Drishti - the vision

Nostalgia has been one of my favourite words of English language. Not just because it contains in itself a powerful emotion which seems to accord the "Past" its rightful importance over the  much hyped "Present" and the much feared "Future", but also because of the sheer formation of the word itself. The last syllable is open ended which continues into eternity and rightly so, as someday it would indeed engulf all that is present and will be future. It did not break into my vocabulary until very recently (may be as recently as 8 years ago) and for some reason Nostalgia always sticks out in my mind with one other word- Nepotism. May be because they are usually in the same section of the vocabulary lists. Whereas Nepotism is overtly negative and may seem to be unrelated to Nostalgia I have always felt the two words to be very closely related. And together they remind me of human weaknesses. No matter how strong someone pretends to be, everyone at some point...

It has been over a month since I came to Nigeria. Life did not give me any hints until last year that Nigeria could be on the list. Coming from where I came from this was not even a remote possibility and no one (Paul the octopus included) could ever have predicted that I would watch the 2010 FIFA world cup in a room on Bonny Island in the middle of the Atlantic. But in the end I did. And I am not complaining, no, actually quite the contrary. I am in fact delighted that i got some new company and a very charged up atmosphere which made the games far more enjoyable than they would have been back home. And then of course Ghana was the icing on the cake. Nigeria has turned out to be quite an experience (this one I am sure anyone could have predicted). Though it is not the usual experience of being charmed by the great architecture or scenic beauty or daredevil stunts or anything like that which are more characterstic of the West. This is an experience in  People. It is about...

Time to revive my blog. Well why not, in near future this will be one of my few closest links with friends. More on that later. Today I want to say something about the black and white photos. I was looking at some old family pictures and some of them were black & white. Unfortunately none of them had me in it (blame my DOB). But there were my parents and my relatives. And although I liked the coloured photographs quite a bit the B&W attracted my attention time and again. And I realised thats probably because the B&W pics are special in several ways. Just like our own memory storage system they have the ability to preserve the most essential and let go the rest. They leave something to imagination and they boast proudly of being from a different era. Whereas a coloured picture brings out even the minutest detail and you might get embroiled in the blues and the yellows, a B&W keeps it simple, well just as its name suggests - Black or White, letting you stare continuou...

I wrote this article in my final year at college for a magazine (I am not even sure if this was ever published). I found this accidentally while organiszing my computer data and thought may be it is worth atleast my own blogpost... The best way to begin this writing would be to quote what one of my seniors’ wrote when I (in my first year then…) asked him to give me an article for the magazine narrating his experiences in the campus over his four years of stay here. He wrote, “It is very difficult even to conceive that one is going to step out of a place which till yesterday seemed eternally yours.” As I sit down to write this article, where I am supposed to tell my juniors what to expect of this place and how to react to it, the reality of leaving this place, very soon, has begun to sink in. I am not exactly nostalgic because I haven’t yet left my SB-1 but it seems to be eluding me. Am I afraid of leaving this place? May be I am, but the question is why? Did I not have a life befor...

2009 will be remembered for all the wrong reasons and may be a few good ones too (the Oscars). It was a year where the humanity as a whole was plunged into darkness. The feel good and India shining and Asia growing sentiments were weighed down by ground realities. Obama took charge and promised a new hope to the World he might not have succeded much but he certainly was a good bet. India found its own Obama in Rahul Gandhi and Manmohan Singh after almost a decade of fractured verdicts proved that single biggest majority party in India is not the stuff of fairy tales. Impact of financial crisis presented some valuable wisdom to the youth of our country. Saving for the future, not complaining too much about how bad their jobs are and realising that hard work and persistence are timeless values. Copenhagen summit brought the Climate discussion to the forefront and although not many people are giving it a chance, it surely was a significant event for the Planet. Sachin Tendulkar and Amitab...

What can be more misleading than the title of this post? The immodest title implies that I have failed only once in my life so far. Nothing is further from truth but I will stick to this as it allows a punchy opening to this post. So unless you have absolutely zero tolerance for lies and poetic liberty, please bear with me. I was once appointed (another lie, in fact I was elected through a political process which left much to be desired when it came to fairness but may be more on it someday later) the Secretary for the English Debating and Literary Club at IIT Delhi, quite a coveted position I must say. And for those of you who have been spared the agony of moving through IITs here is a quick description of how these clubs worked. So we had nine of them in areas such as Hindi , Quizzing, English Debating, Dramatics etc and each of them had a secretary who was elected through a free and fair election (now I have really run out of my quota of lies for the next 7 births) and every hostel ...

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