September 2003
THE CONVERSATION OF POETS, The Hindu
Those who believe that climate determines social behaviour should take a closer look at the American state of Wisconsin. This is cold in winter and cold in summer. In December, the snow lies high upon [...]
August 2003
THE LOCALITY AND THE NATION, The Hindu
On Independence Day this year I was driving from Bangalore to the small temple town of Melkote. At traffic lights within the city we were hailed by vendors selling the National Flag. When we got [...]
A SALUTE TO THE SECOND-HAND BOOKSTORE, The Hindu
In twenty years as a workaday writer, I have published several million words, of which only about a thousand have actually helped anyone other than myself. These were contained in an article published in a [...]
July 2003
ECOLOGICAL PATRIOT, The Hindu
My wife and I were recently discussing people we admired. High on her list was the artist and writer Manjula Padmanabhan. She had just seen Manjula’s evocative graphic ‘Let it Grow’: and had previously read [...]
June 2003
MEMORIES OF 1983, The Hindu
In the history of Indian cricket, there are really only two competitors for the title of ‘greatest victory ever’: the 1971 series win over England in England, and the defeat of the West Indies in [...]
GANDHI THE JOURNALIST, The Hindu
A hundred years this week, a new weekly made its appearance in Johannesburg. Its raison d’etre, as expressed in the inaugural issue, was that ‘the Indian community in South Africa is a recognized factor in [...]