LES MISERABLES Vengrai Parthasarathy ________________________________________________________________ The Matunga Railway station in Bombay, India was seething with people. Shankar hop-scotched his way through the thicket of passengers, visitors, hawkers, gawkers and idlers. As the train was about to leave, a beggar maid with a woebegone aspect made her way into the compartment and stood in a corner,…
A profile of Vengrai Parthasarathy (from Sahitya Akademi): Mr.V.V. Parthasarathy (Vengrai) the author is 88+ years old.He graduated from the Madras University and stayed on to complete his Law degree in the same Uiversity. Again in that University, he did a two-year course in International Law and Constitutional Law under late Professor C.H.Alexandrowicz. He had…
Apt Words, Aptly Spoken. By Vengrai Parthasarathy “Mr.Gorbachev, tear down that wall” roared President Reagan. The twentieth anniversary of these prophetic words was observed by the media. Eventually, though not as a direct result, events led to the break up of the Soviet Union. What Churchill called the Iron Curtain came down. It is said…
A TRUE VAISHNAVA ‘Vaishnava Janato (This song in Gujarathi language was composed by Narsingh Mehta, a 15th century poet. A favourite of Mahathma Gandhi, it was sung at all his prayer meetings) .An adherent/devotee of Vishnu is one who: Feels the pain of others as his own, Who gives a helping hand to those in…
LESSON LEARNED Vengrai Parthsarthy Life is one long saga of learning. Some lessons, we learn from ourparents, some from our teachers and most in the school of hard knocks.A friend told me of the lesson of his life he had learnt from from an old lady. Here is his story in his own words: “I…
CHEEK TO CHEEK By Vengrai Parthasarathy The story I am about to tell opens on a gold-framed mirror in an apartment. Arjun stared at the mirror for one full minute, He could not believe what he saw. It was not there the previous day. The pink dot. He got up on his toes for a…
IT’S A GIRL Vengrai Parthasarathy Jagan finished his bath in seven minutes flat; not his usual half hour, which included sixteen minutes of off-key yodeling. But he took his own sweet time in choosing his favorite T-shirt to set off his blue denim trousers.. Once he finished fluffing up his hair in a carefully careless…
IT’S A GIRL Vengrai Parthasarathy Jagan finished his bath in seven minutes flat; not his usual half hour, which included sixteen minutes of off-key yodeling. But he took his own sweet time in choosing his favorite T-shirt to set off his blue denim trousers.. Once he finished fluffing up his hair in a carefully careless…
LUCKY STRIKE–Vengrai Parthasarathy During one of her shopping expeditions in the Moore Bazaar, Suchitra saw an antique painting of Baby Krishna, a plump and cuddly, wonder. He and Balarama were stealing butter from a glut of overflowing pots. The picture, for all its years, was still charming . Suchitra was clean bowled by it. She…
TRAIL OF A SNAKE Vengrai Parthasarathy Seven-year old Pappu came running excitedly and made a cryptic announcement to his father: “There is a snake in the garage”. Pappu was an imaginative boy. He had once seen an alien with horns getting out of a space ship outside their back yard. He had also seen a…