thaumaturgist

It has been raining since Saturday here, in Dresden. It's cold and shivery and very windy. Sitting by the window I can only think of one thing. The Dementors. The cold, grey and dismal atmosphere makes me think of dementors who have devoured the happiness out of the city. I am sure that J.K.Rowling 'conjured' up the character on one such dismal rainy period in London. It does get you rather depressed . But then another thought flashed across my mind. On such a rainy day if I saw a girl in a Canary Yellow rain-coat wearing a bright pink lipstick walking down the sidewalk next to my house with a click-clack of her heels it would look rather cheery, wouldn't it? But no, people here wear only blacks and browns and beige and more blacks and hardly any lipstick. When the Sahibs say that they found India extremely colourful I cannot agree more. People wear all sorts of colours in India, not just in the form of clothes but hoardings and buildings and cars. The Apartment buildin...

Till a few weeks back I had lost faith in the entire species of Books. I was an avid reader. As my close ones know I read hoardings to 'shingarar thonga' but of late I was not coming across a single book that held my attention. I started reading 'The Lost Flamingos of Bombay' by Siddharth Shanghvi and I gave up on it's fantastic randomness, I had loved his first book. I started reading 'The Time traveler's wife' by Audrey Niffenegger and it just confused me to hell so I had to stop. I even tried reading 'Eclipse' by Stephanie Meyer, needless to say I couldn't cope with it either. I was losing faith, the only ones I could still go on reading were Agatha Christies. My book rack which does not have many books is full of half and some quarter read books and a living proof of my failures in reading- anyone at this point would think me just plain 'slow'. Believe me, I have been debating that for a while now myself. But wait, let's not j...

Walking has been one of the most fundamental and profound things of my life. As it is, to all who have the great fortune of being able to walk as a means to get from one place to another, I also consider it to be much more than just that, a means of transportation, it's my way of living life. At the age of 10 when I finally started travelling home from school without an escort, I discovered that the stretch from the metro station to my home could be reached by walking in 35 minutes, even if I ended up spending my bus fare of Rs 2 on the roasted peas! At the time my ability to walk not only took me home but also made it possible for me to enjoy those unhygienic and very spicy roasted peas! I have risen early to go for morning walks with my dad- I was the only one to accompany him to those at Victoria and later by the Lake. I would chatter away while walking, dad quietly listening while we walked. The sun not having quite risen yet and the mist over the lake would have cast an eerin...

Often we have heard the above quotation by Mark Twain but seldom have we come across the subject of it... " Age is an issue of mind over matter, if you don't mind, it doesn't matter." In july I turned 25 and since then I have been slightly abashed about it, my age, that is. I have always been at ease about growing older, in fact, I have always looked forward to it. Being the youngest in the family I have looked forward to being taken seriously so age has never been an issue but suddenly I see there are film-stars, artists and authors who are younger than I am. Asudden, my husband has colleagues who are '85 borns. This had me searching for Kajol's age when she made DDLJ- would you believe it, she was 21? 4 yrs younger than I am right now? OMG! I am ancient- is what is going through my mind- right now there is a particular Shia LaBeouf who is famous and younger- or younger and famous! whatever!. After these particular nerve wracking thoughts I got on my crosstr...