Raining Thoughts

As the title suggests, yes, I went to see The Martian too. I was very very impressed seeing Matt Damon harvest his successful crop of shit-laced Martian potatoes, eat a few and then make it successfully back to Earth in one piece. But I couldn’t help wondering why Matt Damon ever wanted to come back to such an obnoxious planet that is infested with the most poisonous of living organisms, supposedly considered to be the highest form of life on the planet. Man. A species so carnally deteriorated that the fully matured ones have deviated towards feeding on the infants of the species to appease their ghastly lust for flesh. The Martian was a fantastic experience. However, the best of our experiences are often marred by what precedes it and what ensues right after. And, this is exactly what marred The Martian for me, and it had nothing to do with the way the movie was or the actors were. So, off to what happened before…. I have always loved those specially made national Anthem vi...

Sharing a not-so-very-old uncut version of an item I had drafted as part of contributing to an old (again, not-so-very-old) internal employee newsletter at work...  There was an era when I used to remain AFAP from slang words and SMH vehemently every time I came F2F with informal slangs, even in text messages sent across by friends; until one fine day the information superhighway YOLO’d me and I started taking note of ‘slangs’ AAMOI! I am no more a hater of this relaxed hypermodern lingo when it comes to casual contexts like replying to a friend’s comment on SM, impishly irritating my perfectionist father or responding to personal emails from familiar contacts. Corporate jargons and slangs are not uncommon at our workplaces too. We often speak about ‘crunching the numbers’ or ‘testing the waters’. However the scene becomes inapt when text shorthand and chat acronyms make their way into business communications lending an unprofessional or even an offensive tone to the ...

A highly ornate BMW diesel auto-rickshaw that was stuck in the slow moving traffic in front of the non-branded rickshaw I was travelling in triggered off the amusement button in my head today. Amusing though it might have been for me at that instant, it sure would not have been so for the car owner who would have suffered the loss of his precious car emblem. I could almost picture him somewhere  in a posh Pune suburban villa, wringing his artificially re-grown crown of pitch black hair in angst, possibly at an emblem’s distance away from sanity altogether... Car logo thieves are frenziedly spreading brand equality all across the country nowadays. A slice of ‘have-ism’ gouged out and blatantly plastered across the foreheads of the have-nots. To anybody who asks ‘What’s in a logo?’ the answer would be ‘a whole lot!’ because that’s apparently what the ubiquitous mafia-like body that is involved in this ignoble art across the length and breadth of this nation suggests. One cann...

          The outpouring of vehicles from the cyber park gate reaches an overwhelming crescendo at 6 pm. As I wait for the right moment to cross the road that would take me to the peaceful sidewalk where I could join the trickling pedestrians, I feel something soft and furry brush against my free hand. It is Mr. Dog; or rather, his tail. I say Mr. Dog because, I’ve been noticing Mr. Dog from Day-1, the veritable handsome fellow that he is. His coat of fur, oat-bread beige and his eyes a soft honey-brown; he would always be trotting in and around the park gate nibbling up titbits dropped by the fleeting crowd, nibbling dusty wayside flowers and sometimes nibbling at nothingness with perked up ears and a happy grin. A free spirit….          As I get on to the sidewalk, Mr.Dog does the same and trots ahead. ‘That’s a cute stray over there’, I hear one of the walkers ahead of me say. I feel an ounce of resentment well up within me,...

A picture that so reminds me of Leander (a.k.a The Poocha), or rather his condescending attitude towards humans, the alpha cat that he was...either dangerously growling or purring like an engine or texting his messages of fury across my arms; my personal tattoo artist of yore, designer of those fine signature scars upon my wrist, some of them still visible under a bright sun. I loved him for everything that he was. A cat that could oscillate between antagonism and apology, all in the same minute. He loved his sardines. But he loved his liberty most, the silent prerogative that he administered upon us one fine day and vanished without a trace. I am glad for the mystery he left behind…a whiff of immortality in his wake… In spite of this disappearing act of his being years & years ago, he still comes in my best dreams sometimes, menacingly waving his tail...his feline grey-green eyes gleaming, to scratch me awake from his memories. Pic courtesy : Google Images

Gazillion thoughts about our cosmos keep circling within the undercurrents of my subconscious. All questions regarding the sky and beyond strewn unanswered across my mindscape. Being  a mathematically and ‘equationally’ challenged human being from birth, I could never dream of furthering my knowledge on this topic by understanding the complex equations or scientific models of physical cosmology that would definitely provide a world of insight into the mysteries of the particle realm to anybody but me, a veritable mathematical handicap, a likely female Aadu Thoma . ‘Bah-bah-bah-bah’, an old Chacko maash would have said in disdain. The end of the millennium witnessed the theories of the Universe being challenged by theories of a possible Multiverse… Metaverse and what not. Exhilarating… But more chaos! The movies did a fine job, I must say. But is that it? For now… this mystifying world is wondrous enough as it is… and I will just keep spinning in circles… ...

Watching posts and discussion threads from others scroll up the facebook wall is rather like overhearing conversations in real life. However the guilt is comparatively less or nil, as most of these exchanges find their way into the shared cosmos post authorization from their owners to run amok and roll out the joy among mankind. A conversation thread I happened to recently over hear  glimpse was one between my school-going nephew and a couple of his friends; a conversation that revolved around 'F.R.I.E.N.D.S'. It is surprising to see the circle grow and overlap generations of friends all around, or is it? After all humor has no death, and F.R.I.E.N.D.S is proof. My relationship with F.R.I.E.N.D.S was rather complicated and strained until a few years back. I had never been a fan of the series in my younger days, unlike my sister, who used to hold the series responsible for not letting her smirk for an hour everyday, and like my husband, who till date strongly believes i...