Sonnet: Within a Moment

So much chaos within a moment

Spent in mono,dia & sometimes trialogues

What is good, better or best

Soundlessly sneaks out the rogue

Leaving the fretting, fuming & more

Keening heart with restlessness

Sinking into subdued torpor

Bind the shackl’d to the harness

Check the unreined! Faraway it gallops!

Tether the strain or you’ll strain the tether.

***

You delve in its whys and wherefores

Seeking answers if not the joys from it

Indecisions burden it as the clock keeps score

Burning & turning & roiling on the spit

Were you searching a better instant in a morrow?

For now is the future you waited for yesterday

There’s just so much further time to borrow

Do, please do- when sun shines make hay!

Einstein’d vouch; the time is relative

Be in the moment & the moment You’ll Be.

A Slick Life-- a story of Dehra Dun and its people and ONGC

Ruskin Bond isn’t the only one who has made ‘A Town called Dehra’ his home. His book by the same name apart from reliving his childhood days growing in this sleepy town is also an endorsement of the fact that there is something uniquely special about it. What? There’s the ubiquitous greenery, simple hill folk that flock it in search of jobs, a sort of unhurried pace of life; well! Sort of! And people still find time while on walks or scooters to say hello to that acquaintance you spotted on the road. Do people still want this kind of life? The answer is yes they do. But without losing out on the speed they’ve gathered in the fast lane. So we find many a city slickers homing in into the town for rest and recoup because the place gives a deep sense of contentment as well as the spiritual connect that is such an integral part of it.

Dehra Dun, the capital of the state of Uttarakhand (India) has always evinced much interest of people even since the olden times as the yellowed pages of history would tell of its renown as the place of ‘green hedges and grey heads’. Lush green foliage dotted the landscape of the valley and made it one of the greenest in the country. The grey heads- symbolized the retired senior civil and defence officials who chose it as their last refuge because of its salubrious climate and peaceful ambience.

Migration of people from various part of India had begun more than 200 years ago and gave it the cosmopolitan character that it bears now. Apart from the hill folks like the Garhwalis and Gorkhas, many disciples of Guru Ram Rai settled here. During the early 1950s, the setting up of the Oil & Natural Gas Directorate (now Corporation) brought in many Bengali families who took jobs in ONGC, Ordinance factory and the Survey of India. Needless to say, all who came to know the place and it’s people, embraced the place as their own and settled down here.          

 The times then saw a wonderful camaraderie, cultural and reassertion of Indian values in the society what with the call for freedom struggle gaining strength. Gandhiji had unified India like none other could have and the country and its people were nervously excited to see how the development of the country would unfold post independence. The many sacrifices, turmoil, thoughts, mental state of the common people during the struggle are something nobody knows about. We have been inundated with many books eulogising the contributions of political stalwarts time and again but nothing on the contributions of the common man.

  A Slick Life  is a story of a common man from Dehra Dun who joined ONGC as a driller. His life exemplifies the joys, laughter, difficulties, the wars that shook the country, the Dehra Dun of yore and most importantly how the oil industry took firm roots in India and the immense contribution of ONGC in it. The story is a never before explored subject of oil well drilling and an endearing look at the past at how people used to be once upon a time! Perhaps, you’ll recall things you’ve probably forgotten by now.

It is a must read for every Indian.

PS: A Slick Life is available on 50% OFF for the month of JUNE so HURRY....n grab your copy today.

For PAPERBACK of the book contact:  authoricha@gmail.com

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Book Review- Be Careful What You Wish For by Jeffrey Archer

18/02/2015 / LEAVE A COMMENT / EDIT

This is the latest from one of my favourite writers in fiction writing. A gripping tale of a family becoming victim to personal vendetta and business rivalry in an arena that knows no value for ethics. The story has all the neccessary ingredients to keep it going but I do miss the incisive wit and cunning that spewed from Mr Archer’s pen in his previous novels like ‘Kane & Able’,’Not a penny more, not a penny less’ and others.
The story is about the Clifton family who is being targetted by Don Pedro Martinez with a vicious vengeance that will brook no obstacle to obtain his aim. While the Cliftons are being keenly guarded by the police, Don Pedro takes his fight onto Emma Clifton’s brother the cabinet secretary Sir Giles Barrington’s chances to further his political career. Other than that all is well in everyone’s personal lives as Emma’s children Sebastian and Jessica find suitable life partners too with all sides giving their blessings until Don Pedro plays his heinous part to bring unhappiness all concerned what with his connections with the Nazis and even the IRA.
In all of this, Cedric Hardcastle, an outsider to these families, appears like a godfather and sets about righting the wrongs. But is he able to help them despite his efforts is what is most interesting.
Just when I’d decided Mr Archer going all mellow and spongy soft with most of his characters, he lends a twist that made me ask him- Why sir why…?

Mother-By Order

 Hey all, here's something I'd posted sometime back for you all to read while I'm reading another book to review for you all! Enjoy...... 

Two news items caught my eye this month...and I came to the conclusion that the world will never cease to surprise us ever since the old order changed into a never-settling-into-any-fixed pattern world.

Mothers are in demand. Well, they’ve always been since eternity. The old order had a fixed place and role for the women and when ambitions and feminism were hidden well underneath the many folds of petticoats and patriarchy, she delivered herself very ably to the various demands made on her. Of all else her role as a mother was what she excelled in the most as the one who could go to any lengths to take care of her children. She has been widely proclaimed the nurturer, the care giver, the nurse, the hearth warmer, the house keeper.....the keeper and so on.

Ma, maman, mamma, mutti, mother, madre- as she is known in different regions of the world n different languages. But it without doubt is an entity that has been most referred, revered, and loved than any other relationship.  Whatever the older social system gave to the women, it itself received the better of the deal naturally. A picture of a happily laughing family, the mother serenely knitting away as they sit comfortably in the drawing room or kitchen or wherever, comes to mind when I think of the them days.

Men as we know have traditionally been the providers. Mothers devoted, fathers providers- the complete package.

So the first news that caught my attention was of a man from Hong Kong who had put out an advertisement for...hold your breath...yes a ‘mother’!

Now now! After the initial stumping I went into the next stage of consciousness and asked myself in my mind ‘Exactly why? And what kind of mamma?’ To which the news report stated that the man did not have a mother since his childhood and he wanted to know the feeling of having a mother. That was about all the report had to give so I do not know the answer to my next query- What kind of mamma?

I am still waiting for any more news about this man’s quest to find a mother and good luck too! Hail ye changing order, mothers are now a commodity that I presume will gain more in demand in times to come.

The second news item was closer home and again, is an indicator of the times we are in. A young man from Kerala, India shocked not just his own parents but all who heard of it when he said that he wanted to be with ‘HIS’ mother-a nurse working in an Arab country, who he had found through the internet! No it was not a case of a biological mother finding her separated child or vice-versa. The boy had come to know her through internet and remained in touch with her so much so that they became a family!

She apparently had also transferred some money into his account and thus...strengthened the filial bonds with self. This raises a good set of questions itself but one thing that I find in it is that it fulfils the need of  being a ‘Provider’ ;) and a mom too!

Living in a virtual neighbourhood, FB family and friends we’ve become the 3-D caricatures of our human lives. We are being virtually manipulated into believing that the world is enclosed inside our laptops, i-pads, mobiles and the lot.

Another thing Hong Kong man.....you may have to wait a long time to find the old order mom if that’s who you are looking for.

We – the Phoenix

              Today’s early morning walk brought a close encounter with the perpetual persevering quality of nature when one finds oneself at the end of the road. Well, literally. Reaching the point where right at the curve, one road gave into another that itself winded into a never ending maze, was where I came upon this sight that I thought was extra ordinary.
Beyond the wire mesh that divided the footpath from the protected and enclosed green cover that included a host of wild flowers, tall Cedar, Ficus, Casia, Mulberry, Pine etc, came to view a green bouquet of Banyan branches, each one healthy, independent and ready to very soon enforce an identity of their own. Nothing new in that. All plants grow this way. Some grow laterally into a bush, some tall and erect some tall and wide canopied while some raise branches in this or that direction according to space, climate, or the general environment. The one thing common to all these plants is the fact that they grow while drawing strength from their roots.
My Banyan tree branches did the same as nature ordained they should. In the prime of their life, they grew gaily unmindful of any dangers or care for or of the world while they received their strength from the ground below their stems. Except, the ground wasn’t immediately beneath them. What formed a fertile base for them was a lopped off or possibly a storm fallen stump of an old Banyan tree that lay rotting and circled by a net of grass that wove itself around the still carcass of a once magnificent glory. It was something that wasn’t very old, but mature enough to demand veneration of all those that passed under its fulsome shade at some point in the past.
The tree mustn’t have expected an early demise too for it must’ve had many hopes harboured in its tough wood, through its seeds or its potent rooting branches. It is the tree of eternity. It can perpetuate its life interminably if left on its own. The sapling that emperor Ashoka’s son Mahendra and daughter Sanghamitra took to Sri Lanka with the Buddha’s message of peace and non violence still lives on. Faith is the key. Faith didn’t let the sapling be destroyed, veneration gave it longevity.
My fallen stump- mine for the moment- went down to forces beyond its control and even when virulently infested by termites and ants from within, it maintains a sturdy facade on the outside. With the young roundish and green leaves radiate in the early sun’s rays, the stump slowly, almost imperceptively crumbles down unto its dull, earthy grave. Dust unto dust. With it will die away the last remnants of its reigning magnificence and power that those passers by withheld with much awe and more such aspirations it kept within itself to achieve in later times. Or will it?
The sprouting branches tell a different story. Why have they made a home in a crumbling nest of termite ridden pocket of a bark and not taken the solidity offered by the earth just a little distance away? The only reason I can find is that it’s because the stump wanted it to happen. They are a product of the stump’s own hopes and aspirations and instead of letting them die; it strove to create other entities to perpetuate itself. The tree was re-birthing itself from its own dust much like the phoenix from its own ashes. Makes me believe that the Phoenix wasn’t just a lore and in fact its the way the nature’s cycle works. Evolution is all about perpetuating the self. We keep repeating such cycle even in our lifetime. Every time we fall, we rise, we perpetuate our beliefs, we- the Phoenix.

Name of book:      DORK-The adventures of Robin Einstein Varghese

Author:                   Sidin Vadukut

Here’s a book as promising many a funny adventures, as the title suggests, bringing us close to a dangerously normal, humble and unwittingly intelligent Robin Einstein Varghese, whose office travails pull us into the whirlpool of his first year in his consultant firm- Dufresne Partners.

The book takes you through the inside-out ways of an organisation and its people’s way of thinking and functioning and makes you a willing participant in the process. Despite the rich dose of humour sprayed all over the story, there are times when you feel like shouting at Robin, the hero (?) for thinking or doing something no one else would otherwise think to do. You live and breathe his anxieties, fortunes and misfortunes as you move ahead with each word.

It is a story of a fresh business school pass out who lands himself a job with Dufresne Partners who in turn have hired him out of desperation themselves. Being a pass out becomes a catch phrase with Robin as he shows extra ordinary ability to pass out leading to unprecedented and unpredictable consequences. As he tells himself in incredulous wonder- “Sometimes I think I am the character in some insane office culture novel.”

This is the first volume of the Dork trilogy by Sidin Vadukut and promises engaging and good writing by the author.

A must read.