Colours Of The Season

This year winter melting into spring has brought out, not just the proverbial riot of colours in spring with parks and gardens in full bloom, but also two metaphorical colours, as well. And as if in poetic justice they are tending to be rioutous in the real way.

The frenzy of pink-ness acquired by stores and restaurants during February became overcast with a saffron tinge a tad more seriously this year.

So, we have in our hands a bunch of mooning lovers and a bunch of unloving goons. Or do we have a bunch of people looking for an occasion to have fun and a bunch of people looking for fun out of ruining someone elses occasion? Are we looking at a group of young people defying propriety by declaring their love rather prominently, or at a group of people defying propriety by declaring their dislike of change quiet vehemntly? Is what we are witnessing, a stream of cultural change brought about by wider exposure or a calculated drama fuelled by political aspirations? Are young people swayed by imagery and propoganda touted by international brands and media or are political minions enticed by career aspirations? Is this imagery a part of shrewd marketing tactics practiced by popular brands to stay afloat or are these lures offered by some who like to cash on ideologies or sentiments they believe to be the driving force of masses? Is someone, who wants dine out with their love, neccessarily foolish-indecent-uncultured-lacking in morality? Can somone, who believes in freezing codes for a five thousand year old culture, be deemed as fit to have any say in any forum at all? Is someone who is neither 'pink' nor 'saffron' untouched by these issues and hence out of the dialouge?

I really dont know if I know will have the same set of yes-es and no-es as everyone elae. I am seeing what I want to in all this, and so will others, including the groups on both sides of this conflict.

But what I would like people to see is that this conflict should not be between two groups of people promoting a culture and opposing it. This is not a cultural change debate. This is not a natural course of social change involving opposing beliefs. This is so not a tussle between patriarchial stenotarian regulations and rebellious young fervour. I would have rather not seen talk shows indulging in the hype and rhetoric of cultural change and plurality, of cliched instances abundant in a young generation that loves to go pubbing and is responsible as well.

Why is there a situation where anyone is even prepared to engage in a dialouge with the individuals/groups professing the right to contest personal choice and prerogative. I am saddened at the thought that neither the judicial nor the administrative setup effuses the maturity to cut into the debate with authority. Why are ministers and spokespersons running amok trying to calm the outcry and tone down extremist attitudes? Why is this a debate...why is this a situation of aggressive action and passive/active reaction? Why is it not a simple case of fanatics trying to infringe on others rights to gain some political mileage out of the resultant public outcry, who have have been stopped, because trying to controll or dictate individual choices as a political entity and not as an individual is like being fascist, which can not be allowed in a democratic state.

I may argue and convince my backward, stentorian and strict head of the family to let me go out pubbing, celebrate love, wear short clothes or walk on the street hand in hand with my boyfriend, but I'd so not accept to have a discussion with an organised group of hooligans, trying to curb individual freedom and assume dictatorial powers in the name of trying to restore and uphold cultural and moral values, that prevailed at a time when such controlls allowed a few many priviledges.


My culture and values are a part of my mixed bag and what I keep in it is for no one else to regulate.

A Day in the LIfe of an Urban Nose

Agarbatti, Toothpaste, Soap, Deo, Body Lotion, Sunscreen, Burnt Coal, Poha, Sambhar, Dust, More Dust, Bread Pakora, Burnt Diesel/Petrol, Chana, Burnt CNG, Dust again, Office air freshener, Sir's Perfume/Attar, Lemon tea, Four different lunches, chocolate, Fem Liquid Soap, Coffee, Apples/Oranges/Pears, Dust, Dead animal on the road, MCD garbage truck, Burnt Fuel, Burnt Dry Leaves, Smoke, Dettol Liquid Soap, Jeera tadka, Turmeric/Chilli/Coriander/Cumin, Cauliflower/Brinjal/Other vegetables, Warm Roti, Toothpaste, Cream, Hair Oil, Goodnite mosquito repellant, Old Book......................................

I wonder how Delhi looked when the monuments were the only structures around...

....it surely didnt look old, black and white or sepia like the few photographs that are found in history books. I think it would have looked the same as I see it...with colour texture and tones.

The skies and sunsets would have been equally vibrant, the monsoons as grey and the red sandstone perhaps even brighter..

How would have the city looked with just trees and stone ramparts, when forts and monuments were not special places to see during weekends ..I wish I could see this city then.

I wish I would have lived in that time, without south Delhi malls, without Bluelines, without Nehru Place, without the drone of aeroplanes in stack in the evening, without roads and without so many people.

I want to rewind this city, stop somewhere in history, get off... and stay there forever frozen in some stone wall oblivious to the mad city that ruches past it without a second glance.

Tea break at Office

The Sun's Screaming Vendetta

After two days of cottony grey skies the Sun is out with a vengeance.

Menacing shining rays beating down on brown earth. Bronze melting and pouring down, seeping through the intersctices of Gulmohar leaves. The simmer of gold and fire dancing to the music of the Sun.

The wet earth drying up like pottery in a furnace... freezing the streaks of wheels on mud, ...changing colour form dark chocolate to whole wheat bread....

The Sun's proud rays drenching the city in yellow.

Unkown to the majestic heat...somewhere the water gasps and sighs as it rises up in steam. Floating away as mist, with a heaert laden with the sorrow of defeat. Unknown to the blazing fireball in the skies... the tiny water droplets fuse together, slowly and steadily growing from a cotton fluff to dark thunderous clouds. Unkown to the Sun, the water it scorches out of every pore on earth, is floating towardsitself; army of gray, folding in on itself, rolling, twisting and turning ...till it is dark enough to dispell the ball of liquid fire higher above them.



There is just a flash of electric blue and deep boom of the war cries....with a little help from the winds...droplets depart the grey sheets away to the earth restoring life in its nooks and crannies. The sun wanes away ...retreating behind vapour ... overtaken by it for the moment.

The droplets grow bigger and shower down in twinkling crystal balls, liquid silver dripping from verdant leaves and washing away dust from rooftops.

Small drops of life seep into grains of sand....quenching thirst and growing life.

I am back........................



:-)














..........................soon relasing at your nearby blog...

the return of anamika..........

The Whistle

Words often have magic. They, sometimes unknown to us leave and impression in our minds so real that every setting reflecting a similar condition take us to wolrd of the words themselves.

Recently , I have heard a number of times a faint yet shrill whistle somewhere out in the dark. A definite single whistle .....always in the dead of the night but never at the same time. It lasts for a second and half at the most. The whistler must be very used to it since it is always the same tone scale and pitch. I wonder if it is a call for someone, discrete and in code or a signal of assurance or danger, a part of a game or serious work....who knows.

Yesterday as I walked back to my room from the water cooler at the other end of the corridor, while crossing the terrace I looked at the sky. The moon hung above the trees in dim blue glow, gradually being covered in thick wisps of clouds. The edges of the clouds gleamed in silver and scattered eerie beams of moonlight across the sky. The night was lightly breezy and cool. And amidst this setting I hear from nowhere the familiar sound.

It instantly reminded me of the one story that I have read and that send a chill down my spine when I first read it. The Speckeld Band by Arthur Conan Doyle....an adventure of the ace Sherlock Holmes. The thrill and tension woven in the words of the Conan Doyle is very graphic, very real. I shall recount the story only as much, as would not tell too much. The plot of the story is macabre and yet is presented so realistically. The words describing the night build the night itslef in the readers mind. The way time passes in the words is almost like a real wait for the kill. The wistle in the story was a key to unravel the mystery of a death, and also a hideous murderer. The murderer and his deadly weapon....a sinister combination that imprinted itself on my mind.

So once back in my room I waited .......quietly. I was chiding myself for being scared, yet I waited with bated breath, for a hissing sound of a slithering reptile............