A recent article in The Guardian about the top five regrets of dying people has attracted a lot of notice, especially on Facebook and other social networking sites. The subject is the findings of an Australian nurse, Bronnie Ware, who having spent most of her working life at the bedsides of the terminally ill, found herself in a pretty good position to author a book about what she learnt.

Things that count in life

Business Standard

Can there be any thing as fulfilling as the life of a writer? I am writing this column ensconced in the study of the late Manohar Malgonkar, in the remote region of Jagalbet in Karnataka. Set amidst 10 acres of wheat fields and jungle, the sprawling bungalow is where he worked and breathed his last at the ripe old age of 98 a couple of years ago.

A solitary reaper

Those of you born before the age of Twitter will recall how Rajiv Gandhi&rsquo;s words on the lesson India would teach Pakistan marked a watershed in his political persona. From the diffident, reluctant politician he emerged as a spunky politician &mdash; one unafraid to call a spade a shovel. It made those who had written him off as no more than a Lutyen&rsquo;s leader sit up and take notice.

He's got the groove

An elegant Western educated Sobo matron was horrified when she had her first exposure to the Indian male&rsquo;s clumsy attempt at flirting. &ldquo;There I was at a seminar, waiting for my turn at the buffet table during the lunch hour when this creature sidles up to me, and in a leering, suggestive way, asks &ldquo; are you vegetarian in all ways?&rdquo; &ldquo; I didn&rsquo;t know whether to laugh or feel sorry for him,&rdquo; she says shuddering gently from the horror.

The art of flirting 

I wonder how much of Vijay Mallya&rsquo;s troubles have to do with his public image. Perceived hedonists make pretty soft targets when the chips are down. Don&rsquo;t believe me? Ask Dominique Strauss-Kahn who is a copybook case for the adage &ldquo;give a dog a bad name and hang it&rdquo;. Today, anything that is sleazy and of a sexually perverse nature can be attached to DSK&rsquo;s name by his political rivals &mdash; regardless of whether it&rsquo;s true or not.

What Mallya's PROs should have told him

Yes, that&rsquo;s what I thought. Not only do clothes maketh a man, hair do too. You can be the most loved and celebrated man in India, a demi-God, a legend, but clearly that&rsquo;s not enough: if your hair doesn&rsquo;t feel right, you don&rsquo;t need a Vidal Sassoon to tell you that you don&rsquo;t feel right.

Splitting hairs

Many years ago, when I invited Begum Abida Parveen to sing at my home in Mumbai for my mother&rsquo;s birthday, the only request the legendary Pakistani artist made was that I invite Rekha as a guest. This was long before the Sufi tsunami had consumed the subcontinent. &ldquo;If there is anyone who knows and appreciates my music it is Rekha,&rdquo; the songstress had told me.

Deconstructing Rekha

Let&rsquo;s face it, when Mallya embarked on his epic journey of conspicuous consumption, he was something of a role model and a pioneer.

Masking vodkas in orange juice

When Lalit Modi says that &ldquo;in India we have a crab mentality. No one can digest others&rsquo; good work&rdquo;, no prizes for guessing what he&rsquo;s referring to.

Three men and the crabs

The best way to know when a country has grown up is when its revolution takes place in its classrooms. And with the Supreme Court upholding the Right to Education (RTE) Act this week, paving the way for schools across the country to admit students from economically and socially backward homes, India is about to witness one of its most important social experiments &mdash; nothing short of storming the bastions.

Classroom revolution

The story is apocryphal but bears retelling. In the days when the film industry was yet to gain respectability in Indian society, the late swashbuckling film star Feroz Khan had applied for membership in Mumbai&rsquo;s Khar Gymkhana. Facing the snooty balloting committee was not a pleasant task for someone of Khan&rsquo;s calibre.

Turning a full circle

Elsewhere in this issue we have examined the more philosophical-ethical fallout of the Abhishek Manu Singhvi CD scandal.

Of Mrs Clinton, Mrs Woods and Mrs Singhvi

How to breach the right to privacy? Let me count the ways&hellip; Along with every other minority group I belong to, here&rsquo;s another: in a universe of tech-savvy, click-happy downloaders, I belong to one of the most exclusive clubs in the world: those who haven&rsquo;t seen the Singhvi CD.

Transparency versus privacy

I f the long arm of the state has begun to investigate NGOs, browbeat Internet websites, cancel the rights of television companies to record parliamentary proceedings, harass activists like the members of Team Anna and coerce the press, dissent in India will have only one option &mdash; it will take to the streets.

Importance of dissent

Of all the qualities a man is admired for, the one that most becomes him in the eyes of the public is grace after failure.

Oops, they goofed!

Enough high-minded comment has been passed on the Salman Rushdie-Imran Khan slugfest, sparked off by Rushdie&rsquo;s speech at the India Today Conclave.

The testosterone conclave

I wonder whether those who employ words like &lsquo;gone rogue&rsquo; or &lsquo;loose cannon&rsquo; to describe General V K Singh understand the meaning of such terms.

The method in his madness

In story after sensitively-penned story, Lahiri has written about the difficulties faced by Indian immigrants when they leave their country and attempt to make lives and careers abroad. From her very first collection, Interpreter of Maladies, which won her the Pulitzer, Lahiri has made the peculiar condition of the NRI her main focus. Her portrayal of the cultural and emotional challenges faced by first and second generation immigrants has won her much acclaim and many readers.

A lament for NRI wives

We have become a jamboree nation, a compendium of carnivals, Planet Festival.

Jamboree nation

When she was asked at the Jaipur Literature Festival why she had not married, Oprah Winfrey responded by saying she &ldquo;wasn&rsquo;t the marrying kind&rdquo; and that &ldquo;marriage called for an element of conformity that she didn&rsquo;t think she possessed&rdquo;. (Of course she added a small joke for the benefit of the largely Indian audience when she faux-complained &ldquo;no one was arranging any marriages&rdquo; for her, and the crowd &mdash; which consisted of that slice of India that does not have marriages arranged for it &mdash; laughed politely at the in-joke).

Knot an issue

Perhaps the phenomenal growth of caf&eacute;s, coffee bars and even the practice of drinking coffee is a symptom of this generation&rsquo;s need to have spaces to goof off, loaf in and do nothing.

Malavika Sangghvi