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...

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. 

The Chitharal Hill Temple The day had dawned with a forewarning that Sunday. Various meteorological sources across the nation & the world, had issued warnings that the ominous Hudhud was expected to hit the northern Indian ocean & its coastline during the early hours of the day. Having lain to rest our much-awaited Kanyakumari beach plans at the ominous newscast of the storm, we continued to watch the news channels race to make hay out of the disarray. Kanyakumari might have been well out of the path of Hudhud’s destructive agenda, but one never knows... Nature has always been a mystery woman with strange whims and fancies … What followed soon after was nothing, but a perceivable void in space & time, as there was practically nothing to do that morning. All possible routines and chores had been completed well in advance in view of the trip that was planned for the next day. However the vacuum didn't exist for long as Sir. FB chose to ride in, clad in shin...

                             What's it with tea shops & me…? The connection is hard to explain as it closely borders on those realms of attraction based on ethereal abstractions.  The sight of a tea shop gives me goose bumps and lights up my life in ways manifold that cannot be penned down in words. I collect tea-shops & can smell a tea shop from miles away in fact. And once out of one, I'm infinitely haunted by those dusty corners, clinking of glass and the fleeting aromas.. for eternity.                    Speaking of tea shops I'm not hinting at the cozy-couched, coffee-machine powered, spic & span coffee-shop of a tea shop,  But the thatched, leaky roofed, wooden-bench lined, smoke-filled, glass-shelved, heavenly smelling tea shops where the smell of freshly brewed tea that is poured out and mixed from pot to pot in a rathe...

Even the noisiest marketplace fascinates me. The rich colors, the spicy aromas, the bustle, the abundance & the variety of the scene where life meets its needs, and the plethora of sights & sounds that surround it have always captivated my mind. Occasional doses of the noisy local Madiwala Market, the SG Palya Kerala Market or the Saturday Market of the Chandapura Circle in Bangalore with their share of cows chewing up leftover radish leaves, cats mewling & drooling at the torpedo sized tunas on display, mounds of coconuts, flowers, vegetables and fruits, had often proved to be miracle stress-busters for us every once in a while. A natural retail therapy that unwound us from the continued stress build-up that often arose out of spending a lion’s share of our lives caged in enclosed air-conditioned office spaces. In my family, a visit to Ooty was never considered complete without a trip to the famous Ooty vegetable market. The fresh veggies grown on the terraced fa...

           The mercury has climbed to a record high. The Indian General Election 2014, dubbed the nation's “first big social media poll” is now just a stone's throw away! As the poll fever shoots up…up…& away… we also witness a huge transformation manifesting itself across the dimensions of an age-old customary event associated with the elections. An event which has established itself  deep within the system  over the years, an affair which has come to assume the proportions of a rather ‘ necessary social evil ’ ...... Election Campaigning!           W ith a huge chunk of the campaigning laddoos  now being distributed to one and all through virtual outlets like instant messaging sites and social networking websites, electioneering has undergone a paradigmatic shift in style & strategy this year. Facebook,WhatsApp & YouTube have become the prime pulpits of political parties everywhere. Not to forget Tw...

 Green is the colour! No other colour can soothe my frayed nerves as much as Green is capable of. Even while having a busy day at office, just walking to the pantry balcony and having a cup of tea, watching the greenery outside helps in ironing out the creases of tiredness from my weary mind. And thankfully the campus in which my office sits is quite a verdant one. There is no dearth of trees, big or small; in-between the many buildings that occupy the vast business space, and short walks from one building to the other is never a dry or tiresome affair. Tall old fashioned silver & glass lamp-posts add charm to  the avenues and the vintage-looking park benches that line both sides of the walk-ways, makes the scene prettier. They call them the 'Think Points'. The thought of sitting on one of those curvy wooden benches relishing the luxuriant green spreading shade of a tree…watching the clouds change shape… waiting for absolutely nothing…. is so tempting. The only ...

       Boiling down our thoughts to condense upon a choice of location for our would-be home was one of the toughest brain exercises that we underwent in the previous couple of months.  The effervescent boiling of matters ultimately resulted in the concept of a would-be home condensing into the concept of a would-be apartment. After all home is where the heart is! And we decided to put our hearts into one of the not-so-bad newly constructed apartments in the city suburbs, not-so-far from our work location. Pic Courtesy :  http://www.coloribus.com/      The factor that elated us partly, as well as, weighed us down in parts, was that it was a peaceful residential suburb dotted with a few buildings here & there, say a college, a few essential shops, a petrol station, a couple of  ATM s , some apparel manufacturing units, a bangle store (to my daughter’s delight), plenty of houses, lamp-posts, lemongra...

                Just thinking of those days in Bangalore makes me crack into chuckles, and at times, the very same thoughts send my mind sinking into silent reveries as well. ‘ Those days ’ happened quite recently though, hardly a couple of months back, when my better half decided that eight years was a long time to have stayed away from the loving embrace of our historical hometown of Trivandrum. Excitedly accepting a worthy & in all ways, timely offer, he took the first step towards home-coming, which meant that preferably I was to follow suit ‘as soon as’ the company I worked with would relieve me off my duties. Hypothetically perfect PG room (in your dreams..)                   And… ‘ as-soon-as ’, we soon learned, amounted to nearly a hundred days, which I was to spend in a PG in Bangalore all by myself, away from my better half and my little one. Everyone in whose ears this piece o...