SHE

I saw her after a long time. Her voice was still sweet giving some reminiscence of the distant past. She had given up singing though. Bangalore is too vast a place where you can meet an old friend when you are on a shopping spree. But it so happened that I met her in a commercial mall on a sultry sunday afternoon.

We stayed in a small town in central Tamil nadu long back. I still have fond memories of that place. She was my neighbours daughter. My earliest memories about her was playing with a bunch of friends around a papal tree.

"So you are in Bangalore for how long?" she asked.

"exactly 2 years.." I said. I had been Bangalored for so long.

"You must be living in a PG and should be a smoker" She asked.

"The first half of your sentence is true"

" I am with I******s for last two years, I moved to Bangalore recently"

" Oh cool.. Welcome to Bangalore then". I had a warm smile.

"Hmmm.. I dont like cities da.. I still like the woods and the papal tree that we used play around"

" I still go back to those days.. When I am down.. you know". I must be lying here.

"Oh.. Really.. you used to think about me" She giggled.

"Not always.. But sometimes when I see a Papal tree"

" Are you still afraid of butterflies..?"

"Ya.. I am still.. I still consider them as insects.. Its wings are ugly advertisements"

"Hmm.. I had missed you for long time.. I always thoug............"

Trrrrrrrrrrrrring..

My cellphone alarm rang and I got up. I had to rush to WC. Life is like that.

Summer of 91

Some photos gives an opportunity to go down memory lane. It makes you to go to your distant past when things were as simple and as direct as it looked like. These photos are sweet reminiscence of a ignorant phase of life.

We do grow up and eventually start playing weird games for existence. We get tired of proving ourselves worthy. Sometimes a few extra leaves of currency proves its worth better than you.

A candle dies because of its own light and humans also do.

This particular frame which the photo freezes was a humid July morning.. I had lost a button in my shirt as i always used to bite it. I was little shy because of swathi(who was sitting beside me). That was the maths teacher and the English teacher standing to our left. They did teach about maths and English, but they didn't reveal about the tricky game of life lying ahead.

So with our innocent faces.. We smiled..

For us the world ended within the compound walls of the school. The neem tree outside the wall is something which is extra-terrestrial..

I still feel the stinky smell which one can feel when they go near the coconut tree(seen in the background).. The smell of jasmine which pervades as our English teacher(mallika) enters the class. The sound of bell was the declaration of independence.

Life ended within short boundaries.. The word 'Happiness' was properly defined.. Now its little itchy to define happiness. I define and redefine it nowadays. May be you might also be doing the same thing.

The swaying Tao pendulum is in its 'Yin' phase (this is for my Chinese friends). The Karma is

accumulating.. The good Shepard beckons me in return for the sins. Somewhere back in that summer of 91, I didn't care much about these and hence smiling.
Life is a box of chocolates!

October sky on an April night

It was one of those hot and humid Saturdays. Temperature was soaring at its peak yelling out a mighty song for the ever dwindling pedestrians. Hardly any people come out these days in the afternoon.

The April nights are cool though. The breeze comes from the North fluttering the flora and the hearts of the listeners.

It is a full moon day. And the streets lights are off due to some strange political (or metaphysical!) reason. It is the time for the moon to take the role to light up this third rock from the sun. The moon had a saintly halo around it (science says.. Halo`ing is due to stratosphere)

Stars are pins on a giant black haystack. They do twinkle. Stratosphere is a giant artist and it juxtaposes the stars and the moon. It has given poets and scientists their daily piece of bread. And this night it is giving me a company on my lonely walk back home.

Ah! Here is Orion constellation (or is it?) . Just turned my head and covered Betelgeuse which may be hundred light years away. And this patches of clouds and city lights, they are villains of space lovers.

Locked in the maze of sky and littled by the littleness of earth, I recollect the October sky of 1957 when the first man made satellite Sputnik(USSR) brushed a master-stroke in the canvas of sky.

fyi...Man is just a Social Animal!

Do you think..?

தேடி சோறு நிதம் தின்று – பலசின்னஞ்சிறு கதைகள் பேசி – மனம்வாடி துன்பம் மிக உழன்று –பிறர்வாட பலசெயல்கள் செய்து –நரைகூடி கிழபருவமெய்தி –கொடுங்கூற்றுக் கிரையென்ன பின்மாயும் – பலவேடிக்கை மனிதரைப் போல் -நான்வீழ்வெ னென்று நினைத்தாயோ….

Always on the hunt for food -- Muttering out gossips all the time - Letting the mind to be Clutched in the claws of despair -- Doing something which hurts others -- Getting into the grey lined old - Making myself a prey for the fate.

Do you think I would end up like a common man..?

The light is gone

The light of the neo-modern tamil literary world is gone. The multi-faceted persona of tamil literary circle is no more. On 27th Feb.. Sujatha (real name: Rangarajan) died.
I cant get words to write how much I liked his words. I grew up with his words..
Ganesh and the ever funny Vasanth.. (Two of his popular charecters)
Mukundan in Nila Nizhal..(The shadow of moon)
His charecters in Sreerangathu devathaigal.. (The angels of sreerangam).
Anyone who know to read tamil and had missed Sujatha are missing a spice in life.

A Bangalorian evening

As the world clutters around me and the sound of an insane motorist irks me, I am writing this article in the middle of a chaos - Its the electronic city. Its friday evening and the IT-thirsty bangalorians have decided to have a shot of elixir. Weekend is the only thing which has a proper definition here.

Guys give a tough time to Rossi with spunky bikes and Girls giggle in their mobile phones.. The scene is set for a perfect friday sunset. The street-lights come into life here and there. The hazy sodium vapour and the harsh mercury ones. The noisy BMTC buses run jam-packed spilling out smoke regularly and people at every stop.

Shops light their front doors and the ATM machines starts to get scratched. The sons and daughters of globalisation take a german car to have italian food in an American restaurant. They talk about Bush,Kosova, Karan Johar and Magdalene.

The dogs come out of the gutter-kennel. These are uninvited proletrates of Bangalore. But without them Bangalore is not complete. It scares.. frightens..terrifies..petrifies. But all the way it tests our endurance.
Now there are more lights.. More blaring of horns.. As the city of bangalore comes to standstill in every traffic jams, you can easily say it half past eight. Again there is cellphones clinging and people trying to sell a duplicate ray-ban at the traffic signal.
Foreigners strangle in the maze of streets with half-torn map and a water bottle.
If u can 'swalpa adjust maadi'... This is a bangalorian evening for you.

Historic Imbalance

Sometime back, our Prime Minister Dr.Manmohan Singh initiated a committee. It was headed by Mr.Sacher. The purpose of that committee is to find out the status of representation of muslims in various governement departments.

The Sacher committee report was released five months back. It was a true revelation of the status of Muslim community in India.

The report threw light on how muslims are grossly under-represented in various departments. Even in states which proclaim to be minority-friendly don’t have enough representation of Muslims in various sectors (in proportion to the Muslim population)

After the report was released there were wide-spread talks about reservation for Muslims. But strangely after that I find no efforts being taken on it.

It has been left unattended like many proposed reforms.
Sadly, there is no political party which is considering this seriously. This is the fate of this country, if something is not in the politicians mind then it never becomes a reality.

There is no need for any statistical data for justifying the fact that Muslims are under-represented in all departments. If you are working in a IT industry, just get up from your seat and see how many Muslims are sitting around you. Hardly any.?

But go to a economically backward zone of the city, Its major share would be Islam population. Is this a classic example of a historic betrayal, which will be left untold ?

They are branded as 'fundamentalists' by the west because of the sheer passion that they show towards their religion. They are blamed of not sailing in the main-stream. Yes they should be brought to the main-stream.

The change should be initiated from the government side. We should give them opportunity. Through reservations.