OCTOBER 2009

Part of the summer this year was spent in Samarqand, the city of fruits. The apricot here is no longer worth its weight in gold.

"Let them stew in their own mess, we are better off without them." Sounds familiar?

In the first couplet of the eighth ghazal of his 'Divan', Hafiz Shirazi wishes for the Turkish beauty to take his heart in her hand.

I pick up the newspapers with a great deal of eagerness these days for reports on the UPA's new austerity drive. I heartily approve of it despite the fact that some critics sneer that it is 'mere tokenism' - my answer to them is, so what?  I, for one, deeply appreciate the sentiments behind it, and am optimistic that something good may eventually come of it. Congress spokesperson Abhishek Manu Singhvi put it across very nicely in this statement: "Yes, it is about symbolism, it is about sending a message.

On the face of it, it looks difficult to make sense of what is happening on the Chinese front. If the government in Delhi is to be believed, then all is quiet on the northern front. Some newspaper reports, denied furiously by the government, suggest a different perspective altogether.

It's just that despite everything hope floats. It arrives with the miracle of anticipation, like waiting for the winter chill, and it stays back in dream and wakefulness when an orange morning enters the window and lights up the corridors. The wind says hello to the subdued sunshine.

It is not really once upon a time. It still is full of smoke, possibilities, memories. But those were the days when it used to be the hub of modern enlightenment in the heart of old Lucknow. Pradeep Kapoor Lucknow

Mayawati scores over her predecessors, Mulayam Singh and Kalyan Singh, in making herself inaccessible Pradeep Kapoor Lucknow