Chumi Lakshmi

I saw a YouTube video a few days ago, where this YouTuber said Christmas is all about giving, so he was buying a 55 inch TV for his girlfriend’s father’s new flat. Another YouTuber said this is the busiest time of year because of all the shopping and visiting. Some advertisement emphasise this season as the holiday season.  There’s traffic all over UK because people are travelling to go and meet their families for Christmas dinners. Since when did Christmas become all of the above? As far as I remember, Christmas is Jesus Christ’s birthday. He wasn’t really born on the 25 th of December, it’s just a date to celebrate His birth and the reason for His birth. Instead of celebrating the reason for the season, Christmas has become so commercial and it is celebrated for reasons that are not relevant at all. It’s all about presents, Christmas trees, lights, decorations and holidays. What baffle me the most are family dinners. Peop

As I type this, I’m sitting in my hotel room in Dubai, breathing through my mouth like a goldfish, because my nose is blocked and am probably overdosed with paracetamols and ibuprofens to fight my terrible headache/fever/cold, instead of exploring Dubai, but I cannot feel anymore blessed than I already feel. We’ve been married for 2 years now.   I would like to say it feels like it was just yesterday that I got married, but it doesn’t. As much as it doesn’t feel like yesterday, but it sure was quick. Facebook has very readily reminded me of all the good times we’ve had together on our own holidays, with our families, all the well wishes and how thin I was on our wedding day.   What Facebook hasn’t shown me was all the fights we’ve had, all the struggles and the amount of takes we had to do to get that proper picture that made it to Facebook and Instagram wall. I’m never been the kind of person who’s always wanted her birthdays/anniversaries, Valentine’s day and any other speci

A few months ago, I was at a friendly football match between a mixed group of men; teenagers, kids, adults. I’ve got neither appreciation nor understanding about this game where a bunch of men run behind a Dalmatian-like ball. So the only reason that got me there was for my husband’s sake, and I was lured by the ambition to improve my skills in sport photography.   By the end of the 3-hour match, improving my skills remained unachieved, because I was too busy hiding behind 6-foot-tall men to save myself and my camera from the flying football that was completely out of control. But one thing stuck with me, even after 3 months, and will continue to stay with me for many days to come. When it was another team’s turn to match, a 12-year boy was in the game, while his father was catching his breath after his own game. I strategically chose to stand between this 6-foot tall man and my husband. Just in case a stray football comes my way, I’ve got myself covered you see. Throughout the ma

“New Year resolutions are things that people list out for the entire year, but it only last the first month of the new year, and then it goes down the drain”, says she who had an entirely bad planning/idea about managing her new year resolutions and gave up 2 years ago. Or rather, thought it wasn’t worth it. How stupid of me. Yes me, who else would think such idiocracy is normal. For some reason, I've always associated new year resolutions as checklists that you make at the beginning of the year, and come back to it at the end of the year and select which out of the 4 grades you would tick off; excellent, satisfactory, bad, fail (A,B, C, D). This is what traditional education does to you, everything in life is about making the excellent mark. If you don’t excel, you and your attempts are not worth it. There was an on-going joke about my High School motto. Accomplish or do not begin. The boys wouldn’t do their assignments and when questioned by the teachers, they would blame it