That enchanting February morn I have pitched my time-worn tent in the historical city of Hyderabad these days. But what an exquisite morn it was when I left the Palampur shores in late February! As my fellow residents know, Palampur is hardly any Eden of bliss at this time of year. This is rather a dreary month of cold and chill; of grey, grim, rumbling skies hushing us mostly indoors to lie curled up under our rajais or perched before heaters. After wrenching free from home, especially from the weak-armed yet tight hug of a 90-year-old mom, I was barely a few minutes on the road to Gaggal airport when the benign, reassuring face of our big Grandad, the Dhauladhar, beaming its pearly, glittery smile came in view. Dawn attired in shifting hues of gold, amber and silver had just broken. Might there be some celestial lake in the unseen heavens somewhere where it had had its dip-and-swim to look so dazzlingly magnificent? I wondered, spellbound. Whiffs of breeze that caressed my face ha
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Ocean treaty: how good is the good news? There is good news on Climate change. After protracted wrangling and school children-like squabbling that our suited-booted, slick-and-sleek world leaders invariably display on global issues, a unified treaty to protect biodiversity in the high seas, under the auspices of the UN has been put in place. No wonder it took them two weeks of talks and discussions spanning 20 years to come to a consensus. The treaty, per se, envisages creating a new body to regulate commercial activity and ensure conservation of ocean life. After all, oceans constitute half of earth’s surface and are critical for the blue planet’s very survival: oceans that are our great carbon sinks but have been deep-mined for minerals, over-fished and treated as a large human dumping yard. The biggest one I learn is The Great Pacific Garbage Patch which is almost three times the size of France, turned into a stinking island. Hearing of this
Balzac: genius extraordinaire; lover exagere Is it that, unlike us mere earthlings, some men and women descend on earth to shine like stars, illumine our lives and then fade away? … More often than not, theirs is but a short sojourn, for, knowing the rapacious nature of ‘man’, Providence keeps the fine balance: between too much and too less. If it were indeed so, I would reckon Honore’ de Balzac as one such starry gleam that shone brightly but briefly on earth, made the world stop, shrug and look awhile at this crazy genius before the jealous gods plucked him away for their own pleasure. I happened to feast on ‘Jeevan Madira’ - a Hindi translation of Balzac’s biographical novel ‘Wine of life’ by Charles Gorham, written by the felicitous pen of that fine, genial Punjabi man of letters Jung Bahadur Goyal who, among several books, has also elevated our lives with his beautiful gem ‘Muhabbatnama’. Born in a French town, the childhood