“The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom… You never what is enough until you know what is more than enough.” - William Blake. This might be a strange note on which to begin the new year, but not if one looks at the signs all around us. Listening to some world leaders, you might… Continue reading A Decade of Excess, and the Scars are still Visible
What a year 2018 has been. As it draws to a close, I can’t help thinking about how we got from alarm over a third world war breaking out (and worse, a nuclear one) at the start, to a G20 Summit in Argentina at the end. Even if we weren’t listening all the time and… Continue reading 2018: A ‘ear for Music
Goa had some unusual visitors this winter. Not tourists, but some of the finest writers from India and from across the world congregated in this wonderful coastal state to talk about, well, literature and storytelling. The International Centre Goa, venue for GALF 2018 I count myself among the lucky and the privileged to have been… Continue reading GALF 2018: Stories from Home
While some of the finest stories emerging from GALF 2018 were those from home, rooted in Indian experiences, thought and tradition, there were yet other delightful tales that deserve to be told separately. For these are stories of crossings; of writers making physical and metaphorical journeys across time and space, and of ordinary people who… Continue reading GALF 2018: Stories of Crossings
A serendipitous find led me to write this piece. I don’t think I would be wrong in saying that we all admire beautiful writing, even in the days of digital media and 5 to 8 minute reads. But how many of us would stop to think of the writers – artists to be sure –… Continue reading Beautiful Writing of Another Kind
Time there was, when all public discourse was framed around the familiar Left versus Right debate and everybody knew exactly what everyone else was talking about. Then came the days of the liberal democrats and the social democrats - whose political views were slightly to the right or to the left of centre - and… Continue reading Identity Crises and how they are Changing the World
As more and more women speak out about humiliating incidents of sexual harassment in their lives at the workplace and outside it, and as employers are still trying to devise the best ways of dealing with the problem, I was wondering if the problem isn’t a deeper one. A problem that perhaps goes beyond the… Continue reading An 18th Century Canon for the #MeToo Era
Right now, looking out of the window of our first floor flat, I see what I am told is a fig tree. It has shed all its leaves and is busy sprouting tiny, new, green ones. Strange for this time of the year in Goa, where we have just bid goodbye to the South West… Continue reading Green shoots, really?
It’s one festival that people of all religions in India celebrate. And it’s today. Well, for those who like to extend festivities, it’s today and tomorrow. Lights, flowers, creativity! Today is Diwali, the Indian festival of lights. It celebrates the return of Lord Ram to Ayodhya after vanquishing Ravana, the demon king of what is… Continue reading Lead, kindly Light
“He (the artist) ought to have ‘these powerful organs of expression’ – colour and chiaroscuro – entirely at his command, that he may use them in every possible form, as well as that he may do with the most perfect freedom…” - John Constable As an artist of a kind – a writer in advertising –… Continue reading Of Chiaroscuro and the Myths we Live by
Peripatetic Perch 