Tso it is
A sudden blizzard – a regular occurrence at high altitudes – caught us unawares as we approached Khardung La and we stopped to chain up our tyres. Flaky snow fell on our jackets which were blown away by strong winds. There was nothing much we could do about the meltwater, ice-cold and mucky, that threatened […]
Gulmohar Park
When into the womb of time everything is again withdrawn chaos will be restored and chaos is the score upon which reality is written. (Henry Miller, Tropic of Cancer.) Deepak outside the pastry shop The police van was parked across the road from where the dead body lay as if poised for a quick getaway. […]
Let’s lose the kids in the water
Being the only uncle to a bunch of boys who can fill out a small platoon comes with not just enough responsibilities but a minimum knowledge requirement. Like knowing ‘fast track.’ “Tom mama, let’s get fast track,” said one of my nephews at the entry to the water park. “But didn’t I get you all […]
Earth on heaven
A man goes to a shrink to check if he has gotten over his ex. Shrink: Do you get jealous when you think of her with another man? Man: But I have always wanted to see her with other men. You get the drift when the jokes go like this. We were three guys, slightly […]
Thrissur Pooram and jumbo love
Will he? Won’t he? Festivals remain popular and stay relevant when they don’t try too hard to reinvent themselves as something else, say, a youthquake. Nothing much has changed in the over two centuries of the Thrissur Pooram: a throbbing, vibrant face-off between two ancient temples, Thiruvambadi and Paramekkavu, in addition to eight smaller ones. […]
The shaap shooters
The GPS assured that we had arrived: in place of the curving, lengthening arrow mark, there was the sprogged onion. The famous toddy shop was supposed to be on our left side. Instead of – as I imagined it to be – lit up like Merryland, parking attendants struggling hard to find space for customers […]
Delhi to Agra via NH2
#instatravel #motorcycling #heritage #dhaba #nh2 #royalenfield #incredibleindia #travelogram And finally The city gives up. Hauz Khas, where I stay, conurbates into more highrises and flyovers, reverberating underpasses and fringe residential areas before thinning out into open mandis – wholesale marketplaces. As I passed by these throbbing centres of humanity, big boned jolies laides were making […]
Maximum selfie city
Vanity thy name is not woman anymore. It is man. A study published in the International Journal of Mental Health and Addiction puts the percentages of men and women exhibiting ‘selfitis’ – the condition of excessive selfie-taking – at around 60 and 40 respectively. One of the authors, Mark D. Griffiths, PhD, informs ‘From a […]
Twenty20: The journey so far
When polity develops accountability and corporatedom grows a heart it becomes Twenty20. This is practical Utopia: organisation, skilled manpower, resource and vision meet people. Being first of its kind, everything is not honky-dory; then at every turn there is a new learning. Posing a threat to established norms, hierarchical bureaucracy and lucrative red-tapism, obstacles are […]