As Shakespeare said-

“All the world’s a stage,

And all the men and women merely players:

They have their exits and their entrances;

And one man in his time plays many parts.”

— Jaques in As You Like It

So the actors that we are, playing our roles in this unreal life, dramatizing it made it feel even more unreal.

And so I participated in this drama in few ways. Sharing couple of examples-

At home, in a star-chef style, I’d serve dinner to family with lot of flair like a chef étoilé, speaking pseudo French with all the antics. A simple dal became Soupe à L’oignon a la dal, aloo gobhi became -Foie de Veau à la Lyonnaise gobhi. Kids were intrigued as I announced these dishes, though bit disappointed when they actually saw the dishes 🙄

Then In a very Bollywood melodramatic style, instead of saying ‘No’ to my kids, I’d say long — Naheeeeeeee, with forearm covering my eyes. Of course they rolled their eyes every time I did this. Sometimes it was even followed by a Shahrukh Khan dialogue.😊.

Instead of walking I skipped along( I admit I looked very silly). Then at times, I’d sing in a very atrocious voice. (at risk of being thrown out of the house ).That did not need much pretense as I do have obnoxious singing voice anyways. Ira did scream — ’STOP’ few times. I did get yelled at, by my kids couple of times for being such a nuisance.

It did confuse my 11 yo daughter , who wondered why oh why, it’s her that’s called the drama queen, whilst Mom is being drama super queen! Not fair.

At work I dare not try it. As it is some of my colleagues-friends think I’m hypo-maniac and wonder why I’m so unreasonably happy all the time. Anything more dramatic , the diagnosis will change from hypomania to mania!!

It was so much fun though. Thoroughly enjoyed the times that I tried it.

At philosophical level, it made me think that many times, how seriously I take my role as mother, wife , daughter, sister etc when it’s all maya. I learnt to be light hearted about it and not to be attached to my roles.