Soon after landing in Calicut, my mother whisked me away to Guruvayoor. Visiting the temple town after seven years, travelling by auto, train and bus, was a memorable experience. The highlight was the hour spent sitting just a meter away from a tusker – Monsieur Peethambaran. My daughters even managed to touch and stroke his … Continue reading Guruvayoor Notes
The uniqueness of Hinduism lies in its inability to be defined by a singular set of rituals, beliefs, or practices. Are Hindus vegetarians? Do Hindus sacrifice animals? Do all Hindus fast on specific days? Are Hindu prayers always in Sanskrit? Do all Hindus worship sacred groves? Are the Vedas the foundational texts of the religion, … Continue reading The European Influence on Hinduism
Arnold Kling’s ‘The Three Languages of Politics’ is a short, succinct and handy toolkit to categorize political communication. For Kling, the three dominant political groups – the Progressives (what we call the Left in India), the Conservatives and the Libertarians communicate along dedicated axes. Liberals view political conflict as Oppressed vs. Oppressor Conservatives view political conflict … Continue reading The Three Languages of Politics
Queen Elizabeth must be the only person on earth whose daily life was chronicled from the day of her birth until her death in 2023. And as the monarch of Britain, it’s mind boggling to imagine the number of personalities she’s rubbed shoulders with. Craig Brown’s ‘Q: A Voyage Around the Queen’ was a quirky … Continue reading Queen Elizabeth – Quirky, Risqué and Moving Tales
At the height of his fame, Henri Bergson, was not just France’s leading philosopher but also arguably the most popular public intellectual of his age. His lectures were jam-packed and the audience cut across all classes and gender. Bergson, is most known for his concept of time which he called Durée. For Bergson, the qualitative … Continue reading On Henri Bergson
Yesterday, I was at the Chandigarh Secretariat of the Government of Punjab. The structure, an iconic landmark of the city, is also one of the best representations of Brutalism - the minimalist architectural style emphasizing functional designs employing raw materials like exposed concrete. While much of the interior has been redesigned and repurposed, the staircase … Continue reading A ‘Brutal’ pic
Had it not been for the bombing of Hiroshima, Richard Flanagan would never have been born. The bomb led to Japan’s surrender. His father, a POW, who would never have survived another winter in Japan, was released and years later, Flanagan was born. His reckoning with this absurd fact is the kernel for his genre-defining … Continue reading Question 7
The coastal districts of Odisha are often the Ground Zero of the ferocious cyclones that originate in the Bay of Bengal. But what was once a destructive phenomenon has now been tamed by the state thanks to a comprehensive, community-centric cyclone preparedness initiative that began twenty-five years ago. Last week, I spent a few days … Continue reading Balasore, Bhadrak Notes
At the turn of the seventeenth century, Bruno was burnt at the stake for expanding Copernicus’ heliocentric theory and proposing that the universe was infinite with multiple stars and galaxies all around. In the span of one hundred years, kings were no longer seen as divine ambassadors of God, science progressed organically culminating in Newton’s … Continue reading The Seventeenth Century – The Age of Genius
When I was in college, the roll call for attendance used to be exasperating for the profs as we had a Balaji Kartik, a Karthik and a Balaji Subramaniam in class. For me, nothing better exemplified the sway of Murugan in Tamil Nadu. Even for Keralites, Pazhani – the abode of Murugan is a revered … Continue reading Karthik/Murugan/Skanda/…
