I am a dyed-in-the-wool romantic and love love love.
I feel like writing something sweet and light again after some heavy and hefty books. And am calling all lovers – starry-eyed/star-crossed, living happily ever after or nursing a broken heart. If you would like to tell me about your romance, DM me! I will put the stories up on my blog. If you want to remain anonymous, I’ll change your names. If you want to dedicate the story to someone, I’ll name a character after them. No strings attached!
Here are links to a couple of love stories I wrote some time ago. Like most stories, they are a mix of fact and fiction, sweet, sad, funny… I wrote one as a birthday gift, another as a wedding gift, yet another for a breakup!
Imagine a quiet professor. Not so quiet for he can talk a fair bit. But a fairly low-profile guy, without any quirks of personality that make him stand out. Pleasant enough but not a head-turner; you get my drift?
Years ago, he married his college mate. But it didn’t work out and a while later, in his usual quiet way, the professor found another teaching job and well, continued to teach away. His colleagues liked him, his students liked him; he was sociable and helpful, always had an open house. Somehow as these things happen, he became the confidante of all lovelorn souls. All his friends paraded their latest flames, boasted or wept whichever way the tide might have been turning for them at the time. The quiet Prof had to even lend his ear and his money to his lovelorn pals. Young and old, they confided their romantic rhapsodies and blithely took his help for granted. With all this romance in the air, surely you don’t imagine our protagonist was immune to the love bug?
Now like all men past 35, he longed for days of faded youth and sought to recapture them. By dint of assiduously hanging out with a bunch of youngsters, he befriended many a girl. Sadly, eager as they seemed for his company, they would use him to get a ride or a job or another guy. Still, he continued to revel in dreams of romance. In fact, much like the hero of old Indian films, he felt a masochistic pleasure in pining with unrequited love.
Came the day and it did happen to him too. Unbelievably so, a ripe young woman scorned a younger guy and became his girlfriend. This time everything was perfect; she was not a gold-digger, indeed, if she had a flaw at all, it was that she was supremely unambitious. She was content and loyal, sexy and witty and well, just right for him. She moved into his home and life was heaven on earth for the quiet Prof. He barely managed to tear himself from home, scampered right back for ‘lunch’ and declined all invitations to dine out.
Friends just waited for the novelty to wear off; they winked at each other with total understanding and asked him to make a note to call them after a couple of months. But he never seemed to weary of their cosy togetherness. The mutterings began, “He never calls us home nor does he come over. This is downright unfriendly, never thought he would change etc etc”. Neighbours told mutual friends that he was hardly away from home. The bartender at his favourite pub sadly wiped a tear as he polished the glass mugs and longed for the Prof who would quietly imbibe huge quantities of beer.
Ah, if he could only tell them the truth. He imagined his friends quaffing beer and making ribald jokes at his expense. The thing that kept him chained to the house was not his late-blooming romance, passionate though he remained. His lady-love had finally decided their combined finances would get a boost if she went to work. She also longed to shed some of the avoirdupois which her fond lover was responsible for (he fed her constantly, liking his women round).
But she could not leave the house unless he promised to stay and take –over her job. That was to look after her dog. Never was a dog, nor his mistress, more pampered. This was no ordinary dog; it pined for human company. It would howl its head off if it was left alone on the terrace and reduce the house to a wreck if it didn’t have a minder. His lady love could not give up her 8 hours of beauty sleep, so the quiet Prof (who used to think 9 am was too early to wake up) would crawl out at the break of dawn to walk the dog. He came back, fixed breakfast first for the dog and then packed ‘tiffin’ for the lady.
She left with a kiss and a wave and he had to stay on as late as he could and dart out just in time for his first lesson. He would dash back at lunchtime and stay as long as he could before going back to the office. Why, he had even given up his evening game of tennis and would straight home.
There, he would wait quietly, in front of the TV, as his darling finished work, work out and then come home for a hot dinner at 8 pm. What rankled him most, he brooded, was when she got home, it was the dog and not he, who got the first rapturous hug and kisses. But it was not his nature to complain and he didn’t. He just went on being quieter and quieter. So quiet did he become that even the dog ceased to regard him as worthwhile company and took up its howling whether he was home or not. So enraged was the dog with its feeling of neglect, that one day it destroyed all his mistress’s cosmetics.
Love for the lipsticks and French perfume didn’t stand a chance against canine company. The dog was sent packing. Indeed, two figures emerged at a run from the house, one disappeared to the wilderness while the other human figure drove rashly and negligently to the old watering hole. There, he downed 4 mugs in a row and looked at all his old friends like a new man. He pulled out his cell phone, pressed speed dial for his home and spoke loud and clear, “I am going to be late. Fix your own dinner”.
first published on my blogpost Indian Twilite on Aug 24, 2006
Flying to Dubai to shop is passe, go there to check out the EXPO.
EXPO 2020 is an impressive showcase of the human-tech connections.
As the metro sped to Expo 2020, we were eager, enthusiastic and energetic. We had just arrived from a 7 degree chill that seeped through fur caps and three layers of clothing in Istanbul to a warm welcome in Dubai.
Our Emirates air tickets gave us complimentary day passes to the Expo 2020, that’s on from 1 October 2021 to 31 March 2022. and so off we went, in search of innovation and enlightenment. First the answer to the question why is it called Expo 2020 when we are in the year 2021. It was originally scheduled to be held from October 2020 to April 2021, but had to be postponed because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Since a lot of moolah and effort had already been expended branding and marketing blitz, the organisers decided to stick with the original name.
Your face, your passport
Upon entry, our passes were scanned by nifty handphones and we were photographed. If we visit again, facial recognition will see us through! Suitably impressed, we stepped out and followed the round of rhythmic drums to the centre stage where a series of shows pep up the mood in between official speeches.
The friendly robot reminds visitors to mask up.
The Expo is categorised into three Districts: Sustainability, Mobility and Opportunity. As we wove our way through the immense area, we soon realised the meaning of the sympathetic expression on the face of one of the numerous well trained and courteous volunteers when I told her that I had a list of country pavilions to visit. We never made it out of the first that we visited, the Mobility District. One would need a couple of weeks or more to do full justice to all but here’s a sneak peek into the pavilions that we visited.
The most astounding feature of the Expo is that themes are not linear; instead of a mundane textbook-like approach, most countries have interpreted it in a unique way, making the journey whimsical and immersive, melding arts and technology seamlessly.
The ruler of Dubai and the Vice President, Prime Minister and Defence Minister of UAE sums up the importance of the EXPO 2020.
Alif
Alif is the first letter of the Arabic alphabet and that was the name of the Special Mobility Pavilion. It traces the human urge to move from the very beginning of life. Beginning with nine-metre-tall statues of innovators whose early innovations led to navigations of the world, we walked through cutting edge technological displays of space explorations. How smart cities are going to be with AI/ ML, big data, robotics, and the not-so-distant future when autonomous transport, drones, robots and solar powered tricycles will be ubiquitous.
Hola!
A bit of posing with these eternal party goers! Mask protocol is very strict at the EXPO, I removed mine just for a few seconds for the photo.
It was the music wafting that was irresistible and led us to Mexico. With a brilliant facade woven by 200 women artists, the Mexico Pavilion is a colourful showcase of arts, cuisine apart from the business networking opportunities. Stepping through to huge 3D screens, we were transported to the rich diversity of Mexico with enchanting flowers and butterflies as the leitmotif.
Step it Up!
The Mobility District has 5400 sq.m dedicated to sports, fitness and well-being. I was chuffed as my watch had me clocking an average of 12,000 steps a day in the previous weeks and I enjoyed the zany fun options here. You check out your reflexes apart from watching live sporting action, tournaments, exhibition games, – we were in time to see an international bowling contest – and meeting sports heroes. There are workshops and sports clinics for those who register early.
By then the 35 degree heat had slow cooked any exposed skin. We didn’t need to be reminded by the PA announcements to keep ourselves hydrated and rather thankfully we fell into a queue that offered cans of water that led to the land of Oz. There was a bit of a wait as there was a show in progress and some dropped out but I held firm. I could not walk away from the entreating looks of the volunteers – we need warm bodies to fill the seats, as I know from my experience of curating many events and festivals.
Star Gazing
Australia prides itself as a nation built on mobility and its pavilion showcases its 60,000 years of innovation. We gazed up at the night skies Down Under at a show unfolded about the stars that guided the aboriginals and created a world of folklore alongside the evolution of astronomy. We came out from the blessed coolth to a rollicking musical act with food and drink.
Queues had begun to form outside country pavilions by then as evening was gaining upon us. More sensible people had chosen to come after it had got cooler. With waning energy, we stuck to looking at the pavilions from the outside, and having eaten very expensive ice creams, wearily trudged back to the Metro. Note: all purchases are via cards, no cash transactions here.
The ‘Reclining Woman’ lounges gracefully outside the Colombian pavilion. This bronze was sculpted by maestro Fernando Botero, who is regarded as one of the world’s leading contemporary artists and whose style is known as ‘Boterismo’.
Should you go?
Undoubtedly yes! There’s much to see and learn at every Expo from the very first held in London in 1851. Innovators vie to present their ideas to the world at every expo and many of these have had marked impact on our lives.
Can you think of a life without a telephone or for that matter, tomato ketchup? From the X ray machine to the ice cream cone, the first commercial broadcast television to the Imax, touchscreens to humanoid robots many innovations have emerged at expos over the years across the globe. As the Expo ad urges, ‘Countless technological advances await. Unleash your inner techie, discover life-changing innovations and experience a truly connected high-tech world.’
Expo 2020 is about ‘Connecting Minds and Creating the Future’ through sustainability, mobility and opportunity. It is centred on innovation and technology, and you can explore them across a range of verticals: travel, health care, AI, sustainability and more. There’s a theme each week of the expo and performances galore by high profile artists.
A human-centric future city
Coincidentally, a couple of weeks before we arrived in Dubai we were in Antalya, the beautiful seaside town in southern Turkey which had hosted the Expo 2016, an international horticultural exposition. The cycling route of the Ironman Triathlon went through the vast and deserted infrastructure that was custom built for the expo. (The triathlon was what took me first to Turkey and on to Dubai (as a roadie/ anchor to my son who was participating). Thus, it was interesting to see that the very first pavilion at the World Expo gives a detailed presentation of the proposed use of the facilities created for the Expo.
At the end of the six-month long World Expo, the area will evolve into District 2020 which is envisioned to be a smart and sustainable city centred on the needs of an urban community. 80% of the Expo’s build environment will be repurposed into an integrated mixed use community for mixed use as businesses, residences and entertainment areas. The key purpose is to provide ‘a curated innovation-driven business ecosystem that brings together global minds and embraces technology and digital innovation to support industry growth.’ (see box on Expo Legacies)
Expo Legacies
Amongst the infrastructure created for expos, the most famous is the Eiffel Tower, built for the Exposition Universelle (1889). There are quite a number of those around the world including quite a few in New York City, the first being the Queens Museum, the Atomium in Brussels, the Space Needle in Seattle, the Skyneedle in Brisbane, the China Art Museum in Shanghai, and many others. In a few instances, the main buildings of the Expo have been integrated into the city as in Lisbon.
When I visited Gallery Sumukha to see its 25th anniversary exhibition, an unusual show of collages by senior artist SG Vasudev, I came away with much more than I expected.
Vasu has always inspired people, yours truly among them. He is disarmingly unpretentious and embraces every opportunity to share his knowledge. A conversation with him recharges the grey cells. This time was no exception. I have been battling a creative block and viewing the artworks made me realise that ….Read on here:
Along with family and friends, I said goodbye to Girish Karnad for the last time today at his home; even as my heart wept through the readings from his works that replaced the chanting of priests, I noted how right this tribute felt. Like everyone else, I mourn the passing of this colossal intellectual and multi-talented giant. I also remember his gracious friendliness; a person of letters who was never patronising to lesser writers; a handsome, charming and gallant man who evoked a feminine response in me.
At our first meeting, I remembered my pink-faced indignation at a press conference by several cultural personalities at the Indian Institute of Engineers (perhaps in support of Protima Bedi being given land for Nrityagram in the early 90s). He asked me which newspaper I was with and wanted me to quote him. Before that I had had no luck getting him to give me a quote on something or the other, and as a cub reporter, the chief reporter’s furious barbs were as hurtful as seeing his interview the next morning in a rival newspaper (to a guy i was then dating and later married). I bristled with pique as I asked him why he gave me a brush off when I called for a quote. He laughed good naturedly, apologised and promised to give me an interview any time I wanted one.
Over the years, he graduated from Mr.Karnad to just Girish. As he pointed out while getting Kamal Haasan to pose for a photo with me at the release of ‘Hey Ram’, there were some benefits to knowing him. Several years later, he offered to move when I was getting a photo with another crush, Anant Nag, at the release of Kathak guru Maya Rao’s autobiography. I confessed then that I might have had a crush on Anant as a school girl, but my crush on Karnad as an adult was more enduring!
With Girish Karnad and Kamal Haasan
With Girish Karnad, Anant Nag and Aditya Mendonca
Some memories stick out; he wrote a small article for a book that Raintree Media published, Table the Window, and upon some persuasion, released it, too. He got his revenge at the launch when he announced that “Sandhya has a way of taking your hand and gently squeezing it, so you can’t say no to her request”.Continue reading “Goodbye, Girish Karnad”
I opened a session titled Womanifesto recently with this provocative line, “A woman’s place is in the House”. The audience held its collective breath and some of them who know me, watched with puzzlement. Before they could recover and organise a lynch mob, I quickly went on to add, ‘of the People’.
Way back in 2015, I had mulled over the idea of pushing for a more open discussion on this topic ; I even had a few graphics run up.
But I never got around to actively pushing it out, and so when Shruti Kaura asked me to moderate the programme on April 24, I accepted with alacrity. The following are my statements at the programme. For a detailed report on what other speakers said, read Citizen Matters.
“This is an apolitical forum, notwithstanding our personal political beliefs, to encourage all parties to put up more women on their own right, and who are the actual representatives. We would like to get more women candidates and more credible women candidates.
Karnataka was the first to introduce reservation for women in Panchayat Raj, keeping 25 per cent of the seats for women, way back in 1983. After the 73rd and 74th amendments to the constitution, three levels of Panchayat Raj institutions, more than half of the members of gram panchayat, taluk panchayat and zilla panchayat are women.
But when it comes to representation in Legislative Assembly and Parliament, it is a very sorry set of figures.
Let’s look at numbers. Karnataka’s population is 6.1 crore out of which men are 50.7 percent and women are 49.3 percent. But when it comes to representation in the state assembly, the percentage of women is just 2.6 percent. Of the 225 seats in the 14th Karnataka Legislative Assembly, there are just six elected women and one nominated. Out of 70 ministers in the Karnataka cabinet, only 2 are women. For the upcoming elections, the candidates of major political parties are predominantly men.
The worrisome fact is that not only are fewer women contesting, fewer women are winning. 175 women contested in the last Assembly elections in 2013, out of which only 6 won, 159 of those lost forfeited their deposits. (In the Lok Sabha elections in 2014, 21 women contested in Karnataka, and only one won).
Universal problem
Do female candidates ‘lose votes’?: A study on the experience of female candidates in the 1979 and 1980 Canadian general elections concludes that, ‘It does not seem, then, that the relative failure of women in federal elections can be traced directly to voters’ sentiments. Rather, it appears as if the limited success of women in federal politics in Canada largely originates in their difficulties in securing nominations to contest seats which they have some reasonable prospect of winning.’
The Women’s Reservation Bill or The Constitution (108th Amendment) Bill, 2008, is a lapsed bill in the Parliament of India which proposed to amend the Constitution of India to reserve 33% of all seats in the Lower house of Parliament of India, the Lok Sabha, and in all state legislative assemblies for women. The seats were proposed to be reserved in rotation and would have been determined by draw of lots in such a way that a seat would be reserved only once in three consecutive general elections.
The Rajya Sabha passed the bill on 9 March 2010. However, the Lok Sabha never voted on the bill. The bill lapsed after the dissolution of the 15th Lok Sabha in 2014.
Is there hope on the horizon? As women in India are getting more mobilized than ever before over issues of safety, sexual harassment and human rights, could this lead to more political mobilisation?
Can all women’s groups and women’s wings of political parties agree to lobby for the passing of The Women’s Reservation Bill It should be a non-negotiable agenda, cutting across ideologies and affiliations. Be it a women’s wing of a political party or an Inner Wheel Club, in the next Parliamentary elections, all women should refuse to vote until all political parties agree to pass this bill.
A study by Politico.com says that America has a shortage of female politicians because, to put it simply, women don’t want the job. What about Indian women? Are we up to the job?”
More about me: I have always been interested in politics; I studied for a Master’s degree in political science, and I was at the periphery of student politics as class mates and friends were involved in the students’ union. The major part of my career as a journalist was spent covering Karnataka politics.
It was years later that the irony struck me; that while in college, students could win votes based on their capabilities without gender being an impediment, the equation seemed to change in the real world of adults. For many impressionable young women, the fact that we had a woman Prime Minister was a matter of great pride. I has secretly treasured with shy pride the family lore that, when I was very young and while on a tour of the Parliament, I had climbed on to the Prime Minister’s seat. Childhood games of pretend that I played with my older sister consisted of me playing the role of Indira Gandhi.
In the wake of the recent spate of brutal torture, rape & murders of young girls in India, the staging of 17-year old play hits home truths.
The current production of Alipha is an example of theatre at its best, with a great amount of ‘simpatico’ between playwright and director on the one hand, and director and actors on the other. Poile Sengupta has an incredible felicity in fleshing out her characters, and you are bound to immediately connect with them as they remind you of people you have met.
Two actors command your attention for an hour on either side of the stage. One is a little orphan girl (Kavya Srinivasan) being raised by an aunt; she dreams of going to an English medium school and is ecstatic at a scholarship. The other actor (Anirudh Acharya) is the son of a politician, entitled and self-obsessed, used to riding rough shod over anybody who comes in the way of his greed and appetite. Their lives run on tangential tracks until they collide with disastrous results.
Don’t look for prettiness. Don’t expect to be soothed. For that surely isn’t what you are going to get.
Expect the unexpected. To be jerked out of complacency. To be bereft of speech.
I would say that Ravikumar Kashi is perhaps the most adventurous contemporary artist of Bengaluru. His body of work extends across paintings, sculpture, photography and installation.
His current exhibition, ‘Silent Echo’ (at Gallery Sumukha is on until Dec 31, open 10.30 am – 6 pm, Mon-Sat), is an exhibition of installations and artists’ books, and revolves around the ‘object.’ Says Kashi, “One of the main threads that bind these works is an insight as to how objects become an extension of ourselves, retain memory, gain their own persona over a period of time. And when more than one object comes together, they affect and alter each other’s meaning. Five distinct but interrelated pieces of work in the show address the character, historicity, function, and relevance of diverse objects that the artist chooses to build his narratives around.”
The main work ‘Silent Echo’ is a sculptural installation of mesh and paper pulp. Says the artist, “It evokes many of the metaphors of our time where hope and despair ride together side by side”. Kashi handcrafts objects and puts them together with other objects that he finds, creating installations such as ‘Heirlooms of Fear’ and ‘Dark Revenue’.
Kashi has won the Kannada Sahitya Academy Award for a book on art, apart from the awards given by the Karnataka Lalit Kala Akademi and the Lalit Kala Akademi, New Delhi, for his art. A fascinating aspect of the current exhibition, is a set of ‘Artists’ Books’, called ‘All is always now’. Ravi has been creating artists’ books for ten or more years, making the paper by hand and drawing images that are times radical and subversive at times.
These books predominantly have more visuals, and less text, and as a publisher, I found his earlier works ‘In pursuit of happiness’ (a series of water colour and ink on cast cotton pulp) and ‘A thousand desires’ (an installation of a thousand tongues) – a perfect fit for the BEST OF BANGALORE- Innovation edition (Raintree Media, 2014).
Kashi says that he intends ‘Silent Echo’ to be a multi-dimensional experience with a common thread running through it. “The third dimension is provided by two sets of works with photography as the mainstay. The first is a set of four individual photographs called ‘Memorial.’ The second is a photobook called ‘Shelf life‘. Together, the two explore complex narratives that emanate from ‘showcases’ which are ubiquitous in most middle class homes, and display cases in shops.”
This is not an exhibition you should breeze through. Plan to spend an hour, if not more. You will need it to absorb what you see. It’s an education. I wish schools and parents would take kids to let them see that art is much more than pretty pictures and straight lines, to let them see art that goes beyond boundaries.
Sandhya Mendonca says 