How language keeps people unfit
ONE of the unhealthy things people do is the way they speak of themselves. They speak poorly, especially about their physical health. They express a low opinion of their prospects. How they have “aged,” when they are still in their 40s or 50s. This view emerges from their false perception of how people at this […]
What champions of ‘hard work’ don’t get about workers
About 20 years ago, the five-day week was not common in India. Some people in an office in Mumbai approached their boss to demand it. The boss said he had no problem with this very modern global idea; he would ask the proprietor. But, he said, they should know what the owner would probably ask. […]
How Entertainment Got So Boring
A few weeks ago, I read a headline in The Guardian: “Is Netflix deliberately dumbing down TV so people can watch while scrolling?” I had to read the rest of the article, even though I knew that if a newspaper asks a question in the headline, it means it doesn’t know the answer—otherwise, the answer would […]
The Loneliness of Losing the West
Once, what did we want our nation to be? Like the West. What did we want to be? To enjoy life like people in the West, but with better food. Where did we want to be? The West. Where did we want our children to be? Okay, you get the idea. To many of us, […]
If There is a Secret Vote in Gaza on Relocation
The plan to relocate over two million Palestinians from Gaza to neighbouring Arab nations is the second-best idea for lasting peace in the region. The best idea is for all Israelis to move to an uninhabited island with a temperate climate and excellent soil. The second-best is not Donald Trump’s original idea. Such a plan […]
Why nobody talks about India’s ‘brain drain’ anymore
Rhyming words have promoted many dubious ideas. Like ‘brain drain.’ Not long ago, everyone was talking about it, as though those of us who stayed behind in India had no brain at all. Yet, we enthusiastically debated the issue. The debate wasn’t over whether brain drain existed, but whether the government should stop it. Now, […]
Migrating to the US has always been a rite of humiliation
Long before Donald Trump, from the time I remember, migration to the United States was a rite of humiliation. Yet, it was exactly what the finest of my generation prepared for. Even the most dignified part of the process, which was the first step, where the bright applied for a student visa to go study […]
Longevity is usually a reward for being unspectacular
For a man who was said to be incapable of subterfuge or even office politics, a skill in which Indians excel, Manmohan Singh thrived in public office. He had been governor of the Reserve Bank of India, India’s most famous finance minister and one of the country’s longest-serving prime ministers. And he could achieve all […]
Black Warrant: India, According to Tihar
(This first appeared in The Mint, in November 2019) One summer day in 1981, Sunil Gupta went to Tihar Jail to start work as assistant superintendent. He had an offer letter, but the superintendent told him there was no vacancy anymore. He had quit a secure job with the Indian Railways for this. Dazed, he […]
Gabriel Garcia Marquez in the time of Netflix
IT IS inevitable that a tribute to Gabriel García Márquez would come under pressure to achieve a beautiful opening line, and having thus sidestepped the expectation, it would immediately mention one of the most famous opening lines in the history of literature: “Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, colonel Aureliano Buendia was […]