k'uvvat-e-guftaar

Future Shock - Dream version

2011-10-16T14:54:00.004+05:30

10 years ago: I was in Delhi with my life altering all

Kerala - 3

2008-09-27T19:15:00.002+05:30

Kozhikode has a Hillarious Chit funds among several other hilarious businesses.

Kerala - 2

2008-09-20T19:22:00.003+05:30

The sea is something else, nai? We land-locked people never know.-

Kerala - 1

2008-09-18T19:15:00.008+05:30

I am planning to set up as a Malayalam translator when I get back; I am getting that good.-

2008-09-10T22:02:00.008+05:30

I am tired today. Too tired to move. Too tired to think. I have been waiting for a decent hour to sleep. Even TV seems like too much effort. I wanted something really nice before I slept. I looked in the right place and found it. For now and again – The Snow Man by Wallace Stevens One must have a mind of winter To regard the frost and the boughs Of the pine-trees crusted with

Sib

2008-09-07T23:05:00.006+05:30

They were showing The Apple on WorldMovies just now. I had been told about it but never got a chance to see it. As usual I had forgotten what I had been told about it, but since I’ve liked God, Construction and Destruction by Samira Makhmalbaf, I sat down to see it. I should have expected it perhaps, but when it hit me that the actors were not actors at all, it turned my stomach. Now I‘ve

Moon blues

2008-09-03T20:35:00.006+05:30

Oooooooo I would go and do something like this! Of all the days in the year to go and admire the moon, it had to be today. Most years I make it a point not to get out after dark on Vinayak Chauthi. If I do, I assiduously study the paving on the road. This year I plain forgot. After about thirty seconds of contemplating the lovely things clouds do to moons, a nigglet crept up. With a slap of the

Monsoon Medley

2008-08-09T21:39:00.003+05:30

an ocean came down today in a drizzle The sun bright The rain right Stars in puddle cocooned in the window seat till the roof dripped Geele pe gila karenge na keechad ko kosenge hum Abde minnaton se barsa hai abr-e-karam ab ke

Coming to a formal feeling

2008-08-02T22:20:00.008+05:30

Na leke jaao...Do chaar zulm gar aur kar kahin ho ke ho mera guzar Hun jo jaan-balab ye chaaragar, tere hunar ka asar Nigal gayee jinhen raat woh sawaabit kahin aur ke Ab unke ghar mein dhoop hain na apne ghar hoga sahar Kal tak jo tha hara-bhara jo ped tha yahin khada Aaj dekha raakh-e-tar kahan yakeen huaa magar? Jo sheesh mein dikhe mujhe woh main hi hun ya aur hai? Jo sawaal

Dry grey clouds

2008-07-17T22:48:00.004+05:30

Ek do harf yun hi likh ke mita dena tha Zahan Maa’oof bhi rahatha hai bataa dena tha -Zaahir Gaazipuri You know what they say about accepting the things you can’t change and changing the things you can? I am usually very sorted out about it. Most things, apart from morning coffee crises, fall into the not-mine-to-change category and as a result of this I manage a reasonably

Mysoon

2008-06-20T20:11:00.004+05:30

magpie robininspects the raindropon its wing-

Clear and present duty

2008-06-13T14:23:00.004+05:30

Jaanta hoon sawaab-e-taa’at-o-zahad Par tabeeyat idhar nahin aatee -Ghalib Is there anything as perfectly designed to bore you to death and make you drum your heels in defiance and explore all other avenues of temporal occupation as the inescapable knowledge of what constitutes your present duty? Dear God, grant me some subuddhi before it is too late and I am sunk in a mire of guilt.

Doors of perception

2008-06-11T21:10:00.009+05:30

There must be dozens of anthropology or behaviour science papers about this, skulking away in the ungoogle-able recesses of the internet, but I only began actively thinking about the evolutionary significance of the size of doors about an hour ago.We have a cat that lives around us. This cat has had kittens and in the routine moving around they do en famille, one of their favourite pit stops is

Darzee ke dar par

2008-05-23T11:45:00.008+05:30

This one’s for the footloose girl That that lopsided grin might unfurl A little tickle for the start To funny-up the worry wart दर्ज़ी के दर पर लिए एक मीटर आस फिर उसी दर पर तौबा कर निकले थे जहाँ से कल को कल के चाक-ए-उम्मीद को कर के रफू सब्र का देके नया सा अस्तर होटों पे सी कर हसीं की गोटी पोहुंचे हैं फिर उसी दर्ज़ी के दर पर जहाँ हुआ था एक कुरते का कत्ल और मिली थी एक सलवार की लाश

2008-05-12T20:30:00.009+05:30

These heated days and nights of summer, one finds, are very conducive to thinking. Normally one could desist by asserting that over-taxing the brain is never a good idea. But in this heat what is half a degree more? So when I lie awake between dusk and dawn awaiting that precious half-hour when the old day’s heat has abated and the new day's heat is yet unborn, I ponder, dear people, upon life’s

Muthyala vana

2008-04-26T20:52:00.003+05:30

Fell asleep last night wondering what had made Sreesanth bawl. Sheetal woke me up at the crack of dawn by announcing in my ear that it was Harbhajan. So the theme song for the day has been “chinnari ponnari Sreesanta ninnu yavaru kottarrayya? Bhajji nannu kottadu baaboi, Bhajji nannu thittadu baaboi!”

Find and keep

2008-04-21T21:39:00.009+05:30

(Also posted at Urban Babblers)A couple of months ago the Guardian Poetry workshop had a very interesting exercise designed by a poet called David Morley.The exercise requires us to find poetry in nature or descriptions of nature. Morley says that very often even the most prosaically intended, quasi-scientific descriptions of natural things and phenomenon in such material as field guides can be

Indigo- a kind of blue

2008-03-23T12:23:00.007+05:30

Heavy rains in Hyderabad. It stared off looking like some regular conventional-response-to-summer convection rainfall. Now suddenly in the past twenty four hours it has poured non-stop and the depression in the Arabian Sea has seeped insidiously across the drenched states and into me. It is a heavy somnolent sense of uneasiness. It doesn’t help that a lot of work lies pending in other opened

Stumbling upon delight

2008-03-17T15:22:00.003+05:30

The thing about living in an old fashioned little colony in a largish city is the lazy familiarity it breeds. Not so much the intrusive intimacy of village life, but a mutual mapping of life’s highlights. You know a lot about people with whom you may have exchanged no more than a hundred sentences in twenty years, because of the jobs they have held, their stand on garbage disposal, the

Treading Momin's ground

2008-03-12T16:59:00.004+05:30

With one thing or the other Momin's masterpiece has been whirling in my head these past days. There is something about truly great ghazals (probably their familiarity) that makes their Radeef-Kaafiyaas resonate with an implusive energy. Well, I have been playing with this one, but crave pardon for the impertinence by paraphrasing Ahmed Faraz- (written originally as you might guess, for Ghalib)'

Devarakonda diary - 1

2008-03-07T19:38:00.011+05:30

I am not trying here to run down the joys that we get dealt out in life, but the thing is, they do tend to be universal. Difficulties on the other hand have so much character. Sometimes they are so nuanced that they seem to come tailor-made for the person they afflict. It is possible to tell so much about a person from the kind of troubles they land up with. And it is a perfectly true cliche that

Betaal ka sawaal

2008-02-09T09:16:00.000+05:30

Oh! King and other readers, if you know the answer to this question and still hold your peace your head will split into a thousand pieces. (Or something a little less biblical sounding than that. Damn! where are those Chandamamas when you need them? In Usha Bala’s attic along with The Children of Willow Farm Again, for sure.) Ok, the question is this – who wears Chirag Din shirts? First of

There you go!

2008-02-03T12:45:00.000+05:30

Been tagged and maligned. (I wear the sweetest expression normally and don’t bear grudges.) But the tag is fairly simple and only requires me to rehash some of the old stuff. Post 5 links to 5 of your previously written posts. The posts have to relate to the 5 key words given (family, friend, yourself, your love, anything you like). Tag 5 other friends to do this meme. Try to tag at least 2

The We of sport

2008-01-20T22:40:00.001+05:30

Written after the first flush of victory had dissolved into a dazed dense inward high. Hence the slightly drunk quality. To be a pixel in a picture, stardust in a galaxy, synapse in a body, one of a billion cricket fans! Not the banding arms of jingoists scavenging the ephemeral dust of human joy and despair, seeking to raise the spectre of a forced national identity, propped against a

Whew! That wasn’t so bad!

2008-01-16T22:29:00.000+05:30

This morning before the start of play, in the lead-up session, Harsha Bhogle was taking us down for the pitch report when he said, “Is it a pitch? Is it a trampoline? Will the keeper have to stand near the ropes?” Something queer happened to me just then. I think I tried to laugh but it came out like a shudder. Ten days of nervous anticipation had left my system somewhat battered. Really, there

Taare zameen par

2007-12-22T18:47:00.000+05:30

What I wrote yesterday immediately after watching Aamir Khan’s Taare zameen par was emotionally garbled. After several attempts at writing myself into a semblance of balance I gave up in disgust. I hoped I would be more lucid and less churned up after an entire normal day and night. But it seems that the hangover will not abate so easily.

Flower child

2007-12-06T12:52:00.000+05:30

There is this kid who brings my mother flowers every Wednesday. He has been coming for about three years now; he used to accompany his parents earlier, now he comes all alone. I don’t think he can be above ten. He comes with a pre-packed polythene carry bag in which are the assortion of flowers he has decided my mother should have that week. My mother and he seem to have some sort of

A crowded day

2007-11-18T23:02:00.000+05:30

'Koi mila tho haath milayaa kahin gaye do baatein ki Ghar se baahar jab bhi nikalaa din bhar bhoj uthaayaa hai'-Rustam Sahgalwafa Last year, when we were on our trek around the Sahayadri ranges we stayed one night at a huge gufaa. When we explored around in the light of candles we realized that the cave already had an occupant; an old happy looking Baba who was rather nice about the

Little by little we grow…

2007-11-18T19:05:00.000+05:30

One has acquired one’s first long lens and one is thrilled to pixels. A couple of stray remarks by the Mater and one’s own reaction to the same had one worried that one may have also inadvertently acquired the NAS*- a deadly condition that those in the know say is a degenerative disease. But when one recollects that one was the kind of vichitra प्राणी that worked with a fully manual camera and a

The Mind of the Maker

2007-10-31T17:07:00.000+05:30

I borrowed ‘The Mind of the Maker’ by Dorothy Sayers on an instinct at the British library recently. This edition was published as a part of a series – The Library of Anglican Spirituality. For some time now I had been meaning to get hold of some of Sayers’ Christian writings just to see what kind of theologian she was, so I was quite happy to have found it but I was a little afraid that I

A master's voice

2007-10-20T15:01:00.000+05:30

Have you heard Mehdi Hasan sing Ab ke hum bichde? He sings it like a dream. The first sher is okay and some others are really good, but you don’t think of all that when you hear him sing it – they all sound uniformly brilliant. Today was a long-bath day (pedicure included) and this was my song of choice. The bath turned out longer than I expected and so I had to make up another sher to go

Cleaning the closet

2007-10-19T09:13:00.000+05:30

The eagle-eyed will notice that this blog has now been neatly filed under labels. Let me tell you that it has been the most arduous task especially when one realises that there was nothing ‘neat’ about the posts to begin with. As a result they have most of them been labelled half a dozen things. But must say this labelling business is very self-indulgent activity. It has you going fondly over a

Tazaah tar

2007-10-13T13:53:00.000+05:30

Qaid-e-zeest se fursat ka zariya nahi tha Maine apna khuda tarasha nahi tha Mehfil ke behlane mere paas us waqt Rudaad-e-hayaat thi falsafa nahi tha Waqt hi ke irade beimaan nikle Varna imaan se woh shaqs bewafaa nahi tha Nazar andaaz hotein hain jo ashnaa mehfil mein Un mein hum bhi shumaar hain andaaza nahi tha Umr bhar karvatein badle hain asvi Neend jab bhi khuli savera

Notes from a trek around Madhya Pradesh ( with update)

2007-10-10T12:16:00.000+05:30

Some sleep is more important than a lot of foodFrom now and forever buses (long-distance carrier types) are always going to make me shudder in pavlovian response. I have been permanently scarred now; nothing can disabuse my mind of its belief that buses are chambers of tortureSub notes-1. In cases of particularly sadistic and

Blowed over

2007-09-15T21:56:00.000+05:30

I was one of those silly people who turn their noses up at 20-20 cricket. I mean you know those usually gripes. Too bachha, all flash no technique, just a cynical little commercial idea and all that. Well then yesterday happened. And I don’t know if all the same arguments still hold good - right now I don’t care. Last night was kutthe ke maze. The campaigners of 20-20 could not have had it

In the shadow of the crib

2007-09-13T21:39:00.000+05:30

Dramatic sounding title and all, what? The picture was taken in bright afternoon light and had such stark shadows that it was not to be resisted. Sunita had just come to fetch it after work and I had to quickly take a few shots before she took it away. It must have been a long day for her but she waited patiently, indulgently even, as I took the pictures. She understood, I think, something

*Aaten hai gaib se…

2007-08-17T16:25:00.000+05:30

I write as always to clear my head. It works for me like a good vigorous headshake; a bit like a dog juddering dry after a forced dunking. I found Wislawa Szymborska on The Middle Stage recently (Many thanks CC!) and have spent quite a lot of time gluttonously trawling through her poetry. Redundant to say, I suppose, that I loved her. Her work I mean. Or her too actually. But in different ways

Me bags spot!

2007-07-17T14:08:00.000+05:30

I was tormented by unsettling dreams all of last night.I finally have the Book, all 600 odd pages of it. I am strenuously reading page after page of it and not a word sinks in. I am dying to understand, but I might as well have the Russian copy for all the good it does me. As if this isn’t hell enough, I am being constantly disturbed, phone calls, old friends popping in and asking for addresses

Hands of my family

2007-07-11T18:16:00.000+05:30

It is commonly agreed that my father has the most interesting hands. The father can be regularly heard protesting that he has no concept of beauty and that he is tone deaf and all art to him is unfathomable mystery, but this doesn’t stop people from regularly attributing all sorts of artistic virtues to him. That is mostly because of his hands. If truth be told I myself have a few not-so-secret

Against rationality in art

2007-06-26T17:07:00.000+05:30

I happened to read an interview of Mallika Sarabhai in today’s paper, in which she talks of how she can’t dream of performing something like the Geet Govinda or what she calls ‘the simpering woman’ in the present atmosphere of gender politics. She adds that she understands the spiritual significance of submission. But it is obvious she cannot stomach the more ordinary associations. Sarabhai is

Reasons Roger Federer will win today

2007-06-10T12:35:00.000+05:30

He’s due. The crystal ball at the edge of my desk is fairly shimmering with it.He has been playing his first gear/second gear act all through the lead up to the tournament and lately, all the better to bamboozle us, my dear! Today! He’s going to do his thing! That boy Nadal is quite quite brilliant, but all that aggression is just a little off-putting. Today is the

Mysuru

2007-06-08T09:40:00.000+05:30

Mysore is terribly nice. The more I see of it, the more I like it. They (The Mysoreans) think that it’s going the Bangalore way, which is a truly depressing thought. The Infosys chief was all over the papers when I was there, so it’s possible they know what they are talking about, but for my part, I totally adored the avenues of trees, the wide clean roads, the markets, the buildings and the air.

Torture on Rajiv Rahadari

2007-04-26T09:36:00.000+05:30

I am usually quite excited every time I have to travel back from Karimnagar. The thing is they start running the video bus coaches towards the second half of the day, and I make sure I come back in those. It is one of those things, you know, that strike you as stupendously thrilling in childhood, and then somehow through all your acquired adult blaséness you can’t seem to throw off the

What is this life? Without a care…

2007-04-22T20:14:00.000+05:30

I am not sure but this might be a crisis. One thing doesn’t seem to matter anymore than another these days. I grasp for gradations and emerge with nothing. I wish for something that means more than another just so that I may want it more, or feel more. Instead I am stuck with a vanilla detachment. I miss the hierarchies that held me together. A lucid sense of

Gah!

2007-03-30T20:52:00.000+05:30

Cats and cockroaches- two of God's creatures with absolutely no proper respect for the Human species. Totally gets my goat.

Some days go - good indifferent - a mosaic.

2007-02-16T22:53:00.000+05:30

Mounds of turmericInevitable catcallsA small town marketNewspaper advertSadder than an epitaphBe my valentineTen zillion starsA soul to each and sparePoor lonely GodTruck honks at its noseScampers off in surprised frightA dumb urban dogThe sun sets so largeAs if by magic todayInside tinted car

Say Hi

2007-02-08T20:25:00.000+05:30

This squint-eyed creature here is my key chain. I only acquired her recently; about four months ago. I had to replace that crumpled scrap of leather that had served me for six years. I found her, thought she was really cute, cuter than all the rest of her friends in the display basket, and in spite of pretending to carefully view my choices for about ten minutes, I came home with her. But

Salaam Nikhil

2007-01-31T22:24:00.000+05:30

Watched Salaam-e-ishq today.At last a film Bollywood can be proud of. Isn’t it amazing that Nikhil Advani has emerged from the shadow of his mentor to emerge, as … well Himself! But one must admit that the subtle tribute to him was touching. Also, it was only one of the many creative touches in the film. From start to finish, this film is a statement in style. Six love stories - each amazing

God how long this took to upload!

2007-01-22T12:12:00.000+05:30

Sankranti has been gone a week (more! Eeks!), and all this is from then. That’s how late a Lateef I am. Bah! But if I don’t put up these pictures even now, I will lose them to the innards of this computer. They will then acquire the patina of the forgotten, confabulate subtle self-deluding lies as they lie in isolated ignominy, and if they are ever discovered again, they will (half blinded by

Shauq-e-safar

2006-12-26T15:52:00.000+05:30

I think I‘ve mentioned this in another form, but apart from all the usual reasons, there is another very good reason I love travel. Every time I return home, there is a certain feeling that comes, which would make it all worth it even if it hadn’t been all that much fun in the first place. I suppose I would have to call this feeling contentment (because I can’t think of anything else that fits)

2006-12-22T12:54:00.000+05:30

Another journeyUsual toiletries bagNeeds repacking now

Raichur - signing out

2006-12-18T19:21:00.000+05:30

These boys here at the cybercafe have Aahista-(Kunal Ganjawala), Don't touch me soniye, Kya mujhe pyaar hai, Dil laga na dil jale se, and Tere bin kaise jiyoon on a loop on their system, and sometimes, like now, when there aren't too many people they sing along. I haven't tired of the loop in all this time; I love what it does for my screaming neck muscles at the end of each day.I 'll probably

Raichur- It's a dogs life

2006-12-10T18:44:00.000+05:30

These dog shows are unnatural things, I tell you, unnatural.They’ve had banners hung up all over Raichur announcing the 2nd grand dog show and I’d never been to one, so naturally I had to go. I hadn’t given it much thought except that it would be interesting to see what breeds Raichur had; and it seemed Raichur folk must be really serious about their dogs to warrant a full-fledged dog show.But

Raichur ramblings - 2

2006-12-08T18:42:00.000+05:30

Raichur's landscape is pretty much Deccan stuff. Dryish, with lovely dusks. But it has some beautiful rocks! In fact the entire stretch from Hyderabad has great formations, but the ones I saw this evening close to this old old Shiva temple are something else. Next time my instinct tells me to go fetch my camera I will listen to it even if it means two flights of stairs. (Raichur’s hospitality

Raichur ramblings - 1

2006-12-06T18:38:00.000+05:30

I write this from a net browsing center. This is a first for me! I am into the one hour slot because I shot the 30 min slot by few minutes. I am yawning my head off but I like to be productive.I usually get like this, all dazed and a little blown on the first evening in any new place. Too many things too many people, and every manner of assault on the senses. I fear sometimes that I must be a

Hazaaroon khwaishen aisi…

2006-11-25T13:24:00.000+05:30

That’s one long-standing entry ticked off my wish list. I took a never-ending ride in a Giant wheel and I was the sole occupant! I have no clue why it made it to the list in the first place; I have no head for heights and practically no stomach for anything. I suspect it might have something to do with numerous romantic Hollywood images of the protagonist riding poignantly alone at dusk in a

2006-11-23T10:02:00.003+05:30

The person I choose not to be; dies.Every moment as the sceptre of choice brings to life a new meThe person I could have been is already in her graveAmong those dead, are there those that I might admire, envy, disdain or resent…?In every case they are dead and I am not.Would they have been a finer me, I wonderDid they have a better right to life?Perhaps, but I am glad the choice was not mineAnd

Omkara

2006-08-13T18:56:00.000+05:30

Watched Omkara yesterday. Found it shatteringly beautiful. I usually decide about a film by the quality and intensity of the hangover it leaves me with. I feel like I’ve been at a rave all night. Can a good music director turn into such an extraordinary filmmaker just by wanting to? Seems he can. Must be that thing they call talent.

2006-08-07T12:54:00.000+05:30

The quality of sleep is not strainedIt is not to be had by the strength of willIt will not be cajoled, nor planned with reasonNor is logic or necessity ever its envoyA tired body may crave and not have itThe righteous might deserve and not find itIt is a fine thing, fragile and elusiveIts temper is lost with coercion or guileBut if you will have it still and are

On rereading and not reading

2006-06-17T12:33:00.000+05:30

There are few things as pleasant as rereading. It is especially nice for someone like me with conveniently dismal powers of memory. I only ever retain the sense of a book; mostly remembering just the mood it left me with or the ways in which it excited my imagination. I invariably forget whodunit in a whodunit. I can pick up an old book absolutely secure in the knowledge that I will love it but

Gushing on

2006-06-05T12:51:00.000+05:30

Ya ali yaar pe hain loota dun mita dun mein apni khudiAha why does it all seem so much more, just more when Shiny’s face fills the screen? That song on that Man, the Bhatt gang knows what it is doing sometimes.I and (a thousand others I daresay) would have said that Shiny is a very silly name for a grown man. Not anymore. Now you can say Shiny to me in the manner of BOO, and see my face light up.

2006-06-01T18:17:00.000+05:30

Would you hold on a minute while I buy this tea?Pause, not judge, nor focus, just let me beCan we pretend please that it’s the only brand on the shelf? I just like tea and so I buy it to please myself Can we please not create a lifestyle around a thing Build a life around associations and belonging It’s not the books I read, or the views I hold Not my religion, my geometry or my mould,

Xakhe Jauhs

2006-05-31T13:05:00.000+05:30

It is difficult to describe Xakhe Jauhs. Apart from saying that he was clever, there is very little else that can be said about him, that is perhaps because there is very little else to him. What is a person of no qualities called? Do you judge qualities by reactions in situations? Let’s try that then. Let it be said - he never initiated conversations and very

Love Hope

2006-05-28T19:55:00.000+05:30

When I fear neither distance nor nearness I may reach for you my love When I absolve me of guilt then I may deserve you already When I grab no more I may find I have that instance- you When I am no more I may be you my love Until then, then I have my love, it is not fearless, or guiltless or other than mine But I have it and it is yours and it overwhelms me and gives me

Reconciliation

2006-05-27T13:30:00.000+05:30

Dui haiDui haiDui haiDui haiDui haiDui haiDui haiDui haiDui haiTeek haiTeek haiTeek haiTeek haiTeek haiTeek haiTeek haiTeek haiTeek haiTeek haiTeek haiTeek haiTeek haiTeek haiTeek haiTeek haiTeek haiEk hai

Perfectly powerless

2006-05-13T13:41:00.000+05:30

In Hyderabad, we save our choicest gaalis for the electricity board in summers. We the general public and those few enthu-cutlets who write letters to the editors, all have well worked out theories and schemes to avenge ourselves on the wretched department. They in turn have specialised the art of tormenting us by giving us detailed lists of planned power-cuts for the day in our morning papers

Foreboding

2006-05-10T12:59:00.000+05:30

Rag-o-pai mein jab uthare zahar-e-gham tab dekhiye kya hoAbhi tho talkhi-e-kaam-o-dahan ki aazamaish hai- Mirza GhalibOn a related moodSo far so good,All under the hood,But what if it raises its head?Without my will or anything said.What if I am caught unaware,Wrapped in its dreamlike snareNow I’m ok, next I am notTying me in – the Dementor’s knotLoss of will, sleep pervades,Quiet panic, goodness

Over Momin’s tumultuous grave

2006-05-07T13:09:00.000+05:30

Humne socha ke mausam bhi hai, mouka bhi hai, ‘in’ bhi hai, hum bhi zara plagiarise karleinKyon sune arz-e-muztarib Asvikhuda akhir sanam nahi hotaBut I’m waiting…… oh! Pleaahase prette pleaahase. Make it happen.