If we don’t believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don’t believe in it at all. –Noam Chomsky

When I was in the ninth standard, I created a superhero called Destroyer of Troubles and affectionately called him DoT. The details are fuzzy now but I really liked him. I dropped the idea following the events of this past week. Turns out there already is a DoT. And mighty particular about trouble too. DoT wants no trouble. DoT wouldn’t even consider the possibility of it. Trouble is, DoT also defines trouble. And that’s where the trouble starts.

Batman wasn’t particularly happy about the fact that he had a desk job at the Justice League Watchtower (an orbiting space station). While Superman and the others got to go out and duke it out with asteroids and maniacal galaxy conquerors, he sat in front of the big screen and did ‘research’ (mostly googling). He resented the fact that his finer detection skills were going waste.

Something moved. In the room. Behind him! Batman ticked off the Flash in his head. It couldn’t be him. He was in the kitchen, visible in one of the screens. Besides, this was something bigger, lumbering and with nothing of the Flash’s swiftness.

I don’t think he knows about it, which leaves only me in possession of this potentially terrifying secret. I say potential because there is only so much an 86-year-old can do to alter history and cause planetwide mayhem.

Now that we are on secret-sharing terms, a bit about my grandfather: He is OLD, like… ancient. Is HARD of hearing. Can’t see very well (make that not-at-all) at night.

He also forgets a lot. I am not too sure about that anymore. I suspect I have been wrong all along.

“If I were a medical man, I should prescribe a holiday to any patient who considered his work important.”

Funny! The ‘book of quotations’ I took this from tags Bertrand Russell a controversialist. Those were the days! You could make a career out of being controversial. It would be, if nothing else, stimulating. Think of the rush that would come upon you with all the death threats, imagine the excitement of possible banishment from your country, not to mention the infamy.

After nearly a fortnight in Cuttack, I am on board the Konark Express heading back Mumbaiwards. Home was sweet and all but I could use a bit more of the monsoon. The train will pull up at Dadar station late at night.

I have leafed through a couple of magazines and am now forced to look beyond the confines of my top berth. A tiny baby civilisation of sorts has sprouted up down there. It started, methinks, after we passed Secunderabad. Mostly Andhra Pradeshis. Their leader, however is Oriya (the unmistakable tilak mark from Jagannath Puri on his forehead).