Spoiling a fun filled Saturday trance night at a three level, vibrating dance floor discotheque are my sweating palms and heavy head. The whole evening updates on TV have been repeating the news of milk shortage back home in Srinagar and the same night, I see creatures of the dark gulping tequila shots one after the other. The good and the ugly of life seem to be like a same song in two different tunes. A bad remix. Pappu is too disturbed to dance... There's still time for fellow urban Indian youth -living life king size, to understand pappu's unease on the dance floor. How does pappu tell the rappers around that rapping and recreation does help unwinding but not rub scars off your mind ? They plead, "shake that thing...shake that thing" but quite stunned, Pappu can't move an inch to match their rhythm on the floor. His every single move is hurdled by thoughts of the dance of death innocents in...

Spoiling a fun filled Saturday trance night at a three level, vibrating dance floor discotheque are my sweating palms and heavy head. The whole evening updates on TV have been repeating the news of milk shortage back home in Srinagar and the same night, I see creatures of the dark gulping tequila shots one after the other. The good and the ugly of life seem to be like a same song in two different tunes. A bad remix. Pappu is too disturbed to dance... There's still time for fellow urban Indian youth -living life king size, to understand pappu's unease on the dance floor. How does pappu tell the rappers around that rapping and recreation does help unwinding but not rub scars off your mind ? They plead, "shake that thing...shake that thing" but quite stunned, Pappu can't move an inch to match their rhythm on the floor. His every single move is hurdled by thoughts of the dance of death innocents in...

Trekking to the Amarnath cave, based as high as thirteen thousand feet above the sea level needs a great divine push. Something as great as a sportsman's will, a nature lover's heart or a pilgrims strong faith. I wasn't blessed with any when I began my high school summer camp treks in the Kashmir valley many years ago. As a fat kid, trekking and mountaineering meant brisk, tired and struggled walks on the tough Himaliyan terrain. Being obese didn't help the sporting cause and my home sick nature made me hate the trek organizers and the mountains too. Living in the plains for many years now, my heart speaks out for the same mountains and dense willow forests that I dreaded once. A breathtaking landscape that the government of J&K might soon turn into concrete high rises, something similar to what haunts me every single day, here in the plains. Construction on eight hundred kanals of a Sonmarg forest can unimaginably turn it...

Like the first IPL semi-final, Kings 11 Punjab's fight for a final berth at the Wankhade stadium also turned out to be a battle lost mid-way. The interest in this cricket match was losing fast towards the end of their low scoring innings. On the same windy evening, a sea of men in whites at Ram lila maidan in the national capital, were too waging a battle against a hidden enemy - terrorism. These whites, not from the longer form of the gentleman's game but in skullcaps, kurta pyjamas and carrying flags also went live . Their live appeal on a niche regional urdu channel to the misguided men, the elements of terror, was to behave more like gentlemen. But I doubt that even on the day of a one sided yet colourful T-20 semi-final, not many would have cared much for an all white anti-terrorism rally! The T-20 match on the weekend would have kept even the terror group leaders...