The Scorched Soul Erotica...

 I first saw Bandarpunch when I went to Dayara Bugyal with my wife, and Araib and Nitin in 2014. On that trip, our destination was Gidara Bugyal ahead of Dayara Bugyal but we were destined for Dodital. If you're familiar with the terrain then these aren't on the same hill, but when it started snowing and we were caught unprepared, our guide had made us descend through the forest all the way down to the river and climb up the hill on the other side to reach Dodital. The trek through the forest was utterly exhausting but exciting. The camp at Manjhi was one of the most scenic campsites I had ever been to. It was a memorable trip and Bandarpunch just happened to be the background peak in some of most memorable pics my wife and I have. It’s 2019 and Araib suggests that we climb Bandarpuch peak in October. According to him, it is relatively easier than other peaks of similar height. It did not involve technical climbing. NIM in earlier years, he said, used to take the AMC course to ...

Music is generally frowned upon in religious Islamic culture. Singing, dancing and music are considered to harden the heart towards the message of Allah, the Quran. Qawwalis, no doubt, are sung in Dargahs and music was a close part of Sufi culture, but these were innovations which were more cultural than religious. Singing and music was not a part of traditional Islamic culture and was considered a distraction from true religious devotion. Dargahs themselves are doubtful places of worship because Islam has no tradition of visiting graves of learned men and asking them for intercession. Islam advocates asking the Creator directly, and even the graves of the prophets are not places of worship. No matter how we justify it, the instruction in the Quran is straight. Ask any scholar and he will tell you that listening to music is to be avoided. I could never be fully convinced as to why. We had gone for a trek to Vasota fort. It was February. The nights were cold but days were ...

At about 11 p.m. in my colony tonight, Mr.Shankar from the neighborhood heard a squeaking like that of a puppy coming from the direction of the bikes parked in G block. He called other people and made them hear it. Security heard it too. It was an unfamiliar sound and it stopped when the people started talking about it. Mr.Shankar was certain that there was a baby dog locked inside one bike’s side carrier. He had clearly heard it coming from that direction. The puppy needed to be rescued. The bike’s owner was now to be searched for, but no one had any idea who the owner was. Time was running out as the pup slowly suffocated on its own exhalations. Different keys were tried but none could open the carrier. One guy, in his early twenties, when he heard that someone from the neighborhood had locked a puppy in their dicky, got so enraged that he shoved the bike backwards and tried to break the carrier. I asked them to wait a while and maybe the security would find out the owner’s...

I am driving to Nanded from Aurangabad on SH177 and at Jalna I see a green coloured neon sign that reads Nanded 246 KMs. Some 100m down the line is another sign, Nanded 226 KMs. Then after 4 KMs, I read a sign that says Nanded 255 KMs. Now obviously, we have a problem here. No, it’s not the bed intruder. The problem is that there is not enough reservation in jobs! There is not enough representation in legal terms for certain people. And the solution is that at least a small fraction, perhaps 22.35% of all candidates, should be chosen upon merit. Mind you, this is not a one-off problem. I saw similar milestones on NH2 between Agra and Faridabad. Palwal was getting farther I more I drove towards it, if I were to believe the milestones! Now I am not against reservation for different classes and sects. No sir. Because if you choose people upon merit, then even candidates who compete within reserved quotas would be good. But I am against the informal, undisclosed reservation that c...

They were sitting in my hotel room, waiting for Rohit to get ready. In between our discussion about the falling rate of the rupee in comparison to the dollar, somebody took Baba's name and hijacked the conversation. "Do you know sir that Baba had actually died 7 days before his death was announced to the public?" Baba was a prominent politician of the area, now dead. "What do you mean?", I asked. "Baba’s death was announced on the 14th, but he had actually died seven days earlier due to an organ failure." "Why? Why would his family do such a thing?" "It is rumored that it took his family and accountants seven days to clear all evidences wherein Baba could get implicated. In the last 7 days, they cleared all the proofs, took all fingerprints, faked all documents that had to be faked and sent all the money abroad that had to be sent abroad. His body was kept in a sealed casket when it was shown to the people so that t...