Leafy Meadows

It was late morning when coming from the client's office on Fergusson college road, I came across a kid in tattered clothes raising a hand for lift...! Now, as a practice, I generally don't give lifts on the bike due to the urgency of work, but that day I stopped a few meters ahead from where the kid was asking for a lift. I called for him, and he rushed towards the bike me even asking where he wanted to go, he hopped on the rear seat and ordered me to go ahead, I was a bit surprised for generally lift seekers are meek fellows they bestow pleas and thank yous so often..  but this kid was different he immediately ordered me to go ahead. Still, I said, I was going near Shaniwar Wada, if he doesn't have an issue I can drop him there. He said ok, still, I asked him where was his ultimate destination, any school or home on the route I would have been happy to drop him off. He said no, it's ok, just drop me at Wada, I will manage from there..! So, Feeling like Dhanno in Shol

  Manisha had just clicked a self in her bedroom and shared it on one of the social media platforms that are trending with nouveau youth. Soon, within minutes, her photo got 10 thousand likes and many comments some good and most illicit and derogatory. But Manisha wasn't concerned all she cared about was that more than 10 thousand people like her. But was it a reality? No, Manisha hardly has friends, she hardly interacts with kids her age, all her friends could be counted on fingertips. Yet this 13-year-old has 10 thousand likes. Privacy has now very different meanings to these young children.  Children and young adults are unmindful of the images and parts of their lives they are sharing online. Like little Manisha above, they are feeding the monster of voyeurism, pedophilia, and many other social evils. Let's Get To The Bottom ...or is it a bottomless abyss...!! In the age of smartphones and access to technology instant fame isn't a distant dream, previously once in a dec

Rajesh worked in a brick kiln, kneading wet clay, casting brick shapes, burning clay bricks in the kiln, was all he knew about the work and in his life. His parents came as migrant workers from the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. They worked all odd jobs before getting some kind of permanent situation in this brick kiln.  Rajesh was fond of motor vehicles, for when he was just a kid of brick kiln laborer, he would find himself a newly minted brick, and run it horizontally along with the soft dry clay, creating narrow lanes the size of the width of the brick and would travel into the make-believe world of cars. For him, cars held no brand names/tags, he was as unaware of Audi and BMW as that of a Rolls Royce. For him, all bricks were essentially cars. Sometimes he would crash them against one another to test which one is the toughest build, like how modern car manufacturers do with crash tests. With little rough clay, he would sometimes make small mounds, where he would have a c

  This, it is a solitary grave no flowers are brought here and no tears shed,  it is so secluded and remote that only one person in the whole world knows about its existence. That's right just one person, do want to know who that person is?.... It is YOU...!! Yes, this grave has a very deep and close relation to you, it is known only by you and you alone.  Because it is the grave of your aspirations, dreams, and what could have been. Oh! Do you want to know where it lies? It lies in the deepest recess of your heart, so many things have been filling up this abysmal grave. For though it says six feet under, the depth is unmeasurable. for you have been filling it up since you can conceive the notions of dreams, wants, desires, aspirations, and yet it is still only half full. And if you consider the above statement as true, then we are practically living in the graveyard of dreams and aspirations. It is very frightening when the ghosts of such aspirations haunt our lives. Our happiness