The Rebelle blog

Nothing is less likely to inform the ignorance of their basking than telling them it is abysmal. - George Bernard Shaw A few days ago, I read something about Cultural Appropriation and I honestly can't to my utter embarrassment remember anything more about the article. Today, on 28th August 2017, Judiciary in India delivered a powerful prison sentence to a fake godman who dominated the news for his notoriety for years. 20 years in prison for two sexual assault cases pending since the last fifteen years. It is indeed a big victory apart from the cynicism of few who moan the delay in justice but they forget that in India, justice delayed is often justice denied! I read the original letter written by one of the sexual abuse victims to the then PM, Vajpayee. That letter is chilling in details, giving a detailed account of Ram Rahim's many crimes that includes raping 35-40 sadhvis (nuns), murdering people and abusing women in his so-called dera- a place of worship. Unfortuna...

I have never till date felt so defenceless over a headache! In fact, I have never given power to my body to enslave me with sickness. I have always been healthy for years. My last bout of sickness was in 2005 when I was bedridden for a week apparently from the exhaustion of travelling to and fro from college. Architecture as academics was exhausting. Instead of expanding my health issues any further here, I would like to write about my recent disinterest in blogging.  On one hand, I have been reading excessively like a mad(wo)man, devouring a couple of hundred pages every day or so, and yet I find myself bereft of words to write here. I have also met some new people, readers who have turned their passion into a business, which is too cool, I think! The more I look at people who have developed this transgression from reading and owning books and then, selling them, the more subconscious I have become about my books at home. My Dad and I share a common giant wall bookshelf with...

There is this thing about reading that is unique and personal to each. It awakens feelings and thoughts that one could not have conjured while sitting idly. Although that is too much of an overstatement to be true. But whenever I share my reads on a public platform like Goodreads or Instagram where book stories are put under the hashtag of bookstagram , I feel the result is pretty much the same as sharing them with someone in person. There are so many amazing people who are bold, uninhibited and clear while speaking their mind, especially on the internet. Some of them have become such good friends of mine even though we haven't met or have no possibility of meeting in the near future. I am sounding more like the pessimist but it is true, sadly.  One can't live on books and thus is effectively proved in a book I read two days ago. It's called, The House of Paper written by Carlos Dominguez . It came as a very timely shocker and a reminder to me since I was drifting in...

Doesn't that happen with all of us? At some point in our lives, there comes a moment when everything seems to dissipate into nothingness, without any meaning and further direction. There are these mocking days and then there are good ones! And sometimes there's a delightful feeling when one thing leads to another... Today evening, I immersed in one such serendipity. It started with Ezra Pound's poem that got me and an acquaintance talking for a long hour and then I got hooked further on Homer's Illiad, Garcia Lorca's verses, Blake's Songs of Innocence and the very surprisingly lyrical Anne Bronte. I have an utterly beautiful hardback copy of Anne Bronte's Agnes Grey, and I haven't read it yet. It sits on a low shelf in my drawing room surrounded by David Copperfield and The Yearling.  Anne Bronte truly took me by surprise. One of her poems, A Reminiscence tugged at my heartstrings. She died very young, aged 29. Somehow I feel a close bond with wri...