Book review: The Cloud Messenger
Memory is a bad story teller. It erases all the real twists in a tale. But when Mehran looks back, it seems that everything has to happen the way it did. He made relationships but all he felt was the burden of a gift too expensive to reciprocate.
Shahrukh opens IFFI 2011 in Goa
The curtains went up on the 42nd International Film Festival of India (IFFI) with a low-key opening ceremony in Rabindra Bhavan in Margao on Wednesday.
That Used to Be Us
'That Used to Be Us'-is a candid portrayal of Superpower-America that is in trouble by three times Pulitzer recipient Thomas L Friedman, one of the world's most influential columnist and Michael Mandelbaum a foreign-policy expert at Johns Hopkins University.
The view from below
India remained 'non-committal', on the issue, till finally, when Indira Gandhi bulldozed civil rights and thrust 'secularism' into Indian Constitution during emergency. Nevertheless, secularism in India remains an ever evolving idea of contradictions and confusions.
The 9/11 Wars
The only reason I picked up Jason Burke's 'The 9/11 Wars' for review was because I had a feeling that unlike plethora of embedded American journalists, and a few of their trans-Atlantic friends, the man will offer us something fresh to chew on. At least a perspective that does not reek of drawing room journalism. After all, everybody worth holding a pen in the US and their neighbours have tried their hands on writing something on 9/11 and the aftermaths.
A world without angels
The protagonist of David Davidar’s third novel, like the author himself, has had a singularly successful career in international publishing. But, in the opening pages, we find Zachariah Thomas running away from it all in search of the spark that seems to have gone out of his life and work.
Sphere of Influence: Writings on Cricket and its Discontents
The day Kapil’s Devils won the Cricket World Cup in 1983 after entering the tournament as 66-1 outsiders, the team members dined at a nondescript Wimpy Bar in Piccadilly. The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), then headed by NKP Salve, couldn’t afford to host a fancy feast for the triumphant boys because it had only Rs 200,000 in its coffers.
The tale of a visionary
It has always been tempting for historians and biographers alike to compare the two greatest freedom fighters of the 20th century - Mahatma Gandhi and Nelson Mandela. The similarity between the two is intellectually stimulating.
Long live the voice of the people
Kashmir problem, so far has cost thousands of lives- both Hindus and Muslims. People fled their homes, a whole generation of Kashmiri pundits were forced to leave their home, their land.
Stern Reckoning
In the early 1940s, when the idea of Pakistan had been well mooted and in the air, no one quite knew what it stood for. Most certainly, no one had reckoned with what it would entail if Punjab were to be partitioned along with the division of India.
In The Sea There Are Crocodiles
There have been so many books written on Afghanistan or at least partially based on Afghanistan following 9/11 that the first reaction to any new book is, "Oh no! Not again". People of all shape, colors and ideologies have tried to show their respective receptive audiences what Afghanistan means to them or how much have they been able to understand Afghanistan.
The voice of the mute
For centuries people perhaps unconsciously followed French philosopher Rene Descartes’ ideology, which stated that animals were nothing but complex automata with no souls. They can see, hear and touch, but they are not sense conscious and are unable to suffer or even feel pain.
A tragedy unveiled
You could say I am on the verge of an OD on tomes, books, articles, position papers et al on al-Qaeda, Taliban, Jihad and sundry other associated substances of abuse. I must confess my threshold levels are far lower than that of scholars and specialists!
Celebrating Dissent
Long ago, an Iranian friend of mine had drawn an interesting parallel between “Islam in siege†and a porcupine. He said that, like a porcupine, the Islamic world, when under siege, sees overtures even from liberals as a danger and withdraws itself to regroup and attack.
Alice gives it those ones
The book was a reading experience that compelled me to think about the infinite capacity of human beings to maim and destroy without flinching away
Issue Dated: Feb 5, 2017
