Musings

Very many people have dealt with loss of a loved one in their lives. Death is inevitable and irrespective of how much anyone may have read about it, when it comes calling on someone close to your heart, confronting the loss square-on and dealing with it, is entirely another matter. Theory is so easy. It is practicals that is more challenging. How much anyone is missed, I think, comes down to each individual. Some cope with it far better than others. We are often quick to judge others on how they are looking and reacting following a loss. Many of us are quick to the draw in being judgmental anyway, regardless of the situation, but I will leave that topic aside for another blog post another time. Is the person crying? Is he looking forlorn? Is he looking the same? Is he/ she able to remain stoic after the event? So many questions and like so many other things, the

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News channels and media outlets have been awash with reports of the sad demise of a 8 year old boy inside the school premises in Gurugram. As can be expected, there is an outpouring of indignation and anxiety from many quarters all across the country. Times like these spark a conversation around security in schools. The bigger problem, to me, seems to be that this happened in a private school, which has a majority of students from middle to upper middle-class families only. There may be many such incidents happening throughout our country in schools in the hinterlands. Those go unreported and perhaps, happen to the less privileged, hence the lack of media coverage. As parents, even my wife and I will inquire about the measures that the school that our kid goes to, is taking, in the wake of such an incident. We want our child to be safe. Over the past many years, news of sexual abuse of

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Off late, there have been so many instances of intolerance in our country that it has become a daily news item. There is anger at seemingly innocuous happenings such as a very normal tweet by a celebrity politician about how people in a neighboring country are “just like us”. It is another matter that that nation could take umbrage at this comment! In Bengaluru, we have the intolerance against the Supreme Court verdict of granting water from the Cauvery river to a neighboring state. The city has been witnessing strikes and shut downs intermittently for a few weeks now for a number of varying reasons. It is quite a fashion nowadays to seethe at injustice and display the anger at soft targets. Sonu Nigam was the victim of social media trolls for airing a Point of View on loudspeakers and their misuse in India. I am reading the book “Sapiens” by Yuval Noah Harari. He makes such poignant remarks on

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Recent events that played out in Tamil Nadu following the demise of the erstwhile Chief Minister proves how power hungry people can be. To even suggest otherwise, to think that the only motivation that contenders for the Chief Minister’s post had the welfare of the state or the people in mind, would be to live in fool’s paradise. The assembling of the MLAs at a resort, cut off from the other faction, the drama surrounding each person worth his salt visiting the grave of the deceased CM, oh boy! If this wasn’t all played out for power, then I am the King of La La Land! The entire episode, which is still not done, lasted for a few days and shows, once again, the insatiable thirst for power in so many of us. And who can be blamed for wanting it? I am reminded of a story that I used to listen to as a kid, in Kannada. The narrator,

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For those living in Bengaluru these days, the one major source of discomfort is traffic on the roads. It is remarkable how much vehicular traffic seems to be increasing by, every few months! Obviously, we have not done a good job with executing on plans to improve the infrastructure in time for this increase. The Metro project may well be one of the most delayed of its kind, anywhere in the world. It seems like the Namma Metro has been in progress forever and all we see are new dates for completion every few weeks in the newspapers. The whining about the traffic is never ending, just as the traffic on the roads. For a daily commuter, the stream of vehicles, the abrupt lane shifts, the late decisions to turn, the bus and/ or truck breakdowns seem never ending and ubiquitous. Sometimes, I look at newcomers to the city, from smaller towns and villages and notice their lost look. They

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