When Columbus reached the Americas in 1492, the ecosystems of the Western and Eastern hemispheres had remained isolated for millennia and were strikingly different. His voyage set in motion what has come to be known as the Columbian Exchange, a vast transfer of plants, animals, people, and diseases between the Old and New Worlds. This … Continue reading The Columbian Exchange and the Dawn of the Homogenocene
I re-read Hamlet after 15 years. Now, with some additional accumulated wisdom, I was able to see glimpses of why this is considered to be Shakespeare’s magnum opus. When Achilles slaughters Hector, he is consumed by vengeance and glory. Divine punishment or suffering in the afterlife had little meaning for him. The Homeric Greek heroes … Continue reading Hamlet
Last month, a professor-friend invited me to a storytelling session by a Hindi author. My immediate response was a firm no. First, the session was in Hindi—a language whose literary world I’m largely unfamiliar with. Second, I hadn’t even heard of the author, someone named Divya Prakash Dubey. But, on the day of the event, … Continue reading Discovering Divya Prakash Dubey
It was only after reading Diana Preston’s 'Eight Days at Yalta' that I fully grasped the perils of flying in February 1945. Though the writing was on the wall for Nazi Germany, the war was far from over—Japan was still fiercely defending its Pacific island outposts, and the full horrors of the Holocaust were just … Continue reading Roosevelt’s Journey to Yalta
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
My last stop before returning was Munich – the place where the Nazi party was birthed, where Adolf Hitler became something more than a petty local nuisance and where the groundwork for the ‘Final Solution’ were drawn up. As I had just a day in the city, I quickly checked out the main cathedral, the … Continue reading Munich Notes
Innsbruck, nestled in the Alps, was an unexpectedly pleasant town that we ended up in. I also managed to meet a schoolmate of mine after twenty-six years, who’s been in Innsbruck for more than a decade. Thanks to him, Sruthi and I received a crash course in Innsbruck history and a whirlwind tour of the … Continue reading Innsbruck Notes
An astonishing trivia about Vienna is that sometime in 1913, Hitler, Stalin, Freud, Trotsky and Archduke Franz Ferdinand lived in the same city. It’s irresistible to speculate if Hitler and Stalin had bumped into each other in a café or exchanged smiles while sipping an espresso or an Einspänner. Source Vienna was the most beautiful … Continue reading Vienna Notes
Prague was one of the few cities of Central Europe that was untouched by the destruction of the Second World War. During the Cold War, the city became synonymous with the Prague Spring – a series of reforms by the Communist Party to make communism more palatable - reduced censorship, more autonomy, decentralization of power … Continue reading Prague Notes
