How I love the lyrical rhythm, flow, and emotions, concealed and glaring, in the phrase, the lives of others. Ruminating over the romanticism of the words, I am reminded of having read a namesake book ‘The Lives of Others’ penned by Booker nominated Neel Mukherjee a couple of years ago. Amazed and fascinated that I... Continue Reading →
“You know it’s not the same as it was”, croons Harry Styles plaintively in his recent song. And metamorphosing into a comforting earworm, the song, layered with vintage shades of nostalgia and what seems like a tribute to the bygone times, literally and figuratively, quite unprepared, teleports me into a labyrinth, brown and purple, of... Continue Reading →
When I was fifteen most of my classmates, during reading sessions in the classroom, began exhibiting signs of their voices cracking, much to their embarrassment and much to a loud guffaw that followed every time a squeak escaped their vocal cords. Puberty explained our biology teacher to a classroom of about fifty boys. Uncannily enough... Continue Reading →
Yes, I earnestly miss going to the mall! Ah, do not presume that I adore spending all my hours aimlessly wandering inside the glitzy and glamourous blinding lights of a mall and do not erroneously assume that I devote all my energy indulging in window-shopping, faire du lèche-vitrines, literally licking windows as the French like... Continue Reading →
‘Rain, rain go away, come again some other day’, I distinctly remember these lines from a silly song we would sing as children when at school. Confined inside the classroom, we would solemnly stare at the non-stop patter and listen to the drops crashing upon the tinned roof. Will the rain ever stop, someone would... Continue Reading →
The previous year, when I sit and ruminate over the months that were, although three hundred and sixty-five days, from a spring spent by the beach and upon the mountains to a pandemic summer, to rains that never ended until December, save some days of desert sun, and a white Christmas spent with everyone I... Continue Reading →
“Time passes, and yet it doesn’t pass; people come and go, the mountains remain. Mountains are permanent things. They are stubborn, they refuse to move. You can blast holes out of them for their mineral wealth; or strip them of their trees and foliage; or dam their streams and divert their currents; or make tunnels... Continue Reading →
Reading a book where the author writes about fireflies during his evening walks across the city a forlorn feeling of not having seen a firefly for several years, silently floating through a misty evening, overtook me. The little flies, glowing happily, fluttered abundantly near the pomegranate tree by the front porch, by the hedges that... Continue Reading →
The sky has been flawlessly clean and cottony cumulus clouds that rose beyond the hills until a few days ago have faded into obscurity rendering the sky azure and pastel blue. From the window, and through the grills, meshed, I see treetops, lustrously green, motionless and stoic; no wind from the distant mountains greet us.... Continue Reading →