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Showing posts from December, 2021

The Ministry of Utmost Happiness

 I kind of went more than a week offline to complete this book. After a hectic week at work and a couple of errands at home, I went on a mission to complete this book left hanging for a month atleast. I started reading this book while waiting for passport renewal and for odd reasons my application for tatkal got rejected. Actually I was questioned for the first time my lastname is my father's name and hence they can't renew my passport via tatkal process. After explaining the Assistant Passport Officer how father's name is chosen over caste names in Tamil Nadu as last name, he agreed to renew via normal process instead of tatkal. Though I portrayed TamilNadu a progressive state in the conversation, it's definitely casteist. Though I didn't like to identify myself with either the caste name or father's name, I was put in a position to fight for the father's name as last name. In a way it's my right. I went through an identity crisis when I started the boo