‘2639’ that was my library number at the local library I visited while I was growing up. I regularly went there during my early teenage years. Located between my high school and church, it also had a video library and provided services like photocopying. It was run by a father-son duo and was called Kings Library. I stopped […]
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Month: February 2015
The Open Door
The jingling of keys and the hesitant creaking of the iron gates herald the arrival of the freedom that I have been longing for all these years.The reasons that drove me into committing that ancient crime seems smudged from memory but the moments of solitude and contemplation I spent within the prison walls remain […]
Alone. Not Lonely
I have had many teachers in life who taught me valuable lessons. However I have a special teacher named solitude that helps me keep my balance in many tight rope acts. In today’s life that moves at an unprecedented maddening pace, there are times when we need to just sit back, be on our own […]
Poisoned Pleasantries
Any social gathering, be it a wedding, a party or even a small family get together has a dangerous tendency to turn into a buzzing hive of gossip as long as there are enough people and delicious food to fuel stray sparks caused by snide remarks and incessantly wagging tongues that seem to have snapped […]
And Then There Was Subamma
Subamma was old, helpless and on the streets. Being paralysed from waist down she lived on just one spot on the earth – in the corner of a busy street in a small town in South India. She seemed to have appeared from nowhere. One morning, office goers found her lying there, wearing a torn saree caked with […]
Badlapur: Brooding And Atmospheric
One thing a Sriram Raghavan film does not ever lack is atmosphere. Remember the menacing rats in 2004’s Ek Hasina Thi or the crazily inventive heist in Johnny Gaddaar (2007) or the shootout that starts from a baby’s pram in Agent Vinod (2012)? In Badlapur too, the home of a young couple is inhabited by […]
Agra Diaries
Curtains of fog cloaked the ancient city of Agra at the crack of dawn in early January. A fog so thick that walking through it felt like ferreting through a bucket of whipped cream. Despite the hindrance it posed to daily lives, the streets had already begun whirring into action. Store shutters were noisily rolled […]
Dreaming Of Florida…
Warm waves wash upon the sandy shore and tickle my toes, A cool breeze mingles with the salty air, Caresses my cheek and blows through my hair, Gulls fly lazily above me, And pelicans glide effortlessly. The sun hovers in and out of the puffy white clouds, Moving slowly across the azure sky. Kids run back […]
The Woman Who Styled Legends
In Milan Lutheria’s Once Upon a Time in Mumbai, a female protagonist relived the ultimate male fantasy of the 70s by wearing a knotted and polka-dotted Bobby blouse. The nostalgia for Bobby is so strong that when Twinkle or Tina Khanna was styled for her debut film Barsaat, she wore minis and blouses inspired from […]
Making Sense Of A Midlife Lull
Maybe it’s the hormones or the overcast skies that are a regular feature of this part of the world. Maybe it’s my inability to get a decent job. Dang it! I blame all of the above for pushing me into this limbo. Winter blues hit me bad when I was in Boston and now […]
Roy: Stream Of Randomness
So there was a snore in the seat next to mine. The audience gave a derisive applause at the end of Vikramjit Singh’s debut film Roy, and laughed when a lovelorn heroine gasped with joy and fell into the arms of her lover and spoiler alert, merged into a painting that was at the heart […]
Rajesh Khanna: The Untold Story
Yasser Usman’s biography, Rajesh Khanna, The Untold Story Of India’s First Superstar (Penguin) reminds me of the Motown gala in 1983, when Michael Jackson at the peak of his powers debuted the moonwalk. Throughout the performance, he was in a zone, not really aware of how many people were dancing in the aisles, […]