I was young when my family pulled out of a city to the backwaters of the country. Of the many heartbreaks I weathered, the loss of my small book club was the most debilitating. The civilisation I was uprooted from…
Category: Such is Life
Flames and Ashes
It is a Sunday morning and folks are huddled up in sheets. The protesting whine of autos whisking the unwilling souls to their workplaces has been lulled for the interregnum. The birds are a riot of notes and I am…
Cold Cross Buns
“Hot-cross buns! Hot-cross buns! One a penny, two a penny, Hot-cross buns! If you have no daughters, Give them to your sons; One a penny, two a penny, Hot-cross buns!” ~ A popular Nursery Rhyme All right, then! You are…
Unreliable Skunks
Having entered a phase of life where I tend to reflect more in retrospect than in prospect, it has dawned upon me why I’ve been in love with the character of Sherlock Holmes all these years. More than his prescient…
Merci, Mes Amis
"Who enrolled me in the ranks of the human race?" –Joseph Brodsky Yesterday, I attended a blogging community meet in a trendy restaurant specialising in exotic Mediterranean delicacies. The sponsors were a popular notebook company and as usual, they did…
A Hole in My Pyjamas
It’s a cold night and there is a hole in my pyjamas. It is shameless of me to be cribbing in a city that has never seen the mercury slipping below ten while the good old Delhi is raring to…
2012 in review
The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2012 annual report for this blog. Here's an excerpt: 4,329 films were submitted to the 2012 Cannes Film Festival. This blog had 34,000 views in 2012. If each view were a film, this…
The Indian Shepherd
In a deal that clicked a couple of years too late for me, Syed would sell the disused Nikon from his studio for a thousand rupees to me. He loaded it with a complimentary black and white roll too, making…
The Slippery Slope
A marble drops on the slate of mind and clatters to silence. It is the lone rattle in the void of ages. I freeze to attention and hold my breath to stop it rolling off the precipice. But it is…
In the Arc Light
I don’t suggest that you read ‘Personal Concerns’ because Amit has published a tête-à-tête with me in his latest post at his riveting blog. You read Amit for what he pens. His writing is intense yet panoramic, needle-sharp yet cosmic,…
Déjà vu
“A déjà vu is usually a glitch in the Matrix. It happens when they change something.” –Trinity in Matrix Yes, something changed in the Matrix here and it can’t quite be called a glitch. You are not a good writer…
An Owl Reflects
I was born before I was born. All owls are. True to the species, my fate was chiseled on ancient rocks by comets hurled from alien space. No one could change it after that, not even God. Certainly not father.…
One Grain Amongst the Storm 