Our Tryst with Destiny-an essay

I shall begin by quoting Churchill and also end with him. India is not a geographical reality anymore than as Churchill had observed,’the equator is’. In short India is what every Indian would make of a concept of union of certain states. Of course historically is a reality since we won freedom ‘at midnight’ in [...]

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Straws In the Wind

My sense of wonder even as I approach the very wrong side of sixties has not lessened. Seventy is like a sudden drop in the landscape and approaching it I haven’t reigned in my beast but dug my heels saying Tallyho! I have never got on top of a horse but I can feel still [...]

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On Old Age-an essay

Petrarch in his ‘Epistle to Posterity’ after lifetime of literary creativity, in his ninetieth year could say thus, “My works are many, and I am old; yet I can still fatigue and tire myself with writing more.” David Hume, the philosopher found in his old age that only death could interrupt the pleasure he was [...]

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On Reading- an essay

The Pleasure of Books Books are one way of communicating with the dead and the past. It is a mystical experience pure and simple. There are those who are, as Isaac Disraeli the father of the British Prime Minister would describe, men with one book. Sir William Jones read the works of Cicero every year. [...]

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What Ails Kashmir?

Introduction Kashmir has become the petri dish of the 21st century and thus it shall be viewed by political scientists of the future. What would challenge their concepts of a modern state is not where state and religion may cohabit neither detracting from the other, but to what extent a state may let religion its [...]

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Man, His Fame-US Presidents

Nothing ever remains static: the face of the earth changes with seasons and continental shelves move. Such changes take place in matter of time and it goes without saying man is of no exception. How relevant is a man who holds the most powerful job on the earth? History does that while tastes of the [...]

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Sweet Smell of Success

Representational Man-essay © It is said no man is a hero to his valet and those whom we look up as extraordinary betray their ordinariness when caught off guard. It is a truism not even a Caesar could escape from. Julius Caesar may have to all and sundry seemed ‘like a Colossus who bestrode the [...]

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Nation or individual?

It was Adolf Hitler who once posed the question: “What is life?” He himself answered it thus:”Life is the nation.The individual is the nation. The individual must die anyway. Beyond the life of the individual is the Nation.”( Shirer:The Rise and fall of the Third Reich. p.933) I owe this article to Wm. Shirer’s excellent [...]

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Indian Identity

The beginnings of human society in the Indian subcontinent for the lack of a writing system can only be restricted to archaeological evidences. What artifacts we have, predominantly deal with fertility symbols, which are not unique to this subcontinent: for example Mother or Earth Goddess is common to many other cultures. There were datable artifacts [...]

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Man,his vision-Galileo

Science and Religion, as we look back into our past, have had a very uneasy relationship. The life of Galileo is a case in point. In his case he upturned an Edict, the Church had laid down on untested grounds: the Church position that the earth is the center of the universe. Authority of the [...]

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