Kallola

Kailpodu Special for my Kodava brethren :) For: www.coorgtourisminfo.com   Book review TONGUE OF THE SLIP: Looking Back on Life with Humour – CP Belliappa By -Tejaswi Uthappa Here comes a ‘chill pill’ for those with the verve to laugh at life. If that’s not you, pick up a copy along with your choice of beverage and learn to. And if in the midst of a tale you find yourself chuckling or, worse, are left with that strangely suspicious sense of déjà vu, take another sip and read on... https://www.dropbox.com/s/nhxnkqs4apuc2do/tongue%20of%20the%20slip-sept13review-tejuthy.pdf

To cry, or not to laugh... Deccan Herald. Sunday Herald, Cover Story. 10 June 2012 ~ http://www.deccanherald.com/content/255769/when-funny-isnt-funny.html A mong a hundred other things that keep me upbeat after reading Dr. A P J Abdul Kalam ’s Ignited Minds, the one observation that has left me thinking is the amount of gloom the paper boy throws over our gates every morning. You would be right in saying that our newspapers are really not to blame here – they are duty-bound to inform and make aware. From frivolous government policy and fickle polity to derailed wheels and separatist atrocities, not to mention exaggerated coup tales and related arms travails, there are a good 18-20 pages of distress articles to choose from every day, as company to the morning cuppa. And, yes, all these can have a direct bearing on our lives. But, just to ease the pain, what harm could one come to, if all front pages started carrying stories that are more positive and encouraging? Call m...

Emirates Parent Plus. September 2010. Dread is a notoriously lucrative career. Open any literary anthology, the tales will most usually be spun around depravity of thought or futility of body. The spirit, the free spirit within, remains imprisoned not only in real life but also in those masterful webs of words that win awards upon awards, inspiring more in that line, winding its way across media, slithering, hissing and spitting its juices incessantly iterating the same things variously. And we call this entertainment. Spare a thought! What is it about despair, doom and disillusionment that they always find abundant audience? They manage even the smallest part in the drama we live out every day, and yet they enthuse insatiable appetites for more! After the morning newspapers and more on television and the internet, are people not tired of their own share of these realities that they will go out and spend money to delve into the same of someone else – even when it is a mere product ...

Bangalore Mirror. Friday Oct 23, 2009. With all this talk about Chandrayaan finding water on the Moon and others finding ways to challenge its potability on Earth and still others ever more determined to blast the last rocks there to squeeze out whatever it can from the regolith, the gushing vision of life-saving hydrant pouring down from the heavens above, for the time being, stays hypothetic. Wonder what a vaastu expert’s take would be on this. To which direction of the orient would the moon be of us earthlings? Whatever the order there, Mr (or Ms depending on your parent culture) Moon has been quite a talking point nevertheless. And with my little boy on the watch, the cosmic forces always point to one plane – entertainment. There must have been some strong lunar vibrations even on that day then, when on his first solo net crawl, he happened to land on a web page on, who else but moon-man, Neil Armstrong! That week at school, the topic of exploration in English was the Articles, ...

I never know what will bolt out of Space when my little boy is on the watch. Under his visor, this week, was a web page on Neil Armstrong. At school, having covered a short chapter on the astronaut, it so happened that my son’s first internet search on the man, coincidently, presented itself on July 20, exactly 40 years to the day Mr Armstrong first stepped on the surface of the moon. Small step. Beat 1. In the Language part of the same subject, the current topic of exploration is the Articles, a , an and the . We had completed an extensive worksheet and other exercises, by the end of which my son was quite a little master of their usage. This is what shocked me earlier. He repeatedly intoned: “The-is-used-with-a-par-ti-cu-lar-noun-or-with-the-name-of-some-thing-that-is-one-of-its-kind. The-is-called-the-de-fi-nite-arti-cle. The-in-de-fi-nite-arti-cle-is-used-be-fore-a-common-noun-that-is-sing-ular-in-num-ber. A-is-used-bef-ore-a-con-so-nant-and-an-is-used-be-fore-a-vowel-sound. They-a...

Bangalore Mirror, Wednesday, November 26, 2008 Why, at 8:45 am, is an attractive, young girl in ill-fitting mens’ trousers, short, braided hair and a purposeful smile, strutting bare-footed by the central reserve on the high-speed airport road, chatting up rather eager truck-drivers? Hmmm… quite. So why did I not stop watching this gaucherie? Because Britney Spears slithering ‘Toxic’ out of the radio could not have added more masala to this highway drama unfolding before me. There were 112 more seconds on the traffic lights countdown. There was nothing else to do. And I would give this intriguing little interplay, my absolute and unadulterated attention, anyway. In the past, I have adhered to repeated warnings by well-wishers, to be wary of ‘sidey’ attractions along these parts, but this brazen encounter was too enticing not to give audience to. For goodness' sake! This was early morning, on a working day where fleets of school busses ferrying less than happy kids, ...

Since being back in Bangalore, it would have been my third or fourth solo drive in my dad’s car, in the city’s rather exuberant traffic. This time, however, I had with me a wholly participating witness to yet another Bangalore Bombaat ness * (as I have come to lovingly call my experiences here). Scene I: RT Nagar traffic junction just after the Hebbal flyover. I was among the first line of vehicles. Having just caught up with my friend for the first time since I last visited, I was relying on the movement of other motorists around me instead of paying attention to the traffic lights ahead. As engines started to rev, I pushed the pedal and inched forward before noticing that the green light was still off. A good few vehicles had sped past and I hesitated, though way ahead of the stop line. As a driver new to these reformed and ill-marked roads, my confusion was mounting to near panic. My friend had gone completely quiet and I was solo again. Never to be beaten, this is what ensued betw...

aka One-Day maid service is here - Bangalore Mirror, Wed 3 Sept, 2008 At a recent gathering, the topic of conversation, inadvertently, settled upon domestic help. As always, there was a lot of cricket in the background. Both, subjects that everyone has ample to contribute to. That day was no different. While the men whined about missing crucial cover drives and third eyes, one senior lady went glum just thinking about her predicament at having to endure an in-form-out-of-form-out-of-town kaamwali . Another friend posed smug at the loyalty her mother enjoyed irrespective of malle , jaatre , habba , maava or akka na thangi ! Woes of trauma followed. Few scored and two were caught behind. India, in the meanwhile, was doing well with Dhoni on strike. That’s when a phone rang. Smug friend’s maid needed a week off! Her maava na magaa had been put into aaspatre . Well, well. While the rest of the crowd looked on half amused , half sympathetic, my mother revealed our unique situation. With ...

printed as Adjust maadi , with a vengeance - Bangalore Mirror, Fri 22 Aug, 2008. I drive in this city, out of absolute vengeance. A pleasure I would play any prank to get my foot on, is now short of thrill and purely and utterly a means to an end. Some time ago I would refrain from any opinion on the simple basis that I have been away and the ‘locals’ (a privileged nomenclature that had applied to me) would tut-tut at my sudden and ‘typical’ foreign scoffs. But now I find that, even in my head, I am more local than most locals I know. Hence I am entitled to every serif, dot and crossed t to follow henceforth. Roll away smogged eyes and claim greater right on any judgment because- and this is true- I have only seen the result of and not the actual day-by-day and systematic smothering of a city that once breathed pure. But not one of you can take away from me, my prerogative to mourn. And I mourn my loss of belonging. I mourn my loss at understanding how getting to Cunning...