Within five minutes of meeting us, almost everyone ends up telling me how lucky I am. My first response is to tell them the truth. That there was no luck. It was an elaborate plan, the great heist, a master strategy, a bountiful hunt. They scoff. They, then, make me sit down. Hold my hands. Look inside my eyes. And, tell me that I should feel extremely lucky. It is not us. It is never us for finding each other. The luck is entirely mine….Continue Reading “You are so lucky you found her”

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South delhi. That thin and mythical piece of land where everyone lives and everyone else doesn’t. GK doesn’t consider CR Park south delhi and has a gate to keep the parkians from coming in and stealing the flowers from their parks. True story narrated by friends. Parkians don’t consider kalkaji south delhi because that side of road is just cheap and dirty. Kailash colony in all this has gone ahead and renamed itself GK 4 or something like that. So, SDA is not south delhi….Continue Reading “The Mythological South Delhi”

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The bus stand in Cuttack has a trademark soundtrack. A nasal voice on a loudspeaker warns you about jadu, kachu, kundia and advises you to use Tarun Ayurvedic’s Scabidol. This morning while we drove past, we heard the same advertisement. The billboards have changed – now there is a Scabidol, Scabigun and etc etc, all of them warning you of copycats. While the world does not need BTex lotion anymore, Cuttack still needs Scabidol on their inner thighs.

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I hated Diwali as a child. There were very few things that I was not scared of. Crackers, were scary. I would generally hide in a corner or lock myself in a room if anyone tried to drag me out. I would weep and pee a little every time a loud one went off. The only part of diwali I enjoyed then is go out with the group of child scavengers at night, collect all the un-burst ones, out them in the apartment’s garbage bin…Continue Reading “Aadhar based diwali?”

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Next time you kiss, think about ease of doing business. It is not romantic, it is not love, it is not an expression of affection. It is ease of doing business. Why do we chose lips over anything else? We hands of course, but that is friendly. Then, what is it about lips that makes them such reservoirs of love? Why do they get to be the love ambassadors and not …..let’s say….ears? Why can’t you touch your left ears to someone else’s right ones?…Continue Reading “Kissing and ease of doing business”

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Few days back I shared a lot on how straws are destroying the earth and about the StopSucking campaign etc. My battle with straws has come to an untimely end. Why? I walked into a departmental store, picked up a few Nescafe cold coffees, the Intense ones. I plucked the straws from the tetrapack, hung them from the shelf. The store already does that, so I was not disfiguring. I knew I could pour it into a glass at home or find an old straw…Continue Reading “Last day of my battle on straws”

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Dear Ma, You pampered me too much. I am still having issues when colleagues don’t hug me every morning. My teeth were never too big. I was never too dark. My deeds were never too bad. I turn violent when someone criticises me. You fed me whatever I wanted. No ugly veggies, no milk today, I hate fish. Gobi pakoda please. You should look at my BMI today. I ruled over my sisters. I ruled over you. I was the SON. My wife got a…Continue Reading “A practical son’s message on Mothers Day”

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pakhala

Odias were a prosperous people. You know, Kalinga, Utkala, shipping prowess, java, sumatra and all that. They also invented head transplant before Ganesha’s doctors did and aeroplanes before Ravana did. Then, some jealous race planted this dude insidious character among Odias. The character created something called Pakhala. Within a generation, Odias stopped all shipping bullshit. Within five, they stopped going out of Odisha. By twentieth century, Odias were used to sleeping 12 hours a day, rarely stepping out of the house and generally being lazy…Continue Reading “The story of pakhala and Odia decline”

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There are things we do because we like them, not because we care about the world or are eco warriors or are conservators etc. In one of my earlier posts, i had mentioned how we created a balcony garden, failed, hired a mali, fired a mali and then i started composting kitchen waste and the balconies turned into Amazonian forests. But it seems not all efforts lead to good things. That a tenth floor balcony is not a safe place. That you can’t have your…Continue Reading “The monster in my hibiscus pot and the dangers of organic farming”

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When I peel garlic, I wonder what the hell was the plant thinking all through the evolution? That it will fly and build a colony on Jupiter? For god’s sake, the pods are shrink wrapped, tied at both ends and then they hug each other like it’s a tribal dance inside a clean film and then there is extra packaging on top so that they can last ten cataclysmic events. It is the Hilsa of condiments. I can still understand some human misbehaved with a…Continue Reading “Peeling garlic, thinking Hilsa, evolution and tribal dances”

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Why should girls have all the fun! I am tired of seeing women tag each other in some saree challenge, some gorgeous pic, some black and white pic and what not. Yaar hadd hai, hum mardon ka koi tag hi nahin hai. So, here are a few ideas, let’s finalise one and start a tag. And, these are very man tags, no woman would ever dare hijack this. So, feel free boys. 1. Post a shaving photo of yours and tag real men who shave….Continue Reading “Facebook tagging campaign ideas for men”

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A decade back, while on a bus to Mussorie, I had written how Delhi was a city that acted as a jail. Punishing those within the premises and punishing harder the ones who tried to escape. That was about the roads, now a decade later, same can be said of the airways. During the last few months, I have had numerous instances of flights that refused to either take off or land in time. One of the Air India flights that I took, this one to…Continue Reading “Flights and learnings”

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For the last few days, Kanhaiya and a fellow students photo has been doing the rounds. She is not a professor, but a fellow student. But why should one need to clarify? They are sitting close to each other. Almost touching. A man a woman, touching. Any scene that depicts a woman as a woman riles something up in a rightwinger. Something about those half pants that traps them in eternal boyhood, contorts their view to see a woman only as a mother or a…Continue Reading “Blame the half pants”

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You feel it when you see a happy photo of a friend, your ex-flame in a happy moment, or even a stranger who seems to have more than you do, or sometimes for no significant reason at all. It is a singularly powerful emotion.  Jealousy. You will not find another instance in life when an enotion that is so pure (pure as juxtaposed to good and evil), so natural, so obvious and so uninhibited has been villified as so much evil. I don’t understand why…Continue Reading “Why we must celebrate jealousy”

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When Facebook friends replace friends and when life is nothing but a long cruel wait between notifications, you need a digital detox. I am on one. Started today. What do I plan to do on my detox? Document every day so I can write a digital article at the end of the quarantine, whenever it is. Day 1 It’s a Monday. After a hard night of partying, woke up with two good old friends, went for a famed chole bhatura breakfast and streetside chai. Fantastic…Continue Reading “My digital detox”

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The ecology will take care of itself. Or, god will. You should have burst a few crackers. You should have stared that street urchin in the eye. Told him it’s not you who brought him to this world. You should not have made that donation if you didn’t want to. It may not look so, but your life is no less of a struggle. Don’t be reluctant. Tell your conscience to shut up. You started where they did. Instruct housekeeping to change your linen. The…Continue Reading “A little less reverent”

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Today morning was an insightful one. As I was wearing my belt, I noticed that I had gone way beyond the last hole. But a man can’t be seen without a belt. That would be the most singular sign that one has rejected civilization in its entirety. Anyway, that brings me to the topic that this little conversation is about – how to eat like a pig and not gain weight. I have been passing on the secret all around. Worrying. If you worry enough,…Continue Reading “Lost by a hole”

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Social media is supposed to be easy and just. It’s the mass engine, takes time but reaches at all the right conclusions. The AAP wins, the Congress loses. The small quirky restaurant wins, the big media advertisers lose. A voiceless intern wins, the pillars of power lose. Unlike in real world, you don’t have to move mountains to get noticed. You do good, put it out there, get dressed and wait for people to lift you on their shoulders. The larger wheel of social media…Continue Reading “You win, social Media!”

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The world is coming to an end. At least, for bloggers, it is. Never before in the history of mankind had a vocation attracted so many talented people without the promise of any tangible rewards. You may argue that hundreds of thousands run to Bollywood to become film stars, even more enroll for doctor and engineer courses, may be, as many stow away in ships and travel to the developed world. That argument sounds solid, so let me tear it apart, one example at a…Continue Reading “6 indisputable reasons why every blogger should go on a strike”

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The rains…they make everything look better. The all drenched girlfriend looks better, the chai and pakoda looks better, go out with a shitty camera and every photo you click looks better. Only if someone would have remembered to air condition the world (talking to you, god!). Anyway, here is a little proof of the monsoon beauty: This is what every amateur, wanna be, under-talented photographer does. Point his camera at the flora and fauna and feel like a rockstar. I believe when the object is…Continue Reading “Monsoon, photography, nobel prize, dragonfly etc”

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