It's easy nowadays to get offended - and it's also easy to offend someone. So when I read the news about some politician having made an 'indecent' remark about a Hindu goddess, I simply ignored it to be a political slugfest of trying to win the votes of one audience, by offending the other. It probably is indeed so - I honestly do not know.  However, as the news unravelled I came to know that the source was not this politician from the opposition parties but an Indian-origin film-maker based in Canada who apparently made a movie on Maa Kali and a poster of her film which created the waves. Apparently, the poster showed Kali smoking cigarettes - the filmmaker wanted to showcase Maa Kali as a badass hero and smoking was the way to show off the adjective! As I pondered over this, several thoughts ran into my mind - which the title of this post represents. But the very first image which flew across my mental retina was that of Gajanan Maharaj - a saint from the 19th centur...

  I am just back from a 24-hour trip to Bhopal, my hometown and my mind is full of several nostalgic moments I experienced in the last 48 hours. It started with a taking a red-eye flight alone - it's been some time since I've taken one of these red-eye ones alone; last few years I've either travelled with family or with some colleague in tow. As a solo traveler, there's that eerie botheration that I may take a nap and miss some important announcement like the Gate of my flight changing or boarding being announced. While I've never had any trouble like this, but the anxious botheration is a part of travelling solo and I experienced this anxiety after a long long time.    Then, of course, the emotional rush of being in your city of your birth and upbringing hit me as I took a taxi from the airport towards my destination. When the Taxi guy took a road different to what I'd usually take to get around, I gave him some instructions, only to realise that roads and land...