When a piece of work carries tags such as “the greatest piece of literature ever written by a single person,” expectations are bound to be sky-high. However, King Lear failed to move me. While I could identify certain moments that justify its cult status, the overall experience left me underwhelmed. And one reason for this … Continue reading King Lear
Sound of Music: I realized that visiting Salzburg without watching the ‘Sound of Music’ would be unthinkable. So here I was, in my 41st year, watching something that should have been done in the first decade of my life. The shocking realization was that most of the songs in the movie were the ones that … Continue reading What I Watched – June 2025
When the Charter of the United Nations was signed on 26th June 1945, the Second World War was still raging in the Pacific. Hiroshima and Nagasaki were yet to happen. And colonialism was very much alive and kicking. ChatGPT informs me that the following countries were still under colonial control: Mark Mazower, in No Enchanted … Continue reading The Political Origins of the United Nations
Forty years after his deployment in the Caucasus, Tolstoy wrote Hadji Murad, based on a real-life figure, over an eight-year period. Published posthumously, it is often regarded as one of the greatest novellas ever written. Set during Russia’s early 19th-century conflict in the Caucasus, the story follows Hadji Murad, a feared warlord who defects to … Continue reading The Timeless Relevance of Hadji Murad
During my previous visit to Dharamshala, an amusing sight that caught my attention was a group of Buddhist monks, red-robed, sporting Nike sneakers, sipping cappuccinos and completely immersed in their i-phones. A few decades earlier, while visiting a Buddhist monastery in Sikkim, a Sikkimese colleague accompanying me, laughed off the elaborate rituals associated with Vajrayana … Continue reading The Market-Friendly Dharma of Buddhism
My habit of buying one comic a week was more or less maintained through the year. Some of the standout ones that I encountered: Hakim's Odyssey:This French trilogy tracking the life story of Hakim - a Syrian-French immigrant driven out from Damascus during the 2015 civil war was THE comic of the year for me. … Continue reading Best Comics – 2024
In the late 17th century, with scientific discoveries being the flavour of the season, Spinoza had already propounded his idea of God. Into this vibrant mix of new scientific thinking and philosophical daring entered Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz. If there’s one person who can be defined as a polymath in the truest sense, it is Leibniz. … Continue reading ‘We Must Cultivate Our Own Garden’ for this is not the ‘Best of All Possible Worlds’
An apocryphal story has it that Confucius once became separated from his students in a strange city. They were searching for him when a local informed them that he’d seen a man who appeared ‘crestfallen, like a homeless wandering dog’. This clue led them to their master. When they told Confucius how the man had … Continue reading Mental Model for Categorizing Intellectuals
One of the professional hazards in my line of work is that I’m at times invited to speak on topics that are complex and in which I have limited expertise. Last week, I had to speak on Parametric Insurance for Disaster Risk Management. For the uninitiated, in normal insurance, payouts are made through filing a … Continue reading Parametric Insurance for Disasters
Last year, I joined my children and watched a few minutes of Disney’s Little Mermaid. Unlike the Little Mermaid that I knew (white skin and red hair), this one was a Black and essayed by Halle Bailey. Something seemed a bit off to see a 19th century Danish character being anything other than white. I … Continue reading Disney, Gemini, Wokeism…
