To New Beginnings!

Dear All,

Thanks for remaining subscribed to my hardly updated blog.

 I was under the impression that my stint with blogging, like many other short lived interests, was over. That was one of the reasons of my unaccounted hibernation in the blogosphere, along with other constraints like my hectic schedule.  However, I am pleasantly surprised to see that people still go through this virtually archaic space that I have created. I have recently had three new subscriptions which add to my sense of bafflement, but also of guilt for being so irregular and inactive.

So, here is the crux of the matter: I am planning to shift my blog to another domain called ‘wordpress.com’ which would hopefully rectify a few technical glitches that my current blog has. Being only a semi-literate in I T, hope is all I can do in this regard. But, I do plan to be more regular and responsible from now onwards as far as updating is concerned. Fulfilling resolutions have never been my strong point but I sincerely hope it works at least this time around.

The new blog’s address is this: http://lipinram.wordpress.com/.   Hope you would remain interested.

                    Kalpana Sharma in H C U

Kalpana Sharma, veteran journalist and writer, delivered a lecture on the topic " Journalism as if Gender Matters" at the Dept of Communications yesterday. Me being a regular follower of her column 'The Other Half'  in 'The Hindu', was absolutely thrilled to finally see her in flesh and blood. It was almost as if someone very near to you had come to town! ( Well, I had the same feeling when Paul Krugman won the Nobel for Economics last year, courtesy the 'Paul Krugman column' in the same newspaper!)

She talked in length about how developing a gender sensitive approach is crucial in contemporary journalism. The talk was followed by an interactive session with the audience. Crucially, the 'inside view' that she as a journalist of immense experience could bring was clearly visible throughout the talk

To top it all, I also managed to have a little chat with Ms.Sharma after the session. It was a delightful evening, indeed.

N.B:  to know more about Kalpana Sharma, please check out this website- http://www.indiatogether.org/opinions/kalpana/

Portrait

Cycling, as always on the wrong side of the road

to the campus,

as unsuspecting as on

any Monday morning,

I  confront winter :

a tree all alone

with branches forlorn

and leaves stripped off;

yet, rides away, only faster,

no turning back

no second look.

Winter, I don't want to write about you.

The way you devour the colours and 

turn everything into a grey,

the way your every image

manifest loneliness,

oh winter, putting it down on paper,

I always end up

doing something i would never want to do,

a self portrait.