Prashant's Solace

Once upon a time in 21 st century India, there was a city called Garbage Nagar. It was frequented by foreign tourists as well as domestic tourists. Upon visiting the city, one would think that 21 st century introduced a new concept of modern living far ahead of its time. Gigantic domes of garbage were found on every junction. Lanes and by-lanes were also beautified with neatly spread out garbage. Even road dividers were not made of concrete but garbage. No dump was left unturned for the convenience of Garbage Nagar citizens. Garbage Nagar’s single biggest facilitation, as one could guess, was the ease and leisure of disposing off garbage. One could just walk to the nearest street corner and empty the trash can. For kids it was like spraying beautiful colours onto a huge canvas. For busy Moms, the pleasure of throwing garbage was akin to splurging on shopping.  Citizens of the busy parts of Garbage Nagar didn’t even have to walk. They could throw the garbage right from

 ...Why? How? But she could have... Psychedelic Maya, was she? Did drugs prove her undoing. She was a free spirit after all but then, not the likes I knew of. A heightened sense of self and her environment overpowered all her other instincts. So how could she?  Since Jaipur, we had become good friends. A few misadventures aside, she enjoyed and thrived in Delhi. We went places, rather, I took her places where she never would have been in her wildest dreams. The Delhi of earthy delights, the bizarrely rich and dreadfully dirty lanes, the spiritual Delhi and the intellectual Delhi, the Delhi of spices, aromas and street-sides, the one of annals of power and malfunction. We were riding the wave of life. But Maya's crests and troughs were much bigger. She lived in two worlds. Curiously she disappeared for days. According to her it was required as the Israeli embassy suggested, ordered and advised. One time, she resurfaced after exactly two months. I used to pick her up

Laila is playing Holi with her relatives in their ancestral home. In a remote Uttar Pradesh village, this has been the yearly tradition of the Chaudhari family. One that Laila always looks forward to. But this year her anticipation was adulterated with dread. The elders say they will wait for her graduation. But preceding Chaudhari marriages indicate otherwise. Elsewhere in a village of Haryana state, three men died after consuming spurious liquor. Their wives are crying their hearts out. These tears are mixed with pain; not only from the loss. As they wail, one of the ladies' sore throat hurts. Another woman's badly bruised lips and chest hurt as the salty liquid flows down her face. The third is pregnant for the fourth time and has travelled back from her parent's home for the funeral. As is the practice and widely believed, no, she was not at her parents for pregnancy period but to collect the latest instalment of promised dowry. The wound marks on her privates

Nothing in that moment of tranquil sun suggested anything wrong. I was standing in a dreamy room overlooking the Parvati Valley in the laps of Himalayas. She liked nature so much that she painted her own little outdoors on the walls. A rising, glistening sun froze-rising forever on the golden sky that was her wall. It complemented the real one for most part of the year, like brothers posing one in front of the other. She had told me that her mornings began comparing the real and her wall sun. Real and surreal. Both were both to her depending on mood. On the opposite wall was a dark and dense valley, again, just like the one outside. It played heavily on the minds of first-time visitors to her shack. But it comforted her, she said. Sometimes, over and against the real view. I first saw Maya in the clouds - somewhere over the Caspian Sea. She was standing in front of the restroom from where I was taking forever to come out. New places make it harder for me to g

I opened my eyes. The left one felt skin obstructing its opening. The right one opened up to a sight of nostrils; beautiful, pale, white nostrils. But it took me both 5 minutes and a year to make sense of this sight. The flooded banks of the mighty Brahmaputra had brought me, or us, asunder onto a remote bank. My head was resting on a woman's belly. She was motionless, just like I was 5 minutes ago. I sat up. On my other side I could see and hear the river in full spate. Hut material, animal carcass and endless stream of branches and twigs drifted past as a stream within a stream. I tried hard to make sense of the sight around. The moment I realised I had leaned on a woman, I jerked myself on my feet and away from her. I looked around. Not a soul. Only nature made sound. I pushed myself for answers towards the woman. She was dead...  Three months ago an Indian journalist had landed at the Guwahati International Airport. Next to him on the same flight was an anxiou

Events seem to unfold vividly (played out again in our minds) from days bygone, retained in greatest detail, to the time of the day and the dress she was wearing... There used to be a girl who lived just outside my window. We played and laughed together, fought to bruise each other and rushed out to enjoy the first rains as they came down every year in front of our little dwellings, leaving our pains behind. That was joy of the most joyous kind. And then there was social existence. Every year our families had some common rituals. Not of the religious kind but the social ones. For example, after the annual exams comparison of academic performances was an important aspect of community living. Each of our parents tried very hard to ensure that their child's grades were not revealed! But the occasional visitor to each of our houses always slipped some gossip to some other common acquaintance. The look in our mother's faces was enough to gauge how we had fared compared

One fine day a child was put forth to the mercy of mortals on the 1st of Jan 1986! This is his take on a new world around him.  "Here I was treading into a different world and you have no idea of the magnitude of 'different'; A place they called school, about which I was made to feel excited as if being taken to Disneyland. How another was it... oh… no adult could ever imagine! Nervous, anxious, choked whatever you call the feeling, I would simply describe it as being ‘on the verge of tears’. The build-up leading to the D-day (first day at school) was cleverly planned. I was beaming with a false sense of pride developed from reciting stupid somethings, in an alien but sweet language, to every single visitor at home. But all these rituals had an ulterior motive! I was going to find out for the first time that, apart from my cousins and other kids in my building, there are innumerable 3 or 4 year olds' in the world. Apparently, they too were tricked into comin

A push, my child is your creator, This very push can be your predator. Know what power it holds? A push in courage makes destiny, in veil rears vanity, Devoid of care, troubles soul innocent for eternity; A push of hope can envision a trivial mind, One with belittling words destroy character in grind; It gladdens a life with thoughts heavenly and sweet, Or erode dreams, like trampling beasts in fleet. Also know that, A push makes worthy stand strong, For money and power are just get along, And talent more often than not, Too proud a virtue for most lot. Don’t care I, whether you have these, Certainly no concern, maybe bit, if you please. You see, Ago, my father pushed a simpleton me to survive, That push created utopia, now which is our hive. Believe you too in its power, Push you to bloom bud, be a loved flower. I hope out there waiting, is a beautiful life’s dawn, I push you in hope dear, a push you will thrive on!

                  Siddhi and Neil were having lunch in a lavish hotel on a hot Saturday in Allahabad, India. It was May afternoon when the sun was at its merciless best across the span of the country. But it was a happy day for the Prasad siblings. Neil was in India for his marriage and the brother sister duo were out shopping in the upmarket Civil Lines neighbourhood of the city. They decided to break for lunch. These days were a departure from the routine calm and lazy afternoons at the Prasad household. It was filled with commotion and tension in the run up to the D-day. This was a far-cry from the usual silence which the Prasad's were used to, until Neil went abroad. He had moved to Brazil for work and had come home on this short trip after three long years. During the course of their meal they had had an argument. “It is high time you realize Siddhi that if you don’t study the future is perilous for you,” said Neil. “Please, can we talk of somethin

[Yes, you read the title right! What follows is the story of most Indian girls, sadly if you ask me but true nevertheless in most cases. When we were school going age our teachers asked us to write all sorts of autobiographies; of a pen, a book, tree, desk or a bench. It is my firm belief that if our teachers would have asked us to write one of the opposite sex, things could have been better for each one of us; For one, if we could think like a blackboard or a chalk, we could have done well knowing the grossly misunderstood opposite sex, and two, given the hypocrisy and apathy that breeds all around, a little empathy of another human would enlighten rotten minds to reason our living.] Here it goes; autobiography of a girl written by a boy… I was born in a middle class family in one of the many small cities that dot the confused Indian landscape. A landscape filled with contradictions of what represents our culture and what is foreign to u