Shades of Being Alive

A historic day, this. And I am proud my lifetime has been witness to this new beginning. But for me & a lot of us the most interesting fact about this historic set of events is how politics have been taken away from leaders dropped from the top, from the tangles of money, muscle, caste, religion to the general common people and their common issues. The people seem to ask for their stake in democracy. For long, political leadership or scams have been topics of discussion in our drawing rooms, but when it came to doing something about it beyond voting, every body stood with their hands up. 'This is not our job', they would say. Now look at what has happened, it all began with a Anna movement, that ignited all the fire and anger around an issue that pervades every life, corruption. The leadership divides and take different paths for the change they together envisioned. One of the group takes mainstream politics. A party is formed, aiming at a Vidhan Sabha elec...

For long, a wedding for me meant food and an outing if it was of someone not closely related; wedding in a close relation, meant family get-together, listening to the elders gossip about each other and of-course food. Lately, music, dance and taking photos was added to the list that excited me about an Indian wedding. In the latest phase, just before I went to this wedding (that is the focal point of this particular sharing) I began to be cynical about the way wedding process happened. Every ritual (reet/rasam), I believe, would have a logical reason, as per the time it must have originated. For instance, I can rationally think, what must have been the reason behind the bridegroom perched on a mare (ghodi), it would have been that with all the stuff worn by him, to walk to the venue of the wedding (that was generally bride’s home or village), it could have turned out a bit tedious, hence, the mare. Now, the bridegroom would not go alone, therefore, accompanied by dear ones. W...