Julius Caesar
Even as a child, when I knew nothing of Roman history, Caesar’s assassination and his famous ‘Et tu Brute’ dialogue were familiar to me. Looking back, I wonder if Caesar’s enduring influence in popular...
View ArticleThe Enduring Legacies of Caesar
I tried to dig out a few enduring cultural legacies of Caesar… Have I missed any?
View ArticleReflections on Hazard Risk and Vulnerability Assessments
In Disaster Management, assessing risks is foundational towards ‘preparing’ for a disaster and ‘mitigating’ the impacts of a disaster. Intuitively, we all understand risk. Shopping during a pandemic is...
View ArticleSome Dino Facts
Steve Brusatte’s “The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs: A New History of a Lost World” was a quick and engaging read about the fascinating field of palaeontology, and, of course, dinosaurs. Turtles and...
View ArticleWhat I Watched – August 2025
Julius Caesar (1970): I’ve been on a Roman history reading project for a month. This 1970 star-studded movie was a faithful adaptation of the play. But, the whole Roman setting and the costumes made it...
View ArticleLouis Wain and his Cats
Cats evolved sometime in 7000 BC in the Fertile Crescent. But unlike dogs, they never really caught the imagination of the earliest humans. The transition of the cat from a scavenger to a cultural...
View ArticleA Discussion on the Northeast
Last evening, I attended the book launch of the Shillong-based journalist Patricia Mukhim’s ‘From Isolation to Integration: Navigating the Geopolitics of India’s Northeast (1990-2023)‘. (Her daughter...
View ArticleRoy’s Memoir
In the early aughts, when I was in college, Roy’s long-form essays were a frequent feature in the Outlook magazine. Vinod Mehta’s trust in her made her a household name, and he, too, fondly wrote about...
View ArticleAntony and Cleopatra
Cleopatra was not the exotic, scheming, and lustful queen of legend who ensnared Rome’s greatest men. Her affairs with Pompey, Caesar, and Antony were historic realities, but these were driven by...
View ArticleThe Shallow Pond and the Life You Can Save
In 1971, during the height of the East Pakistan refugee crisis, the philosopher Peter Singer published an essay called Famine, Affluence, and Morality in which the ‘Shallow Pond’ thought experiment –...
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