A Bowl of Elusive

The first time I met my uncle was when I was nine years old. I mean, I had certainly met him before that – when I was less than two years old – but I didn’t remember that time. My father and his younger brother had not been on talking terms for over a decade and I’m still not sure why. I never asked either of them about it. But in 1999, when my uncle called my grandfather from Mumbai asking him if he could come over to Mumbai where my uncle was to undergo surgery, my father was present in the room and unceremoniously took over the phone call. It didn’t matter that they had not spoken to each other in years. My father asked him what was going on – my uncle revealed that he had recently been having epileptic fits, indicating that he had some neurological problem. On tests like MRI and EEG, it had been revealed that he had a frontal lobe tumor that needed to be removed surgically. My father told him he would come to Mumbai, and he left soon after. I remember this time vividly because I wa

Hi guys, it was recently pointed out to me that a lot of the chain stories that are present in my blog have not been marked that they belong to a particular series. This makes navigating through them difficult. SO let me try to solve that by including a short summary of each group of stories/articles and provide the links here. I will pin this post at the top so that you can go read the stories in the sequence you want to. 1. Eric & Angela : This is a love story for people who do not particularly believe in love. Here are the links: Part 1 - Perpendicular Expression of a Horizontal Desire Part 2 - Cupcake! Part 3 - That Awkward Third Date! Part 4 - Those Melting Moments!!! Part 5 - Testing the Mettle of Love! (This is an incomplete series & more stories will be posted soon.) 2. Ishika & Siddhant : A story of intense romanti c entanglement that is mostly one-sided. "Mostly" is the operative word here. Here are the links: Part 1 - Instant Connection. Or Not? Part 2

I am an atheist from a Hindu Brahmin family. I do not like the BJP and their Hindutva agenda. I do not like Islam. I do not like Christianity. I do not like any religion. But I grew up learning about Hinduism – I thought the spiritual lessons of karma and doing good deeds were good lessons and worth following. I was not raised in a household that pushed any religion onto me – I was taught that all religions essentially teach the same thing – be good, do good. My earliest understanding of religion was that it was a practice in moral science aimed at keeping people kind and honest. “Who is the main God?” I once asked my folks, since my grandma’s pooja place had pictures of several gods. My grandfather explained it to me like this: “They are all the same. It is the human imagination that is unable to comprehend the concept of a creator and hence we choose to visualize them as Brahma, Vishnu & Maheshwar – with each entity handling a different task in the Universe. We have assigned name

पुराने खतों में... पुराने खतों में तेरी मजबूरी के अल्फाज़ देखता हूँ, मेरी ज़ुल्मों की दास्ताँ बयान करते पन्नों में तेरी आंसूवों के दाग देखता हूँ। मैं पलट सकता वक़्त को तो शायद हमारी कहानी किसी और तरह लिखता, बहुत दूर निकल आया हूँ सफर में, तब भी कभी कभी तेरे ख्वाब देखता हूँ। वाकिफ़ हूँ इस बात से की अब उन यादों का कोई मोल नहीं रहा, मेरे संगीन ज़ुल्मों को तू माफ़ करे ऐसा मैं बोल नहीं रहा। वैसे गलतियाँ तो तुझसे बिछड़ने के बाद भी हुई मुझसे कई बार, मैं सोचता हूँ की मेरे अच्छे और बुरे कर्म क्यूँ कोई तोल नहीं रहा। मैं नास्तिक हूँ वैसे तो जन्नत और जहन्नुम को मानता नहीं, पर अगर वह है भी तो मेरे हिस्से में क्या आएगा मैं जानता नहीं। तेरे बद्दुआओं का हकदार तो में हमेशा से ही था लेकिन, कभी कभी आईने में जिस शख़्स को देखता हूँ, उसे में पहचानता नहीं।   सोचता हूँ तेरे बाद के फैसले इतने नापाक थे कैसे, हाथ पकड़ के संभाला था तूने, मेरे बेअंग जीवन की तू बैसाखी थी जैसे। तुझसे जुदा राहों में खुशियों ने दामन ऐसे छुड़ाया, मेरे ज़िंदगी की किताब कोई और लिख रहा हो जैसे। 

I had a long conversation today with a close friend of mine, who pointed out to me that my political opinions felt somewhat biased against Hinduism. He was referring to one of my posts where I speculated if the Nuh violence could have been instigated by Bajrang Dal for political reasons. He pointed out to me that even if the origin of the violence was political, it doesn't change the fact that the Muslim population in Nuh threw stones and are not free of blame. My friend pointed out to me that I had nowhere condemned that. I revisited my post and found out he was somewhat right.  Recently I have been writing against fanatic Hindu ideology. My reason for this  is simple: It is not the Hinduism (Santan Dharm or whatever you want to call it) that was taught to me growing up.  I was taught that we were the most inclusive of religions. I was taught to respect others' faith. I was taught that regardless of whatever name you call your God by (Brahma, Vishnu, Maheshwar - or Allah, Budd

Back in 2013, my uncle used to rant about how, if BJP comes to power, democracy would be in danger. He would cite the Gujrat riots of 2002 as an example - he would say that Narendra Modi got away with mass murder by being in power and he would do the same once he was in power at the center. I was twenty-three years old then and didn't understand my uncle's panic. BJP had been in power earlier as well, during Sri Atal Vihari Bajpayee ji's term as Prime Minister - things weren't that bad. People were not happy with them and voted them out in 2004 - so democracy was still there. So I laughed it off thinking my uncle was being paranoid. I believed that my country was made of sterner stuff - a party with a communal agenda could not possibly change the fact that this country was a land where various religions lived in harmony. Boy, was I wrong! BJP came to power in 2014. Soon, the media started pushing their agenda like anything. People started openly expressing anti-NonHindu