Cooking 'up'

my word!
five star anise,
a clutch of shallots,
cloves
sizzling on the stove,
it's a trick to keep them
brown,
not random, but
just as brown as the
quick brown fox that
jumps over the lazy dog.

B&W

New picture up on photoblog. An experiment in black and white. Even as I was chewing the lead off my pencil figuring out what to write, I have not been idle. Check out the new picture, while I go back to my frayed pencil...

In tune with the season

And all that, you see! :)

Image from Diwaliecards.com

Ballot-box battles

Photo courtesy: THE HINDU

If it were not about the failure of democracy, it would actually be hilarious. Yesterday's travesty of the most fundamental aspect of democracy - people's participation - was unprecedent as far as poll-related violence goes, in the country and most certainly in Tamil Nadu.
I'm sure almost everyone in Chennai has a story to tell from yesterday. Some of you, who can tell the nice tale, have been fortunate, though clearly you are also in a minority. Those people have incidents of violence, booth capturing, criminal intimidation, snatching of ballot papers and lathi-charges to report, are tipping the balance. For some moments on Friday, Tamil Nadu/Chennai looked frighteningly like Bihar.
Dravidian goondagiri is legendary in the state, as we have witnessed several times in the past, when political party leaders have expired, and in isolated poll incidents. Nothing on the scale of what we saw in Chennai yesterday. But that we have truly lapsed into goondagiri and that our politics is, at the end of the day, resolved not by law or logic, but by a bunch of thugs is so painfully evident after Friday. Nevermind which party, yesterday was a free for all.
When I've stopped laughing, it makes me so angry.

The inheritance of loss?! Surely not!

As these things go, I'm glad her book's title was not prophetic.
Kiran Desai's gone and won the Booker, something her mother failed to do despite three nominations.
There are people already asking Kiran whether she's a better novelist than her mother! Now, come. There are several criteria to awarding that prize, not all of them can be literary. And so, though I have not read daughter-Desai, (soon to be remedied)I've read her mother and winning or loosing the Booker doesn't make either of them the better or the worse for the read.
That makes two books I simply must buy this week: the centenary edition of R.K.Narayan's My Days, and now, The Inheritance of Loss.

Chennai Spotting -2

There, the picture and now, the haiclue...

sunshine meets iron daily
lighting up the sands; the temple
mine first, but thine too

Two years and all that...

That's another year that I've let go by without acknowledgement. Another blogging year and now, there's two of them. Two years since I started blogging, marked by a certain amount of prolificity (?!), some industry, much lazing around, some censorship, a break and such.
I'm not very keen on this anniversary thing, but since I did happen to notice today that it's actually the third September from when I first put post to Blogger, I might as well mention it. Noting as it were, the first birthday went by without as much a celestial whimper.
Anyways, thanks for coming by, those who do. For reading and commenting. It's not much for us humans, yes, but two years is a long while in internet time!
I guess i'm surprised I'm still here, and perhaps more so that you are too! :)