Are you old if you are sixty? Not at all. Old age is forever a decade away in the future for those who know the great art of living. The first secret is to replace “Those were the days” with “What’s new” in every conversation. There is a lot more to the wonderful world of...
Writing is a lot like conjuring. It is a ritual. You need to disallow any other activity that you may try to invite into the room as writers love to distract themselves for as long as it is possible. If you think writing isn’t a ritual, it runs the risk of being labelled a chore...
Writers never write. No, they do not have ghost writers. Well, not all of them, I am sure. Neither do they have brilliant secretaries who draft their stories and bring them to him to do whatever he wishes to do with them. Not even AI is really employed by any writer unless he happens to...
Fate of illegal immigrants, perils of ‘dunki routes’, deportation waves, tightening of immigration laws, and the crackdown on travel agents strategizing illegal immigration are, of-course, all over the social media as well as hogging mainstream media headlines. Just as bothersome is the yet unclear intent of other nations all over the world who may adopt...
We are all as different as readers as we are in life. Not one of us is a clone. Like us, books too differ by way of authors, genres, writing styles, covers, titles, typography, plots, themes, beginnings, endings, middles, characters, incidents, and some of these differences may be there even in books by the same...
If you need to read a bookYou’ve never read beforeYou have to sometimes buy a bookYou’ve never bought before. A book will make you pick and buyOr click to place in your cartOr borrow from a friendly guyWith a big and generous heart. The blurb may reason hardThe cover may smile and callColors may be...
Sanitation, building toilets, sewage in cities, urban water management systems, and river pollution exist together. For instance, sanitation is not just about the number of toilets constructed all over the country but more about the will to create an entire system that looks after both disposal and treatment. One may ask how water management is...
We know what ‘leftovers time’ means. No, not ‘leftover time.’ Not even ‘left overtime’ nor ‘left over time.’ The one that I am going to talk about is where left and over come together and the ‘s’ determines the direction that life takes. ‘Obviously, nothing to do with left wing or right wing in politics,’...
Do writers really need prompts? Why can’t they just look around and find something to write about? Something that tickles their imagination or causes their heart to flutter or something that flings a scintilla on yet unformed ideas and makes them burst into an uncontrollable conflagration. I remember walking from the mess hall to my...
My grandson, a two-and-a-half year old fan of books, said, ‘You are funny, Dada,’ when I made gruff sounds while reading the story of Gruffalo’s Child. Indra, my grandson, has introduced me to a list of books that I was unaware of until now. The earliest book that I remember having read was a pop-up...
P G Wodehouse was not limited to lampooning British aristocracy. He was equally and unequivocally loud and clear about his displeasure with politics as well. He once famously remarked: ‘Well, why do you want a political career? Have you ever been in the House of Commons and taken a good square look at the inmates?...
Reginald ‘Reggie’ Speedwell loved to hasteIn his mind he had no time to wasteHis love for velocityBought him no pityFrom traffic cops who had no taste for haste! Well, things did not end here for Reggie. His rash zipping through the streets was intercepted by police sirens and he was stopped, questioned, and then hauled...
