Submerge

Kiril Dobrev/Unsplash

Other artforms engage too but not in so discreet a manner. Drama, dance, music, movies, art and even graphic novels have a physical presence external to you which make them identifiable as such but words that you are currently reading are suitably undercover. The world which they have encased you in is completely invisible to everyone else and the mental universe you are inhabiting is yours alone. In some ways, it is a waterbody below whose surface you are enthusiastically deep diving in but up above, there are no tell-tale signs.

Deja-Dhurr

"Dhurr" is a very Bengali sound for exasperation. Not quite a word but packed with all the functions of one. I keep it polished and ready because it is that time of the year again. Another year, another clutch game which will determine if Arsenal are able to maintain their tenuous lead at the top of the table at year-end. Having been exactly here so many times in the past two decades, the worst outcome has been played out so frequently that it has ceased to surprise. Nonetheless, the Arsenal faithful including yours truly will watch with bated breath at 01:45 AM India time as their team, predictably plateauing, take on a surging Aston Villa with a grudge bearing former coach at the helm. As a true Gunner, I will watch with hope well aware that past history must be crushing down on the players much more than us spectators. But for their sake (Saka?) and ours, hoping for a plot twist towards the positive.

40

22nd September 2022, Rajiv Gandhi Stadium, Dehradun

It had already been 9 years since he had retired but the stadiums had not forgotten. In Dehradun too, they turned up to watch old aching bodies turn up and for one in particular. Chants of "Sachin, Sachin" reverbated through the stand, no matter who was actually playing. A roar of approval from the boundaries that he patrolled acknowledged with an ever so polite wave. Middle-aged uncles shouting "Maar, beta, maar" delirious in joy and sense of ownership through all the 40 runs that he scored. Some classic shots, some classic poses. Rosier memories for all in attendance would be hard to come by. That India won exactly by the margin of runs he scored added an additional sheen to the evening.

Batterer

12th October 2010, Arambol, Goa

If there is one sound that I associate with the sea even more than those of waves is that of fluttering. Flags, collars and palm fronds all sputtering their own tunes making a walk along the shore an auditory exercise as well as physical. The relentless gusts of air that the material difference between land and liquid sustains speak more of its wildness better than the clash of water and shore. A trip to the ocean correlated mostly to the sun, sand and salt is often inclusive of much battering by the winds.

Lost

7th July 2008, Benares

There is a certain joy to being lost in Varanasi. A city older than time allows you to think that you may not be the first to have been so. Disorientation does not lead to dismay here but rather to discovery. Important enough for Gautama Buddha to rush to once he acquired enlightenment. He could not think of a better place to make his first sermon. And that was about 2,500 years ago. I hear that order is the new mandate for its ghats and that laser lights are phasing out lamps. I hope that in the long unbroken sequence of humanity that this inherently mesmerizing city has seen, such ideas are merely a blip on the surface of smooth, well worn wisdom.

Quiet

6th December 2008, Taunton, Massachusetts

The crunch of the shoes is not unlike gravel once I give it a few hours but when fresh, it gives me the joy of being a cat. As of now, the wind is louder than my footsteps and for someone as ungraceful as me, that is a rare privilege. There is the novelty factor as well, coming from hometowns where winters are sunny breezy affairs requiring a double sweater at most and that too only to keep the notion of winter alive. Here, quite a few degrees of latitude above the tropical ones, the whiteness is like living within a cone of silence, most colours muted and those that escape do contrast but in quiet rebellion. 

Grease

The old man and his cart were always together. At first glance, his mountain of junk on his cart looked just that with all manner of metallic riff-raff. But there was order concealed beneath the chaos. The friend's bicycle had been through a lot patiently weathering rain, sun and fog for two years now and being in my keeping, it had seen no redemption. A rare moment of responsibility saw me take it along, tyres deflated and every joint screaming like a banshee to the aforementioned man with a cart.

He set about rescuing the ride with patience and confidence. His shambly walk and his less than fresh clothes were no longer a shadow on his abilities. He took apart the bicycle piece by piece and unlike unidirectional destructive forces, set upon healing it. The frame was turned upside down, the wheel covers were straightened, the rider seat's nuts were tightened, the chain was set free from its crusty rusty recent past. Then came the final aspect of the wheels, where he opened up the heart of the matter.

13th April 2024, Dehradun

Sitting between the wheels and the chain, grim balls of steel first popped out. Some were examined and discarded while others passed the quality test to re-enter their underground home with shiny new company. The grease was ladled in among them and the cover put back over. There they would hum again, bringing long lost motion to inertia. The scruffy man with the cart smiled in a faint sliver. His job was done. The machine lived again.

Stone and Moss

16th September 2025, Ajinkyatara Fort, Satara

For the imaginative, it is a sure-shot attention trap. At the edges of most older cities now overflowing with billboards and honks, far away on a hilltop looms a fort. Looms is the right way to describe it because flashiness was never its calling card. Through lashing monsoons and splitting heat, the stones stayed put. It was there, whenever the need arose, to absorb all shelter-seekers from the rapid enemy advance, its ramparts manned by archers and its gates locked shut. The occasions for which it was designed are now long gone but it continues to draw the faithful - some for their exercise, some to dangle their legs off the edge and some simply there to gaze out on the city king-like.

Pause

7th March 2025, Keoladeo NP, Bharatpur

They call it the golden hour for good reason. Everything photographed acquires a soft glow and shadows turn long and contemplative. The photographs make for good Instagram material but more importantly being out and about in that light casts a soft glow on your life as well. Irrespective of the nature of the day that was, there is an appreciation of completion. Completion not in the sense of done and dusted. Completion in the form of a reflective pause, contemplation's easily accessible rewards realized before the race sweeps you up again the morning after.

King of Kings

As a diehard member of the reading-over-anything-else community, I cannot claim any neutrality in the manner that I watched the first part of "Ponniyin Selvan".  It is not unusual for a filmmaker to let an author down. Even if the filmmaker is of the calibre of Mani Ratnam. So even as I watched the film, I kept hearing this voice in my head saying that the book(s) must be so much better.

10th November, 2022

As indeed, they were. Here I was, reading a relatively recent translation into English of Kalki's Tamil original. A fantastic fictionalized take on the life and times of the Chola movers and shakers of the 9th-10th century including that of Arulmozhi Varman or Rajaraja I, the king of kings. In 2024, I could sense the buzz that each part of the serialized story must have generated in the years immediately post Indian independence. While English was the only way I could partake of this new (to me) universe of impulsive kings, intelligent princesses and sorceress fisherwomen under the spell of the sea and the comet, there too rose another voice. The Tamil original must be so much better.

Supporting and Unsporting

In the joint Indian military press briefings that were held to update the media on the progress of Operation Sindoor, a stark moment of contrast between real warriors and keyboard wannabe warriors was on display. An overexcited, headline seeking, warmonger of a journalist asked the panel something to the effect of when would they proceed to an all-out war against Pakistan. The answer from the Navy representative was sharp and clear. He said “Madam, our job is not to go to war. Our job is to end it.”

For the professionals who put their colleagues’ or their own lives at risk on the front, war is necessarily focused, measured and non-escalatory in the pursuit of peace. For the kind of lowlifes who abused even the widow of Navy officer Lieutenant Vinay Narwal murdered in Pahalgam, for asking Indians not to fall for Pakistan’s divisive strategies, war is just another occasion for fake patriotism, political agendas and public display of their ignorant biases, safe in the knowledge that they are hundreds of miles away from any flying bullets or shrapnel.

Which is most likely the reason why my landlord needed to ask me the question “India-Pakistan match ho rahaa hai. Dekhoge nahin?” [India-Pakistan cricket is on. Won’t you watch?] and in a first for the 41 years of my existence, my answer has been No twice in the past week and a half. As a dyed in blue devotee of the Indian cricket team and of cricket, it was a question that would never need to be asked of me as I would be already watching. Experiencing the nation v/s nation narrative of international cricket and the intense play-by-play pressure of squaring off with our neighbour was an opportunity I had never passed on no matter where in the world I was.

Now, this is not the first time that India and Pakistan are playing in the aftermath of a violent act of terrorism supported by Islamabad. While hundreds of millions watch this contest for the intense cricket it produces, India-Pakistan also draws the worst type whose only interaction with cricket is for India-Pakistan matches. Such has been our volatile geopolitical reality for decades. Yet in this Asia Cup’s no handshake environment, where that basic courtesy to each other was shelved, fuelled further by simulations of planes being shot down and machine guns being fired, multiple sanctities have been violated.

War is a failure of humanity. Sport, on the other hand, is a celebration of it. War, very aptly described as old men sending out young men to die, is an all-around tragedy where both the victor and the vanquished are traumatized for life despite all the sugarcoating of glory put around it. Sport, in contrast, allows for the most intense competitiveness to be exercised but within a framework that recognizes and respects the slim margins of fate scripted into it. To club war and sport together is a travesty and confusing a soldier with a sportsperson is disrespectful to both.

If the atmosphere was not normalized enough for a team to acknowledge a fellow team’s efforts in a sport that both teams clearly love as do billions of their countrymen, then why play each other at all? Play is the key word. Despite all the emotions we invest into cricketers fiddling with a small sphere, a plank of wood, and physics, cricket is play. If the 25 lives so horrifically taken by terrorists in Pahalgam and the lives put on the line by our military to defend our security were to be really respected, is not shaking hands really an appropriate response?

Weirdly for a sub-continent brutalized and intentionally destabilized by British planning, an originally British sport manages to bring it together somewhat – cricket unites gullies, roads and maidaans with its simple tales of flashy batsmen seeking immortality as toiling bowlers with flying fieldsmen deny them the same. But it is patently unfair to expect this beautiful game of angles and flair to bear the burden of politically motivated conflicts that flare in cruel ignorance of the daily needs of their citizens. Cricket’s poetic script of ups and downs, edges and sixes should not be a proxy for nasty war but an escape from it.

What then of this Sunday’s India-Pakistan final, you ask? I feel that when even the two militaries which had engaged in a vicious short-lived conflict of Operation Sindoor reached terms for a ceasefire, are pampered billionaire cricketers or extremist fans claiming to be more soldier than them? The Pakistan government had to spin their military defeat into alternative realities for their citizens but that need not intrude into the field of play. The war is over. An India-Pakistan cricket game should be just that, an epic contest in and of itself, but I do sincerely hope that the two teams are sporting enough to shake on it.

[https://virtual-inksanity.blogspot.com/2025/09/supporting-and-unsporting.html]

Lore: Corbett and Heritage – Post 1

It has been close to 7 years now since I put all my eggs in the heritage basket and all too frequently congratulated myself for making that choice. The complexities of identity shaped by people, places and stories is what lies at the core of heritage. What this means is that there are innumerable interesting cross connections and nothing beats getting lost on an unknown road to emerge out into places very familiar.

Jim Corbett with his British-Irish origins, a lifetime of adventure in India, his quiet exit from here as soon as the country’s ownership was restored to the right people and the fervour he continues to inspire among his fans to date, including in yours truly, offers the opportunity to discuss all that heritage can entail.

As I set out to Choti Haldwani, the ‘model’ village he set up near his childhood home of Kaladhungi for his 150^th birth anniversary (27^th July 2025), to see the places that shaped him and share space with innumerable other Corbett-heads on the big occasion, it is fair to say that I am excited. Very excited. Under a series of posts titled “Lore: Corbett and Heritage”, I will look at both well-known and not so well-known legacies of this one-of-a-kind personality who inspires devotion and debate for his undeniable role in Indian conservation’s story arc.

[https://virtual-inksanity.blogspot.com/2025/07/lore-corbett-and-heritage-post-1.html]

Second. Best.

 

Arsenal Manager, Mikel Arteta, on Miracles

Sunday, 19th May, 2024, 16:00 hrs. Indian Standard Time

I am firmly on the spectator side of sports. The physical co-ordination required to direct a bat/ball/racquet like entity while simultaneously twisting/running/jumping has always eluded me. Never particularly angry/frustrated at the player(s) when my chosen player/team fails to win, I know that however poorly they played, they were better than I would have been in the same situation.

Good thing then that I support Arsenal. A North London football club in the Premier League, they seem to float among the elite names of the footballing world without quite making it. In a few hours time, 10 months of an amazing football season by the club is (probably) going to end without a trophy.  Much to the joy of fellow armchair fans of more 'winning-est' clubs, not for the first time. 

Isn't sport, playing or watching, all about winning? A mostly controlled experience of sharpening that competitive edge without slashing around wildly? Looking around, the evidence seems to point in that direction. Unlike me, there are many for whom the primary return from the investment of watching 'their team' on TV is the second-hand joy of their victory or the venting of unfiltered frustrations at their loss.

I make no claims to be completely above such feelings. I cannot recommend losing or mediocrity. At this point, if my total time sunk into watching and cheering for Arsenal were a person, he would be above the legal drinking age of 21 - with only one major season-end occasion for cheer in all that while. I WANT them to win and their success IS my success in that magic mix of marketing, circumstance and choice which professional sport leagues around the world thrive on.

But somewhere tied in with my inability to stitch a series of good passes together is a philosophical acceptance that such is the nature of sport. I feel that sport is a wonderful stand-in for life, where bravery, rising to the occasion and comebacks from the edge of disaster feature frequently but it is important to acknowledge that it is still only a stand-in. While the sportsperson has the additional responsibility of making fans happy or face their judgement in a public arena while in pursuit of personal dreams, being seen and cheered is part of the draw in today's age.

In a near perfect season from August 2023, this young Arsenal team has solidly glided and gritted its way through only to be bettered by the finest of margins by an even better Manchester City team. Arsenal's current manager Mikel Arteta is upbeat and cheerful even now because he knows that in a game where 22 well-trained professionals duel with a sphere, space and gravity, certainties and miracles co-exist. As a distant observer whose only effort is in watching, if the guy in the midst of it all can take it in his stride, so can I.

In real life, the race targets and prizes may vary but we must all run. Sports competitions offer a low(er) consequence re-run of the same. There are rules and limitations aplenty - heroes, villains, fate and redemption. The smoothness of Arsenal's play in the Arsene Wenger years had drawn me in and though the glimpses of genius have been few and far between since, they have been enough for me. As my life and career ran along in parallel streams and eddies, the constant grace of this footballing team gave me a useful alter-ego.

I watch and cheer for this team, drawing on memories of Bergkamp and Henry, sympathizing with Fabregas and Ozil and wishing the best for Saka and Rice with the smile of the art professor Wenger floating all through. In the end, sports offers an infinite sea of stories with their own trajectories. There is no right story or wrong story, only a highly subjective 'your story' where the personal maps with the unscripted nature of the playing arena, projecting meaning and inspiration. In picking Arsenal's story, through all its glorious uncertainties and glimmers of hope, I have picked mine.

[https://virtual-inksanity.blogspot.com/2024/05/second-best.html]

Inspirational Horror

 

It is possible to supremely appreciative by looking solely at the scale of what was achieved by Hamida Begum but simultaneously recoil in shock at how it ended. Today's Google Doodle shero has enough to engage both those sentiments [https://doodles.google/doodle/celebrating-hamida-banu/]. All the more reason why it should be featured on the starting screen of many an Indian Internet surfer.

Hamida Begum, a wrestling predecessor to the Phogats and the Maliks, has an incredible story to tell given the times and the society that she grew up in [https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-65630615]. The accusations of match-fixing reek of the typical attitude of a patriarchal society unable to adjust to the possibility of equal ability, even for a single 'outlier' individual. The reason for her disappearance from the halls of fame is too terrifying not to be true and is best read at the link above without any summarization here. Nothing surprising in what happened because even decades after, such incidents demonstrating deep-set insecurity and malevolent control-seeking when men and women interact continue to feature in the news today.

While it is difficult to be completely celebratory once aware of the full life arc of Hamida Begum, the fact that she existed and is remembered offers some redemption. The journey she set out on may have been cut short brutally but like the proverbial first step of a long long trip, the importance of it cannot be overlooked.

[https://virtual-inksanity.blogspot.com/2024/05/inspirational-horror.html]

Of 'Maus' and Men

 

If ever in doubt about how serious a graphic novel can be, pick up a copy of Art Spiegelman's "The Complete Maus". There have been many other visual creations which had much more profanity, violence and explicit acts (so-called adult content) and there will be many more such but none will be able to match the desperate darkness of this straightforwardly told tale of mice, pigs and cats. If the thought of reading yet another Holocaust story induces eye-rolls, still give it a thought because this portrayal of its madness is unlike anything else.

To begin with, there is the author Art Spiegelman's personal trauma borne out of his father's strangeness. In a happy place in a happy time far away from the events, years and lands that scarred his father, it is difficult to comprehend the experiences that made him this way. Not being able to do so renders a distance between father and son which is a different kind of torture and perpetuation of sadness. Even as his father delves into the horrors of his memories, the son's sympathy for him is tempered with the practical realities of handling his Dad's insufferable behavioural quirks. The son understands (now) where they are coming from, that still does not make them easy to put up with.

That by itself is the genius of "Maus". It humanizes through allegories of animals, bats for understanding despite tremendous imperfections of the victim(s) and perpetrator(s). It tells of how easy it is to be manipulated to hate and how we understand this periodically only to forget it once again. Experiences of the desperation to survive whilst ensuring the same for those closest to you and the terror of failing to do so in the face of industrialized in-humaneness would have been too much to take if not told in the form of a 'comic book'. It offers the reader a thin veneer of a story of fantastical talking animals to hang on to, all the while knowing that the skeletons underneath are cold hard facts. Even so, "Maus" is not for the faint-hearted.

Wars burn throughout the globe again - Russia-Ukraine, Israel-Palestine, Iran-Pakistan to name a few. A rising crescendo of identity politics based on race, ancestry, geography and/or religion encircles it with determination and speed. Innumerable are the number of occasions where history has shown the inevitable failures and tragedies that this leads to. Yet the illusion that all the ills of "I/we" can be blamed by fixing "You/them" continues to sell like hot cakes. In any circumstances, "Maus" is not a joyful read but always a necessary one.

[https://virtual-inksanity.blogspot.com/2024/01/of-maus-and-men.html]

 

The Batman (Overload)

 

In what may be perceived to be a good sign in certain quarters, maturity may have finally punched through to me. Before giving too much cause for celebration, I ought to clarify that this is to do with my expectations and emotions for a Batman movie. Another Batman movie.  Grungy voices, dark settings, childhood traumas, contested heroism - all classic Batman tropes I was previously invested in feel like excessive melodrama even before I step into the theatre. With no new supervillains and an underwhelming choice for the central role, I go in with a ho-hum attitude. That's a first.

In the real world, supervillains are rarely contested and as the Russia-Ukraine madness plays out, it is more like a supervillain v/s supervillain scenario as citizens of Gotham negotiate their survival in between the two, pleading with one to survive the other. Batman with his 'no kill' rule is an absolute buzzkill in the face of oxygen sucking, thermobaric ammunition from live news. A superhero specializing in non-lethal combat (eventually) and spouting monologues on justice is so out of sync with these times where even narratives are out to murder each other.

But I do have to watch the movie regardless. Familiar characters and backstories tweaked in a certain manner to suit a director's vision at least inspire some sort of opinion about his choices. Having watched a few cast interviews and friends' reviews, I have a vague idea of this movie's uniqueness too - the ol' How-this-Batman-is-different spin. Practically speaking, I go in without any anticipation of surprise and revelations. Maturity dictates a stony acceptance that the Batman can exist only on that side of the screen, not this. Despite its honest efforts, fiction can hold but one lonely candle to the many dark streets of reality. Come to think of it, I am beginning to feel more like Batman, less like a fan!

[https://virtual-inksanity.blogspot.com/2022/03/the-batman-overload.html]

Always With Me

Sunday, 8^th August 2021

Dear Ma,

I write this to you in mild disbelief. I half expect to walk into you tidying up the next room. That you would tell me of today’s must-read Indian Express article or order me yet again to abandon my decade old T-shirt. This I understand is no longer possible and I am here to talk about my memories of you instead.

My first memory, from long long ago, is your laugh, humming the eternally popular Ripon Street baaraat band tune “Tequila”, and a just-learnt-to-walk version of me stumbling along to it. You don’t drink and I can’t dance so this is a strange thing to recall. At the same time, it is so you. Your giggle and your endless stock of made-up games put you up as a firm favourite of generations of children, three your own and everyone else’s. The ease with which you engage a child’s endless energy is sure proof that you did never grow old. It is our privilege to have grown up under your joyful and imaginative attention.

My second memory of you is sombre. The impact that moving to Bharuch had on you, an out-and-out Kolkata girl uprooted from its urban bustle to a small back-of-the-woods town in Gujarat, into a world so different from what you had known. Your initial shock and your subsequent rising to the occasion were something that even a 3-year-old me could appreciate. As hundreds of your students and acquaintances from two-plus decades there will attest, Kolkata’s loss was Bharuch’s blessing. Adventure is often shown as conquering distant hills and forbidden valleys but the wonderful, protected life that you and Baba gave us 3 kids in a land so different from your own was no less exciting and brave.

My chosen third memory of you is more a running film than a specific span of time or incident. A camp-fire, a relentless passion for doing the right thing in the right way, which comforts greatly but occasionally burns. You do not appreciate half-heartedness in any form. I think you’ll agree that filtering your emotions isn’t your forte. You laugh as hard as you roar. You are a rock of comfort in critical times but don’t shy away from letting the tears flow either.

I remember the roasting you gave me when I, in teenage ignorance, ridiculed your favourite poet Dylan Thomas’s “Fern Hill”. I recall your thirst for knowledge, a core trait shared with Baba for 49 years, which kept you learning and inquisitive all through, in your own words “up-to-date”. Cable TV, vacuum cleaner, washing machine, microwave oven, PC, laptop, smartphone – you negotiated through them all, living it up virtually as much as IRL. Your sudden revelations of knowing the latest Guru Randhawa song or the exact details of a Jason Statham fight scene leave me wondering who is the older among us.

I worship your energy in all that you do – host of a ridiculous amount and variety of get-togethers, most opinionated road-trip participant, queen bee of your Brahmo Girls school girl gang, painstaking saver of money for incremental improvements, teacher of history and English in all their nuances, writer book-lover librarian extraordinaire, setter of impossible standards for pet care, denouncer of political extremism and sloppy dressing (phew, that’s only about 10% of your abilities) – all with a warm heart and a booming voice. Your beloved parents, Dadubhai in his meticulous perfection and Dimma with her emotional core, live on and spread their goodness through you. Hope your reunion with them and waggy tailed Putputti is even more perfect than I can imagine.

You could have aimed for the stars with your intellect, education and capabilities but then you wouldn’t give yourself any relief from your duties as Mom either. Through sincere work in whatever life I choose, I hope to respect your ambitions and make a few amends for your sacrifices. I never got to tell you this while you were still here, but you are my hero and your life-story is the stuff of legends. Maybe I will write it all out someday, in all its pain and all its glory. Much as I will miss the immeasurable comfort that you gave me as Mom, I will also remain in awe of the relentless perfection that you sought as a professional.

The greatest regret of my life will remain not being right next to you when your time came. Those stories of my travel which will now remain untold to their most eager audience. That long list of your planned food items during my visits home will now each hurt in their own way.

“Kutush, don’t be selfish” was your one advice in life and I try to follow that within my own limited capacity. But I’ll make this one exception by claiming your time though I know that you’ll watch over everyone that you loved, not just me. In what seems to be the only consolation for your absence from this world, when roaming areas with limited mobile connectivity or on busy days, I no longer have worry about you worrying. Now I know you’ll be there with me, on every mountain trail, in every urban jungle, on every motorcycle trip. Friend. Judge. Guide. Mom. Always with me.

Lots of love,    
Kutush

[https://virtual-inksanity.blogspot.com/2021/08/always-with-me.html]

Hard Copy

 

It has been a little over 3 months since a standard component of my life has returned after a 4-year hiatus. Getting a newspaper in print is outdated and unnecessary. The inquisitive news-seeker has more than enough options online, saving a few trees along the way. The reason I am drawn to holding my paper in my hands, beyond the nostalgia, is the offline nature of it. A team of editors who I trust, Indian Express in this case, serve me the news they thought was important 12 hours ago. Yes, there is curation and there is filtering here too, yet it is the permanency of their choices that makes it seem more reliable to me. No one can get on a server to tweak the words or make the link disappear altogether. There is no chorus of clashing voices in the comments section assigning the news their chosen flavour of interpretation. Just facts and me. The editorial opinions too seem to be personally delivered and not having a space to immediately react to them allows me to process them that much more slowly. Slowness in an age of near instantaneous Internet may be a botheration to most but to me, it’s a luxury I scarcely believe I deserve.

[https://virtual-inksanity.blogspot.com/2021/04/hard-copy.html]

Let the Breeze In

PC: Unsplash/Billow-926

It's impossible to find a reason to smile in remembered happiness during an article on the looming dangers of a second coronavirus outbreak. But I managed to.

"Its lead researcher, Makoto Tsubokura, said that opening windows on commuter trains can increase the ventilation by two to three times, lowering the concentration of ambient microbes." Thus spake a scientist and got me thinking.

It has been my contention that despite the heat and the dust and the stench (cruising urban slums at a slow roll) to be tackled when travelling in a Indian railway sleeper compartment, there is nothing quite like it. 

For one, the awareness that you are travelling in a thundering metallic mechanical snake and that speed is fun can only reach completeness in an express train's sleeper coach. In a scrunched general compartment, you are too uncomfortably close to someone's else's armpit and in the outer space like isolation of an AC coach, you become more understanding of why some rich people commit suicide just to break of their boredom. The sleeper class is where it is at.

There's also the demonstrably extra-social vibe that the fresh air brings in making a sleeper coach a much chattier and occasionally argumentative space. Either way, it is much better than mentally wrestling the "Are we there yet?" monsters. If the weather outside gives you a chance demonstration of a thunderstorm after a hot day in the plains, you don't even need someone to talk to. A window seat and unidentified sources of ecstatic happiness are more than enough company.

There is a lot that could be said against the sleeper coach experience - the gnawing and only partially irrational fear that you might reach your destination but your under-seat luggage might not; the office route pass-carriers whose rights to 99% of your paid-for berth you cannot dare deny; the unmentionable status of toilets within 10 minutes of the start of the journey. But that would be nit-picking.

Lonely trees, temples on distant hills, galloping bridges over nameless streams - the landscape passes you by but at a pace that you can process from a height that does not require entrusting a deep belief in God (otherwise known as a pilot). Sprinkle on some imagination and you could be riding along the train on a very fast infallible motorcycle. Turn it up a notch more and you could live entire lifetimes in those little habitations that you rumble through, never to be visited in real life but sampled, oh so beautifully, in a few seconds of track based dreaming.

[https://virtual-inksanity.blogspot.com/2020/07/let-breeze-in.html]

A Quiet Place

Before COVID-19 denies me access to a beautiful part of my (almost) daily routine for at least the next 7 days, the trail shines in all its filtered sunlit glory. Some may accuse me of having posted very similar pics in the past but I just can't help it. If not anything else, it's a reminder to me that there exist some things I can never tire of.

What does tire me is the infantile stupidity of "Humanity is the virus and COVID-19 is the cure" and of the pseudo-science/patriotism being peddled (read forwards which promote mantras with virus killing vibrations or claim that plate banging equals a Siachen soldier's duty).

COVID-19 should not be cause for pointing Facebook fingers at "greedy" humans. The most at danger are our most weak & vulnerable - the poor, the old, the infrastructurally challenged. Wishing for their death is just casual Facebook psychosis. Neither should it be treated as a free pass to racism ala Kung-Flu and other such monikers.

We are a wonderfully capable species on an extraordinary planet, problem/solution in our lab/home. The mad urge to bang plates could be much better redirected towards some quiet introspection. To listen to the birds and the breeze, to pay attention to the sea inside our minds.

[https://virtual-inksanity.blogspot.com/2020/03/a-quiet-place.html]