Prashant's Solace

There are two meaning of the word ‘rehashed’. One - without significant change or improvement and the other - consider or discuss something at length. And I mean both here. Strolling on one of the busy beaches of the city, on a festive night is an assault on the senses. But there are patterns of sanity, emotions, conflicts, love, hate or conspiracies hidden in the sea of madness. One has to simply focus one’s attention on a particular aspect of humanity. As I went about kicking the little space of cool sand coming my feet’s way, I couldn’t help but notice- love. Love, love.   Out of the two evening seas, in the human one, I saw this love; walking, talking, observing, kneeling, cuddling, kissing, arguing, fighting. It may not be all love; I contradicted my thought. But resemblance is enough to brand an action especially, when telling a story. And I added my thought-spice as these love stories played all around me. What came my way first was the passionate love. Under a lones...

It is amazing how a day I should be proud of, begins with many things I am ashamed of. But I realize I am not a consequential being. Freedom earned, freedom gained in a particular context means little to a mind grappling with freedom from a spiralling thought processes. Efforts, sincerity of purpose, struggle seem to draw nothing. Just like the words. This last bit hurts more than everything else. About a decade ago, I had addressed a fellow being, thinking something mattered. Something might move. A heart, a character, a system, a humanity. I see the parade of the Americans, the Russians, the Taliban, the Israeli, of the right and of the left. I see death of soldiers and terrorists. I see victors and vanquished. Everyone seem to be in a state of eternal existence with no conclusiveness.  Then there is the rapist and the raped. As much as I hate to bring them in the same sentence the butchery of living demands, that I do. There is the system and the anti-system in which they try to...

Pre-World Soaked in a pink glow with a texture of white, the place made me forget all my woes. It was a beautiful morning in the big city and I was out for breakfast with my brother. The pleasant setting was enlivened further when the breakfast was served. It looked Instagram-worthy, and tasted good. The delightful setting also made me forget it was 10:05 am and the time to book a tatkal AC coach seat on the Indian Railways was already gone. Ideally, it is one hour but practically it hardly lasts beyond a minute. A happy day it was, except now I booked a non-AC tatkal at 11 am, which wasn’t a problem ‘AC’ wise, because I prefer open windows. But... The Journey Begins From an idyllic morning in the big city to the next one, on its busy platform, filled with early morning commuters and busy office goers; this was one of my many rendezvous with unwritten rules of Indian train travel. It begins with the fact that most of the long-distance commuters in this country have to travel with...

(Based on a True Story) She, the human-she, was visiting and the hill-fort was on agenda for the day, along with a group of friends. This was on earth. The sky had another her, with him, destined to be on the same hill-fort.  The weather those days was cloudy and sultry, calling for heavy showers. The Deccan skies of the subcontinent, saw a couple glide in on a weary day. The absence of breeze didn't help. Sighting a watershed seemed a distant dream. The search for the same was going off-path. Being off-path here could mean death. The about-to-rain skies looked like a sure shelter to the weather-beaten faces. She signalled him to stop. A cannon on top of a hill came in sight, surrounded by greens and a stone floor. It wasn't an ideal place, but looked welcoming. Water pond at the base of a curved precipice leading down from there sealed the deal. Coming closer, she saw there was hardly any water in it. It smelled of plastic and piss. But survival triumphs all considerations. He...

The air picked them up on their drive. Driven across the sea were those tiny drops now. Condensed cold in the deep Pacific dropped them into the water. Drops dropped unceremoniously, unnoticed. Thousands of miles away, or maybe close to them on the South American mass, some students were learning about the same phenomenon. One of them was him.  The drops glided on with their family as a container ship went by. Somehow, though they got crushed under it on the open seas. Got pushed hard and down on a soft and flexible floor. Many years later, a whale almost gulped them. But somehow it didn’t. Then stillness of the expanse followed for an indeterminable age. Lifeless as ever on water, in water. One day they rose. Rose on being beaten by an angry Sun. They collided with their counterparts from the Indian Ocean. In the massive comingling that followed they crossed over to the latter. There, the drops were gulped by a drowning Filipino. After twisting and turning uncomfortably in the...