Precious Pearls

A bagful of books! This is what the owner of a nearby library brought for me while closing it down. He told that me it was a loving gift for a regular and honest visitor and he had personally chosen the books. While leaving, he asked me to let him know about the book I like most. Thanking him for the gesture, I opened the heavy bag. Looking at the giant volume, I thought it would take me at least a year even to go through them. As soon as I opened the bag, I came across some brand-new and some rickety books, a few in shambles! Oh, he had given me the books which people had donated to his library! So, it was third or the forth hand!! I laid my hands on a half torn diary….I wouldn’t dare touch anyone’s personal diary, I opened it with a view to return it to the person to which it belonged. There was no name. As I moved on, I realised the diary of anonymous comprised only some figures. Someone had maintained an account of daily expenses. Just debit, credit and total, nothing more f...

You can neither accept it right away nor can you reject it outright! Most parents are likely to have experienced this while dealing with ‘the father of man’ and today’s children could be the grandfathers of men! Parenting is no child’s play. Yet many of them seem resorting to spare-the-rod-and-spoil-the-child mantra when it comes to disciplining kids. That’s the reason most of the so-called naughty children get their knuckles rapped as their moms and dads don’t know how to handle them beyond a point. It goes without saying that parenting has become more demanding in today’s age with technology throwing newer challenges. However, I invariably feel that it’s high time modern parents understood that kids are as good as you are! The other day when I was sitting at a friend’s place, I saw her nine-year-old daughter demanding her latest iPhone. Mother refused saying it’s expensive. The girl was adamant and the mother not bothered to explain why she was being denied what she badly want...

A replacement is always a replacement; it can never be the original. It’s difficult to get over the loss of persons and even things close to you. I was feeling a lot more disconnected when I lost my mobile. One is bound to feel a vacuum when something or someone close departs forever. Not that cellphone was something I couldn’t do without but it was the one that accompanied me everywhere every time. It was something I was too used to if not fond of… It wasn’t mere mobile, what I had lost was a treasure trove of memories. Encouraging words, some heated debates, a few magnificent moments captured in its tiny camera, a huge collection of songs, professional contacts, it was all there. My new phone was smarter and slicker yet I couldn’t connect to it. A dead device without life, that’s how it appeared. I couldn’t get that ‘my’ feel. I felt helpless…something was amiss … What I had lost with the phone was part of my personality. Things it had stored spoke a lot of traits, likes and...