Skeletons in the Drain and other Cupboards

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Along with the skeletal remains of the mutilated children and young women from the backyard drain of an expansive bungalow in Noida, tumbled out a sackful of disturbing questions, which should haunt us as much as they must be the screaming mothers of Nithari village. For the larger part of the bygone year, a debauch millionaire industrialist and his man servant were spending several of their evenings taking turns to rape young children and women, whom they would later strangulate, chop to pieces, soak in a drum of acid, stuff in a gunny bag and dump in the backyard gutter. Scores of panicky parents in Nithari---rickshaw pullers, washermen, roadside tea vendors, drivers, maids, factory workers-spent the larger part of the last year in fear and despair. They made umpteen futile rounds of the local police station to file a report about their missing children. ....

The Monsoon Mosaic

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A couple of days after the monsoon winds kissed the Kerala coastline it rained in Delhi. The unexpected showers came with a dust storm and dipped the mercury by a cool 5-degree Celsius. In a swimming pool, a little, frail girl embarrassed by my curious looks explained: 'Sooo cold it is... that's why I am shivering. I'm not scared of the deep.' It was not sooo cold of course but hearing that on a June morning in Delhi was music to my ears. My friend from Shimla laughs teasingly on the phone. 'And here it's so beautiful that I wish I were a poet. The mornings are winterish, afternoons springlike and evenings rainy. Three seasons in a day. Add to them those drifting islands of mist, and the melancholic mausam you would talk about is complete.' I listen and sigh. I know the weather report from the....

Let Budhia Run in Peace...

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A tiny, thin, bony boy is running on a 36.8 degree Celsius and 94 per cent humid day on the busy Puri-Bhubaneswar highway. His lolling head sways; his trembling feet grope for the concrete ground beneath; his sweat-washed face has exhaustion written all over it. 65 kilometers is a long distance. Even the Masai tribes from the Rift Valley in Africa, who took the long distance event in athletics by storm in the late last century, would agree. Even the best of wandering-- but walking! -- tribes of the yore would nod. Even the hard taskmaster Junren--notorious for his turtle blood soup and grueling training schedule--would have taken the boy in his now disbanded army which descended from the high mountains of China and stunned the world by running away with a bagful of medals and world records. Budhia Singh is special because he's only four! That's....

Stop it Greg!

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So it looks like the Great Cricketer Greg Chappell is still not finished with the Petty Pretender Sourav Ganguly. The new headmaster has slammed the doors of his Team India classroom on the former monitor's face. He started it all in Zimbabwe by telling him to say quits. He then sent that damning report card to the school board surreptitiously and made sure he was no longer the monitor. He went on to make virulent speeches in front of the school's selection panel arguing why he wanted the brat out of his class. He chose to ignore his pretty impressive comeback performances against Sri Lanka and Pakistan and his willingness to be a good boy and follow the new class code. He fought relentlessly until the bugger was thrown out of his class. But looks like the new headmaster still can't throw the old monitor out of....