Raining Thoughts

I've always been fond of certain words, though I've never been able to explain why. Certain words like elusive... insane... perhaps…reason…poignant…absurd…tranquil…twist…. TWIST!...  Let me stop and breathe for a moment… A recent turn of events on a bygone evening certainly seems to have caused a few tectonic shifts in my perspective of words. Looking back it seems that I've always loved certain words very much, as they have always maintained a safe distance from my life. Tranquil, Absurd, Poignant & co. are all welcome for tea at my table, provided they have the tea, samosas, chit-chat and leave my table to never come back, unless I request them to return. But this guy…Twist… Well, he came for tea, uninvited, ate up all the samosas too and never left. A minor road accident which involved zero vehicles, but ‘n’number of loose gravel on a busy road-side and who else, but the miserable me. Wish I could just rewind and delete off that ill-fated minute from my li...

Alleppey had us at ‘hello’. The pristine morning sunshine rippling upon her backwaters and the most delectable breakfast on her platter…steaming hot idi appams & what I would forever call the yummiest, tangiest & spiciest fish curry on earth had us excitedly looking forward to the longest backwater cruise in Kerala.  The boat-ride from Allepey to Quilon (Alappuzha to Kollam, for us Malayalis) was packed with 8 hours of soul-melting rendezvous with nature. The ride took us through 3 of the major backwater lagoons in Kerala, the Vembanad, Kayamkulam & Ashtamudi lakes intertwined with scores of water channel systems to form the most beautiful water world of God’s own country. With an array of passengers from different geographies across the world on board, our boat was no less than a microcosm of diverse senses and perceptions that collectively lapped up the sinuous sounds and verdant visions that enveloped us from all around. Rest of the tale…in pictures. ...

As I walked among the rows and rows of memory stones, reading the engravings upon each, an agonizing comprehension dawned that almost all the war heroes whose souls have been interred here were just teenagers or slightly older soldiers, nipped from the stalk of life in the prime of their youth, by the wars, the first and the second world wars. The Kirkee War Cemetery in Pune, maintained to this day by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, remains a tribute to the valiant lives of thousands of service personnel, lost as part of both the world wars, while living & serving in India during the colonial era. It was not a planned visit, but one that abruptly materialized during our drive through the military cantonment area across the Mula road along which the cemetery rests serenely wrapped in green. The drive itself was a beautiful experience with the summer blooms sheltering the smooth roads and occasional sightings of old stone buildings and grassy expanses of land. We ...

The thick white mist grew whiter by the second and spiraled all around us, immersing us in a tangible heaven that had charmingly descended upon the mortal world.  As soon as we set foot upon her fairyland, the dame de mystique , Kodaikanal lost no time at all in casting her magic spell upon us, captivating our minds, unleashing upon us her umpteen shades of green and white, exalting the mountains. Time has not withered her magnificence. Surpassing her own beauty time after time, each time, this ‘princess’ among hills has remained forever young, forever beautiful & ever so pristine. There was rain. There was mist. There was never a dull moment, never a halt to beauty as we journeyed on and on, spell-bound through her green winding roads, hoping the trail would never end. 

Of all my text books from primary school, the one closest to my heart was the colorful science text book full of vivid color pictures and fancily boxed fun facts. In comparison to the monochrome social studies and language books, the science book stood out like a beautiful rainbow full of promises… a beacon of hope in a color-deprived universe.  And of all the chapters in there, the very very multicolored seed dispersal chapter always looked best to me with its seeds of all hues, shapes and sizes, illustrated in different acts of getting dispersed. Seed dispersal was (and is) a gargantuan affair. It could alter geographies, flora, fauna, perhaps…the course of life itself. And all those fine techniques nature chose to employ. How strangely impressive! Flying seeds, floating seeds, hooked seeds, sticky seeds, clingy seeds, chewy seeds, shitty seeds…  Ah well…that brings me to the crux of the matter. About time I began my post. So… It’s one of those lull train journeys tha...

I just sensed quite a few female subconscious minds flash yellow & black upon reading the post title this time. Well…the subconscious somehow always senses it right. Read on... The word ‘colossal’ used to draw images of the Colosseum in Rome or the Colossus of Barletta until a few years ago for the female population in the country, and that was precisely until the day Colossal Kajal from Maybelline New York hit the shelves, creating a furore in the beauty markets of India in 2011. Like the millions of ‘colossal’ fans all over the country I too lost no time in going loco over this yellow magic pen that gave your eyes the bold & beautiful look. How much ever bankrupt I became towards the end of the month I would always keep aside an emergency Colossal kajal fund just in case I ran out of this piece of 'sheer necessity' ;) In fact my husband thinks that all this is a tad too much for a lady who had never even bothered to use any form of make-up including kajal befo...

The plates of the earth are forever shifting, at times causing the planet to shiver in shocks of fever, causing waves of destruction, manifesting as tsunamis, quakes, landslides and so many other unforeseen catastrophes that threaten to shake the very foundation of life and intelligence on the planet. Being a resistant strain of life, determined to survive the vagaries of this planet, humans were astute enough to install, on and around the planet, state-of-the-art infrastructure to ensure that they be signaled in advance with signs and warnings that would enable them to gear up in resistance to such impending natural dangers. The plates of human existence are also in motion now, causing the entire humanity to shiver in shocks of indignation and outrage. The atrocities that now mar the human race are beyond any rationale. No machine has been designed to gauge the vagaries of the human mindscape; no state-of-the-art infrastructure exists to signal in advance with signs and wa...