Paul Fernandes is the kind of person who sees riches everywhere: in dry, crackling leaves, in shrunken seeds, or in any other kind of wilted tree dropping that most of us would sweep aside. On one of the walls in his aPaulogy Gallery on Pottery Road (https://apaulogy.com/),
The makeup of Indian millennials – their belief systems, their aspirations and anxieties – should, as Vivan Marwaha observes in What Millennials Want, matter not just to Indian watchers and policy makers, but also to global decision makers.
… Continue reading “The Makeup of Indian Millennials: A Writer Charts Their Hopes and Fears”
A Bohemian Childhood
Anjali Patel Mehta, the founder of Verandah, a resort and lounge wear brand, did not envisage her future in fashion.
After all, she was climbing the rungs in Investment Banking,
Though I have spent most of the last three decades of my adult life in Bengaluru, India, I have been part-enthralled and part-appalled by the well-known storming of the Scripps National Spelling Bee by Indian American contestants.
… Continue reading “A Riveting Narrative About Hyper Education in the U.S.”
If you’re curious about the culture of “romance” among millennials in London, Dolly Alderton’s Ghosts might offer some unnerving insights. Her protagonist, Nina George Dean, is a thirty-two year old on the hunt for a fairytale ending to her singledom.
… Continue reading “A Glimpse into the Travails of Modern Romance”
A Childhood Inside Theatres
Shernaz Patel grew up inside the stir of auditoriums, imbibing the rhythms and murmurs of a workplace fitted out with lights and satiny curtains. Her parents, Ruby and Burjor Patel,
… Continue reading “Shernaz Patel Recounts the Story of a Passionate Career”
Janhavi Rao’s midlife pivot from Engineering to Medicine is extraordinary on many counts. Her journey can inspire anyone seeking to change their careers, or to embark on any strenuous adult learning project, especially when the odds seem stacked against you.
… Continue reading “Janhavi Rao’s Incredible Midlife Shift From Engineering to Medicine”
During the pandemic, I have taken not just to reading more intensely, but also to re-reading. After all, revisiting books that you remember for the pleasure they evoked, but whose exact contents have frayed like the super-soft pajamas you slip into despite family put downs,
… Continue reading “Re-reading a Gripping Thriller Set Inside a Research Laboratory”
Inside the House of Chanel at 31, Rue Cambon in Paris.
Inside the shop, where dazzling visions of Chanel-clothed selves are refracted from mirrors and videos played on a screen, the message is clear.
Unsurprisingly, The Plague, a 1947 novel about a mysterious epidemic that pummels a coastal city in Algeria, by the French writer, Albert Camus, has received a burst of new interest during the Covid pandemic.
… Continue reading “Contradictory Impulses in the Nobel-Prize Winning French Writer, Albert Camus”
Early Childhood in Devkali
The village of Devkali in Uttar Pradesh is located in the district of Shahjahanpur. Spanning an area of about 6.5 square kilometres, with a population of about 3035 people,
In On Photography, Susan Sontag observes that every photograph invites the viewer to penetrate its two-dimensional likeness to uncover the three-dimensional riches that gave rise to it. As Sontag puts it, the photograph seems to say,
… Continue reading “A Lyrical Portrait of Young Adults Coming of Age in A Turbulent Country”
Occasionally The Scientific American Mind magazine publishes riveting issues that centre around specific themes. I happened to read one at a friend’s place that was centred around the Science of Creativity (March 2017).
Neeraj Chopra Exhibits Awe-Inspiring Grit
Given the nation’s recent jubilation at Neeraj Chopra’s phenomenal javelin throw, I thought it might be interesting to resurrect the much-cited study on Grit by Angela Duckworth.
… Continue reading “Examining Neeraj Chopra’s Olympic Win Through the Lens of Grit”
I grew up, like many middle to upper-income children in our generation, in a very bookish household. Given how television had forayed into our lives only when we were in high school, reading was an activity that was pursued without the kind of self-consciousness and exoticism that is attached to pretty much anything these days.
It’s virtually impossible to live in a country like India and not dwell on hunger. For many millions, far more than we would like to acknowledge, the preposition on would hardly capture their experience.
… Continue reading “Journeying Through The History of Hunger”
Elizabeth Weil, then a contributor to the New York Times Magazine who had won a slew of awards for her pieces, turned her deft writerly eye to a perilous terrain: her own marriage.
… Continue reading “A Writer Chooses to Better Her Good Marriage”
Anshu Gupta: Brought Up With a Social Conscience
Well before he was on his path to forging rural-urban interactions and the kind of straddling across socio-economic classes that the country desperately needs, Anshu Gupta,
… Continue reading “Anshu Gupta, Founder of GOONJ, Charts a Purposeful Life”
The Covid crisis has ushered both voluntary and involuntary changes into our lives: relationships mediated by technology, the blurring of work and domestic tasks inside living spaces, a compressed, never-ending togetherness with roommates or family members,
… Continue reading “Harnessing The Rider (Reason) and The Elephant (Emotions) to Drive Changes”
An Indulgent and Mindful Parent
There would be few Indians, whether they have grown up in India or as part of the globally-dispersed diaspora, who would not have certain lines of his running inside their heads,
… Continue reading “A Daughter Portrays the Iconic Gulzar’s Legendary Journey Inside Indian Cinema”
Brinda S. Narayan
