Love, Life & Happiness

I have for the last quite a few posts almost manoeuvred out of the torrid path of politics and more accurately, avoided taking note of the way world around me changed each day. While the newspapers screamed through a self imposed deafness and isolation as I kept my being comfortably ensconced in the cocoon of an utopian Felicity, touched by the divine touch of the little human soul, my daughter. Truth has a may habit of slowly tickling your toes, before it finally nudges you out of the feigned slumber, and throws you on the floor so hard that the pretence is no longer bearable. So, wake up I did to find that baby Falak is dead, Ms. Padma Lakshmi's last beau finally got paternity right to his child, the Indian couple in Norway lose custody, live-in gains currency by an unusually generous Supreme Court and this week, divorce becomes easy. A debate on television had a gentleman with some fancy title of psychologist counsellor, was busy painting such a bleak picture that kids would

There are some lovely nuances of modern day schooling, a full-fledged graduation ceremony at the end of the session from Play school is one of them. This apart from the class tours which takes the kid to exotic places like the Rail Museum, and Nehru Park. It is wonderful and must be lovely for the child. I, for one from my school days remember faintly of one trip which we went to in Hasimara, where we went off to some forest reserve near by in class VII and the high point of the trip was a rhino sighting in the forest, while riding over an elephant, another one which I remember was in Kanpur in class V, the one with some taste of rebelliousness, when we went to a temple next to the school, one with a cemented water tank, where we went, bought some Masala and potato, bought some Eggplan to make vegetable on a single vessel that we could lay hand on, over the fire built over wood from broken school furniture, the Egg Plan, off course came from the Principal residence. I stil

While writhing under impact of the some recently released,  largely publicised, and poorly written books, most of which seemed to have been written in trifle hurry, using the sales pull of Indian mythology as a positioning plank, I had picked up this book with a great deal of apprehension, telling myself, No, no no, Do not Prejudge. What held my largely shaken belief in great modern english writing, with Shiva speaking in expletives, was the trust in  the inherent strength of the Mahabharat  (which the author refers to as Jaya, as it was then known) as a story and the lovely, innocent and almost religious taste like a sip of Darjeeling tea on a dew-laden, winter morning which my last book around the the great epic, left in my thoughts, "The Difficulty of Being Good" by Gurcharan Das, a scholarly masterpiece. Swinging between the worlds of extreme optimism and utter hopelessness, I picked up this book. The cynic in me, stood in an imaginary corner of my mind with a wicke

This one is from Maa Park It is the month of March, first week after the colorful festival of Holi. This is the first Holi of Nonu's life which she could truly appreciate, without getting scared and enjoy, getting colors on to people and throwing water on to them and as she tells me she thoroughly enjoyed and by implication, so did I. In between, she got herself a bicycle, the first one which she can drive on, the one of Blue color, with some yellow around the rims of the wheel and has been to the neighborhood parks couple of times riding on it. This morning, like a sensible, mature child, which she sometimes decides to acts as as a surprise to her unsuspecting parents, brushed her teeth and had shower, without the usual tantrum, getting ready to walk with me through the Forest park near by on the Sunday. So we were in the Park, the foresty part of the twin park, which she has named as Baba Park (after her father, yours truly, as against the other half with manicured lawns and

As the Academic session for Nonu's play school comes to close, she gets engaged with her classmates in the preparation of the Annual Fest coming up on 18th of March, 2012. This graduation, as they call it, pompous as it may be for a three year old, does not mean much to her. She only understand this as an upcoming function of fun and frolic. This is probably her first time to loose something she knows as her own, as she gets to transition from her old school to the new big or bada school. She is excited though not quite satisfied with what she is going to be, as she came back slightly disappointed from her school the next day after she went with her props to the school. They were making her Fairy, while her mind was set on being a butterfly. It took me considerable effort to help her explain her how fairy is better than butterfly, ( the fact that it is much better than the Pinkie Pig which she played in the earlier event is another story). The interesting part of this whole dis

A slow, lethargic start of the day, with multiple ideas getting postponed, beginning with the plan to double up weekly movie with "The Moneyball" being the first to go out of the window, followed by trip to the park, turned down by daughter, this morning feeling more inclined towards painting or colouring to be more accurate, a haircut trip and a trip to the coffee shop being other two propositions turned down by my little lady. I settle down with Maugham's "The Summing Up" on the kindle, marvelling at her efforts and seriousness which can be compared to the sincerity with which Sixteenth Chapel was painted,  though to a somewhat better results, but don't all a father to judge his daughter's work. A misdirected brush stroke lands on her cheek, giving her cheek a deeper hue of pink. A headache keeps lurking from behind the wall like a naughty school boy, hiding away every time adult eyes looks its way. This play had been continuing since yesterday, the t

Anger has become such a big part of my life. I do not know it has something to do with the loosely used term of city rage or is it something very peculiar to me. Somewhere, I want to be pampered, showered with the same love which I had always tried to search in the longing. I suppose the rage which was simmering all the while and came out as witty cynicism, now holds my conscious by its neck. It feels it stems from the failure not only in getting the love which I was longing for, but rather in the fact that the failure seems more certain with every passing day. The confidence which I had in my own being, in my own physical being seems to be fading away every passing day, a struggle which begins every dawn to arrest the decline, by digging my heels in the quicksand on which I stand, gives way to a heavy and melancholy sadness by the evening, which comes down as a dark cloud, heavy with pregnant storm within, floating downwards, before being hit with the finality of a dreadful lightenin

It was in 1990s that I had landed in Guna, at an impressionable age as I stepped in pre-graduation. It was a typical, proverbial sleepy town, with dust arising from where the vision touched the edge of the sky, and that your vision could reach that edge without being obstructed by huge, obnoxious construction, was a testament of the smallness of the city. The railway station was small, with two platforms, rare passengers, though with good quality construction (owing to being the constituency of Late Madhavrao Scindia, or Raja Sahab, as he was fondly called, the village still living, in if not century but few decades behind, where hereditary royalty had not yet lost its gleam). Close to around a score of Tongas made up for what can be termed as public conveyance of the town, not that it needed anything more than that, as the whole of the city wrapped around the road which was called Sadar Market, giving a false sense of grandness. The road ran through the city, starting from what w

Death is a painful thought, a thought which for a very long time in life seems like a distant data. But there comes a time, when it comes to be a very real thought. Evenings are hounded by shades of dark obstructing a vivid vision as you are not very sure of surviving the evening. Some evenings are heavier than others, just as the last one was, in which dark shadow of death slowly descends down on the windows, like dark, huge vultures on the windows, and hotel rooms, feels unfriendlier and stranger than their inherent unfreindliness and strangeness. Suddenly an innocent headache which creeps in silently, feels like a devil with ugly teeth, smilingly pronouncing the impending doom. For some reason, death has always grabbed my attention, even in the days, when such matters seem to unreal to attract the intention of a young mind. A death pushed me to my own impending death, which sent me back from the very edge, as I stayed put on the course of life with life itself held casually as a c