The Codification of Culture

Like most migrants, I insist, with moderate success, that my daughters speak their mother tongue (Malayalam), diligently expose them to Malayalam cinema (highly successful), feed them Kerala’s cuisine (Hobson's choice), infrequently take them to temples (where they are as clueless as me) and often drag them to Carnatic music concerts (which they tolerate for my … Continue reading The Codification of Culture

The Sexual Exploits and Secret Diaries of Victor Hugo and Keynes

As I had written earlier, I read Victor Hugo’s ‘Les Miserables’ last month and I’ve been busy dipping into the commentaries and analyses of the work. Mario Vargas Llosa’s lectures on ‘Les Miserables’ is collected as a volume called ‘The Temptation of the Impossible’. Reading it, I discovered that our man Hugo was a sex-addict … Continue reading The Sexual Exploits and Secret Diaries of Victor Hugo and Keynes