Truth is stranger than fiction... found this link when browsing the net for info on Indore city (where I did my college) :
Maharaja of Indore : Santa Ana's richest resident.


Where, where did all that money go? If you read other books about Indore, you'll find that at the same time period, Indore was prey to a dozen Cholera epidemics, which reduced the population by more than 50%. So was this guy sitting twiddling his thumbs while all that stuff happened to Indore? Or is the story much deeper than that ?


The one thing I've learned over the past year is that the newspapers dont report anything really important. Only someone who has been through it knows how different the stories within the stories are from the glossy overviews.

All this made me rather sad... this story is on the web only because the guy was a king.... there are probably dozens more interesting stories that arent deemed important enough to publish. Sigh.

Check out this list of 'favourite words' on Merriam-Webster. This week's resolution is to use Callipygian to describe atleast one girl :)

Random thoughts, being dumped here because I havent anyplace else to put them :


This girl sent me a mail the other day. Announcing her engagement, and I Have Sweets On My Desk. Now this mail was addressed to about 40-odd people, just a normal "information" type mail. The off-kilter thing is, I've hardly ever said more than "Hello" to her, once or twice. If someone had asked, I wouldnt have said she was a friend, or even an aquaintance. If I'd gotten engaged, I dont know if I would have sent her specifically a mail (as opposed to sending the entire floor a mail; I *would* have done that). But - apparently, in her view, I'm one of the ~40 people who are to be told about her engagement. Okay, so far.


I've been brooding since the past few months, about how I have no really close friends, with whom I can talk about what I'm really feeling. How lonely I feel, and so on. (see my earlier posts, whining about the same stuff). And been seeing people sitting with coffees in their hands, and talking animatedly. I've been thinking to myself, "Look at those lucky people, they're good friends and sharing their innermost emotions. Me, I dont have anyone like that." If one of those people got engaged, the others sitting there and laughing with them would be the ones to get the mail telling them that I Have Sweets On My Desk.


So put those two things together, and what does it mean? That those other people talking to each other are no more close than this girl whom I've said no more than "Hello" to? That, the things they saying to each other and laughing over are emotionally as deep or intellectualy as stimulating as a "Hello" in the elevator? Is this the level the conversation I can expect to get all my life? Eons ago, I felt frustrated because my wife and I could never go beyond that "Hello" level of conversation, and I'd thought that it wasnt supposed to be that way. But maybe it is that way.


Or, (more likely), does it mean that I'm the idiot, as always? All my friends who I think are just casual strangers, who I think I dont share anything with, actually think they're very close to me, that I'm a good friend of theirs? Me, a good friend of theirs? How come?

My mind is a runaway horse

shying away from the reins of duty

It wants nothing to do with my job

It refuses to understand 

That it has been rented to my boss for 8 hours

It has convinced itself

That it is still free to follow

Those other interesting paths

This blog is going nowhere. Why would anyone want to read my melancholy musings? They arent that different from ten thousand other such blogs littered all over the net.


But this melancholy phase does make it clear (to me atleast), that I could use my situation to advantage. I call myself a literary type stuck in the computing world. Weelll, that means I'm the only one capable of expressing what really goes on the software business, for other people to read! Add to that me being an Indian, right when the whole BPO/outsourcing/value-addition hullabaloo is raging around me... is it possible that i'm the only one who can write about this stuff? In which case its almost a duty to explain the situation around me....


Let me take a stab at it for a while.

Was reading this interview with Alex Garland, and came across this interesting observation :



"'What bad writing usually is,' he says, 'is over-writing. There's just too much. Adjectives, whatever.' "


Wouldn't this apply to not just the words, but also the ideas? We hear great reviews of people who put in lots of ideas per page : Larry Niven, Umberto Eco, that sort of people. But the ideas these guys put into a page are usualyl worth just those couple of lines, and not more, which is why they fit in.


I got onto this train of thought because of the troubles I'm having in writing now. While earlier my problem was that my story ideas were single-liners, hardly worth the two pages they took up, now I'm thinking up grand stuff : "Let me write about outsourcing!", "Hey, a story where the heroine is a reincarnation of a famouse person would be good! And I can add this buried treasure to it, and a reberl group, and voodoo, and... and..." until I'm overwhelmed with all the forking paths I need to chronicle. Writing is as much a matter of leaving out useless stuff, as it is an effort to put down the essentials. And the worst part is deciding what goes into what category. Hoo boy.


On a related (sort of) note, the third instalment of the Hathoda series is now online at Dinker's magazine site. comments invited...as long as they arent like CV, whose letter on the feedback page describes my efforts at articulating a kid's phonetic language as "inspired by J K Rowling".

Followed a strange train of thought the other day...

I was at an exhibition of books at the standard place (Institute of Engineers), and there werent any of the "any book for 20 Rs." type racks. In fact I found there werent any fiction racks at all, everything was serious-type stuff.

There was a table marked 'Literature', though. This contained stuff intended for students of literature, like critical essays on Faulkner, Bashos haikus along with commentary, studies of William Blakes poetry, and so on. I mention these three books because I picked them up and considered buying them. The prices looked reasonable to me. Finally, I didnt buy them because there is already a huge queue of books sitting at home, including a detailed study of Tennyson, Henry Adams' famous autobiography, The complete poems of Plath, Dickinson, and cummings, the works of Borges...besides all the other stuff. Kismat mein hogi to yeh nayi books padhney ko phir chance milega....some other time.
A couple of tables away, were books on other topics. I skimmed over these, not much interesting. The History table caught my eye, I looked it over hoping for some books on central India, it might be helpful for that "Munh Nochwa" story I was working on. Didnt find anything useful.

The other shelves, Medicine, Electrical Engineering, Computers, Fashion, Architecture...I didnt pay any attention to any of them, and finally came out without buying anything.

Does anyone else see where this is heading? I noticed it as I walked down the stairs.

Every other programmer I know, all my classmates and several others, if you go through their library of books, you'll find 80% of the books are about software, languages, programming techniques, whatever. Some other books will be sci-fi types if he's got a literary bent, or pulp novels for timepass, if not. There'll be a couple of self-help books. and so on.

Now, me. I lump the computer section of any exhibition with FASHION and ARCHITECTURE. But I pore over critical studies of romantic poetry. I mention comparatively obscure writers in passing. I obsess over my library of 800+ books, and my life's aim for the past year or so hasnt been to read design patterns, it's been to read the top 100 list and be able to write like Nabokov. The only computer books I have are my college books, and K&R.

Discussions of what design pattern is cleaner make me uncomfortable. Deciding whether Hemingway's crisp, macho style is better than Fitzgerald's flowery one, can keep me up all night.
I think I'm in the wrong field :). I ought to have been doing a MA in literature, or something.

The closest parallel I can think of, is my friend George, who is a self-professed cinema freak, and who would probably spend more time at the Cinema table of any book exhibition than the computer section..but I'm guessing he wouldnt pass over the computer stuff as completely as I do.

Hoo boy... I feel like I've been walking with my head down for years, and only now am looking up and see where I've been heading.

Just read this very interesting interview with a Korean immigrant writer : "Fitting in".
It kinda fits in with the thoughts that've been passing through my head all weekend. Is feeling alone triggered by the environment you're in, or is it something that is created purely by the mind? Watching a movie tilted me towards the latter view last evening. This was "In the Cut", which I expected to be a plain whodunit/thriller with mebbe a few scenes thrown in.

Ten minutes into the movie, and I noticed that almost every one of the characters lived alone, and their conversations were very abrupt - as if they didnt really want to be talking. Reminded me of how often people in Hollywood movies are shown as living alone. For a moment I felt good about myself, and about how terrific our system of living with the family is. Almost every Hindi movie shows the lead characters with their family members...

And then, of course, it struck me that the system had made no difference for me...I stil felt extremely lonely, living with family does mean that there's someone to talk to, but there's no one who can see things precisely (or closely enough) the way I see them. It went back all the way to college....I'd felt this with friends then, too, and through my married life, when I'd felt more than ever that my wife doesnt understand what I'm thinking about - and vice versa.

Loneliness really is a state of the mind, and cant be removed just by company.

I think I've said this before : Pale Fire is the book to read to understand what a book can achieve. I'm 2/3rds through it, and I can already see ideas, narrative tricks, deliberate holes in the plot, and any number of other devices that are going to leave me totally depressed because I'll never produce anything approaching it :(. More so, when I can see the evidence in so many other books of writers struggling to put in just one of the dozens of ideas from this book.

Maybe its blasphemy, but I think Pale Fire does a better of of experimenting with style and yet delivering the story, than Ulysses. Or maybe it's because of Nabokov's amazing style, he moves between straight descriptive text to flowery, stylish phrases so effortlessly, its a joy to just read any page of his work. This from a person for whom English was a learned language. Nabokov is my hero!!!

Hey...its been five months since I posted to my blog....and to think that at one time I was posting almost every day...hoo boy!

This return to blogging, too, isnt my own idea... it got triggered off by a friend asking me the blog location. So the blog needs to look current atleast while she's reading it, right? :)

I've been writing some fun stuff in the meantime, some of it will make it to the blog. Two stories I wrote for Dinker's sci-fi mag Adbhut are on the net right now...see the Jan and May issues..they're related, by being set in the same universe. Both are experiments in different ways.

I'll try to capture newer experiences to the blog as and when I can separate them out into blog-size bits. Coming up soon, trip report of a vacation I took recently. That ought to take me a while ;)

An excerpt from a mail I wrote.

But the past changes us. What the past did to us determins the decisions we will take, one way or the other. It puts signboards of upcoming goals and diversions on our otherwise eventless road of life. what happened yesterday helps us decide how we are doing today. Whether we agree or disagree with the decsions we made yesterday, we cannot be indifferent to them. When we think we're planning for the future, we're really reacting to the past. We like new friends if they look like old friends, we make new enemies if they behave like old enemies. My decisions in the past have put me where I am now, for better or for worse. There is no such thing as starting afresh - as long as you are in the new life you're imagining, it will extend from the old life you're living. And realizing this is not the same as learning to live with it.

A belated (or is it far in advance?) happy Diwali to all! I had a good time with family during my four-day holiday - hope everyone else did, too. And now for something totally diferent:

Spiders remember childhood friends! Is one of the wierdest stories I've read in a long time. Not only for the fact which they've 'discovered, but for the tacit assumption they started with, that spiders and suchlike dont remember other creatures of their kind. I get the feeling that Indians don't have this assumption - or do they ? A lot of fairy stories imply that the little critters do remember, of course. I find myself unable to remember what I believed before reading this article... one more thing to think about.

Rather disturbing piece of news :
Single screening theatres plan indefinite strike
The interesting part is that, Multiplexes are completely exempt from Entertainment tax - while normal theatres arent. That means the multiplexes, which charge about a hundred bucks a ticket, are pocketing ALL of it for themsleves...makes me feel bad about ever having gone to those places. Consdering that you dont get any special advantages at a multiplex (being able to pay 40 bucks for a burger during the interval is NOT an advantage)...Yeh koi tareeka hua! Me, I opt for the older theatres every time.

Which reminds me, I saw Samay a couple of days back (at a single-screen theatre). Very neatly done movie, even if the ending is copied from Seven. No useless songs (except for one 'item number', which can be forgiven, I guess), no Johnny Lever, and no romantic hero for the heroine. I noticed it was produced by iDream - These guys are definitely doing good work. All the movies they produce (like, 16th December, Jajantaram Mamataram, Mitr, the upcoming Rudraksh) are off the beaten track, generally low-budget, but technically well done.

Watch this space :

Adbhut | Science Fiction and Fantasy | An Indian Experience

This is a magazine my friend Dinker is starting up. And if I know my friends right, this is going to be something worth looking at pretty soon.

I just finished a really neat book : On the Road by Jack Kerouac. Already I find the run-on writing style has filtered into my own writing, particularly some letters I've written recently. I'll need to read something with clipped sentences (Len Deighton, maybe?) to get the writing back to normal :).
Also, a couple of days back, saw Mulholland Drive. One wierd movie, that one is. You need to either see it three or four times, or see summaries on the net(like I did) to make sense of the whole movie. Not to mention that I found the thing to be quite creepy. Of course, seeing it alone at 3 in the night may be part of the reason for that!

Went home and looked up the remaining three books :) ( <-- Sheepish grin ).

18. All quiet on the western front - Erich Remarque
19. If you could see me now - Peter Straub
20. A kiss before dying - Ira Levin

Note the very high percentage of books either on the top 100 lists or written by authors on the list. Havent started on any of this lot yet. I'm currently finishing Wizard and Glass by Stephen King and On the Road by Jack Kerouac. On the Road is highly, highly recommended for its writing technique. Amazing book! Fully deserves to be so famous, unlike some of the real duds on that #$@ top 100 list.

Went out last evening with Samrat to see Bad Boys 2. It has been many years since I watched an action movie in the theatre (and I refuse to count Chura Liya Hai Tumne as action). Fun stunts, some very funny comedy sequences, and the added sparkle of having got the tickets free (prize from the Quiz we won). Added up to an enjoyable evening.

After a long quiet spell, I've been on a crazy book-buying spree again. There's a great book exhibition at the Institute of Engineers, and the bargain books counter (20 bucks apiece!) has some really hard-to-find books. I've gotten addicted to finishing that Modern Library list of the top 100 books this century (BOTH the lists on that page), so I use it as a guideline when looking for books to buy.

I am now going to imitate George's (sometimes irritating) habit of gloating over my current haul:
1. The Moviegoer - Walker Percy
2. The Confessions of Nat Turner - William Styron
3. The Day of the Locust - Nathaniel West
4. The Heart is a Lonely Hunter - Carson McCullers
5. The Moon is a Harsh Mistress - Robert Heinlein
6. Stranger in a Strange Land - Robert Heinlein
7. We the Living - Ayn Rand
8. Journeys to the Twilight Zone - short stories ed. by Rod Serling's wife (whoever that was)
9. The Glass Key - Dashiell Hammett
10. The Belljar - Sylvia Plath
11. The Plague Dogs - Richard Adams
12. Our Town - Thornton Wilder
13. Sein Language - Jerry Seinfield
14. From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler - E. L. Konigsburg
15. A Wrinkle in Time - Madeleine D'Engle
16. Welcome to the Monkey House - Kurt Vonnegut
17. Martin the Warrior - Brian Jacques
18.

OH - MY - GOD! I really cannot remember the remaining 3 books I bought just two days back! Either I'm buying too many books or my memory is fading. I am dumping this onto the blog and adding stuff as and when I remember it (or look it up).

This past weekend I finally joined the 'Aashay Film Club', after having procrastinated over it for years. I dont think they have a proper website, so cant link to them. Basically they hold screenings of art/classic/experimental movies in all languages. Hunted around for the location of their 'office', finally found it, registered for a year, walked out really happy. Until yesterday morning, when it struck me that I was going to be going to these shows all alone. As far as I know, none of my friends are members of the club. So I need to either drag my old friends to come with me, or make new friends who are already there. :) Lessee how this goes.

Finally, it's here, the next chapter of Pawar Guest House. The short story within was born while I was on a trip to Himachal Pradesh, and written when I was on a trip to Rajasthan, under less-than-ideal conditions. The word file where I'm writing the stories is now 110 kb.... some day it'll be a full book. :)

Chapter 6

It is now nearly a week since I read the diary, here at the Pawar Guest House. In the days that passed I struggled to come to terms with the diary’s contents, and even now, have not quite accepted the idea they lay out. Admittedly, this cannot be a new idea; browsing through any good public library will give me the technical word for it, will give me accounts of people faced with this problem, and how they dealt with it.

But… as the diary itself says, there’s no way my experience can be exactly the same as that of those other writers, or even of the person who wrote that diary. So that, even in this, my account of the conversations I had with the old lady, I cannot be sure that you are actually reading what I mean to write.

That evening after I returned, I had just the strength to copy down the contents of the diary, which she’d lent me. What we talked about after that, I felt, there was no point writing. Fortunately, the feeling has passed somewhat now, though it touches everything I say and write. Whatever twisted meaning it may convey to a reader, it should, hopefully, remind me of what actually happened afterwards.

- - -

I finished reading the diary, flipped through the remaining entries ( Bread – 8 Rs., Lunch – 20 Rs. … ) and closed the diary. My thoughts were in a jumble, somehow the diary had awakened the one demon I’d always fought against – the fear of not being understood – and proclaimed it victorious without a doubt.

She said,” You’ll probably not believe it, but I know what you’re feeling. You’ll get over it, in time. But this feeling, this idea is going to colour your thoughts and stories for a long, long time.”

I got up abruptly. “It’s…getting late. I need to get back.”

“Yes, of course you must. Come back only when you want to. I’d like to hear what you think about the diary, after you’ve had the time to mull it over.”

I walked back, through the deserted, sodium-vapour-lit streets, lost in my thoughts. She had been right. All the stories I’d remembered, all the tales I’d planned to tell, now seemed so useless against the one big cancer of an idea that kept pulling me in. I was alone, so alone forever, as alone as every other person I’d ever met. Just like every other person.

- - -

I don’t know why today, I’ve come back to the Guest House. Certainly, if she asks me, I have nothing to tell. Perhaps it is inertia, or perhaps some subconscious hope of finding some distraction from my thoughts.

Thankfully, she doesn’t seem to expect anything from me, either. As soon as I sit down, she says,” I’m pretty sure you don’t have anything to tell today. So for today, we’ll do what you originally wanted when you came here. I’ll tell the stories.

“Let me start with the reason why I came here. I’m not originally from here, I was born in Himachal Pradesh, among the hills…”

- - - - - -

It took a while before anyone recognized Anand. After all, he hadn’t been back to the village for nearly twenty years. He just stood there, where he’d gotten off the bus, as it rolled on, leaving a pall of dust and smoke. As the dust settled, Anand looked around him. Memories stirred in him as he recognized places, things, that hadn’t changed since he’d left this place.

He came out of his reverie with a jerk. Two old men in the dhaba opposite were looking at him curiously. The one with the red turban had a strange, doubtful look on his face. Anand picked up his traveling bag and walked across the road to the dhaba. He went up to the old men and said to the red-turbanned one,” Namaste, Ishwar Kaka. Remember me?”

Ishwar Kaka’s face cleared. He said,” Anand beta, it is you, then? I wasn’t… sure!” And a laugh broke free from him and he stood up clumsily to embrace the lost son of the village.

Anand asked him,” Is the old room by the temple still there? Is Ramdhari Kaka still the priest?” The old man looked at him, averted his face. “Why do you want to go there, beta? Come to my home, I’ve got a pucca home now. Why not stay with me?” But Anand was already shaking his head. “No, Kaka… next time, I’ll definitely stay with you. For tonight, let me go to the temple.”

“Then… you are only here for a day?”

“Yes, Kaka.”

“But… your land? I thought you’d come to sell off your land, or to till it?”

A faint smile crossed Anand’s face. “Some other time, Kaka. This time I’m just here to remember.” And he set off on the strange yet familiar path to the temple.

Ramdhari Kaka still was the priest, and he, of course, remembered Anand. The room was much smaller than he remembered it, and dustier. But it was empty, and Anand didn’t mind the dust. He bought a chatai from the Kirana shop and pread it out in its usual corner under the window. He rested there for a while, waiting for the evening.

Meanwhile the news of his arrival had spread like wildfire. Everyone, from Darbari Seth, the owner of the Chamunda lodge, to mad old Babu, cavorting in the freezing river water, knew Anand was back.

Evening is a very long period in the Himachal villages. The sun goes down below the mountains very early, but darkness arrives only when it is well and truly gone. People stop working in the tarraced fields, shops start closing, and only the groups of children scamper about on the streets. Their parents are too busy gossiping in the fading light at the village chaupal, or in the temple courtyard. Today, for some reason, the chaupal was deserted, and everyone seemed to converge on the temple courtyard for their gossip. People stole glances through the open door by the temple’s side, where they could just make out Anand’s feet in the gloom, and see him occasionally turn to his side.

He finally got up and came out of the room yawning. He didn’t seem surprised to see the people sitting in the courtyard, but walked over to the pot of water by the wall, drank from it, and sat down leaning against a pillar by the gate. The murmur of discussion rose up again, but hesitantly.

Finally, one old lady asked Anand,” How have you been, beta? We never heard from you after you left.”

“I’ve been alright, Kaki. I found some work in the city and studied through college. Now I have a job in the government.”

Anand felt like a liar, even though it was the truth he’d said. But how could he describe that he hadn’t been all right, that he’d starved so often to pay his fees, how he;d studied under street lamps, how he’d vended tea even after getting his degree, how he’d struggled to get his job. He could still taste the dust in his mouth from the day he’d left the village, in the early morning bus, hiding from everyone, hoping that the bus driver didn’t know who he was. He remembered living in fear, even in the city, fear that someone would recognize him, would take him back.

The old lady said,” I remember the time when you used to help out Vaidji in his work, you’d even made a kaadhaa for me once when I had a fever.”

Though controlling his voice took an effort, Anand spoke pleasantly enough.

“Yes, Kaki. I remember. Of course, Pitaji couldn’t teach me his craft for long. Darbari Seth took care of that.”

There was an uncomfortable silence. Darbari Seth hadn’t come to the courtyard (perhaps he’d gone to the chaupal) but his wife was here. Almost everyone present knew Vaidji’s gambling habits, how he’d lost his house and land to Darbari Seth in a long night of drunk gambling. Anand, of course, remembered being woken from his sleep, early in the morning, by a goon, and being dragged out of the house by one arm. He remembered his mother weeping, assuring the goons that they would repay in full, if only they could stay here for a few more days…

Anand continued,” Of course, Ramdhari Kaka let us stay in this room for as long as we needed.”

The listeners shifted uneasily. Most of them could remember shutting out Vaidji ( who was, after all, a southerner, not a Himachali like themselves). Each had told himself that someone else would take these people in, ignoring the pleas audible from outside their doors, over the next few days after Vaidji had lost his home. They had snuggled inside, safe from the freezing cold of the winter.

“But beta, you were all quite comfortable here, and we… we would all have helped you if you’d had any problem.”

Anand’s voice remained calm as he said,” May I ask you a question, Kaki?”

Pausing a moment, he continued,” Does anyone remember the time at which Pitaji died?”

No one answered.

“Of course, no one remembers. No one even knows the time. It took me nearly half the day to get people to take him to the ghat. And no one wanted to do even that. Were you all so afraid of Pneumonia, that you were afraid of touching his body?”

Some of the villagers looked like they wished they handt come here. Morbid curiosity held the rest in a thrall. Even though Anand’s voice was calm, it was clear that he was accusing them, holding them all responsible.

One person stood up. Anand’s voice rang out after him, in the gloom.

“Thakur chacha, how come you’re in such a hurry? Arent you proud of the honour of being the first?”

“The first?” Thakur said roughly, drawn in, in spite of himself. “The first what?”

”The first to call me a ‘kalmunha’ to my face? The first to come with a crowd, to my mother and me, to demand the debts my father had left behind? The first person for whom I worked in the fields, trying to stay alive and repay my debts? You were an inspiration, Chacha, you were an inspiration to so many others who wanted their debts paid!”

Anand’s mind flashed back to his life as it had seemed to be to his ten-year-old mind then…an endless series of fields to be ploughed, grain to be threshed; as a labourer, bound to this village and its people forever… alone except for his mother, who was slowly but surely losing her mind…

She had still had phases of clear thought, and in one of these, late at night, she had woken him up frantically from a deep sleep. She’d stolen some money from a shop that day, and she told him about it as she thrust it into his pocket.

“Run, beta, run away. Don’t worry about me, I am going to die soon. Take the bus that goes to the city, early in the morning. Never come back, beta, never come back…”

He had started to protest, but she had pulled him up and stodd him straight by then. Even before he was fully awake, she was pushing him out of the door. Something struck her then, as she watched him framed against the night of stars, with the silent, sleeping village below it. She grabbed up a small pot of water and handed it to him. “Here, take this. Keep it with you in the bus. I don’t know where you will eat, beta, but atleast you will be free. Now go! Go!” And she had turned him around, towards the road, and slammed the door shut behind him.

He’d stood for a moment, listening to her weeping from behind the door. Then, as if still in a dream, he’d started walking.

Slowly at first, then almost running, he’d walked to the bus stop and hid behind a tree, clutching the unwieldy pot of water to him, jumping at every sound, suspecting every noise was a footfall, expecting a rough hand on his shoulder any minute…

Anand said, “ None of you know this, but the only thing I took from your village was a pot of water.” No one protested at his use of “your village”.

“And, of course, Thakur chacha had already discovered that I was a ‘kalmunha’. I’ve today to fulfil that prophecy, and to repay my debt.”

There was a stir at these words. No one, however, asked him to explain.

“All my life, I’ve been laughing at those stories about kind-hearted villagers helping strangers. All my life, I have had that pot of water, the only thing I got from here, on my mind. Perhaps that pot was what shaped my career.

“I’ve told you that I work for the government. Let me explain what work I do. I work for the Himachal Hydel Power Corporation, and I work for the Survey department. We look for suitable sites to set up Hydel projects – that means dams, Thakur chacha.

“I’m here to announce formally to the village that a big project is going to be set up in this valley.”

“But… that means…”

“Yes.” Anand said. Those close to him could have sworn he was smiling. This village is going to be submerged in a new lake of water in the valley. The government will of course give you suitable replacement homes and land… as it usually does. I’ll be in charge of that as well.”

- - - -

So, people, finally, I'm back. Had to leave for a sudden visit to my in-laws place, about three weeks back. Boy, was it tiring!

But this long absence wasnt a total waste....I managed to get one more story in the Pawar Guest House series completed. This is probably the quickest of the lot, counting the time from inception to execution... one month! Will dump it here as soon as I get it typed.

Not much else to report... a huge number of things happened on this recently concluded trip...most of which are still too 'daanwadol' to tell now. The trip will be described on this blog in excruciating detail, someday.

Which reminds me of the promised account of my Himachal trip... Of yes, that one is over a dozen pages long and still only half done! Working on it, working on it...hang on :)