Words are Weariness

If you happen to go to a class where they teach Creative Writing, one of the exercises they will ask you to do is to hold a fruit, say an Apple in your hand , observe it for a few minutes and then ask you to write about what you have noticed and experienced with your senses of sight and smell. You will hold it in both hands and take it to your nose. Its shiny light skin with myriad shades of red, orange and yellow gives off a mild smell which makes you wonder what it would be if you were to walk amidst an orchard of apples trees laden with ripening fruits. You can’t but wonder at the infinite intelligence behind the design and the solution so befitting the purpose. What if I now ask you to shift attention from the  feeling and the emotion that holding of the apple has caused and shift the attention inwards to investigate ‘who’ is experiencing ?  If the apple and the thoughts and feelings it created are the object of experience who is the subject ?  What do you see there ?  W

Let us leave Utopia behind and take only India forward. The danger of failing aggregate demand in a consumption led economy is that it can exacerbate the fiscal deficit when the tax revenues taking a beating. For example, the recent budget present by Nirmala had an assumption of around 25% increase in the tax revenue of the Govt. However with lack of demand in the economy, the GST revenue which was expected to average around 1.14 lakh crores each month is just going to hover over 1 lakh crore per month only ( almost same as last year) if things continue the way they are the rest of the financial year. This is also the reason why GST rates should not be reduced. It is a remedy that will only worsen the disease, though the car industry is clamouring for it. This will put paid to Govt’s resolve to maintain the fiscal deficit at 3.3% as envisaged in the budget. Govt is hoping , against hope - I think, that the remainder of the year will see a pick up in demand with good monsoon  and with

First things first. “All that Jazz” is the title of a famous movie by Bob Fosse. It is a  semi-autobiographical fantasy screenplay where Fosse acts as screen character Gideon. It is therefore a truly unsympathetic look at his own life. Gideon that we see in the movie is a constant womaniser, drug and alcohol abuser and chain smoker who has sex with a different dancer every night and virtually a reckless and a moral-less scoundrel.  It is a movie is an ultimate act of self-flagellation. Foss died 7 or 8 years after the movie was made and the movie was released after his death. Now what that has to do with the Indian economy? We will see at the end of this series of posts. We see the growth slowing down to 5% and some say even this is dubious. Inflation is no doubt very low and very benign - a silver lining. This is for sure as we see it in our direct experience.  Companies have excess capacity though they have not invested in creating fresh capacity last many many years-I have

My earliest spiritual experiences have been, not surprisingly, in the cricket field, for that was the only thing I did with devotion in the first twenty years of my life. I would recall them like this: I am standing in the slip cordon. The focus is on the bowler as he runs up, the ball leaves his hand and I have no thoughts as my mind is fully focussed on the ball curving in the air or off the pitch, the ball takes a faint edge and flies towards me; at this moment it is as if there is perfect absence of mind or a separate self, as if I am just part of the scene - there is no me , no batsman , no bowler, no sense of time,  no anything —just the pure consciousness of being part of the scene unfolding in a split second. It is awareness without any subject and object relationship -awareness being aware of itself without a separate ‘I’ to witness. It is concisousness expereincing itself.   The ball some how lodges in the hand - If the focus is on the effort , the ball would ha

Dalliance means short term attraction or ‘passing fancy’.   It is a wrong word to describe my long term fascination for the subject of Economics. It is only there in the title as it rhymes with Dismal Science. So I would request readers to pardon me for a misleading title. It is all for euphony, you know. My interest in “Economics” was jump started by a mere cursory reading of the text book prescribed to us in the Pre-University Course ( Maths-Economics-Commerce Group). The main reason was, when I come to think of it, it was the first subject in my entire 17 years of formal education, that made me “think”.   All textbooks and subjects before Economics was introduced to me were mere collection and presentation of facts that had to be learnt, mugged up or practiced. Of all subjects that were taught to us, most injustice was done to science, with drawing up the figure of “Physical Balance” and marking its parts was a question that carried 10 marks and a very likely question at that in

Modifier problems In this edition of English-Vinglish let us see the problems arising from using modifiers wrongly. Many times, you will complete the sentence without even aware   of   them , the immediate exultation of committing to a sentence what   you had   mind will blind you lack of refinement in syntax. However, if you re-read what you have written after some days, it will be clear   to you as daylight. A modifier   in a sentence is   an element that describe or qualifies some other element. It can be an adjective or an adverb or   a phrase that acts as one.   It is important that it is positioned correctly in a sentence to convey the intended meaning.   Let us   see some commonly committed mistakes in their positioning. They are called the Hanging Modifiers Sometimes the entity that   is being modified is not explicity stated but implied in the sentence.   This causes   the modifier to ‘hang’ in the absence of the subject that it is supposed to modify. 1.  

Of all countries I have been to, the visit to Brazil, though not a long one, has left with me the lasting impressions. I would never forget my first day at Brazil. The ride from the Sao Paulo airport to my hotel in downtown was long. Normally I use these occasions to talk to cabbies to get the feel of the place and the general talk of the town. However , as I later found out, you do not find people knowing English except at hotel receptions. Indulging in small talk with the cabbie was difficult. Even for the barest minimum communication, we spoke into an App in his smart phone that translated his Portuguese into English and vice-versa. The hotels designed for “business travelers” all over the world seem to be cut from the same cookie-cutter; from the reception, to the lifts, rooms and to the breakfast spreads--the tedious lack of variety makes you yearn for a change of scene within a few days. Apart from having to switch between “Obrigada” and “Obrigado” and adjust to the bl