That Roar in Parliament
The ruling party is missing that roar in parliament, Rahul Baba… return home fast. The old and the young even in your party are seemingly directionless and have started going around with a motley group of parliamentarians that you may or may not have approved. I wrote about your roar and on some other observations...
The Da Vinci of Death
There is variation, colour, and uniqueness in death that indoor pollution brings with it. Things that you have fallen in love with and think you cannot live without can sometimes enter your life to take it… and this isn’t a hyperbole. Look at perfumes, hair sprays, furniture polish, glues, air fresheners, moth repellents, wood preservatives...
Imagination is Dangerous and Combustible
‘That’s incorrect,’ said an editor and I had to remind him of the reason why David Davidar had to be fired in 2010. In every relationship there will be two people imagining different outcomes and it is the friction between two wonderfully abstract thoughts that invariably results in a conflagration that tickles reporters and lay...
Gimme more… Gimme more…
I know it isn’t easy to admit this, but I have always been a semi-literate illiterate. Let me illustrate this term with an example. When Pushkin, my son, was born, Specky, my wife, gave me a glance that seemed to say: ‘Can you just hold him while I change his diaper?’ And I looked at...
Push harder. Pull harder. Churn richness.
There is this great human manthan going on all around all the time. And I don’t mean the feeling one gets when walking in the crowded corridors of CP in Delhi… nor do I necessarily mean the sort of pushes and pulls during election time in India. We know that business isn’t the only world...
Who said it?
Who said it? You said it. Who is ‘you’? The common man. The aam aadmi? Well, you said it. Who cares? You said it. The truth is that the common man is forever jabbering the truth. Someone hears this blabbering once in a while and some good gets done. Most of the time though this...
Litter God is going to be very angry
‘Let me share a secret with you. Even in the Kingdom above they have a God of Litter. And all this hullaballoo about litterbugs and removal of litter is going to make this fellow very angry,’ I told Specky, my wife with a serious face. ‘God of litter? You are surely joking,’ she said, ‘so...
Next in the queue
Queues and the word ‘next’ are as clichéd as a politician hopping from one party to another. Opting for a title submerged in clichés doesn’t mean though that an original idea won’t suddenly pop up to surprise you. But let me just say that the idea for this title came when I heard someone ask...
Caricatures and political fundamentalism
The world is full of bigots, junk-theologists, Bible-thumpers, Gita-thumpers, Koran-thumpers, Granth Sahib-thumpers, Zend Avesta-thumpers and so on… and they are all people trying to take advantage of religion to gain some political victory. Political fundamentalists are those who end up banning stuff like creative texts, poetry, fiction, and even cartoons even as they get together...
A quikr relocation to Bangalore
‘You remember all the times we have relocated?’ I asked Specky. She looked at me, smiled and said, ‘But you always linked relocation with sparkling excitement.’ This was true. I have always believed that relocating rekindles our spirit to explore, to discover, to go out and transform all the passivity in life into action that...
Jauntiness to life or life to jauntiness?
Well, some think it is enough to gift a bit of jauntiness to life… but I think it is by far better to give life to jauntiness. I mean, look at all the synonyms that jaunty has: cheerful, cheery, happy, merry, jolly, joyful, lively, perky, bright, buoyant, bubbly, bouncy, breezy, in good spirits, exuberant, ebullient,...
Both passion and resolution must be sizeable
Being fit has been a passion for years… but these past few years have made my body weight do a high jump and so I’m now a formidable 85kg. ‘Come on, lots of people are 85 and they aren’t fat!’ is what you might tell me. But listen, they weren’t 57 kg just six years...
