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Rumours about rumour-mongers can be befuddling. Santosh Bakaya bumps into a sunbeam only to realise she isn't what she is rumoured to be.
Enjoy Morning Meanderings Season 2 with your hot cuppa and cookies. ☕🍪😊
Siphoning of funds and money laundering are common in the dark, murky world of financial irregularities. However, once in a while, a silent whistleblower rises who blows the cover off the fraud, risking his/her own career and life to bring the predators to book, save public money and above all, have a clear conscience. Rajan NS pens a short fiction about one such whistleblower.
There are songs we love. And then there are songs that impact. And then there are songs that stay on as an integral part of life and memories that we love to revisit time and again to relive those cherished moments. Rachna Rajesh writes about one such song, Jewel Thief's Yeh dil na hota bechara.
Never give up is the motto of winners. And you can find examples around you, if you choose to see.
Enjoy Morning Meanderings Season 2 with your hot cuppa and cookies. ☕🍪😊
Happy are those who are able to take a nap, anywhere, and on the other side of life, you have people with the plushest of bedrooms, grappling with insomnia and stress, desperately seeking sleep.
Enjoy Morning Meanderings Season 2 with your hot cuppa and cookies. ☕🍪😊
A cute poem for children about a blackbird that sings a song of hope and a brighter future.
Two wistful poems by Rachna Rajesh celebrate life in its diversity and entirety amid numerous shackles of bondages and hail the life force present in every element of Nature.
A little boy drawing under a tree is a picture by itself. He is lost in his own world of nature, oblivious to the challenges around.
Enjoy Morning Meanderings Season 2 with your hot cuppa and cookies. ☕🍪😊
Love and compassion are basic human instincts which we seem to be losing somewhere today. But even amid the prevailing chaos it thrives, pulsates and promises to be around for eternity.
Enjoy Morning Meanderings Season 2 with your hot cuppa and cookies. ☕🍪😊
Masks or Maks - we were stuck with them. The fact is that we always had masks on – those of the invisible variety.
Enjoy Morning Meanderings Season 2 with your hot cuppa and cookies. ☕🍪😊
Who decides whose bread it is? Perhaps that's the inspiration behind the Hindi idiom - 'Daane daane pe likha hai khaane waale ka naam'. :)
Enjoy Morning Meanderings Season 2 with your hot cuppa and cookies. ☕🍪😊
Shakespeare may have written Much Ado About Nothing 600 years ago. But we get to watch the continuing drama of much ado over non-issues everywhere, daily. Santosh Bakaya watches a much argue about nothing duel that fizzles out just as tamely.
Enjoy Morning Meanderings Season 2 with your hot cuppa and cookies. ☕🍪😊
On a foggy, winter morning, Santosh Bakaya gets caught in the middle of a catfight over kittens.
Enjoy Morning Meanderings Season 2 with your hot cuppa and cookies. ☕🍪😊
As the curtains rise on the brand new year 2022, you make someone somewhere feel good about life and living. Bring on the smiles and make a new beginning today.
Enjoy Morning Meanderings Season 2 with your hot cuppa and cookies. ☕🍪😊
A wistful poem about dreams and wishes, about life and its purpose by Dr T Rama.
We humans have masks everywhere - on the face, in the hands, hanging from the ear and littering the ground. What do animals think about them?
Enjoy Morning Meanderings Season 2 with your hot cuppa and cookies. ☕🍪😊
The limitless cyberworld has its own challenges of security and safety for the users. Ramendra Kumar's short story outlines some of the essential safety precautions we must follow to enjoy the benefits of the internet.
Some people wear the mask below their chin, some hold it in their hand. And some use their ear as a mask hanger.
Enjoy Morning Meanderings Season 2 with your hot cuppa and cookies. ☕🍪😊
Life is after all, all about hunger. And hunger comes in different forms. Alas, not all sorts of hunger can be satiated. Santosh Bakaya munches on some food for thought for lunch.
Enjoy Morning Meanderings Season 2 with your hot cuppa and cookies. ☕🍪😊
Joi de vivre is there in every element of nature around us. Ready to make us smile and laugh and burst forth with bountiful energy. A dancing peacock can brighten up an insipid morning, rising above the noise and fury that signifies nothing.
Enjoy Morning Meanderings Season 2 with your hot cuppa and cookies. ☕🍪😊
Life goes on. The show goes on...the actors come on stage to play their part. Some stay on, some leave, some change. The lights dim and then brighten up again. That's the journey... unstoppable, undaunted.
Enjoy Morning Meanderings Season 2 with your hot cuppa and cookies. ☕🍪😊
Ghosts can play cards, ducklings can go to school, pigeons can self-introspect - anything can happen. A morning can be as colourful as you want it to be, just look around and enjoy life unfolding.
Enjoy Morning Meanderings Season 2 with your hot cuppa and cookies. ☕🍪😊
The lockdown did have a lot of side-effects and none knows this better than those who suddenly found that they had more "weight" to throw than earlier (no pun intended). Binge eating to beat stress ensured the midriff was the only thing that was coming out during the lockdown. Santosh Bakaya muses over some of these side-effects of the lockdown on homo sapiens and also our avian friends.
Enjoy Morning Meanderings Season 2 with your hot cuppa and cookies. ☕🍪😊
The unusual bond of humanity between a little boy and an aged shopkeeper reminds Santosh Bakaya of Rabindranath Tagore's short story Kabuliwala, that was made into unforgettable films by Tapan Sinha and Bimal Roy.
Enjoy Morning Meanderings Season 2 with your hot cuppa and cookies. ☕🍪😊
A businessman teaches his lazy son a valuable lesson of life in a way he would never forget. A lovely short story by 10-year-old Anvesha.
Our budding author Sharanya Banerjee weaves a fantasy story about a girl with magical powers, partly inspired by the Netflix Series, H2O: Just Add Water.
The poem 'My Poetry' is framed by two sections that define what is not connected to poetry and has a poem in the poem that is its main beauty. It won a special prize in the Itinerant Creativity Awards, XXI Edition 2021: for Poetry in a Foreign Language. held in Italy.
Sharing new hopes, sharing dreams, sharing secrets - sharing comes in many hues and colours. Its your gut feeling that tells you what's going to happen next.
Enjoy Morning Meanderings Season 2 with your hot cuppa and cookies. ☕🍪😊
The tadpole that turned into a toad and then got coronated! Santosh Bakaya witnesses a rapid rise to glory that may inspire those who are aspiring for their thrones.
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A wistful poem about love, life and poetry by Dr Ampat Koshy, and its Polish translation by Anna Maria Stępień.
A little mynah, a fallen tree, a tiny sparrow - Santosh Bakaya's morning brightens up with birds chirping, clouds gurgling and the wind going about its business.
Enjoy Morning Meanderings Season 2 with your hot cuppa and cookies. ☕🍪😊
A humble mobile teashop may not be a great business in money terms. But if it makes its customers and owners feel happy about it, it has achieved its objective. A touching story by Nipun Varma.
Santosh Bakaya stumbles on a quick dose of wisdom from a votary of desi eggs.
Enjoy Morning Meanderings Season 2 with your hot cuppa and cookies. ☕🍪😊
Dr. T. Rama pens an inspiring and emotional tribute to the magnificence, glory and ethos of our beautiful country, India.
"Marketing ke naye funde" - you may have heard this adage before. Santosh Bakaya's doodled bookmarks and ebook bookmark can give you a useful tip or two in marketing.
Enjoy Morning Meanderings Season 2 with your hot cuppa and cookies. ☕🍪😊
Gossip isn't the prerogative of us humans. Santosh Bakaya stumbles into merry gossip times of the avian and bovine communities.
Enjoy Morning Meanderings Season 2 with your hot cuppa and cookies. ☕🍪😊
The Erie Canal is a historic waterway that had to be dug by hand! Connecting New York City and the Great Lakes, including Lake Erie, it was able to improve shipping in the 1700s and 1800s. Agneya takes a trip down the history of the unique canal.
Makeovers don't just happen in TV soaps. A sudden inspiration or a cupid strike can catapult a person to a 'new improved' state.
Enjoy Morning Meanderings Season 2 with your hot cuppa and cookies. ☕🍪😊
The railway platform and its waiting room has been a catalyst or location for many a love story and even films. Ramendra Kumar pens a love poem about a rendezvous amid the buzz.
The hotshot designers can take some leaves out of Kanchan's 'dejiner' collection of masks and umbrellas. They are more than just what they look - they bring hope and assurance in these trying times. :)
Pyaase panchhi neel gagan mein, geet milan ke gaaye sang Mukesh in Pyaase Panchhi exactly 60 years ago in 1961. As I watched my little sparrow hunt around for water, I couldn't help thinking - technology may advance by leaps and bounds, lifestyles and attitudes change but Nature stays the only constant.
Santosh Bakaya decides to catch some parakeets, not with a net but with her phone. Their songs, their squawks, their chitter-chatter and cackle-cackle makes music. Only you need to have the ears. :)
Jungle mein mor naacha, kisi ne na dekha - sang Mohd Rafi in Madhumati. But in Santosh Bakaya's world, the lovers of the peacock wait for the many splendoured bird to dance and spread his wealth.
Life is full of merry little stories strewn about. You just need to look around and find moments of laughter, love and inpirations. Santosh Bakaya captures those precious moments that make life beautiful.
Morning Meanderings returns on popular demand with a fresh new Season 2. Enjoy with your morning cuppa and don't forget to like, share and comment. Spread the cheer! ⛅️ ☕😊
AK Nanda dips into his rich reservoir of memories to pull out an experience that can serve as a useful tip for any writer. :D
KD Ghose, the father of Sri Aurobindo Ghose was a benevolent doctor who helped the needy at the cost of the future prospects of his own family and children. Therefore, he was often blamed by the rich and loved by the poor for his utmost benevolence. Abhishek Ghosh profiles this forgotten golden-hearted civil surgeon.
A dark poem as part of a poetic response to the prompt ‘Talking to My Soul’ given in The Significant League literary group for the #NationalPoetryMonth in April.
A wistful love poem as part of a poetic response to the prompt ‘A Place in My Body’ given in The Significant League literary group for the #NationalPoetryMonth in April.
Reena R's wistful ode to the night and its fiery beauty is translated in Malayalam by Jayshree Devdas.
Rewinding to the late 1950s and early and mid 1960s, AK Nanda recalls the era when building a career in writing had its own peculiar challenges and opportunities.
Ramendra Kumar dedicates a love poem to his beloved wife Madhavi Kumar to celebrate Valentine's Day.
Winter is different for each of us! The churning continues... sometimes frothy, sometimes dark, bubbling and boiling, slowly, quietly.
Dr Santosh Bakaya translates into Hindi one of her poems from the Amazon bestseller poetry chapbook Vodka by the Volga, which she co-authored with Dr Ampat Koshy.
Tales are sometimes spilled beyond the printed words. Piu wonders about the bedtime tales that started and travelled to come back again.
Ringggggg.....the bell...tiffin time. The real spirit of the school is felt during that quarter of an hour. The rest of the day is templated and the same!
Jeyanthi Manokaran dips into the world of the ‘fairly intrepid Guppy’ or Grown up Puppy, scooping up dollops of his thoughts, temptations, affections and of course, 'canine angst and bliss'. A review of The Canine Chronicles: Love and Laughter in the Times of Corona.
Ampat Koshy's poem White Nights translated into Marathi by Gorakhnath Gangane. The poem is from the Amazon Bestseller book Vodka by the Volga: A Duo of Duelling Dulcimers & Daggers written by Ampat Koshy and Santosh Bakaya.
"The rays of hope rising from the void of the dark" - Anagha Rajesh pens an ode to Nature and its limitless power to evoke in us hope, faith and joy in being alive.
Let's spare synopsis and for a change let's read it without any clue. The last thing that Dream or his twin sister, Nightmare give is a hint of who is going to come tonight.
A beautiful garden, a shelter to numerous plants, birds, animals, fishes and insects has only one friend - little Montu. Will he be able to save it from being demolished to make way for a new apartment block?
'Let the Flowers Bloom' is a translation of 'Phool Photao', a short story in Bangla, written by Rina Chakrabarti. Souryadeep has translated it into English.
Silhouette Editor Amitava Nag has translated Soumitra Chatterjee's selected Bengali poems into an English collection Walking through the Mist published this year. This is the first attempt at translating the legendary thespian's poems. LnC is privileged to publish 6 of them.
Like Boisali's tapestry, families are woven together. In the midst of their shared celebration and lonely wait, Diwali comes and leaves quietly.
Like the marbles, memory rolls back and forth, sometimes sideways only to drop in the tunnel of forgetting. Thankfully some letters are never posted and some memories remain hidden in cobwebs.
PS: True stories can be as Crimson as the one imagined. Trees may not know how and when they may get uprooted. Even the roots deep down and dense know that all it needs is just the wind to blow a bit wrong.
The distance between the wickets doesn’t change. It is the pace of the runner that makes the two ends closer or impossible to reach on time, sometimes.
Kasturba Gandhi was constantly by Bapu's side in every political activity he undertook – his life partner in every battle from their earliest days. She became his co-worker – and spiritual complement when he chose the path of non-violence and renunciation. Yet, even on her 150th birthday, Ba’s struggles have been overlooked, says Ratnottama Sengupta.
I don't remember, ever flying!
What do you remember then?
Was always with you, part of a tree and green!
Doesn't everything have a thought, a feeling, an emotion, wonders Piu.
Not everything in life can be synopsised. Sometimes it is a blessing when we can’t! For the daughter, the father turns life into a theatre, full of music and colour, muses Piu.
Most of us have a water body in our memory, be it flowing or still like our life. It shows the time, the faces, even our own reflections. Piu Mahapatra had one which she crossed every year at this time of the year, during Durga Puja.
As we wrap our heads around the ongoing pandemic, it is only art which has the capacity to heal us.
Thirteen-year-old Nishtha peers into the future to visualize how life in a new university, in a new campus, among new friends will shape up in 2021. Will the post-pandemic world allow dreams to take wings?
We choose what to do on Wednesday! Naseeruddin Shah chose to ‘act’ like a ‘Common Man’ one fine ‘Wednesday’.
It was one of these Wednesdays almost half a century back China successfully first tested its Hydrogen bomb.
And there are many Wednesdays, we all choose to do something else! Piu Mahapatra rewinds to the hot April Wednesday when raining jamuns brought glee.
One eventful day, Aman ventures on a trek in a dense forest, overlooking the gloomy forecast of heavy downpour and thunderstorms. He gets stranded in the woods by evening because of heavy rain. But he was not prepared for the series of unpleasant events which the forest tosses on him one after another. As the night progresses, he finds himself in the middle of a complex mystery which seems impossible to solve. Without Sahil, he finds himself severely handicapped and helpless, a lame spectator to the crimes which are committed right under his nose. Will he able to catch the culprits alone? Read on to know more about his adventures in the fifth story of the Aman and Sahil series.
Illustrations drawn by Varun.
Sometimes, it isn't required to try hard to be a friend. You just wait! Piu Mahapatra rewinds to a childhood train journey and a 'chhoti si mulaqaat'.
Today’s Topic - Family!! Define and Draw!
Piu Mahapatra pays a loving tribute to her Mastermoshai, on Teacher's Day.
A wistful poem about introspections and dreams, of fears and apprehensions, of courage and challenges and a tango with your thoughts.
The festivals are seasonal just like the fruits. They have a way of getting into our life and each teaches a moral in their own sweet way.
Not all instructions are to be followed till the end and not all have to be what they thought they will be. Piu Mahapatra writes to herself.
The important moments of our lives are more or less same, irrespective of time. It was my mother and then me till my daughter is ready, the celebrations of life remain more or less unaltered.
Aman and Sahil are back on their adventure ride with a trip to Karnala Bird Sanctuary near Matheran. What started off as a leisurely morning trek turns out to be a very insightful trip about the different kinds of birds in the sanctuary. They befriend a forest officer who gives them a detailed account of the migratory birds which visit the sanctuary every year. But excitement and thrill never cease to follow Aman and Sahil wherever they go.
Read on to know more about their adventure as they trek to the Karnala fort along with their new friend.
With beautiful illustrations by little Varun!
The Lukhnawi cuisine prepared by Sakhawat Mian in his nondescript food joint in Lucknow is as fresh in memory of Bimal Chadha as the flavor of the kababs.
Hard truth: The little conveniences of life, earn their value when they are taken away from us without much of a notice.
On Rabindranath Tagore's 79th death anniversary, Shoma A Chatterji explores Tagore's outlook towards women in the context of his dance dramas Chitrangada and Chandalika as well as his own approach towards his daughters.
Manobina Roy carried her Rolliflex wherever she went "because wherever I went, I might find something, an incident, or people I might want to remember years later." Ratnottama Sengupta reflects on some outstanding shots of Manobina, the talented wife of legendary filmmaker Bimal Roy, woven in a heartfelt tribute to her 'Bina Jethima'.
Apni tanhaai kaa auro se na
Shikvaa karna
Tum akele hi nahin ho
Sabhi akele hai
Ye akelaa safar nahin guzaraa
Those LP records, those Puja releases, those soulful songs of Kishore Kumar sung to Gulzar's melancholic lyrics - Piu Mahapatra looks back at the long playing memories, fondly.
We might not have Durga Puja this year at my village! But the celebration is not always about people gathering, the feast laid or the sound of the drums beating. Remembering with love and pride is also a celebration, isn't it?
Having seen Bangalore from a ring side seat for over 65 years, Rajan NS often feels wistful and nostalgic about his city. Take a trip down memory lane with him.
We remember in bits and pieces and the rest we weave in our minds like an eight legged garden spider and that might be the very reason our memories are such beautiful webs, fragile and vague and yet never let go what it catches.
We had this essay by Robert Lynd on 'Forgetting' in our school days which tried to shade a humorous light on human's mind and his weird ways of choosing to forget. Absent mindedness can truly be a virtue but unlike what Lynd quoted, all men possessing this blessing might not make the best of their life.
As the summer vacation draws to a close and children get ready to start school, albeit from home this time due to the COVID-19 pandemic, enjoy this throwback to summer vacations in the 80s and 90s childhood.
A 'wish' is not as strong as 'desire'. Neither 'covet' can be her synonym. When did the dictionary do justice! 'Wish' has the fancy wings of Mohak, fragile and yet can travel thousands of miles to lay theirs eggs on milkweeds.
Investigating a murder near the River Tigris, which was once a part of the ancient Mesopotamian Civilization, the author stumbles upon a sinister plan of stealing diamonds.
Enjoy this thrilling and suspense laden detective story by 11 year old Akash Nag.
If you are away from your loved ones, write a letter. Write a letter as long as you have someone to deliver it to. Write a letter if you have an address to reach.
If you haven't lived with them, then you are definitely younger than me!! Piu Mahapatra looks back at her friendly pets, er... pests. :)
Not all postcards reached home. The messages, insignificant, timid sometimes urgent strayed and got lost. It always reached somewhere to someone though. But we are all bounded by relevance!!
