Everyday musings

       It has been 1416 days. 1416 days since he last spoke to me. 1416 days since the world slipped from under my feet. 1416 days since I started fearing death. . . . . . .          I consider myself extremely fortunate in life. Mostly, because I have had the good fortune to spend 17 yrs with my grandfather (nana, or tatagaru--as I used to call him). He shall always remain my most favourite and influential person in my life, and most of my tastes and personality has been shaped by his excellent pedagogy.        Growing up, my summers were spent in Vizag, at my grandparents' place. Happy days. I reminisce my running around the house, trying to climb the coconut trees whilst my grandmother was terrified of me breaking a limb or two. I was assigned the job of watering the garden which, I feel, sowed my love for greenery.The nights were spent poring over my grandfather's gigantic National Geographic/Reader's Digest collection-- of which I understood very litt

Year 2011            I am ready to barter my present for the gone days, anytime. Those were the carefree days, when the only worry was not reaching school on time. I wasn’t much of a reader back then.  I had only touched upon Tinkle comics, Amar Chitra Katha and Enid Blyton's books.          I don’t quite remember the circumstances. Maybe I was too bored or had run out of TV shows to watch, I was strolling around the house, aimlessly. I noticed a book ' Five Point Someone' by Chetan Bhagat lying in my parents' bedroom. I had heard of him and the rage around his books, especially this one. Curiosity got the better of me and I read the blurb. The 12 yr. old me found it fascinating and I decided to check out the book-- for the sake of it. The next day, I spent the entire day at school reading it and gave it back to my mum who was searching for it.        “Why were you reading it? It isn’t for children. Did you understand anything?”, she asked.       It was the

            "Up?"           After surfing through the articles of the plight of the unfortunate migrants and scolding my sister to give the screens a break, I was about to hit the bed, when my phone pinged with the above message. (I'm seriously considering to turn off the notifications)          I was done for the day, honestly.  But, seeing the sender, I chose to reply and scold the person off to sleep, too.              "Yeah. What's up?" , I replied, rubbing my eyes. I have this bad habit of turning off the lights post midnight. Why do we knowingly indulge in something that's supposed to be bad for us?               "Nothing. Just wanted to talk to you" , came the reply. I sensed a feeling of unrest. I sat up erect and texted back,  "Is everything all right?".        "I guess it is. I work the whole day and sleep for 7 hrs everyday. But, today when I was free for a major chunk of the day;I felt weird, not because I h

           A few days ago, my sister celebrated her 16th birthday and I gifted her the only credible possession I have- my words. I've always felt most comfortable with words and language. I am most inarticulate while expressing but words help me to bring out my most inexplicable ideas and feelings and hence as I sit down to write this, be sure, this post(any post of mine) is more than just a string of words bunched together with meaning. . . . . .           Today was just another hot and lazy May afternoon in Mumbai. The transition from how I  went about from reading about trade imbalances to drifting to sleep is rather hazy. Apparently, my sister later tells me,is not much of a surprise to her. She is wrong, it was different today. Quite different.         I abruptly wake up and went into a trance for a couple of minutes.            "My melancholy mood is finally affecting my sleep, too?",I thought.         Gathering myself, I washed my face and made myself

My journey with the 'Boy who lived' is rather commonplace. I still remember those days when I was a tad bit hesitant to read the HP series because, they were apparently meant for kids. Maybe it was the uninteresting first chapter or my usual rebellious attitude to not follow the herd (people used to be crazy about Harry Potter,still are) I left reading it midway. There's something mystical about the books; I read the whole series in record time and have re-read it multiple times over time and has become an annual ritual for me ever since, to read the entire series atleast once.  The Harry Potter series is one of those few modern classics among the plethora of commercial, imperceptive books written today, to have found a place in the hearts of millions of people. Ayn Rand puts it impeccably-'Novels are not written to vanish in a month or a year. That most of them do, today, is one of the sorriest aspects of today's literature, and one of the clearest indictments