A humming word

Despite the rains over the last two days, we hoped that there would be no thunder or lightning last evening. And thankfully, there wasn't. A few of us met met at the luscious green KBR to read our poems. The idea was to stay away from coffee houses and chai ki dukaan to soak ourselves in the greenery. And, we found a sweet spot under a tree. After a couple of rounds of poetry a peacock walked graciously. The velvet colors it adorned were gorgeous. The peacock hopped on to the trees nearby and then onto a tower. We ended the session after three rounds. The poetry read by these closet poets about their deepest emotions of love, patriotism and hurt, will remain with me. Here's my verse (an ode to Centenary--Jallianwala Bagh Massacre) April 13, 2019 The banner of summer sun and call of cuckoos wrapped the little Sikh boy, let's call him Little S, and his sister who were playing chuppam chupai. Little S hid behind the turbaned man with broad, strong shoulders. Sister came...

The Kalyan Mandapam was decorated with racks of books and tables with boxes of picture books and coffee table books. The stage was set with boxes and card machines. People formed lines to buy the boxes of three various prices: Rs. 999/- ; Rs. 1499/- and Rs. 2499/-. Lock-the-box by bookchor.com was an event that book readers would hoard to. Books of various genres and categories all stacked neatly in racks and people were picking them out like mangoes from orchards and placing them in their boxes. The seems of the mandapam had people seated with books and boxes. Each of them had to ensure the the boxes were filled and the price of the box was justified. A few of the book lovers shared the box and a few bought the box-worthy books. A young woman acquainted me and we shared the box. I am glad she did.  The fact that the mandapam was filled with used books made it endearing. However, books like Diary of Anne Frank, Mein Kampf were brand new. What I liked particularly...