Blog@GraceJunction

Johnson had a blessed marriage. I got an opportunity to speak at the wedding and it was a memorable event. The place where he got married was about eight hours by bus from where I lived. On the eve of the wedding, as we were traveling towards the destination by a bus, I sat by a young man I knew well. He had his phone in his hands and every couple of minutes he was looking into it. Suddenly it would buzz and he would start punching into it again and then repeat the waiting ritual! This was continuing since the time we got into the bus. He was only in his late teens and so he was certainly not finalizing the terms and conditions of some commercial deal for sure! But the communication via the ‘SMS’ was keeping him as engrossed as a big business deal would! (more…)

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The loud music coming from inside the huge canopy, huge halogen lights all around, smell of excitement rising above the small stench of animal presence, vendors selling popcorn, wafers, cold drinks, balloons, toys etc, and anticipation and excitement of my elder daughter and even myself are some of the first few things that come to my mind when I look back to the evening a couple of days back. I had never seen a circus for real. There were huge gates to greet us and to make sure people don’t barge in. The show inside was still on and we could hear faint sounds of announcements by the ringmaster rising above the din of music and the murmur of hundreds of people.  Suddenly, they appeared. Hordes of them smiling, talking, some amused, some with a look of disbelief and most only thinking about the next chore on their list. They kept trickling out and I was surprised by the number of people that tent had accommodated! (more…)

In my recent trips to down south, Kerala, I had the several opportunities for trysts with the laidback lifestyle of the Keralites. Except when they are on a strike or on a protest with loud ‘zindabaads’, the Keralites are noticeably very laid back.

I have my reasons for the same. For example, the workers in the fields; supposed to report at 8.00am; nearly idle their way to their work spots well past 8.15am and then you can suddenly see them resting again after ‘kanji’ at around 10.00am and then, though none of them carries a watch (at least they don’t show they have it!), invariably you can find them “all”, suddenly leaving their posts at 12.28pm. Such an impeccable and awesome sense of time! Though post-lunch period starts at 2.00pm, you can see them coming slowly to re-occupy their posts by 2.15pm. If you are at the spot, supervising them, you won’t even realize how and where they vanish suddenly at around 4.00pm for the ‘chaaya’! Around 4.50 pm you can see most of them lining up to wash themselves up before their procession back home! Perhaps they sigh and tell themselves, “At last, the end of another arduous day”! Yeah, arduous for sure, but arduous because of watching them! Oh what a life! (more…)

I had just returned from a long trip and was visiting the Soul Café after a long time. There were some visible changes to the place but most of it was only rearrangements. However, they were giving away Cold Coco at an almost ‘throw away’ price. I was surely going to try a couple of cups. I took the corner seat, ordered the Coco and took a relaxing position to make a review of the place. So many long discussions had ensued in that place! (more…)

June 2009, Beijing, China.

Unlike its sassy sister cities of Shanghai and Hong Kong, where an energized nightlife rocks into the wee hours, Beijing seemingly slumbers early in the night. But, like in most of China, its parks and plazas spring alive to greet the rising sun with taichi, ball room dancing, croquet, Chinese martial arts and other sports! China has surely come a long way since Deng Xiaoping. The ultramodern skyscrapers in the backdrop of a booming economy, the mind blowing pace of development of infrastructure and other amenities and the dead earnestness and meticulousness of the Chinese technocrats and businessmen can put any other counterpart to have a complex. (more…)

Australia, they say, is a whole new world packed into one continent, packed into one country. Unarguably, it is one of the most picturesque land masses on the planet with a variety unparalleled. If you are in Australia you can bush walk in the deserts, ski in the Alps, stroll on the Gold Coasts, bungee Jump in the gorges, snorkel in the barrier reef, or simple keep gasping at the amazing sights all around. (more…)

The government has floated three town planning schemes for an area called Bopal in Ahmedabad but has not been able to implement any of these as Bopal has witnessed haphazard and unplanned construction activities for the last two decades. The layout and the utilization of the spaces in this area is so bad that the government is wary to start anything. The government wishes that it had shown foresight before approving plans for the area. A regret, that will remain unattended for decades. (more…)