Longings of a heart

National highway 43 is an epitome of India’s post-independence progress. As the sun turned the ochre horizon to ripe orange on that Sunday morning, we were racing through the 8-lane expressway that connected Hyderabad with Bangalore. Three hours later we retreated from the enviable route to the dusty kutcha roads to reach Kurnool. My mom had an invitation to a baby naming ceremony of her relatives. In India, we have celebrations on innumerable occasions and I am inclined to think that the strength of our society lies in bondages we have as families with one another. A new life was born and it was time to rejoice. The neonate was awed at the sea of humanity that embraced her that day, not knowing that she was the cause of this familial hullabaloo. I got to meet scores of aunts, uncles, cousins. Old relations were renewed, new ones were formed. After a heavy lunch we set out to Hi-tech city again reviewing the revelry that we were part of. Few miles down the road, the post lunc...

GLAMOURISING GODS I walk through the streets that flaunt a huge L’Oreal hoarding pummeling us to buy the nail polish without which we are not worthy enough. I enter the cloth showroom that encourages me to sin with a nefarious tagline- because it is so easy to forgive yourself. The roads are replete with advertisements showcasing blonde half naked women cajoling us to fall for temptation. As I move on there are flexi boards of colleges with beautiful teenage girls (and no boys for a co-ed institution) with small font description of their infrastructure. Enter my house you will find the plastic carry bags with women adorned by heavy jewellery foisting on us the philosophy that happy marriages are not possible with out gold and silk saris. I then enter my dining room and glance at the walls painted by fine distemper. I see a moderate sized rectangular wall hanging reminding that Christ is the silent spectator of this house. The other wall has a portrait of Jesus and a c...

METAMORPHOSIS The howls of the wolves and the rattle of the crickets interrupted the scary silence of Lamtaput. It was just 9 pm but the thick blanket of darkness was not challenged by any flickers of flames unlike urban India. I had just had the last morsel of my supper when a phone rang with an aura of urgency about it. A woman in labor had just arrived and I being on call that day had to see her first. With a torch in one hand and a stethoscope in another, I trudged along the path to the hospital. The labor room was filled with the customary hustle-bustle as I walked in. The patient crying in pain, a dozen chaperons attending to her, a dozen more outside the room separated by a wooden door and the nurses busy with recording vitals- all caused an unrest in my heart. I pretended confidence and gave a ‘I-saw-this-a-thousand –times-before’ look to the husband of the patient assuring him that I would take care. Just out of medical school, that too from one of the best in our s...

Do you remember me teacher? 12 years ago I was your student in St. Francis De Sales high school. In one of the long walks over that building corridor, I met you for the first time, with an explanatory letter for coming late to school. The initial encounter was marked with fear and uncertainty as you guided me to the class. The way you taught us English was exemplary that would send our blossoming minds to imaginary worlds. From Shakespeare’s Macbeth to Khuswanth Singh’s Mother Teresa; from O Henry’s New York to Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes, we wandered through each of those worlds. The captivating situations you asked us to write about ignited our intellects. You were strict and Oh! How much I hated it! You would not budge from the standards you set for us for anything. I was asked to write an imposition 5 times for having written a prose in ‘active voice’, when it had to be done otherwise. But thank God, that the sense of language had taken good hold of me since then. How simple y...

WHY CHRISTMAS? I write these lines in genuine confusion. And I write these lines from a milieu that has already submerged itself in the avalanche of celebration. The pagan festival that marked the birth of Constantine twenty centuries ago has totally forgotten him and remembers the radical rabbi of Galilee who lived for 33 years and was later crucified for being unpleasant to the Jewish teachers of those times. They called Him Jesus of Nazareth and the people who follow Him were called Christians in Antioch not too late after His death. The story did not end there. The real story started there. Disciples and women who formed His close company soon found that His grave was empty and for forty days He was found talking and moving in the midst of them before He ascended to Heaven. These followers were native fishermen.  They had left everything to follow Jesus who in their opinion had the Words of Life. These men went around the world, (India included) and carried the news about ...

WORLDS APART I am sitting in the centrally air-conditioned computer lab of the Dodd library in CMC Vellore. I type these lines on an Intel Atom processor connected through a high speed Wi-Fi. This block is situated is a ten storied building connected through elevators and pneumatic chute systems. I start the day with a good morning SMS and a refreshing shower thanks to the 24 hours water supply and uninterrupted power that illuminates the long corridors of the place we live. Then I enter the mess for breakfast that serves extensive menus all three times and indulge in some gastronomic delights. I approach the library and drown myself in the ocean of books to face the PG entrance taking breaks with hot Chocolates served by automated machines and surfing mobile internet.   A life marked with hi-tech gadgets, unbroken comforts that can pamper you in a second and spoil you in the next. Two months ago I was in a totally different world, may be like a H.G.Wells who travelled ba...

LIGHTS AND SHADOWS  He opened his eyes, looked at me and smiled. 8 year old Bhagaban was lying in the second bed of the paediatric ward of Ashakiran hospital. The scene was quite different few days before. Brought from a distant hamlet called Badigod, he was the second son of a family who were finding it hard to make both ends meet. Badigod had just begun to taste the fruits of development. Mobile networks had intruded the air space; roads connected them to social mainstream. Bikes, cable televisions, urban colours through migration had all affected this remote part in tribal Orissa. But this family was not fortunate enough to enjoy this progress. As if poverty was not an ailment enough, Guru Mattam the head of the family had passed away due to an undiagnosed illness. The mother took up the baton of leadership and worked as a daily labour to fetch some food for her young ones. Soon another tragedy struck. The elder son Bhagaban had begun to develop swelling of the body. ...