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Showing posts from December, 2010

The Years Without Fingerprints

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Some years don’t leave fingerprints. For the last few years, time feels like it has quietly pressed fast-forward. I finished tenth grade in 1997. Twelfth grade in 1999. I exited my teens right as the new millennium arrived. And somewhere along the way, I crossed a strange milestone: I’ve now lived more of my life after 2000 than before it. Yet most of my vivid memories still belong to the pre-2000 world. Maybe childhood memories are denser. Or maybe adult life is just better at overwriting itself. Post-2000 is one thing—but post-2020 is another entirely. The last five years feel like I took a hand towel, wiped my face, and tossed it away. Gone. Just… blur. Nothing makes time’s passage more obvious than children. Akhil and Sahana are growing up fast, each carving out a personality that couldn’t be more different. Akhil’s fascination with basketball has only deepened—remarkably so, given his usual talent for boredom. Middle school is around the corner, and we’re all quie...
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&#it happens in life

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Ganesha: The Lord of good things It's a fast paced world, and there are a million things happening at the next instant.  When I leave work, you can bet on anything in the world that I would reach home within the next hour, give or take a few minutes.  There might be an occasional stop at Dillon's, the super store, or, at the gas station so that I don't spend those precious minutes at the gas station instead of being tucked under the covers on a cold wintry morning.  Life is pretty much simple and predictable. I was a nine year old or a ten year old, I don't exactly remember.  After much harrowing and convincing, I was given a bicycle at home.  It was the first step towards adulthood.  It was a Hero Ranger LE that had the mountain tyres (tires) with a black surface coating.  It was one of the coolest bikes of its time.  I still don't know what the LE stands for, but even those extra two letters did sound pretty cool.  During the first wee...
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The Chinese way

It has always been appalling at the way China treats its dissidents.  It quashes even a remote hint of authoritarian overture by suppressing any speculation that could develop into a movement over a period of time.  Freedom of speech is not restricted, rather, it is something that is not even heard of.  A democratic tone is killed without any trace and the "nipping in the bud" phrase is followed in the most precise way.  If you had the guts to take on the government, you are virtually left naked.  There is absolutely no place to hide.  The jail terms can be astounding, and the jail conditions absolutely dark, literally as well as metaphorically. As I was talking to one of my Chinese friends, I was stunned by the level of control that the government exercises on the common man.  The fundamental rights of the citizens are snatched and the suppression is taken to a level that virtually leaves a person with no way of getting information that is not gover...
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