Raining Thoughts

  Guess life is never complete without rewriting a fairy tale. Scouring away cinders off the cold hearth at night, Ella wondered, ‘Will there ever be an end to this misery?’ As if negating her hopes, Ella heard her stepmother thunder from upstairs. "Ella, are you dreaming? If you have scrubbed the kitchen, come upstairs, make my bed and wash my feet." Ella lived with her stepmother and her two stepsisters who had always been mean to her. Days passed on in drudgery. Deep within, Ella knew she was meant for something better in life. “What is my true calling?”, Ella would ask her reflection in the water barrel, to the squeaking mice in the barn and to the scudding clouds in the sky. “What do I really really want?” One day, an envoy from the palace arrived with an invitation for the young ladies of the house. A royal ball at the palace! The crown prince was looking for a bride. Ella helped her sisters prepare for the ball. The ladies were particularly careful in keeping Ella ...

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 ...

Pic Courtesy: Here Some things in life are as pointless as dogs peeing on random car tyres. It might not be as much of a necessity to the car owner, to have his car tyres peed on, as it is for the dog to demarcate its territory on a piece of asset that travels around a lot. The same thought applies to those uninvited geniuses who spend half their lives prying across the wall into the privacy of unwary people, unsuspectingly dazzling them with their hitherto unrevealed moral intelligence. However, what exactly they are trying to demarcate with their unsolicited wisdom still remains a mystery to that section of mankind stranded on the receiving end of their bounty. These morally super-intelligent beings are everywhere now. Breathing the air we breathe, viewing the very same sights we see, but perceiving a different and perhaps a more stimulating version of reality, which simply cannot be kept to the confines of their brilliant minds. They spew wisdom anywhere and ever...

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...

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...

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...

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...

“Furthermore, he asked the committee members to make the new capital unique and slum free.” I read the line a few more times to confirm if I was reading it right. Yes ‘slum free’, like ‘bacteria free’, ‘pest free’? Well, no, this should have to be the 'slum-free' as envisaged by the several propitious-sounding poverty eradication programs set up by the government to provision basic social amenities to the urban poor, the slum dwellers. The words above had poured forth from a political wizard envisioning a master plan for the building-up of a full-fledged township which would soon take shape to become a brand new State capital. Curling back in to my couch and re-adjusting my tea cup to relieve the strain on my index finger, I muse on... ( ah...the woes of an arm-chair activist.. ) Well, who would want to live alongside slums anyway?.. The arm-chair aadmi  flares up within and.. * ek tight thappad * . 'Who would want to live in slums anyway?'.. I correct m...

'I don’t know how much of 'subtle' phallic symbolism can be impregnated into my words if I say; every popular world cup ever played on this globe had always been about men & balls... Well, women may have rocked a million cradles. She might have made fundamental contributions to arts, science, math or sports. Women might have made the world go round, and eyes go 'rounder' in this microcosm where she gets stared at hard, by a certain section of the society that suffers from a condition of the worst kind, a certain species of mortals who cannot help but stare on, indifferent to her age, appearance or emotions. And at the end of it all… no golden cup awaits her, no golden boot laces to tie...' I had switched off close to around 29.5% of my consciousness concerning my immediate surroundings as I sat immersed in such random rants at one of my most loved vantage points in the world, the bus window seat. It was not raining outside anymore & the fresh ...

There are times when I choose introversion over all the other ‘versions of me’.  Of late I have been fluctuating between all the possible versions that live inside me, so much so that I’m likely to give the Kerala State Electricity Board (the proprietors of power fluctuations), a run for their money. Juggling with words like ambiversion, hypo-extroversion, hyper-introversion etc. for a long time now… I realize that they no longer take me anywhere I’d like to go. Introversion + Extroversion = Ambiversion Hypo-extroversion + Introversion = Hyper-introversion Hypo-introversion + Extroversion = Hyper-extroversion Hypo-introversion + Hyper-extroversion + Introversion + Extroversion + Ambiversion + (!!!) + (???) + (……) + Talking to self + Talking to trees & cats + Wanting to be left alone sometimes + Dancing right in the middle of a dance floor, rare, but that happened too +Talking the crap out of people + Running away from people and conversations + A very...

                      The Greek, the Aquiline, the Hawk, the Roman,  the Delicate, the Straight, the Crooked, the Pointed,  the Potato and so on goes the list of classifications arrived at, based on the various scientific studies conducted on ‘noses’ all across the globe. Nice to know...  I have one too, which I’m yet to classify, a nose which helps me pretty much satisfactorily, olfactorily & happily breathe my way through the gaseous support systems of life. However, I often find myself shocked...petrified...mystified... discovering all sorts of un-called for noses scuba diving in & out of the soup-bowl of my life when I’m least expecting it. How disgusting can that be! Noses of all shapes and sizes jabbing, poking and prodding into all possible spaces of one's existence! Suffocating, to say the least……  The nose has been designed by nature for a noble purpose. Why would anyone use it ...

           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...

Conclusions and speculations, as uncertain as delusions, Upset and incense hopeful ears… With no dearth of theories, no dearth of doubt, the massive search endures. As man-made giants painstakingly scour the rough seas, Listening with all their might for a sign from the deep The ocean swells in fury, guarding her mysteries… Lulling the secrets in her bosom to sleep? The crying, the blaming, and the breaking-down of reason continue… Only to be followed by endless waiting…. For a release from darkness… For the answer to an ill-fated riddle…   Earlier this week, as I sat at the table partially listening to the news & partially lost in thought, my father, a man of few words, who just saw in the news that the nations involved in the search for the missing Malaysian jet had suspended the pursuit owing to rough seas and strong currents, succinctly commented… “The sea is still a bit deep, right?... Even for America…...

          Humans have always reveled in being the alpha race on earth…  A species that takes pride in its intelligence and the resultant enormous array of groundbreaking technological advancements… A race of creators whose own creations compete with and outdate each other to obsoletion almost every single day. We live in the age of Space tourism, Google Glass & Internet of Things. We live under the omniscient eyes of global surveillance agencies that never sleep.  But somewhere along the way man did fall asleep, and while he slept on, things happened…                                    The ongoing massive search for the missing Triple Seven MH370 has been one of the most agonizing probes in history into the helplessness of the human condition. Many myths upheld by man came crashing down miserably with each day dawning hard and bleak on him without a trac...