SV Venugopalan A job in a rural branch of a bank offered a variety of interesting experiences. It was a privilege for me to reside in a village amidst simple, earnest and affectionate people during the early 1980s. Joining straight...
Shobhit Mahajan THE car windows were vibrating as if they would break. And my eardrums felt as if they would be punctured. The ‘sonic boom’ was not because of an Su-30 taking off from Palam airport but from a Dak...
RS Dalal I recently received an invite to a book launch. The author was a young, brilliant paediatrician whom we had befriended a few years ago when our grandchildren were born. ‘How could a doctor so busy find time to...
GS Aujla IN the heart of Central London is the famous Trafalgar Square with a Corinthian pillar erected for Lord Nelson, the hero of the Battle of Trafalgar (1805). Alongside, a memorial would have been raised to commemorate the First...
Sumit Paul Music with dinner is an insult both to the cook and the violinist. — GK Chesterton YEARS ago, in Lahore, I asked legendary ghazal maestro Mehdi Hassan, ‘Aap ko kaun si baat sab se naagavaar guzarti hai?’ (What...
Prashant Gautam THE monsoon has brought the curtain down on the tourist season in Himachal Pradesh. For reasons ranging from traffic snarls to steep taxes on tourist vehicles and aggressive marketing by other hill states, the state’s tourism industry has...
Prarthana Magod ON July 3, Kargil War: The Turning Point, written by my father, the late Col MB Ravindranath (a Vir Chakra awardee), was released. It is about the sweat, tears, strategy, dedication and determination of the fearless warriors of...
IT was in 2017 that my daughter, walking through a shopping complex, spotted a pup being carried hurriedly from a car to a nearby pet shop. The little fellow appeared to be less than a month old — it had...
WITH Joe Biden finally bowing out of the US presidential race, Kamala Harris has declared her candidature for the top post. Of the 49 vice-presidents the US has had till now, 15 went on to become the President. There are...
BUTTERFINGERS is a term often used in cricket. It refers to a terrible fielder. Sample this: The batsman hits the ball into the air. It is a ‘dolly catch’ — the fielder must only cup his fingers around the ball....
IT was a bright sunny afternoon when we ambled along the narrow path leading to the Ranganathittu Bird Sanctuary on the banks of the Cauvery river near Srirangapatna in Karnataka. Even as we were taking in the fresh air and...
The English language is nobody’s special property. It is the property of the imagination; it is the property of the language itself. — Derek Walcott MY school had a strict policy of speaking only in English on the campus....
TECH adventurer Elon Musk recently posted on X that in the future, ‘there will be no phones, just Neuralinks’. He shared an image of himself, generated using artificial intelligence (AI); it showed a neural network-like design on his forehead. A...
THERE hasn’t been a more tearful goodbye than the one I received as a newlywed that morning from my wife, who was unaware of the perils of soldiering. Our flight had been mobilised to provide aviation support to our troops...
EVERY year, the arrival of the rains reminds me of a happening that left a lasting imprint on my psyche. It was not a Bollywood-style romantic scene that we remember for a long time after having enjoyed a great film....
TWO of my maternal granduncles passed away within a span of one year. RK Shamaraj, aged 74, died on November 27, 2005, at 4.30 pm. His brother, RK Jeevarathnam (86), bid farewell to the world one year later — uncannily,...
WHEN I recall my banking career and its slogging days, the memory that cheers me up the most is of parties held for any and every occasion. When a party was to be organised, a self-appointed party arranger would not...
WATCHING the hustle and bustle of daily life from the large windows of a fast food joint on the Heritage Street in Amritsar has become a Sunday morning ritual for me. The eatery is located merely steps away from the...
AGEING is a natural process that none can escape. After the age of 40, almost all of us struggle to hide our greys or our wrinkled skin. It is another thing that literally nothing works, but our struggle continues —...
IN the early 1990s, a carrom board championship was held at Rani Jhansi Park in Shimla. After the event ended, the second and third prize winners collected their trophies, but the champions, who were supposed to bask in the glory...
THERE was a time when the training establishment of MI5, the security service of the UK, was located at a place named Mount Pleasant. It must have been somebody with an overweening sense of loyalty to the Crown, or a...
LAST week, I attended the National Education Summit at Prasanthi Nilayam Ashram, Puttaparthi, Andhra Pradesh. It was hosted by Sri Sathya Sai Vidya Vahini (SSSVV), for which I volunteer as a ‘language reviewer’. The SSSVV is the single largest contributor...
HAVING grown up in the 1970s in the north Indian town of Dharamsala, one of the rainiest places in the country at the time, I came to love the monsoon. The dark greyish clouds with their weird shapes hanging precariously...
IT happened this way: After a good Sunday afternoon nap and an equally good tea, I opened the front door and was stepping out to go for a walk when I saw my neighbour from the adjacent building walking up...
ASK people to describe a hostel and many of them will say that it is a low-priced inn of sorts that offers basic, shared accommodation. However, for a university student, a hostel is a home away from home. It is...
A few months ago, I saw the dismembered body of a beggar at the Mahim railway station in Mumbai. He had been run over by a train. Seeing an official from the Railways gather his limbs from the tracks and...
THIRTY years ago, I received a late-evening phone call at the office of our bank union from the branch in Chennai. The cashier had reported a shortfall of Rs 10,000. On checking and rechecking everything, the denominations of currency notes...
IN December 1977, I was posted as the Deputy Inspector General in charge of investigation in the Justice Shah Commission of Enquiry, which was set up by then Janata Party government to probe the alleged subversion of lawful processes and...
THE recent Biden-Trump presidential debate has blown into a baloney of golf bragging. When asked about his fitness levels, Trump, 78, boastfully claimed that he had just won two big golf championships and hit the ball longer than any Democrat....
THE annual pilgrimage to the Amarnath shrine in south Kashmir commenced on June 29, with the devout undertaking the arduous journey to pay obeisance to Lord Shiva in the holy cave located at an altitude of about 3,800 metres. A...