Songs of the not-so innocent

As the faithful reader (ahem, ahem) would know, I was to take a long-delayed family holiday a couple of weeks ago. Well, that holiday happened and our destination was Rajasthan, specifically Jaipur & Jodhpur. Now it'd be easy (and probably consistent with the whine-fest tone of the blog) for me to go on an extended bitching session about travelling with family, why I've never been an ardent fan of such holidays & how the most recent experience reinforced my beliefs. But, I've decided to try and turn over a new leaf and tone the "यह मेरे साथ ज़ुल्म क्यूँ, पर्वत्दिगर ?" down a notch. Instead, I want to try a short description on you, the very suspecting public. The Jaswant Thada in Jodhpur is a mausoleum built completely of white marble. Further details can be found here . I can't exactly say how beautiful it was because, well... I can't. I'm no authority and I don't believe words can ever do complete justice to a personal experience (aka, I...

The more I introspect & talk to others, the more I realise how much of a hold routine has on people's lives. The vast majority of humanity finds a rhythm to daily life and marches to it. What puzzles me is how we convince ourselves about the advantages of a cyclical life, even if we are unhappy with it. In the last half of 2007, I was planning a trip to India after 1.5 years. The tickets had been booked as early as August and, as my blog posts reflect , I was eagerly looking forward to coming home. Strangely enough though, a sense of ennui gripped me a few days before I left, not letting go till the flight from Birmingham had taken off. I remember asking myself whether the trip was worth the effort. A voice whispered that I could just as easily carry on working at my 8 am - 5 pm on-campus job; I'd miss the convenience of the squash court at the Rec centre and the easy beer-laced post-dinner banter with my flatmates. For a mad second, I considered cancelling the tickets a...

As is evident from excellent articles written here , here , here and here , the 4th of January 2011 was a glorious day for cricket. Truly, the words 'test match' were dissected cleanly and explained with a fierce clarity that should leave no one in doubt - this is the sport of cricket distilled to its finest base elements. However, that day has passed and I will not attempt to add descriptions or superlatives to it. Instead, I wonder about today and tomorrow, the 4th and 5th days of what could be a test for all time. If India are to have any chance of winning, they have to bowl out the South Africans for less than 200 runs. At the most, 220 - 230. With the SA bowling attack... actually who am I kidding; with Steyn bowling as he is, we cannot chase any more than that. If, by some chance, in the 2nd innings, he repeats or betters (yes, you heard it here first) those two spells from yesterday, we are finished. I believe this completely and utterly. Yes, we have a great batting...

Its been almost 4 years since I started writing this blog. A couple of days ago, I was tagged by Atul to list the 12 posts of 2010 that held a special meaning for me. He may be rather surprised to know that this was my first ever tag. Infused with the excitement of trying something new, I went through my posts, relieved to see at least one post a month. Of course, choosing posts that mean a little extra ended up being a lot harder than I thought. But then again, most experiences usually are, no ? Here we go then: January: Year of tha boomerang - Written the day I resigned from my first job in Bombay. Now and then, I go through a mental closet cleaning exercise, evaluating experiences and the state of my life at that point. Here, I dwelt on what the change would mean to me. February: After forever - I wrote this the on day of the German Bakery blasts in Pune. Not my best stuff, but it was written in the moment; one where I lost the last vestige of an innocently peaceful image of ...