The Gift


Short Stories

  Just a slight drizzle outside. Unseasonal. But then nothing was part of the season anymore. I peered inside the darkened windows of the bookshop. My own reflection peered back at me. From the outside, Patel’s Books, seemed almost like the relic of a pub. It stood well back from the street, almost as if […]

December 28, 2015

The Night The Circus Came to Town


Short Stories

It was the night the circus came to town. The days when cable TV as a word didn’t exist in our dictionary. Maharaja’s Circus, it was called. No malls. Cinemas, yes. But we would wait for the once-a-year show to reach our town. The night the circus came to town is one I would remember […]

December 21, 2015

Of New Years – Memories From 2015


Musings

The last few days of this year. A year that has been a shard of revolving dust, a whirlwind of chaos and mindless energy. As the year winds down, I can’t but think of the things that made me happy through the year. It’s difficult to do so. Our mind has a tendency to shut […]

December 20, 2015

Burma: Monks And Monkey Minds


Everyday

  Burma or Myanmar? A country that is democratic or authoritarian? Modern or traditional? Yangon or Rangoon? The contradictions of Burma are apparent from the time you land in Yangon’s international airport. It is winter and the city is wrapped in a slightly colder haze. The roads are wide swept and clean and the visions […]

November 11, 2015

Two Drunk Chinese and an Orange


Everyday

  Many years ago, now more than a decade, I spent a few months in the most obscure town you can imagine in China. Shuyang. Deep in Jiangsu Province in the northern part of China, it was my first stay abroad. Shuyang was a nondescript town. A village really. It was drab, colorless, and would […]

September 17, 2015

Bangalore’s Hidden Gems: Harohalli’s Proud Past


Musings

I stay in one of Bangalore’s more recently developed ‘IT hubs.’ The area there is chaotic. The air an unfiltered hell of poison. The people speak to me in Hindi more often than not. Traffic is not the word you can use to describe a 1,000 vehicles trying to squeeze past each other in a […]

August 9, 2015

Divine Food and Cows By The Beach


Everyday

Today is the last day in Goa. I have watched a movie or two. Harold and Maude, a cult classic, and a Hayao Miyazaki movie called Howl’s Moving Castle that gave me a headache or two. True to nature, it’s hot again today. Not a cloud on the horizon. All that blue in the sky […]

August 1, 2015

Sun, Chapora, and Rain


Everyday

I think the title of this blog post just about sums up the day. The mornings in Goa here have been always sunny. No trace of clouds. But slowly or in an instant, depending on the mood, the tide turns, and the clouds gather. In an instant, you can go = from scorching sun to […]

July 26, 2015