The Middle

THE government has been actively taking steps to make traffic law enforcement more stringent so that unruly drivers ‘fall in lane’. From CCTV cameras on key stretches to speed radars and speed alerts inside newer vehicles, the Indian driver has...

IT was Dagh Dehlvi who extolled the greatness of Urdu: “Urdu hai jiska naam hami jaante hain ‘Dagh’, Hindostan main dhoom hamari zuban ki hai.” There’s no denying the fact that not only north and central India, but to an...

ABOUT 15 years ago, a maid started working at my house in Patiala. I asked her about her family. She revealed that her husband was lodged in the Kapurthala jail after being arrested four months earlier. When I tried to...

IN December 1987, I arrived at the small town of Sanand in Ahmedabad district to take charge as the SHO of the police station for three months, as part of the practical training of an IPS probationer. I got down...

WE now scroll more than we sleep, and that’s not a metaphor, it’s a grim reality. According to an Ernst & Young report, Indians spent a mind-numbing 1.1 lakh crore hours on their smartphones last year. Perhaps, the most alarming...

IN the 1971 India-Pakistan war, I refused to shoot an unarmed civilian who was perched on a tree and was tracking our movement at night on the outskirts of Shakargarh in west Pakistan. Even as a newly minted officer commissioned...

AFTER the news broke about the Pahalgam terror attack, I initially avoided the urge to write. I wanted the fog of war to clear and the facts to emerge. And then slowly I realised that this was a tale as...

ON my way back home after a morning walk, I spotted a crowd near the majestic peepal tree that has stood sentinel over my village for generations. I preferred not to stop, telling myself that it was none of my...

ON World Earth Day, as the morning sun touches the horizon and the wind carries the scent of awakening soil, let us pause — not just to observe the world, but to feel the divine breath that animates it. The...

A dozen has 12 units, but a baker’s dozen has 13. Sounds strange? Well, this concept has its roots in medieval England, where strict laws were enacted to ensure honesty in weights and measures. Weighing less was a punishable offence,...

IT was a cool morning in Shoghi, near Shimla, the kind that makes you wonder if the clouds have decided to take a leisurely stroll through the hills. Birds chirped, the chai boiled, and at the corner tea shop, sitting...

EVERY year, budgeting transforms from a disciplined exercise into a chaotic spectacle in India — a phenomenon aptly termed the March 31 syndrome. This frenzied rush to expend every remaining rupee before the financial year ends, often disregarding necessity or...

PENNSYLVANIA (US), where we lived for a few years, had its share of fond memories and some scary ones too. One morning, we were getting ready to visit our friends in Philadelphia. Avi, our one-year-old son, had to be forced...

THE sight of an avid golfer rushing at the crack of dawn to beat the tee-off deadline seems maniacal to an onlooker, who is oblivious to the travails of this determined creature. Much before the rooster crows its first call,...

BORN in the 1940s, we, the children of the Partition, are a peculiarly privileged generation. From those poverty-ridden times when each penny mattered to the present day when people squander money as if there is no tomorrow, we have seen...

Early morning is a beautiful time to be out. It is still dark, but slowly the nascent rays of the rising sun give way to dawn — a brilliant skyline and the start of a new day. A walk at...

KASHMIR was rocked by a series of avalanches in February 2005. Intezamia pleas to villagers living on the lower Pir Panjal slopes to shift to school halls/polyclinics had largely fallen on deaf ears. Consequently, hundreds of villagers and animals perished....

AN acrimonious debate took place in Parliament recently on the Waqf Bill. It was poetry that provided some relief during the verbal duel. Presenting the Bill, Union minister Kiren Rijiju recited a shair: “Kisi ki baat koi badgumaan na samjhega,...

A recent news report about Alang, the graveyard of decommissioned ships in Gujarat, took me back to my days as an officer with India’s pioneering shipping company, Scindia Steam Navigation, in Bombay. As a ship aged and became economically unviable,...

DURING a stroll in my housing complex, I overheard an elderly man tutoring a boy, probably his grandson. The boy was on the verge of tears, and the man tried to console him. “Yes! You should cry over spilt milk!...

AFTER retiring from a university several years ago, I have been living in a housing society near the campus. Most of the residents are my former colleagues. My next-door neighbour retired long before me. An elderly widower, he lives with...

THE games we played in our childhood are unknown to kids today. Our first toys were folded-paper aeroplanes. We propelled them into space with our hands. The ‘aircraft’ had no fuel, but our skills determined how far it flew. With...

THE recent assault on a Colonel and his son by police personnel in Patiala has sparked a public outrage across the country. Serving as well as retired Army officers and their families have upped the ante over their demand for...

IT’s 11:30 pm. Holding my growling stomach, I tiptoe to the kitchen, looking for something to make it settle down. This is a frequent occurrence after the doctor’s advice to ‘improve my lifestyle’. “Ma’am, finish your dinner before sunset,” she...

IT is said that families are like trees whose branches grow in different directions but their roots remain the same. My father, who worked as a mechanic for the Haryana Roadways Transport Corporation for over 30 years, retired in 1995....