Mahua tales: Rouse the guards
The sloth bear had turned in for the night, that too stoned, so it was alright our Gypsy had stalled. I and the tracker returned to announce breathlessly that we saw it disappear between a set of boulders not very far away, a mound of fur trundle clumsily in the fast falling dusk. It’s rather […]
Thrills, endurance and tolerance drills
The ‘From the Middle East to the Mount Everest’ part is over half way into the book with the climactic final assault of the Everest taking up maybe a page. The perils posed naturally by Hillary Step, the last real challenge along the Southeast route, take up a chunk of the narrative. No falling ice […]
Shoot at site
Looking for pusta # three-and-half Most direction-giving is associated with landmarks. Hence the parlance here changes with topography. While the Metro introduced the ‘pillar’ as a driver marker over a decade ago, the ‘pusta’ remained confined to civic suburbia. But as cities become one nonstop conurbation with the south segueing into the southwest into the […]
Gunehr is now on Google
The metallic clanging from the lathe shop falling oddly in step with the strides on the makeshift catwalk next to it could have been an installation. Then, this is what happens when daily life takes an arty turn. Or when you are impressively exposed to unusual attempts at reinventing space through creations that are not […]
Show the bird the bird
Dreaming of flying is apparently a sign of good tidings. Though I do not know any dream analyst to verify I will go with it. I have been dreaming of flying since I was five and all the good things – at least those I remember – happened afterwards: first glass of beer (age eight), […]
The pangs: Voices from a growing town
I am conscious of flux, of disorder; of annihilation and despair. If this is all, this is worthless. (Virginia Woolf, The Waves) The Master Plan occupied the centrepiece of every conversation and gathering. Or more specifically the Transport Plan which the Master Plan was chiefly about. It was an officious one, a protracted one, albeit […]
Thampanoor Terminal (New)
(June 2 is International Sex Workers’ Day. This is a prize winning story revolving around the adventures spanning an evening of Donna aka Devi, a fictitious streetwalker based out of the Thampanoor in Trivandrum, Kerala. Dedicated to all Donnas and Devis out there. May your profession be legalised and organised so that you can live […]
An evening in The Village
An idle mind is the devil’s workshop (Biblical) You shall do no work on Sabbath (also Biblical) Let there be no light What used to be a water tank for royalty thrives today as watering holes for the proletariat. There is one for every mood as long as it doesn’t involve bright. None of the […]
Partition and other sagas from Jinnah House
Compared to its Mumbai namesake Jinnah House in Delhi has shunned controversy and sits quietly away from public glare, behind man-high baroque iron gates in the middle of an expansive, well groomed lawn. The guards are armed and unseen, stepping out of their watchhouse only as your car approaches. They look surprised to hear that […]