jayantiblogshere

When the lights turned red ... I clicked this as the van before me and I were destined to spend precisely 133 more seconds at the traffic light. That is what the red light ticking by seconds indicated. Enough time to pull up the mobile camera and click away although I will have to scribble my thoughts later. . The scene before me was grotesque.  I rolled up my windows to quell the stench and turned on the air conditioning. But I could not escape the sight. They were so docile. As though they knew what they were destined for and the futility of fighting over a better view or more space compared to the fellow chicken stuck in the coop.  Certainly they must have learnt the lessons over a period of time. How long could that have been ?  Since the time they were picked up from the poultry farm.  Was that this morning ? Yesterday ?  Whatever. Could not have been long ago. I noticed some were injured. Some had their legs broken or stuck in between the wi...

It was parked in front of a medicine shop at a busy intersection in a small town in Kerala. It ain’t no Ferrari …Mercedes …  BMW … Audi or even a Skoda. But there were quite few passersby in whom it evoked that strong sense of nostalgia when they turned around for a second glance and looked at the beauty. The awe it inspired in its hey days was unparalleled. If you know what that could mean, you for sure are a balding, greying middle aged man  ( or woman ) by 2016.  Bajaj Chetak .. the iconic scooter from the house of Bajaj came to India in 1979.   It was modelled on the  Italian  version of Vespa.  Made famous by Audrey Hepburn in Roman Holiday in the 60’s There were luna’s,  scooty’s , TVS champ and countless number of motor bikes that came in and went away from the market.  But none really managed to hold the appeal that belonged to the Chetak.  Chetak, named after the warrior hors...

The brown Sahebs, much as it is a work on fiction, follows a close account of not –so fictitious characters that we know from the Indian independence era. Gandhi is possibly the only one who appears as Gandhi while the rest have their names and characters ever so slightly changed. It is an account of the how the British colonial legacy was deliberately preserved when the reins of power changed from the British – the white Sahebs to the Indians – the Brown Sahebs on 15 th  August 1947. The origin of the ostentatious show of power exhibited by the British was copied by the elite Oxbridge educated Indian politicians in stark contrast the the very ideals of simplicity and austerity that formed the fundamentals of the freedom struggle under Gandhi.  The story revolves around the power brokers in Lutyen's Delhi. When the British left, India's elite helped themselves to the ministerial berths and the perquisites that accompany them. Right from the British built bung...

All that is white is not pure and pristine... White is the colour of  the pristine snow…  But in Bangalore you never really know .. Here white is the colour of the Toxic waste Untreated sewage discharged into the lake. This pristine white foam  that greets  the residents of lake view apartments during their morning walk hides a darker truth--it is the toxic waste . The  foam frothing from the  outlets of the streams that join the Vartur lake in Whitefield, Bangalore  is a result of the water in the lake having high content of ammonia and phosphate and very low dissolved oxygen. Sewage from many parts of the city is released into the lake, leaving it extremely polluted.     The man from Bangalore Municipal Corporation is seen spraying something possibly to quell the foam so that it does not froth and pour over into the bridge. There is only so much he could do .   With Builders encroaching land near t...

Here is a video that is probably gone viral on Facebook and youtube. There is very little you feel like writing  after you see this and reflect ... Sounds rather familiar is'nt it ...

The incessant rains lashing the city of Chennai and its suburbs has left the city paralyzed. And the rains do not seem to abate. With fresh rains predicted in the next 48 hours on the bay of Bengal owing to the formation of another depression one wonders if there is a bigger message hidden within natures fury. Yesterdays  earthquake that measured 7.1 on the Richter scale off the Indian ocean only served to deepen the anxiety. Some say it is the global warming and others say it is the el nino effect. There are others who now claim they predicted this days months even centuries ago. Who knows. The blueprint of how the universe will function has already been laid out and there is nothing human beings can do to change this. It is in times like these that we realize how fragile a foundation our lives are built upon. How much we are dependent on the certainty of a calm predictable ecosystem to cooperate with us to help us achieve our petty achievements an...

A dear friend lost her mother today.  She had been care worn for a couple of months now tending to her ailing mother.  Her mother suffered from brain tumour which had relapsed and had affected her neuro motor abilities in many ways.   For the last few weeks my friend had been oscillating with feelings of pity, anxiety, irritability, guilt  and helplessness at her mother’s condition.   Death, especially of a loved one, someone you have known all your life can be a cathartic experience.    A mother is someone  you grow up seeing as a young person , strong and powerful and then over time as you move on to embrace adulthood and middle age, time catches up and then you watch them slowly grow hunched,  senile,  helpless and old. My friend and I talked.  We were talking after a long time. She told me it had been an emotionally and physically draining phase for her.  But as she spoke, she said she had realized the ...

About a week ago when I started off with this book, there was a cyclonic depression that developed in the Bay of Bengal.  The city of Chennai, about 300 miles from where we live has had an  unprecedented downpour and the city is flooded. The city’s lakes have overflown,  storm water drains have choked and the sewage drains are overflowing, causing the otherwise drought ridden city’s urban infrastructure to crumble down.   The Indian Air force has been summoned to ensure that the casualties are reduced and the city survives the deluge. Relatively speaking Bangalore, experiences its seasons very mildly.  Situated, probably equidistant, from the bay of Bengal and the Arabian sea and elevated at about 360 feet from sea level, the weather here is just beautiful.  We are a country blessed with abundant sunlight and we do not appreciate a sunny day like many other ‘English’ speaking countries do.  The sun, for us, is always scorching hot and makes...

It is one of those rare movies where the actors enact their own life story (in most parts) and as themselves. In real life Geoffrey Kendal playing Tony Cunningham in the movie arrived in India in 1944 along with his wife Laura Liddell, playing Clara Cunningham, and was the Actor – manager of the theatre troupe Shakespearana that toured the length and breadth of India playing mostly Shakespeare plays at palaces of Maharajas, Boarding schools, in local town auditoriums and even in street corners or wherever else they could put together an interested audience who could cover up the costs.  Theatre as a performing art, at all times has never been a very lucrative profession. Some of today’s talented and successful actors try and manage that delicate balance between theatre their first love and its cash rich cousin the movies in order to pay the bills and yet continue to pursue their passion. Struggling with the onslaught of Bollywood allure as well as the...

This is a submission for Thursday photo challenge where the theme for the week is "TREATS" (Candy, Chocolate Bar, Cake, Pie, Ice Cream, Comfort Food,...)