Howzzat!

The pillow looks so inviting after a long day. As soon as I hit the bed and wait for sweet sleep to take over, few uninvited guests come knocking. "Tadading..  tadading... " no they aren't Facebook, WhatsApp notifications.  They are pesky neurons  transmitting thoughts at the speed of 120 miles per second. I think, think and think and finally fall asleep when my neurons had had enough.... some 2-3 odd hours later.   I know I'm not alone. This is one major epidemic seriously threatening body clocks world over.  This picture perfectly sums up how majority of our brains work.  Picture this. You live in a city. You look at the night sky and you hardly see any stars.  Where do they go? We fail to see them because of the artificial lights all around us.  They obstruct stars' light from falling within our line of sight. Meanwhile, if you go to a place with no man-made lighting around and look up, you'll find your jaw drop....

The dark lords black, burdened Heave a sigh of relief     Droplets flung all over     Stir the lake from her sleep Concentric circles abound     Their lives mystical but brief The rain maiden's soaked     Drops slide down her hair   Unoiled yet fragrant,     Setting off ripples a few Outnumbered  though By the dark lords' own . A pair of little eyes watch Her antics from afar     Part thrilled part terrified     Join didi? um no! Petrified or amused- Apu  stands still     And so does the tree beside .   The rain maiden's delirious, Unmindful of the the dark lords' cry She spins her fragile figure around Weaving magic like fine silk. If the sky, the lake, the rain make the canvas, Our rain maiden's the art     The rain maiden's finished     She runs towards t...

Thanks to social media, we have people turning famous overnight and things going viral in less than 24 hours and fade out from our memories even before the 24 hour time frame is up.  “Sensational” - this word has crept up every time we Indians attach ourselves to some new change or mission. “ Ringing bells ” (sounds like a wedding planning company?) felt obliged to do something for the nation and ta-da, we have freedom in our hands @251. All those features and what a cute looking phone! What were our people thinking? Would I consider buying a car whose price is cheaper than petrol? Think of this phone and the rate of 1 GB data pack. You get the picture.  Like tickets to an India-Pak match, people thronged to buy it even before they realized the prototypes handed out during the launch weren’t even made by them but a Chinese company, Adcom. It can benefit the masses at a steal of a price, true -but why am I so skeptical about it? Trust issues. People didn’t trust t...

Almost all of what I call my ‘tastes’ were acquired. I took no instant liking to anything perhaps with the exception of Hershey’s kisses. I pretty much took in everything during my um.. formative years, be it books, food, music or movies. But I have ceased doing so… and the credit in its entirety goes to my filters aka mental taste buds. We all know there were no dearth of books written during the 19 th and 20 th century but we read only a handful of works that belong to that era and why? Because these works, say that of Charles Dickens’ or Mark Twains’  withstood the sands of time long enough to remain in public memory. We are hardwired with filters in our brains. These are the very filters which cause us to forget memories, events and other data that are no longer required or important enough for us to remember. These filters are also responsible for shaping our interests and passions. The sky is blue because blue isn’t absorbed by the earth. Blue is of sh...

I feel drenched. This is perhaps the second time after Vairamuthu’s “ Thaneer Desam ” that I read a book on troubled Indian waters.  “The Hungry Tide” is penned by Amitav Ghosh, Indian by birth and going by his writings, Indian- rather Bengali- by thought.   Nostalgia affects everything. Our desires, interests, pursuits…It spares nothing. I love Ilaiyaraja’s compositions. His songs from the 1980’s give me solace whenever I feel alone and restless but I cannot equal the fervor with which my appa listens to his tunes. Some songs never fail to moisten his eyes. He has lived through an era in which Ilaiyaraja ruled over people’s senses.  His admiration for the Maestro therefore will always be greater than mine. And nostalgia is the same reason why the British classic “ Jane Eyre ” will remain my favourite book and I am reluctant to let any book replace it. I cannot sum up with words the kind of emotions that welled up in me when I first read it as a pre-teen. Whe...