|| Swanta Sukhaya ||

Greetings! It has been raining a lot this year.  But as the cold winds invaded our hemisphere, the clouds dispersed. The Sun too, got an opportunity to spread warmth over the day, through these gusts.  Just like swirls of golden yellow through a pale blue canvas.    Few days back it was told that there is a cyclone coming up somewhere near the coast, and it may bring in the rains. I could see in the faces of people, that this was as unwelcome as a wayward draft of cold wind in a warm quilt in this season! Anyhow, the nature, as is her majestic unassuming and yet unrelenting style - brought in the dark clouds. Those harbingers of monsoon when the time is right and ominous sun-blocking mood-crushing shapeless vagabonds when it is not! It had been grey, gloomy and dull since morning. The sky seemed pregnant with rain but was bearing it with a cover of fluffy whitish clouds at the edges. And then, nearer to the evening, as the grey started showing orange-saffron hues, it happened! But, it

 Greetings! “All that he had believed was dissipated. Truths, which he had no wish for, inexorably besieged him. He must henceforth be another man. He suffered the strange pangs of a conscience suddenly operated on for the cataract. He felt that he was emptied, useless, broken off from his past life, destitute, dissolved.” From  Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables, Book IV, Chapter 1: Javert’s Suicide. Jean Valjean and Javert stand poles apart as we dive into this eponimous magnum opus of Victor Hugo. But through ups, downs, turns and misdirections in this literary journey - they seem to reverse their fate while following their own callings relentlessly. Jean, a simpleton and convict of draconian law and running away from it, using his bullok-like strength and rustic sense.  Javert, a firm believer in the letter of law, and enforcing it with napolean-like zeal, using his ruthless intellect and firm actions.    As we go through travails of Jean, the likelihood of Book IV being about Jean's

Greetings! Balance through chaos. Keeping foot on pedal while maneuvering through all kinds of traffic. Gritting it through the occasional ups. While enjoying (I don't know how they managed to achieve lesser slopes than ups but...) even more occasional slopes. All this is what you would expect from a cycling zen blog.  And, believe me, all of this is what any cyclist weaving through a city experiences. But this blog is not about it.  It is about the people that the cyclist passes by, those who overtake, and being overtaken by, come across and sometimes skirt around. People on the road, from myriads of hues and moods. Glum. Brooding. Tense. Melancholic. Lost in their thoughts (or in their phones).  Tired. Irritated. Frustrated. Angry (and some taking it out on accelerator or horn or both). Searching. Thirsty. (Looking as if,) Trying to find someone or something that will make them complete.  Hard. Suspicious. Having been betrayed again and again trying to put up their defences again