Clashing with the police, as anyone who has clashed with the police knows, is addictive. There must be some endorphin involved in the heightened sense of indignation: ‘hey jerk, I am doing your job and you are hitting me?’ Observe the frontline protesters, they are regulars. You will find many of them in gym gear or hessian tees and chappals, their wallets and mobile phones given away for safekeeping. Watch them closely and you can see their eyes glow as they go about sloganeering, stone-throwing and indulge in various acts
The Grand Bazaar in Istanbul, I have been told, is a sensory whirl: the colours and sights, smells and sounds waft around you, a gripping menagerie. In Paulo Coelho’s new book, Hippie, it is a phantasm as two women – one high on LSD – weave their way out of the maze. The whole act of walking through and exiting the melee is described so vividly that one can actually share the trip. The high one sees everything as beautiful and calls everything incredible till: Finally, an idea came to
It’s like John Wick – unless you know the history, you are just looking at a brooding, pretty façade. But under the sempiternal glow of the autumn sun falling unfiltered through a cloudless sky, even the air beholds the sprawling regalia with a breathless stillness. In the boughs and boles, even those afar, one detects a hushed awe. With name and genus tags though they all look very business-like, they have wilfully succumbed to the glory in their midst. Look at the branches of the Weeping Fig for example –
Everyone thanked the sand mafia. They said it was their tireless digging up of the riverbed which enhanced its water-holding capacity which in turn enabled additional water from the dams to flow on without incident. Thank you marauders of the earth! They were joking, alright. These jokes, these badly articulated relief sighs, came wrapped in uneasy icons: shit-colour heads that smiled or winked unconvincingly. I too laughed for two reasons. One was from remembering a recidivist friend from my teenage years. Between bails the only work he’d engage in was
At the O’Coqueiro in Alto Porvorim I sat exactly where the ‘Bikini Killer’ did over 30 years ago enjoying what would be his last meal as a free man for a long time. Hatchand Bhaonani Gurumukh Charles Sobhraj, widely known by the last two names, might have been celebrating his latest exploit. Or he was serenading somebody – one led to the other, invariably. He was so immersed in his favourite curry, the Chicken Cafreal, that he didn’t notice the posse close in on him. Wanted for the murder of
Gushing waters froth stories. When set amidst lush landscapes, the viridian violence can give rise to some very haunting ones. Sarojini Omanakuttan remembers a few with moist eyes, though not exactly a shudder – toughened by the wildness of office, nothing is shook enough for her. She pointed nonchalantly to a spot outside the wayside shed where she sat keeping an eye on visitors, guiding some and sharing stories with the solivagant. “It was exactly three years and three days ago when the engineering student drowned over there.” The spot
Bitch is a life. Posthumous glory is easy – you don’t really work on it. It is something like Hugh Hefner’s last marriage to Playboy Playmate Crystal Harris, 26, when he was 86 – the world knows you have a good thing going but you aren’t really there. Posthumous glory is a sort of karmic correction – we all have a top favourite author whose life didn’t do justice to the misery endured. There might have been some placation in the one good friend or family member with an
The buzz you feel about a place is a collective one – it comes from within the heads of those around. Including your own. The shop had buzz. Talking buzz, loitering buzz, peeing buzz, wide-eyed, quiet, staring buzz, snacking, sneaking, ogling buzz, people-watching, jiggery-pokery, horny buzz. Violent buzz. I loved the buzz, I was the buzz. It was a mom-and-pop shop but a sexy mom-and-pop: a couple in their early 40s, good-looking, garrulous, perfumed, twinkle in the eyes, with a hot daughter. The sari hung to the missus reluctantly but
Sometimes a bit sticky but eventually rewarding, I have this habit of entering strange places through less-used accesses. Looking around for one in Nehru Place, away from the hawker-choked pathways, I found a secluded stairway. A dark crumbling stretch led down to the subterranean parking lot while a slightly brighter one went up to a corridor ahead of which I could see a sun-burnt square. In the midst of the square stood a dried up fountain with a cracked basin and snouts – remnants of merciless Delhi summers. The legendary
Like most things statutory the question too didn’t accomplish much. Aap kya karte ho? What do you do? Asked the agent whom I found on a real estate portal. Even if you say you undertake contract killings, the answer will still be acha. Good. More than eye on your money, this is also the unshakeable, ebullient, die-hard ‘ho jayega’ spirit of Delhi. Can be done. Nothing is impossible because impossible is everything. There is a whole economy that hinges on it – on securing the unobtainable. Issues are created, obstacles
