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That was a typical breezy monsoon morning in Hyderabad. I dragged my chair to our main balcony and was enjoying the passing show of clouds, rain-laden, dark and swiveling...playing hide and seek...mostly hide...with the pale sun trying vainly to outwit and dispel them...
Our seventh floor balcony is ideal for such simple pleasures...we are in the mid-floor of a wing of which there are three forming a quadrangle with one side open. The monsoon winds hit the bluff walls and scatter and form eddies adding to the haphazardness and unpredictability of the soothing breeze...
Suddenly I saw a sheet of newspaper floating down from nowhere and dancing this way and that...as if falling down...but no....kicked up like a flying saucer...it hit the railings of the opposite balcony and embraced it as if calling attention to itself...but no one opened the closed doors...it got disappointed...poor thing...and flew back and up and down and found a gust that freed it from the clutches of its imprisonment...and ran away to hit and cling to the huge rock outside our fence...Hyderabad is a rock museum...and another swell drift released it...and it flew away far far into the horizon like a speck of dust...
I wondered what was in that bit of newspaper...is it the latest pronouncement of the Lady IAS Officer trapped in her trap of loocipherous noos...or the story of 28 or more killed in the train holocaust...or is it the latest exploits of our shooting stars...
Does the floating newspaper CARE? Does the monsoon breeze CARE?
That led me to look far far into the horizon...and I could watch the spinning earth making its languorous ellipse round our fleeting sun...does the sun care for me? Does the vast unending universe care for our earthly trivia? Do we matter at all...whether we are this caste or that or this ism or that?
Watching the blowing wind led me back half a century to the haunting lyric of our Gen's Bob Dylan:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3l4nVByCL44
And then I felt a tug on my sleeve and saw little Ishani asking:
"What happened to you Thatha...come in and let us play tent-house"
That broke the spell...
...Continue this crap for another two paras making up 1400 words in all...and you have a publishable item in the weekly column of a newspaper of Calcutta that has seen better days. To make sure, enclose a valid check for say a thousand rupees.
And after it appears, surely, take your three laptops and write three Letters to the Editor in different styles saying effectively:
"I loved gps's item 'Blowing In The Wind' enormously. It took me back to my childhood. We want more such glowing mood pieces that do not have a droopy storyline. Congratulations to you and the author...more...more"
And also enclose three checks for a hundred rupees each...
And you become a 'regular'...
On the other hand, the other day, I posted a piece titled:
"What a Shame!"
in my blog. Every word of it is as true as the Bible ;-)
http://gpsastry.blogspot.in/2012/07/what-shame.html
And here is a rare comment it got:
That sure made my simple day!
And I recalled the Addendum to our Blogger's Anthem:
That was a typical breezy monsoon morning in Hyderabad. I dragged my chair to our main balcony and was enjoying the passing show of clouds, rain-laden, dark and swiveling...playing hide and seek...mostly hide...with the pale sun trying vainly to outwit and dispel them...
Our seventh floor balcony is ideal for such simple pleasures...we are in the mid-floor of a wing of which there are three forming a quadrangle with one side open. The monsoon winds hit the bluff walls and scatter and form eddies adding to the haphazardness and unpredictability of the soothing breeze...
Suddenly I saw a sheet of newspaper floating down from nowhere and dancing this way and that...as if falling down...but no....kicked up like a flying saucer...it hit the railings of the opposite balcony and embraced it as if calling attention to itself...but no one opened the closed doors...it got disappointed...poor thing...and flew back and up and down and found a gust that freed it from the clutches of its imprisonment...and ran away to hit and cling to the huge rock outside our fence...Hyderabad is a rock museum...and another swell drift released it...and it flew away far far into the horizon like a speck of dust...
I wondered what was in that bit of newspaper...is it the latest pronouncement of the Lady IAS Officer trapped in her trap of loocipherous noos...or the story of 28 or more killed in the train holocaust...or is it the latest exploits of our shooting stars...
Does the floating newspaper CARE? Does the monsoon breeze CARE?
That led me to look far far into the horizon...and I could watch the spinning earth making its languorous ellipse round our fleeting sun...does the sun care for me? Does the vast unending universe care for our earthly trivia? Do we matter at all...whether we are this caste or that or this ism or that?
Watching the blowing wind led me back half a century to the haunting lyric of our Gen's Bob Dylan:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3l4nVByCL44
And then I felt a tug on my sleeve and saw little Ishani asking:
"What happened to you Thatha...come in and let us play tent-house"
That broke the spell...
...Continue this crap for another two paras making up 1400 words in all...and you have a publishable item in the weekly column of a newspaper of Calcutta that has seen better days. To make sure, enclose a valid check for say a thousand rupees.
And after it appears, surely, take your three laptops and write three Letters to the Editor in different styles saying effectively:
"I loved gps's item 'Blowing In The Wind' enormously. It took me back to my childhood. We want more such glowing mood pieces that do not have a droopy storyline. Congratulations to you and the author...more...more"
And also enclose three checks for a hundred rupees each...
And you become a 'regular'...
On the other hand, the other day, I posted a piece titled:
"What a Shame!"
in my blog. Every word of it is as true as the Bible ;-)
http://gpsastry.blogspot.in/2012/07/what-shame.html
And here is a rare comment it got:
1 comment:
-
- Thank you so much for this post. I had used the expression "what a shame" on one of my facebook statuses and a couple of friends just took off on me questioning how I could use the phrase for someone as distinguished as Michael Phelps. Was searching for something to back my point up and your post was the first one I found. :)
You have an interesting blog, sir. Would come back during my leisure time and read more of it.
That sure made my simple day!
And I recalled the Addendum to our Blogger's Anthem:
There are no referees here
Nor those goofy editors
We stand or fall by our readers
Hail Blogosphere!
...Posted by Ishani
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