Tid Bit from My Diary

Photo courtesy  daburhoney T emptation, thy name is food. This leaves us with the challenge to challenge our tongues with tough challenges. Nobody can undermine the power of the tongue as uttering the wrong word or eating the wrong food would invariably end up in social or physical hara-kiri. But the irony of the life of us lesser mortals is that whatever food that tastes good turns out to be not healthy. We are faced with a situation similar to that of the proverbial monkeys alibi a little difference....  see no food, hear no food and eat no food. We are afraid to bet our paunch less bodies and dig into the delicious buffet spreads as we have many an example of those who did otherwise. Our outlook however changes with the advent of the first sign of tyre in the mid zone of our bodies, so to say our Madhya Pradesh. Initially we are high on the confidence level that we will get rid of the extras with some magic crash diets of protein or zero carbohydrate or by skipping...

This post is a part of  Write Over the Weekend , an initiative for  Indian Bloggers  by BlogAdda. There is one thing in common among young hostel boarders and particularly for those from engineering college. They have spent hours debating, arguing and fighting on topics ranging from anything to everything on their tryst to establish a point of views. The walls of our hostel rooms have witnessed countless ideas, arguments and logic wash down the drain by gallons of coloured liquids be it tea, coffee or hardcore alcoholic drinks. There were some who built their arguments on solid foundation of references and statistics. But my way of life is more like Winnie and always find more fun to talk with someone who doesn't use long, difficult words but rather short, easy words like "What about lunch?”   (  A.A. Milne ,   Winnie-the-Pooh ). One of the live issues had been India’s post independence growth and development alibi our successive government’s in...

This week I read the news story of a Burmese man called Myint Naing who got reunited with his family after 22 long years. He had been tricked by a broker offering a job in Thailand in 1993, when he was only 19 years old and desperate for money. But instead he ended up being sold to become one of the approximately 200,000 slaves working in the Asian fishing industry. His escape brought back memories of a book named Papillon, which narrated an enduring escape story from Devil’s Island in French Guiana by a convict called Henri Charriere. The escape of Myint from his captivators must have been no less daring. But he was neither a convict nor will he be able to make millions selling the rights of his story. Despite that Myint is luckier than those left behind. Slavery is not new to this world and African slave trade is one such example, where people were caught, herded as cattle to be bought and sold as slaves to the western households and farms.  The Church of England issu...

Careful; Framed  picture could also slip! Ernest Hemingway had once wrote a story in just six words (“For sale: baby shoes, never worn.”). That is a nano-tale and he is said to have called it his best work. The one above is my humble effort to be creative with words and picture for a 6 words nano-tale.

This post is a part of  Write Over the Weekend , an initiative for  Indian Bloggers  by BlogAdda. I heard enough about the terrible Life of a poet not to venture into that foray. They are challenged with finding an audience and start losing friends as soon as they start reciting for them. The richer of the tribes throw parties with the hope of gaining a platform to showcase the talent but free food and drinks goes only so far. The artist feels helpless, while others see you as a menace... a threat to the society. I was not aware that similar fate is destined for bloggers till I had one of my own. When I discovered the world of blogging, I said "now I have a place to showcase my creativity.”  I set one up and started filling in the pages but the eyeballs to appreciate those were missing.  The Blogging portals brought a glimmer of hope to the budding writers as they developed a community with like minded people. The trouble is that a selected few are int...

L ife is short and everyone should live life to the fullest. I am writing this because I had a sad awakening last month when I lost two of my close childhood friends. They were my buddies and left us forever. One of them passed away in his sleep while the other while awake and both because of cardiac problem. They were they were not particularly young but they weren't old either. They were in their mid forties and in word from Arundhati Roy, " Not old. Not young. But a viable die-able age . " Our average life expectancy is increasing and long life is not uncommon these days. But Life is uncertain and one has to be lucky to be alive in good health with friends and family around. It’s true that in the present times there are large number of people taken away from the world everyday by means of war, terrorism, poverty and natural calamities. The latest reminder of uncertainty was when 9000 people perished during the devastating Nepal earthquake. But sometimes pa...

This is post is the second and concluding part of the series" Finding the Right Photographer"   There was a time when photography was very special and an artist drawn portrait was more affordable. I was reading one day about a trying photographer taking speculative photographs of people in the late nineteenth century in the book “Three men in a boat” by Jerome K Jerome. The photographer was standing by the riverside and took a photograph of the passing boat commuters with the intention to sell them later to those who could afford to buy them. But that was another time when wealthy owned and roared their personal boats and motorcars were futuristic dream. But today everyone takes photographs and probably their claim to photographer is as strong as our claim to be writers. How to select the photographers for our special occasions? What makes a good photographer? How many of these traits do they possess? Passion & Obsession for perfection The single most im...