What perplexes me about the monsoon is that each year it catches us unawares. Yet if there is one date in the calendar that is indelibly etched in our memories its the onset of the rains. So why ...
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Rajesh Pilot and Archbishop De Lastic were not similar people. Yet the memories I have of them are strangely the same. I don’t know if that is a paradox or one of the tricks death plays with th...
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It’s the silly season again. That’s a British term for the time of year when politicians take off on holiday and television devotes itself to old movies and re-runs. The Indian equivalent is ...
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Have you noticed how the lights always fail just when you want to watch something special on television or on the very night when there are guests for dinner and you want your home to look its best...
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I love bookshops. I can spend hours browsing through them, nestling in a quiet corner, with stacks of shelves for company and no one else around. On such occasions time seems to stand still or if...
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“Bloody woman” I heard my sister Premila muttering as she slammed down the phone. I had just arrived to spend sunday evening with the family and this display of irritation was perplexing.

No, there’s no mistake in the title and I haven’t gone bonkers either. There’s a lot politicians can be accused of – and usually with great justification – but there are a few things for...
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“Just because it’s in a newspaper doesn’t mean it’s true” my friend Aftab Jafferjee has always maintained. He first pronounced his verdict in 1982. At the time he was a young but upco...
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I first met Kapil Dev in 1983. It was the morning after the World Cup victory. The shock and the surprise had not yet dissipated. The joy and euphoria were only just setting in. The cricketing ...
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It wasn’t the horn that he had been blasting but the strange words that woke me up. I was slumbering at the back of a hired car and it was nearly ten at night. The road was empty but a couple o...
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