Columns

The ever effervescent PG Wodehouse once said that golf, like measles, should be caught young as it builds character. For it takes a strong character to hit the ball on to the wrong fairway and yell FORE instead of F–K ! Unfortunately, I missed the bus on that one and discovered the game quite late […]

These days Mr. D.Y. Chandrachud, Chief Justice of India,  is talking of, and worrying about, the legacy he will leave behind when he retires from the job next month. And well he might. He was elevated to this position at perhaps the most critical juncture in the nation’s recent history, when every democratic and humanist

Many years ago, more years than I care to remember, I was posted as a probationer under district training in Mandi district of Himachal. On two days every week I had to sit with the Deputy Commissioner (DC) in his court when he heard grievances and received petitions from the public. The purpose was to

In 2011, on the 25th anniversary of the publication of Black British Literature: An Annotated Bibliography, I was invited by Newcastle University to give a lecture. Just imagine – in 200 years, no one had compiled even the most basic tool of research, a bibliography. That was why, despite all my limitations, I worked away

Like most youngsters of my generation, I collected stamps, and found them hugely interesting as well as instructive in terms of geography and currencies. However, stamp-collecting did not lead me to any great appreciation of history. That was probably due to the fact that, as the family fortunes were then rather low, I could not

At about this time last year my elder son quit his very well paying job as a senior executive in a multi-national: he had had enough of the El Dorado mirage sold by the IIMs and IITs. He had been working 14 hour days non-stop for 16 years, paying Rs. 65000 a month for a

The Himachal Pradesh chief minister recently announced that the state government has identified 50 new locations to develop tourism, including adventure sports. The prospect fills me with dread, because the government’s track record in this respect has been an environmental disaster so far. Forget the mess in Shimla, Manali, Kufri, Mashobra, McLeodganj or Kasauli. In

For the last two weeks now the otherwise tranquil state of Himachal has been roiled in a vortex of Islamophobia, despicable politics, violence and opportunistic silence by those who should be speaking out. Right wing inspired crowds have been flooding the streets of Shimla, Mandi, Solan, Hamirpur and elsewhere, protesting against illegal mosques and “outsiders”(which