Avay Shukla

There has been no bearded specimen in the Shukla family for the last hundred years at least, including my cousin Madho. He occasionally does present an untidy hirsute look  which could be mistaken for a fuzz, but a closer examination reveals that his facial fallicles do not conform to the dictionary definition of a beard […]

The Supreme Court has disappointed again. While not interfering with the bail granted to the three student activists- Natasha, Kalita and Asif- in the Delhi riots and ” conspiracy ” case, it has, vide its order of 18th June 2021, effectively stayed the Delhi High Court order on UAPA. To my mind, the court had

Baba Ramdev is nobody’s fool, as the IMA ( Indian Medical Association ) seems to think. Anyone who started life by churning his stomach like a washing machine and ended up with a multi billion dollar empire has to be a smart cookie. And just marvel at his latest coup: the acquisition of the Rs.

Mythology forms a large part of the BJP-RSS combine’s world view ( such as it is), and the TINA  (There Is No Alternative ) myth is an important part of it. TINA is, predictably, the last refuge of the government’s supporters who have now run out of money, oxygen, jobs, Remdesiver, vaccines, doctored statistics and

I am essentially a ” dhaba ” man. Give me a choice between a good, clean dhaba on a highway and a fancy restaurant and I shall plump for the former every time, even if you are paying the bill! This is not a reverse snobbishness, or my inability to decipher “Potatoes Dauphinoise” or ”

My review of this book  was published in THE TRIBUNE on April 4, 2021. It is a fascinating account of the attempts made to conquer the ten highest peaks in the Himalaya in the last century. The article/ review is reproduced below.   Avay Shukla “This is a book about the mountains. But it is

If Bal Narendra had spent some more time in school instead of rushing off to sell tea at a railway station which did not even exist at that time, he would have imbibed some wisdom from a couple of old adages: Don’t burn your bridges behind you because you may need them again tomorrow, and, Be courteous to

                                                             A new dawn in Puranikoti The sun doesn’t just rise in my village of Puranikoti ( 7000 feet, pop 190 ) – it explodes. One

At the entrance to the Hall of Remembrance in the US Holocaust Memorial, Washington, the following words are inscribed: GUARD YOURSELF AND GUARD YOUR SOUL CAREFULLY LEST YOU FORGET THE THINGS YOUR EYES SAW. The Jews in France have a shorter version of this exhortation: N’OUBLIONS PAS or LEST WE FORGET. The Jews have a long memory. It’s time