The Rebelle blog

The last few days have been harrowing. Listening to all the crass and senseless statements by the politicos in our nation makes me wonder if we are closer to reaching our doom as a Democratic nation. I've been reading and studying the governing system and public administration for quite some time now. And though I've no expertise on the subject, I understand that the people who carefully studied and drafted the constitution were top notch intellectuals who knew what they were doing. If only, this current breed of pseudo-politicians understood what being a Democratic nation means, then we could have some peace and not make a collective fool of ourselves. This being said, I'm saddened to see the state of our affairs in cities and small villages in Maharashtra. Everyday the news channels broadcast a story on thirsty hamlets, drought-stricken lands and dying animals in Marathwada. Now somewhere water is being sold at 1paise per litre rate. This is what we've come to. We ...

UNCOMMON MAN Interview with cartoonist R.K. Laxman, from Reader's Digest, December 2004. By Ashok Mahadevan and Mohan Sivanand He’s been one of India’s most popular cartoonists for more than five decades, but Rasipuram Krishnaswamy Laxman is not the merry, benign funnyman many of his fans fondly imagine him to be. He has a mordant view of the world, especially of politicians, and he doesn’t suffer fools of any stripe gladly. Woe betide you if you say something silly in his presence. Work has been the passion of his life, and even the stroke he suffered last year has not slowed him down much. He has to be helped to get up and to move around, but while drawing he remains as fiercely alone as ever. We met the octogenarian Magsaysay-award winner at his Mumbai home on a recent Saturday evening, but only after he’d finished his cartoons for the next day’s paper. After we’d been served fine South-Indian coffee, his testy look made it clear that there was to be no fooling around. ...

I attended a star gazing session on the weekend and it was a wonderful night. I have always wanted to lie under the night sky and look at the stars and just be there. How starry nights are romanticised in movies! Its cold and the bright twinkle in the sky is a gentle reminder and assurance that the best things in life are always in front of us, only we need to see them through the dust speckled invisible glasses we wear all the time. I always think that the stars have a mysterious charm over us. How many of us succumb to this charm? In fact many don't even register its presence. I felt so good to be there and, because I tend to get emotional over nature's many wonders, I couldn't stop tears streaming my eyes. After spending an entire night and early morning spotting comets, constellations, star clusters and Jupiter, I felt I could remain glued to the telescopes all night and day long. An incredible experience of my life. Later in the evening, I picked up 'The Selecte...

I am very happy, today. I will be going for a star gazing event this saturday, something that I've been meaning to do ever since I was in school. I am also excited about reading a big, fat book on Planets, Stars and Galaxies. I feel like a small kid. Maybe I am, at heart. Also, got hold of some poems in an old folder and I decided to post them here. These were written in  2010-11, which was a low phase in my life. I had just graduated from Architecture school, and the internship wasn't coming through. I was an unhappy lot during that period, and my words came out in shades of negative mediocrity. I can't believe how unhappy I was that I could ever use words such as 'blades' or 'hope fades', glad now that I made it through all of that. Of course, like it happens with everyone else, I moved on from all the depression and stressed times in my life and won't be going back to that low phase again anymore, ever. I strongly believe now that we must search...