Prachi - The Happy Me

13th May, 2020. To, My Dearest Chartered Accountancy Degree. 26th July, 2004. I was 22. You became mine, forever ! I dedicated you to my little brother; who was no more with us, as it was his birthday that day ! The next two three days I was crazily calling up friends and relatives and professors and telling them, “Hello, this is Chartered Accountant, Prachi Rahalkar speaking” ! Listening to the congratulatory messages from the other side was just something else ! The next big question was choosing a career. You know, I had never really given it a thought ! I loved every bit of what I had studied while achieving you. But the one I had fallen for was Financial Management. So taking up a job in a financial management field was what I was thinking. But back then, there were hardly any opportunities in this field, in my city, Pune. Or may be I hadn’t researched enough. My bad. And leaving the city for a career was not my priority. So that dream went to the back seat. In...

Never ever will anyone living on this Earth, as of today, will forget this year 2020 ! Thanks to the Covid 19 pandemic ! Governments across the globe declared lockdowns, put restrictions on movements to try to contain the spread. So here we are, locked down in our houses, for good ! However, numerous medical professionals, their support staff, policemen, politicians, armed forces personnel (here I mean all three; army, navy and air force), manufacturers, suppliers and vendors of essential commodities, bankers, media professionals and their support staff are all putting their best foot forward so that we are safe and sound in our nests ! Some unfortunate souls don’t even have a home to stay and are not even getting a meal a day to eat. Absolute love and respect to each one ! 🙏 Hundreds of people around the world are spending this lock down time in their houses, differently, to keep the boredom away from them, their family members and keeping the peppiness alive. Some are ta...

The Love Of My Life ! Wait; No, it’s not my husband ! 😂It’s something that helps me in pepping up my moods, easing up my tensions, forget stress for a little while, adds that pinch of superb flavour to my happiness and most importantly, kick starts my mornings making them lovely for me. My weather-proof companion. Yes, that’s my kind of a cup of TEA !! Oh, how I love it ! 😋😋 Well, I don’t really remember when did I have my first cup of tea. How old was I? Or where was it? Who made it for me? I say who made it for me, because, my mom is a coffee person and my dad was a total tea person ! So may be it was my dad who first wanted us kids to taste it, and am so sure I must have fallen for it just instantly ! When we were school going kids, one of the most staple breakfast, if I may say so, used to be whole wheat rotis with tea. Oh, and not the leftovers from the earlier day, which was typically one of the ways to finish the leftover rotis. Mom used to roll them hot and the...

The Turning Point ! I was 17. None in our family history had made it to the merit list of the Higher Secondary State Board examinations. I did ! It was a dream for our middle class family. Felicitations within family, friends and mom and dad’s work places, was a lifetime experience. Just about when we all were settling down in this, then glorious feeling for us, my little brother was detected with bone cancer ! Hell broke loose for us ! I had faith that medical science had gone pretty ahead and my little brother, all of 14 years of age, would be treated and cured. But I had suddenly, unknowingly, started blaming myself, my success, for this unfortunate incident in our lives ! I didn’t want that rank in the merit list, I wanted to roll back the felicitations and wanted a normal result with a normal life ! Sorrow follows happiness, is what I had started believing. We started the treatment. The tumour was in his left knee and hence his left leg had to be amputed, below the thigh. B...