I do not know this Mulk Raj Anand who sat in London’s public bars and made small talk. Delightful though. Conversations in Bloomsbury is a rather unusual book. Life knocked out the humor in him in later years or he chose to write that way, I am not sure.

TE Lawrence (via Largottes on twitter) “All men dream: but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that it was vanity: but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dreams with open eyes, to make it … Continue reading →

Camus

Camus. It is time to read. Have overlooked his books at bookstores often. Chanced upon this quote.‘Everything is forgotten’ - witnessed it, faced it. And now the thought seems compelling enough to probe more into this feeling of greatness and how it dissipates away in the flow of years. Believe me there is no such … Continue reading Camus →

Hundred Lives

“Even if I lived a hundred lives, I still wouldn’t be exhausted.” ~ Claude Lanzmann And there are people feeling exhausted with first life’s first three decades. Lanzmann, did you leave some notes that we don’t know of?

Words“Words are events, they do things, change things. They transform both speaker and hearer; they feed energy back and forth and amplify it. They feed understanding or emotion back and forth and amplify it.”And you said words don’t mean anything. Time is getting you around.

03/07/2018Nussbaum. More I discover, more she feels familiar. A Himalayan sky, close to the Annapoorna trail only deepens this feeling.“ If you hold your commitments lightly, in such a way that you can always divest yourself from one or the other of them if they conflict, then it doesn’t hurt you when things go badly. But … Continue reading →

Jan writes, and I agree even before the fullstop - While a truly great journey will leave you feeling three years younger, and two years wiser, a difficult border crossing will reveal your true character.

Actual factual life2/07/2018KathmanduA three day forecast of heavy rain begins today. A day and a half mine, of these. As I sit waiting for it to ebb, reading and catching up on what babies are upto in the wider network. And then, this one hits. A personal statement, from an individual, reflecting hard on ways … Continue reading →

On hope and despair

30/06/2018Two things happened - Heather Able’s remarkably apt words excerpted from her debut novel The Optimistic Decade and a conversation where one found the other not as dull as the written words. So, may be there are two selves. One which speaks - in person, on phone etc and the other that writes, in a … Continue reading On hope and despair →

On Writing Well - 2Reading Zinsser on writing. On words he has these lines to leave the reader with -“Remember that words are the only tools you’ve got. Learn to use them with originality and care. And also remember: somebody out there is listening.”Zinsser is laying down the world of expression and writing for me, … Continue reading →