Book reading habits have changed. We have come a long way from being asked to read only textbooks and those that supposedly improved our general awareness. Well, writers of fiction are having a field day, you might be tempted to say. But no, we still have a far mightier market for titles that teach one...
Past, like green hues, waves,Waits, not uttering a word –It knows how words changeIf not spoken correctlyThough even silence misleads. But the past patientlyPrefers to remain quietBecause words, it knows,Are engines that hurry awayInto the unknown… somewhere… Leaving severed timeBleeding green, yet waitingFor hustling feet toTo pay heed to what the headSwaying backwards, tries to...
The art of thinking clearly needs above average listening skills. One way to develop this skill is to listen to books being read out to you… particularly by people who know how to read well. By the way, even when we read books, our mind pauses other activities and listens carefully… and we call this...
Every time there is a request to review a book and I say yes, all the other books lying unread before me can do nothing but wait expectantly. And I have been doing this for ages. The number of unread books has grown. I am wondering now if every yes to read one book actually...
The universe is full of stray thoughts happily travelling through time until someone somewhere latches on to one and attempts to tame it. Poets do this all the time. Writers too. And yes, even artists, speakers, researchers, lovers, and almost everyone else, including politicians. These stray thoughts are charming entities and can be turned into...
Search for books on pandemic and Amazon has page after page listed. There are those that talk about the history of pandemics to those that list out lessons for a post-pandemic world, others go on and on about practical ways to get a healthy lifestyle during a pandemic and then those that have articles from...
‘I don’t like kindle. It doesn’t smell like a book,’ tweeted a friend, and the words left me wondering if a kindle must really smell and feel like something that it is not. For instance, a book never adopts the smugness of a smartphone, and it doesn’t bother me. Our obsession with making everything seem...
While on treks even I have often noticed, as did Oorja, the protagonist in ‘Mapping Love,’ the debut novel by Ashwiny Iyer Tiwari, that everyone is ‘in a hurry although everything around them is slow. They know that they have to make things happen before the sun sets…’ The narrative pace of this book, as...
I remember when I was posted in Bhatinda, a friendly chemist there near Birla Mill colony told me that he sells tons of Dulcolax. So many cases of severe constipation? I asked. Addicts actually, he replied, and so I realized that drug addiction was rampant in those parts of Malwa region in Punjab. This happened...
Khabar pakki hai?Khabar pakki hai!Where is the point in spending even that oft talked about twenty minutes reading a daily newspaper or that hour or so gaping at the idiot-box if all one gets to read or listen or see is stuff that may or may not be right. Or meaningful. When I read that...
This post is a satire on the use of loudspeakers... and also loud speakers.
Poets and pets forever swaySeeing the mysteries of creationWhen with the one they loveAnd create a sensationBy putting it all in their own way. But this is not the wayMost men and women thinkWhen they are with the one they love.From banknotes to dishes in the sinkAre the galaxies coming their way. And for them...
Stray thoughts, stray comments, and stray dogs