Oh to be alive

She counts the hours, by the rays of the Sun, she counts her breath, from when it begun. She counts the strangers from the shadows that come. She waits among the blur of the day, but only for one. He makes her complete; he listens, he talks, he is the winsome one; the only one to whom she has succumbed. Her life now revolves around a dream she’s spun, the shadows come and go, gnawing, clawing: eroding her soul. She waits still, unmoving, unnerved, for her exoneration is in the silent love embedded, deep in his heart. ©Copyright Suverchala Kashyap   (Inspired by the oldest profession of the world)

Who does one look up to, in terms of role models today? The newspapers and news channels are flush with corruption scams, rape cases, hate crimes, adulterous relationships, hit and run cases of BMWs and the like with the drivers being young and spoiled, indulged and callous; but, with the biggest weapon money.   Money that can buy you in, money that can buy you out, money is indeed what it’s all about. Money that is bandied about, changing hands, furtively moving around: money one just can’t have enough of, lucre honey, there’s only more. So the take home lessons are: be brash, be savvy, get away if you can, live in the fast lane; enjoy the benefits of another’s booty. Beg, borrow, steal; snivel and practice sycophancy, just do anything in the shortest possible way, but make sure you to get to the top at the fastest rate. Even if it means, trampling on another, being slanderous; adopting just about any salacious means to reach the luscious end. Devour, devastate, degrade any...

The headline may reek of sheer plagiarism, but nothing could sum up the current bizarre state of affairs (pun intended) and even State affairs, better than Mark Haddon’s title of his masterpiece, by a similar name. Therein lay some layered, labyrinthine intricacies of the human brain, to which not all the answers are easily available; but what one is noticing now with the social networking boom is a strange disorder, or let’s say an obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) of a different kind.    An eerie silence envelops the being as one looks around the metro coach, packed with people of all hues and types.  But, if one were to tune in, to the sounds of silence, the extra sensitive tympanum would certainly pick up a humming buzz, emanating from the shiny, colourful objects that each individual is tapping into. The speed, with which nimble fingers collectively work on their respective screens, would put many a keyboard player to shame. They look up for a minute or l...

One hot afternoon, as the sun blazed overhead, I cruised along, on the near vacant roads:  a rare sight or opportunity, in the bursting-at-the- seams urban spaces. For nearly two hours, I had been out on a two-wheeler and was on the lookout for the shade of a tree to park and call a friend who lived en route. But, not a single tree that would give shade, was visible as far as the eye could see; this being one of the posh main roads, of one of the so called fast growing cities of Gujarat, that once upon a time prided itself for its large number of verdant,  robust trees. Not meaning to feel despondent, I veered toward a scraggy looking one that was barely big enough to provide shade to a squirrel, leave alone me. Just as my irritation seemed to be mounting, I saw the most beautiful sight that made me stop dead in my tracks, despite the scorching heat.  A little ahead of me I saw a man riding a rickshaw, meant for carrying goods and not people. Well what could be b...

In the deepest recesses of the mind, there is sometimes a thought unkind, niggling, dying: resurfacing, sublime. Shadows, traces: some morose, some exultant, well defined. Jostling colours, fading shapes, moving pictures, convoluted lives. Rearing its head yet again, it connives, gasping for breath, its pushed out, dying. Supplanting it with seeds of love, washing it out, in bright sunshine. In the far recesses of the mind, sometimes there is a thought unkind…   ©Copyright Suverchala Kashyap    

I know you all hate sermons, at your age I did too. I know it’s not easy when everyone chants aloud, at equal intervals: That and this, you mustn't do! You wonder what the hue and cry is about, ‘cause all you want is to get a bite, of the forbidden fruit! No, it’s not what you think, it’s simple and true, I know all you want to do, is break some rules… Well go ahead and do it, but spare a minute to think, is this what I really want to do, something, that lasts but a blink? I thought the latest scourge was AIDS or worse still H1N1, but, not perhaps for me and you… I guess you are way behind, as the newest thing, plaguing one & all, is the relationship flu!! It begins young, maybe at nine today, dies out as soon too, so by the time you are twenty, there’s nothing left to do… Well this is nothing new; long ago it was called by another name, but was untainted, innocent. All wanted to be afflicted by it, back...

Sunday , May 12, 2002 Article If only there was a messiah in all of us Suverchala Kashyap S TILL swaggering under the impact of a killer quake that spelt havoc a year ago, Gujarat recently witnessed a death dance of the worst kind, in the aftermath of the Godhra inferno. Mindless violence—that seemed to show no sign of abating for more than a month—is still rearing its mean head in the most unlikely of places. It is the common people who can make a difference by listening to the voice of sanity. Logic and reason are qualities that have taken a backseat in the current scenario and there is a strong underlying wave of hatred and fear of a particular community. It gets worse by the day under a chief minister who has all along supported and approved the backlash, and has in more ways than one justified what he calls "a reaction." Several appeals and calls for his dismissal from intellectuals and other quarters have come to naught. The situation, hence,...