Heart to Heart

Gaza, Israel and this world     Have you seen those horrid videos and images from Gaza? Of wailing mothers and moaning fathers? Of dazed children with their blood-smeared faces and a badly shattered leg and arm? Of a nearly-dead, dishevelled young girl in blood-soaked tatters, head slumped, limp arms dangling, being rushed on a stretcher to a hospital?  Of a thickly swaddled young boy with both his arms and legs amputated? Of starving men and women, young and old, holding out bowls begging for food and water?  Of children, some newly born and some older, lined up in coffins in rows and dozens more dying for lack of medical care they desperately need? Of the city almost turned into a bizarre ghostly wilderness with the once-upon-a time buildings bombed and strafed to shattered heaps of brick and concrete? Of innocent people being bombed day in and day out not for days, not for weeks but for months? Just ponder a while and reflect. Is this some imaginary scene in a h...

  On B N Goswamy (the storyteller of Art) with love                                                                                           Listen to my blog: For a rabbit-holed country bumpkin like me to write on B N Goswamy is what?   Asking a molehill ant to climb a mountain, perhaps? For, Art historian B N Goswamy who shuffled off his mortal coil on the 17 th of November was no less than that: a towering, glittering summit in terms of his erudition, scholarship and his immense contribution to all things called ‘Art’. Without an iota of exaggeration his passing away leaves the shocked, sobbing world of art so much the poorer. While the gleeful gods somewhere above must be having a ball to have amidst ...

  On Being Mahua Moitra   Play Audio        To write on Mahua Moitra is to miss a heartbeat or two! A feisty lady, exuberant in spirits, and exuding both charm and gutsy defiant air, she turns many a head as she bounds about in the corridors of power, or anywhere. She is a stormy petrel in our political landscape whose fiery eloquence with a tadka of desi phrase, a Shakespearean quote, a Mahabharata metaphor and a Bengali/Hindi simile to boot, serves a steamy, sizzling stew fortified further with a battery of facts. That’s what lends her speeches in the parliament so special and a must-see, must-hear, for everyone. Those whom her fiery stuff is aimed at squirm in their seats with her red mirchis burning hot on their palates, while the benches on her side applaud in stunned disbelief at her heroics. Her academic and professional credentials are impressive: in a house where even ministers can’t tell Einstein from Newton, and a Baba’s herbal conco...

  On reading Marcel Proust I have for long nursed a dream: to read Marcel Proust. I knew he wrote in long, winding sentences and while navigating those byzantine lanes and by-lanes, one was prone to lose way. An atrociously slow reader that I am - averse to all twists and puzzles whether mental or those inflicted by our digitalized lifestyles - I always thought that Proust and ‘yours truly’ would never make good bedfellows. But I have a secret infatuation for French books, wines and women of whom I can at least solicit the first (by just loosening my feeble purse strings), and just fantasize about the other two! And then having read Victor Hugo’s life-altering classic ‘Les Misérables’, and later Balzac’s (a contemporary of Hugo and Alexander Dumas) heart-tugging biography ‘Jeevan Madira’ (‘Wine of Life’) reflecting his extraordinary writing genius standing in sharp contrast to his flamboyant lifestyle and innumerable trysts with women, my rendezvous with Proust was inevitable. ...

  Is another world war nigh? Powerful Putin pounds puny but intrepid Ukraine.   Mighty China looks wolf-eyed to devour the whole world– be it our own Ladakh and Arunachal Pradesh, or the Indo-Pacific; and even gnashes its teeth at the world’s ‘my-way-or-the-highway’ daroga, the US. India-Pakistan hostilities never cease. Long-suffering Syria is ever in a boil. Africa - the continent that birthed and cradled humankind - has militancy, coups and internal hostilities erupting every now and then. North Korea acts like a ‘main-na-maanu’ rogue thumbing its despotic nose at every one and launching missiles as children send their little ‘hawaais’ to the sky on Diwali, every now and then with sardonic glee, giving sleepless nights to its techno-savvy and industrious neighbours South Korea and Japan. And now with guns booming, bombs exploding, hospitals crumbling, and missiles whooshing over the West Asian skies, Israel and Hamas are having it out in Gaza; while Iran and Lebanon in th...

  To CM Sukhvinder Sukhu ji with love (and tears) Respected Sukhvinder Sukhu ji, Namaskar.   Forgive my audacity, please. But since I consider you to be a kind, decent person coming from humble origins, are not elitist, haughty or strong-headed, and know the pain and pulse of the common man, hence this open letter. The way you have been trudging the monsoon-battered hills, villages and towns and addressing affected people’s woes with a personal healing touch despite acute resource crunch, and Delhi being more political than munificent, has endeared you to the people of Himachal at large. (I can’t remember any other CM/MP/minister, royal or rich, who has ever parted with a few lakhs of her/his crores like you did by donating all your savings of 51 lakhs for a public cause.) But that is not enough. The unprecedented, colossal devastation unleashed by the monsoon this year has left us awe-struck and grimly aware of the demonic force of Climate change getting fiercer by th...

  From Palampur to cyber city                                                                                      My reading delight                        Leaving home is never easy. It is in fact a mixed bag. There is a wrench of sadness at having to part with your little world of books, desk, bath and the bed (especially the co-conspirator of your secret dreams the pillow, you rest your head on!) that have inadvertently become integral to your daily routine. You also have a heart-tugging feeling about going away from your near and dear ones as also your bosom friends with whom you share jokes and hearty laughs, occasional beer and some naughty gossip. Also, a shadow of nostalgia...