Digging for Meaning

I wish for Gurgaon to take bath regularly. It rained today. And all of a sudden I can see the green of the leaves, the glaze of the skyscrapers and distant buildings unveiled from dirty haze. All of a sudden, the city is vitally alive. Did you even know of that building beyond that other building?  Or the fact that sun sets not where it used to set three months ago? It bloody moves sideways with the seasons.  Or the fact that the sky is blue. sometimes. The god should keep a keen eye on this errant lazy town of his. It needs its baths every once in a while. 

How does the moon always manages to surprise me? Its always a shock to see something that beautiful and bright up above, without stilts or ropes. Right now its smiling to me on the western horizon - a thin crescent. Hiding & then unveiling from the silken black clouds. It holds the gaze and hides. and waits. and never does it let you know of its intentions. Gone for hours or minutes or seconds. Shining bright or pulling across its body, a thin cloud ever so slowly.

Recently I saw a documentary called ' Superheroes '. Its about a bunch of people who wear costumes and patrol their city streets to fight crime. To be honest, I was a bit apprehensive about watching it; I felt that it would make me cringe. (I cringe seeing people being made fun of. Can't help it. I hate it when people do that to others. I cannot see those TV shows where we are supposed to laugh at someone else's misery/ embarrassment. I hate it when TV shows trivialize real feeling of people or glorify the emotions to turn it into a farce. Just can't stand it.) But it turned out to be a very human story of genuine people who are fed up with the apathy of people around them. Often they were victims first and vigilante as a result of it. It was an act in empathy and escape combined that propelled them to wear mask and attempt at creating a change for the better. It was inspiring to me. Not for the caped crusading (well, not going to happen), but for the beautiful...

Someone just 'liked' an old photo of mine on Facebook. And I was wondering why/how would anyone do that? I mean what makes them either seek out someone else's profiles or more probably go scroll down tens of times, down the rabbit hole of their facebook timeline. Don't get me wrong, I do not dislike it. As a matter of fact, I can't help keeping an eager lookout on the notification from Facebook like those rats in the lab who are made to learn to respond to electric pleasure signals. And I understand that the act of 'liking' is a delicate matter. A like is a badge that one carefully chooses. Every like contributes to one's own sense of self, a carefully constructed persona. 'Am I close enough to the person to react to his/her updates?' 'Hope I do not come across as someone naive/ over eager/ un cool' 'Will it send wrong signal if I like this?' My limited curiosity came up with only these questions/thoughts that possibly ...

"Look at that. A girl smoking! A girl should not be smoking cigarettes." After watching a play at the Kamani Auditorium in Delhi, I was leaving on an auto rickshaw towards CP. It is the heart of the capital region - fashion, cultural, business & political nerve center. And the navigators of this nerve center - the auto wallahs, the cabbies - are largely migrants, who bring with them the medieval India's twisted ideas of morality. Its amazing how far apart the worlds of the navigator and his customers are.  (though not necessarily from different moral molds.) On the way to CP, we crossed a couple of college students and among them was a girl who was smoking a cigarette. Upon seeing her, a spontaneous statement came out loudly from my auto driver's mouth. The first statement uttered in the journey so far. He sees a girl smoking and out pops a strong moral statement that he felt strongly about. "A girl should not be smoking cigarettes." I asked him i...

A week ago I met these folks on the streets of Delhi, near Saket. 2 men, 2 women and a child. They were wearing clean clothes and they walked upright. They were trying to talk to people passing by but were quite meek so didn't always succeed. When I passed by, one of them asked if I understood Marathi. I said I did. It was quite dark, late in night & I felt that it might be one of those begging groups so I was cautiously moving ahead anyways. But their meekness, their clean clothes & them being Marathi made me pause and listen. I don't recall their names now. But I noted down one name that I think is relevant here - the name of the person who put them in a desperate situation - Rajiv Karade. According to the guy in white shirt, Rajiv is a labour contractor who brought them from a village in Maharashtra. They specialise in the work of digging earth for laying of telecom cables. The men & women had worked with the contractor earlier near Mumbai too. Aft...

"The world will grow!" The word will grow. surfing on a speed boat in the sea of words, corporate predictions of economy & industries dash against reality ineffectually, withering away like soap suds. Those smooth upward curves promised by the analysts need to wear the wrinkles of human condition. The modern day charlatans, safely tied to a tie and behind glass skyscrapers, let the excel sheets do their legwork. They exercise the columns and rows, stretching the formula here & there. where's the variable of ineffective leadership? where's the variable of the will of the young? where's the variable of the villages burnt down by hatred? where's the variable of the dreamer's dreams? In the least, where's the rear view mirror? If you must let a quack exist, teach him to be entertaining at least.