This is my World

It was raining ! When Andy was born, his mother was barely 15. The Madras edition of Hindu, dated April 29,1962 carried her story on the front page, "14 year old raped by 3 in school !". The word 'raped' was in bold red letters. And as a matter of fact, within those 25/30 horrible minutes someone had managed to fire his sperm into her. She knew who it was(though, It would be hard to tell on which round), for two of them were easily over her father's age. That was the day Andy was born, probably to a bell boy, but it took another 2 months for the World to know it. And on February 6,1963, he was cradled in his mother's arms. Many of them, including her own parents, wanted her to abort Andy. But she wanted him and she had him. Throughout his way to freedom, his name was debated. But his mother never let go Andy. She did not know why though. But she always felt it had a connection with her dream. A dream in which she saw a jail called Shawshank . Andy crawle...

I often seem to be forgetting the number of states in my country these days. It was 25 when I was in class V(at least my Geography book said so). Then Delhi graduated from an Union Territory to a state. That is 26. So did Goa. So 27. Or did it? Back to 26. Then we got Chattisgarh, Uttarkand and Jharkand. 26+3=29. But well, is Andhra +1 or +2? What the fuck? Two things are unfortunate here. When someone asks me the number of stated in India, I end up answering "Late twenties or Early thirties", as if I am some novel writer telling the age of my lead character. And my kids(who are a decade away from birth)will have to learn the things I learnt in my Geography, in their history. Well, not a big change when the number of planets in our Solar system change. Little would have Potti Sreeramalu known when he died 57 years ago, that the state he gave birth to would be fighting itself to get split in less than 60 years. His death lead to one of the biggest events in the Indian history....

It was 25 meters in length and 3 meters across. It should have served as a drainage pipe instead was serving as a house for a four member family. Changing governments, deferring politicians, and altering policies have all abandoned the pipe, but, well, Moorthi found use for it. Orphaned at the age of 6, he has been living in this cylindrical house for 34 years now. Of course, he did not know that. He never knew his age as well. Men who fear death count their age, not he. Moorthi has been married to Selvi for 12 years now and had two kids, Muthu , 11 and Meena , 10. For both Muthu and Meena , the abandoned drainage pipe has been their only house. Right from birth, they both have crawled, learnt to walk, and run within the blackened concrete walls. They played around it, sat on its roof to watch the vehicles speeding on the National Highway, slept within it an lived in it. And they were in love with it. It provided them protection from the scorching sun, chilly winds and heavy rains....

A weekend in Bangalore without a visit to a mall, almost seems impossible these days. If I don't bother anything, I still find it a good place to roam around, or grab a quick bite, or if I find time(which I most often do) watch a nice movie in a comfortable multiplex. For the past few months(well, really close to an year), I have had a companion who accompanies me in this adventure(if I may call it so). She is only of my very few close friends(you can count the number in a single hand), who shares a nice rapport with me. I will tell you, she is one girl with a lotta questions and I am a guy with too little answers to them. One of her questions made me write this article. As usual, this last Saturday, We were out, in front of a mall, when we saw this guy. He might have been in his late twenties or early thirties. With a dhoti, white shirt and no slippers, the man with pale skin and blond hair would have passed for both an Indian and an English. Though I am not sure about his natio...

The number that is going to do the rounds in the next couple of years is 2012. A movie with this number as its title is hitting the screens soon. Rumors, gossips, and prophecies linking 2012 are already floating the air. Many renowned scientists, archaeologists and a hell lot of experts in various fields are pursuing dozens of researches on 2012. "The World is coming to an end !". You heard me right. That is the what. The World is the where and we are the why. How is still being debated and who is really not a who. And now, we will discuss the when. We will start from where the others started. MAYANS, a South American civilization(dated 2000 B.C. to 250 A.D.) that devised a calender, which has led many scientists to the conclusion that the World is at the verge of destruction. The calendar, a cycle repeating itself over 5016 years and this cycle, scientists believe, ends on December 21, 2012. The end of things. And our archaeologists have discovered a code with blackened and ...

There are three ways to make you do things. Make the thing, fun to do, force you into doing it or make sure you do it. Terrorism is no exception. Some of you might want to call it a protest, others would like revolution. Call it by any name, it is still the thing. In her latest book, "Listening to Grasshoppers", Arundathi Roy(one of my role models), chose to call it RESISTANCE. I am not going to comment on it. Two reasons, one I am no expert in human violence, two I have not read the book yet(I am eager to lay my hands on it soon). Whatever I know about the book is from a newspaper article. Let us hear the grasshoppers. First, let me make clear where I stand. A couple of years ago, when I was still in college, I had a soft corner for Communism. On books, It looked a great idea. Slowly, I learnt how irrelevant it has become to this modern World. The 20 th century saw Communism as a creature with gun in a hand and a cloth in another, the cloth to wipe off the blood the gun sp...

For sometime now, people have been yelling at me for writing a lot of sad stories in my blog. The wanted an article without words like tears, blood, heart, cry death, etc. So I decided to give them one, a funny one. But Life is not so much fun to write. It has deaths, it has cries. It spills blood. So I started searching for the thing, that is only fun. Movies. So let us talk movies. First things first. Story, the heart and brain of any movie. Well, these days you gotta search for this thing in a movie. I will not be surprised if movies introduces a trivia at the end "Find the story and win a lakh rupees!". As the 21st century is trying to crawl its way through the pages of history, both the brains of men and stories of movies has been hard to find. Story writing has become the easiest job with the story template readily available. "Hero is born into a wealthy family. When he was young, his father gets killed and all their wealth turns ash. The single mother does house ...