Sunday Morning Post

“I stopped watching porn for two reasons basically; the first one was that porn brought so much anger and violence into my private fantasies. And these were anger and violence’s that were not there originally to begin with. And I did not want it for me anymore. This was not me and, I decided to put an end to it. Easier said than done … I got it later. The second reason was that I came to realize that only by watching porn I take part in creating a demand for filmed prostitution because that’s what porn really is: a filmed prostitution. ‘Porne’ stands for prostitute, ‘graphia’ stands for documentation. And prostitution was nobody’s childhood dream; it is always a result of trouble and distress. Porn is a genre and it is all about male domination of women, sub ordinance of women. Not only as a sexual practice but as a way of being as a genderial hierarchy in this world”, says Ran Gavrieli who lives in Tel Aviv and works with youth and adults all over the country in sex and gende...

Time. Where art thou?  There never was and never will be time enough for those who have it. Sadly and unfortunately, it shall be the same for those fighting for breath. Time. It is the most powerful source of energy available to man. Yet we run after, what?, some blue coloured dyed liquid used as power source to run transportation. Or busy in harnessing the sun. All this time forgetting that we need to make sure 'time' is harnessed to the optimum as well. The more you harness time, more your life is enriched. It is the most powerful energy source in this world and yet no one defines it as such, you know why? They fear, what will become of them if all of us knew the secret to harness time. Tell you the truth, there is no secret. Either you respect your time or you do not. No amount of ' seven habits of highly effective people ' is going to change that. And those of you who know how to harness time are known to have reached Yogi-land! Centuries old tale never...

My subscriber base is ever increasing, and my new reader asked me to write about the problems teenagers have with their parents. As you know, my ritual is to write a blog on what my newly added reader asks me to write on.  And why not write about something which will take most of you back through time and feel nostalgic?  So I get to relive my early teenage years - those weekends spending an entire day on the cricket field, eucalyptus trees coming to our rescue in the summer - playing in the school grounds, (yeah, St. Lawrence probably has the biggest and best school grounds in Kolkata) during the break, bare feet, classes became a fighting ground over who is the best - Ronaldo or Messi (Well, we had that in first year of college too!), or if Manchester United can win the premier league or not, social media fights against South Point and National High (they were tough to beat) when we were playing CAB tournaments U-16, U-14. For me and probably most of us, we wer...

Sitting on a park bench at 2 in the night, without any comforter, embracing the winter chill, sleep betrays me. Cacophony of the marketplace, bargaining matches between the vendor/vegetable seller and buyer, hustling amongst men and women for the auto line, Hindi songs playing at a barber shop. I can hear it all at 2 in the night. I can see it all at 2 in the night. Shooting right across the park bench is a pond, overlooking which there is a streetlight - my only source of warmth, it everglows. Bees, moths, insects all making a nursery beneath the light - the sun for them - mere creation for us, thank you Edison. My mind is in a haze after looking at the light continuously, foxed. There's an opening, my chance to sneak in, in the rays. It is nothing but a Time Machine, no fancy tech needed at all, or a secret chamber. Transporting me 16/17 years back to the love of my life. The look of love in my 'Hit me'. 'Where are you at, today?', I wonder. I wake up a...

After taking a dip at the holy Ganges I looked up, to the sky, tiny droplets of water kissing my already wet cheeks. Since it was the rainy season I had the whole ghat for me, the rarity of a clean river had been a concern. As it turned out the concern was short lived. Keeping the legends apart, the river and the raindrops struck a chord with me. How thriving and bustling would have the great Magadhan empire been - the empire which even Alexandrian troops feared - I wondered. How Kashi and its awe inspiring temples grew from rubble on more occasion than one. How Mark Twain must have felt taking a dip at the Ganges in Varanasi. For him, the place was ' Older than the legends itself '. Or 5000 years ago - in the absence of maps and transportation - how Kapil Muni reached Gangasagar on his own, sadly his ashram doesn't survive anymore. Amongst all the centuries old civilization and evolution Ganges had been at the epicentre of the grand ancient India, the tale of which i...

It was raining the day I bumped into him, after a long time, quite unexpectedly, like in the movies. No appointments sought, no schedules fixed. Looking back at the bump which resulted in our accident, I can conclude - ' Not all accidents end up hurting you ' - it was best that we met. He, definitely, didn't look anywhere close to his own self. And yet, from the many things I could have said, I chose to say - " Why and when did you stop writing, depriving yourself and us of getting a peek into your world of thoughts and dreams? " - the most unpleasant of the things I could have at the moment given the situation he lay in. But, you know me, how straightforward and blunt I can get at times. Obviously, he didn't have an answer, just like us he had forgotten to look into the things which are the sources of happiness in moments of despair and dejection. Writing was one of those sources for him, I had known it, since long. The four walls of my house had tak...