Its always about the people and the city...

This is the first time, for no particular reason, that I did not finish a piece in one go and had a chance to drop a word about it to a few friends. A mention of this topic had unidirectional reaction. It was simple. Most male friends turned and made humming sounds to put a sound curtain, others dug their head in a pillow to filter 'noise,'  while few were generous to spare extreme reaction and gave a sweet blank look of no comments.   The female friends on other hand, without going into the details gave a casual look of being clueless or biased or worse, ignorant. My feedback is that they knew less about it than the boys. Boys had secretly researched about it to update self created Wikipedia section of their brain or maybe had a practical situation thrown at them at a point of time... Girls had of course taken it personally and rejected the idea, most of them...   So my point is not to stir the territory, I just succumbed to the series ...

I wish India was a Turkey eating nation, or that someone had attached a gimmick or financial sense around this festival...then Thanksgiving would have been popular by now. Alas! there is no way India would celebrate any festival that does not crop out of mythology or history or just a belief. I remember as a child when we had to write an essay on India, It would invariably begin with "India is a country of festivals." Then it would transcend from diversity to languages and religions and the usuals... I like festivals in general. But that is probably because I like anything that acts as an excuse to get together. Doing something for the sake of tradition... or routine of tradition, strictly on numbered days in a  year, doesn't really bother me. But coming back to Thanksgiving, its sad that we Indians are in a way on extreme edges. On one hand, I know how certain political/ radical groups and other Individuals I personally know have been dead against the ...

“Bhakt-jano ke sankat, kshan mein door kare…om jai jagdish hare…” Music and chants, first thing when you wake up will go down as one of most undesirable things in list of waking up to what in morning…but this was different. This was my Dad saying his usual morning prayers with loud ting-ting of bells. I’ve heard him do this for years unknown. It has always been the same. I am half asleep with this ringing in near vicinity. I know where to notice if he fumbles or eat the words he forgets…I know the stanza he loves as his voice gets deep and pitch high…its been the same. It has always been exactly this…Even when I would return weekly from hostel in Delhi or fortnightly from the job in Gurgaon. This was same at the time of quarterly visits from Calcutta and Mumbai…And this time, after 6 months from Dubai… ------ I had mixed feelings, and guilt. I did feel like chicken as well. It has been less than a year that I moved to Dubai and since then, this was my first proper visit back hom...

As the winter onsets on Dubai, its almost a year I came here. In all fairness, I can't point out why I moved. I was desperate to move out of India, yes. Today I can say, after having traveled to over 50 cities in the world, including the likes of London, Berlin, Istanbul, Hong Kong and Singapore, I made a good decision. I don't know what gave me courage or conviction to move, because I was giving in to a hunch...but guess desperation gives you unparalleled strength. I had visited Dubai in August 2012 when I saw it as a tourist, unknown to the fact that I will be moving and living here after 3 months. Such is fate... Anyway so I have been a tourist, I have lived here, I have received guests here and traveled from here. I have seen perceptions and experienced little reality in whatever time I spent here. For the sake of education, my own as well since its time I understand a little history of this country, and origin of names of hundred roads and familiarity wit...

Every time there is something with regards to great people who ever lived, I can't help but think what was so different in these people...or for that matter what was the similarity that they had with billion of others who exist or existed. Gandhi, Buddha, Martin Luther King, Mandela, Mother Teresa... or even Hitler or Napoleon, how could they go all the way while others just thought and contemplated, unsure and clueless. What made them so extraordinary and exemplary? How were they same or different from others when they were just people?   What I feel hence is based on two things - Maslow and conviction. I believe in Maslow. The theory is a very basic, just another management theory that talks about the needs of human being, and their hierarchy. Maslow argued that unless a need of lower hierarchy is met, one can not go upwards. My experience says it is true. Of course if you were to base your life parallel to this theory, you need to b...

“That’s part of what I like about the book in some ways. It portrays death truthfully. You die in the middle of your life, in the middle of a”   This is Hazel's description of the book she likes in the book- The fault in our stars. In summary it is a book of a girl suffering with lung cancer who has to roam around with oxygen cylinder and has an extended life owing to a medical miracle whose side effects are also eating her away. The book frequently refers to how everything is a side effect of death. Depression, agony, hope, nostalgia - everything. She meets a young amputee, a cancer survivor at her support group and they fall . I won't say in love because for some reason the way John Greene has portrayed it, love seems like a cliche to be used for this extraordinary story.   In brief the plot is of cancer ridden Hazel who meets Augustus (Gus) and the life that follows. Gus dies before she does due to relapse of his...

I am not sure why I picked Narcopolis to read. I don't recall being recommended or reading about it. Nor was it a free download on my kindle. Whatever the reason was, I am glad I picked it. I loved it for the fact that it does nothing while and after you read it. It's like soft music played in some bars. You don't notice it and chat away...Only while you are leaving, you may appreciate how pleasant and natural it was and how well it blended with everything. So is Narcopolis a great book that gets on the list of books that will change your life? It's not. Infact it is one of the most ordinary book I have read. It accounts for lives of people-simple people you can relate to or identify within the set of people you know. I would say that is indeed the best part. Narcopolis accounts for real things so indifferently that everything feels alright. Lost dreams, desires, addiction, riots- name it and seems it's all just one small part of the big picture. The accou...