Here for writing

The endless ocean. Sky so blue, dotted here and there with tall tall palms. Hard soil and soft sand. Scrubs and thorns and salt pans. A winding road curving sharply every now and then. Goats with dirty white coat and black underbelly grazing in clumps. A few even sauntering across the road, oblivious to the zooming cars. Space space and more space. The air always tinged with salt. A silence so sacred that the audio system in the car is often turned off. The lighthouses looming across the horizon every now and then. Tantalizing glimpses of sea every, playing peek -a -boo with travelers driving south. A town or village appearing here and there. Tea stalls, butcher shops, small temples and tall minarets, the Virgin carrying her son and the cross looming behind, posters of happy couples welcoming guests for their wedding, flower shops, a bus stand and then, the space again. We found God here, more potent and powerful, whipping through us with the powerful wind and shining upon ...

Love, such a commonly used word. We all know what it means. An intense like for something, a feeling of attraction etc etc. In today's colloquial parlance, we "love" anything and everything. Right from the pizza with extra cheese topping to the new dress that we brought. We love our new haircut, we loved the trip that we took last year, we love that actor and we love hanging out with friends.  We love the rain and we love that cup of coffee. And then, we also go around, holding this love as a precious burden in our heart for that one person we "love". Isn't this funny? If love is so easy, so commonplace in our lives, then loving should also be equally easy, right? And this so called love, as we know it, should be liberating. It should only bring us joy and peace and contentment. But many times, especially when it is latched on to people, all it does is bring heartache. Oh, the misery is all too familiar, isn't it? The way our heart broke ...

Often, I am just stuck with my fingers hovering uncertainly over the keyboard. I can't bring myself to type out the entire sentences. My thoughts are always on a rush, each one pushing and shoving and jostling for attention. They just push past each other, tripping over each other and reducing the words a jumbled garble of letters that just spew out as a powerful stream of projectile vomit. Before long, the vomit of letters will just trickle down to a string of weak, spent saliva...still stuck precariously to the tip of the lower lip, but utterly spent. Then there will only be this uneasy stillness, like a room full of acquaintances suddenly gone quiet with awkward silence hovering over them, after running out of topics to discuss within minutes of settling down to talk. But that silence only lasts so long, before the letters start peeping into my brain. They gather their might, bit by bit, a sentence here, a phrase there. Then they slowly brew into full...

The last Tamil novel that I recall reading was Sujata's Ganesh Vasanth series, and before that, the whole Ponniyin Selvan devoured in a mad reading spree spanning over a few weeks. Beyond that, I have never gravitated towards Tamil works, even the multitude of Rajesh Kumar crime novels which lay scattered around our home. My dad is a big fan of Rajesh Kumar. He says that Rajesh Kumar is the James Hadley Chase of Tamil writing, of whom we both are huge fans.   So, after many many years, a colleague and a good friend of mine, gave me Jayamohan's collection of science fiction short stories called "Visumbu", which means sky. My friend, who is a die hard Jayamohan fan and an avid reader of Tamil literature, was appalled at my lack of exposure to so many wonderful works in Tamil. "How can you not read the brilliant works in our mother tongue? Some feelings, emotions and thoughts can be conveyed powerfully only in our own tongue.", he said and h...

    Not so long ago, I used to feel that the best way to write is, well...to actually write -with a pen on a paper. But then, typing the thoughts out in a laptop became a lot more convenient. I was trying to post regularly this year and was pretty happy with my consistency. I guess I should have been quietly happy, instead of unleashing a wave of pride, because my laptop promptly conked off.  A moment of silence to remember all the struggles that I had with the 2006 model Acer, to just get it started. Many times, I would have typed out a whole paragraph, before the first word of the sentence appeared on the screen. And one fine day, the laptop refused to even turn on.   So I shoved the laptop in the bottom of my draw and pulled out all the fancy diaries my clients had given for new year. Brought some black and blue pens and cozied myself up in the bed, cradling the diary in my lap...and I just sat there staring at the ...

It usually so happens such that I first read the book and then watch the movie. But in this case, I first saw the movie and after about 3 months, read the book. And ever since, "I will do a Gone Girl on you", has been my favorite expression to throw at my husband, to mock threaten him. The best part and also the worst part of reading a book after watching the movie is you just imagine the actors faces when reading the book. Rosamund Pike and Ben Affleck are just perfect for the characters. Gone Girl is easily one of the best books that I have read till date. Gillian Flynn has so brilliantly captured the characters that you just can't believe that they are fictitious -even though Amy is someone whom you just can't believe that she actually exists. And there lies the brilliance of the author. By now, am sure you all know the basic outline of the story -Amy Elliot Dunn disappears from her house on her 5th wedding anniversary and her husband becomes a prime su...

I have been thinking about verse 22 for quite sometime now. I really didn't know what to write about it, because whatever I penned down didn't really come out satisfactorily to me. But then, somedays back, I got into a heated debate with a friend -about the practice of staunch Iyengars eating food prepared by only those who have their Baranyasam done -the branding of the conch and the Sudarshana Chakra on their shoulders. The practice was more prevalent two generations back then it is now, like most of our customs and traditions. While my friend argued that the practice was completely bigoted and was just a way of reinforcing untouchability, I argued that it was an exercise in discipline. Before I proceed further, let me make it very clear that I don't deny or justify the cruel of untouchability meted out by the so called upper caste people. But, in this case, I feel that we can't deny the amount of discipline and control people had to follow such practic...