Alan Rosling Becomes a Founder Before Embarking on His Book
In the White Mughals, the writer William Dalrymple depicts the rather tempestuous love affair between a British dignitary and a Mughal noblewoman.
… Continue reading “Lessons from Books: Boom Country? Charts The Stories Powering Indian Startups”
During the pandemic, many of us have been compelled to alter our exercise routines. Earlier, I used to swim and walk. In the last few months, I’ve been forced, like many others, to just walk.
… Continue reading “Lessons from Books: Walking with a Philosopher’s Outlook”
One of the offshoots of months of relative confinement has been the discovery, for me at least, of new forms of entertainment. Besides Web Series, it has been diverting to stumble on riveting podcasts, especially those that imbue the audio tales with a gritty,
… Continue reading “Lessons from Podcasts: Generating Hype Like (or Through) Rockstars”
I’m 53. Strange that such a straightforward fact, the only data point perhaps, over which I can claim to have some certainty, should feel, in the contemporary era like a guilt-ridden admission. As if one ought to be defensive for having inhabited the planet for five whole decades,
… Continue reading “Lessons from the Self: Flaunting my Silvers – Part 1”
While motherhood has often been the subject of social, psychological and cultural studies, fatherhood has received relatively scanter attention. Such diminution of the paternal role affects not only fathers, but also mothers, who are then assumed to be primary caregivers or at least expected to play a more central parenting function.
… Continue reading “Lessons from a Memoir: Sam Miller Explores Fatherhood, Friendship and Love”
Driven largely by the success of Apple and also by its founder’s layered persona, “design thinking”, has spawned many corporate workshops, process changes and adopters. After all, if Steve Jobs, who was as obsessed with the appearance of things,
… Continue reading “Lessons from Books: The Ten Dimensions of Highly Creative Personas”
Often it takes an outsider’s captivation to shine a distinct light on a phenomenon that is unfolding around us in a seemingly slow and hence almost unnoticeable manner. Michiel Baas, an urban anthropologist who is currently engaged with the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology,
I’ve been particularly fascinated by Japanese crime fiction. Partly, this has to do with the setting. After all, Japan always seems to embody certain particularities – the crafted precision of its Haiku poems and ikebana arrangements,
… Continue reading “Lessons from Books: The Devotion of Suspect X Reveals Aspects of Japan”
Usually the New Year compels resolutions. But 2021 might spark an urge to dismiss such rituals. And to break free from the persistent thrum of uncertainty that reverberates across banal decisions – Eat out today?
… Continue reading “Lessons from Books: Leveraging the Science of Habits to Drive Personal Changes”
If one could choose the community to which one could belong, by birth, then I’d have chosen to be a Bengali. It’s not the language – which I don’t understand or speak – that fascinates me as much as a certain aura that surrounds the people,
… Continue reading “Lessons from Books: A Fascinating Dive into the Makeup of The Bengalis”
Art as Therapy: de Botton Shines a Torch on Another Impenetrable Terrain
Alain de Botton, who describes himself as a philosopher of “everyday life,” lends his signature approach to themes as varied as Love,
… Continue reading “Arjun Agarwal, Cofounder of Outliers, Ushers a Fresh Perspective to Indian Art”
When driving out of Mumbai’s international airport, many upper-income Indians and foreign visitors may prefer to avert their gaze and look elsewhere. Anywhere else but at the sight that greets them at the Annawadi slum,
Those who are exhausted by the grim graphs that chart the pandemic’s climb (or retreat), might do well to re-engage with P.G Wodehouse. To watch, with quiet chuckles and the occasional, loud cackle,
… Continue reading “Lessons from Books: Decoding P.G. Wodehouse and the Ploys of Humour”
It doesn’t take much to inhabit privilege in India. If, as a family, you own a house, a car, and your kids attend a somewhat decent private school, you are already materially distanced from the vast majority who throng our towns and cities.
… Continue reading “Lessons from Books: How Parental Privilege Can Adversely Impact Children”
The Library Book: Susan Orlean Recalls an Idyllic Time inside Libraries
Harry Peak was often characterized by his “very blond” hair. Growing up in Santa Fe, not too far from the giddying dazzle of Hollywood,
Dwelling in Books
Like most readers, I feel like only a part of me lives in the real world. An equal or sometimes larger, almost disembodied self dwells inside pages – some pored over in years past,
Gandhi’s Thrust Towards Compassion
On a recent morning walk with a friend, we were talking about how society obsesses with “success” and the necessary “competitiveness” one should cultivate to achieve it. On the other hand,
… Continue reading “Weaving Gandhi’s Favorite Bhajan with Visions of Compassion”
For a particular writing project, I needed to understand how small towns in India were getting transformed by the forces of late modernity and conspicuous materialism. While Bollywood was both plying and shattering conventional notions in movies like Bareilly ki Barfi and Masaan,
… Continue reading “Snigdha Poonam: Charting a Dream Career from a Journalist to an Acclaimed Author”
Jyotsna (Jo) Pattabhiraman: Develops Resilience to Sudden Changes
The mythical “Fountain of Youth” has often served as the object of quest stories. After all, can any treasure chest be more appealing to mortal beings than everlasting youth and the longest-possible,
The Way Home: Mark Boyle Chooses to Live Without Technology
To relinquish technology in 1845, when Thoreau set out to live in Walden, doesn’t seem nearly as impossible as the feat accomplished by Mark Boyle,
Brinda S. Narayan
