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Wednesday, December 10, 2008 19:27 IST

Someday I shall write another kind of blog. Not about terrorism and guns and carnage and worse.

I will write about other things.

I will write about winter in Delhi (where I am visiting soon) and how the women bring out their choicest shawls and the men dress like they were in a Jane Austen novel.

I will write about how much I miss Mumbai’s three departed chroniclers-Busybee, Frank Simoes and Dom Moraes. (I wonder what words they would have chosen to describe what we’ve been through.)

I will write about the boys who sell books and magazines at traffic lights who I’ve come to befriend when they hitch rides off me from point A to B. All of them bright, enterprising, needy. All of them with the same story. (I’m working to pay off my school fees.) I once tried to find one at the address he’d given me to arrange for his fees-and was told no one by that name existed-but that’s another story….

I will write about Cat Stevens and his latest album after so many years of silence, which at first I didn’t enjoy but slowly began to appreciate.

I will write about small things. Ordinary everyday things.

How I feel bad that my eighty-two year old mum who’s not internet savvy is not able to read my blog- and I

don’t know what to do about it.

I will write about how confusing fashion forecasts are, and how I never understand whether blue is in or out.

I will write about Manto and how his stories never fail to move me.

These days I can’t write about such things you see. These days we write about grave and serious things. Lethal things. Sad things. Unimaginably hideous things.

But someday I will write about other things.

Soon.

Someday.

9 comments

Wish you write about these. Just a wish.

What difference it makes if there is one rape every two hours.

What difference it makes if you have got to bribe for admission even at LKG level.

What difference it makes if there is a heap of garbage in front of your gate even when you pay all the taxes the government has imposed on you.

What difference it makes that an ambulance has to wait with a dying man inside because that young man on his new car in front does not want to give way.

What difference it makes if you have got to wait long, long years to get justice from the courts.

What difference it makes if an eve-teaser gets a clap from his peers and the public.

What difference it makes when politicians and celebrities get nothing but publicity when normal public gets punishment for the same offence.

What difference it makes when there is no footpath left for pedestrians after it is occupied by hawkers and businessmen.

What difference it makes when Indian culture means nothing but Bollywood song and dance.

What difference it makes...

Just tell me when would you write about people suffering from the greed of the Ambanis? Why can't you write about how they are fleecing our country and us, especially Mr Anil Ambani through his Reliance Infra and its exorbitant charges? Please do write about it.

The things that you might want to write about seem ordinary and daily fare to some, but others might take these seriously... you have highlighted these by calling them ordinary but they have the power to take our mind off the "serious things"... that's a very good article. keep blogging.

It's a good thing that you will write about other things. I think you like some change from daily work such as writing on lifestyle and fashion forecasts. I would like to say this article is very interesting as well as emotional. I will wait for your next article.

You have listed out all the 'missed out' in our daily life inclusive of every soul around us. Indeed you have missed out none. You have written volumes with so few words and 'walked us through' from childhood till this moment, exposing us to beautiful fresh nature. I enjoyed reading this a lot.

One writes to heighten one's awareness. To enchant, lure, and console others. Fraught with needless verbiage is the work of writers of today. But your columns and blogs make prose sound like poetry. So keep writing! Cheers :)

I thought of BusyBee too and wondered what would he have written? In a way, I felt glad he is not around to see what has become of his beloved city.

It's simple, touching and refreshing. Malavika shows us how far we have suddenly come from the little things of life, trapped as we are in a world full of danger and uncertainties! Kudos!

Your words are as "everyday" as the dewdrops kissing a blade of grass, and yet they prompt me to think, I wonder why. Then, the following morning, I find myself looking intently at a blade of grass. I find my answer there.