ATOMIC RAKSHASI
the Art of Rhea Daniel

In this episode of Rakshasi’s Ramblings , I talk about German writer Michael Ende’s children’s fantasy novel, Momo . In  Momo , the writer asks us to pause, to see time not as a resource to be hoarded, but as something we inhabit. Through the symbolic Grey Men and the innocent perception of young Momo, Ende unpacks how modern life’s obsession with productivity and efficiency corrodes our connection to the present. I explore how the book reveals the costs of our hurried exist

Should you come across a female narcissist, your safest option is to get away quickly; that is, if you even have the discernment to spot her. Not all of them are perched comfortably at the top and can’t always be identified by rank.

(Photo Creative Commons License, FMT) When the time came to put together our class magazine, I was sure to turn up with a few good portraits. I was the artist of the class, after all, and I wasn’t much good at anything else, so it was my time to shine. I basked in the quiet ‘oohs’ and ‘aahs’ that my skills provoked. Nothing, however, compared to the day that I drew Tom Cruise. Frankly, I didn’t know what the big deal was about. I had been reading a comic book (I don’t remembe

Everyone knows that the traditional Indian family raises its sons to be providers and daughters to be mothers, but the script of The Great Indian Kitchen (2021) goes one further, insisting that even if The Husband is incompetent, lazy, egotistical and insecure, he still expects to be treated like a king in his house. He has an inalienable right to his wife’s body and her servitude. We needed this premise because his value in both his own and society’s eyes, regardless of whe

Vincent van Gogh, Withered Sunflowers , 1887 I had a classmate in college whose laid-back approach to work used to annoy me, but as I spent more time with her, her easygoing attitude began to rub off. I had chosen a stream that required an intense amount of labour, and putting one's assignments on a back-burner was a bad idea. After one year in her company, though, my approach to everyday life changed from an anxiety-ridden, forced discipline to an easygoing, placid existence

My YouTube channel has resembled a tomb long enough and finally found its purpose. As mentioned in my previous newsletter, my blog posts have found new life combined with my fan art. Both forms of art and writing have taken decades for me to learn and improve, and have finally culminated in a form that I can convey with ease. I just took a while to learn to make decent videos, and speak halfway decently into a mike :) The road is long and frustrating, but it is a road. Thank

The generic stalker has a relationship with his prey, and the relationship only goes so far as the prey gives. Anything is encouragement...

When I was in primary school, an English lesson hit me a little deeper than usual. It was the story of Gauri the Dreamer , generically known as The Milkmaid’s Dream . Gauri milks her cow early one morning and on the way to market, begins to think about how she would multiply her fortune when she sells her milk. She’d buy chickens with the profits from her milk business, the chickens would lay eggs and she’d earn even more money. Because of her inattentiveness, she trips and f

Three siblings are stuck in time without the will to leave their parent's house because they don’t have the courage and the finances to be out on their own. The son made the extravagant decision of buying a second-hand car that went defunct, so his parents confiscate his salary every month. The eldest daughter has an immature streak. A chronic motormouth, she exposes her love life where strangers a foot away can hear her most intimate desires. The silent one and the youngest

It’s been twelve years and Vinayak is old enough to know that his mother has no status and therefore, neither does he. A lack of status here

You’re in a tizzy. Submissions are due and life generally sucks, but you have no time to think about that. It’s 1998. You depend on music to push you through. You read stories to hold together a crumbling world. Those feels. You’ll never get those again, not with the same gut-wrenching intensity. At a weekend screening of Great Expections , you hear a classmate, a nice boy by any standards, mutter “bitch” under his breath from the row below. Didn’t he watch a bitter old woman