Monday, November 20, 2006

A CHILD'S WORLD




“Tell me child of the world you see
It surely is different from the world I see.
Is everybody beautiful in your world my child?
Is everybody pleasant-tempered and mild?
Is your world coloured in pastel shades?
Is it filled with hills and valleys and glades?
Is your world free of vices and sins?
Is your world a world where everybody wins?
Tell me child of the world you see
It surely is different from the world I see”.

The child answers:

“My world, it is such a beautiful place
I can see it reflected, in my mother’s face
Safe in her arms, my world I find
Free from all horrors – to sorrows blind
In my world are blue, blue skies
Rainbows and laughter and songs and smiles
The grass is so green, the roses so red
No child in my world goes hungry to bed
Everybody has a home to call their own
Nobody in my world walks alone
My world is nature’s exclusive domain
Free of hurts and aches and pains
In my world are no walls that divide
No fights, no riots, no secrets to hide
No barriers of language, caste or creed
In the name of religion, my people do not bleed
So pure and so clean is my world, my friend
My world is a world of love, my friend”.

(One of those few poems of mine that are not sad, I guess!!!)

THE BOOK EXHIBITION IS ON IN BANGALORE!

Had been to the Book Exhibition at Palace Grounds on Saturday, with Anu. It was wonderful! And what made me really happy were the crowds. (No, I don’t love crowds, in fact I hate them… but it was good to see that there are many, many serious readers out there).

We splurged on the books…Anu had her list of “must-buys” and I picked up several books that I had been reading about, like “Sacred Games” by Vikram Chandra, “Shantanu”, “The Inheritance of Loss”, by Kiran Desai (for which she won the Booker Prize), two books by Paul Coelho (author of The Alchemist), a book on Brand Building – “One Land, One Billion Minds” (by Ramunjam Sridhar… incidentally Sunil worked with him at RK Swamy-BBDO) and “The Black Book” by Orhan Pamuk, the Turkish writer who won the Nobel Prize in Literature, 2006 “who in the quest for the melancholic soul of his native city has discovered new symbols for the clash and interlacing of cultures". Have started reading the last book and am really impressed by this writer’s style and the very evocative images that he paints. All the other books must wait… I am just waiting to read them. Also picked up “The Inscrutable Indian” by Anurag Mathur. Have read it before and remember how much I had enjoyed it… truly, truly hilarious – from the very first page!

Talking about books, would love to one day fulfill my childhood ambition of becoming an “author”. Only wonder if I have the self-discipline for it!