SWORDMUZIC

                                                                           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 ...

N ow,Look at that kink in the graph.   It is your own growth,Mittu. You’ll be surprised to know that it has been   on a downward trajectory. You are,as of now, between the jobs. And your wife’s increment has been inordinately delayed owing to her company’s mediocre   performance . Here,the graph runs a tad flat for a while,you see. A weak monsoon forecast as well as Country’s GDP growth does not augur well for the common man. The spiralling price of essential commodities coupled with that of petrol have surely begun taking a toll on your domestic buget. Gold continues to be dearer relentlessly .You are pretty well aware that your sister’s marriage is round the corner and you could not avoid making a generous contribution towards this cause. Things are looking bleak ,at least this fiscal. You have a car loan to pay up and the house rent was recently hiked by the owner Can you,Mittu, forget about your son’s Kinder Garten admission? Do y...