URB Scribbles

A man of modest bearing, Om Narayan hails from Bihar. Growing up without either of his parents around and with his differently abled left hand, Om is a self-made man. He was to marry this lady back in his village, who, anticipating fiscal uncertainties accruing to his hand, abandoned him weeks before the knot could be tied. Disoriented and alienated, Om decided to escape the humiliation by leaving behind the punishing topography of the northern Indian cow-belt altogether. Heading upwards till he reached his elder sister’s at Dharamshala some eight years back, Om decided to never look back. Void of the warmth of parental love, lack of agricultural land, humiliation and imposed solitude made escape the only path for Om. Struggling with the cursing eye of time, Om sailed through to finally see the day as a successful entrepreneur weaving a crispy tapestry at 7000 feet above sea level. Holding on to a cane basket, a blue plastic bucket and a never ending supply of self de...

Brick by brick and stone by stone, O poor comrade you bring it up! Under the pulsing sun, you drop your sweat and a pinch of blood, to paint it red. With the moist of fallacious dreams in your gloomy eyes, you paint it blue. Hanging to the scaffolding you polish the pane, until it reflects your grief and pain.  You make it shine with your humble skin Once it is up you are nowhere to be seen…                                                                         Uddipta Ranjan If you like what you read kindly SUBSCRIBE for more. Thank you for coming back, keep doing it to inspire URBScr...

It is interesting how some episodes throughout the journey of life become permanent milestones in our memories. No matter how far the roads take us, we still remember those points where we stumbled upon either with opportunities or with challenges. One such episode in my journey was the first metro ride. Given the first metro ride being paradoxically both an opportunity as well a challenge for me, there is absolutely no way I can get over the memory of it soon. It was an opportunity, for I was to come face-to-face with the realm of the New and the never-experienced-before; while at same time it was the challenge to be accepted and embraced by the New and the unknown. From the first hesitant step and the backward jerk on the electric escalator to deliberately escaping suffocating metro rides, life has seen much by now. From tapping on the token receiver at the exit where it was actually to be dipped, to the Paytm rechar...

The air quality in India has been nose-diving fast, especially in its cities. Various causes come together to make the impact multiply and the issue has come to haunt the common consciousness around this time of the year for past several years. Suffocating evenings and breath taking (not to be mistaken with breathtaking) mornings after the Diwali night has come to be the most explicit of all factors leading alarm bells to ring across conscious circles. There has been a concerted debate coming up around the use of firecrackers on Diwali for past several years. This year’s Diwali approaches near, dragging with it the debate yet again. Various factions of concerned folks, like all previous years, have glued to their computers to send out their intellectual dispatches from both sides of the debate. Some propose a complete ban on use of firecrackers, considering it a good way to save the Mother Earth, while contributing their respective daily share of endless pollutants to th...

I saw you on that pleasant day. You were there, you were near. But I thought, “maybe another day”! That was May, a summer day. Sun was nasty, you were hushed. So I thought, “maybe another day”! The other day, a rainy day. Rain was heavy, you were drenched. So I thought, “maybe another day”! Today is the day, my lucky day. I wish to say, I wish to say… Alas! you are taken and I hear you say, “maybe another day”! “maybe another day”! (laugh)                                                     Uddipta Ranjan                                                        New Delhi

Dear Readers, Thank you again for coming back. Kindly excuse me for a slightly longer story this time. Hope you will bear with it with love as you always do. It is a disturbing truth that despite a decade of residence in New Delhi, I never actually could travel to most of the attractions within affordable reach of Delhi. This failure, I realize, accrues mostly to my fear of stepping out of the zone of comfort. I have always been an enthusiast and longed for adventure but never really dared to compromise on comfort. Never was I so fortunate to craft stories of unplanned solo escapes into nowhere. My trips (the very few that I have done around Delhi) have mostly been marinated with rigorous planning. As my nature goes, the recent trip to Punjab – like all other trips – was guided by the same check list. Checking online availability of seats, filtering buses – first according to the hour of departure that suits my sleep cycle, then in terms of the travel ti...