CALCUTTA IS FOEVER

Thirty years ago, a dishevelled man leaned across and shouted at me in the smoke-filled, raucous Olympia bar on Calcutta’s Park Street: “Calcutta is forever!”…

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INDIA, THE CLASS ACT

With this kind of rebellious example, how will fair play and right eousness prevail? Won’t the lower castes get out of hand? In this decadent…

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The Takeover Man

Most of us are cursed with poor memory. We need episodic markers to help us measure our lives from one significant remembrance to another. Our…

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DESERTS – GREENING OF THAR

Lush vegetation in the Thar? Groves jamun trees? Mighty rivers the size of the Ganga and Indus? Seasons of monsoon-like rainfall? None of this is…

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GUJRAT-HURRICANE HAVOC

It was a visitation of grief and destruction, a cruel twist to the suffering Gujarat was already shrouded in. Meteorologists first noticed the brewing cyclone…

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Spate Of Senseless Tragedies

Qutab Minar, the 72.5-metre-high monolithic tower that Iltutmish built 750 years ago, witnessed two shocks in its hoary life-span. In 1368, it was struck by…

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STONE AGE SHAKTI

That Trite phrase ‘as old as the hills’ has suddenly taken on startling significance in relation to a thread that runs through Hindu beliefs: the…

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MIRAGE IN THE DESERT

Within a few years from now, the westernmost and thirstiest fringe of Rajasthan, along the Indo-Pakistani border, is going to be brought to life by…

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