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 ...

Millions of years ago, inspired by the flames and sparks of nature, humans set forth to reinvent the idea of fire. The turning point came when he mastered the blaze, and controlled its use to redefine his own existence. What made all the difference was of course execution, and the continual process of its betterment, without which we would have faced extinction as a race, long before.   The noted American scholar Mark Van Doren once quoted, “Bring ideas in and entertain them royally, for one of them may be the king.” Ideas are ubiquitous. Nonetheless, the worth of an original idea lies in how scalable and innovative it is. And the only way to bring out the true value of an idea, lies in its execution.   Not everyone can make an idea work. Take, for instance, the case of the rise and fall of the internet pioneer, Netscape. In spite of being the browser that introduced the world to the web, they were beaten in the long run, first by Microsoft with their strong ...

There’s something that I share in common with the famous fictional Prof. Robert Langdon.  No…it’s neither religious iconology nor his love for dead languages. Neither do I have Cordovan loafers or a signature Mickey Mouse watch to match. Not his eidetic memory or his un-paralleled swimming skills either. In fact my memory has always been as dusty as the old soda bottles in some Abdu Bhai’s paan shop and if dropped in water, I might as well just go down gurgling and sit there ogling at the piranhas getting thrilled about my arrival… Ever felt the fear of being stuck in crammed-up spaces?  This is the part where I empathize with Langdon. It is this fear of enclosed spaces that has always haunted me ever since I could remember. Elevators, basements, crammed dentist cabins and even spa cubicles scare me. I have tried this so-called psychological self-counseling therapy during such claustrophobic stints. It sure is useful to a certain extent, until the moment you st...

The intoxication, indignation and emotion after draining Kalki Koechlin’ s rampant rant to the last drop down my soul still seems to be going strong. I found hundreds of likes on each of the shares that the ‘rant’ received on social networking sites , but somehow found myself unable to just hit the button and finish off my affair with that outpouring of Kalki’s heart, with just a ‘like’.  The name ‘Just Another Rant’ might assume the appearance of an olive branch to the naive eye, but let me assure you that it’s not just an olive branch that Kalki holds out to the world, but an olive orchard itself with the countless fruits of wit, brilliance, love, hate, independence, helplessness, chaos, myth, historicity, happiness, mischief, sarcasm, sadness, anger, loss, fragility, confidence, powerlessness, bias, beliefs, blame, religion, submission, responsibility, guilt, patience, fame, war, stereotyping, confusion, tradition, style, tales, colors, freedom, regret, luxury, fame...

 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 ...