Shakespeare’s play of a magician conjuring up a storm and bringing together a group of men to his island—his mastery over a native, a compliant spirit, and a daughter who is ‘made’ to fall in love with a prince—is a meta-story of the theories propounded by Plato, Machiavelli, Hobbes, and Montaigne. The Tempest should be … Continue reading The Tempest
Whatever little Hindi I knew as a child came from the Bollywood movies of the 90s. When SRK’s ‘Baazigar’ came out in ’93, the ten-year-old me learnt a new word which I then thought meant ‘Magician’. It was only when 32 years later, that I discovered that the word was far more layered than I … Continue reading Baazigars & The Brits
I’ve embarked on a new multi-year project: reading Shakespeare. Over the coming years, I plan to tackle all his 39 plays. I began with Macbeth and it wasn't too hard to discern why he’s claimed to be the deepest thinker the human race has ever produced. If you’re daunted by the language of Shakespeare, I … Continue reading Macbeth
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
