The Rebelle blog

I frequently lose myself over book reviews and introductions to old classics. These past few months, I have been holding cherished conversations with an avid reader who's a passionate linguist as well. When reading becomes a source of much greater joy than other things deemed important in this material world, we know we have struck treasure. Three different articles today gave me immense joy. They reminded me the reasons why I read and choose to spend on building a book collection over everything else. First, about a Dutch town of Bredevoort, where books present better photo-op moments than windmills and is a book town with 20 permanent bookshops in a population of 1500. The town's only English bookshop is run by an Englishman named Leonard Webb settled for the past 30 years in the Netherlands. He runs a handsome one person, exclusively English, independent enterprise. Their oldest book is a religious text published in Latin in 1773. I recall texting a friend in the morning a...

It is a poem that brought me to this country, a map of rough words, a field of empty seeds. The first line threw me into a well of floating foetuses, limbs and two-finger test kits. I could not breathe. India is my country and all Indians are my brothers and sisters. The second line was kind, pulled me out in a town where trees waited for men men waited for night women gathered to fight. I could not breathe. I love my country and I am proud of its rich and varied heritage.I shall always strive to be worthy of it. The third line flew me over a village where snakes drank white rivers hissed at unfaithful gods and babies slept rocking to heady songs. I could not sleep. I shall give my parents, teachers and all elders respect and treat everyone with courtesy. The fourth line drove me to a mall of glass fantasies, debris and discounts where families shopped on delusional credit Money can buy you love, they said as they dropped dead. I did n...

Published as  Gaza - The Hindu , August 02, 2014, written by Sudeep Sen. Soaked in blood, children, their heads blown out even before they are formed.  Gauze, gauze, more gauze — interminable lengths not long enough to soak  all the blood in Gaza. A river of blood flowing, flooding the desert sands with incarnadine hate. An endless lava stream, a wellspring red river on an otherwise parched-orphaned land, bombed every five minutes to strip Gaza of whatever  is left of the Gaza strip. With sullied hands of innocent children,  we strip ourselves  of all dignity and grace. Look at the bodies  of the little ones killed —  their scarred faces smile, their vacant eyes stare  with no malice at the futility of all the blood that is spilt. And even as we refuse to learn from the wasted deaths of these children,  their parents, country, world — weep ...