Mental Excursions

Dive into the world of make-believe! Former US First Lady Michelle Obama dances Bollywood steps Slide your plans to do anything tomorrow aside, plug in the laptop/tablet/phone to charge. If you are the boss of the house or believe so, find a way to have monopoly over the TV and air conditioner remotes. Stock up on chips, popcorn, sugary drinks, fluff up the cushions.   Tomorrow, Sunday, the 24 th of September, happens to be World Bollywood Day.  In spite of the flux of OTT platforms and streaming services, Bollywood is still able to draw viewers to watch stories enacted by mega-sized stars. The two-hours plus hotpot allows one to plunge into a picnic for senses, with romance, action, violence, crime, and a liberal mixing of melodrama , shameless display of emotions . Watching a film is always exciting. Selecting the film, time and company to watch it with, play an important part. Whether you sit in the bone-chilling temperature in a cinema hall with sound surround systems, ...

To do, or not to do If you ask me on a Wednesday what topic I am going to write about that week, most of the times, I am not able to tell. Except the travel-related posts, it is very rare that I am certain what would finally appear on Saturday. Dozens of topics/issues catch my attention, compelling me to share my thoughts with you; yet I write about only one a week. It gets difficult to decide the subject. Making the decision takes me a long time. Sometimes I might nearly complete something, and then decide that the time/topic/material is not appropriate or opportune and change or rewrite. Others call this ‘indecision’ and label me as ‘indecisive’. The dictionary meaning of the word ‘indecisive’ is ‘not able to make decisions quickly or effectively’. Forget the big issues with long term effects, like choosing a career/job/apartment/car/life partner, or ending a relationship, retiring from work, changing jobs, even less significant matters take people like me a long time to de...

Tigerless in Sundarban Inspired by the joyful thought of sharing the account of my travels and trips with you, it seemed an excellent idea to tag along with Mani when he went on a business trip to Kolkata, and agreed to extend it by just a day to tilt it into the category of pleasure. The Sundarbans National Park was never on my list of places to visit but not the one to say ‘no’ to travelling, and with all the recent talk about conservation of tiger population, it was with a fair amount of excitement that I landed in Kolkata. The Kolkata stay was very comfortable. The rain god was in a good mood, so one could open the windows to enjoy the breeze instead of being cooped up in an air-conditioned room. The nearest airport to Sundarban is Kolkata. There may be other routes to reach the park; we drove out of Kolkata, reaching Godkhali via Canning in a couple of hours. The nearly two-hour diesel boat ride with just us two passengers, took us to the hotel/resort we were to stay at. ...