Expressions

It was a busy working evening on the streets of Mumbai. Just outside the Ghatkopar metro station,  a line of people were waiting eagerly to get home after tiring hours of work. And there were some others who might just be getting ready to get started to toil hours for the night. The Bus stand was filled with exhausted feet, hopeful eyes waiting for their sawari to come get them. And buses were obliging in their capacity, taking steep turns just along the corner and stopping right in front of the bus stand but in the middle of the road; blocking off the traffic for just a few minutes and jostling off with equal energy and larger burden of weight upon them tilting heavily to the left side. Then there were shared rickshaws and autowallahs swooping in and buzzing by doing their duties of transporting people from places to places. Shivram was one among the side of the pavement just outside the gate 2B of the metro station, observing this daily hullabaloo eating his share of frie...

The First It was a warm sunny day. The sun had almost risen up until the helm of the building and the light streamed through the grilled French windows and on to the tiled floor. Zee lay rested on the carpet enjoying the Indian suntan of a lazy weekend afternoon, his eyes closed and face tranquil like disciples of Buddha. The sudden chatter of Ami broke this reverie. He looked up, eyes half closed, and found her clearing the creases of the cushions. This was arguably her favorite pastime – cleaning up here and there, setting things straight so that the house looks out freshly delivered every moment like a hotel room. He gave a resigned look, well aware of the obsession. “Don’t you think life has become boring; too monotonous!” Ami said glumly, raising her eyebrows to signal Zee to comfort her of random musings. Zee rolled his eyes as usual and sank back to oblivion. “Isn’t always so? After every change, life does become stagnant. That’s what stability means”. “No, it isn’t s...

The thrill of decorating a new home is like painting an empty canvas. I had numerous visits to the furniture stores in that month. We had to fit in pieces of dining table, beds, wardrobes and sofa-sets to convert our flat to livable space. And I was so excited. Shopping for furniture means choosing a long term partner for your house. Different shapes and sizes of sofa sets were talking to me through the shop windows. A shining black leather recliner winking at me from a distance and alluring me to take him home. A covered cloth sofa sets in bright summer colors offering a competition to palette. They even adorned flashy and digitally printed cushion covers with ditsy celebrity faces or artistic Buddha pictures to add to the glamour. I was attracted to one of such bright blue fabric sofas. Italian making. While I was engrossed in feeling the fabric of this newly found gem, my husband on the other hand spotted a meek wooden sofa in the corner. In the world of modern architectur...

Apu was an average Indian teenager. He had grown up in a small town in the heart of India – Madhya Pradesh. He was a perfect example of majority section of boys of his age – shy and clumsy, nervous and excited, hopeful and dreamy. Apu had just entered college. He attended his classes, tried to stay away from girls (but in vain) and did best efforts to be a sincere boy. Like others, Apu also had wishful view of college life – how the days could be spent loitering around, how to find friends for lifetime while doing all the illegal and exciting adolescent activities, bunking classes for a movie, being mindless about future, studying only enough to remember pointers to elaborate all the technicalities in the exam. How almost perfect life is in college; Apu had imagined same for himself. Unfortunately, life can never walk on a straight line. There are bound to be twists and turns created due to God’s free style longhand strokes on our canvases. Tragedy struck. Apu’s mother...

yes ! I should have seen it long time back....probably in 2001 itself and took part in all the discussions i came across on net , infy BB.....but better late than never.....so here it goes... Lord of the rings - Fellowship of the ring The characters in the movie are numerous with additional mention of some random jumbled words - nuzbul, dum,goblins, orcs, barad-dur.....etc add up to my confusion......Its a huge glossary in itself ! I'd a tough time during the movie recollecting the names of the ppl (not really ppl) as and when they were appearing on the lappy screen.....oh this is pippin (the young jumpy hobbit), and this is Gollum (the ugly monkey like creature),Gimli (bearded and over clothed Dwarf...have seen him in some other movie too) , orcs(horrendous looking men like creatures who are all evil and ruined and terrible form of life as stated in the movie itself) and many more..... The basic storyline is that there's one ring made by the evil Sauron(the dark lord...

Monday was a Holiday from office and it was raining heavily……..I gazed lazily at my share of the sky trying to peep from the black weeping clouds into my window. There could be nothing better than a plate of hot “pakodas” and ginger -tea. I pictured myself savoring the taste while observing the translucent patterns that the raindrops formed each time they landed on the glass panes. One drop here and it rolls down to join the other drop from the previous sprinkle a second ago and together they invite themselves to form cute alphabets of some unknown language. I somehow succeeded in finding some small story, face or symbol and smiled shyly to myself. This non working state pleased me. It was like a reward to the constant running of fingers on the black keyboard, strenuous activity of the eyes to concentrate on the monitor and pain the neck muscles had to bear due to long sitting hours. Ah!!! Could we wish anything else from life? I decided stubbornly that I’m going to enjoy this heavy s...

Finally so much noise and show-shah for the Mr. and Mrs. Black President from the proclaimed white nation arriving to the humble wheatish country has paid off. I've been listening and reading about it since long....long enough not to mark anything to memory. But thanks to the media, this was always topping the charts and still is. After Obama left the Indian soil, the media got back to work producing articles and analysis of the Obama's visit on daily basis. I was amazed to read each one of them and just wondered if I could manufacture something of the same genre. The US president has a very well defined strategy planned to strengthen its ties with every other country it can possibly gets strings attached with. After the recent polls, the democrats surely have reasons to worry.Of course, India is at the top priority with so much happening with us at this quarter of the century.We are into nuclear power, IT, imports - exports, education, research....you name it and...