Raining Thoughts

 A fond farewell to the old, as a bold 2022 unfolds. Power naps are super productive! It’s after one such snooze that I woke up to the impulsive, yet intense resolve to publish my first book. I don’t think I ever foresaw myself accomplishing the mission until that moment, when the thought almost exploded in my head like a supernova.  If 2020 was about surviving the colossal disorientation, 2021 was all about re-building the bridges & re-connecting with the self (that seemingly had been paused), as well as, with others. It was also about giving in to the now unpaused otherworldly biddings of the brain – in my case, resulting in Earth Sky – my first book of poems. The burning desire within, finally transformed into reality.  2021 made us work hard, & hope harder! The Cabin fever state-of-mind apprehensively gave way to a sneak peek of the mountains, the rivers and the back waters too - perks of working remote from God’s own country for a whole year! The post-pandemi...

Sorry, I was talking on mute! Yes, this monologue thrived on, until one fine day the mute button on my phone decided to take a vacation during an office call – opening the floodgates of cacophony emanating from my household to the other side of the cosmos. Microcosms, rather! Each family, a little universe now – with its own chaos and controls.  The new normal is creating novel ways of doing everything – from launching the next big technology that can transform lives, to chopping onions. The world stands transformed. The world is working from home - as the only ‘home' we’ve cohabited in this universe takes a breather. A COVID-19 medical leave, maybe! Pigeons crossing the street, peacocks patrolling the alleys, lions snoozing on the tarmac and roosters out for a walk in the park giggle teasingly at us from our digital screens, as we gaze on wordlessly, mute buttons still on, juggling the chaos of an overwhelming shift in our day-to-day lives, devising new ways to numb the ...

There is no movie which I can finitely claim as my best movie or a favourite. The finality of superlatives scares me. I have three movies in mind that I watched again this week, as I write. Three planets I re-visited. Each a planet with a pull of its own. Sudhir Mishra’s ‘Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi’ , (Hindi) set in the times of political turmoil of the 70s in India,  is not just the movie that gave me the ‘Shiny Ahuja problem’, as my husband has been jestingly calling it for nearly a decade now, or a tale of lament over unfulfilled dreams. It is an intense struggle of identities as the characters grapple with their individualities, beliefs, emotions, dreams and realities on a shifting landscape, drifting ahead to where life takes them inevitably, changing them forever. A gem of a movie that I can never stop loving. Some stories blur the fine line that divides fact from fantasy. Hariharan’s ‘Ennu Swantham Janakikutty’ (Malayalam) beautifully does that. Janakikutty’s char...

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

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...

            It was that particular epoch of existence, when my life revolved around Salman Khan & roller skates. I’m talking about the pre-historic 3rd Std. goer - me - of the 90s surviving through childhood and its vagaries back in time when Salman Khan wore clothes and sported a gap in the middle of his front teeth and appeared to be as seemingly innocent as those darling Kabootars he was seen fondling lovingly from scene to scene in Maine Pyar Kiya .              Days used to dawn way earlier then, say as early as 6 A.M.! Did I just perceive gasps of gastroenteric shock from diverse quarters? (Well… hold your gastrics ye merry pre-dawn souls, we’re dealing with a late a.m. birdie here). So I was saying… I was passing through one of the most thrilling phases of my moppet life. I’d sit quivering with excitement like a bullet waiting to be released on Achan’s trembling Yezdi until we reached the Museum grounds, ...

               It’s awfully painful for me to part with any piece of material reality that has a memory attached to it. In my case the pain extends to my old archived mails, ancient greeting cards dating back to my primary school days, strangely shaped dried leaves collected during old walks, old note-books (especially the ones with graffitied back pages!), dried up ink bottles, pebbles collected from stream & river beds (from the Kallaar stream-bed to the Ganges river-basin, as well as a few odd ones from an old decommissioned aquarium of ours)… Oh... and I could go on and on with this list forever.                I've recently discovered that my hoarding skills can be paralleled only by my equally honed misplacing skills. I do not misplace important objects like my pebbles, my pet jars or my toy pandas, but only petty things like our house keys, car keys, medical prescriptions, marriage cer...

Well, years & years back I must say that there were days in my life when I was practically ready to give  donuts or even Zillion dollar lobster Frittatas to get Orkut up & running.  The concept of Orkut was so new & fresh then. We took to Orkut like fish to water. We took no time in adding    into our day to day lives;  scraps, communities, fans!, profile pictures, testimonials, our very first social, professional & personal profiles..., profile visitors and every teensy bit of thing that Orkut had to offer. Orkut was our primary school of social networking. With the passage of time the Alma Mater saw her wards move on...leaving behind countless scraps, pictures & migrating to upper-primary, high-school &  universities of networking. Somewhere along the way we forgot her, but now we've been rudely jolted back to her memory by her own creators who have now slated her decommissioning on Sept. 30 2014. "Like a patient etherize...