Lalita Iyer

ROMANCE IN THE AIR Saw Viratta Parvam.... While romance is relit by the poetry and the literature, the cause for naxalism or who and what they were fighting was lost. Before I write a little about it met some old pals at Amar Devulapalli's home. He makes you climb two flights of steps but being the perfect host, makes up for it.  Then there were the boys including Sattibabu, Madhu, Divakar and Tiger, aka Srinivas Reddy, aka Seenu. When Amar and Tiger get together you must be there with your filled glass and 'listen', which is a skill, believe me. You can only learn.  Between the two of them they carry an era of reporting, colourful, informative and full of dates and names. And it is always filled with beer, nights filled with drinks, afternoons of scooter rides into forests. Fascinating and I come away awed each time by the sheer depth of information these two guys have.  I am going to be quick about this, because my friend said I was too long in my previous blog. I was d...

A LITTLE MOPING AND LOTS OF TV WATCHING I have been moping around today because I have a cold and cough and no fever. Murali has been going through the same since he returned from Mumbai and I have been nurturing him back with vetha khozhambu and molugu rasam and the likes. Today morning I complained of exhaustion and he reassuringly tells me to stay at home and not even go for my daily chakkar. Let me digress. If you do not go out everyday you lose track of new roads, new cafes, new restaurants, new sari shops. They all seem to be sprouting overnight. Like new flats. You would have crossed some sand traps, workers carrying on their heads and little children running between their legs and of course the ubiquitous blue sheet and by the time you are checking out the other parallel road, the flats are ready, the sand traps are still there and in fact there is also a truck unloading something. I have heard of pre-fab but this is something else. So if I am not working on an idea or a story,...

FILMS SEEN AND FILMS YET TO BE SEEN.... There is an overdose of films/TV shows, at least in my life. Murali and I watch a movie in the evening once he returns from office, you know the usual dinner in front of the TV. I thought one meal a day on the table is enough for a married couple. Luckily for me, M does not like to watch language shows and movies and so I end up watching these when I am free. And hence the glut of visual media. Mind you, I am not complaining, but when you doze off when somebody is murdering someone violently on screen means there is an overdose. And so I saw Jana Gana Mana in Malayalam, known differently in other languages. Main reason being Prithviraj, who is a great performer. I had not heard of the film and I seemed to have caught it on the day it was launched on the OTT. All the while I was reminded of incidents which had taken place in Warangal, outskirts of Hyderabad city and the ACP was incidentally called Sajan. There is an encounter of four 😏men, to boo...

 SOME MORE THOUGHTS ON THE SUPREME COURT ORDER So, what the bench at the Supreme Court, who passed the recent order saying `sex work' is a `profession', is thinking is that there is `dignity' in selling your body and adult women should be allowed to go about doing their job. And since they will not have an agent, also popularly known as pimp, they will go about in public calling out to men and exhibiting their ware, since that is the way this job is done.  What the Supreme Court is saying is to arrest all pimps, brothel owners or anybody making money out of the body of a woman. Which was always the case. There was no pimp or brothel owner who put up a board or carried a visiting card on himself. It was and is always word of mouth and there is a chain of control of these people. Which is one of the reason that it takes a very long time to convince the girl to go to court against them.  The terrorising of the girl in court is another story. Wonder if the judges know about a...

PEOPLE TALK SO MUCH Makes me wonder why some people talk like that from public podiums. Once the Gyavaapi news happened there have been a number of jokes on the digging and some of them actually make you smile. But when the BJP leader like Bandi Sanjay Kumar, an MP from Karimnagar, and also the state president of the BJP in Telangana, talks and tries to provoke, it is not a healthy trend. On his Ekta yatra, which is commendable considering the heat, he said "Dig all mosques to find Shiva Lingas,,,,," He also added some more to the statement which is not worth quoting here. What upset me more, personally, was that PM Narendra Modi did not pull him up or even mention it in the passing. Of course he was busy trying to end family rule with his speech. And since the CM KCR was once again avoiding meeting the PM, the entire focus of the news changed.  Surprisingly there was no scathing reply from either Owaisi brothers.  I am only worried that between the CM and his son while we ar...

THE CHURCH AND A DARGAH When I first came to Hyderabad in 1988, Aruna and Major Reddy practically adopted me and Murali and we have been part of each other's lives since then. And by osmosis I have also become part of Vasu's (Aruna's sister) group, who like to eat out, travel, visit places and quite often I am out with them. Shamima is the much travelled one, Shanta the wise one, Raju the friendly one and I must let out a secret here. Because I am younger by a couple of years I am treated with great fondness and hamaari koi bhi maang sar aankhon par. Obviously I boss around a lot and that too is accepted as part of my youthfulness. It is truly a win win situation for me. This time we visited Our Lady of Fatima Church at Thimmapur, five kms from Chegoor and shy of a few more kms of the Heartfulness Centre at Kanha, which I have visited so often recently. I noticed this extremely clean village while crossing it and also had noticed that there was a church and a school of the ...

 I WOULD NOT LIKE TO FALL SICK The Health Minister Mr Harish Rao was apparently dissatisfied with the poor services available at the AIIMS, Bibinagar. Really, Mr Rao? He talks as if the facilities available in the government hospitals run in Hyderabad are top class. I shudder to think of the government facilities elsewhere. Sometime ago the state government wanted more people to go to government hospitals. Even I would like to go to a government hospital considering how much a private hospital charges. But one visit and that is enough for you to sell your soul to the insurance companies.  He talks about AIIMS with such a chip on his shoulder because it is a Centre run project. He could have had that right if the state government run hospitals were run tickety boo. with efficiency, cleanliness, doctors on call, clean toilets available for doctors and patients, That is not the case is it?  Did you guys know that the minister's permission is needed to hire a sweeper in the g...