Sharon Eappen

        I find myself constantly trapped within veils during worship - like a persistent reminder of where my position stands in the church, like a bodily adornment. I like the way I am told of how women were never called to be leaders or teachers of the law, or worse, pastors.  It took me many years though, to realise that while there was only one to cover my head, only one you could see, there were several veils wrapped around my throat, mouth and mind to the point where I would choke and rebuke the denomination I grew up in simply because of the many different veils that covered me.       I have veils in my thinking, words and behaviour, almost like chains.  Now, every time I see the curtain that separates the altar and the congregation being drawn, symbolising the Incarnation and Crucifixion, indicating to how the veil between God and man tore, I wish that each one of these veils that bind us to things unnecessary are also tor...

      A peaceful reading, when I sit on my brown sheeted bunk bed reading a random novel I bought for a book sale - a random one I didn't particularly have on my reading list. A peaceful reading I must say, as this book doesn't have much content but is still a sweet distraction. Peaceful, I must surely tell because the only thing that surrounds me is silence - except for the rhythmic sound regarding the speed of the fan. (Oh, not very rhythmic actually. The fan turns on and then turns off - the power cuts here are too frequent.) The truth about Melody Brownie - Lisa Jewell       A peaceful reading, as I hear sparrows by the window chirp adding music to my reading. The book is getting boring, it does get dragging for someone too used to thrillers but it is still a peaceful moment. It's in these loveless moments that I see the beauty of stillness - of how quiet things can actually be, as I, on the other hand, ke...

       A Missionary Kid, as the name suggests, is anyone born and raised by missionary parents. While a lot of aspects about being an MK can be pretty much the same as anyone else's, a lot can differ in several ways. Since our Missionary Kid journeys are never a one-size-fits-all type of story I do believe it is necessary, being an MK myself, to let missionary kids share their experiences. Some of us fall into the stereotype, some of us don't and a lot of us are somewhere in the middle, hanging on our own different scales. A sneak peak into someone else's concised experience is always a healthy practise that makes me and a lot of missionary kids realise that while we may share the same label, not all of us end up fitting into the ideal "Missionary Kid" box and that's completely alright.   .     .     .     .     .     .      .     .    ...

(Written again on one of those hours I was supposed to be studying. Some things are just hobbies you can't give up and sometimes, just sometimes, they can be therapy.)       I think of you on spring nights, the warm and the cold, the eerily silent. I think of you as the bird flaps its wings trying to make its first flight like the ones in my balcony just did. I think of you when I think of all the Harry Potter books I've read and all the morals and values they taught me, of friendship and bravery but also of depth of each character - a certain amount of light in every "bad" character, a certain amount of darkness in every "good" character.       I think of you as the night unfolds into its peak hour, enveloping us all into its thick black blanket. I think of you in those dreams I get, of two men walking into my room and telling me to deny Jesus, yelling into me and my shivering tongue, shivering I say, but it's almost p...

Note to the Reader : I have no idea how writings about such topics spring out of me at odd times. I wasn't in love when I wrote this. However, I must've seen too many relationships that I couldn't agree with that must've made me write this. For a long time I refused to post this or send it around although a lot of my friends insisted that I do. I post this now as it brings back a lot of memories of me writing between my study hours and editing before bedtime.       When you fall in love, you must do so passionately. Love isn't just the feeling, it's more than the hormones and the goosebumps you get when he's around. Love is when you're ready to turn things upside down just to accommodate another living soul into your heart. It's when all the emotions you left behind come springing above, telling out to you that it's time. But love isn't turning into something else for the other person. It isn't you losing yourself, it's b...

Note to the Reader: The 'you' here refers to no specific person. It's a mixture of too many people I've met and too many people I'm bidding farewell to. It also refers to the memories, the "first times" and the city I'm part of since I was a few days old. The 'you' is everything this city has given me and everything I'm taking along to another city. Lastly, the 'you' could also be you if we have had any memory/ a couple of memories/ a truckload of memories particularly pertaining to this city, to Hyderabad.

             Ashlyn Blocker, a kindergarten girl (back in 2012), is one of the very few people known to be diagnosed with CIPA or congenital insensitivity to pain with anhidrosis (that is, the inability to sweat normally, which means your body can't cool itself which leads to overheating of the body and a lot of other complications) - a disease caused by genetic mutation that makes it impossible for her to feel pain, heat or cold.       While that might seem like a convenient disease to have, Ashlyn's parents feel that their child has been "cursed" with the disease of not being able to feel pain at all. One of the many things they stated about how harmful her disease could be was, "When her baby teeth arrived she would chew her lips bloody in her sleep, bite through her tongue while eating and once even stuck a finger in her mouth and stripped flesh from it."       But  that was confu...