Green skies, umber hills, white desert
Riding through a manufacturing belt has its rewards – the roads are laid out like duvets, nary a wrinkle; crouch a bit low into the wind and you can open throttle till your heart reaches your mouth. But there is a price to pay – vast swathes of the landscape, what would have once been […]
A boner for the goner
Love People who are getting ass always think it is funny when somebody else isn’t. Bukowski, Notes of a dirty old man ‘Quaranteens’ was a joke I received over WhatsApp. It was defined as ‘the generation of children born from quarantining entering teenage by the year 2033.’ I found it funny that is till I […]
Missing snakes and numen
The Gangaur Ghat rose resplendent in the path of the sun. The waters of the Lake Pichola on whose banks it loomed stood still awed by the grandeur that surrounded it – and in its midst. Pigeons cooed gratitude for tourists strewing popcorn, rising shortly in hordes indulging the Instagrammers among them. A gaggle of […]
Layam lives
She is probably the reason we are a nation of tea drinkers. A comely smile connects cherry-tan cheeks, a mop of lustrous black hair peeps from beneath a colourful headband that holds aloft a polished cane basket and between her dainty smooth fingers a rain-washed tea leaf. All around her the supernal green glow of […]
What the cliffs don’t tell
Our eyes glowed and cheeks were radiant, laughter rang and words flowed wise. Actually it was like any other table of middle-aged drinkers where a lot of wine has been consumed. The dinner I was hosting for my friends who were musicians from Greece and XXX – whom we will get to know in time. […]
A reclamation called Shaheen Bagh
The Rosa Parks moment was when Shaheen Iqra sat on the road flanking Shaheen Bagh which connects Kalindi Kunj in southeast Delhi and Noida blocking the busy traffic on December 15, 2019. Earlier that day police had forcefully entered the Jamia Millia Islamia University nearby and brutalised students in retaliation for a massive protest they […]
Hygge on the highway
The urge to be ‘out there’, to be surrounded by vast open spaces, is as old as mankind itself. Making his argument about why it is not exactly a ‘concrete jungle’ but a ‘human zoo’, English ethologist Desmond Morris writes in ‘The Human Zoo’ that man ‘Trapped…by his own brainy brilliance, has set himself up […]
Pappanji rises from the ashes
It is not just our sins Pappanji has to grapple with – and eventually burn for, of course – but also how his looks are taken. If he was perceived to be too cheerful in 2017, the year when Cyclone Ockhi ravaged Kerala, this year it was alleged that he bore a close semblance to […]
Wait for side
The lorry juddered to a halt. We were passing through one of those Himalayan hamlets that always looked like they were shut for the night. Like many others along the way this one too had sprung up around a sharp curve on the winding road. Habitation, commerce even, around these bends made sense as vehicles […]