R. Radhakrishnan's Blog, page 25

The Five Blind men and a Hindu Elephant.

A couple of years ago I was driving down from Trivandrum in the south of Kerala to Cochin on a humid evening with dark clouds on the horizon.

I took a pit stop on one of the roadside cafes that have sprouted on this narrow congested lane that pretends to be a National Highway.

The place was clean as it was new having opened up just a week back. The owner was a middle-aged man, a local first-time entrepreneur.

Having made his nest egg in the gulf he had come back to settle down in his h...

Indian Elections over the years and passing on the baton.

I voted today for the local assembly elections in Kerala.

My son joined me and it was his first election. In a way, I felt I was passing on the baton of being a citizen of this great country.

Elections have changed over the years and having seen them in many different states, I believe there has been a great improvement in how they are conducted.

Of course the losing politicians claim fraud and decry the loss of democracy and raise all sort of bogeys. They do that to console themselves ...

Husbands and wives a tale from the Panchatantra

You must all have read the story of the two friends the monkey and the crocodile.

Based on his wife’s demand the crocodile plans to kill his friend the monkey so that the crocodile’s wife could eat the monkey.

Raktamuka the monkey escapes and then tells the Crocodile.” Oh you wicked and false friend you are a slave to your wife, just like King Nanda and the scholar Vararuchi. Hear their story from me”.

King Nanda was a great and powerful king. He was a great warrior, a just ruler well-...

A story from the Aithihymala: The story of Kottayathu Raja.

The Aithihyamala is a collection of folk tales of Kerala compiled by Kottarathil Sankunni nearly a century ago.

One of the stories is of one of the Rajas of Kottayam. This is a retelling.

The royal family of Kottayam, a Principality located south of Cochin, was well known for its erudite and scholarly members.

In this family was born a dunce and he was the eldest! The Queen mother was attached to the child but at her wits end as to how to ensure that he grew up wise and good enough to ...

Tughlaq : The Enigmatic Sultan

Tughlaq, the name conjures up mirth, as in popular memory he is an unstable, eccentric ruler whose only claim to fame is that he ordered the shifting of his capital from Delhi to Daulatabad and then back again.

History is often stories, a narrative built from perceptions of known facts, fiction to some extent.

The history we learn in schools is a sanitized history, much of it handed down from the British who had their own axe to grind. 

Our teachers drill it into us with dates and the f...

Happiness. A poem from my book The colors of life.

Happiness and Joy
Rain on the roof
puddles in the ground
Feeling in the mind
Breeze on face
Hum of tyres
Rustle of leaves
Heartbeat.
Smell of earth
Touch your love
Hold her close
Breath in her hair
Flowers in bloom
Child at play
Crow on the tree
Grinning at you
Squirrels chittering
love of a dog
Friends lost
Meet again
its Yesterday
child again
Siblings speak
A little touch
kindered look
Happiness and joy
Perception in the mind.

Radhakrishnan R.

The Colors of Life is available at Amazon as a Kindle eBook.

Hinduism and the Festival of Holi

Hinduism to me has always been about celebrating life. All our festivals are celebrations, a time to enjoy, have fun and share our joy in being alive.

Holi, the festival of Colors, is probably the one that epitomises this the best.

Holi is a raucous celebration of life specially so in the northern and western parts of India.

I remember Holi during my childhood in Mumbai where it was all about collecting the wood, hay and other stuff for burning in the Holi bonfire, the Holika Dahan....

My new novel…the first three chapters.

Chapter 1 -The Mysore Dussehra
She felt him staring at her, a tall, lean dark young man, and blushed. There was chaos, confusion, noise and dust as the Mysore Dussehra procession progressed.

The crowds milled and moved in eddies as the different floats, and groups came into view. All Bhavna could see were heads and shoulders, a sea of heads moving in waves. She clutched her friend Veena’s hand tightly as they squeezed through the crowd.

Lean and small, the girls reached the front as majestic Arju...

A view from the Ground, over the years.

The Rise of the Hindu voice a personal perspective.

I belong to a more timid and milder generation.

We did have political differences and we did have acrimonious dissent then too. But maybe they were more politely worded. Or perhaps it’s just my poor memory not remembering any unpleasantness.

One such was the Shiv Sena agitation against outsiders specially south Indians.

I am a south Indian but many of  my friends were not. The local leader was a friend and when he wanted a crowd many of us kids...

International Women’s day. Do we need one.

There have been messages in social media celebrating women right from the morning today.

It’s politically correct to celebrate women and it’s a fantastic marketing opportunity too. That’s the cynical side of me.

I look around and at the poor women around, the lady who picks up the garbage, our housemaid, the girls at the supermarket on thier feet all day. The list goes on and on. Then there are the horror stories in the news, of rape and molestation, of corporate glass ceilings, of peeping...