Observations || Stories || Ideas

I need to wake up. To welcome the dawn. To let the excruciating night go. Oh, but wait, I haven't slept the whole night! Is this how Insomniacs feel? Live? Tried all tricks to trick my mind into slumber. Tossed and turn. Tossed and turned again. Until my arms pricked my shoulder. Until my waist bone pricked my stomach. Until my spine went spineless. A part of smile seems to control, cajole and hurt me. For it traces rapidly before I can stop it, With thoughts picked up from different departments of mind. It digs deep. Into the ocean of unrelated events. I block it. Alas! Futile. It sneaks into neighboring neuron. Seduces couple of them. Copulates. Creates a new one. Ah! Now I have to block this too! And then when I do. Teases me. Tears me. Like the boon of Raktabeej, one drop of thought begets to thousand more and more. The clock strikes 3. The night's moving away. I yell. I cry. I want to sleep. I want to sleep. I decide to pact. I...

This article was first published on MarketingBuzzar.com A housewife, better to be called as the homemaker has come from a humble background living a lifestyle somewhere revolving around frugality all through her childhood and adolescence. She got married in her early twenties and she expected a better life hereafter. But problems continued. She couldn’t buy what she desired and aspired because of limited bandwidth to spend money the way she wished. Evidently she had children whose future, according to her depended upon her ability to cut-down costs. She had to care about the rising daily expenses and then decide when a big ticket purchase like Television, refrigerator, music system or washing machine had to be made. One aspect that I am interested in presenting is her introduction to technology. Probably the first introduction to technology was to home appliances like mixer, washing machine, refrigerator, vacuum cleaner; mostly related to what was supposedly her domain- kit...

Source: Internet Once upon a time, in ancient India, lived a sage of immense knowledge, Jamdagni, one of the divine Saptrishis , Feared by God of Gods, Revered by Lord of Lords, Though spiritual, he was mercuruial. Had a wife, divinely beautiful, Renuka, Epitome of chastity & faithfulness. World of wives & husbands envied her, when stories spread of her faithfulnes. Suryadev bowed down to seek her blissfulness, The Vaitarni, every morning, purified herself, when Renuka dived and water rippled owing to her thrilling body. Then she carried water, in an unbaked, bottomless clay pot. Such was her fidelity that water feared to drain onto the ground. One fine day, Suryadev was yet to sharpen, Playing along the river were the Gandharvas, Oblivious and joyful and exhilarating, they wandered; Tuning their bodies to the rhythm: Of the roaring river, Of the chilling yet ferocious wind, Of the sweet-smelling mogra, they danced. Arriv...

                                              The book cover surely deceives you. For it patronizes you to surmise the book to be another entrant in the laundry list of love stories. Well, the prelude made me pensive and skepticism mitigated my excitement. Nonetheless, I was overwhelmed to see my thoughts to be fallacious and theme of the book was totally different. Babloo, the protagonist, is autistic, schizophrenic and psychotic. All these adjectives perfectly describe his character. Autistic because he has communication disorders and fails to concentrate. Schizophrenic because he is disturbed by unjust realities: happening against him, from his family and the outside world. I slightly disagree with Babloo’s characterization as psychotic, but it doesn't matter to those who keep calling him the same. The Story Here’s the perfect bac...

Yes, we are witnessing a new generation of writers, after many writers who have accentuated through their books of being apostles of Chetan Bhagat  and are now on their way to extinct. The USP of these new budding writers is never-imagined-before scenarios and Adi is party to that. His book ‘Tantra’ is a well-conceived story out of his imagination. The cover-page intrigues as it shows non-familiar site of a woman sitting on roof top with dagger drenched in blood. Her name is Anu Agarwal and she is out to search killers of her boyfriend in New Delhi following a trail from New York. Putting up vampires in Indian context gives you two perspectives: firstly, it kinda forces you to ponder over what if there were vampires in India against presumption that Vampires are only limited to USA and the other; Vampires may not fit into Indian picture. Throughout the book I was in dilemma whether I liked what was being offered. The book scores well when it comes to character bu...

Who are we? Why are we here? Are we serving any purpose- be it our own or someone else’s? Why aren’t we following our dream, if at all we have ever dreamt! If we have a job, why aren’t we happy then? When shall/should happiness come to us? Are animals freer than us? Or are we caged in our own little world of freedom? The answer: " F?@K KNOWS ” This is what Shailendra Singh asks you in his super cool-cum-hilariously-mocking book “ F?@K KNOWS ”. The dichotomy that prevails in my mind is: whether I have to review this book as a ‘typical’ book or do just as my heart asks me to do! I choose to do latter one- because once you read the book, that’s exactly what Shailendra Singh says! Is this F?@K’in self-help book? Depends on how deplorable is your condition. To, me it is grossly wrong to promote this book by tagging it under “Self-Help” category; for it is enough to drive away those voracious book readers who detest Deepak Chopra, Oprah, Shiv Khera ...

This post has been published by me as a part of the Blog-a-Ton 37 ; the 37th edition of the online marathon of Bloggers; where we decide and we write. To be part of the next edition, visit and start following Blog-a-Ton . The theme for the month is " Truth is stranger than fiction " Truth says, " Life of many is under my siege, They live, love, loathe and beseech To my august character To let them have none But a hunky-dory life! What they do shamelessly, Is to monger, instead mollify problems, Until one fine day, when things go haywire And are vindicated by miserable doldrums. I remind them of their glitch, Hard, but, none manages to switch. Allege and accuse me for their lacking grit. But never, think to change me, For I am not reality, but a mirror to contradict. I wish they inspired themselves to fight, As opposed to, what they usually do, flight. Then seek solace in fiction, which ostensibly allevi...

I should probably get back home thought Bandu. I hope Geeta is back from her work. He smiled when he thought about Geeta. She was special to him. And why wouldn’t she be! After all they had dinner together; she would be part of tête-à-tête with him which would continue late night. Every Sunday Bandu would get her sweets which they ate at night with caveat that none would notice them. Today, it was Geeta’s favorite: gulab jamun . The other part of his mind was unhappy. Today was not his day as he was not able to fetch himself considerable amount of money. He strolled on the footpath of Marine drive with nothing in his hand except 10 rupee note. He elevated his hand bringing the palm parallel to his face only to feel bad that he missed his index finger, which was brutally ripped seven years ago by Killer Bhaiyya. The fact that many others like him in the wretched house were also subjected to some kind of physical torment resulting in loss of body parts pacified his pain. Bandu...

He came, with someone who looked like his friend-figure, with bag clung to his shoulder which appeared to have guitar in it. The road juxtaposed to him was Eastern Express highway. The footpath he was standing on was crowded by juvenile couples enjoying their private moments in public place. The Powai Lake has to be blamed for its beauty; had it not been there, don’t know where these love-birds would have spent time. The life of footpath lurks with cacophony hurled by vehicles on one end, thus debilitating the pleasing silence emanated by shying water on the other end. When one stands on the disputed border, footpath in this case, is compelled to choose: rest or restiveness. I chose the former after short-long infighting. He took out his guitar and after few tweaking with strings he started running his fingers over it blended with his voice. Singing few bollywood classics and rock music on footpath takes sheer grit. For most of us adhere to imaginary-bondage rules- whic...

“ For every man who succeeds, there are ten equally capable men who don’t” says Shauryananda to the great warrior of Magadha- Chandragupta Maurya- when the latter is yearning to stand against the invasion of Macedonion army led by Governor Seleucus. Such lines induce immense pride as to show how the culture of Indians has been followed throughout numerous generations. Let’s not digress from what this humble blogger wants to write about. The book we are talking about is written on a very ad hoc premise- if you can see the cover page and summary behind the book- it says historical fiction. Indian writers are not vividly known for capturing their imagination set in dark past unless it’s Amish Tripathi or Ashwin Sanghi. Rajat Pillai, an IMI Delhi alumni whose interest is history has portrayed and resurrected the glorious, treacherous, and bloodiest phase of Chandragupta Maurya by referring him to ‘demi-god’ who chose to relinquish everything he had: power, money and an empire com...

  This post is a part of   Write Over the Weekend , an initiative for  Indian Bloggers   by BlogAdda “Ladies and gentlemen, you all are welcome for the first ever cabinet meeting of our government. I welcome you open-heartedly for giving me the opportunity to run this country. The way I am looking at this, we are for sure going to change the system of our nation. We would burn midnight oil and let ourselves to be immersed into public welfare and governance. Let’s formulate policies which are in the benefit of the people.” Interrupting the speaker said a gentleman who was self-proclaimed messiah of ‘minorities’, “No, this is incorrect, wrong, unparlimentary, unconstitutional and anti-minority. What you are talking about is rubbish. I want you to give me social welfare schemes for minorities. You must give them free houses, free ration, free cycles, free laptops, free jobs, free wife and free children.” “Sir, free wife and children? Ehh, yo...

“When it comes to life or death, it’s surprising how fear gets the better of everyone” says Ravi Subramaniam in his riveting new book TheBankster . Such a line in the book is sure to make you realize the simple fact of life, thus giving a practical impetus to fiction. I was introduced (luckily) by Blogadda to Ravi Subramanian’s prolific and meticulous writing through this book. I must say, being a book-selective avid reader, I have developed this inane inclination towards being critical about every line, scene, character and the climax. Before I actually reflect my analysis, I would love to shoot my sincere apologies for not having read his previous books; which I will once I end this post. The most important thing in these kinds of fictions is the amount of knowledge you have in the particular domain, or, it may include the rigorous research involved in presenting a set of three things: imagination carved by facts, plausibility and the most important of all, essence of...

" Ugly Truth"       There have been a lot of talks going around the English football about the recent accusation made by Chelsea FC towards the match referee for using “Inappropriate language” in the high profile league match between the two premier league heavy weights. The matches between Chelsea and Manchester United in the past have been the perfect indicators of the kind of threat they pose to each other in the pursuit to claim supremacy in the Premier League. And the match on Sunday could not have been poised any better to live up to its high expectations until ... the 68 th minute.       The players, spectators, audiences throughout the globe have high expectations from the officials and match referees in the game, especially in one of the topmost leagues in the world. Most of the times they stand up to them successfully, and many a times they don’t. Understandably they are only humans and are bound to make ...