The Deep Cut

There is a 28-year old orangutan at the Allen Forest Zoo in Kanpur. He was a friend.. When we used to live there, Kanpur was a lesser polluted city perhaps. And the part of town we used to stay in, was a niche in its own.. The area in our backyard was a sprawling forest covering a significant area, and deep within it was a meandering canal named Thandi pulia.. Thandi, for the place was at least 5 degrees cooler than the city itself! And beyond it, on the other end of the woods, were ruins of a hospital for the lepers. I have never been there, but I have heard about it from my mom.. The forest was a measure of quarantine in earlier times of the hospital. Now it stands desolate.. For reasons such as proximity, I was made familiar with considerably-wild animals (if not tigers!) from a very young age.. I would have almost learnt the timely calls of peacocks and other birds and what they meant had I lived there any longer; I was however, familiar with the timely visits made by

(Contains Spoilers!) Saw the movie KAHAANI, and fell in love with my home, Kolkata all over again.. The thought that Vellore always tends to disappoint us, is perhaps a bygone trend now in my pre-final year.. for now I can safely say that we've got used to it! But it still manages to amaze us at times.. At times such as last Saturday. The first 3 websites that turn up in Google upon typing 'KAHAANI VELLORE SHOW TIMINGS' show 2 theaters in Vellore, that are also part of the BIG CINEMAS chain, exhibiting the movie KAHAANI.. So as per the almost-an-established-rule-of-thumb, we start by the last minute and end up half hour late to this theater halfway across to the other end of the town.. only to see a Tamil 3D Horror movie being put up! 'Hindi cinema illa, only Tamil cinema..' declared the goon-ishly looking Humpty-Dumpty in front of the ticket counter. Probably a black-ticket dealer? Though I can't imagine why anyone would come to see this movie

I was never really interested in poetry.. But sometimes, when I stumble upon it, I think it surely conveys more than prose. More than a movie. More than the drama. Few lines, packed with a few words, all in disguise! All trying to say something away from their literal meanings. Individual meanings for different individuals.. A taste of everyone in the small concavity placed near their hearts, their niche. Yesterday I came across such a poem, 'Remains of the Past' by Javed Akhtar from his collection named Tarqash (meaning 'Quiver') that inspired me to make a decisive call. I don't know whether I could put up the entire poem here, but let me quote the first paragraph from it.. 'A half-preserved stone statue, A few old copper coins, Mysterious jewels of blackened silver, Some broken plates of brass Were found in a desert Under the ground...' Is this what they call nostalgia? For after reading this poem, I stared at the wall and all m