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“Look! Arun is crying like a sissy!” His friends at school had mocked him. SLAP! “Did I beget you after years of praying to our kuladeivam for this? To have an emotional fool of a son like you?” his amma cursed him. Arunachalam couldn’t understand why being emotional and getting hurt was unfathomable to his near and dear ones! As he grew up and launched his YouTube channel – Men get hurt too – the millions of subscribers proved right what he had been thinking all along – emotional masculinity is real, and nothing to be ashamed of!

O Mother Divine! As you step out, clutching your black handbag, your guilt-ridden face tears me apart! Fret not, amma! I’ll be fine! Just fine!   O my love! My wife! As you wake up from the nuptial bed, caught in the crosswords of home and office, I’ll do all I can to better your life!   O my darling girl! As you free yourself from my clutching hands, and step inside the big bad world of wolves, I’ll be the guiding light, watching you unfurl!

“It’s Holi! And I am away from home!” Promita travels down memory lane to the cacophonous and chromatic Calcutta. How long has it been since she boarded a canary yellow taxi? That too, after countless refusals. She wonders if those blue private buses still ply, racing against each other like madmen to haul as many passengers on board. Instinctively, she mutters a silent prayer to Ma Kali. That ebony face with a red tongue protruding out still induces goosebumps. She realises that colours always have been an integral part of her childhood. If only she had taken notice of them!

Was it her bewitching beauty? Or her stupendous skills as a dancer? Or the thrill of the illicit? Kovalan would never know! For on that fateful day, he lost his heart to Madhavi, and his love for his wife Kannagi flew out of the window. What followed next was passion. Amour. And yet, Kovalan, tired of all this, yearned to return to Kannagi, he found that his loyal wife accepted him. Without a complaint. The ever-dutiful Kannagi even offered to accompany him to Madurai. On that fateful day, something had changed. And somehow, everything was the same as before.

"She has a natural smile," they used to gush about my maa. And I believed them. After all, she had prepared five different snacks for fifty guests on the occasion of her own anniversary, without a complaint, and still managed to pose in front of the camera, her lips curved slightly upwards. When I had fever, she used to stay awake, ignoring the nagging ache in her chest, smiling, as if consoling me, "I am there for you, my baby." A wiser me later on realised that a mother's smile can be deceptive, for it doesn't reach her eyes.