Year before last we were in the Dwarka sub-city of Delhi during Deepawali. For several months before the festival there began a movement against fire crackers and "bombs" of different kinds which caused both atmospheric and noise pollution. The highest court of the land pronounced a judgement against this annual ritual of denying the citizens... Continue Reading →
If the epitaph "An Officer and a Gentleman" could be applied to some members of the Indian Foreign Service, the late Satyabrata Pal would no doubt be the foremost among them. With his passing on 24 September 2019, we have lost a rare human being. Endowed with all the attributes expected of members of the... Continue Reading →
The events surrounding the mysterious disappearance of Mr. Rajeev Kumar, the former Police Commissioner of Kolkata are no less dramatic than mystery of "The Purloined Letter", that famous creation by Edgar Allan Poe. Only, in this case it will be too much to think that someone would have "stolen" the man who, in fact,... Continue Reading →
The clarification that it was not Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace, but a little known title "War and Peace in Jungle Mahal" authored by a journalist that was found objectionable by the police among other 'incriminating documents' in the much publicised case does little to cheer one up. Historically, rulers have always had a strange... Continue Reading →
When a friend told me that there was a hill station in the state of Haryana I couldn't believe it. Even some friends from Haryana itself were ignorant about its existence. Thinking of Haryana the image that comes to mind is of a predominantly agricultural province, with some highly industrialised and modern cities, glittering... Continue Reading →
An election in Delhi is quite a drab and lifeless affair. It seems to be more so in this sprawling sub-city where I live. Even the warmth - let alone the fury - of electioneering was hardly felt here. Except for a few, very few, posters of the main warring sides and one small procession... Continue Reading →
On the face of it, the Bharatiya Janata Party seems to have realised it was time it did something to honour Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose and the Indian National Army. There is nothing wrong with this. In fact, after the new government declassified some files on Netaji and sent them to the National Archives, researchers... Continue Reading →
The cave temples of Badami, and the temples of Aihole and Pattadakal together represent an extremely vibrant and productive period - between the 6th and 9th centuries - in the history of temple architecture in the Deccan. My friend and guide Ananthakrishna said that Aihole, the ancient town, was a sort of laboratory of temple... Continue Reading →
"On the Banks of the Tungabhadra" is a historical novel in Bengali penned by Saradindu Bandyopadhyay, who perhaps is better known to readers outside Bengal as the creator of the detective character Byomkesh Bakshi. In the novel, the web is spun around a story that the ruler of Kalinga offered his daughter in marriage to... Continue Reading →
It started early - at an age when one was yet to learn reading. In those halcyon days children were not sent to school till they were old enough to join Grade I. In that golden period of life for us it was mostly playing, and maybe a bit of learning and memorising Bengali rhymes.... Continue Reading →
