Smoke and Ashes, And Parallels Too Many

This August I received two books from my aged father for my 61st birthday and one of them is Smoke and Ashes by Amitav Ghosh. He has written this years after writing the Ibis trilogy – a fictional account of India’s opium trade with China – which was well reviewed in the press at the… Continue reading Smoke and Ashes, And Parallels Too Many

Protected: Between China and India, the World

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When Prying into Writers’ Lives Passes Off as Literature

For the past few years that I have been blogging, regular readers of my blog must have noticed my lamenting the lack of anything intelligent or thought-provoking to read. Most of my complaining has been about books – old and new – that unprofessional PR agency idiot bosses and their cronies in RK Swamy/BBDO Chennai… Continue reading When Prying into Writers’ Lives Passes Off as Literature

Protected: Seeing through September headwinds

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Interpreting Mahatma Gandhi for a VUCA World

I am reading the second volume of the three-volume selection of Gandhi’s Moral and Political Writings, edited by Raghavan Iyer, that is part of my aged father’s library at home. I had read the first volume decades ago when I was visiting my parents from Delhi and thought it’s high time, I read the remaining… Continue reading Interpreting Mahatma Gandhi for a VUCA World

Protected: Reading Between the Lines of War and Geopolitics

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Advancing Human Connections Through the Spoken and Written Word

I have worked in advertising all my life, as a writer. It is a business that requires creativity, good communication skills, as also an understanding of business. Most of all, it is a service business and a people-based one. If you can’t express yourself clearly and effectively, you’re in trouble. While I have been writing… Continue reading Advancing Human Connections Through the Spoken and Written Word

Protected: Reading Through This Summer’s Flux

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Trying to Find Meaning in Marriage, Money and Muddlemarch

It must certainly be an eternity since I read a novel from the 19th century. My aged father had ordered a copy of Middlemarch by George Eliot from Amazon more than a year ago and I thought I must read it. I have already shared some of my observations about the book on social media,… Continue reading Trying to Find Meaning in Marriage, Money and Muddlemarch

Take That, AI!

As a postscript to my last blog post which was on how generative AI is here to threaten writers - at least in the advertising and brand communications industry - I thought I’d write a short piece in favour of human intelligence. From what tech evangelists have always told us, information technology is here to… Continue reading Take That, AI!