Flux of Time

Happiness. Often used as a substitute for success. Both highly intangible words. Both can't be contained in a single definition. And yet, we are conditioned all our lives to believe that it is something we 'achieve' if we do certain things. As kids, we make our parents happy and ourselves happy if we do things that are supposed to be 'right'. So, we complete our engineering or medical degrees (what else can poor South Indian children dream of? shudder shudder if they think of something like the arts, especially boys!) and we will be happy? We go off to the US, do our MSes, and think we and our parents and our families have been wrapped in one big happy bubble! Then we marry. If that partner fits the standards set by our closest set of relatives and friends, we are doubly lucky. Soon enough, we start a family. And the cycle continues. A car, an apartment, then two, our quest for material symbols of success is one long relentless one. We parade our achievements on so...

The end of 2014 must go down as one of the worst months ever, at least for me, personally. How do you come to terms with the freakish manner in which a young cricketer who was just about starting his international career had to say goodbye to the world? How do you even begin to internalise the death of a couple of hostages at Sydney? A mother of three children, what wrong did she do? Or the death of the manager of Lindt Cafe - how does that make sense? December 2014, what have you done to us? What made you take the lives of over hundred innocent schoolchildren in Peshawar, all mercilessly gunned down? What about their families? What do the parents have to look forward to? December is indeed the cruellest month. You took away a former colleague of mine, an honest man who worked hard, who was also a very good friend to me ten years ago. I think of his wife, his two-and-a-half-year-old daughter. What will life be like for them from now on? How do they deal with their loved one's abse...

That's my travel piece in today's City Express, New Indian Express. The link here: http://www.newindianexpress.com/cities/bengaluru/Rolling-Back-the-Clock-in-the-Land-of-the-Hoysalas/2014/12/11/article2564981.ece

(This post has been published in unboxedwriters.com. Here:  http://unboxedwriters.com/2014/11/not-worth-losing-a-life-over/  )  This piece has also since been published in The New Indian Express L osing a wicket is a far far better thing to strive for. No batsman would say that under normal circumstances, but given Phil Hughes' death, he would certainly say that.  The sight of a fast bowler tearing into a batsman has been one of cricket's most romanticized images, especially in the pre-helmet era. It was a test to the batsman's technique and mental make-up to duck a bouncer or take one on and dispatch it to the fence. Some of the most celebrated tales in cricket come from anecdotes where batsmen have withstood or batted on in spite of a broken nose or a jaw, samurai-like. It is also very macho, I guess, for both players and spectators to witness such episodes involving sweat, and blood, in some cases. Almost all modern-day sports are civilized and evolved ver...

Nuts! Several years ago, my brother and I took out our handy cam and went around the city capturing the essence of Bangalore on our recorder. It was on one such occasion that we went to the kadlekai parishe or the groundnut fair in Gandhi Bazaar. This was over a decade ago. That was my first brush with the parishe , but I have been there many times later. So, when this year's parishe came along, I decided to make a small trip. Much like most of our festivals, this fair is also rooted in an agrarian past. Typically, our festivals are about changing seasons, harvests, fertility. All rooted in the land we till. And yet, we have lost our roots with that lifestyle. Our festivals today are gaudy affairs, display of gold, silver and riches. And excessive gift-giving with no respect whatsoever for our bond with the soil and forces of nature. I'm digressing, so, back to the kadlekai parishe . There's a fascinating legend that describes how this festival came about. A ...

(This piece has been published in The New Indian Express) A thick green forest, vast grassy stretches, and a river running through the undulating landscape. And to think all this is a mere 100 km away from Bangalore! Cross Kanakapura, and you will get to see hamlets of about 30-40 families punctuating the forest. As we go past Sathanur and take the Muthathi road (which by the way is an adventure in itself, considering the poor state of the road), we see stretches of mulberry plantations, banana crops, and all the pastoral scenes that jump straight out of a fourth-standard textbook chapter on rural life. Bheemeshwari Nature and Adventure Camp (was a fishing camping earlier) is an initiative of Jungle Lodges, Karnataka government's excellent eco-tourism project. The camp was earlier a fishing camp that attracted tons of visitors because of the Mahseer, the fish that has made the gushing and throbbing River Cauvery its home. Fishing (even catch and release) is banned now, but the c...

My story on Singapore in today's Sunday Herald The other Orient Colonial Singapore With Singapore celebrating its National Day recently, Savitha Karthik tries tounderstand the city-state’s colonial heritage, goes on a World War II trail and comes back feeling enriched... The Universal Studios, Sentosa’s water wonders, the Marina Bay Sands, the Merlion, the Jurong Bird Park, Gardens by the Bay, add or subtract a few more and a trip to Singapore is quite over. Oh, and yes, I forgot the Changi Airport! But, if you are the type who wants to get a better sense of a city, understand its people, culture and heritage, you will walk. Stop. And stare. Like we gazed at the wonderful colonial structures and read aloud street names. The names unravel a story... Fullerton Road, Havelock Road, Albert Street, Church Street, Victoria Road, Stamford Road... the story of Singapore’s British past. Much like India, you can’t miss the stamp of the British Raj.  In fact, the story of modern-day S...