| Eating crow, part two | 21-NOV-09 |
|
| I have a soft spot for Kumaon that I cannot really explain; these are not the highest or even the most breathtaking hills to be had in this large and lovely country, but they are far and away my favourites. It has something to do, I think, with scale — Kumaon is hardly gentle hillocks, but the Himalaya bares its really serious teeth at a comfortable distance. |
|
|
|
| The bane of the thane | 14-NOV-09 |
|
| Shakespeare’s Macbeth has endured the test of time not only because it is a cautionary tale about when to ignore your spouse, but also because of its poignant lessons in the importance of sleep. |
|
|
|
| Desert draws | 07-NOV-09 |
|
| So there we were at 4.30am, un-slept and merry, peering cross-eyed into the Rajasthani night at the hill we’d suddenly decided to climb. Atop it is the temple dedicated to Savitri, Brahma’s first wife, who stormed off there when she discovered that comely Gayatri had turned all four of His heads and become the Creator’s second wife. (There’s now a court case in which the Brahma temple priest is demanding that offerings made to Savitri should by right come to Brahma; and the Savitri temple priest says it should be the other way around since Brahma owes Savitri alimony.) Anyway, for some reason, it seemed vital to go and climb this hill. Now. |
|
|
|
| Rolling stones | 31-OCT-09 |
|
| My friends often accuse me of being a bit on the detached side. While I’m open to criticism, I have to say that after spending so much quality time hanging out and cooing supportively into their ears, I find it a little hurtful that they continue to see through me so easily. I suppose I should take comfort in the fact that they don’t use the phrase my family does, which begins with ‘cold-blooded’ and ends with ‘reptile’. |
|
|
|
| Truth is beauty, unless it isn't | 24-OCT-09 |
|
| There is at least one question that bedevils all relationships, whether they be romantic, platonic, filial or the vastly complicated one you have with yourself (for which I can’t think of an existing word but will propose the one suggested by a smarter friend, “autorelationship”): Is this the sort of question that takes so long to get to, what with run-ons and parenthetical clauses, that you’ve completely forgotten where it was going? The answer to which is: That’s the sort of cheap shot that’ll pad out a word count nicely and further alienate hostile readers. |
|
|
|
| Thimphian week | 17-OCT-09 |
|
| So there I was stuck in Thimphu, Bhutan, so delirious with fever that I could have sworn that my friends were out bar-hopping rather than sitting by my bedside. But then these fevers make you think the darndest things; for instance, on the way back from the Bumthang Valley we stopped in a tiny restaurant for lunch, and I’ll be buggered if I didn’t imagine that columnist Jug Suraiya was sitting at the next table. I put it down to the antibiotics and swallowed another paracetamol. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Heaven's choicest blessings | 03-OCT-09 |
|
| Weddings are emotional events, and the days and months leading up to them typically times of very special family togetherness. The process of conceptualising, organising and implementing the ceremony, the fact that a son or daughter is going off to start a whole new family, the enthusiastic opinions of pretty much anyone with a mouth and tongue — all of it guarantees a precious kind of bonding and a good deal of blood on the flower arrangements. |
|
|
|
| Don't worry, be happy | 26-SEP-09 |
|
| There are many things I have striven to do in my life but never managed. One is to write these columns in advance so that I can travel without my laptop. Another is to visit Bhutan, that beautiful, sensible little country snuggled into the north-eastern border of India. One of the main reasons I want to visit is that they are best known for being less concerned with GDP than with what they call GNH, or Gross National Happiness. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Dancing king | 19-SEP-09 |
|
| It’s not the grey hair and wrinkles and gravity-affected flesh. It’s not even the increasing tendency to spend a convivial evening at a bar talking about mortgages and sluggish thyroids and failed relationships with friends. Those are merely incidental. No, the sure-fire way to feel old is to have the people who were part of your youth die on you. Grandparents, parents, old friends, musicians. Movie stars. |
|
|
|
| Q&A | 12-SEP-09 |
|
| Anyone who has ever attended, in any capacity, a panel discussion or a book launch or talk in Delhi has had to pay an awful price, even when the event is free, which it mostly is because we live in one of the most culturally subsidised cities in the world. (Pay attention, America, those warming strategic ties are just the thin edge of our evil Socialist wedge). |
|
|
|
| Rest In Peace | 05-SEP-09 |
|
| This last year, two friends of mine lost their fathers to Indian healthcare. |
|
|
|
| Where's the party? | 29-AUG-09 |
|
| The weather is changing, and everyone these days seems to be suffering some sort of illness. The BJP, for instance, is spectacularly unwell. It has spent the last many days in a kind of terrible inner turmoil, shuffling around in mismatched socks, speaking in tongues, pulling out its own teeth one day, its fingernails the next. |
|
|
|
| Slow news week | 22-AUG-09 |
|
| Monday. Can’t believe I had to wake up again. What’s the point of living in a free country if you have to wake up every day? This is so relentless. Wake up, get tired, go to sleep, recharge, wake up, get tired, go to sleep. It’s like eating, only that’s much worse. |
|
|
|
|
Content Guide
