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IN Sitaram Yechury’s death, India has lost not only one of its best-known left-wing leaders but also one of the finest communist representatives in Parliament. Yechury and Prakash Karat, two general secretaries of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), were...

I had the privilege of witnessing the incredible journey of Rajan, a humble yet remarkable man who worked in our office. He started as a peon, a role that many people might consider small or insignificant. But to him, no...

AS a North Indian, I grew up watching poignant images of Ganpati visarjan on television. Visuals of teary-eyed people immersing idols of Lord Ganesha would astonish and overwhelm me. Cut to 2024, I am in Pune, and that too during...

THE monsoon brings back a flood of cherished memories. While climate change has led to fewer rainy days at times, this year’s monsoon has seen the rain gods being very generous. A rainy day is a sensory experience, blending nostalgia...

ON the anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks, my thoughts drift to that tragic day. I was at the Bengaluru HAL airport, ready to board a flight to Kolkata. My employer, the State Bank of India, had deputed me to...

I recently wrote a letter in the good old manner — using pen and paper — and dropped it in a letter box at the post office. The entire experience was surreal. Since I had to write to a friend...

AMONG unsolved mysteries, ‘horn ok please’ will stay right at the top. This message is written/painted behind almost every truck. One day, the puzzle of the Mohenjo-Daro script will be solved. But ‘horn ok please’ shall continue to confound us....

IT was on a sunny morning that I took my younger son to a top school in Delhi to appear in the entrance test for Class I. The road in front of the impressive red-brick building, with its well-laid-out lawns...

DECADES ago, when sex determination through ultrasonography machines was alien to the people in rural areas, the predictions by a man seemingly possessing wizardly powers in our town never failed. Popularly known as Yotishthakur (venerated astrologer), he was a septuagenarian...

I cannot tell for sure when Sam uncle became a part of my family, because he had been there for as long as I can remember, an epitome of integrity, sincerity, discipline and patriotism — values that all parents would...

IT takes all sorts of sneezers to make the world. There are mild and loud sneezers, and there are bold and timid ones. Some sneeze after a wheeze, while a few sneeze simply to tease. I have come across various...

THERE are legends and then there are the Keelor brothers! The recent demise of Air Marshal Denzil Keelor brought back a flood of childhood memories to this veteran — as it would have to countless others who grew wings on...

EVERY house in the neighbourhood had stickers on boundary walls. Then there were billboards of various sizes on electricity poles, electricity transformer enclosures and even trees. Wherever one looked, the smiling image of the candidate was staring at you. This...

OUR newly posted brigade commander took charge in July 1995. Thenceforth, it was a hectic schedule with briefings, introduction to various roles and familiarisation with the terrain. The responsibility to acquaint the brigade commander with the battalion’s area of operations...

Brig Jagbir Singh Grewal (retd) OUR newly posted brigade commander took charge in July 1995. Thenceforth, it was a hectic schedule with briefings, introduction to various roles and familiarisation with the terrain. The responsibility to acquaint the brigade commander with...

BEING in the civil services is akin to living as a nomad, with transfers arriving unannounced. With little time to pack, this resulted in papers, clothes, toys, crockery, et al being hastily thrown into cartons, with a vague promise to...

IN 1987, I joined Gujarat as an IPS probationer and called on the state DGP. He asked me why I had left my job of an SBI officer to become a cop at a substantial salary cut. I avoided mentioning...

DESPITE its small geographical size, Haryana has made a great contribution to national life. While its feats in sports are well known, its contribution to the electoral field in the form of ‘Aaya Ram, Gaya Ram’ is not remembered by...

MY mother often reminisces that theirs was one of the first Punjabi weddings in Yorkshire, England, in the 1960s. She shows newspaper cuttings to bolster her claim. The headlines read: ‘The teacher weds the lady twice’. This was to acknowledge...

EVEN before the announcement of any election, many business houses and people in government jobs (seeking greener pastures) start ‘investing’ in the prospective winners. I remember an incident when I became a witness to what generally transpires during meetings between...

EVERY morning is a mini marathon for me as I shuttle between my son’s routine and my own. I have never felt guilty that I don’t spend the first half of the day with him; that’s because my job is...

HALF a century ago, on my first posting to Ladakh, I arrived by the Air Force An-12 courier flight. As I stepped on the tarmac of the Leh airfield, the chilly morning wind hit us, but its freshness, sans pollution,...

I won’t forget in a hurry the two teachers of my alma mater where I had my primary and upper primary education — CK Master and OC Master — and their squabbles. CK was our class teacher and OC our...

ON a UN mission, I commanded a large contingent of 1,500 troops. The line from Shakespeare’s play Henry IV couldn’t have been more relevant for me: ‘Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown’. The battalion was not a homogenous...

Sripriya Satish WHILE taking a stroll in a neighbourhood park, I saw a woman struggling to feed her baby, who was reluctant to accept even a few morsels. She tried to coax her child by pointing out the beauty of...