RainDrops

Kuttanad, late monsoon. The rain had thinned into a steady thread, like someone pulling a white cotton wick through the sky. At the cooperative hospital, the backwater slapped the mossy steps and brought with it the smell of silt and coconut husk. Dr Ajayan reached for the metal gate and felt it cold against his palm. He had been on duty for sixteen hours. The ward slept in uneven breaths. From the postnatal room came the hiccuping cry of a new baby and the soft persuasion of a tired nurse. A feral cat stared in from the verandah, eyes narrowed, tail writing things in the damp air. Just before dawn, a woman came in with a breathless boy. The boy’s face was pale and tight at the lips. The woman had tied her hair in a knot that had loosened into a tail of frizz. Rainwater clung to the end of her sari like a shadow. Asthma, Ajayan thought. He did not look at the file first. He crouched near the boy and spoke in a simple way. Tell me where it is tight. The boy pointed to his chest with ...

There are some rains that do not belong to the sky alone. They fall inside you, quietly, long after the clouds have left. It was one such afternoon when the sea itself seemed tired of its own noise. The rain had just begun, slow at first, like hesitant thoughts. Arun sat by the window of his rented house in Vypin, a cup of steaming tea beside his laptop, lines of code and test cases staring blankly at him. The wind brought in the smell of the sea and wet earth, that faint scent that always carried a hint of home, of something unfinished. He was in his late forties now, with a streak of grey beginning to show near his temples. Life had moved through its seasons. A long career in tech, the hum of meetings, the quiet company of his child's laughter echoing from another room, the careful plans for tomorrow that always came before sleep. His wife, Anitha, was kind and composed, the sort of woman who believed that life was best lived in quiet balance. They shared the same roof, the sa...

I first saw him at the bend where our quiet lane in Bangalore met the noisy market road. He stood beside a cart with iron wheels, a faded rug thrown over a mound of almonds, raisins, and figs. His beard was peppered with grey. His eyes had that faraway look some people carry, as if a wind from a distant valley still moved inside them. He called out in a slow, careful voice, the words rounded by another language before they turned into ours. Almonds, fresh almonds. Raisins like small suns. He became a small season in our lane. He came when the morning light made stripes through the jacaranda leaves. He came when the evening cooled the dust and children ran with their school bags like impatient birds. He smiled at the old women with oil in their hair, at the security guard who had a cough every winter, at the milkman who never smiled at all. One morning my daughter, Anya, stopped in front of him. She was five, at that age when every day makes a new law for the world. She looked up at ...

I started noticing her in the way you notice the first raindrop on a hot Trivandrum afternoon-without meaning to, and then not being able to think of anything else. Every morning, after the security scanner scanned my badge and I did the little dance with the turnstile, I would take the same spot on the wooden bench near reception. It was my "transition area", where coffee met courage, where I pretended to read emails on my phone and absolutely did not watch the glass doors. At 9:41 on the dot-give or take the vagaries of the Kazhakootam traffic, she would appear. Meera.   Shoulder-length hair tucked behind one ear , laptop bag, Saree draped on as a Friday Casual. And each time I saw her coming, my stomach would flip like a gull catching a thermal. The gut knew before the brain; she's here. The sunlight from the atrium would follow her inside, turning the scuffed floor into water. She walked with that quick, quiet purpose of people who don't waste time, and I watche...

Prelude: Khamoshi Memories (Class XII, 1996) Khamoshi had not yet released, but it's songs was already playing inside my head: a medley of skipped heart‑beats and badly timed lab experiments. I was 17, perched on a high stool in the Biology lab when Miss A walked in - transfer student from another school in Jaipur, blue‑eyed hurricane in a bottle‑green salwar. From that moment my internal syllabus read only Love 101 . I did everything our Physics teacher warned us not to do with delicate equipment: I stared, I daydreamed, I forgot Ohm's law. Eventually I handed her a rose and a diary of love songs (90 rupees, Archies Gallery) and whispered the world's most nervous proposal. She said "No" - of course and the rumour ricocheted across campus faster than sodium in water. By dusk my mother greeted me at the door with a Malayalam monologue that made even the neighbourhood boxer (the other guy who liked her) look gentle. Exams arrived, Miss A disappeared, and I learn...

Today, I stumbled upon the news I wasn't prepared for! CreativeLive - the platform that had once been a vibrant, inspiring corner of the internet - is shutting down. And as I read the announcement, a wave of sadness and disbelief hit me harder than I expected. It's more than just a website closing. It feels like the quiet end of an era that once held a special place in my heart. I've been a regular visitor of CreativeLive for years. It was more than a place to learn; it was a space that felt alive with passion, purpose, and creativity. Some nights, I'd find myself diving into hours of photography sessions, completely lost in the lessons, scribbling down notes, pausing to absorb a concept, rewinding just to hear a profound insight again. It became a routine, a sanctuary; my own little virtual classroom filled with light. Names like  Sue Bryce ,  Ben Willmore ,  Lindsay Adler , John Greengo and so many others weren't just instructors to me. They were mentors, gu...

Long before dawn the backwaters of  Kuttanad  lie like a sheet of ink beneath a sky still deciding whether to be night or morning. On the verandah of the old Nalukettu house, its laterite walls breathing the night’s final coolness, Devassy Kurian keeps first watch with a brass lamp and an enamel mug of  chukku kaapi . The lamp-flame draws fireflies; the coffee draws memory. His grandson Adithyan will arrive before noon, the first visit home since joining an aeronautics programme in Bengaluru. The boy’s phone calls are full of jet engines and software internships, yet each end with the same Malayalam lullaby Devassy once hummed to him beside a cradle fashioned from a rice-sack and coir rope. The old man whistles the tune now, soft enough not to wake Ammachi inside, and watches the river darken into indigo, then blue. Across the water a country boat appears. Raman the ferryman stands aft, the bamboo poles a metronome against dawn. He nods; no words are needed. The villa...

       'Oh God No!!! Not me please. What did I do to deserve this? What misery!". Twenty year old Leah thought for herself. She took a small sharp edged wood splinter hidden under her louse ridden blanket and pierced her long scaly finger. Nothing came out at her first and second try, and then she tried harder. This time a tiny amount of blood oozed out of her finger. She pressed her finger harder so the blood could come out in a gush. She applied the blood in her lips and her bonny face, so it look lovely and fresh. The German soldier barked out at the inmates, "Any one here sick? Any dead bodies?". No one moved. The soldier came to everyone's sleeping barracks, looked at the haggard faces and picked up a few of them who looked particularly ill. He reached Leah's bed, glanced towards her once, and moved on to other beds. The chosen ones are marched outside the barracks, and then no one heard of them ever.       The year was 1937. The 15 year old ...

Its been five years, I had been in Bangalore and in my current organization I work for. Things have changed so much so that Bangalore doesn't seem to be the good old 'Rustic Bangalore'. Water problems, Electricity problems, Commutation & Traffic problems, Sewage and Garbage disposal problems, problems, problems everywhere... Buildings popping up in all directions, Builders exploiting every piece of land available and Industries polluting or ending the once clean lakes around. Four hours of traffic commutation every day just to travel a 8 to 10 KM on road is just too much to ask. The Metro line program they had planned so far is such a BS piece of work that it benefit no one. And under construction Metro lines are still under construction, even after 5 years of its inception. There's no proper system laid on disposal of Garbage waste, and people dump their wastes on public road sides everywhere. BBMP have no idea on what to do with the garbage they collect and they...

Time...the only entity of the universe that is constantly changing.  Remember when you were a child, playing in your mother's lap and your father content on seeing the ruckus? You grew up a little further, started going to a school; the first day in the school, when you saw your father leaving you behind in an unknown place, and the fear it created in your small heart. And suddenly the tears started flooding through your tiny eyes, and from nowhere small hands, as small as yours grabbed your shirt. Remember, that was the first friendship you had made in the world you had stepped into? Remember all those joys and jumps on the subsequent days when you met your newly made friend at school like every day? Remember the anxiety and sadness when this friend was absent from the class because of a flue?   You grew up a little further, and you started waiting eagerly for the summer vacations in the school. Remember the long journey in the trains, to meet your grandparents who...

Jeez, what a Lovely song this is...  The song has the voice of the female lead of the movie (Andrea Jeremiah). The other appreciable character in the movie is Fahad... This guy has come a very long long way: From this to now... A must watch for all the people out there in love...You will relate something or the other with the protagonists.

I really really wanted to be updating this blog every two or three days - This is my New Year resolution. Hopefully I will keep up this one. Writing on this blog after so many days (months, year?) felt like being guilty of neglecting something I really loved to do. Or rather neglecting a family member to whom I have not contacted for so long. I had recently (over one year now!) developed interest in Photography, and with proper guidance and knowledge from some of the "gurus" of Infosys Photography club (apparently the only thing happened to me for good while I am in Trivandrum Infosys), had got my first assignment for the Photography of an event for the irupathi-yettu of a friend's kid. The crowd was awesome, cooperating and nice! I know it will not be always like this, but I am satisfied that the start was as good as I was expecting. Lucky to be part of the show!!! Here is one of the photograph of the event: Anwita Kutty :-)  The Album has been created and...