The Meraki Tales

The Scarlet Gulmohar Tree Summers are all about bright sunny afternoons, mangoes, cold lemonade, ice creams and long afternoon naps. When everything else is dry, hot and to a great extent unpleasant, nature balances it by also making it the bloom season. The bright scarlet coloured Gulmohar outside my window, suddenly reminded me today – of the season, month and time of the year we are in. Considering the current pandemic situation, where the meaning of life has greatly changed, and staying inside is the new normal, time seems to have become obsolete to a great extent. Days come and […]

I feel the extreme need to fix. Fix things, fix myself, and fix people. Life broke everything that I tried to build so many times, considering the person I am who never gives up easily; I became a fixer by default. I should’ve gotten used to being and seeing things broken and not being able to fix anything you say? Well, I guess I never really fully fixed anything, not because I didn’t want to but because I couldn’t. As soon as I got halfway through fixing something, something else broke. At any given point of time I would say […]

Time – the fourth dimension is something one cannot get away from. In this concept of time we find and lose, remember and forget, build and destroy; meanwhile it swiftly passes by. In all of this the self is ever-changing, ever-transforming. How then does anything or anyone achieve timelessness? Or rather, is it even possible to be able to stand out of time? It is simple, it stands tall, it is monolithic, it is beautiful, it is mysterious and it is complete in its own way. It has stood testimony to time and will continue to belong till eternity. It […]

Secluded and untouched in the cradle of a small village sits this magnificent structure. It is shy and humble as it is submerged for most of the time and never really speaks of its existence. To experience the beauty of this space in its true sense, one has to disconnect from the outside world, slow down, and be as humble as itself. The long stretch of steps that lead to it resemble a river ghat. Silence, soft breeze, the clear reflection of the blue sky and the trees peeking in; looks as though the still water was but a mirror. […]

A cold breeze, the chirping of the birds, the flapping of their wings, occasional voices coming from the passersby, all echo from the empty well that runs deep and dry. With the backdrop of the fort, the mountains and the lush green farms coupled with the loud silence, the clock stops and one easily slips into a reverie. The journey downward begins with a mesmerizing view of a series of steps disappearing into the darkness towards the end. The grandeur of the arched gateways beautifully painted white on yellow stand testimony to a time when the journey to the water […]

Today as I step out of bed, I feel a strong sense of detachment. Nothingness. I sit, pause for a while and wonder why. It is for sure not a sudden development but a gradual progression over a few weeks. As analytical as my mind is, it immediately begins to connect dots and venture deep. Is it emptiness? Is it just indifference? Or is it in fact just lack of sleep? It could be none of these or a juxtaposition of all of these. But something tells me, it is more. I let that feeling take over. I do not […]

“The thing women have yet to learn is nobody gives you power. You just take it. ” ― Roseanne Barr This is a story of a woman who has been fighting to keep her sensitivity, her vulnerabilities alive even after several blows from the world. Only she knows how much effort is involved to live a life like this. She never gives up. She gets up each time after a mighty fall and still has the heart to say ‘I am fine’. This woman is determined to make her own destiny. She is not strong because she puts up a […]

Today, as I am desperately trying to hear that inner voice, I am baffled by the number of voices I can hear inside me. I stop for a few moments and try to remember the time when I used to have fewer voices inside my head. One was my brain, the second was my inner voice and third was my emotion. Though it has always been rather easy to figure out which exactly is the inner voice, it has always been very difficult for some odd reason to accept and stand by it. I have witnessed the inner voice range […]

“If dreams were made of stone, it would be Hampi.” The magical temple town greets you with ruins spread across a large expanse of land. Cradled between mountains on one side and the mighty Tungabhadra river on the other, states the strategic motive behind it. As far as your sight can reach you see a very vibrant and unique landscape. Huge stone boulders, pale yellow in colour, of different sizes and shapes stacked randomly contrasting with the greenery around. Slowly the architecture comes into focus as it is so subtly merges with the landscape around. You are reminded of what […]

It was in a library that I first came across this magical book called ‘Invisible Cities’ by Italo Calvino in the classics section. Little did I know it was going to be the most exciting read of my life. The story begins with Kublai Khan- a Chinese ruler who senses that the end of his empire is near and calls for its news. In response to this Marco Polo, a Venetian explorer and merchant, narrates the stories of various cities in his empire to his host. Throughout the book there was never a dull moment. The vast palette of imagination […]