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 →
‘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 rain makes it impossible to go about my chores, Maa, my mother would complaint each morning during the months of monsoon when the cold, silvery coils of rainwater unfurled upon the gentle hills of my sleepy hometown. Washed clothes don’t dry and smell musty, the rainwater finds ingenious ways to drip inside the house... 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 →
“Happiness is a butterfly, Try to catch it like every night, It escapes from my hands into moonlight” sings Lana Del Rey in her intoxicating voice, lulling one into a slumber of thoughts. Her magical voice guides one’s soul through a labyrinth of amazement into a world where time stands still, where a million yellow... Continue Reading →