Heart to Heart

  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...

                       Ode to Chandrayaan and Pragyan So our Chandrayaan has landed on the moon, become history, and an ever-shining badge of honour on the 56 inch – and still expanding – chest of ISRO. Undoubtedly, it is ISRO’s another glorious leap into space that makes India proud. This is ‘Science India’ at its finest best. How magical were those moments when Chandrayaan-3 descended on the pock-marked lunar face with the surgeon’s precision and nimble-footed feminine softness! ... Never mind the sudden juxtaposition of unsavoury political overreach – both by sight and sound – just when we were devouring those final moments with breathless anticipation, awe and wonder! With this epoch-making Chandrayaan event India proudly rubs shoulders with the world’s high and mighty- the haughty world-chowkidar, the US; Russia – a great country of Pushkins, Tolstoys and Yuri Gagarins but sadly going through unhappy times at present; ...

                                  Himalaya Parvat breaks silence There is in the northern direction, the supreme Lord (Adhirajah) of mountains, possessed of a divine nature (devatatma) by name Himalaya…                            (opening verse of Kalidasa’s Kumarasambhavam)                                                                         *   Maati kahe kumhaar se tu kya ronde mohe/ Ik din aisa aayega men rodungi tohe         ...

  Elections 2024: musings Who you think will lord over 1.4286 billion of us Hindustanis from the hot and high PM’s seat after Elections 2024? As the year of our Lord 2023 with a sorry saga of mayhem and misery, Manipurs and Nuhs, shouts and shoutdowns (in the parliament) makes for a noisy, ignoble exit, the question is bound to cross our minds with growing urgency. For bhakts – both andh and moderate – the answer is obvious. Set in stone. A foregone conclusion. For the bourgeois class in general of which I am a rabbit-holed, self-aggrandizing, never-stick-your-neck-out type, I think the answer would be the same. For the toiling millions busy with eking out a living the hard way, sweating it out day and night, it matters not. Whether it is king A or B, their destiny is carved in hard rock: immutable. Hungry stomach has no appetite for these idle, elite ruminations. But they are a game for the lawmakers to bribe, corrupt, seduce and bamboozle with some quick cash and a bottle to b...

                  ‘Hinduism/Hindutva vs Islam’: an interview I don’t enjoy a cosy kinship with social media platforms including the all-pervasive, omnipotent, omniscient, and omni-much else WhatsApp, primarily because they exude more venom than amrit, befuddle more than enlighten and emit more smoke and fire than any balmy sunshine. Yet I recently happened to watch a 1-hour plus WhatsApp video of interview on the recommendation of my dear friend of great charm, refinement and suavity, in three sittings. It was arguably a scholarly exposition backed by meticulous research in support of the thesis on Hinduism vis-à-vis Islam. Mining ancient history to trace the origins of Islam including Wahhabism and Sufism, the main drift of the interview was on the militant aspect inherent in Islam and how our religion has borne the brunt of its hostile anti-Hindu philosophy. It was this old adversarial core element-turned-driving force, went the argument,...

  Monsoon fury Saturday, the eighth of July it was when, nursing a sly chuckle, I posted my last blog: a little fanciful euphoria of a jubilant heart to welcome the first showers of monsoon. After all, who doesn’t get entranced by its magic spell? But my romantic mood was not to last long. To displace it, a vague, creeping sense of guilt and horror began to grow eventually. For, in the hours and days that followed, it had been raining, and raining mad. The monsoon from being a benign, amorous Indradev had in no time turned into a furious, vengeful monster. And a day or two later the news had started flooding in: deaths and destruction galore in most parts of north India. Videos began doing the rounds and the TV screens - generally obsessed with screaming out lop-sided propaganda of the murky world of politics - had evocative visuals sending shivers of horror down our spines. Several rivers have breached their boundaries. Many roads and highways have become rivers and lakes of m...

       Here cometh monsoon   The skies rumbled. Winds hissed and swished. Flashes of lightening streak-peeked through the curtained windows with thunderous authority to serve notice. I shuffled and shifted in my bed. A few more heaven-sent ‘beware-you-folks’ warnings by way of claps and refulgent flashes inspiring awe, and then down it came in all its glory and power: almost like a capricious, tantrum-throwing, long-in-waiting, estranged lover! The timing was just perfect for the rendezvous with the parched, heated-up, thirsty consort: the Earth. For, isn’t the black, beauteous Night’s silken veil- its gentle embrace and unobtrusive screen against the prying eyes, what all love-lorn suitors dream of to celebrate love? So, night it was when monsoon came in bushels and sheets of soft silken threads. The slumbering humanity could only picture the scene in a state of dim, misty, awareness-   the old (romantic types) recalling their own youthful exuberance...