Besan Ka Halwa

- by Vikram Grewal (I typed this write-up over a year ago and many of you might have read it before but I would like to share it with you- again- on this platform as well...not because I think it's a great piece or anything, but because YOLO- and so does your blog*) *Not Really. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------   In times of distress I search for refuge in poetry. The preparation for UPSC Civil Services Exam 2018 was a journey that needed a song that I could hum along the way. A journey that needed pointers spread across my way to assure myself that I was on the right path. It was a period in my life that needed words of inspiration on a daily basis. And I found strength in the words of Kipling:    “If you can wait and not be tired by waiting, Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies, Or being hated, don’t give way to hating, And yet don’t look too good, ...

Days UnderDoubt  #1 16th March 2020 There's an ominous silence in the entire town that was a bustling centre of activity when I visited it last. We are about to have lunch at Café LehVenda (the only Cafe that is still open in the Main Bazaar at Leh) when Kanishka clicks this photo after asking me to pose- and I don't - but I sort of do. I don't remember what I was thinking at that point but I do remember making do with hot water after the cafe attendant said that they were out of Sprite. At minus 7 degrees in the noon everyone had asked for hot chocolate, but I wanted Sprite in the middle of a 'desert'. They were out of cold drink stocks (and tourists apparently). 10 of us had arrived in the non-tourist frozen-Pangong hungry-dogs season in Ladakh one day before. Sipping the hot water in a cold desert I was perhaps thinking about temperature. We'd heard a certain virus was quite fussy when it came to temperature. "Origin, symptoms, cure? Cle...