Sujil Chandra Bose

He is an honorable man. If having two legs, two arms, a face and a parabolic belly is sufficient reason to be called honorable. Yet like all human beings we need to adorn him too, as history’s one more produce. He can talk for hours without any subject and he often choose to luxuriously excrete the choicest of adjectives at the society around him. But we are duty bound to call him honorable enough If studying in the United States is an honorable experience to have, then he has to be honored by medals the land has never seen, for we have many who did but never stooped to the level of such disdain for fellow being; yet today I am forced to title this man an honorable one, because I fear not his wrath. If living near the Mediterranean and among harmless, smiling people hasn’t given any meaningful change in any man, do we call him honorable? Even if we don’t, history would. Hitler, Mussolini, Idi Ameen, Saddam Hussein and their breed were all honorable till they fell. If abusing o...

Dreams are what make us think of what we have and what we want to have.  I was a dreamer from my early childhood. I dreamt of a fancy garden which we never had. I despised the Mangrove, the Guava trees, the pond we had and the livestock that created the cacophony around my childhood. My mind was full of the well laid out greenish landscapes that I had seen in a European Magazine. The tales I read from the Radiant Reader added to another layer of my dreams of being in a western world. What caught my eye was the order, the mechanized patterns and the quiet demeanor of the populace.  Several years later, on that first flight to Europe, I was impatient to get there; to be part of that order. I wanted to be at the River Thames where Shelly stood watching the waters ebb and retreat. I stood at the Piccadilly Circus where a certain Bernard Show visualized his My Fair lady. Even a trip to the Tavern, where my favorite Beatles played didn’t seem to be quite wher...

My wife, an IT Engineer, who works part time, is angry with her Boss. He is a graduate from the world famous IIM Ahmedabad, India and supposedly a man with great ideas and a terrific work ethic which has won himself and his company several accolades in the past. Come hail or storm, he would pay his staff on the penultimate day of every month. Hence, he thought his team was the happiest and he is able to get the best out of them. Several companies in the Middle East do not pay people on time. He has seen it all and thought paying people on time was enough to get them going! Why was my wife unhappy? She had her own reasons. She was first a wife and a mother too. She wakes up at 5am every morning and sees to her home, cooks and sees our child off to the school. When she has a project in hand, she works through the night, often going off to sleep sitting on her dining table chair. She is a committed individual who thinks hard and works harder every time a project lands on her lap. Ye...

It will break your heart for sure. Oh my god. Did I expect this? No. I didn’t, one bit. Ennum Ninte Moideen blew me away. My soul has been broken into smithereens and my heart has been sobbing ever since. Having closely followed the movie much before it hit the screens, I was intrigued by what would be in store. And when it did, it transported not just me, but a generation into their yester years while the new generation watched it in unbelievable awe. For the elders, the saga that unfurled on screen was not just undiluted entertainment, but a story that was never written; of themselves. I was also born in a generation which believed in ideal love that bordered on a soul to soul connect. The concepts of twin flames and soul mates were not known then and those in love were bewildered at the intensity of their relationships when their partners completed their thoughts or sentences every time they were together. I have seen couples become a single identity with my own eyes. This is ...

Recession, depression, lull, climb down, market backlash - we have heard them all in different times. While these are situations that arise from time to time, we have seen matured companies and entrepreneurs dealing with it as we deal with our daily traffic. We don't stop driving just because there an accident or our Tyre burst, do we? A matured driver will take an alternate route that will ensure that he reaches his destination. I have seen markets crash in India way back in 1995 while heading a small branch of a huge construction company. I saw panic buttons being pressed everywhere, heads being rolled, cases being filed, promoters vanishing, projects slow down and what not. The company that I worked for had matured drivers who have seen it all in their lives before. They handled it well and the company did not close down though the projects did. They put their minds to work and used all their imagination to retain the confidence of their customers while walking a tight rope....

He looked back. The calendar pages moved against the surging wind. He stood there looking at the colorful slopes of the hills afar. His eyes hadn’t blinked for several minutes. It was 23 summers ago. The frills of his memory was still afresh. The Yardley Rose wafted in surrounding him in a maze of moments. He first smiled and then sobbed and then smiled again. It wasn’t bad to remember the best moments of a lifetime. But sometimes memories are the most brutal of enemies that invade your present, crush you in its treacherous fists and then throw you into the corner basket. The very monuments that once connected a life with a lifetime ago, will come back to remind and haunt. The handkerchief that still smelt of the rustic rose that touched him for the first time, the first handwritten phone number that gave away the address where his dreams resided, the favorite song that sent two hearts into a wild twirl every evening. All these become burdens of shame later even at the slightest re...

It sat there on the railings of the balcony. The newspaper she was reading had some terrible news, yet her gaze went to the dark innocence in its eyes. It was not hunger that, she saw in them, but a rare warmth that the species are not known for. A gentle breeze wafted it as she held onto the sheets of paper that were already crumbled. It was 27th February, a day she remembered to forgety. He was everything, handsome, witty and flamboyant and stylish. Even the way he held the ciggy in hands had a distinctive difference. He was her hero from a very long time and knew her perhaps more than she did. When she had cried for silly things, he had joined her in her intense grief and crooned for her, songs he never knew, and took her to places he never went himself. Was it him? She saw the same kindness he had in his eyes. When it hit him, she didn't know. She knew it when he failed to talk to her, to recognize her. He shouldn't have left without telling her, one last hug or a kis...

Decades ago after a controversial Test Series in Australia, a furious Indian Captain Sunil Gavaskar remarked that India was playing against a 13 member Australian team, hinting at the support that the opponents received from the two deviant Umpires whose decisions found the Indians at the receiving end, during the test series that was held down under. It was this voice that eventually initiated the process of Neutral umpires in Cricket and the Third Umpires and the Referral system that we see these days. Australian media, surprisingly has now taken over the role of their yesteryear umpires. Their Headlines turn into India Bashing much ahead of the series, virtually providing an aggressive cover fire to their National team, usually poking fun or highlighting the shortfalls of the Indian cricketers. But the net result such Pre-match noises create on a cricket field is quite the reverse. Shane Warne, one of the greatest Australians to have played the game, had confessed that he had...

Based on real incidents It was well past midnight. I was seated at the corner of our small apartment. The only company that I had at that weak hour was the small IKEA lamp that showered consistent light onto my weak fingers which were planning to attempt an attack on the 22nd Chapter of my work, a Novel. I checked my posture on the rocking chair, an antique imitation piece we bought cheaply from a high end store. My poor back wasn’t in the best of health these days, thanks to the rigorous late night laptop hammering I was involved in. The times had changed. Recession had ravaged the desert and money had vanished overnight. There was panic everywhere and an eerie silence even in busy shopping malls. Women had decided to forego expensive purchases, resorting to cheaper alternatives. Even the restaurants seem to have slashed their prices. Yes, there was a huge correction happening all around. It was chaos of a defeated kind, replacing the chaos of resplendence barely a year ago, whe...

The year was 1990 and we were in our Second year of MA in English literature. In one of the most frivolous classrooms ever in that college or in the history of English literature, we were a happy-go-lucky bunch of 20-year-olds ready to burst into life. Our teachers were a spirited set of human beings who were hell-bent on sensitizing us, as we swished and swerved through the mundane tales from Geffrey Chaucer to William Shakespeare to Kamala Das . Our contempt for these masters was so fierce that we named the animals in the College Zoology Zoo after some of them. The slow, calculating, ugly, slimy python was very passionately named Alexander Pope, for troubling us the most with his unconquerable language. I fell in love with the language English quite early, and my parents thought that someday I would become a very efficient Government Administrator or an illustrious teacher. Luckily, for the masses, I didn’t become either. In many ways, my journey to a graduate and postgraduate c...