Where walkways were fragrant with you, I shall weep, It was not till I left your city, I knew I shall weep. Affinity is at discount in the market of subsistence; There are thousands in the meandering queue, I shall…
When False Dreams Come True
Dear readers, the original title of this post was ‘Confusticated and Bebothered’. But I became jittery at the last minute, even though no detractors were skinned alive in the process of pilfering it from Dictionary.com’s daily offering, who in turn…
A Holus-Bolus Odyssey
The page remained unblemished across the night, waiting for letters. But why sniffle a haiku When one can weep a sea? The peepal tree has a new, green sheath. It shimmers and quivers in the barely felt breeze. Everywhere around…
Hangmen of April
Come April and I am awash with phone calls from friends and colleagues about how they fared in the annual performance appraisals. Certain lesions of the past rendered unmentionable on this blog due to reasons of propriety, have bestowed the…
The Vegetable Rice Chef
Himesh is fussy about the order in which ingredients should be put into vegetable rice. Butter, followed by equal amount of mustard oil, cumin seeds, chopped chillies and onions, crushed ginger and garlic, minced mint and coriander leaves, a handful…
The Ark of Nostalgia
“I'm your phantom dance partner. I'm your shadow. I'm not anything more.” ~Haruki Murakami As if working for a bank weren’t traumatic enough, I am working for a subsidiary bank undergoing absorption in its parent. It is highly hypocritical of someone…
The Siege of the Bog
It happened when I was eight or nine. What refreshed the memory this past month was the hurried confession of a rookie Australian batsman to his captain, as he scrambled for the loo, “When you need to go to the…
Thus Spake My Father
As I look back at the life of my departed father, I realise how he had been a part of the transitional era that stood with a foot in the mysteries of the yore and the other into the increasingly…
A Passing Shower —A Review
My student life ended abruptly, or shall I say, comic-apocalyptically, with the postmodernist classic by Joseph Heller, Catch-22. It happened when I wrote a chapter for my doctoral thesis that would soon be abandoned, on the anti-war anti-novel with an…
The Springtime Wind —A Translation
Basanti Hawa, or the 'Springtime Wind', was the first Hindi poem I fell in love with, early in my childhood. It is written by Kedarnath Agarwal, a much-awarded doyen of Hindi Literature. The poem captures the freshness, fullness and the…
Train to Nada Land
Dear friend and patrons, by the time you read this post, I’d be rocking away to my old hometown in a still older train panting over the ancient tracks laid down by the British looking to save the Indians from…
Why Did the Chicken Write a Blog?
ARNAB GOSWAMI: Can you tell this, on this channel, right in front of all of us: why can’t the chicken write a blog? The nation wants to know. RAHUL GANDHI: The chicken has written the biggest blog since Independence and…
One Grain Amongst the Storm 