my morning alarms
Are turned off
So that i don't do this
Early morning
waking up
Grind
Where i can say
I'm hungry
At 12 in the night
And laugh out loud
About things that's just about us
And where we talk about love
And secret affairs
And sometimes fight
And say mean things
But find ways back
Fumbling
running
Like the call at 10 pm
When i was little
In the evenings
At the playground
Come home
' Kahani Ghar ghar ki is starting'
In our mothers house.

Bookish love

Ravi/Raviraj

P.S: Hope you eat a Dosa soon.

P.S.S: Send me names of places to eat the best Dosa you have ever eaten.