In Limbo 2

  Josie with her litter Maya   J osie is impatient  her litter of four  squeals, like stars in collision with the first filaments  of morning light. Maya drops by, indifference  in gait but it's in the eyes  that curiosity lounges impenetrable her gaze inscrutable her intentions  little Josie ferocious in her demeanor  assailed by throbbing pangs of motherhood roars like a tigress; the cashew tree trembles Maya jostles past cool and contained: she is an old-timer having seen the wall she used to sun on crumble reduced to rubble; she has swung on the pendulum of timelessness  and seen many a Josie   come            and                   go: but our Josie is different. She roars like a tigress; and plop, plop, plop,  drop the cashew fruits

Watching explosions in Iran , ran the NYTimes caption under the photo of a guy on the rooftop of his house. And lo, my own skies posterised by blithesome fronds of palmyrahs seem to turn  tumultuous with the threatening clouds of billowing smoke. I had come to the terrace hoping to glimpse  the flocks of migratory birds making their way back to their summer roost. A good percentage of them would also  fly over Asia Minor, now embroiled in a madman's war.  The photo was taken on 28th of February,  the first day of Israel/U.S. attacks on Iran  which took the country completely by surprise. On that very day, a U.S. missile hit a girls' elementary school in Minab killing 170 young students and teachers. Since then a few thousands have succumbed to the insentient insanity of this war, baseless, and uncalled for. An old write-up on the draft folder catches my attention. It is dated Feb 20th, 2026, exactly eight days before the global front took on an apocalyptic ...

  Shivoham in watercolors  am i burning or is it the world  churning? breaths lost at the crossway of here and then cry out for love... taste of the uncreated lingers within plastered reality words slice the  air, silence slashes it. am I burning on a pyre of scrawny fantasies or is it the world churning? women in yellow  and gold make kolams  with rice  powder, flowers garland their hair: stains of fragrance bury the soughing  of a broken heart. am i burning in the coolness of the koël's two-note song or is it the world churning? the night reeling, summer stillness, the eighth moon held in the month of Chaitra...  swirls of van gogh suffocate vision blindfold dreams am I burning  in the oppressive  rhythm of the clocking hour or is it the world churning? is it the world churning  or is it me, burning?

' The gas cylinder'- that is how I commonly refer to the  natural gas/LPG container stored in a locked cabinet outside the house. A pipe connects it to the two-burner stove in the kitchen. It is the lifeline of the culinary excursions I launch myself on, on a daily basis for both sustenance and gastronomical purposes; myself and millions of middle-class populace in this part of the world. While 54 percent of India still uses firewood/charcoal/ c owdung for cooking, the urban middle class India relies mainly on LPG, with 60 percent of it being hauled in from Qatar and 40 percent generated locally. In fact,  80,000 tons of LPG, loaded on two freight ships, escorted by 6 navy ships, risked the perils of a raging war to reach India on 17th of March. It was just enough to meet the country's one-day demand! The import of such a basic commodity as that of cooking fuel vis-à-vis the numbers, statistics and geographical constraints it entails is mind-boggling. And, this was brought ...

It seems unjustified to be writing about anything but the state of the world at a juncture when it lies embroiled in unprecedented conflict and turmoil.  Wars being waged with the sole objective to paralyze economies and gain control are devoid of ideologies,  principles and therefore duplicity. Thankfully, 'Diplomacy for the sake of diplomacy' has  been extradited from the international arena. Instead, unscrupulous attitudes epitomizing the age-old euphemism 'my way or the highway' have taken the centre stage, which is regrettable, but at least not beguiling.  Ali Khameni, the Supreme leader of Iran is killed along with 42 others of his entourage. There is jubilation on the streets, and there is also a sea of people advancing like a pillar of strength even as they mourn the death of their leader by foreign powers with vested interests.  Claims are being made vis-à-vis the number of war casualties from all fronts. Videos of  U.S. soldiers solemnly carrying ...

When nothing makes sense, when all that reaches the ear is the buzz of political jabberwocky or the static of AI voices sounding unnaturally confident, a walk through the village of Chinna Mudaliyar Chawadi in our neighborhood always feels calmingly surreal. Children laughing down the road,  women huddled up over a conversation, a stew of rice and lentils cooking in charred pots placed over wood-fire outside homes.  ...aroma of sputtering spices, a hint of tamarind escaping into the dusky air. Effortlessly do flashes of scenes slip in alongside a collage of memories buried under a dusty layer of time: Here's to cranes furrowing aerial trails and to irises gorging on blue  to shadows skipping on pebbles and to violets shaking off the fall'n snow and here's to the naked pigtailed boy  with anklets and kohled eyes, tittering  twiddling a twig, womenfolk gossip and gurgle; here's to the crow  diving into the setting sun, catching the gold, the silence and the s...