Top of the Mind

In a land far far away, in fact so far away that it was very near the point you started out on in the first place, only this time the opposite direction was a halwai house, an Indian Halwai House to be precise. The portly owner was justified in calling it an Indian halwai house as it did justice to both words, it was Indian in the true sense as cooks from far corners of India were employed to bring the taste of India to the fore and at the same time only a true blue halwai could claim ownership to a belly which was no less in circumference than the kadhai in which the sweetmeats were prepared in. The fame of the halwai shop was spread far and wide and people from all over the place came over to the shop to eat to there heart’s content. Its food was equivalent to heaven and it was said that people’s normally wished for the last thing to eat on the planet before departing from the heavenly abode come from the halwai house. So much so that the halwai started contemplating opening a branch...

Illusions should come packaged with statutory warnings, something on the lines of “Illusionary state of mind is detrimental to anyone accompanying the person in question“ . Its like passive smoking, the difference being the effects are more at a mental level. Spending time with someone having illusions about himself or herself is like spending time in the gas chamber only this time the brain is getting smothered. Now think about spending the whole life with yourself when you are constantly having megalomaniac thought about yourself. Thinking of Jekyll and Hyde, Schizophrenia, Insanity, nah more like plain old stupid So why the above rant? I was going through my mail archives, when I came across a script or that was what it was supposed to be when I wrote it. Not long ago I had illusions about wanting to be a director. I remember the time very well, we were working on a project deadline, my colleague and best friend gaurav slogging away at the terminal doing his best to deliver on time....

A drop of sweat trickles down the forehead, I have never done this before. in front of me is a chasm whose depth I cannot fathom. No tape, measure, laser has been invented which could reach the end and tell the world its depth. The gorge lay there from ages, none knows what created it maybe a meteorite hit or a dormant volcano. The gorge has a reputation of being a killer, multitudes of trekker and vehicles have met their nirvana at the base of the sharp and craggy edges. I can see my whole life go past me in a microsecond., a kaleidoscope of colours and events vivid and at the same time compacted into a moment. It is not long back that my kin had tried to dissuade me from going on this adventure, they tried their best to coax me to go to an alternate journey which was equally stressful but relatively safe, relative being the word I am stressing on here. But I was adamant on doing this, it was the monkeys paw on my back. I had to get it off my conscience, I had to complete this journey...

Imagine a racing event with pure breeds lining the gates, impatient to get off the blocks, neighing to show off the power and in their midst a horse which looks impressive has pedigree but somehow it seems to have one of its legs tied and that too by the jockey. If at the end of the race the three legged horse ends up second will you as the owner of the horse rue the fact, that it did not win the race and retire it to the stables or untie the leg, get the jockey on your knees give him a sound thrashing as one would give an errant kid, put him back in the saddles and promise the jockey a repeat hiding, if he did anything more than move an inch in the opposite way during the race. Think again what you would do, why should it be any different when the horse in question being India, the jockey our esteemed politicos and the race, the race to create a livable future for all and live up the ideals enshrined in the constitution. A growth rate of 9% over the past years, trillion$ club, outflow...

To build is to visualize and create. In any core science, a necessity triggers a process which culminates with an solution for the problem which mandated the search for an answer in the first place. Since ancient times a need has driven the human kind to reach out of the sphere of its intelligence and come up with an “Idea” which is thought not possible in the prevalent realm of finite. There have been innumerable ideas which have given a new course to the direction in which the world has moved. A wheel may be the mother of all inventions also laying claim to the earliest possible inventions known to humankind. A wheel was driven by the need for momentum and it has passed through various stages from a oblong rock in the earliest period to the composite spheres which we are now building for robots which can use them to travel on any surface. This whole process of the solution for momentum can be segregated into 3 parts, the need which is the requirement for momentum between two finite p...

In all the hype and the hoopla surrounding the shenanigans of the “gods” of cricket, aka the board, players, media, agents, ad agencies, spouses, cooks, drives “falana dimka” one phrase which has stuck is “Band Aid for Cancer”. Greg for all his follies or good at heart spirit that he may have carried, which we will never know due to our wise old men’s decision to lay to rest his legacy or lack of it whichever way to look at it, couldn’t be more apt when he quoted the above phrase…. None have hit the middle stump in summarizing the psyche of actions of the people in question more than Messrs Chappel. Why just cricket, isn’t that how it has always been, in all spheres of our life, in all spheres of our interactions and daily needs. Band aid for cancer…. The mother of all medications. Band aid to solve all the ills. The one cure for all. A hypocritical solution called band aid for a menace called cancer. We are governed by some of the most corrupt and inept administrators the world has kn...

Shadows are good for concealing the form of the object it hides. You can make out the silhouettes in the shadows, but can only guess as to what lies in there. We as a nation have always been afraid of what lies in the shadows, afraid of facing ourselves in the harsh glare of the light, content to live in the dark, content with past, content in singing hosannas to our culture as in the past, content in basking in the glories of the kings long gone and kingdoms long lost. India as a entity has been content living in the shadows for a couple of centuries, never really finding the courage to step out in the light, let the rays illuminate it for all its glories and the warts. India has chosen to live a life in the darkness, happy with what could be the future rather than what is the future. But what is it that make a nation, what is it that defines the Indian-ness in an Indian. What is it that is identified with being Indian. Is it not the people who make up the identity of a nation, the pe...