On Settler Colonialism
Just as including He/She/They in your bio was recently considered an ‘in’ thing (at least until a few months ago), the term ‘Settler’ is also laden with symbolism, solidarity, and wokeness. But like...
View Article‘A Savage War of Peace’– The Roots of the Algerian War
Alistair Horne’s magisterial ‘A Savage War of Peace: Algeria 1954-62’ is a masterpiece and has been a gripping read so far. The Algerians never had a national identity until the beginning of their...
View ArticleSuperagency
In Superagency: What Could Possibly Go Right with Our AI Future, Reid Hoffman and Greg Beato celebrate the potential of AI to transform our lives. Hoffman was the co-founder of LinkedIn, was on the...
View ArticleTwain in India
Mark Twain kept me busy for the last two weeks. Tom Sawyer was a fun read but I found the going hard with Huckleberry Finn. The bulk of the book employed the dialect of the blacks of late 19th century...
View ArticleAgnes Callard and the Socratic Life
Socrates was known for engaging people in conversation and, through a series of probing follow-up questions, exposing flaws in their reasoning. Using what is now called Socratic questioning, he...
View ArticleThe Hebrew Calendar
Today, while watching Shtisel, I learned about the Hebrew calendar. It begins in 3761 BC, a date calculated in the 2nd century CE based on a theological interpretation of the Book of Genesis. Jewish...
View ArticleThe Tragedy of Free Parking
In the beginning the earth was without parking. The planner said, Let there be parking, and there was parking. And the planner saw that it was good. And the planner then said, Let there be off-street...
View ArticleMacbeth
I’ve embarked on a new multi-year project: reading Shakespeare. Over the coming years, I plan to tackle all his 39 plays. I began with Macbeth and it wasn’t too hard to discern why he’s claimed to be...
View ArticleGates’ Source Code
Today, Bill Gates is known more for his sage-like utterings on global development and the groundbreaking work of his foundation than for his technological prowess. But for someone who grew up in the...
View ArticleBaazigars & The Brits
Whatever little Hindi I knew as a child came from the Bollywood movies of the 90s. When SRK’s ‘Baazigar’ came out in ’93, the ten-year-old me learnt a new word which I then thought meant ‘Magician’. It...
View ArticleWhat I Watched – February 2025
Mark Twain: After reading Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, this two-part documentary by Ken Burns helped etch Twain’s life in my mind. The discovery that he travelled extensively within India was the...
View ArticleGauguin and van Gogh’s Ear
The meme below was undoubtedly the funniest one I came across after the assassination attempt on Trump last year. It’s a clever riff on van Gogh’s self-portrait soon after he chopped his ear with a...
View ArticleThe Market-Friendly Dharma of Buddhism
During my previous visit to Dharamshala, an amusing sight that caught my attention was a group of Buddhist monks, red-robed, sporting Nike sneakers, sipping cappuccinos and completely immersed in their...
View ArticleThe Tempest
Shakespeare’s play of a magician conjuring up a storm and bringing together a group of men to his island—his mastery over a native, a compliant spirit, and a daughter who is ‘made’ to fall in love with...
View ArticlePeak, End, and Exit: Daniel Kahneman’s Last Decision
I’ve read a ton of books on psychology over the past five years, and I’ve hardly come across a single work that doesn’t make a reference or has a quote from Daniel Kahneman’s ‘Thinking Fast and Slow’....
View ArticleThe Timeless Relevance of Hadji Murad
Forty years after his deployment in the Caucasus, Tolstoy wrote Hadji Murad, based on a real-life figure, over an eight-year period. Published posthumously, it is often regarded as one of the greatest...
View ArticleGirard’s Scapegoat Mechanism and the Mahabharata
In the fable of the ‘Fox and the Sour Grapes’, the disappointed fox walks away at the end. He does this only because he is alone. Had there been a few more foxes salivating over the grapes, walking...
View ArticleBhuj Notes
I visited Bhuj for the first time earlier this week. The first thing that struck me was the barren landscape, the hardy Mesquite trees, herds of goats and gaushalas – each a testament to a land shaped...
View ArticleWhat I Watched – March 2025
The Brutalist: I wonder if this was the longest movie that I’ve ever watched in a cinema. The movie was good but not great. After a month, thinking about it, only Felicity Jones’ character comes to my...
View ArticleThe Merchant of Venice
Was Shakespeare an antisemite? Many argue that his portrayal of Shylock in ‘The Merchant of Venice’ is proof that he was one. Shylock the Jew is a money lender who demands a pound of flesh from...
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