The Happy Wanderer

Bundled, rolled, crumpled, creased, Sodden, dog-eared, without a cease... Now, possibly, just possibly; it is A remote, yet scary, possibility- Infested. To infect you. With the virus That you fear. I arrive at your doorstep Fresh from a night's grind, oven-ready, On the whole, but, thumbed over several  Times, in several places. As ancient as I am  New. Sporting stories pulled out from archives That don't need a second thought. Yellow journalism, Red-tapism, purple pandemic pessimism, red fumes of Anger from the irate citizenry, green environmentalism, Brown, bare, bold jingoism- all the colors are stamped  Over my thin pages. I am a rainbow- I am not  Black and White, as I once used to be, in form As well as in function. I am vibrant, bursting, eager, To meet you. I love scrutiny- that's probably because I have a virtually non-existent identity of my own. I am merely the mirror, the glistening surface, to The loud views, the charades, the propaganda,  The clar...

"Adversity is the first path to truth." -Lord Byron It seems like it was just yesterday when I associated my worth and well-being with doing well in school, working hard, ensuring that I completed all my homework and all the other tasks I had taken up, being polite and jovial with my friends, and so on and so forth. You get the picture.  While such a cause-effect relationship between the two pillars of your universe that are as independent as they are inter-dependent helps to keep you fuelled and motivated, it may cause you to feel that the cracking of one pillar signals the faulty foundations of the other, and vice-versa. That's when the building can seem to collapse- the walls are reeking plaster and paint, crumbling and cracking, you feel like you have wrought destruction, and bam! Thud! You allow self-doubt to permeate your stronghold like an eerie trickle of muddy rainwater that can peel the plaster right off. If you don't realize your error soon enough, you'...

Image Courtesy: https://www.pinterest.co.uk/maymayped/miss-you-grandpa-quotes/ This was meant to be written in my grandfather's lifetime, But so uncertain is life that I thought there was yet time. So I kept it biding. My grandfather was the person my father reveres the most, Disciplined and principled, his role model, Someone my stolid father looked up to. Silent, subtle and severe-looking, he would sit On his cane chair, and there would merely be An exchange of a few words between him and me, Separated by a generation and by language. Of language, I am not so sure, for he was an avid reader Of English novels, of the language itself. Not merely that, He was a critic, a reading enthusiast- a keen observer, Of characters and plots among many other pragmatic things. But with my father his conversations were endless. And Appa careered wisdom from Thatha's few, meaningful words, While he painted vivid pictures for a man living in solitude, Loquaciously. Like black and white in the ...