Travails of an Uncertain Scholar

(The origin of this tale of fantasy shall remain a whimsical mystery. The reader is requested not to delve into scientific facts and read the story with the same curiosity as a child does and perhaps begin to question the world the way a child does.) As all tales would stereotypically begin, this one begins once upon a time. When I expressed the title of the tale, there were excited suggestions if milk or paint was spilt on it. I would not have expected any less from an audience who was two and three-quarter years old. The tale begins when the universe was the young. It was an age when Earth was unpolluted and unblemished. It was an age of the balance between harmony and chaos. It was the Age of the Planets. It was the age when planets had a voice and they could speak to each other. The Universe was a big family of brothers and sisters. The black holes were the brothers and the stars were the sisters. Some sisters had a family of their own which was called a solar system. Each so

Mangalore was getting ready to set into the month of May. The semester exams had come to an end and everybody in the class let out a huge sigh of relief. We had two solid months of vacation and everybody had plans to scoot off home. I, on the other hand decided to put good use to the two months of vacation. My travels began on 4 May 2015. My first trip was to Kottayam and then on to Kumily. The journey began at three in the morning. I had to catch the first train out of Mangalore to Kottayam. I was never an earlybird and getting up in the morning was way too painful. But then the thought of not reaching Kottayam made it all the more painful. The alarm screeched at three in the morning and I was too stoned to wake up. I dragged myself out and packed my bags. I was ready by four and I walked out toward the road. The whole place was deserted, as always. I was hoping to get an auto rickshaw which proved futile. I walked four km to the station at four in the morning. Fortunately and Unfort

In the midway of this our mortal life, I found me in a gloomy wood, astray Gone from the path direct: and e'en to tell It were no easy task, how savage wild That forest, how robust and rough its growth, Which to remember only, my dismay Renews in bitterness not far from death - Canto I,  Inferno , Dante As is, with every blog post, I begin this one with the aspiration of writing regularly which I have failed to do so. I shall, however, endeavour to be committed to posting content regularly. Perhaps, I should begin with explaining my journey from Mangalore to the moment I am typing out this post now. I had hopped, skipped and jumped out of Mangalore with memories of long drives, misty mountains, sun-kissed beaches, scintillating yakshagana performances, mouthwatering seafood and of course with a Masters degree as a footnote amongst the memories. I had moved west from Chennai and I decided to throw caution to the wind and refuse an MPhil offer from Anna University to tra