The Unforgettable Desire

There was this professor by the name Dr GR Taneja. He did not teach me. He retired from my college, in Delhi University, a year before my admission. I met him once, in the beginning of the second year of my graduation. I was waiting outside the principal’s chamber with a friend to get the permission for conducting the auditions for our theatre group. I did not know Professor Taneja then. I had heard a lot about him from my seniors. On that uneventful day, he was just a man who cracked jokes about the principal we mutually disliked. It was an awkward, yet funny moment. The moment passed, so did years. Four years later, during the final semester of M.A., I came across his name. I was working on a project report on a couple of Salman Rushdie’s works. As my mind boggled with a hundred articles/newspaper reviews/literary papers and their bibliographies, I saw a book by the name – The Novels of Salman Rushdie . It had GR Taneja as one of its authors. It was an exciting moment. Among a...

I spent the entire day reading about the once-in-a-lifetime lunar eclipse.  Super Blue Blood moon.  ‘Can the name not be short?’, I thought just like I had thought about my cancer - Pre B Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia, ten years ago. I saw people sharing the time of eclipse’s visibility in different places.  ‘Ahh, not in India.’ Cool things never happen in India,  sighed the multiple-times-disappointed-kid in me.  But, then. I saw someone share the time of visibility in the metro cities of India.  I googled immediately, ‘Lunar eclipse visibility in Hyderabad.’ I saw many articles describing the reasons behind this particular eclipse being unique. I gave it a thought, not much. I am not one of those moon-watchers, you see. The idea of moon’s beauty brought the idea of longing lovers.  I tried, I tried really hard, to bring together love, longing, and moon. It never happened. But, for a little while, somewhere in my...