The poet inside the farmer who might commit suicide
Words won’t roll into metaphors As they are busy staring at dried taps Words no longer bother to rhyme Because droughts appear without gaps Words struggle to walk straight but tumble It is the heat that makes them stumble Coherence has given way to a mumble Even anger is an inaudible rumble! And yet words...
Love and common decency go together
There is no doubt that our world that anyway has a fair share of violence, divisiveness, and hatred needs and deserves to be #fuelledbylove and mutual respect. But wait, it isn’t easy to define love… I am sure it has nothing to do with the public display of cuddling and kissing that you see under...
Ration the potions with notions of nation
Ruckus. Babble. Chaos. Irreverence. Arrogance. Protest. Bullying. Questions. All this and more happens every time the nation starts defining any concept… it could be anything stretching from nationalism to terrorism. All that one never really sees are solutions, answers, a convergence of ideas, and an acceptance of dissent. All that is never there are people...
Experience the freedom
No, this post is neither about the slogan decibels at JNU nor about the misplaced sense of patriotism by goons. This one is simply an attempt to talk about the way ‘make in India’ is being milked. Does this ring a bell? ‘Make in India’, I guess is all about the policy music used to...
There’s a lot that Modi forgot tonight
The PM spoke at Wembley in London tonight and I listened. So did Cameron. And the British PM applauded more than once… and I could see that he was excited when Modi informed the Indians in London of the jugaad way of knowing the time in India – that is, without having to add hours...
A comedian in the PMO
‘Heylo everyone!’ Everyone looked up. The secretary looked up. The deputy secretary looked up and so did the assistant secretaries and the associate secretaries. Well, if the secretary looks up, the others had better not keep their head down as this is what gives a wrong signal and allows supersession in offices. The secretary then...
The nest isn’t the world
The morning flight of birds Is so like our morning walk With less words More insights New definitions of the world Revealed every time We venture out. So get up and get out Of your laziness Walk, jog, or move about Take your pick Of inspired thoughts And amaze God’s maze By joining every dot!...
Racing with the dogs
Even dogs know What any scheme By any Government In power or out of power Really means. Even dogs know How to act And how to react. What dogs do not know Is that acting and reacting Is where humans have beaten them hollow One race that we have won… Or have we? ....
Stories Within Us Wish to Live
NOTE: This story was first published in ‘Open Road Review’ dated 01 August 2015… . My father is 83 and still goes on his morning walks. He is fond of solving Sudoku puzzles and calls up long distance to remind me to get newspaper clippings with these puzzles. ‘We don’t get this newspaper here in...
Ahmedabad: In search of art inside a cave
The one fact that never ceases to surprise me is a lot of people who have enough money to travel know more about Amsterdam, London, Bangkok, Dubai, and Singapore than they know about cities in India. So if I ask one of these travel-savvy friends if he knows about the floating market in Bangkok or...
The alphabet on waves
When I told a friend that I know of a school on a boat in Varanasi, he laughed and replied, ‘Well, I know of teachers who hold classes under trees in the open air.’ Not that my friend was wrong, but the impression I got was that we tend to think literacy as some kind...
The ruling party and the opposition on Galaxy S6
Our parliament is always a hub of super activity and its corridors are places where power dialogues flow unimpeded and with a nonchalance that you find only in a Nargis Fakhri gliding on the aisle in a Suneet Verma creation! Yes, there is something stunningly accentuated when two politicians talk… especially if they happen to...
