Reflections

Having lived in Delhi for my 20 years of life, I had just one complaint with the city – that of not having a water body where you could sit and enjoy the serene depth of the blue. Lately I was lucky to have visited the Hauz Khas ruins with a couple of friends and I’d say it’s a dream come true! A perfect blend of old and new, urban and rural: that is the Hauz Khas Village for you in a nutshell! While the Madrassa overlooking the reservoir built by Alaudin Khilji is the main attraction,... Read more...

So it’s been quite sometime since I de activated my Facebook account. Well yes, it’s not a big deal. Thousands of people each day do that and I have perhaps just joined the bandwagon of the “oh so anti-social” people. But is not having a virtual presence really that anti social? Actually, not having a Facebook presence really that anti social? Are the ones who deactivate their Facebook accounts really like those movies that the audience forgets once they stop being aired on the television very often? Is the only way one can feel “social”; by posting one liners ranging from “I just woke up” to maybe “I just died”? Why the urge to open your account every 5 hours to see how many people liked your recent photo? Why the inclination to blow sirens over your “love” for your sweetheart? Why the ‘oh so intellectual” task of growing virtual plants? Barring the last things, I have done it all and that’s precisely why I am wondering about the “Why” of it all! Are these things something we a

When you’re working hard to achieve something with all your heart is when true learning take place. In other words, when you really want something (be it a job, a particular project, an award, a reward, anything, everything) and are willing to push your intellectual, emotional, physical and mental boundaries, that is when genuine character builds. Yes, it sounds all preachy but it’s true. Have you ever wanted something so desperately that you’ve tried every possible solution to get it? Faced unbearable agony and have been on the verge of giving up? And then, more often than not you get what it is that you want and the joy of achieving that is pure and profound. Yes, a lot of time you don’t get what you strived so hard for, but because you’ve strived so hard for something in your life you can be sure that something better awaits you, that is just how it is with the universe. Here’s a poem by Mr. Daisaku Ikeda that I happened to read, which led to the above thoughts: Ab

A little introspection and a lot of observation led me to finding a certain behavioral pattern followed by quite a large number of females around me! It might be pure co-incidence that I seem to come across so many of them so often or as they say, “Birds of a feather flock together.” Nevertheless, I figured that these observations will make for a good piece of writing for the “behavior enthusiasts” on this planet! For those who have read “The MIC Syndrome” posted by me a few months earlier, this might seem as a sequel to it. And for those who haven’t read it, well, no harm in spending a few extra minutes reading that one! So the females that I am going to elaborate upon are those belonging to the OCD class, short for Obsessive, Confused, Dependent females class. There aren’t no physical attributes specific to any of them that allow you to spot them from a distance. Yes, but they’re all pretty and they all exude this aura that pulls you towards them and before you know it, you a

“Do you think there is anything in this life that is permanent? “Yes” “I am serious, what?” “You yourself” “Not true, we change constantly” “ But you're still always with yourself throughout your life. YOU are permanent, your thought is not. YOU are permanent, your ideas are not. YOU are permanent, your ideals are not. ” “YOU Human? Akanksha? Body? Mind? Soul?” “Whatever defines YOU. If it's one of the above, then maybe that. Whatever defines you at a given stage, is YOU.The YOU stays, the definitions change. New things keep defining YOU.” When we talk about permanence, there are essentially two aspects to it: Permanence of Existence and Permanence of Form. While the former is really quite “permanent”, the latter is not. That is, Existence so to say is permanent, while form is mostly not. To elucidate, the existence of a human soul is permanent (if we go by the concept of human souls that move from one body to another at th

Yes, but here I am alone. A wave builds up, perhaps it says its name, I don’t understand, it mutters, humps in its load of movement and foam and withdraws. Who can I ask what it said to me? Who among the waves can I name? And I wait. Once again the clearness approached, the soft numbers rose in foam and I didn’t know what to call them. So they whispered away, seeped into the mouth of the sand. Time obliterated all lips with the patience of shadow and the orange kiss of summer. I stayed alone, unable to respond to what the world was obviously offering me, listening to that richness spreading itself, the mysterious grapes of salt, love unknown, and in the fading day only a rumor remained, further away each time, until everything that was able to changed itself into silence. P.S. One reason why I really like Neruda is because I share the same love for the Sea with him. This poem describes in the best possible way, the thoughts I have each time I think a

The India habitat Centre has always been a place that never ceases to bring some food for thought in one form or another. Today, it was the play Court Martial, written by Swadesh Deepak and performed by the famous Asmita Theatre group. The play essentially deals with the social stigma attached to a member of the lower caste who serves In the Indian army who is being tried for murder of a fellow army man.  Through the course of the trial, the play proves to us that Truth is not what is just visible at face value. Truth is not one sided. Perhaps, unlike a coin truth does not just have two sides, but many. This is brought about beautifully by the end of the play which is extremely well written. Asmita’s enactment of the play was like an icing to the already well written play wherein the intensity of the scenes brought goose pimples to many. When I am writing about Court Martial, it is essential I mention this fact about it’s much celebrated Sangeet Natak Academi Award winning

The Invictus, a movie based on the book “Playing the Enemy: Nelson Mandela and the Game That Changed a Nation”, starring Morgan Freeman is a delight to watch. Now, I am not going to write much about it. No reviews here, no comments. Just two things I want to share from the movie: The thing that touches me most in the movie is the lesson in Forgiveness that is imparted by the subtle action of not repeating the same intolerance and cycle of fear against those who had earlier oppressed the South Africans, the so-called “whites”. In the words of Nelson Mandela from the movie: “Forgiveness liberates the soul. It removes fear. That is why it is such a powerful weapon.” Perhaps forgiveness is a difficult thing to do, or maybe not. Do we always forgive others for doing wrong to us? Or do we just bury the wrong deep inside somewhere in our mind without really tackling it? So that each time we are faced with the same situation or the same person, the buried ghosts come up to u

She sits in the corner of the room And watches me from there, With her arms clasped around her folded knees And her hair tightly tied up in a bun Her eyes devoid of any emotion And her face nauseatingly pale. Her lips never move Only sometimes they curl, To form the crooked devilish smile. And yet her eyes have the same hollowness, The same characteristic emptiness, In the depth of which you could fall, And never return how hard you try. You try too hard to come out, Because you don’t want to stay there, Those eyes remind you of the past, Of the mistakes you made, Of those you could have avoided, Of the people loved, Of the people lost, Of decisions made, Of those that were made for you. I know she is looking at me, Waiting for me to look back, And acknowledge her presence, The presence that I feel every moment of the day, And yet never acknowledge, I run away from it, Run to the nature’s embrace, To waters so deep and pure