Dheeraj Kalgutkar

Long long ago, in 1689 a Japanese poet Matsuo Bashō set out on an epic 1,200-mile journey through the then narrow roads of Japan. He wrote his travel account in the form of poetry (haiku) and also prose. This poetic travel works added lustre to his reputation which continues till today. Like Shakespeare for west, Bashō is to Japan. More so as everyone in Japan can recite at least one of Bashō’s poem by heart. The part of the route he traveled is traveled by thousands of people today in memory of the great poet. People go to pilgrimage at his birth and burial sites. Bashō today is part of Japanese culture. In his masterpiece, Oku no Hosomichi, or Narrow Road to a Far Province, as first entry Bashō writes, “Each day is a journey, and the journey itself home” That was 300 years ago. Today, Bashō is mostly remembered world over for Haiku. What is Haiku? It’s a Japanese form of poetry which uses few words to capture a moment into reader’s mind. Unlike other forms of poetry,...

Dear Human, This is your mother, not the one that gave you birth but the one whose nipples you pull hard early in the morning to have your glass of milk, my milk. It feels embarrassing though when you touch them in front of my hubby but we’ve grown used to it now after around 10,000 years. For those who don’t milk in the morning, we are four-legged creatures you see on Indian roads that block your horny vehicles. By the way, are you blind? Can’t you see our long ears? We can listen you honk; just that we don’t care. You pulled us from our homes to this disturbing world of yours, at least let us be. You know, around 10,500 years ago, we used to be in the wild. Then the moronic neolithic humans whose clan you are, caught us to domesticate, I mean to milk, kill and skin us for your kinds’ good. In the beginning it was Turkey and Pakistan but then it slowly spread all over the globe. There was also time when we were used as currency; what do you call it? Oh wait, B...

Sultan to sum in a single line is a film where underdog wins against all odds. But that's like saying, all superhero films are same where world is at the cusp of extinction and then a superhero arrives to fight all evil forces. Sultan has many side plots apart from the story of its protagonist Sultan Ali Khan (played by Salman Khan). Of the many plots, one that intrigued me was of female protagonist Aarfa (played by Anushka Sharma). Sultan is a breather in otherwise myriad number of Salman Khan movies where female leads are merely used to move their bodies to peppy dance numbers or say that one catchy dialogue (remember 'thappad se dar nahi lagta..' from Dabangg? ) and disappear. Just go away. But Aarfa had her share of the story and screen space which is otherwise rare in Salman's movies. She is not another ordinary village girl who in our films dreams to get married to dashing hero who comes on sports bikes with oiled muscles. In fact she wants them n...

Dear Modi supporters, Let me make it easier and clear for you. Remember the ‘Indira is India, India is Indira,’ cry of Congress. Well, you are increasingly imitating those sycophants. No matter who is the leader, India has been India, is and will remain so. Yes, Modi is the popular leader but there are still people in few (or most of) villages who don’t know who Modi is. So calm down. Here is something on Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), mocking India or celebrating India’s defeat in getting breakthrough at Seoul, banning Chinese goods to teach China a lesson they won’t forget and a bit more. First things first, yes China opposed India’s bid to become member nation of NSG but it was not China alone. In addition to China, Switzerland and Brazil, both nations which previously supported India’s claim, withdrew their support. Switzerland, in case you forgot, was the country which our respected Prime Minister Narendra Modi made a tour of. ‘Futile’ is the word you must be looking for. Ap...

In Raghuram Govind Rajan, we have lost not only a finest mind in the world of economics today but also a free-thinker who minced no words in calling a spade a spade. What you’ve heard enough is that Rajan predicted 2008 global financial crisis three years before in his 2005 paper, Has Financial Development Made the World Riskier? But what you’ve not heard is how he holds the record for being the youngest-ever Chief Economist at the International Monetary Fund (IMF) apart from IIT as well as IIM degrees. Time magazine recently included him in their coveted ‘The 100 Most Influential People’, it wrote , “ he steered India through the global crisis and fallout, playing a large role in making it one of the emerging-market stars of the moment”. Remember how social media was full of rupee-on-free-fall jokes? That’s when Rajan took the job of Reserve Bank of India Governor. Those were the days when rupee used to fall each day to new lows, jokes on ‘finest economist’ (then) PM Manmo...

Long back when I was still in my school I had read one article in a local magazine which has still stayed with me, at least the gist of it. And here I’m sharing the central idea of that wonderful piece. It was talking about a flaw, a lacking that exists in all of us. Let us call it ‘Monday Syndrome’. No no, it isn’t another post about how people feel while going to work on Mondays. It is about how we plan to start doing a new task. That music lesson you wanted to start with, that blog you wanted to write or that thing you wanted to paint, anything that you wanted to accomplish but have not started on. You have told to yourself that you will start from this Monday, that you will go to gym from the 1 st of next month. Most of the students have habit of sticking or planning according to whole numbers. It is 5:49 PM now and they plan to start studying exactly from 6PM. That they never start is another story. It is 6:30 and then you want to start from 7 sharp. It is 7 now. But wait...

Yay! This is where I’m sitting and staring at sky… Monsoon has just arrived to the place where I live in. Or is it pre-monsoon? Oh, how does that matter! They are but rain drops from sky. It's not the drizzling rain under which I have sat for some time now. It's almost no rain for that matter. My clothes are yet to get wet. I'm yet to feel the water but breeze? It is already in its full fervor. Breeze and night have a strange connection with my inner goddess, if I can borrow that phrase from Fifty Shades! I would rather say, it's nostalgia. The place I'm right now in is not my home. I'm so much new to this place and this place is so much new to me. We are yet to get along, yet to bond. I miss the comforts of back home. That walk on the sea coast, hearing the sounds of tides which appear mammoth at distance but turn into milky froth at the shore and how they disappear, and the breeze. The cold one that gets to your flesh. One that makes you forget everythin...