THE INDIAN COMMENTATOR

The bride was leaving her family with her groom after the marriage, as was the custom. “Don’t forget your tradition, daughter”-- The mother said to the bride-- “It is tradition that makes a beautiful girl adorable, a home-maker respectable, and a mother lovable. It is tradition that will tell you that peace is not resulted from the absence of conflicts but a resonance with conflicts, and that no conflict ever ends. It only becomes a source for another. Daughter, it is tradition that will tell you that a good wife can never be a good mother, and a good mother can never be a good wife; and that you only need to be a good home-maker, for only a good home maker can only be a good wife and a good mother. Remember. Remember the tradition. It will help you to be a ruler while being a subject and instruct you that your inclinations will perform magic. Do not forget this, my dear--The mother stopped and looked at her daughter. The bride raised her head and said--“Mother…”And with a pause, she ...

When the sun and its rays rise in all of its grace, Whom shall I wait for starting the race? I’m like the lightning, that fast is my pace. Why should I late myself by waiting for a mate? It’s time, for the seaways has been shown by the waves, The cry of the sea gull makes the best of omens, The darkest of the night is showing brightest of the stars, And they will lead the way in this sailor’s days. Some one called me volcano that still is un-slept. “Don’t screw me up, you pest!” that was then my retort. I don’t need his words and his bluffing, ever mate, To prove myself the number one in this fight! Life is a fight fought only thrice One as child, two as young, three as old, And the rest is told…

I talked to myself, fiercely, more fiercely and more. Only my lips moved. My throat was free of the burden of sounds. But still I was hearing each and every word that I was shouting. My ears, I wondered, why are they not deafening on this sound? I was asserting and justifying myself. It is only then one wants to prove his or her own identity, when that one feels oneself buried inside a common unity, which has no sense to sense that one and that one’s sensibility. This, I realized is the same case with me. I was unaware, if I am registering a silent protest against the unseen enemy who is curbing me from my right of a choice. Was there a choice before? I am not sure. What I am talking about is, after a period of recent time, I felt my surroundings completely estranged from me. I felt like I was alienated somewhere in an unknown place. I am talking about the time after that. It was in these days that I thought of the choices in my life. I am not sure whether I had choices. But I had been...

A HIKU ------ A smiling black Face drew to The headlines, Which say The elites are Changed. Oh! Indeed they Have changed Their colour- Consciousness! In India, The newspapers- Celebrated. Still crackers are being burst, For the change in the Unveiled good hearts Of the white’s. The papers Had also published Along with This news, The advertisements of Fairness creams. And a matrimonial- Column near, said- ‘Wanted’- a groom, Handsome, fair!!!

'Normal' and 'abnormal' are two highly controversial terms. It is difficult to distinguish the apt word for branding one, between the two, as right or as wrong. When it seems to be difficult to discriminate the signified meaning of both these terms then that points to a fact that we neither know anything nor every thing but only something about what is 'normal' and what is 'abnormal'. The behaviour of an individual or group that comes under the collective identity of the common behaviour of the social structure is termed most often as 'normal'. In a social context, abnormal is identified as a highly unacceptable behavioural pattern. So let us stick to such a norm that makes sensibility possible with the least of efforts. In Paulo Coelho, this 'abnormality' and its attempts to gain legitimacy in a formal social set up can be seen recurrently. In the novel, “The Witch of Portobello”, this legitimacy is attempted through the presence of the...

My father came back after job at 8 O’clock at night. He brought the day’s newspaper. The English newspaper, which was the only one subscribed in my home, allotted a very scant commission to the newspaper's agent, said he and thus it was destined for me and my family to get the newspaper from his shop, at about one kilometer distance from my home, either in the evening or at night; not at any cost in the morning! The agent distributed newspapers at every door in the morning except ours. For his commission, Rs: 18 /- per month, for the English newspaper, never enabled him to shun the temptation of Rs: 24 /- from the Malayalam newspapers. The newspaper, somewhat like a cold coffee now, merely made its routine journey through my eyes. Suddenly, I was shocked. Terrorist attacks in Assam! Indian soil had been again rocked by the sinister intentions of the terror. The elections are imminent. And so the time when this attack took place made it really a high concern. The intention of the te...