THE INDIAN COMMENTATOR

Coming soon Image Courtesy: Google Caught By: Haralan Coben “Scandal. Suspicion. Murder. It’s child’s play…” Coming soon on The Indian Commentator, a book review of Harlan Coben’s novel Caught. Here is a bird’s eye view on the book, from the author’s website: 17 year-old Haley McWaid is a good girl, the pride of her suburban New Jersey family, captain of the lacrosse team, headed off to college next year with all the hopes and dreams her doting parents can pin on her. Which is why, when her mother wakes one morning to find that Haley never came home the night before, and three months quickly pass without word from the girl, the community assumes the worst. Image Courtesy: Google Wendy Tynes is a reporter on a mission, to identify and bring down sexual predators via elaborate—and nationally televised—sting operations. Working with local police on her news program Caught in the Act, Wendy and her team have publicly shamed dozens of men by the time she encounte...

Image Courtesy: Google He lurked in the night, Under the moon’s gleaming face. He hid himself not, though, Instead came out in the moonlight. The signifier of unknown terror, Fierce and virile, His chest rising and falling like a drum, Belly flat like drum, Eyes made of amber and ruby serum. His life once was human, Then his blood took offence with nature, In the wild it ran freely, And his body took its turn surely, Fangs, fur and his head too, Grew into a wolf’s. A song rose from his heart, at times, In blood’s significant rhythm, And there was in his eyes, A gleam and a shadow. The gleam was love, The shadow was a woman. Her hairs floated in the night air, Penetrating the chill of solemn despair. The werewolf howled; Jumped in front of her. He neither touched her, Nor his fangs tore her skin. His eyes gleamed more, Shading the full moon in the cold. She looked at him in the eyes. Her eyes too shared the golden g...

The promises of a festive season are always many. We nourish the festival and its myth in hope that it will bring into our lives some of those finest moments that we long so  much to have in the present life, as the many people in the stories from past had. When some events take place that shakes us up from the conscious sleep we conveniently choose for ourselves, we say it’s bad. I thought about saying the same when I was asked to help some of my friends to provide groceries and other goods to a home for the disabled. It was under a charity organization run by one of the Christian sects. There were poor and disabled, physically and mentally. There were kids too. One of them had lost his mother just a month back. This poem, perhaps, was inspired from my visit to that home. I would like to add some value to this poem by dedicating it to those children and homeless adults.    Image Courtesy: Google The Orphan The intimacy of your tears With the loneliness ...

Image Courtesy: Google Sometimes , we find ourselves so aligned with the rhythm of the cosmos that the fluttering wings of a distant butterfly can have its share in helping us experience some of the indelible moments. Woman’s Equality Day is commemorated each year by the people of the United States of America , on August 26 th . I published this poem on Poem Hunter.com without knowing this specific detail. One of my friends in Facebook told me about this. That was the moment I realized I was attuned with the cosmic music and that my thoughts crossed those living on the other side of the planet, unknowingly. I would like to publish the comment of my Facebook friend Sabine Schonwalder from Italy at the end of this post. The poem is here for you all to enjoy. Woman My long sari, An overlapping image with my body, Floats in front of your eyes, In a luring sensation above and below nakedness, As if I belong to the world of mathematics, Always shown for s...

Image Courtesy: Google A woman came out the house that was the biggest and luxurious on the shore of the national Highway 17 that connected Cannanore and Calicut , just at the junction before the suburban bridge. Vinod, her husband might be in his room preparing his speech to be delivered in front of the judge. Their married life would end today. It was the month of rain, but that day the sun was bright and that was good. She stood in the sunlight on the terrace. Smitha worked in the State Bank. Her husband Vinod was a real-estate broker , a term he always disliked to be addressed with. Her only daughter, Priya was in a prestigious school in Mumbai and only son, Prakash was doing his MBA from Harvard. Her husband’s second son though, studied in a much less expensive school in Kerala that taught MBA, the same subject, but included a set of extra curricular activities including student strikes, breaking the glasses of State Buses, and damaging public property. However, He...

R.I.P. Rajesh Khanna (1942-2012) Image Courtesy: Google Dear reader, this is my latest short story. I dedicate this story to the acting phenomenon, late Mr. Rajesh Khanna, the evergreen superstar of Bollywood. “Crimson,” I called the earthworm. It didn’t look up, though. Of course, it might not have learnt it that I had given him a name, yet. “Crimson,” I called it again. This time, he stopped and with what seemed a strained move, raised his long head up. “Me?” he asked. I was not shocked. Of course, I am not lying. Just because I want this story not to be about the astonishment and shock in discovering a talking earthworm, which I named “Crimson”, I wouldn’t lie. Naming him Crimson had other reasons too. His skin colour was the last of them. It was a rainy June day, but that morning, rain clouds came only after the sun rose crimson and thick. It was an off day since it was the Day of the Departed Souls for the Hindus. “Did you call me?” the earthworm asked once again. ...

Image Courtesy: Google A tear drop spawned in the eyes, Like a sense stirred by a metaphor; The end of words, birth of meaning, Washing the sins of sounds, With the silent poignancy of joy, When you came close To write a song on my soul. There is a bridge that we all hope to find between every ‘you and me’ in this world. There would be words that pave the bridge. There are moments however, when each word we utter is not enough to power or to support that bridge. Then we retreat into the island of solitude and hope for a sign, either from within us or from outside, from the other side of the bridge. In this latest series of i-poems, I wanted to talk about those signs that appear from within us, meaning and delivering a promise that the bridge between us will stand forever. These signs are the wordless sighs and soothing tears of joy.   Dear reader, I hope you enjoyed this “silent poignancy of joy” titled “Songs of the Soul”. A song never ends. It...

Image Courtesy: Google I resisted you like the sun darkness, Until when the needles of time came face up. To rise at the dawn of my life, I went inside you, deep, down, wordless.

Image Courtesy: Google I am land that takes flight On a storm in the desert, I am water that becomes rock On the poles of the earth. I am air in the clouds of the sky That dreams to fill the river. I am the shallowness that reminds depth. I am darkness that shows light. I am ignorance that knows itself. I am the soul that lives eternal. I am a bird that walks on earth. I am an animal that can fly. I am an insect eating the strongest. When the closeness of your toes, Breach the fear of distances, I am all this, except words. 

Image Courtesy: Google I tell you my affection with the sighs, From the caves of mortality. Born in the past, Filled up in the present, Held by future as the child of meaning, The growth of the seed of wordlessness; It tells you that which I felt When your soul lingered with mine.

Image Courtesy: Google The word for love is too short. The word for affection, shallow. The depth of a book, insufficient. Since, in love I became Too vast to measure, Too deep to fathom, Too alive to die; How! I still know not, To tell you my love. 

Image Courtesy: Google II The track of molten joy Is etched upon my cheeks, I fill them up. The wind from the sea of dreams Is hidden in my chest, I blew them out. The drum of eternal life Plays beneath my ribs, I unleash it. Still, the miracle of your nearness In the soil of my ecstasies, Bears no words. 

Image Courtesy: Google A bridge stands for a purpose between every ‘you and me’ in the world. There would be words filling the bridge, traversing from the depth of a beating heart to the delicate and receptive cup of a pure soul. I would rather say I am wordless when talking about this phenomenon, which we usually identify as “words spoken between two”.   There are terms like communication, talk, conversation, dialogue, and even monologue in order to explain this bridge. Whatever name we give it, this is the bridge that brings us together and makes us stay close with each other. But sometimes, we don’t find words to express what we feel, towards ourselves, the other, or God. These are the moments of vacant buoyancy. We float like a weightless bubble on the surface of the river of life and someone comes along in the form of a touch, a gust of breeze or like of a storm and takes us to a destination, according to who they are. We just float towards an unknown destination. W...

Image Courtesy: Google Our client is looking for 100 English writers; we could pay up to $10,000/month with bonuses for writers who deliver good content on a regular basis. No experience required. Payment via Paypal, Check, or a Bank Wire. Mithun Vadakkedathu signed out. But he did not forget to mark the mail he just read as spam. He had been signing up in job sites and this has become his day job. The previous week he had gone to the Parassinikadavu temple and paid for Vellaattam, the worship dance for pleasing Muthappan, the deity of Parassinikkadavu temple, the ancient God of the commoner. Image Courtesy: Google He groped in his wallet which had holes inside and threads were coming off from its bottom. The outer layer of rexine was removed from many places by time. Mithun took out three pieces of paper, three tickets: one red, one grey, one pale white in colour . He murmured; “O God, all my prayers, all the Vellaattam I paid for are gone without purpose....