Movies as memory devices
A long long time ago, i saw a film called Ek Khiladi Baawan Patte. As a piece of information, this can be of no possible interest to anyone, nor is it particularly significant even for...
View ArticleThe changing meaning of work?
Among the many new careers that have sprung up recently, none is perhaps as curious as that of a water sommelier whose job it is to understand different kinds of bottled water and guide presumably...
View ArticleThe Great Indian Rope Trick?
This column has been accused in the past of writing about things that do not deserve to be thought about, let alone be written about in newspapers, those repositories of Terribly Important Things....
View ArticleThe cheating spectrum?
The ball-tampering issue has raised some interesting questions about the idea of cheating and our reactions to it. In this episode, what caused the most amount of anger was not the act itself as much...
View ArticleYour Outrage or Mine?
It should have been easy to be horrified. The nature of the crimes made it so. Between Kathua and Unnao, the very worst that humanity is capable of was on display. Being repelled should have...
View ArticleThe power of the government Job
The numbers are staggering. 23 lakh applicants for 368 peon’s jobs in UP, 25 lakh vying for 6000 Group D jobs in Bengal, 25 million applications for 90,000 jobs in the Railways, 2 lakh for...
View ArticleComing On Too Strong?
The BJP understands the power of demonstrating strength. The Modi-Shah approach is that of strength applied strongly. The power distance between its top duo and everybody else, the ability to take...
View ArticleThe Karnataka Challenge?
Karnataka is poised for a tight finish, if current indications are correct. Of late, election results have been so unpredictable that making any statement about the eventual outcome has become both...
View ArticleThe Vanishing Horizon?
Moving from the heart of a metropolitan city to a suburb changes one’s life in many ways. Although Gurgaon is by no means a pastoral paradise where wheat field sway in unison to an unheard...
View ArticleThe Karnataka effect
How does one read all that has happened in Karnataka? The BJP has lost the battle to run the state, but it may have lost something much more. The Congress-JD(S) combine has managed to pull...
View ArticleThe 2019 Battlelines?
The countdown to 2019 has begun. The BJP kicked off its campaign, with a new tagline and a flurry of newspaper ads. The Opposition put on a show of strength and bonhomie at the swearing-in...
View ArticleOf young love in small town India
A few weeks back, one was on a research project in small-town North India and not surprisingly found that while like most other parts of India, it was seeing some signs of change, gender certainly...
View ArticleAn unsporting bureaucracy?
The Haryana government’s latest notification to appropriate one-third of the earnings of sportspersons from their winning and endorsement deals is yet another of those interventions by the bureaucracy...
View ArticleSocial media: Breeding the toxic?
The tools of a new world create new kinds of problems. Social media access creates opportunities but also gives rise to consequences of a kind not imagined earlier. The controversy around Atul Kochhar,...
View ArticleThe fear of food?
If there is one fundamental change that has occurred over a single generation, it is in our attitude towards food. We now think of food as the presumed enemy, and every morsel that we put...
View ArticleThe Advertising Mirror?
Hema, Rekha, Jaya and Sushma. To a generation of Indians, these four names evoke instant memories. Part of an advertising jingle that burrowed its way into our consciousness and took up permanent...
View ArticleDownhill till 2019?
Over the last couple of weeks, a clear signal has emerged from the ruling party as to what the direction of its electoral strategy is. A series of signs, big and small, have confirmed what...
View Article#Everywhere – Decoding the hashtag
New worlds bring with them new signs. In the digital world, perhaps none is as ubiquitous as the hashtag. In a short time, the # has become part of our vocabulary, framing our exertions on...
View ArticleBeyond the hug?
Much has already been said and written about Rahul Gandhi’s speech during the no-confidence motion debate. Even more has been said about the hug. Perhaps it is a testimony of how compulsively politics...
View ArticleThe decline of collective trust?
Across the world, we have stumbled upon a truly vexing and quite a fundamental problem- we can’t seem to able to authoritatively separate the real from the fake, fact from opinion, expertise from...
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