Manoje Nath

Hollywood script writers have done way better than American policy planners and generals put together. The movies accomplish impossible missions, while the American administration not only leave their tasks unfinished, they create a huge lot of mess, leave behind their allies in the lurch, and the believers in American superpower status in deep trouble.

There is nothing new to be said about our police forces, what was said fifty years ago or seventy years ago will hold good even today.

The decline of Covid cases to double digits, in both Delhi and Bihar, signaled for me the opportunity to head for home. I booked my and my wife's tickets for Patna; a planned visit to Delhi for 18 days became a near permanent residency. I was under the absolute maternal care of my daughter and son in law, and my two grandchildren but thoughts of how things might be at home never left me.

On being constantly egged by Facebook "What is on your mind?” sometime back I made a capital suggestion - Beheading the Heads - about improving the quality of our political leaders.

“आओ बच्चों आज मैं तुम्हे दूर देश की एक कहानी सुनाता हूँ.”

The British colonial administration in India bequeathed to its successors, along with their independence, a fully fitted out colonial state with an administrative machinery, the ‘steel frame’, which had curbed India’s striving for independence with iron hands.

डेढ़ वर्ष से लगातार कोरोना जनित विपत्तियों का दंश झेलते झेलते मन बिलकुल रुग्ण सा हो गया है. मुझे अनिद्रा की बीमारी है। कोरोना के डर से कर्फ्यू,  कर्फ्यू से स्तब्ध, भयभीत, शिशुवत  निद्रा में सोया हुआ शहर, मेरे नींद से वंचित होने के अहसास को और गहरा देती है. लगता है कोरोना का डर कहीं बहुत गहरे पैठ गया है।

I succumb to the enchantment of books very easily and end up buying or collecting more books than what I can chew and digest. Some books remain untasted for years and in many cases I have followed Francis Bacon’s advice by reading them “only in parts”.

प्रजा तो बस बेचारी प्रजा होती है,

सके इर्द गिर्द बाड़ा चाहे जो बना दो.

प्रजातंत्र, गणतंत्र राजतंत्र, अधिनायक तंत्र।

(Author's Note: Elections are here so it is only proper that we remind ourselves that we are a democracy.)

राजा विक्रम चुपचाप उठा और श्मशान की ओर चल दिया। महल के सभी पहरेदार सो रहे थे पर शहर के सारे चोर जाग रहे थे. राजा को श्मशान पहुँचने की जल्दी थी इसलिए उसने उस समय कोई करवाई करना मुनासिब नहीं समझा। सोचा आखिर प्रकारांतर से सारा माल तो सरकारी ख़ज़ाने में पहुँच ही जायेगा.