Lured by the pitch - All marriages are made in heaven but some are delayed on earth: We endeavor to hasten them all - Priya goes to Renuka Marriage Bureau. Scanning the prospects, when she spotted Venu, whom she slighted long ago, she rushes to him to bring about a dramatic encounter. What brought about Priya’s change of heart to seek her former suitor and how Venu responds to his old flame’s fresh overtures lend suspense to their romance in this eclectic novella.

Part 1 ALL MARRIAGES ARE MADE IN HEAVEN BUT SOME ARE DELAYED ON EARTH: WE ENDEAVOUR TO HASTEN THEM ALL. So read the billing at Renuka Marriage Bureau. Rushing to Venu, Priya reread the same. ‘Oh, how fortuitous!’ she thought excitedly as she walked up to her car. ‘So, I could wed him now. Going by his photograph, he looks handsomer than ever; if anything, that streak of grey hair only lends him an aura of its own! It’s as well that he doesn’t dye his hair as most ...

This is BS Murthy's maiden writing in his mother tongue, whose body of literary work in English comprises of five novels (Benign Flame: Saga of Love, Jewel-less Crown: Saga of Life, Crossing the Mirage - Passing through youth, Glaring Shadow - A stream of consciousness novel 'n Prey on the Prowl - A Crime Novel), a collection of short stories (Stories Vareid - A Book of Short Stories), a compendium of stage and radio plays (Onto the Stage - Slighted Souls and other stage...

"ఒక గ్లాస్ నీళ్లలో చిన్న మట్టిబెడ్డ వేసి చూడు. నీళ్ళని మురికి చేసిన కొంతసేపటికి మట్టి వాటం చేరుకుoటుంది, నీళ్లు తేటబడతాయి, కాని అదే గ్లాసుని కుదిపితే నీళ్లు తిరిగి మురికవుతాయి. ఇది గ్రహించే ఈవెన్ అజ్ జెంటిల్ మెన్ రిమైన్ కోల్డ్ టు దైర్ ఓల్డ్ ఫ్లేమ్స్, బ్లాగ్గర్డ్స్ సీక్ టు ఇంఫ్ల్మ్మ్ దెమ్."

Dasavataralu (ten avatars) are the ten earthly incarnations of Lord Vishnu, the Supreme Hindu Deity - first as Matsya the fish, followed by Koorma the tortoise, Varaaha the swine, and later, symbolizing human evolution, the avatars were Narasimha the half man-half lion followed by Vamana the pygmean, Parasurama the intemperate man, Sri Rama the principled man, Sri Krishna the pragmatic man, Buddha the enlightened man, and finally ‘the yet to come’ Kalki the destroyer.

రామా ! నీ మహిమలెన్న తరమా! బ్రహ్మాదుల కైనా ! రామా ! నీ మహిమలెన్న తరమా! సనకాదుల కైనా! 1 వచ్చి వారధిని జొచ్చి సోమకుని హెచ్చు శరంబుల గృచ్చి సుతులగొని ఇచ్చతొ వేగమె - తెచ్చి విధాతకు హెచ్చరికతొ నివు ఇచ్చి ఏలితివి మత్స్యావతారా జై మత్స్యావతారా. రామా ! నీ మహిమలెన్న తరమా! బ్రహ్మాదుల కైనా ! 2 సురలు శరణుయని సోంపుతొ వేడగ కరుణతో మందర గిరిపృష్ఠమునను గురుతుగ నిడుకొని - వరదేవతలను నిరుపమానముగ - నీవు బ్రోచితివి కూర్మావతార జై కూర్మావతార. ...

This is a speculative theory about the origins of the world and the evolution of humans and other species as well as vegetation on earth.

Creation vs. Evolution ‘One might approach this postulation as an addendum to evolution for it comes in the wake of the great works of the past. It would seem logical that any proposition about evolution cannot bypass the idea of creation, buttressed with a religious belief by those closer to the beginnings of life. Just the same, though all religions propagate the word that God created the world, nevertheless their scriptures differ about the way he went about it. Give...

While Mahabharata's Bhagvad-Gita is taken as a philosophical guide, Ramayana's Sundara Kãnda is sought for spiritual solace. What is more, many believe that reading Sundara Kãnda or hearing it recited would remove all hurdles and usher in good tidings! Well miracles apart, it's in the nature of Sundara Kãnda to inculcate fortitude and generate hope in one and all. After all, isn't it a depiction of how Hanuman goes about his errand against all odds! Again, won't it portr...

Canto 20 - Womanizer at Work To fair Seetha he confined Spoke then Ravan in disdain. With thy pair of lovely hands Why block sight of thy bosom Hope it’s not the fear of me Prompts thee squat in like fashion. Is a beauty like thine ever And a lover than me better! What to fear in this Lanka Lost whose Lord his heart to thee. Fair it’s not for thee to blame Granted when it’s to our ilk Force we might all women we fond Never mind ever t...

Bhagavad-Gita is the most beautiful, perhaps the only true philosophical song existing in any known tongue’ so opined William von Humboldt. In this modern rendition, the beauty of the Sanskrit slokas is reflected in the rhythmic flow of the English verse of poetic proportions even as the attendant philosophy of the song that is the Gita is captured in contemporary idiom for easy comprehension. The general consensus is that the in vogue Gita of 700 slokas has many an i...

The spiritual ethos and the philosophical outlook that the Bhagvad - Gita postulates paves the way for the liberation of man, who, as Rousseau said, ‘being born free, is everywhere in chains’. But equally it is a mirror of human psychology, which enables man to discern his debilities for appropriate redressal. All the same, the boon of an oral tradition that kept it alive for over two millennia became its bane with the proliferation of interpolations therein. Besides mud...

This is a collection of the author’s short stories that deals with women's dilemmas in the Indian social milieu accompanied with unique denouements. While 'Ilaa's Ire' contrasts woman's lot of the day with her eminence in the Vedic Age, '201' Qualms" depicts her predicament, torn between personal loyalty and citizen's responsibility. As "?" addresses woman's marital stress in an alien land, 'Cupid's Clue' is about her acting on rebound in her native place. Even ...

‘Is it a point of no return?’ she thought involuntarily moving to the edge of the chair. Reading his ‘have you forgotten about the castration?’ message, she sank into the chair thinking, ‘is it a lighthearted joke or as a loaded message?’, and for a clue, began to recall the events of the year passed by. ‘Oh, how my life had turned on its head when I turned fifty?’ she thought in wonderment. ‘That’s when I immunized my heart against attractions and insulated my life f...

Even as Detective Dhruva was enamored of Kavya, whom he rescues from her kidnapper, Radha, an alleged murderess on the run, gatecrashes into his life. But when Kavya too joins him after her man was poisoned there ensues the tussle of a love triangle, which gets unraveled in a poignant end, but not before a series of murders. So, then who could have poisoned Ranjit the realtor, Shakeel the Inspector, Pravar the criminal and Natya his accomplice? Well the needle of sus...

Prey on the Prowl That June evening, the crimson sun gave in to the dark monsoon clouds to let them end its long summer reign over the Deccan skies. What with the thickening clouds thundering in triumph, Dhruva woke up from his siesta, and by the time he moved into the portico of his palatial bungalow at 9, Castle Hills, the skies had opened up to shower its sprawling lawns. It was as if the eagerness of the rainfall matched the longing of the parched soil to receive it...

This is a compendium of the author’s Indian stage and radio plays: "Slighted Souls" is a poignant love story set in rural Telangana, beset with feudal exploitation of the downtrodden dalits. Besides forcing the dalits to toil in the fields as bonded labor without impunity, the land owning doras had no qualms in reducing the womenfolk of this ilk as sex slaves in the gadis, which results in an armed rebellion engulfing two young lovers. "Men at work on Women at work...

Slighted Souls - A political stage play Scene – 1 Voice Over: Under the British Raj in India, the self-indulging Nizams of Hyderabad abdicated the administration of their vast principality to doralu, the village heads, letting them turn the areas under their domain into their personal fiefdoms. While the successive Nizams were obsessed with building palaces and acquiring jewelry, the village heads succeeded in ushering in an oppressive era of tyrannical order. Actin...

In a stream of consciousness mode 'Glaring Shadow' is the self-account of the life and times of a man, who liquidates his immense wealth only to consign it to the flames. The agony and ecstasy of his life as he makes it mundanely big, even as he loses his soul, only to regain it when tragedy strikes him leaves one to ponder over the meaning of success in life. This philosophical ‘novel of a memoir’ makes a compelling read that is conducive for contemplation about...

Glaring Shadow He had the soul of our times, and is the namesake of many. He tamed success by the scruff of its neck, only to fuel envy in our neighborhood. When it seemed there was no stopping him, fate dealt him a deadly blow in his early sixties. Besides losing his wife, son and daughter-in-law with their children in that fatal road mishap, he found his leg mangled in the debris of that Ferrari. The intensity of the pity all felt for him seemed to match the magnitud...

The sublimity of Muhammad's preaching in Mecca and the severity of his sermons in Medina make Islam a Janus-faced faith that forever bedevils the mind of the Musalmans. This thought-provoking work, besides dissecting the anatomy of Islam, steeped in the Quran, seeks to depict the psyche of the Musalmans, shaped by the proclivities of their prophet, vicissitudes of his life and the attitudes of his detractors, which the mechanism of their umma perpetuates. More to t...

Preface of Strife The lava of the volcano on which the world sits is the disaffection the Musalmans nurse towards the kafirs. While its chemistry world over is the Islamic religious rigidity, in India it is compounded by the Hindu ‘historical’ hurt, aggravated by the Muslim-appeasing political ethos of the State. It’s thus the Indian landscape is dotted with many of its earlier eruptions, but the one, in the wake of Godhra’s ‘burning train’ in 2002, affected everyone as...

The attractions Roopa experienced and the fantasies she entertained as a teen shaped a male imagery that ensconced her subconscious. Insensibly, confident carriage came to be associated with the image of maleness in her mind-set. Her acute consciousness of masculinity only increased her vulnerability to it, making her womanliness crave for the maleness for its gratification. However, as her father was constrained to help her in becoming a doctor, she opts to marry, hop...

Ramaiah’s Family That winter night in the mid-seventies, the Janata Express was racing rhythmically on its tracks towards the coast of Andhra Pradesh. As its headlight pierced the darkness of the fertile plains, the driver honked the horn as though to awake the sleepy environs to the spectacle of the speeding train. On that, in the S-3, were the Ramaiahs with their nine year-old daughter Roopa. Earlier, from Ramavaram, it was in the nick of time that Ramaiah took Janak...

It's perilous penning this blurb. It's fine when man is modest about his work. It even affords him the aura of an invisible crown! But what about his work? Were it an art or craft, it is there for all to see. What of a literary work of an unheralded author? Well, lauding the same might raise one's eyebrows. Failing to praise wouldn't make a 'jewel-less crown' either! Why not see, if this is the great Indian novel. This is the story of the rise and fall of...

Party Gone Sour That New Year's Eve, all the nouveau riche of New Delhi seemed to have gathered at the Misty Nest in their ubiquitous wear. While women wore designer dresses, men turned up in safari suits. Hosting them at their grand dwelling in the Defense Colony were the Gautams, Prabhu and Sneha. By the time the last guest was hugged in welcome, Gautam’s silk kurta and Sneha’s mink coat were truly crumpled. Augmenting the warmth of their bonhomie was the Glenfiddic...

If passing through youth was like crossing the mirage of life for Chandra and Nithya, it proved to be chasing the mirage of love for Sathya and Prema though for plain Vasavi, Chandra's pitiable sibling, it was the end of the road. As life brings Chandra, who suffers from an inferiority complex for his perceived ugliness, and Nithya, who was bogged down being jilted by Vasu, together, they script their fate of fulfillment. And as poetic justice would have it, Sathya, wh...

Shackles on Psyche Youth is the mirror that tends us to the reality of our looks. The reflections of our visages that insensibly get implanted in our subconscious lend shape to our psyche to define the course of our life. This is the saga of Chandra’s chequered life that mirrors this phenomenon in myriad ways. As perceived by the deprived, he had a fortunate birth. Yadagiri, his father, was the prominent pearl merchant in Hyderabad - Deccan, the seat of the Nizam’s...

While Mahabharata's Bhagvad-Gita is taken as a philosophical guide, Ramayana's Sundara Kãnda is sought for spiritual solace; many believe that reading Sundara Kãnda or hearing it recited would remove all hurdles and usher in good tidings! Miracles apart, it's in the nature of Sundara Kãnda to inculcate fortitude and generate hope in one and all. After all, isn't it a depiction of how Hanuman goes about his errand against all odds! Again, won't it portray how Seetha, ...

Canto 31 - Rama’s Ballad For Seetha’s ears then Rama’s tale Sang in sonorous tone Hanuman. In lineage old of Ikshvaakus Known to all for his valour Dasarath was the reigning king. Noble as he was the king Valued was he like a saint Power he had to rival gods. Generous was he by nature Took he care of his subjects Ruled he like a god on earth. For his righteous reign Dasarath Earned he fame the world over. Esteemed he his eldest son Know...

Bhagavad-Gita is the most beautiful, perhaps the only true philosophical song existing in any known tongue’ – so opined William von Humboldt. Though it is a matter of consensus that Bhagvad-Gita in the present length of seven hundred verses has many an interpolation to it, but no meaningful attempt has ever been made to delve into the nature and extent, not to speak of the effect of these on the Hindu society at large. The moot point that has missed the attention of al...

All about Life - Chapter 2 This character defining chapter of the Gita comprising 72 slokas, known as saankhya yoga, Realization through Knowledge, is regarded by many, as the peerless part of the great epic. Arjuna’s dilemma, meanwhile, turns into grief, as the horrific prospect of slaying Bhishma, his revered granduncle, and Drona, his venerated guru, sinks into his consciousness. Bogged down by sentiment, Arjuna appeals to Lord Krishna for guidance. The Lord’s respon...