Also

I drove through the hailstorm, the city lights coming on at this time. I saw some shuddering in a corner and some playing gleefully, mindless of the little rocks hitting their bony heads. The accompanying rain flushed the scorched and dusty surfaces clean. The city looked like a newly born life, pretty and spotless. Sometimes we need these storms to invade our private spaces to flush out the inner toxins.
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“I wish there was a cookbook for life, you know? With recipes telling us exactly what to do.”...
“You know better than anyone: it’s the recipes you create yourself that are the best.”

You cross my path, but I don't cross yours

I sat outside in the balcony in the dead of the night. Alone but not lonely. The trains brought me human company every now and then. The little wheel in my heel was satiated by the thought of journeys that others take. I watched people pass on their journey to other cities, other worlds... Carried by noisy, yet strangely soothing trains. At that time, most compartments were dark and the occupiers in a slumber, yet I caught glimpses of lit up bogeys, people playing cards, children wandering about. So many lives cross my backyard every day and every night. Rich, poor, famous, oblivious of my existence, I of theirs. A mutual oblivion that can never be resolved...

mUjhik association

We were talking about song association last night. I associate most songs with events/places... I associate the song “Mitwa” with Warwick... Sitting in my room, listening to Hindi songs with increasing intensity everyday, as a way of connecting to the mother-ship (home). I lived in a student block called “Lakeside”, the most posh of them all. Yet all we had was a bed, a table-chair, a book shelf, open racks, and a closet- oh and a loo to ourselves. I used to play “Suspicious minds” on a loop too. It was summer, summer in England is brilliant. I had a view of the farm in the back, green land stretching beyond naked eye view. Beautiful... I used to play it in the office, in the International Office where I worked (my first real job) full-time. Listening to it right now in my present office, transports me back to that country. I so miss it. You must think I miss everything! I love today, but yesterdays were a lot of fun too. A wee fragment of what has passed should always be carried forward as a good memory.

Of karma and more....

A single common human desire is to levitate above reality... and mostly, in the pursuit of the profound, we encounter the banal. I had been reading about flower power, hippies, the Nam war, napalm and it all got muddy inside my head. In the manner propounded by numerous new-age self-help books which discuss spirituality that conveniently exists only in the Oriental East, I should want to climb Himalayas, alone, in the search of the “youth fountain”. Or better still, look for a personal guru- an enlightened yogi who would lead me to nirvana. So does the much promised microcosm exist? Perhaps I intend never to find out. Over the last four decades, we have been obsessed with rock and roll and they (read the West) with karma and neo-sanyasism. Maybe a day will come when we consult the West the learn about our culture. I, for my bit, am getting a copy of a Puran that Titli recommended... English version, of course...

Disillusioned

Jagdish Tytler goes free again. Tytler feels “vindicated” because “the case destroyed” his career. After the Nanavati Commission and all the various admin commissions set up before Nanavati, took little or no cognizance of implication of Congress leaders in the Sikh riots of 1984 in Delhi, the last bolt from the Congress before the elections this year was to “vindicate” its tarnished leader- Tytler by giving him a clean chit. Strange coincidence it is then that Manmohan Singh had announced during one of the first parliamentary sessions of his government, that “the issue of 1984 riots will be revisited as there is an existing sentiment that justice did not prevail”. In 5 years, they replicated their previous achievements in this regard. The others, despite clear and pressing evidence, also went scot-free- HKL Bhagat died in 2005. This is the distressing political state of our country- one young and previously unknown leader from the opposition makes communal and disturbing remarks about another religious community while the ruling party vindicates the likes of Tytler who is purportedly responsible, along with Bhagat, for deaths of over 4000 Sikhs in Delhi in 1984. Jai Hind! Long live democracy... and oh yeah.... please vote!
Refer for details to-
Movie: Amu
Book: When a tree shook Delhi- Manoj Mitta and H.S Phoolka