Nescience

You have to know that Sinhagad is to Pune, what pani is to pani puri. Earlier known as 'Kondhana', the fort was renamed as 'Sinhagad' after Shivaji Maharaj's troops captured it. One of his trusted men - Tanaji Malusare, was killed in the battle, prompting the words, 'We got the fort, but lost the Lion', and hence it was renamed as Sinhagad (Lion-fort) to commemorate Tanaji.                                                                        Sinhagad A friend called me up on Friday, wondering if I was interested in a trek to Sinhagad on Monday. I was reclining on the couch, reading 'The Scarlet Letter', as Graham Norton embarrassed ...

The light was blinding me, and involuntarily, I closed my eyes. She held a long shiny instrument in her hand, behind her plain sterile mask, I could have sworn that she was grinning. In fact, I wouldn't have been surprised if she had two long incisors too that glinted in the dark. Or maybe not. Her assistant shoved a long tube in my mouth that robbed me of the ability to speak, and by that time, I was truly terrified. In order to gain some sort of moral support, I looked over at my father (I'm still a child even though I may be eighteen!) but he was flicking through a gardening magazine. Fathers, I tell you. The assistant loomed over me and the single squeak of dissent that I emitted did not seem to register with either of them. With a satisfied smirk, he moved away. I shut my eyes, and as the whirring contraption drew near, my hands grabbed my own jeans in an effort to brave it out and not run away screaming bloody murder. The ordeal lasted for half an hour and b...

Pablo Neruda has to be one of the most prolific poets of the century. The last line of this particular poem makes me want to turn into a cloud and float away in sheer delight. Hope you enjoy this poem. Every Day You Play Every day you play with the light of the universe. Subtle visitor, you arrive in the flower and the water. You are more than this white head that I hold tightly as a cluster of fruit, every day, between my hands. You are like nobody since I love you. Let me spread you out among yellow garlands. Who writes your name in letters of smoke among the stars of the south? Oh let me remember you as you were before you existed. Suddenly the wind howls and bangs at my shut window. The sky is a net crammed with shadowy fish. Here all the winds let go sooner or later, all of them. The rain takes off her clothes. The birds go by, fleeing. The wind. The wind. I can contend only against the power of men. The storm whirls dark leaves and turns loose all the boa...

My exams came to an end on last Monday and I let out a big whoop of joy. There is untainted joy in eating icecream and pani puri, waching your best friend fall on her bum, and the best of all, when exams end. It's sheer relief and you can shout all you  want and nobody will utter a single word against you. I discovered early on, that to intensify this joy, you have to study hard. There's not any other option. Because you know, you'll look up from a particularly hard chapter and see your brother in front of the TV and say to yourself in a voice worthy of all Bond villains, 'Someday, it'll be my turn.' I console myself with thoughts of long, languid days spent lying on the floor reading one book after another, with a secret delight that my mom won't be able to shout at me for that because my exams are over ! I'll stay up until three watching television and when my sister will stumble out for a glass of water, she'll only glare at me and not say...

March is a really unfortunate month for me. The exams are steadily drawing near and all I want to do is not study. Happens to the best of us, I guess. I blame the weather, really! January and February are too frigid and cold, April and May are hot and sweaty...but March - it's perfect. It's not too hot, nor too cold, and the sky is a perfect never-ending blue. The birds are chirping, and there is laughter, and long, languid evenings spent out on the terrace with the family. The madness of March hits me out of the blue, and makes crave ice cream, and long drives, pani puri and the company of friends, and makes me want to fall in love with a person, a serial, a book, or a song. It makes me want to paint (though I haven't lifted a brush for the last 3 years), and sing (my music teacher from school liked me better with my mouth shut) and write (even though the exams are drawing near) and do all sorts of wonderful crazy things. But I can't. I have to pull out my te...

Rangapanchmi just passed me by. This year, I was one of those sad, desolate faces hanging around by the window, spying on the people playing colours in the street below. I got up as usual, and dragged my economics text book on the table, and spent ten solid minutes looking up at the sky. And then there were shouts and giggles, and of course I had to investigate the source (rather than accept the inevitable and read about Planning in India). There was a small group of people in varying shades of maroon, blue, green and yellow on the street and were shrieking with laughter as they drenched each other and threw colours. I will not deny it. I felt a twinge of jealousy. Was it really so bad, that I was cooped up in the house on a glorious March morning, while all my friends from school and my sister were off gallivanting with their friends from college. It is understandable, really, and I do want to be all mature and grown up about it, but sometimes, I feel like an outsider. They go ...

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...