When King George VI passed away, his daughter and heir Elizabeth was holidaying in Kenya. The manner in which the news of the King’s death was relayed to her in far-away Kenya was captured in an iconic scene in ‘The Crown’. Guarding her treetop hotel where she was spending the night was Jim Corbett. In … Continue reading Corbett’s writings
Each time I visit the Sunday Book Market in Daryaganj, I scan through the National Geographics scattered in various stalls to see if something striking catches my eye. This month, I got lucky and landed myself the issue of September 1983 – the month I was born. Flipping through it, I realized that I’m becoming … Continue reading National Geographic – September 1983
My last stop was Switzerland. Traveling through the country, one can’t be faulted for imagining this to be paradise. Panoramic views, lakes that stretch for miles, looming mountains, cows with bells and a train network that is truly an engineering and management marvel can mesmerize anyone. It was only in 1863, when Thomas Cook organized … Continue reading Switzerland Notes
In his memoirs, Obama writes about the time when his friends confronted him when they saw him reading Joseph Conrad’s ‘Heart of Darkness’. I tossed the book into my backpack. “Actually, he’s right,” I said. “It is a racist book. The way Conrad sees it, Africa’s the cesspool of the world, black folks are savages, … Continue reading Conrad’s Heart of Darkness
In his latest work ‘The Age of Revolutions’, Fareed Zakaria argues that the world’s first revolution that transformed the relations between the state and its citizens and ushered in the modern ideas of liberalism was not the American, French or the English revolutions. It was instead the Dutch Golden Age. Feudalism never took root in … Continue reading England’s debt to the Dutch
Adrian Tomine is one of my favorite comic writers. His art has a Hopperesque feature. With a minimalist style, his work often focuses on the themes of urban alienation, the complexity of human relationships, identity and heartbreak. His art also frequently appears on the cover of the New Yorker. The French movie Les Olympiades (Paris, … Continue reading Adrian Tomine, Les Olympiades…
I’m the person who is generally unmoved when I read about the ‘looming climate apocalypse’, the probabilities of an asteroid collision with the earth or say, a future pandemic. I’ve always been a rational optimist when it comes to human progress and the belief in man’s ingenuity. Despite this, I was shaken, spent a few … Continue reading Nuclear Armageddon
Writing about happiness is probably one of the hardest things to do. Writing about trauma is far easier and also cathartic. For Rushdie: Happiness writes in white ink on white pages. In other words, you can’t make it appear on the page. It’s invisible. It doesn’t show up. Twenty-three years after the Fatwa, Rushdie was … Continue reading Rushdie’s ‘Knife’
During my maiden visit to Lucknow in 2013, I dropped into the legendary Ram Advani Booksellers. One of the books that I picked up from the visit was Sudhir Kakar’s memoir, ‘Book of Memories’ - a work that first introduced me to the trailblazing Kamla Chowdhry. Kakar -India’s most celebrated psychoanalyst was her nephew while … Continue reading Sudhir Kakar (1938-2024)
In the 17th century, coins in England were regularly ‘clipped’ to siphon off the gold and silver. When penalties failed to curb the practice, the Crown decided to accept and demonetize all circulating coins irrespective of their quality. Since the quantity of gold to mint new coins was higher than what was collected from the … Continue reading The Door and Window Tax
