For I cannot sleep tonight...

It’s tough to gather thoughts with the tv blaring in front of you of the increasing death count…10 it was then 40..60 and now 80…perhaps this number will still rise against the hopes, the prayers of all Indians tonight.

Behind all the chaos, I take about 15 minutes to realize that my brother now lives in that city, and another 15 minutes after speaking to him about another close friend in that very area. They’re both alright, but the sense of relief still eludes me. 'This too shall pass' said Helen Steiner, but am only afraid that it will. It shall pass as yet another tragedy for the country, marked as always, with heroics, with sympathy stories, and finally with the triumph of human spirit to have coped with the night of terror. News reports shall flood the papers for coming weeks, television media already is and shall continue to get its share, and chances are – a film or two would be made for this night. But why should I write and rant in a commotion of a million voices, who might already be screaming their lungs out on this? Simply because I can’t find any other outlet for the anger, the grief that I feel now. It’s a feeling of being violated and then muted, where I can’t do anything but sit locked in my house and watch what the news channels feed in. Images of a cop pointing a gun at a taxi carrying a family – asking them to disembark for checking, People crawling on the roads, blood on the streets near leopold café, terrorists passing in a jeep firing shots at civilians, reporters, death of Hemant Karkare…all makes your blood boil…but there’s nothing to direct this angst against…. For the accused, they fire from behind the curtains. The government, though answerable for the security lapse, cannot be help responsible as for these situations one can only prepare a counter-action. What must the proletariat do here? They must burn from within, till normality is restored, which is by when they learn to live with the scar.
And so here I write…seeing my people die, buildings burnt, and my country’s honour challenged…here I write, for there’s little I can do but mourn my impotence.

Ladakh Photoblog

uploading a few...before the photos rot away in my memory stick!

http://vatsal.co.nr/ladakh

A rough guide to pune

Cities open themselves up easier than towns
As for a town learning to be a city
There are two ballads that fill the air
Both ir-resonate and out of tune
Today I shall act deaf to one

Pick a dowdy-old motorbike
Go by its natural pace
Enough for those short on time to blur past
Enough for exposing a bearded old man
Off to the library on a moped

Take the teak bent-chair by the window at an Irani restraunt
That lie detached even to the busy roads outside
The morning sun illuminates the hot vapours filling the room
And your ears are inadvertently lent
to the morning chatter that talketh the town

the time to visit the city would be mid afternoon
when chairs lie upturned on the tables
and shutters all but few inches from being shut
signifying the lure of an afternoon nap
that overpowers the city’s commerce

Right behind these sleeping shops
There lie old wadas revealed
With vast open patios
Dotted with wooden columns
Still dark and wet from the rain that fell last

Driving up, behind the canopy of trees
The wadas fuse to make parsi houses that further give way to Victorian villas
Some unable to find place in post british india
With surrounding gardens that lost the fight to uneven vegetation
And dilapidated boundaries and moss eaten walls

There’s more the town speaks
Of films, academia and culture
Of Gandhi, Rajneesh and scholars
The voice may be diminished, but it relentlessly hums
With the profundity of a rudra veena if one lends it a ear

An agglomeration became a town, a city
trickling its way through the barriers in time
there’s a time when you join the flow
its where you grow and the city grows with you
and learn the ease that lies in tandem
like wheels on a bicycle – never to outpace each other

Like a rolling stone - Bob Dylan

the world turned upside down

What if South was Up and east was right?

a funny thought crossed my mind today...and suddenly I start feeling disoriented. Disillusioned further with how no text-book ever prints the map upside down, left-side up or numerous other permutations.