September 2010
2 posts
3 tags
Technology is steroids for art
This piece originally appeared in the New Indian Express on 18th September
Over this weekend, a combination of Old Monk Rum and good friends made for some interesting conversation that I thought was worth sharing. They say that alcohol (and Neurosurgeons) open the mind, and after some Paapdi chat and Pani Puri accompany said spirit, the universe suddenly seems a lot more clearer. One of the chaps,...
3 tags
The Story of the Potato
This piece originally appeared in the New Indian Express on 17th July
Did you know that potatoes were responsible for the dawn of Human exploration of our planet? Yes, it wasn’t bigger ships, better maps and navigational aids or the realization that the shortage of Vitamin C caused scurvy. It was potatoes. I didn’t know this till I met a good friend in Pune recently and he gave me the mental...
April 2010
4 posts
3 tags
Ears glued to the cricket
This piece originally appeared in Cricinfo:The Long Room on Feb 14, 2010
The generation of Indian cricket fans whose lives straddled the British Raj and the Indian one are a unique lot. One would think that, when it came to picking a cricket team to support, the independence movement would have impelled them to wear the tricolour on their sleeves with pride, but that wasn’t the case. Down...
4 tags
The Great Indian Irate Crowd
This piece originally appeared in the New Indian Express on 20th Feb 2009
This is a scene that, like the proverbial policemen arriving on the scene well after the Indian hero has done his um..heroic deeds, repeats itself daily in several airports around the world. An Indian airline runs into a problem - engine trouble, tire puncture, wing falls off et al, a flight gets cancelled, and the...
4 tags
Hi-tech schools, low-tech admission process
This piece originally appeared in the New Indian Express on 20th Dec 2009
It’s a cold day in the Madras winter, well, at least what passes for “cold” and “winter” in these parts, but you get the mood I’m trying to set. The queue snakes its way from a small window on a tastelessly designed cube of a building to a large, foreboding gate and out into the chaotic street where cars and two-wheelers...
1 tag
Oh hello
I am the chap who writes here. Occasionally, a few misguided editors in mainstream media get this notion that I can churn out something semi-coherent for them. As and when it catches my fancy, I might choose to post some of them here. A quick analysis of the hate mail I get for my column in the New Indian Express reveals that I have grumpy old readers. It is only fair that I cater to the angry...