The Idea-smithy

Jeffrey Archer on Landmark tour!

..proclaims a hoarding on Andheri Link Road a few feet before Infiniti Mall which houses the Landmark store. The lower two floors look fairly sane, I think to myself as far as weekdays go. Even the second floor which looms into sight as the escalator rides up looks remarkably normal. Then I notice the mountain of bags lying at the entrance. And I’m stopped by the polite but firm female guard who shakes her head almost sorrowfully and tells me that I cannot carry my battered copy of As the Crow Flies in.

I push my way past the jewelery counter, the New Releases rack and past the music section. Voila!! What’s a celebrity without the crowd? Archer has succeeded in drawing the mob to the store on a weekday. It’s so crowded that people are stepping on each other’s toes even among the magazines racks that signal the start of that heaven that is Landmark’s book section.

I slither through the crowd in a manner perfected by years of Mumbai train travel and end up right at the back, smushed up against Movies while Jeffrey Archer regales a crowd from a stage in what is otherwise the aisle between Maps and Language.

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Happy Mother’s Day to my maddening, delightful, one-and-only mom!

(Click on thumbnail to see the comic)

More idea-toons!

On February 18, a fifteen-year old British tourist called Scarlette Keeling was found dead on Anjuna beach, Goa. Death by drowning was the initial statement by the police. Scarlette’s mother, Fiona Mackeown pressed for furthur investigation, pointing out the bruises on the girl’s body as an indication of rape and murder. As the media and police dug deeper into the case, new facts came in light in the form of drugs and sex trade.

Scarlette came to Goa on vacation with her siblings, mother and mother’s partner. Her family decided to travel furthur to Karnataka while Scarlette stayed back. Her mother said that she had left her daughter in the care of 25-year-old Julio Lobo, a local tour guide. The ill-fated Scarlette then spiralled into a web of drugs, alcohol and sex with the people she met while working in the bar.

The most recent news on the case is that the police has confessions from the prime suspects, Placido Carvalho and Samson D’souza. Both have been booked for murder and rape.

The police and the media battle it out over whether it was drug overdose and drowning or murder that killed Scarlett. Goa comes under scanner, its image of an sunny, beach paradise ripped off to reveal its murky sex-drugs-crime underbelly. And, Fiona Mackeown’s personal life gets dug up and scrutinized in detail. All in a bid to answer the hanging question of

Who’s responsible?

~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~

Remember Adnan Patrawala? The sixteen-year old who unwittingly became the face of Orkut’s dark side?
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I met him through some common friends on the same day India won the 20/20 and the roads were thronged with pre-Ganesh Chaturti celebrators. Spirits were high, the jokes were flying and conversations happened easily. The next time I heard from him was a couple of days later asking if I’d like to join them on a drive to Manori to watch the full moon.

In the middle of the night in the middle of the week? Nuts, I don’t have the energy you kids do!

I took a rain-check and moped at home thinking of what an impractical idea it was and what a brilliant idea it was.

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This occurred to me when I was talking to a friend this week about breaking up. There is so much of literature available on love - how to find it, how to handle it, how to make it happen, how to make it last. But what about the sometimes inevitable - loss of love? There must be a reason that this post remains one of my most popular ones to date.

We are born with a capacity to love. But breaking up and letting go is a learned act…a lesson that comes with a lot of pain. While I can’t find a way to make that experience any less painful, for those of you who face it, maybe this will make it easier to deal with.
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Long, bumpy rides in Mumbai’s bylanes bring you face to face with some terribly amusing sights.

Pssst….for those of you who can’t read in the Mumbai smog, it says,

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I asked the Dreamcatcher if she had met Dream and she laughed and told me,

you shall be addicted
you shall not want to go out and meet people
you shall only want to sit and read sandman
my god if i could afford them, i would dance the dance of joy!

So if my words sound a little odd, don’t think them so. I am just talking in my sleep.

~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~

Orpheus, son of Morpheus loved like few others
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