Love, Life & Happiness

My Daughter with Ruskin Bond at Times LitFest     Kids have the purest of the hearts and neatest of the intellect. This intellect is not yet a tool to defend or explain oneself. It is rather to seek the knowledge, to understand and come to terms with the world around them which as yet is a new, fascinating entity to their fresh eyes. It is such a pity that we have so few writers who are able to understand, respect that unadulterated intellect and that wide-eyed curiosity of a child.   When I saw the expectant children listening with unwavering attention to octogenarian author, Ruskin Bond, speaking lucidly with the boyish glint in his eyes, I gather, what is that one thing which makes writing for children so fulfilling, yet so rare. When one listens the way he responds to the children, one understands the mind and heart which doesn't have a disparaging view of the consumers of his art. He bends down gently to listen, to embrace and find comfort in the company of these l

“ I believe that man will not merely endure: he will prevail…The poet’s, the writer’s duty is to write these things. It is his privilege to help men endure by lifting his heart. ”- William Falkner , Nobel acceptance speech, December, 10 th , 1950 The moments of crisis brings out the best and worst of human spirits. Then there are moments which rewrite the course of a nation. For India, the wars of 62, 65 and 1971 were such moments, so was the Emergency imposed in the late seventies by the Congress government. When we look at those moments, we wade through the old, black and white pictures of those family photographs and wonder where our parents were when these events were unfolding. I am writing this on #Demonetization, which is one such historic event. Before you sigh, roll your eyes upwards and throw your arms up in despair, and walk away, let me put forth the disclaimer. I am not an all knowing economist; I am also not an all-feeling journalist. I am the common man, wh

"Surely since she was a woman, and a beautiful woman, and a woman in the prime of her life, she will soon give over this pretense of writing and thinking and begin at least to think of a gamekeeper (and as long as a woman thinks about a man, nobody objects to a woman thinking). And then she will write a short note (and as long as she writes short notes, nobody objects a woman writing either)"  I had read the above passage in Virginia Woolf's Orlando, and was immediately hooked. Orlando was the first novel of Ms. Woolf I had ever read and much too late in life.  I had stayed away from her, fearing the feminist credentials of her, which are almost as famous as her writing is. However, Orlando was such an eye-opener. It is such a vast canvas over which the story is spread-out. She masterly tells the story, with a easy efficiency of a master who is totally in control of her craft. Orlando was of course followed by Mrs Dolloway and The Waves, all masterpieces in their ow

India for all practical purposes refers to the East of the East and US of America is the West of the West, and the twain, wise men said, shall never meet. In the span of two days, one rolling after another, like the wheels of a great Juggernaut, bashful, arrogant wheels, changed the way we look at the world. We have been raised with a concept of right and wrong. It was a good idea which provided a pattern to a world which is as illogical as the forces of nature, its whims unfathomable, its furies uncertain. But those ideas were formed in a dynamic world, and were as volatile as ecosystem in which they were formed, raised and eventually flourished.  Wisdom is like a freshly caught fish and goes stale quickly. The biggest wisdom which survives time is the one discovered by good, old Darwin, whose law of survival, the survival of the fittest is one which has survived change of civilizations, change of regimes, and change of political seasons. Men are feeble animals. We have nothing

कहते हैं , जब रही ना मुझे ताक़त ए सुख़न  जानूँ किसी के दिल की मैं क्यों कर कहे बगैर।   This delightful verse comes from Ghalib, which is so meaningful in today's world where truth is being replaced by rhetoric is laden with so many interests. I had once written about it and named it "Responsibility of a Writer- As Per Ghalib. (http://www.saketsuryesh.net/2016/04/responsibility-of-writer-as-per-ghalib.html)"   The couplet means as below: If I am no longer blessed with the Power of my Pen, why should I have access to the recesses of someone's heart.  What Ghalib is essentially saying, in my interpretation is that "unless my pen has the will and the strength to honestly convey the interests and thoughts of those who cannot speak, why should I continue to enjoy their trust and have access their hearts. This takes an important perspective in today's context, where a day ban on NDTV has given an opportunity to Ravish Kumar for making his point