Magic tricks: House hunting hacks
Like most things statutory the question too didn’t accomplish much. Aap kya karte ho? What do you do? Asked the agent whom I found on a real estate portal. Even if you say you undertake contract killings, the answer will still be acha. Good. More than eye on your money, this is also the unshakeable, […]
A flurry of inactivity: Pondicherry
If languor is your hearth then Pondicherry is home. Clocks in this union territory are known to miss a few ticks now and then and make different times of the day – and night – linger. This temporal deceleration hems in the spatial and limits the experiential. Take the chief lure, The Promenade. This landmark […]
Talking buffaloes and spying goats
A flurry of ringing at the door. Nobody has been in such a hurry to feed me ever since I left home. It was Vishnu. A baldpate Vishnu. And I was ready to fist a rando. I didn’t know what to ask first: what’s gotten into your head? Or, what’s gotten into your head? Vishnu […]
A feeling called Fort Kochi
We sat atop a red oxide stairway that led from the reading hall to the pool area with its mauve sun deck chairs. Rain fell at soft angles on the water surface creating little pimply ripples like thousands of greedy Garra rufa at a foot care spa. A darker hue spread over the chairs as […]
Sunrise in Almora
Traveling together is a benchmark of compatibility. I know at least five dating couples who decided to move in together as they found they were still pining for each other at the end of each trip. More than onism dawning, it is the realisation that you have made some ground together. Yes, if anything can go […]
Finding Charlie
Hanging welter covered peeling plaster. The veneer on the butt of an air rifle reflected light, hockey trophies and team memorabilia; a discoloured snood probably worn by Charlie’s wife on their wedding day, frayed ‘Jesus loves you’ pictures curled at the corners; a clock in a chunky wooden case which kept ticking away loudly sometimes […]
Like the President
Toll plazas judder me. I have never passed through any without my mind wrought, eyes blazing, head giddy and generally feeling violated. True, there have been happy occasions where I gave a lift to an old man who was a plaza manager by dint of which I didn’t have to pay not one but three […]
Skateboard to school
All of a sudden the father of the two guys we were dealing with stood up, left the hall and came back with a rifle in his hands. Ulrike Reinhard, a soi-disant futurist and social entrepreneur, was relieved to leave India the first time she came for a conference. Besides the ‘harsh and irritating extremes’ […]
Munnar
From the balcony It must have been the same view that held the Muthuvan gaze two centuries ago. The tree line, the undulating hills and the Western Ghats segued into the argent skies through a thick veil of mist. In the calm of early dawn Nature stood motionless narcissistically occupied by its own unrivalled beauty, […]