A garage. A loft. A cupboard. A suitcase under the bed. A plastic bag inside another plastic bag because, obviously, that also has potential.

In my house, it’s the garage. In yours, it might be the kitchen drawer, the guest room, or that one shelf nobody opens unless there’s a family emergency.

This is not a story about clutter. Not really.

It’s about the strange, funny, very emotional way we keep saving things for a version of life called “later.”

It is also a little bit about the hoarders of our families.

In my case, it’s my mum. She has always had this very specific relationship with things. She doesn’t just see an old bedsheet. She sees backup. She doesn’t just see a box. She sees future use. She doesn’t just see a pile. She sees effort, money, memory, and the possibility that one day, somehow, this exact thing may save the day.

And honestly, that is the part I understand.

What I don’t understand is when “saving” becomes “forgetting,” and the thing kept for later quietly becomes the thing nobody can find, use, donate, repair, or even emotionally defend anymore.

The Garage Has Receipts

My mother is usually very happy not taking my help with household cleaning and organising.

Which is fair. Because the second I enter the scene, peace leaves the group chat.

She is the kind of person who will run an entire house, remember where the turmeric is, know which neighbour borrowed which bowl in 2017, and still insist that the one faded dupatta in the back of the cupboard has “some use.” Her brain is basically a household archive with emotional subtitles.

So when I question the archive, naturally, the archive questions my audacity.

As long as I mind my own business, live out of the suitcases I’ve brought home, and don’t look too closely at anything, all is well.

Then one of two things happens.

Either she asks me to “go keep this there,” or I notice something I was never meant to notice.

Like clothes from when she was my age.

Or old bags.

Or random fabric.

Or something that has been “kept safely” for so long that even the thing itself has forgotten its purpose.

And that’s when the fight begins.

Everything Is Useful If You Believe Hard Enough

To be fair, she’s not entirely wrong.

During my fashion design days, I did use old clothes and fabrics to repurpose them into new designs. Very sustainable. Very creative. Very “look at me saving the planet with one old kurta.” But here’s the problem with saving things for later.

Sometimes, by the time later arrives, the fabric has gone bad. The stitches don’t hold. The quality has died. Or worse, you forget you saved it in the first place and end up buying the same thing again. So now you have the old thing, the new thing, and the emotional burden of both.

Cute.

The Indian Home Runs on ‘Kaam Aa Jayega’

If you grew up in an Indian home, you know the sentence.

“Rakh do, kaam aa jayega.” Keep it. It’ll be useful.

This sentence has saved many things from death. Old containers. Bedsheets. Dupattas. Wires. Notebooks. Gift boxes. Broken bags. Clothes that no longer fit anyone but are somehow still “good material.”

And listen, there is history there.

For a lot of our parents, saving things wasn’t a quirky habit. It came from scarcity. From not having enough. From knowing the value of money. Growing up in homes where you didn’t throw something away just because you were bored with it.

So no, this is not me saying our mothers are wrong.

It’s me saying maybe the “later” they’re preparing for has quietly taken over the house. And with my mother, “later” is not laziness alone. It is a habit. It is an attachment. It is also the mental load of running a home where every object has to be accounted for, every expense has to be justified, and every perfectly usable thing feels rude to discard.

The Problem With Later Is That It Has No Calendar Invite

My mother’s usual defence is simple.

She has to do everything in the house. Nobody helps. Everything is on her. Organising is also another task added to the pile of tasks already waiting for her.

And honestly? Fair.

Decluttering sounds cute on the internet. In real life, it means bending, sorting, dusting, arguing, deciding, donating, carrying, and then listening to someone say, “But why did you give that away?”

No wonder the pile becomes a “later” pile. The donation bag sits in one corner. Then moves to another corner and somehow migrates to the garage and becomes part of the architecture.

Not a Mom Thing, a Letting-Go Thing

The funny part is, this is not just my mother.

My brother has been holding on to notebooks from standard 11.

Standard 11th. He doesn’t use them. He doesn’t need them. He probably doesn’t even remember what’s inside them.

But touch the drawer, and suddenly it’s a heritage site. For him, it’s not about scarcity. It’s about comfort. He arranges his things a certain way. His space feels familiar. Even if he’s not using half of it, knowing it’s there makes him feel settled.

And that’s the thing.

Some people hold on because they grew up with less. Some people hold on because change feels annoying. Some people hold on because deciding is exhausting.

Some people hold on because their mess has become their comfort zone.

So no, it’s not a mother thing. It’s not even a money thing. It’s a letting-go thing.

Minimalism Meets the Middle-Class Cupboard

Watching The Minimalists: Less Is Now makes living with less look almost too simple.

The documentary follows Joshua Fields Millburn and Ryan Nicodemus, better known as The Minimalists, as they talk about how owning less can make space for more actual life.

Lovely thought. But Indian homes complicate minimalism. Because here, an extra bedsheet is not just an extra bedsheet. It is guest culture, emergency planning, middle-class memory, and “what if someone needs it?” folded into one.

Minimalism says: keep what adds value. Indian homes say: but what if this random cable adds value in 2031? And that’s where the real work begins. Not in throwing everything away.

In asking: Is this still serving me, or am I just scared to let it go?

My Personal Rule: Keep the Story, Not the Storage Problem

I’m not someone who believes everything old must go. I keep things too. I keep letters, clothes that still feel like a version of me, small objects that carry a person, a place, or a time I don’t want to lose. I understand the drama of a thing becoming more than a thing. Sometimes a random top is not a random top. Sometimes it is a whole era with sleeves.

But I do have one rule. If I can tell you why I’m keeping it, it can stay.

If the only reason is “maybe later,” “just in case,” or “I forgot this existed but now that you’ve shown it to me, I feel emotionally attacked,” then we need to have a conversation. For me, the difference is simple. Keeping something should feel like care. Hoarding it should not feel like avoidance.

Some Things Are Memories, Some Are Just Dust With Confidence

There are things worth keeping. A sari that belonged to your grandmother. A letter. A childhood toy. A piece of clothing that carries a whole person inside it. Something that still makes your heart do a small, dramatic thing.

Keep them properly. Store them with care. Give them space and respect.

But the broken wooden chair that someday a carpenter will come and fix? The top you haven’t worn in six years?

The notebook from a tuition class you emotionally left behind in 2018? Maybe not. Not everything is memory.

Some things are just objects with excellent PR. Memory deserves preservation. Clutter just demands accommodation. Know the difference. 

The Marie Kondo Method, but Make It Family Drama

With my brother, the calmer route works. You can’t just storm in and say, “Move your things, I need this space.”

That will activate the defence system. You have to tell him, gently, that you know this is difficult. That you’re not here to destroy his entire emotional ecosystem. That you just need him to look at the things and decide what still matters.

Once he gets there, he usually realises he doesn’t need 100 things. Maybe he needs 10.

Fine. Keep the 10. But let the 90 go.

That’s the most practical version of the Marie Kondo idea. Not everything has to “spark joy” in a poetic, Netflix-approved way. Some things can simply be useful. Some can be meaningful. The rest can leave.

With Mothers, You Need a Strategy and Snacks

With mothers, it’s harder.

You cannot simply tell them what to do. That is not how Indian households work. That is how you get a 45-minute speech on everything they have done for you since birth.

You have to help. You have to sort with them. You have to show them what has gone bad, what hasn’t been used, what someone else could actually use, and what is only taking up space.

And most importantly, you have to move fast. Because if you leave the donation pile unattended for too long, it will be reviewed, reconsidered, rescued, and returned to the garage.

The trick is not to fight every time. It is to explain why something can go.

Why it won’t be used. Why someone else may need it more. Why keeping everything is not the same as valuing everything.

Don’t Wait for the Big Clean

The easiest clutter to deal with is the clutter you never create. When you’re about to keep something, pause for five seconds and ask yourself if it has an actual place in your life or just a possible one.

Because if everything gets promoted to “later,” later eventually needs an entire garage.

And if you already have a later pile? Give it a date. Not someday. A Sunday. Take an hour. Put on music. Make coffee. Get everyone involved. Homes don’t belong to one person, and neither does the responsibility of looking after them.

You don’t have to become a minimalist overnight. You just have to stop making “later” do all the heavy lifting.

Before You Ask, What’s Wrong With Hoarding?

Technically, nothing.

Keep what you want. It’s your house. Your cupboard. Your emotional support carton.

But also, let’s be honest.

If you keep things you never use, you make less space for things you actually need.

If you store things “for later” and never find them later, you buy more.

If something could help someone else but is sitting in your garage collecting dust, its usefulness is basically being held hostage.

And if your home starts feeling heavy, crowded, and chaotic, maybe the things are not just taking up space.

Maybe they’re taking up energy.

The Real Test Is Honesty

Maybe the real test is not whether something sparks joy.

Maybe the real test is whether we are being honest about it.

Will I use this? Do I know where it is?

Is it still in good condition? Does it mean something to me? Would someone else use it better?

Am I keeping it because I love it, or because deciding what to do with it feels like work? That last one is usually the problem. A lot of clutter is not attachment. It is postponed decision-making wearing sentimental perfume.

Keep the Meaning, Lose the Dust

The point is not to become a minimalist monk with one chair, two plates, and a beige linen wardrobe.

The point is also not to shame our parents for saving things.

Maybe they saved because they had to. Maybe they kept because life taught them not to waste. Maybe “later” was once a very real survival strategy.

But maybe now, we can update the system. Keep the things that hold meaning. Keep the things that still serve a purpose. Keep the things that make you feel rooted, loved, or quietly happy.

Let go of the things that are only sitting there because no one had the energy to decide. And the garage, finally, gets to stop being a museum of postponed decisions.  Because somewhere in the garage, my mother is probably still saving something for later. And if I come back years from now, I have a feeling it’ll still be there.

Waiting.
Dusty.
Confident.

Fully convinced its moment is coming.

The post Somewhere In The Garage, My Mother Is Still Saving Things For ‘Later’ appeared first on Voicey World.

I just covered my head when told, sat through the prayers, waited for langar, and accepted that adults had their own mysterious spiritual logistics. But somewhere between hearing verses from the Guru Granth Sahib, watching my nani pray to Guru Nanak Ji with complete familiarity, and eating the best kada prasad known to humanity, one thing quietly stayed with me.

Langar wali thali

Gurudwaras are so commonly associated with Sikhs, Sardars and Punjabis that I didn’t realise, for years, that our Sindhi comfort there had a whole history of its own.

Mostly because nobody sat me down with a whiteboard and said, “Beta, today we will discuss the historical relationship between Sindhis, Sikhism, Nanakpanthi traditions, Partition, and inherited spirituality.”

Rude, honestly.

Instead, like most things in South Asian families, the answer came through habit first. Through summer vacations and my nani’s routine. Through old photographs of Guru Nanak Sahib on the wall and prayers I heard before I understood them. 

Through spaces that felt like home long before I knew their history.

Well, this one is not your same old ‘suddenly discovering a new faith’ story.

It is about realising that something I thought belonged to someone else had been part of my own inheritance all along.

Before History, There Was Nani

The writer’s nani

My nani was the kind of woman who dedicated her life to her guru, her children, and then her grandkids, which is basically the holy trinity of nanihood. 

My nanu called her Kiki. She was loving, warm, deeply devoted, and had that specific Sindhi-Punjabi-Sikhni aunty energy that cannot be manufactured. You either have it, or you don’t.

The writer’s nani at the Gurudwara

She gave me my love for parandas and patiala saawars. She dressed me in clothes she made herself. Nani fed me, played with me, spoiled me in the legally approved nani way, and somehow made faith feel less like a rulebook and more like a rhythm of the house.

During summer vacations, all the cousins would gather at her home. Mornings had their own chaos. Everyone had to brush. Everyone had to bathe. Everyone had to stand in line like we were auditioning for a family version of military school. Then we’d open our suitcases, pick our favourite clothes, and get ready like our lives depended on it.

Because in a way, they did.

If we were late, nani would leave without us. Or worse, she would take only the cousins who were ready.

At Nani’s house, spirituality came with its own consequences. 

The Gurudwara Felt Like Nani’s World 

The Gurudwara she took us to was old-fashioned.  It was quiet in that way; some places are silent even when people are moving around. An elderly Sardar uncle would read from the Guru Granth Sahib. We would cover our heads, take a rumala sahib from the pile outside, enter, sit down, and watch.

The idea is simple: you enter with respect.

As a child, I didn’t know all this language. I just knew the steps.

Cover your head. Sit quietly. Don’t fidget too much. Try not to fall asleep.

My nani would read Japji Sahib, the morning prayer composed by Guru Nanak Ji. The prayers would end with ardas, the collective prayer of supplication and gratitude. And somewhere in the middle of all this, I would become completely hypnotised by the chaur sahib, the ceremonial whisk waved over the Guru Granth Sahib as a sign of reverence.

The slow movement of it was so calming that it almost put me to sleep.

Honestly, if meditation apps had chaur sahib visuals, half of us would be healed.

Then came the part every child understood without needing theology: kada prasad.

Warm. Ghee-loaded. Soft. Sweet. Absolutely undefeated.

The old sardar uncle, whom we called Babaji, would give it to us while chanting, “Waheguru, Waheguru.” I didn’t know the full history of what I was part of. But I knew that prasad felt like love being placed into my hands.

We’d come home, eat breakfast, and continue with our day. That was the routine. That was nani’s world.

And because it was nani’s world, I accepted it.

Here’s Where the Confusion Entered

Back at my paternal home, the spiritual setup looked different. There was not the same everyday Gurudwara rhythm. We did have a Sindhi Tikana, a devotional space where we prayed to a different guru, and only much later did I realise that in one section, the Guru Granth Sahib was kept there too.

As a child, I didn’t know this.

So in my head, nani’s Gurudwara world felt separate. Almost like something from her side of the family, her city and her rhythm. My paternal side felt more like a Sindhi Tikana setup, a mixed devotional space with Sindhi, Hindu, and Sikh influences sitting together in a way nobody seemed to find confusing except, eventually, me.

Because outside the home, the categories felt clearer.

Sindhi. Sikh. Punjabi. Hindu. Gurudwara. Mandir.

Clean labels. Separate folders.

But inside our families, faith did not behave like a school notebook. It moved through rooms, rituals, photos, prayers, idols, scriptures, food, songs, and grandmothers who did not pause to explain the academic framework before taking you along.

And honestly, maybe that is why it took me so long to understand it.

I Was Trying To Put Nani’s Faith Into Boxes She Had Never Used

The facade of the Gurudwara

The more I read, the more my childhood memories rearranged themselves.

In many Sindhi devotional spaces, especially tikanas, the Guru Granth Sahib has historically been kept with deep reverence, sometimes alongside Hindu deities and other devotional symbols. That may sound confusing if you are used to clean set of religious boundaries, but Sindhi spirituality has often been more layered than what most people perceive. It has carried influences of Hinduism, Sikh teachings, Sufi traditions, local saints, Jhulelal devotion, family gurus, and community practices, sometimes all in the same emotional room.

This does not mean Sindhis and Sikhs are the same community.

It does not mean every Sindhi family follows the same practices.

It definitely does not mean we can flatten everyone’s faith into one cute ‘unity in diversity’ poster and call it a day.

It means the lived history is more complicated, and honestly, more interesting.

For many Sindhi families, Guru Nanak Ji was not someone else’s Guru. He was part of the spiritual vocabulary of the home. Present in prayers and photographs. Present at Gurpurab celebrations. Present in the Guru Granth Sahib kept in tikanas. Present in the way elders spoke of faith, even when they did not explain it like a podcast episode.

Which, frankly, would have helped.

But no. We got mystery, prasad and vibes.

And Then There Is Partition

Because no story about Sindhi identity can really avoid it. Partition did not just move people from one side of a border to another.

 It moved languages, recipes, gods, prayers, scriptures, grief, habits, and the tiny rituals families kept repeating because stopping would feel like losing one more thing.

After Partition, many displaced Sindhi families rebuilt their lives across India, in places like Rajasthan, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Delhi, and beyond. KBS Sidhu’s essay notes that Sindhi Hindus carried saroops of the Guru Granth Sahib with them and rebuilt tikanas where Gurbani remained central to community gatherings.

That detail stayed with me.

It’s one thing to say a community values a tradition. It’s another to carry it with you when everything else around you changes.

Sindhi families rebuilt their lives from scratch after Partition. New cities. New homes. New beginnings. But many of them still made space for Gurbani, paath, Gurudwaras, and the practices they had grown up with.

There is something quietly moving about that.

At Some Point In School, This World Appeared Again

I did a project on the ten Sikh Gurus, from Guru Nanak Sahib to Guru Gobind Singh Ji, who declared the Guru Granth Sahib as the eternal living Guru of the Sikhs. I remember writing it down, learning the order, understanding the broad story, and feeling like I had touched a part of history that was both familiar and not fully mine yet.

Then life did what life does.

Boards happened. Exams happened. We grew older. Nani shifted homes. Summer vacations became shorter. We stopped going to her house for long stretches. The Gurudwara visits slowly faded into memory.

Not dramatically.

Just quietly.

But they didn’t fade from hers.

When she celebrated big wins like moving homes, she kept Paath Sahib at home, bringing the sound of Gurbani into her own space, almost as if the Gurudwara had travelled with her. For my nani, it is a love language. She didn’t just visit Waheguru Ji. She made room for that presence wherever she lived.

My childhood rituals, though, disappeared. One year, you are doing them. Then one year you are not. And nobody announced the last time.

Pune Brought It Back

A Gurudwara in Pune

Years later, in Pune, the thread found me again.

In my first year, on Guru Nanak Jayanti, my Punjabi roommate and I decided to visit a Gurudwara. I didn’t know then that this would become one of my most peaceful places in the city.

But it did.

I started going often. On Guru Nanak Jayanti. On New Year’s. At the beginning of something. At the end of something. When I wanted to say thank you. When I wanted to pray. 

When my mind needed a place to sit down and stop behaving like a browser with 47 tabs open.

And slowly, I began taking people with me.

Punjabi friends. Muslim friends. Spanish friends. Marathi friends. My Marwari best friend. Office friends. People I loved. People I wanted to know better.

Yes, even dates.

Listen. Some people do coffee. Some people do cocktails. Apparently, I do spiritual soft launches.

But it made sense to me. A Gurudwara is one of the few places where I have always felt that nobody is asking you to perform belonging. You cover your head, sit down, listen, eat prasad, maybe help, or just be. It is calm without being cold. Open without being loud. Sacred without making you feel like you need a membership card.

For me, taking someone there became a way of saying, “This is where I come from.” This is what calms me. This is a part of me I want you to see.

The Place Was Never Just a Place

The more I returned to Gurudwaras as an adult, the more I understood what nani had given me.

She had not given me a lecture. She had not explained history, syncretic Sindhi spirituality, the role of Guru Granth Sahib in tikanas, or the spiritual overlap between Sindhi and Sikh communities.

She had simply taken me with her.

And maybe that is how grandparents pass things down. Not always through explanation. Sometimes through repetition. Through where they take you. Through what they bow before. Through what they make feel normal.

As children, we think we are just being dragged along.

As adults, we realise we were being introduced.

The Part That Still Hurts a Little

Kada prasad

I had always wanted to take nani to the Gurudwara I loved in Pune.

I had told her about it so many times. I imagined sitting there with her, showing her the space that had become mine in a city far away from home. I imagined her looking around, approving it in her quiet nani way, maybe telling me something I would pretend to understand fully and then decode five years later.

But before I could take her, she passed away.

So now, whenever I go, I carry her with me.

Every beginning. Every thank you. Every quiet prayer. Every Guru Nanak Jayanti. Every time I sit there, and the world finally lowers its volume, I think of those summer mornings. The cousins rushing to get ready. The old Gurudwara. Babaji saying “Waheguru.” The kada prasad in my hands. 

My nani sitting there with a faith that did not need to justify itself to anyone.

Maybe This Was Always Mine

For a long time, I thought my confusion came from not knowing enough.

Now I think it came from being taught to see faith as something with hard borders.

But my nani’s faith did not move like that. Sindhi history often did not move like that either. It moved through migration, memory, devotion, adaptation, loss, rebuilding, and the stubborn tenderness of families who carried what mattered even when they had to leave almost everything else behind.

So when people ask why Sindhis go to Gurudwaras, why many revere Guru Nanak Ji, why the Guru Granth Sahib appears in some Sindhi spaces and why this connection exists at all, the answer is not a simple, one line.

It is history.

It is Nanakpanthi tradition. It is Sindh’s layered spiritual landscape.

It is Partition. It is my grandparents. It is the way faith sometimes arrives before language. It is the way a child can sit in a Gurudwara, not fully understanding anything and still feel held.

Maybe my nani did not introduce me to a new faith. Maybe she helped me recognise one that had been waiting inside my own history.

And maybe that is why, even now, years later, whenever I enter a Gurudwara, I don’t feel like I am stepping into someone else’s space. I feel like I am returning to something she knew before I did.

To the sound of “Waheguru” under someone’s breath. To kada prasad warm in my hands. To a faith that arrived first as routine, then as memory, and finally as belonging.

Jo Bole So Nihal, Sat Sri Akal

The post My Nani Introduced Me to a Faith I Didn’t Realise Belonged to Me Already appeared first on Voicey World.

I couldn’t get enough, because these characters were doing something to my mind that was unimaginable, even to me. I was so deep into it; the stories were full of complex human emotions and were presented in a very magnificent way.

I got into reading more and more about Gods, their strategies, and how they moved through the world. The more I read, the more I realised that the stories I thought I understood had so many facets. Mythology had so much more to offer because even the Gods I had grown up praying to could make me question their actions.

A character I admired in one book could frustrate me in another. Someone I had first understood through her suffering could turn out to be a warrior in a different retelling.

The Narrator Changed Whose Side I Took

What surprised me most was how quickly my loyalties changed depending on who was telling the story. These were different writers’ interpretations, not interchangeable accounts of one definitive version. But while reading, it was easy to forget that distinction.

Take Draupadi, for instance.

Water-colour painting showing Draupadi tying her hair after the defeat of Duhshasana, surrounded by the Pandavas [Photograph: Wikimedia Commons]

In Mahabharat, Draupadi is shown as a woman wronged by a society that failed her, and even by her own husbands. She got far less screen time and fewer dialogues than the male characters in the television adaptation, yet her rage and her vow of vengeance changed the course of history.

She seemed divine to me because of how much she endured and how the series chose to show it. She was born from fire and had to accept a life with five husbands. And when she was dragged into the royal court and disrobed, she didn’t break. She held on to her dignity and demanded justice. She faced humiliation without letting go of her anger, and that made her feel larger than life, like someone who could bear far more than an ordinary woman could.

The Palace of Illusions by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni shows Draupadi in a different light, as the epic’s protagonist. Her emotions take centre stage, and her anger, jealousy, pain, and pride are explored in far greater detail, along with her fight against patriarchy and society.

I was impressed by the voice Draupadi is given in this book because she is no longer a character to be looked at. I was looking at the Mahabharata through her eyes. I could read her thoughts, see her rivalry with her mother-in-law, and root for her. I understood Draupadi, and I accepted her faults and her unfulfilled desires. I grew alongside her and almost became a fan.

Karna offering his Kavach and Kundal to Indra, who approaches him disguised as a Brahmin. [Photograph: Wikimedia Commons]

And then came Kavita Kane’s The Wife of Karna.

This book challenged the very version of Draupadi I had built in my head.

Through Uruvi, Karna’s wife, I saw a different side of her. At Yudhishthira’s Rajasuya Yagna, the Vedic royal consecration ritual associated with establishing imperial sovereignty, Uruvi noticed Draupadi gazing at Karna again and again. It made her question her bond with him and whether any feelings still existed between them.

And suddenly, Draupadi was no longer the heroic woman I had admired in the previous book. She was someone my protagonist felt jealous of.

You know how we connect with the protagonist while reading? Imagine finding out that your partner shares a history of admiration, rejection, and humiliation with another woman, and that she still seems to hold a place in his life.

It was a strange experience. Draupadi hadn’t become a different person in my head for no reason. I was seeing her through someone else’s eyes, and that changed how I felt about her.

And this happened with Sita, too.

Sita Bhumipravesh (Sita Returning to Mother Earth), oil on canvas by Raja Ravi Varma. [Photograph: Wikimedia Commons]

In Ramanand Sagar’s Ramayan, I watched Sita go through her hardships with very little space to express the range of emotions she might have felt. She is portrayed as an ideal wife who stood by her husband through the worst phase of his life and remained ‘pure’ even after being held captive by Ravana.

Her portrayal felt celestial to me; I admired her, but I couldn’t feel or see what those hardships meant to her as a woman.

Then I read The Forest of Enchantments by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni. Written from Sita’s perspective, it took me through her emotions, her journey, and her resolve. She was still in love with Rama, but I could see the hurt and disappointment that came with that love. Even after walking through fire to prove her purity, she forgave him. And when Rama eventually abandoned her, she wasn’t entirely surprised, because his doubt about her faithfulness during her captivity had already broken the trust between them. Reading this made me realise that Sita could love her husband deeply and still be hurt by him.

I built a soft corner for her in my heart, so much so that the book turned me into a sobbing mess at 4 am.

I thought I had finally found a version of Sita I could connect with, but then I picked up Amish Tripathi’s Sita: Warrior of Mithila.

.

Book cover for Sita: Warrior of Mithila

In this book, Sita is a warrior. She fights Ravana’s army with weapons in her hands when they come to abduct her, and she is trained in combat, strategy, and planning. The idea of her being chosen to become Vishnu was also very different from the Sita I had read about and imagined.

This version really puzzled me. The Sita I knew was now someone who could fight, strategise, and lead. I had gone from feeling sorry for her to admiring her resolve, and now I was reading a version that challenged my understanding of her role altogether.

Phew! That’s how my mind went through all this.

And this is one of the things I love about falling into the mythology rabbit hole. You don’t have to settle for the character you first encountered on television.

You can meet them again through another writer, another perspective, and another interpretation. Sometimes you agree with that version, sometimes you don’t.

And sometimes you end up questioning why you felt so strongly about the character in the first place.

An Emotion Often Assumed Is Only Felt by Humans

The Sacrificial Horse (Ashvamedha), Paithan-style painting (Chitrapathi), Maharashtra, 19th century. [Photograph: Wikimedia Commons]

There was something else I began noticing as I read these books. For most people, deities are flawless. They might do things that we wouldn’t normally approve of, but we believe they did them for a larger good. We see them sacrificing, protecting, and guiding us. I used to think that way, too.

But when I read about Krishna in the Mahabharata, I observed another side of his character.

Take the episode involving Jarasandha. Krishna had to relocate his people from Mathura to Dwarka to protect them from Jarasandha’s repeated attacks. But he didn’t stop there. He later devised a plan in which Bhima would challenge and kill Jarasandha. I was fascinated by how cunningly he handled the situation, using his intelligence to help the Pandavas succeed.

Isn’t this similar to how we ask our friends to deal with people who are annoying us? Once, my friend hadn’t finished her work, so I had to convince her professor by telling him she was unwell and in the hospital. I know the stakes were completely different, but Krishna used his friend to get the job done, and in many ways, I did the same.

Then there was the episode involving Jayadratha, when Krishna used his Sudarshana Chakra to cover the sun, making the Kauravas believe that the day had ended. Arjuna had vowed to kill Jayadratha before sunset, or else take his own life. Krishna’s strategy gave Arjuna the opportunity he needed.

I found myself appreciating how Krishna could use deception and strategy to get things done. These weren’t necessarily the qualities I associated with a God growing up. And yet, here they were, part of the stories I was reading.

I absolutely loved how Krishna, since his childhood, was lovingly called chhaliya [trickster] because of his playful and cunning nature, from stealing butter to helping the Pandavas win the war.

I wasn’t looking at him only as a divine figure who knew and could do everything. I was looking at his decisions, intelligence, and the lengths he would go to achieve what he believed was necessary.

For the first time, I was comfortable looking at a God through the same lens I used for other characters.

Examining their actions, questioning their choices, and trying to understand their reasoning. I didn’t have to stop thinking critically just because the person in the story was godlike.

I realised I didn’t have to arrive at one final answer every time I read something. I could look at different explanations, explore different theories, and form my own understanding.

That was a big shift for me. Earlier, I would watch a mythological story and accept what I was shown. Now, I want to know why a character acted a certain way, what another version might say about the same event, and whether I agree with the interpretation in front of me.

Mythology has made me comfortable with not having one fixed answer, and eager to find more.

Where Should You Start

A 12th-century painted wooden manuscript cover from Nepal depicting narrative scenes from Kalidasa’s play Abhijnanashakuntalam. [Photograph: Wikimedia Commons]

You don’t need to watch a television series before picking up a book. Start with the question or character that interests you, and keep track of what kind of book you are reading.

Rajagopalachari’s Mahabharata offers an abridged retelling if you want to follow the wider story. Devdutt Pattanaik’s Myth = Mithya explores ideas and symbols through his interpretations and illustrations. For novels centered on women’s perspectives, try The Palace of Illusions, The Forest of Enchantments, or Karna’s Wife: The Outcast’s Queen. If you want a more freely reimagined adventure, there is Sita: Warrior of Mithila. They offer different ways into the stories, not a single reading order or a substitute for one another.

You may not agree with every interpretation. I certainly haven’t. But now, when I find myself taking a character’s side, I also want to know who told me their story.

The post I Fell Down the Mythology Rabbit Hole. Here’s Why You Might Want To, Too appeared first on Voicey World.

Two suitcases! That was my life for a while. Them, a few boxes dumped at a friend’s place, a temporary apartment situation, one deeply confusing relationship, a job that felt like a social experiment, two freelance gigs, and one brain (cell) that would not stop asking: Why the hell do you keep making wrong choices?

You know that phase where life doesn’t gently transition? It just picks you up by the collar and says, ‘New chapter, bi*ch!’

Yeah. That.

Staying in the same city felt like it was killing my soul. If you’ve ever broken up with someone and had to exist, roaming the same cafés, roads, and grocery stores, and breathing the same air, you get it. The city starts feeling like a shared Google Drive you no longer have access to but somehow still keep getting notifications from. So I went back home, to a small town called Katni, in Madhya Pradesh. Not in a dramatic ‘I’m healing in my childhood bedroom’ way. More in an ‘I cannot afford an apartment in Pune alone, and also I don’t know what I’m doing with my life’ way.

I needed space. I needed to clear my head. I needed a job. I also needed to not spend metropolitan-city rent unless I was actually making metropolitan-city money. Very spiritual. Very practical. Very Indian-daughter coded. And then, within a month, I landed two jobs. One was back in Pune, the same city I had just run away from. The other was in Mumbai. Naturally, like a woman committed to character development and questionable plot twists, I chose the job in Pune. I know. You can judge me.

But in my defence, both jobs were paying the same, and we all know Mumbai is adorably more expensive. Romance may make you stupid, but rent makes you practical.

So I went back.

I started hunting for an apartment near my new office in Camp, and the area is… let’s just say it has the emotional texture of a bad decision. It felt like a huge step down, as I had lived in Baner for a year. Not ‘quirky old neighbourhood’ down. More like ‘will I become a true-crime headline?’ down.

There was one apartment I really liked on SB Road. Better neighbourhood and a better chance of me not texting my friends, ‘if I go missing, start here.’

The only problem? It was a good 10 km from this office and was going to be under renovation for the next month. Anyway, because I still needed a roof and could not rely on potential, I kept looking around Camp. And despite the general energy that made up the neighbourhood, I did find another place there. Just more immediate and only slightly shady.

I was about to pay the token amount. Then life, being life, dropped a LinkedIn message into my inbox. It was from an editor at one of my favourite magazines. They were looking for someone like me.

Someone like me.

Do you understand what those three words can do to a 22-year-old girl with a dream, a breakup, and no stable address?

I didn’t pay the deposit. Obviously. The selection process would take nearly a month, so I continued with the job. I didn’t commit to my apartment either and waited to see if this dream opportunity would turn into something real. Except now I had a new problem. Where was I supposed to live? Who gives a 22-year-old an apartment for a month? Who trusts a girl with two suitcases, unresolved emotions, and hope that came in the form of a LinkedIn message?

Drumroll.

My ex enters. Yes, that ex. God bless him (lol). How he re-entered the picture is a story for another time, because that relationship had its own syllabus. For now, all you need to know is that he helped me find a temporary apartment.

The flat was his best friend’s investment in Narhe, a far corner of the city, an area I was hearing about for the first time in my life. It was not ideal for so many reasons, but desperate times do not care about your standards.

Seeking that help was killing me a little. My self-respect was standing in one corner with a clipboard, judging me. But I also couldn’t afford to self-respect my full-time accommodation plan. So I took the help. Not because it was uncomplicated, but because sometimes survival is not aesthetic.

A nervous system running on vibes and Google Calendar.

AND THEN the job I had moved back for started showing its real face.

While it had a decent setup, a coffee machine, and some sense of freedom, within days the company moved us into a bare room with white walls, white desks, white lights, and the emotional warmth of a government waiting room. I had moved cities for this job, and suddenly I was wondering if this was character-building or just a bad decision. But the office was only part of it. I had joined to write but was suddenly handling client communication I hadn’t signed up for, while being micromanaged over every message, line, and piece of research.

And then there was the politics. ‘Let’s take a walk’ never meant fresh air. It meant someone was about to tell me who to avoid, who was ‘too slow’, and how I, the junior-most person there, should manage conflicts between people twice my age.

It felt less like a workplace and more like high school with invoices. Then my appointment letter arrived with a salary lower than what I’d been promised. If they couldn’t get that right on paper, how was I supposed to trust the magical three-month hike they’d sold me?

There were some perks, though. I made a great friend there who was also being professionally tortured like me. There is nothing like trauma bonding in a corporate office. But the setup? The workflow? The toxicity? The fake promises about hikes? The way juniors were used as pawns?

It was, and I say this with editorial restraint, F*CKED UP.

I was trying to act like this was all part of a plan. It wasn’t.

It was a pickle.

Actually, not even a pickle. It was the entire achaar jar falling off the shelf.

And through all of this, my brain’s (last) cell was doing what anxious brains do best: turning every inconvenience into a full-blown investigation.

‘Should I have stayed home? Should I have chosen the other city?’

‘Should I have made the relationship work? Should I have taken the apartment?’

‘Should I have thought more carefully? Oh shit, I have not been eating healthy!’

‘Should I have become a person who makes better decisions and drinks more water?’

But somewhere in the middle of all this, one Sindhi saying kept coming back to me: ‘Na waqt kha pehro, na naseeb kha zyada, kehke kuch milan do aahe, na milando.’

What it meant was that everything in life comes in its own time, and what’s not meant for you will never arrive, no matter how tightly you hold on.

The phrase is annoying when one is anxious but useful when life is held together by suitcase zips. The saying is not asking you to sit down and wait for your future to arrive via Swiggy. It’s about understanding the difference between effort and obsession.

Effort is sending the assignment. Obsession is refreshing your inbox every seven minutes and deciding your entire future is over because no one replied by 4:12 p.m.

Effort is looking for apartments. Obsession is deciding that one bad neighbourhood means you’ve ruined your life forever.

Effort is applying for jobs. Obsession is mentally punishing yourself for every decision that didn’t immediately turn into a Pinterest board.

Well, I kept doing what I had to do. That saying gave me something I badly needed at the time: surrender. Not the kind where you give up, but the kind where you do your part and stop trying to control everything with anxiety.

Slowly, things shifted.

The apartment I had liked earlier on SB Road? Far better neighbourhood, under renovation! Ring a bell? It became available. Because, of course, the month I spent floating around in chaos was the same month it needed to come together.

I quit the shitty job and found another one just two kilometres away. Two kilometres. No, this was not the one with my favourite magazine; I never heard back from them. But still! After all the drama, life handed me a commute that was basically a warm apology. Around the same time, I found a roommate. I had heard enough horror stories to expect another plot twist, but she turned out to be an absolute gift. We found each other surprisingly quickly, moved in, and ended up living together for the next three years. That could have been another disaster waiting to happen. Instead, it became proof that maybe the hard part was finally over.

I continued with my freelance gigs and jobs.

AND THRIVED.

And I stopped feeling like my life was a badly edited draft. Now, it’s easy to make it sound neat. Like everything happened for a reason. Like the chaos had a clean little moral hiding inside it the whole time.

But when it was all happening to me, it felt unstable and embarrassing… as if everyone got a well-stitched rulebook, while I got a PDF forwarded multiple times, and that too with missing pages. I didn’t know that the job I moved back for wouldn’t be the best for me, or perhaps that the apartment I almost gave up on would become my home. The Sindhi saying came as a reminder, not blind faith. Because things take their own time, and all I could do was my part. I can do everything in my power and still not control the final shape of things. I can apply. I can move. I can leave. I can try. I can make the call. I can send the email. I can pack the suitcase. These few months weren’t about giving up on effort but about learning when effort has done its job and anxiety has started doing overtime.

Confused, semi-homeless, overworked, underpaid, and still somehow being carried by a timing I couldn’t see yet. I didn’t know the temporary mess was buying me time to land somewhere softer.

The post I Was 22, Heartbroken, Homeless-ish, and Somehow Exactly Where I Needed to Be appeared first on Voicey World.