THE INDIAN COMMENTATOR

Image Courtesy: Google Fantasy is the reality of a fable . There are some standard characters that drive all fables forward, a farmer, old man or woman, and some strange creatures. But these don’t make a fable worth reading. It’s something else, something close to what we know about the world we live in. The most powerful thing about fables is that they can talk about the prohibited in a unique fashion, like the story below.   “I never dared to do this before. I feel proud of myself at least trying to get the mangoes now,” he spoke to himself. His eyes were tracing cautiously, any visible trace of wild animals that could harm him during his lonely quest. He was a farmer and he went to the forest to collect some seeds of a variety of rare mango tree.   He moved deeper into the woods. He saw a pond, and that reminded him how thirsty he was. As he stooped to drink from the pond, the cloth that he wore around his neck, a part of it, fell into water and for hi...

Image Courtesy: Google On this Easter day, I would like to share a memory and a seed I had planted on the luscious ground of that memory. Although I had thought of posting my Easter story today, I could not. The reason is that I received the Easter story only yesterday night [7-4-12] at the church where my family and I visited for prayers. I returned home late and could not write the story down. Still, I am hopeful that I will be able to contain the story in words soon and present it to you. I feel the story and its writing down is very important, since the story is my experience itself, though it would be told in the language of fiction. It is through this experience I received the wisdom of ‘the Candle’. I am eager myself to write it down and to see how it all turns out. The memory I intend to talk to you today about is embedded in my student days, during my graduation. I did my graduation in English Literature as correspondence course, where you get all the cou...

Image Courtesy: Google Upon  the wall of a University English Department I survived, almost alone with a strange sensation in my head, along with an urge to cut my tail off sometime. I always felt the presence of a voice, like a creature inside me that I knew never would exist, which puzzled me enough to think of fleeing. The reason why I was alone was strange too, especially for those who live in houses and other close relatives of human abodes. Mostly our enemies come in the form of strange poisonous sprays or birds, none of which appeared in the place I live in, however, most of my family and friends never came here. Those who lived fled from the Department, because they said they all felt a suffocation that cannot be explained. I didn’t run away, though. When I was about to make off, I realized the voice was coming from my head. It said; ‘if you ran, you would find no roof ever to crawl under’. That was it; it was this same voice that puzzled me about t...

Image Courtesy: Google He was not a friend of mine but when I met him in the library I had to share a smile. He was milling his way back to the counter with a pile of books held close to his chest. “How are you Mustafa?” I asked. “Hi, nothing special, man. Just going. And you?” “Nothing much, yaar. I heard you are organizing protests for raise in the salary of Guest Lecturers.” “Oh, yeah! By the way, being a guest lecturer yourself why don’t you join us?” He asked me with a sarcastic smile upon his face. “I am a bit busy these days, yaar. I actually forgot the date of your Union formation.” I padded my response with enough diligence to keep him off suspicion. “Is that the case? Don’t worry, we still take people in; we don’t have any closing date for memberships, we never had, I mean.” Mustafa said. I was not political. It was sure he had no idea what I thought about Unions with a political nature. That moment had its hidden malignity that was unexpected and therefore unset...

Image Courtesy: Google “Come out and take a picture,” His mother called from outside. “It’s eclipse!” He heard his father’s voice. The moon was shrouded in a mysterious shadow and was visible only a little, and the leaves of coconut palms were caressing this picturesque moment endlessly in the slow breeze. It was December and the chill had increased considerably in the past three days. The smell of dust wafted from the nearby dust road and a new Malayalam song made its delusional presence from a distance in the dark. “Take your cell phone too, and click away some pictures,” mother’s voice intervened. He forced himself to focus, but felt himself confined in his room, outside his world. There was no going back and the room had no possibility of sending him into the future either. The future was a trap, a place from where he could never get back. He found no choice other than to go there and to undo the snares. “What are you doing in there?” Mother again. “It’s harmful for naked...

[Continued from the previous post ] Image Courtesy: Google I still remember the day when I saw Sachin Tendulkar for the first time. Of course, it was not in person, but in a cricket match in Doordarshan Sports. I was perhaps eight or nine and cricket in India at that time hadn’t reached the insane levels of popularity like we have today. Image Courtesy: Google I did not have a big idea about cricket at that time. Sachin was standing on a carpet of brown mud with a bat; his posture was what attracted me. He looked like my He-Man doll with his bat. Then I saw his running between the wickets and knew instantly here was the hero I can adore in ‘real’ life, not like He- Man or The Phantom, or Conan or Hanuman. Sachin mania has its crucial role on placing cricket as one of the most important commodity in the Indian media psyche. The mass was already in frenzy, and Doordarshan, the official channel in India, which once was the only television channel available inside India (mostly...

Image Courtesy: Google 16 th March, 2012 is special not just for my personal life, but also for those who love cricket. The reason is there on air in every television channel, and radio, with a sensible number of public awaiting their sports section, blaring—Sachin hits 100 runs once again; but this is not the news; the news is, this is the 100 th time Sachin has done it. For me, this day is special too, especially in my personal and professional life. After one week of silence, today I decided to write. After the junk story I wrote for my previous post, I took an off from my writing, almost entirely. No poems, non-fiction, nothing, which otherwise would have happened as a filling in, in the process of not writing fiction. Fortunately, such a block is not conscious. The unconscious mechanism of mind puts its curb whenever it is needed. I guess I needed one, well, after writing the previous story anyone can understand why. Image Courtesy: Google Such was the impact of writin...

We live in a world that instigates relentlessly the marvel of change in each of the moments we survive. There is a way in which we all read even the concept of change itself, so similar to other things that merely undergo the overwhelming impact of change. Most changes occur as a reaction to the ever poignant concern for survival. And some other changes are an expression of the self. This story will tell you the rest. Any insinuations about the meaning the story suggests are welcome. Once a young boy was walking back home from his new school. His father was a government employee and so his family had to change places according to the transfers the man received in his service. There was an old building the boy had to cross to reach the turn in the road to his house. Usually the area was deserted with not a single sign of human beings present nearby. The boy heard foot-steps that day. He looked back. There was no one. He walked but stumbled upon something and fell. It was a rope,...

For Rishik-V Rishik Courtesy: Aanchal Sharma I learned, The urgency of goodness, From your flickering smile; The power of faith, From your delicate hold. You teach me, What I lost inside. Once again, all the best to Rishik. This poem marks the end of this series of i-poems.  Blessings! 

For Rishik-IV Image Courtesy: Google When I see you look at me, I become a word that mean, Depth, love, and life. But when I cause your eyes blur, With tears, I fade, In a saline testimony- Of meaninglessness.

For Rishik-III Image Courtesy: Google When I see the kingdom you rule, The peak of the ensign, The voices you mutter, When I see you sleep; I want to be conquered too, By you and your kingdom of peace. 

For Rishik-II Image Courtesy: Google When I found the smile on your lips, Like the first bloom of the home garden, The chill of the dews, The solidity of the wave, The fluency of the air, I am reminded of what was lost, In the depth of struggle, And gained at that moment, With the first bloom, With the chill of the dew, With the power of the wave, With the translucent air; Joy.

Image Courtesy: Google Images A new series of i-poems are here, written for a little angel, Rishik, the son of my friend, Aachal Sharma. She lives in Germany with her husband. February 28, 2012, is Rishik’s 1 st birthday. This series of poems which I will publish in my blog in five consecutive days, are a birthday present to Rishik. I wish the family happiness and bountiful blessings.   The title of this series  is...... "For Rishik" Scroll down for the first poem of the series… Image Courtesy: Google I     Love I find myself on the face, Of the door of your eyelids, And learn I am loved.

Image Courtesy: Google No one likes to be a kidnapper, if the chances of getting money are as open and adventurous as that in a freelancer’s life. No one likes to be a terrorist by choice, if the principles of life are as alluring as that of a freelancer’s; believe, write, live. Plagiarism, is not usually a choice, it is a trap. Every artist or writer knows how important it is to create a new product; the importance of this awareness is equal to that of the conviction not to steal. No one likes stealing, until or unless it becomes the only option. Plagiarism is stealing of a work—intellectual property—or in academic terms, the unacknowledged copying of a writing or work of art. It is either ignorance or the lack of care that causes the unacknowledged copying of materials. This can be harnessed if one keeps a check list for the editing of the final draft. You can very well control whether all the sources are mentioned in the written work; an article or content for websites. ...