The moving finger writes.............

Decades of withering. Decades of " sochenge, dekhenge." Decades of inaction. We grew up in an age when the Punjab terrorist problem was taken for granted, the Kashmir problem flared up and the weakness of successive governments became painfully evident. And then, in later years, terrorist strikes in Delhi, 2008. Mumbai attacks, 2008. Hyderabad blasts, 2013. Sick. Nauseating. All we could do was look in anger, while the usual "protests " by our government in International fora,went on. I remember standing at the Gateway of India in 2011 and shivering at the audacity of foreign terrorists to cross over and strike at will. It never abated. Every year, a humiliating strike would take place. Pampore. Gurdaspur. Pathankot. Our soldiers suffered. Our nation suffered. Our image as a self- respecting nation suffered. Uri was the final flash point. The collective anger of a nation spilled over. And finally, we have a government that walks the ta...

               (Originally written in Sept 2016; edited in Aug 2017) As I grew up in life, I learnt that good friends are hard to come by. And good friends at a later stage of life, very hard if not  impossible. Well, guess  what? I was proved wrong  in Pune. It was a lazy Sunday afternoon of November, 2011 . I had found out the coordinates of this book reading club from the social meeting site Meet Up, coordinated by  Rajesh Naidu and Palki Mawar . And so, with some trepidation , I stumbled into Costa Cafe, on F.C . Road, arguably the most chic location of Pune, to attend the P une Book Readers' Club meeting. They seemed formidable, from the range of activities and the books covered. Rajesh looked like an imposing chap, the body building kind.I was kind of hesitant, but then,desperately looking for a cultural outlet in Pune, I stepped in. The  beginning  of the  journey- " Sharing yo...

  Bipolar. A person who is maniac and depressive alternately. Happy at one time, sad at another. The APA ( American Psychiatric Association) of USA, the imposing grand daddy of the global " mental healthcare system “ ,who decide arbitrarily via their network of psychiatrists worldwide as to what constitutes a mental disorder and what does not ( with gentle and not so gentle prodding from Pharma companies) ,says that people with bipolar disorder , " have extreme and emotional mental states that occur at distinct times, called mood episodes." And going by standard psychiatric literature, the occurrence of bipolar disorder is around 3% in the community (again, based on arbitrary and questionable criteria decided by psychiatrists ). Is that the case, really ? To critically examine this issue, let's look at the "case" of Lord Shiva, whom many of us worship daily, in all his glory.Lord Shiva is silent,medit...