THE INDIAN COMMENTATOR

  Hi there. I am here to tell you that life on earth as we know it has changed.  Change is transformation. But every time something transforms, it is either for the best or the worst. There would be those with the middle ground too- people affected with not much harm or not much comfort One of the changes in the COVID-19 infected world is that we went online for everything. Teaching, being my day job, occupies the majority of my concerns when I am online. Unfortunately, that meant only one thing- my writing life suffered. I didn’t get enough time to spend on my passion or hobbies and also heard my colleagues complain about not having enough time to spend with their family.  Because I spent more time online, just like my colleagues, I stumbled upon a video interview by Dr Sashi Tharoor. In that video, he narrated a funny incident from a meeting that he attended in some school. One of the students asked him which new word would he want them to learn that day. To that questi...

Call for Submission: Get Published i n Collaboration with Author Lal! Send your short stories on the theme of Covid-19 days, corona virus outbreak, and life during the pandemic to storyanthology2020@gmail.com , in between 500-5000 words,  Before 5 August 2020 Get a golden opportunity to get features with some of the best writers in India! Free of charges.  Please send your story in .doc format to the email mentioned above.  You will get  ISBN ONLINE DISTRIBUTION E-CERTIFICATE AUTHOR COPY (PDF) AVAILABILITY IN PAPERBACK AND KINDLE FORMAT SOCIAL MEDIA PROMOTION FUTURE OPPORTUNITIES TO COLLABORATE WITH AUTHOR LAL

Prayer to Saint Joseph for Success in Work Glorious St. Joseph, model of all those who are devoted to labour, obtain for me the grace to work conscientiously, putting the call of duty above my many sins; to work with thankfulness and joy, considering it an honour to employ and develop, by means of labour, the gifts received from God; to work with order, peace, prudence and patience, never surrendering to weariness or difficulties; to work, above all, with purity of intention, and with detachment from self, having always death before my eyes and the account which I must render of time lost, of talents wasted, of good omitted, of vain complacency in success so fatal to the work of God. All for Jesus, all for Mary, all after thy example, O Patriarch Joseph. Such shall be my motto in life and death. Amen. Courtesy: Catholic.org

A word on actor Irfan Khan's passing away: He is one of my favourite actors since childhood. I grew up watching such legendary series in Doordarshan those days like The Great Maratha. Irfan's role as Najeeb Khan was iconic. That was the early days of his career and my sensibilities as an audience or spectator. Through Pan Singh Tomar, Jurassik World and many other movies, he kept amazing me. Today, I heard about his death while working on a short story for a reading app named Pratilipi. The title of the story was "The Magician who Vanished". Just as I finished the story, I looked up from my word file to go through some WhatsApp messages and found the status on one of my friend's number. Perhaps the story "The Magician who Vanished" is about Irfan Khan. In the story, a father passes away and the son is having difficulty accepting his death. The son blames himself for his father's death. Right then, someone comes along an...

Deadline extended to 15 June 2019 Themes: Eclectic (Any theme) Criteria: One can submit any number of stories. If all your submissions qualified the criteria, we will publish them all. All submissions should be previously unpublished . You must also state the same on the submission email. The works should be in the English language. Word length Short story: 500-2000 Submission guidelines: But most of all, selection depends on the quality of your writing. Once we accept your work for publication, it will undergo editing. We will let you know of the changes made if any. Copyright of the work shall remain with the author. He or she can submit the same work(s) for any other publication. Email for submission :  kdhyan33@gmail.com Subject line: submission short story Submission should be attached with this mail in .doc format. A Second person bio of the author should be included on the body of the email. Also, attach a photo of the author with...

The following is a wonderful story. Please do read:  For fans of Paulo Coelho, and by that I mean a wonderful group of great people who know what I mean immediately just by looking at the title of this piece, this incident might look like a scene from one of his novels.  Recently, our dear Paulo posted a picture on his social media profiles. I noticed it because the picture contained several books being held by a young person and a collection of several books in a single shot always caters my attention. I commented on his Instagram profile asking dear Paulo if he was in New Delhi, India. The location status of his Instagram page said "New Delhi". My inquiry was a result of the assumption that Paulo was in New Delhi, India. I requested him that if he was in India, please visit Kerala also. Kerala is my place so it's justified for me being a little selfish here.  Paulo has a way with his silence. He did not respond to my rather unimpressively rhetorical commen...

Multiple reasons can be found why people take this film so seriously. This film had two of their most beloved and blessed actors - Mohan Lal and Prithviraj. It is taking so long to get back to work with our normal sane mind while so much energy is shared around this film. The whole of Kerala is brimming with celebration.   It is reported in social media that Lucifer collected almost 10 crores on the first day of its release itself. This is no small achievement when we consider other recent films done by actor Mohanlal or even by the Megastar Mammootty.  Films by experienced directors and debutants alike crashed like a house of cards. What Prithviraj Sukumaran has done is to use the existing space of Malayalam cinema to leverage his creativity. Very few film makers have found that perfect balance recently.  I believe Sreekumar Menon wanted to find that balance. But he was swept away by his over confidence as an ad film maker. He should have unle...

Ravi Shankar Etteth has a remarkable gift as an author. With his words, he can take the reader's subconscious self to places he wants the reader to see, feel, and experience. Whether the amaltas tree that we see at the beginning or the tomb of the deal Mughal that appears as a recurring image, the reader is taken into the vista of colourful images and portraits that enrich the taut narrative of the life of a young protagonist. The protagonist of Killing Time In Delhi is Charlie. His real name is Chaithanya. He is one of the young super-rich of New Delhi. The story of Killing Time In Delhi revolves with Charlie at its centre. Also, you’ll find the city of Delhi appearing as a solid character in the story. In his recent novel, The Brahmin , Etteth had attempted a historical saga of a mysterious Brahmin that left readers spellbound and wanting for more. If you are a fan of The Brahmin , it’s certain that you’ll expect a story in the same vein, at least in terms of its n...

I published a book named Better Than All Happy Ever Afters to legitimate the celebration of Valentine’s Day. This happened on February of this year (2016). The book made me not very rich financially but it definitely made me wealthy in terms of relationships. Through the work on this book, I got to know many young voices, talented and certainly bearing the mark of genius in literary art. The underlying existential dilemma was palpable in the Editor’s Note that I wrote in that book. Love becomes a challenge. It obviously is; ask any sufi poet for better clarity on the supernatural aspects of love. For mortals, it certainly comes with its own qualms and worries. There was another underlying problem with Valentine’s Day. It was a day that celebrated open celebration of love and romance. When would someone commemorate an open celebration? When that particular aspect of existence is no longer present, right? Celebrations have this odd reality around them: they always mean the depa...

Image Courtesy: www.historytoday.com What does Freedom mean? We are gathered on this Monday, 15 August 2016 to celebrate the political freedom India earned from the British Empire. What does this notion of political freedom mean to the present generation of Indian citizens? The scars of the freedom movement and the partition that came after the attainment of the epic resolution are no longer the priority for the younger minds. As a teacher, over the six years that I spent with the young Indian citizen infused me with an understanding that underscores the indifference they experience towards the colonial past. I mean, all of it is a good story. Having physical and close-psychological encounter with the colonial rule is the only way to experience that fact as such. No representation, verbal, visual or auditory is enough to put the person through whatever transpired in those two hundred years of slavery. In fact, in India, slavery under colonial rule must be differently defined, ...

If this book review turns out to be an unusually positive one, please do not resort to thinking I received financial benefit from Rick Yancey. To be honest, I felt an emotional connection with the author, because of an interview I watched with him. I watched one of his interviews in  YouTube  and in it he said something that piqued my attention. He said before being a full-time author, he was a government employee, working strict schedules for an average  pay-scale . Nothing is wrong with working tight schedules or receiving a meagre pay cheque at the end of the month.  Perhaps, one should work on ways to come to terms with these ideas if one has a dream to chase and a light to follow. “ I was writing at the time, and I thought, “Well, I need something to pay the bills, and I’ll just hang on to this until my writing takes off, or I actually get off my butt and get a master’s degree in English and maybe teach somewhere.” Then twelve years later, I w...