total timepass...

I recently saw a play in the Market Theatre in Johannesburg, called 'The Meeting'. Before I went for the play, I had no clue where it was located. Once I started driving there, it turned out to be in the CBD (Central Business District) part of town, which is known to be its not so safe part. I always feel a bit unprepared for driving in that part of the city, but I had booked the tickets, so turned up anyways. Once there though, it was a different experience. The whole area around, called Newtown was quite vibrant and full of people chilling and shopping in the mall while some had come to visit the museums around. Another example of how perceptions can be different from reality:). The theatre was quite small and felt very cosy with a few seats surrounding the stage in three directions. The play was quite short, barely an hour or so. And I hadn't read about the play before, so it was a complete surprise for me. Sometime in between the performance, I figured out that it w...

After years of trying to figure out why exactly the book 'Lajja' was banned, and unable to find a copy to read, I finally laid my hands on the book recently. Given the title of the book and the fact that it was banned, I had very conveniently assumed that the book was on women and their plight in Bangladesh. But on reading it, I realised it was on a totally different topic - the constant and ongoing persecution of Hindus in Bangladesh due to the slow and steady transition of a secular nation to a fundamentalist one. And all of it was news to me. To be honest, the book is nothing extraordinary in its quality and way of writing. It shifts from a fictional story about a Hindu family which has to face constant struggles during riots that broke out in Bangladesh after the Babri Masjid incident, to a documentary which lists all the atrocities and unfairness faced by Hindus over the years. The book is not too well written and can be easily critiqued. But inspite of its failings,...

My father was in the Army in the Sikh Li regiment. As most of you would know, the Indian Army is the offspring of the British Indian Army which is part of our colonial history. So the old British officers who were part of the army in India and are now in UK have formed as association which meets yearly for a reunion lunch. When I heard about the association last year, I joined it and this year finally got a chance to attend the lunch in 2016. To be honest, in the beginning I was not so sure about how I would feel about it - the British ruled our country for so long, we don't really look at that part of our history with a lot of positivity. And then attending a lunch which in a way celebrates that history would be awkward. But surprisingly, it wasn't. The lunch this year was held at the Bombay Brasserie in Gloucester Road. There were only 3 officers attending who had actually served in India (apparently there had been a lot more 10 years ago but I did not know about the as...

The book 'Sapiens' is a must read for people curious about the human race's history and development. The author traces Homo Sapiens' history from when they were monkeys and isolates some of the major reasons (in his opinion) which affected how they developed and how today's world as we know it came about. The book is written in a very light manner, is easy to read and very gripping. Even if you may not agree with what is said, you will be interested to know more about what the author says and why. Below are some of the highlights of the book which I found worth mentioning: When humans started appearing on earth, there were 6 different types of human species in different parts of the world, of which only us (the Homo Sapiens) have survived. While Sapiens from East Africa still have strains in them of the Neanderthal and Denisovans species, the ones in Europe and Asia have none of it - they had completely wiped out the other human species. So even in ancient hist...

A lot of us assume what we know about the world to be true. And when new findings comes out in the open, the world as we know it changes. There are sometimes small new truths that change our view like ' daily flossing doesn't really help ' or the bigger ones like 'Pluto is no longer a planet'. I recently read a book which describes how much more we have learnt about old American civilisations and how it has changed our view of the Americas. In the same vein, I recently saw a show talking about the map of the world as we know it and the reality which is different. I had read about this difference many times before - how the relative size of the continents is not really accurate, and how that played into the hands of the imperialist powers. But somehow. I had never looked at the alternate 'more accurate' maps ever. Till I did! It felt creepy and unnatural! Its not the same world view as we have seen and known for years, what we were taught at school and ...

1491 is a non-fiction book on the history of the Americas before Columbus arrived there. The focus is not as much on providing a comprehensive history as on debunking a lot of myths propagated about the Americas by the colonists. These myths have been proved wrong by latest archaeological findings but not accepted as much as they should have been. There is a clear bias visible in the book against the so called white intellectuals. And while reading it, you also realise how much archaeologists are still finding about the Americas. Its still not as well known as we all assume and it may be that whatever was known till now may be absolutely wrong! There are three major myths that the author disproves, citing latest findings over the years and across the continent. The review below is not a comprehensive review, just a couple of interesting tidbits I found interesting. P.s. I use Indians below instead of Red Indians in keeping with the terminology in the book Myth : there were very...

(I was to write this blogpost 4 months ago, but think it has become more relevant now given the recent ‘floods’ in Gurugram:) ) I don’t think this article is going to come as a surprise to anyone. In fact most reactions would be something like - ‘ yeh to hota hi hai ’ or ‘this is how it happens’. But still given that I have been living out of India for quite some time and before that lived a sheltered live in army cantonments, it is still a surprise to me and I don’t think that’s how it should happen! My parents recently moved to a new place in Gurgaon (as it was called then!) and they realised during monsoons one of the side road gets flooded. It has been happening for years with the other residents, but as usual no one bothered to do anything about it. My father went to the local administration office to complain a couple of times. Accordingly the next year they sanctioned couple of crores to build a rain drain next to the road, and elevate the road so that water does not colle...