SWORDMUZIC

 

                                                                  One of the oldest cave shrines of South India, Karpaga Vinayagar Temple at Pillayarpatti is dedicated to the Lord of Knowledge and the Remover of Obstacles- Ganapathi. The temple which is currently undergoing renovation, doubtless captures the attention of the connoisseur in you with its stunning traditional architecture ,    murals and sculptures. The cave itself is the Sanctum Sanctorum that enshrines the Karpaga Vinayagar.   Once inside temple,   you experience an ethereal atmosphere saturated with devotion, especially during the 'Deeparadhana',   when the tolling of the bells and drum beats from the 'Asura Vadyas' coupled with the incense of camphor and sandalwood   ,amid hundreds of kindled oil lamps, give you an   a...

 

  happened around twenty years ago.   I saw this old man in his sixties donating a book to our village library. If my memory serves me right, the title of the book which was written in Malayalam- was something like ‘In search of the truth behind Earthquakes.’ Now, if you doubt the authenticity of a book simply because it was written in a vernacular language, then it is time for you to do a rethink. Jyeshtadeva’s Yukthibhasha, the first treatise on Calculus (centuries before that fabulous apple fell bang on Newton’s head) was also written in Malayalam. However the analogies end there since the man in question was neither an academic nor a formally qualified expert on the chosen subject which is seismology. I cannot recall his name, but he can at best be called an Astro-Seismologist. Surprised, eh? Wonder what astronomy has got to do with earthquakes? Coming back to the story, the very title of the book piqued my curiosity, and to my surprise, I found that the old ma...

  This is a story I wrote a couple of years back and posted on social media. If you see  an allusion to the perennial political scenario where the opposition is hell-bent on stymying the ruling party's attempt to implement any legislation- good or bad- then it is not coincidental.

                                                               It was with a heavy heart that I saw the image, last year, of a pregnant elephant, standing stoically in a river in Kerala’s Palakkad district, awaiting an imminent death. Despite being in excruciating pain from mangled, bleeding mouth and tongue, the hapless pachyderm never ran amok nor showed any sign of discomfort till her end. However, what those ignorant ingrates who fed the unsuspecting animal with pineapple stuffed with explosives did not know was that elephant is not just another wild beast but a bulwark that protected a region from foreign invasions for millennia. Once a prized possession of Emperors and Kings by virtue of their being formidable war machines and deterrents besides gracing rituals and performing heavy-lifting tasks, the humble animals have n...

                                                                           ACT –I                                                   The scene opens with the jeans and T-shirt clad Mr.Marpy –a gray- haired and bearded fat old man of ninety - sitting on the bathroom floor by the commode, reclining against the wall . He seems to be writhing and growling in pain while holding his left chest with right hand.After...

It had felt like a newborn sh edding an invisib l e membrane, the afterbirth of life in the present, and entering a terra-incognita of future realities. I was trying to recall what I had been through in the few minutes before touch down. Everything before me had suddenly blurred and then momentarily appeared upside down. Finally my vision became normal. As the flight taxied towards the gate I heard the flight attendant’s announcement “Ladies and Gentlemen, Welcome to San Francisco International airport. Local Time is 10:55 am PDT and the temperature is 67 Degree Fahrenheit. For your safety and comfort, please remain seated with your seat belt fastened until the Captain turns off the Fasten Seat Belt Sign…On behalf of ANA Airlines and the entire crew, I would like to thank you for joining us on this trip and we are looking forward to seeing you on board again in the near future. Have a nice stay.” What I saw when I looked out of the window took my breath away. In the...

212 BC. A mercenary of the invading army broke into the ante-chamber of a palatial house in Syracuse, Sicily, and found a bearded old man standing at a desk, playing with some contraptions. Thinking that the elderly man was trying to steal them, the raider ordered him to surrender and follow him out. “Wait a bit, young man .Let me finish this work” was his reply. Riled at his nonchalant response and implied impudence, the soldier immediately pulled his sword out of the scabbard and beheaded the defenseless old man. The man who thus met with a tragic end was Archimedes, the great Greek mathematician and philosopher. Cut to c.1200 CE   Bakhtiyar Khilji, a Turkic general in a bid to prove his military prowess attacked and ransacked several forts in Bihar. One of them, the marauders came to know, was not a castle, but not before hundreds of hapless Buddhist monks were massacred and the libraries of manuscripts containing priceless knowledge destroyed in ars...

I had the bitter experience of having to choose a Delhi-Mathura-Vrindavan-Agra bus tour operated by certain ‘Sharmaji ‘ of   a Travel House , Delhi in the first week of October 2014. Instead of the Volvo bus I had booked a couple of seats in , we had to make do with a vehicle of different make.(I know, Sharmaji is well within his rights to do so , given the   'Terms & conditions' printed below the ticket) Although the tourists were allowed to spend just an hour and a half at the Taj Mahal & Agra fort, the organizers were generous in providing ample time at non-descript food joints and handicrafts / curios shops.It was indeed disgusting to think that you took all the trouble travelling from one end of India to Agra only to find yourself having a fleeting glimpse of one of the seven wonders of the world. Since my wife was hell-bent on buying lots of ‘Panchi Petha’ which her colleagues had clued her up on prior to the trip, we really had something to remember ...