Slices of my daily life

"Didi, woh cake dena..." "Usey pastry kehte hain" "Kya ?" "Pastry !" "Achha...wohi...dena...woh chocolate wala" "Mehenga hai. Paise hain kya ?" Suddenly Chhotu felt completely out of place in the pastry shop. He, with his old, oversized, dirty clothes, face streaked with soot and rough dirty hands, didn't belong here. The lady at the counter was so clean. She was wearing new clothes and she smelled so nice. The whole shop smelled so nice in fact, that Chhotu felt that a balloon seller like him who lived on the footpath was somehow polluting the air of that shop. Suddenly his confident tone vanished. He put his grubby hands in his pocket, removed the crimpled notes and counted them under his breath "10...20...30...40...50" Then in a shaky voice, he told the pretty lady, "Pachaas hain" The lady paused, looked at him from head to toe, breathed in audibly and said, "Yeh past...

A couple of days ago, I was conducting a theatre workshop for a bunch of college students. At some point we came to discussing what they liked to do in their spare time. Here's a snippet: One kid in the workshop: I just love 'silent' songs Me: You mean soft songs, don't you ? Kid: No no... silent songs Me: So, these ' silent ' songs...are you actually able to hear them ? Kid, staring blankly at me: Eh ? I drew my breath and was about to launch into an explanation about the meaning of 'silent' and its incorrect usage in this case, but suddenly I just felt it was all worthless and exhaled loudly, like a big sigh, and moved to the next person. Apparently using precise words is a dying art. SIGH !

Nowadays I fear situations when people ask me my opinion about something. There is only one condition when both they and I are happy with this opinion exchange business. That is when my opinion concurs with theirs. In such a case, they ask for my opinion, I give them my opinion. They see that it matches theirs and are happy. I am happy that I didn't have to lie or to defend my opinion or to face their attempts to convince me about their point of view. I have observed that most people ask opinions only to get theirs validated. If my opinion doesn't concur with theirs, they are unhappy. It makes me feel it would have been better to lie. But I absolutely hate that. When I express an opinion to the contrary, I am not expecting them to change theirs. What I do expect is that my opinion be heard and given some thought to. I am not concerned if they change their opinion or not. Some people get offended and make you explain, even defend your opinion. I am glad to get ...

Is this what it’s meant to be...this thing called life ? Like being on a swing... Head in the clouds when you’re up And feet on the ground as you come down ? Like being on a roller-coaster... The rush of excitement as you climb higher And the vacuum in your stomach as you descend ? On and on...in a loop...till eternity ? Or starting off as a trickle, In the middle of a forest or on top of a mountain... Forging ahead to meet new landscapes While leaving behind those that you will never visit again... Joining others along the way and rushing forth... Being thrown, by the sheer velocity and force of a collective, into vastness... Trying to not get lost... Trying to make sense, to be meaningful... And one day quietly evaporating into nothingness ? To have, to want... To create, to destroy and to create again... To love, to lose, to let go... To struggle to change... Or to resist it... To think that you know... Or to know that you don’t... I...

On popular demand (= request from (possibly) the only reader of this blog), we interrupt the broadcast of the UK diaries to post about the short work-vacation trip to Belgaum . For those interested and waiting with bated breath (!) for the last instalment of the UK diaries, it shall be broadcast after this post…I promise ! I am currently on a short trip to Belgaum to conduct a theatre workshop for kids aged 8 to 15 years. I had never been to Belgaum before. So this has been a very interesting experience. Here are some (word, not photograph) snapshots from the trip. ******* The first thing that struck me as I reached here was the very different way in which everybody spoke Marathi. The accent is distinctly Kannada and the words and sounds are very well rounded. In Pune-Mumbai we speak in quite a sharp manner…crisply cut sounds et al. Also, there is a fun way of combining the last two words (usually the verbs, in Marathi) of a sentence. I learnt that almost 80% o...

There is so much that we have done over the last week that it is going to be so difficult to capture all of it in a blogpost, but I'll try... We spent three days in London...30th April and 1st and 2nd May. We stayed with the very warm and welcoming H, S and their wonderful daughter A. On the 30th we reached Euston and decided to walk about Central London for the day and go to H & S's home in North Harrow in the evening. So  we walked about Tottenham Court Road, a bit in Soho and later in Covent Garden and on Shaftesbury Avenue. The lanes of Covent Garden are quite unique. There are small (both inexpensive and expensive) eateries serving all kinds of food. We saw a monument called The Seven Dials Monument and the quintessential London landmark - the red telephone booth. We also came across a monument to Agatha Christie !  The great fun was to see (play) theatres almost at every corner. There was the Ambassador's Theatre where Stomp is being st...