January 2009
FOREIGN CERTIFICATES, The Hindu
I recently wrote a piece in a Delhi magazine about a Bangalore-based holy man lobbying for the Nobel Peace Prize. Among the mails I received was one which enclosed, as proof of the holy man’s [...]
December 2008
THE PUNJAB TRADITION, The Hindu
I write this the morning after I attended a tabla recital by a man who must be close to being the best tabalchi of our age, Yogesh Samsi. Although I admire Samsi’s art (and craft), [...]
RENEWING THE POLICE, The Telegraph
On a sunny Sunday this past September, a friend and I were walking in central London, headed towards the south bank of the Thames. We were enjoying the scenery and the weather, when, at a [...]
October 2008
CAMUS AND AMERICA, The Hindu
In the spring of 1946, Albert Camus visited the United States for the first time. He came at the invitation of his American publisher, Alfred Knopf. Like some other French writers he had profoundly ambivalent [...]
THE TRIPLE TRAGEDY OF THE INDIAN MUSLIMS, The Telegraph
An influential editor from Delhi, visiting Bangalore, hosted a dinner for some local politicians, and invited me along. Among the netas present was the Karnataka Youth Congress president, the spokesman for H. D. Deve Gowda’s [...]
TRIBAL TRAGEDIES, Hindustan Times
Fifty years ago, in October 1958, Jawaharlal Nehru wrote a short note explaining what the state’s policies towards the tribals of India should be. He urged that tribal rights in land and forest be protected, [...]