randomized

'Come on boy, come down now. It’s time to go. We are getting late!!', Ram hollered at the tree without a pause and walked towards and through the clearing. Manu looked at him going out and started climbing down the tree. He didn’t like being left behind and Ram's going to the clearing meant the longer he took getting down from that tree, the longer the distance he'll have to cover to catch up with him; and that man walked fast. So he climbed down fast and ran after him.  It was his favourite pass time, Manu’s. Sitting on that heavy branch, halfway up the tall Peepal tree, and watching the sunshine break way and glimmer over and through the spaces between the rooftops and treetops early in the morning was the best moment of most of his days. He got up early, climbed that single, old, tall tree and sat there each morning till he heard Ram call him out to go for breakfast and start work day. Breakfast meant a steel bowl of milk and a small pack of glucose...

Watching PM Modi on TV boast about the historical feat he has achieved with demonisation had me feeling déjà vu yesterday. Of course the first reaction was a half smirk-laugh that maybe we have reserved only for the most repulsive moments; moments which disgust you to a certain level of discomfort when you wish you could wash and clean your mind somehow the way you do your body. But what followed that was déjà vu. If you watch late night American talk shows like me, or in this case, if you watch news at all, you would've seen a certain Trump conference where he boasts about the how good the Muslim Ban 1 has been implemented and how everything is going so smooth at the airports. And because I had seen that clip so many times on so many shows, you can guess how I felt watching that part of PM Modi's speech on TV. The more you see of these two lately, the more it looks like they are picking ideas and habits from each other. People outside of India even call PM Modi ...

People often associate reverence, piety and closeness to God with a certain wisdom (or knowledge) in the sense that one realises the frivolity of worldly affairs and life and ascends to deeper knowledge of conscience. As one moving out to the mountains and removing oneself from capital and carnal desires. One is wise, people of faith say, if he listens to the reasons of God and not that of the people. Let me try and paint a scene for you in relation to this. Suppose, that you find yourself in a strange, dreamy sort of a place/space; a sort of square with people standing about. You don't know any of the people there even though there are a lot of them. You obviously want to know where you are and how you could go out and back to your home from there. People approach you and you tell them what is it that you want and all of them try to show and tell you the way you should take, very opinionatedly. You get confused and get more worried than before, knowing not who to listen to ...

Okay, here is the thing; I am not a hero. I never was, nor am I now. And I don't think I can be one in the future. My father once said how all your good deeds cease to mean anything once you do a terribly bad thing. 'What is the difference between a bad and a terrible thing, father?' I had asked. 'That depends,' he had said, 'on what you consider a bad thing and what you don't.' I never understood that remark of his. Surely, I thought, bad things are bad for everyone; that bad things were considered bad universally, that was the deal, correct? Turned out it wasn't. Not always were bad things considered bad. Not in every case were guilt a visible emotion in the guilty. But when I understood this, my father was not around; neither was my mother. Both had departed in their sleep on the same day some years ago. And I was left alone to comprehend the terribleness of my deed; a deed that had wiped all my good ones, if there were any before it. ...

Ever since Deepa had opened that café opposite Hari's, all his customers had migrated.  Don't know what hari told his drunkard friend one night that many  civilized men came and set Deepa's shop on fire the next day.  They said they wouldn't allow prostitution behind doors, in the name of a café, in their colony. - - - - - - - - - - - - - -   

Okay this is completely random. I watched an advertisement on TV today and it was so funny I wanted to share it, but then I thought about two other advertisements that I liked so instead of sharing that particular one on facebook, I thought I'd make a quick blogpost about it. Chances are, you might have already seen these commercials. But I am betting on at least one which you haven't based on what channels you watch on TV. I haven't done this kind of a silly thing for a long time here, so yeah, keeping the randomness alive, here are those three commercials. 1. Snoring Husband 

The fat family sat at the table having their burgers and drinks and donuts.  The incongruous boy of ten sat separately. His table lay sparkling empty, obviously.  He looked not at his masters (stuffing themselves), but he was ready, should they call. He was hopeful. But they ate and left, leaving him to scamper behind. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - P.S: This is not really a fiction. It is based entirely on my own witness. So much for child labour laws.

There was a front page advertisement in the newspaper yesterday. It had 'Let's fight corruption' written in big bold letters alongside a picture of Narendra Modi, prime ministerial candidate of BJP for the General Elections 2014. It also had three other sentences which went like this, Let's minimise government and maximise governance. Let's use technology for greater public scrutiny. Let's be transparent and accountable. Modi's election campaign started last year with this headline phrase that was in the paper yesterday. Fighting corruption, boosting progress and reducing inflation were some of the apparent primary goals of BJP. The situation though, I must say, is a bit different now. We'll get to it (and the three points up there) in a bit.

I interned at Hindustan Times, HT City to be precise,  a couple of months ago. It was one of the most exciting and memorable experiences, working there, among wonderful, happy and the most fun lot I ever saw in an office. And I am pretty sure I can write a full length post talking about how and why it was so amazing and who were the people who made it all the more so, but this post is about something else. While interning, I was, like every intern there, also responsible for working on the Dil Se  Column that comes in HT-City each day. It is a medium for people to share their messages with their friends and loved ones. Pretty simple, right? Wrong! While the concept is pretty simple, there's absolutely nothing simple about the messages that you'd see printed in there. People of Delhi, as it happens, are a curious lot. They can evoke extreme emotions when it comes to expressing their feelings through messages which the whole world can see. From insane laught...

Google "I don't give money at the traffic lights. In fact, I have stopped giving anything to anyone these days," said a friend a few days ago with an expression that showed that he no longer believes in any of such small acts of charity. I didn't know what to say to that, so I kept quiet. It might have been a momentary thing with him. Just an exaggeration maybe because he was a little off that day. But the thing is, there are people who don't give anything to any destitute just because they have some preconceived notions about the beggars.  Their argument is that 'these people', as they call them, have made it a business and that all beggars at traffic intersections are part of a syndicate and hence should be discouraged. Well, it's not entirely untrue, but colouring everyone with the same red is not the way to go. Anyway, we'll talk about that in a short time. First let me tell you an incident which led me to write this post in the ...

Talk about deviant/unusual narrative and this book stands out from the rest of the crowd like an apple in a box of mangoes. An apple as fresh as they come. Though it's not easy to review something you find extremely beautiful and I'll nevertheless try to be as neutral as I can. But, let's read the blurb first.. --- Circa 1990.A world drawn and woven with words. A bond punctuated by absence and distance...Two continents. Two cities. Two people.And letters. Hundreds of them.Over years. Across oceans. Between hearts. Between Abhi, who is training to be a neurosurgeon in London, and Uma, who is just stepping into the world of medicine in Kolkata. As they ink their emotions onto paper, their lives get chronicled in this subtly nuanced conversation through letters ... letters about dreams, desires, heartbreaks, and longings... about a proverbial good life falling apart, about a failed marriage, a visceral loss, and about a dream that threatens social expectations...Lett...

Today is the day which most of the people welcome as that one more day to save them from the chilly winter and give them a respite from braving the cold outside, well at least those north of the equator do. A day when you indulge in a little more sleep, maybe wake up towards the end of the parade, in time to catch the balloons being set off on TV, then go on to have a late brunch, followed by spreading on the couch to see that sudden and improbable air of deshbhakti  dawn on each and every one of the telly actors on every entertainment channel. Though nobody cares to see the parade these days, there are some who go one step ahead. People have started questioning the monotony that surrounds the republic day parade itself including the chaos of the days that lead up to it. And let me say this at the outset, I am not one of those people. I have no problem whatsoever with any traffic horrors that may arise due to the rehearsals, neither do I care about the surprising nu...

Suppose I tell you that if you cook an egg under direct sunlight, the yolk will turn violet, or suppose I tell you that when you type Turn Off in a text file and save it, the computer turns off. Or that some trees actually walk at night between 2 and 3. What would be your reaction? Somewhere between laughing and walking away with contempt, I guess. Now tell me, what would be a reaction of a 5 year old to this, or 6, or even 7 let's say. Chances are that the kid would believe at least two out of these three, if I act serious enough and tell him/her that it's a fact. And chances are that (s)he will go and tell these amazing facts to his/her friends too. There you have it, flesh and bone of Indian education system. I say Indian because the topic itself is so enormous even by assumption of talking about only the Indian education methodologies that it is almost impossible to cover the rest of them here and in so limited time. In India, and I am sure in many other plac...

Dear Mr. Khan           It is not very often that someone or something comes about and shakes a section of public alive, from the deep caverns of inherent slumber. Even rarer it is, if that someone or something succeeds in appealing to a relatively wide bracket of perception in its purpose and brings hence a general consensus. Your show does both, and with prowess and I am really happy for that.           But you see, being a cynic that I am, what vexes me the most is the act part of all that your show is. I don't care about other criticisms.

I guess the title is pretty straightforward and you know what this post is all about. What you don't know, is that I can see the future. You also don't know that I absolutely love those piping hot, straight out of the sugar syrup, crunchy jalebis.  Now, before you say anything like, ' what the heck is this ', I must tell you that the Mount Everest is 8848 meters at its highest peak.

This simple question is what, young kids are asked to check their intelligence. Of-course, few pass it as many just doesn't know that Moon is arguably nearer than the Taj Mahal (at least I can't see Taj Mahal from where I live).But before getting into a debate, let us first look into another somewhat related topic. In 2006 a proposal was put forward by ISRO for a possibility of manned space mission to moon. That is, India's attempt to put 'Indian Man' on moon. In 2008 chairman of ISRO, G Madhavan Nair, said that the project has been cleared by the Space Commission, following which in 2009 the Indian Government gave a green signal for the Manned Space flight Program due to launch in 2016. The cost was estimated to be Rs. 12,380 crore approx. Last year two launches were attempted by ISRO using the GSLV Mk.I and Mk.II launch systems developed by India, both of which were failures .