Nescience

It's such a cliche. Year in and year out, it's the same old routine. The same red roses (at bloody high prices), cute teddy bears and all sorts of useless, fluffy items that won't see the light of the day in normal circumstances. The red pillows, perfumes, diamond necklaces and the strings of pearls aren't that important in retrospect - it's the stories. The stories of how people meet and fall in love, tide over their differences and sometimes succumb, fail to bridge the gap, and part with only the memories and the occasional gift that was left behind after the break up. But sometimes, there is harmony and understanding, maybe the circumstances are favourable and it becomes the prologue to the 'real story', the point where all our Bollywood movies like to end and leave the details of the conjugal life to our imagination. This year, I was home for Valentine's Day (kokam sherbet at the canteen had it's revenge, I guess) and I flicked my economics note...

The Book Birth. It was already written and he didn't like that fact. He turned the pages - he was fond of beautiful, white pages from the snow of Himalayas and the foam of the Arabian sea. And the ink of the soil that was turned and overturned, year after year. He didn't decide it. Brought into the world by a pair of lovers like any other, he didn't have any say in it. He was here, breathing and blinking, alive. And there was nothing he could do about it. Life. His was a triangle in the jungle of circles and pale green leaves on the staid, old pool. He sang of stone butterflies and waxen bees who drank from the honey of thoughts. He walked in squares and on the lines his ancestors had painted. He often stood on those, bucket and mop in hand. They weren't erased and the drops from his mop went running ahead of time. Death. He stood with infinite patience that the centuries had ingrained into his collective imagination. He wavered on the edge of light a...

Okay, so Romance. It's such a quintessential topic, isn't it? I mean, every time you turn your back and - whoa! there is a guy and a girl (or a homosexual pairing, doesn't matter) falling in love, or in the honeymoon stage, maybe breaking up and moping around - only to fall in love again. It isn't only about 'romance' though. I'll rephrase it as 'love'. Popular culture revolves around love - off the top of your head, mention a book or a movie that is famous and does not have a romantic element. Sure, there are such films and books, but the majority has a romantic tinge to it. A friend of mine said, 'Popular culture is about blindly aping the stereotypes without validating the truth'. He's not entirely wrong. But pray, tell me, what are stereotypes but characteristic commonalities that have been emphasized? Hence popular culture, though stereotypical strikes a chord within each of us - because it has a basis in reality. So when I decided t...