Mental Excursions

Wrapped in warmth in winter   Much like the existence of Santa Claus, every Indian some time around the end of the first decade of his/her life, learns the bitter fact (facts generally are bitter) that Bollywood films are not about reality. On screen our muscular heroes and ultra-slim heroines break into a well-choreographed song with perfect lyrics and music and a battery of dancers dance in step behind them. Alas, nothing like that happens with my writing. I don’t just sit on my computer with the write-up supported by photographs or memes dropping on the screen. It takes me a few hours to let one idea bob its head higher than the others. I then put my thoughts together and generally do some reading about the topic, and subsequently try to shape everything into words. Yes, the selection of pictures also takes time. This past week has been the coldest this season and the sense of inertia was fed by umpteen cups of tea and all kinds of excuses. Every time I started to type something

Can you reason against reading? When I took it upon myself to clear the piles of hundreds of books stored in several almirahs and cupboards in my parents’-in-laws house after they passed away, I did not realise that it would be a mournful, almost   heart-breaking exercise. The dusty books, a few of them even termite-ridden or their pages as brittle as biscuits, triggered severe allergies which needed treatment; but more painful than that was to find ways to ‘dispose’ of the books. There were not only books on history, philosophy, health and well-being, religion and spirituality but English and Hindi classics in literature or translations from foreign languages and most of them in excellent condition. I was looking for people who read such books and could find value in them. I asked some libraries too. The books were too precious to be sold as raddi (rag/scrap/waste) and I had no room in my apartment to keep all of them. Only two friends came forward to take some of them for personal

Masked, Vaccinated, Boosted, What Next? The dinosaur at the O'Hare International Airport, Chicago, is wearing a mask I have been told that heavenly powers grant boons to human beings if they, i.e. the former, are pleased with them for their virtues, qualities or good deeds. My humble plea is that my name be among the top contenders on the list of recipients for I have a very forgiving heart. Let me explain why I am not merely blowing my own trumpet but that I indeed am very forgiving. After a long wait Covid restrictions were lifted for fully vaccinated non-migrants entering the United States of America and we merrily packed our bags to go visit the family lest they should forget that we, living in the ancient but developing parts of the world, also exist. I am skipping the details and sequence of booking, changing, cancelling, re-booking of flights and air tickets, and losing some money too in the process, during the last two years. That has been the tale of so many like us.

  Modern Art or Mere Imagination? We all understand art differently, but the commonest factor generally is that we enjoy only what we like and can appreciate or decipher the meaning or message of. Art is a diverse range or product of human activity  that involves creative or imaginative talent expressive of technical proficiency, beauty, emotional power, or conceptual ideas, so say Merriam Webster and Oxford dictionaries. Coming to the point, I appreciate everything beautiful, right from scenes of nature, animals and birds, humans or man-made architecture or artistic things and craft, if it captures my attention and pleases my eye and my mind. It is with nothing less than wonder that I look at   creations considered   artistic and try to think what was going on in the creator’s mind. However, much as I would like to own or possess some of these beauties I do not bring them home (the living ones might not even agree to come with me). There is, however, one category- modern art, w