VENKATESH GOVINDARAJAN The Mercury Retrograde and the associated disruption of transportation and communication equipment/device — and, ah, the foiling of travel plans. Some call it hogwash as Darwinians would label creationism; some believe in it truly and thoroughly as one would have trusted Rahul ‘The Wall’ Dravid to bat through the most challenging of conditions […]
HARSHAD SAMBAMURTHY “There is a Moon inside every human being. Learn to be companions with it. Give more of your life to this listening,” said Rumi, the great Sufi mystic. This writer has always been enamoured by stories, the images language invokes, and the mesmeric flow of the storyteller. What also encapsulates and catapults me, […]
MASOOMA SAKRIWALA She is charismatic to the core. Her pleasant smile is just as mesmeric. She sported a warm namaste just as much her brightly shining eyes expressed her humanist quintessence to every student at Sophia College for Women, Mumbai. Mrs Sophie Grégoire Trudeau, Canada’s First Lady and the charming wife of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau sculpted […]
VENKATESH GOVINDARAJAN The monstrous rape of a tiny eight-month-old baby girl, in New Delhi, last month, has triggered this sombre piece. You may well say that our anger and fury will subside, and this may just be forgotten like every other heinous crime committed. That’s too bad. It is, indeed, high time we talked of […]
MASOOMA SAKRIWALA There’s so much fun, albeit it isn’t a healthy pastime, to sit on the couch with your favourite pack of potato chips, in one hand, and the TV remote, in the other. The sound of the movie playing loud on your home theatre is one thing, and its blaring into the ears of […]
MASOOMA SAKRIWALA “Oh, look at that rag-picker, he’s so ‘stinky’ and shabby.” “See that woman’s face, it’s scarred. She looks so terrible.” “That lady’s albinism gives me the chills.” “He’s so stupid I’m making fun of his looks and he doesn’t even understand.” “That boy’s dark circles are so deep; I can bury someone in them.” […]
VENKATESH GOVINDARAJAN Johannesburg, or Jozi. This was the first foreign city I visited and stayed in — at age 32. Quite late, for someone, to embark on a foreign trip. Well, my parents have never been abroad. My apologies for the comparison. Well, what a sojourn that was. Like the debut Test for a cricketer […]
VENKATESH GOVINDARAJAN The Anne Frank House in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, is a memorial, not just to one girl, or her family, but to all Jews and humanity, who endured the macabre onslaught of the Nazis, in the 1930s and 1940s. A visit to the Dutch capital would be incomplete without a two-hour walk up, down, […]
VENKATESH GOVINDARAJAN The Foundation of Goodness was set up by Kushil Gunasekera in 1999. It provides essential services to his ancestral village of Seenigama, Sri Lanka, and beyond. Gunasekera is ably supported by a dedicated Board of Trustees and a committed team, based in Seenigama and Colombo — all working together with villagers and donors to […]
RAJGOPAL NIDAMBOOR Career blues are commonplace in today’s workplace environment. Blame it on the recession, or what you may. There’s not just uncertainty in everybody’s mind; there’s also a growing, almost Hitchcockian, suspense in the corporate air. The question is not of downsizing, or ‘right-sizing,’ but ‘wrong-sizing.’ Explanation: if you aren’t lucky enough, your big […]