Olympics 2012. India won 6 medals. Some, including myself, are happy over what has been India’s best performance in the Games so far. Many others are not so happy, reasoning that a country of a billion deserves to do better. Two sportspersons from Hyderabad – Saina Nehwal and Gagan Narang – won bronze medals in Continue reading

The town wore a festive look. It had never seen a funeral like this before. Anybody who was somebody was present there. Along with everybody who aspired to become somebody. They felt happy about this funeral. After all, it gave them an opportunity to be visible. It gave them a platform to get noted. It Continue reading

If you are an Indian, irrespective of whether you follow cricket or not (non-followers would anyway be in a miniscule minority), you know Sachin Tendulkar.  And like all other Indians, and cricket followers all over the world, you would have, for most part of his glorious cricketing career, been in awe of this amazing gentleman. Continue reading

Steve Jobs is no more. It is natural for the World to pay homage whenever a prominent personality dies. In the case of many leaders, the tributes are mainly customary. Speech writers often scramble to identify characteristics that could be attributed to the departed soul, to make the homage appear realistic. At times they succeed, Continue reading

Dear Son, Today is August 15. Indian Independence Day. This year, being 4 years old, you started participating in the Independence Day celebrations for the first time in your life. Naturally, you were very excited. You went to your school with a flag stapled to your shirt, and waiving the Tricolour. You wished a ‘Happy Continue reading

Dear Son, You are now 4 years old, old enough to know what a holiday means. Your experience in life so far, makes you believe that a ‘Bandh’ means a holiday. You don’t think that the two could be different. Don’t worry. At 35, even I mostly fail to distinguish between them. “So, what is Continue reading

The Tamil Nadu 2011 Election process [EL11] is close to completion. Polling concluded. Counting remains. Results awaited. The campaigning itself was loud, full of gimmicks and posturing, mostly personal and at times cheap, dominated by film personalities, and was devoid of any meaningful effort from any party [apart from may be the Lok Satta] to Continue reading

The orphaned young animal was confused. The forest had been kind to it. All the animals in the forest allowed it to join them, be with them and play with their young ones. But it was like no other animal. It was part of all the groups, yet did not belong to any. It mingled Continue reading

They were long waiting for this excuse. They would not let go of it. He started as one among them. Looked like them, talked like them, thought like them and behaved like them. Somewhere along, and no one remembered exactly when, he became different. He started choosing right over easy. He stopped dancing to external Continue reading

A Lion, a Cheetah, and a Hyena once had a fight claiming a kill. They had their own justifications. They sought wise counsel. They were directed to divide and share the carcass equally. A group of lions felt it was not proper. Claiming to represent all lions, they declared that lions could never share their Continue reading