c u on top - satyabrata dam

This tale is about the over sized pelican (I hope it is a Pelican) that stays in my house. It is also about an off the edge adventure but above all a sweet little story from life. The pelican is funny and it sits in my drawing room, making every visitor laugh and scaring a few. This is the story of how this bird found her way from the Bernese Alpine meadows of Switzerland into my house. We would have to go back in time and give the credit of this to the creator of Sherlock Holmes, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. In his story ‘The Final Problem,’ Conan Doyle decided to eliminate his detective and Holmes’ arch rival Professor Moriarty in a deadly duel where they finally meet atop the Reichenbach Falls in Switzerland and while engaged in hand to hand combat both slip from a ledge and hurtle to their death. This, as Doyle had decided, would be Sherlock Holmes’ last story. But public outcry from all over the world forced him to resurrect Holmes from the dead soon. But while doing so, the slee...

All this mindless rush had brought back the pang of hunger in my growling stomach but Cynthia is not in the mood to listen to such banter. Art and culture is food for the soul, she says, stomach can wait. Perhaps I should postpone my departure by a day or two I muse. My alpine skills and Himalayan endurance being no match to Cynthia’s artistic inclinations, I follow her like a lamb resigned to its fate of being butchered for supper. As we zoom past the eateries I salivate at the tempting sights of food, desserts and those who tucked them in with unabashed gusto. We return to Ring Boulevard, waving past the statue of Athena, still erect, still regal despite several pigeons on its crown, and stop in front of a building that we had passed earlier in the morning. Staatsoper, Wien Opera House, declares Cynthia with the flourish of a conductor. If you had the time I would have treated you to an evening of our Philharmonic Orchestra; Cynthia ruminates sadly. Well, I surely have the inclinatio...

The following is part 1 of my sojourn through Vienna in search of art, culture and all things dulcet. Read on: I totter at the precipice of a 352 m void with wind buffeting hard on my face and the prettiest girl in sight plastered to my body like second skin. The fact that I can’t see anyone else beside the girl does not vouchsafe much about the girl’s altruistic beauty, which in its mildest form would perhaps be ‘scintillating’. I stare deep into her hazelnut eyes and wonder why we hadn’t kissed yet since there remains no more than the gap of a hair between our lips. Her ashened face bespeaks of inner woes and unheralded troubles and she shivers wrapped around my body though the air up so high is warm. Her earlier boisterous mannerisms are now less obvious. I smile at her and grip her reassuringly. In the next fraction of a second we step off the platform and hurtle towards earth at spine shattering speed while we both scream till our lungs seem to burst – she in fright and I in exhil...