Two crowds in a city

On the afternoon of April 6, a crowd of residents of Bombay gathered outside Azad Maidan. Actually, they had marched there from August Kranti Maidan, about 7 km away, escorted all the way by policemen. When they reached Azad Maidan, they found that there were other demonstrators there. So they sat down on the footpath [...]

Cat in a box

I’m not sure why, but I always liked this piece I did some years ago to explain a scientific idea that intrigues me. Never saw print, I believe.
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Who is Schrodinger’s cat? Arguably the world’s most famous purely hypothetical feline. Never lived, but some say he’s both dead and alive. At the same time. Ask your [...]

Lust for life

Spent a day a couple of years ago at the Sun Temple in Konark, Orissa. This is a spectacular piece of Indian history. The carving is lush and intricate, the lines elegant and imposing, and the overall effect inspires awe. I’ve visited another exquisite sun temple — in Modhera, Gujarat — but Konark is a [...]

150 vs nobody

The lawyer I know well flew into town again last week. He comes rarely now, though he used to come here often. Always business class. Always put up in a suite at one of the finest hotels in the city. Over the years, he has shared many superb dinners there with us.
He is part of [...]

You do the talk of life

This is the latest piece in an occasional series I’m doing for Tehelka magazine. As always, comments welcome.
(May need a subscription after some days, I don’t know).

If Mr Saddam says

Two excerpts about war. I was struck by the quite different ways they pay tribute, you might say, to the same idea: life. Life in times of death.
The first, from Tobias Wolff’s Vietnam memoir In Pharaoh’s Army. These lines are about Wolff’s training as a paratrooper, before he shipped out to Vietnam.

The planes were C-130 [...]

At home with the bodies

I mentioned earlier that I was shortlisted for the Outlook/Picador nonfiction prize in 2001. Below is the essay I submitted then. Some of what’s in here appears in different forms in my other blog entries.
(I came second in 2002, and won the prize this year — those essays another time. Besides, Outlook is supposed [...]

Rashomon on the border

Some days ago, there was a long exchange of fire between forces on the Bangladesh-India border. Left dead were Indian Border Security Force commander Jeevan Kumar and Bangladeshi schoolgirl Nahida Akhtar.
How do you react to this news?
Well, for one thing, where’s the news coming from? And then, are you Indian or Bangladeshi? How you react, [...]

Family paper

As a sometime dabbler in computer science, I had to frequently read through papers that looked a lot like this one. As I note with pride and pleasure, it is written by my 14 month old daughter, her nearly six year old brother and their mother. I note with even more pride and pleasure that [...]

Crowds say something too

This is my April article for India Together. Comments welcome.