Sehwag - The difference between 'Freedom' and 'Technique'

While Indian batters walk into the Kotla fog under a new captain this morning, the series well sealed under their belts; it is the electricity, the energy that once used to vibrate in the stands, that is no more. The dew wet chairs are empty, the sparse crowd is quiet - no shouting, no chirping, no clapping. One hour into the play and not once the ball has crossed the fences. Things look unusually quiet. That is what your difference make, dear Sehwag....

Old Address

I still write to your old address. After all these years. Guess the letter box has long filled now. Those blue inlands must be spilling from the slit. Even the postman must have given up on delivering to the box that had not been opened in ages. Few of those letters, I suppose, became one with the winds. Few, the kids down that lane must have crumpled into paper balls and smashed them at each other. The story that was supposed to be between you and me,...

The Night in her Days

It had been months since I had been there: crossed that busy road through the impatient halt of vehicles to the other side, breathed the sweet smell of freshly baked muffins rolling out from Flurry’s kitchen, sang along the songs played upon by vendors selling cassettes and CD’s on the footpath and that is just when walking with the tide of people, I had caught her sun kissed face; smiling at her own reflection on the granite wall and since then she...

Those Lovely Prayers

The Ashtami evening draws onto the lit up streets endless queues of pandal hoppers, as they stroll their way into the puja premises. It is as if a giant hand had scooped the stars from their constellations and have let it slip through the fingers across the heart of Kolkata, alighting every corner of the city in a fascinating glow of celebrations. I step off the road following the collective ringing of conch shells to enter a locality pandal and occupying...

The Balloon Seller

It was the Navami night. The much awaited Pujo was coming to its end and every face that I saw leaving the pandal that night, had a sadness sowed into its skin. The city that was all erupting with the energy of its people, was unusually quiet that night. The lanes, somewhat sparse. Music reduced to a mellow. It was also this year that Ashtami and Navami was happening on the same day. A day less of celebration. A day early into the struggles of life....

Beyond the Indian-ness of it all...

It was not the first time that I was in the city of Hyderabad, yet, somehow, the truth of its existence, the screaming passion and solidarity among its people, came to me just yesterday evening during Ganesh Visharjan in our township, while I walked the tail of an erupting crowd leading a colossal idol of Ganesha on the deck of a tractor. In one word it was sheer madness. Madness that bore the stifling cold evening with colors of life, laughter...

LESSONS FOR LIFE

It holds me amazed at how our life, more than anything else, is effected at so many different levels by the lessons we learn in its course, than the episodes of joys and sorrows, we too often find ourselves trapped in. Unlike our emotional status that we subconsciously allow to define the face of our existence, it is in real those lessons, the teachings picked at the various crossroads of our lives, which rightfully depicts the picture of our existence....

ORIGAMI OF DESIRE

Beneath the overcast dome of this silver rain,  Let us once veer into thy flooded lanes.  While the thunder in the sky rings alive the hollow night, drawing in your eyes a quivering terror;  I close your soaked body in my embrace,  and walk the trailing crease of lightning upon the drenched street. You whisper in my ears, about our shelter down the alley; our own private bite of luxury, beneath the slant of an uprooted...

THE LAST PORTRAIT. Part 3

Love is the courage that stifles our muscles with rage, for one last fightback when all else had failed. It is an emotional strength that we choose to derive from our heart, sucking at our feelings, to get back onto our feet when reality had cracked up our bones and left us limp. It is the sweet, ineffable hope of kissing the face of the women we love that tightens our fingers to a hard, unforgivable fist, ready to blow up everything that stands between...

THE LAST PORTRAIT. Part 2

Calcutta, 1972 From the vantage point of the low doorway leading to the backyard, two enormous tress that rose up the overgrown lawn, seem to bend inwards towards each other against the radiant spring sky, as if leaning into a handshake. Branches of one tree escaping into the canopy of other. The breeze pampering their leaves and sunshine reflected upon the margins in a sparkling twinkle, as if the branches were but bejeweled arms of newly wed women. Rukshar...