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The Lady's Personal Lady

Its been more than a year since I last recollected my ramblings together. The reason I'd like to scapegoat for the dormancy is the rather insipid weather around the year at Delhi, that caused my grey cells to mature a trifle too fast, rendering me what common-sensical people would commonly call  'worldly wise'! A characteristic consequence of the afore-mentioned attribute is a distinct lack of inspiration in worldly affairs! Maybe I had a blogger's block! Or simply stated, maybe I was busy (read as lazy)! Whatever deadlock it was, the semaphore that resuscitated me was the Indian house maid, an Indian lady's personal lady! (The astute ready most assuredly would know where I pinched that phrase from, it's good old Wodehouse!)  The average Indian lady (working or otherwise) rarely manages the household without a maid. Some ladies are loosely dependent on them, requiring them just for 'trivia' like the sporadic sweep or the ' pocha '! Some have...

Meenakshi Pattinam

For all those who didn't know and were not astute enough to guess, I grew up in the 'Temple City' of Madurai. Raised amidst the temples in the temples city, I once believed that there is no world outside this city and its Gods (and its eternally reigning Goddess). That was when I had barely seen ten winters (For the astute reader: this is a Classical English style of declaring your age, notwithstanding the fact that Madurai does not have a marked winter). As I continued to see more winters, I could not help but accrue a different set of perceptions about the place. Honestly, the city (or pattinam as it is called in Tamil) did not morph much, but I metamorphosed. If you pick a few random Maduraites who live or live not in Madurai now, (but have spent atleast a couple of years in the place in a bygone era) and inquire for any three spotlights of the city,  and compute the statistical modes of the answers, you are likely to get - Meenakshi Amman temple , Malligai (Jasmine ...

A Train to India

         I was born in an Independent India, so the astute reader can decipher that I am not too old. I was born in an India whose economy was still Nehruvian. Now, my dear astute reader can  deduce that I am neither too young. I was born in an India when Indian Airlines was the only airline operator covering the "major cities" of this country and when the Indian Railways covered the length and breadth of this land through one of the largest rail networks of the world. Now, a couple of decades later, Indian Airlines might not be the only airline operator in the country (thankfully), but Indian Railways is statistically the fourth largest rail network in the world, which my dear astute reader, has many implications and explications.            This post is not about the analyzing the track records of  the politics and economics of the Indian rail, it's more about cherishing a few romant...

The Truth is Out There..

This is not the Truth about Life, the Universe and Everything . Neither is this truth about the extraterrestrial 'X files' that is out there. Nor is it the Truth about some layman's doleful life that, when dared, gets intriguing.  This is probably the truth about the Indian State and one of its Estates. This is about how we as a state, are capable of manipulating the truth about what transpired beneath the tables, and between the cables, as well as the The Source could create the all-fooling Matrix. And this is also about how a sect of people called themselves the fearless media, go to the limits of the Source to extricate the Truth. The question is - Is their quest for the Truth ethically and philanthropically justified ? Consider the recent furore over the breaking news that seems to break every other minute in the assorted news channels. The anti-corruption wave that has swept the country and the consequent actions/reactions/inaction by the state has brought many camou...

Queen of Sciences?

Yes, it is Mathematics. I am pretty sure that to the astute reader of this blog, this mathematically  knotty question of 'What is' the 'queen of sciences' is a no-brainer. How about 'whosaidit'. That's Gauss . That wasn't bumpy either. And now field this - Why did this great German mathematician call it the 'Queen' but not the 'King' of Sciences? Or why not 'Father' of Sciences? Well, am aware of many such conflicting phrases and sobriquets that extol one gender against the other(you don't have to spin-doctor against me), but not all of them have the same grounds of explanation. So what is the  plausible elucidation to the original question in specific reference to the context of Sciences? I do not know the correct answer. And I cannot possibly find out from Gauss either. Maybe he liked women in a good sense.Maybe not. Whatever it is, this peek into the transcript of a letter that he once wrote to a prominent French female  ...

Family Doctor

Are you someone who takes some common pills for common-cold? Do you love to look more feverish than fever itself when you have one and flaunt your flu? Do you atone your once-in-a-while restaurant sins  with 'Digene' or 'Eno'? Or are you someone who does not prefer those extraneous  antibodies and depend on your own body to corroborate its internal police force and resurrect itself during those "minor, 'mostly harmless' injuries" ? - Or maybe, one of  those 'home-made organic medicine' lovers. You could be one of these categories, or a few of these, or even none, and yet, there are fair chances that you would have had a family doctor, for atleast a while.. A family doctor is not that just that  doctor at the clinic in the corner of the road who treats your occasional childhood wounds. He (or she) is someone who you grow up with, someone whom you can talk to about your favorite cricket player or your most-hated school teacher, as he checks you...

Pretty Woman

Its International Women's Day. Frankly, until last year, I hadn't found the logical grounds of celebrating "Women's Day". I mean, what were we supposed to celebrate? Womanhood? And what does it actually mean? Celebrating the biological characteristics associated with the gender or the sociological fashion quotient or the political cry for equality? I had always considered myself to be an impartisan specimen of the race, rather than a tendency towards my gender emancipation. One of the good things about growing up is that what seemed incomprehensible becomes less fuzzy and likewise the contrary. I grew up.. Don't get me wrong, it is not that now, I want to celebrate Woman's Emancipation or Equality or cheer-lead the Women's Reservation Bill. I have no reason to do so. It is just that these days, I sense the essence of womanhood better. I can comprehend the whys and wherefores for celebrating womanhood - its quite irrational a rationale, for the woman...