Fruit trees at Mantri campus

Mr Sundaram not only welcomed the idea, but also suggested we plant fruits saplings that would benefit Mantri's children and their children for decades to come.  He planted a mango, and we have, growing on the lawns by the swim-pool, a guava, a sapota plant and another mango, planted to celebrate Advik,  the second child born at Mantri's...More

We could do with a Bangalore-like 'Dhamaka' on OMR

Removing  a 100 kg. trash and giving the pavement a coat of whitewash took them two hours. As much of  calories-burning as you do at the gym. And then, at the end of it all, Oracle volunteers had a sense of having done something socially meaningful...More

School-leavers should get a gap-year

If a student with high qualifying marks  gives up admission in computer science for catering technology or commercial arts he/she  must be deemed  bit of a nut;  or she must  have an over-riding  mind of her own.  In my days,  1950s,  we pursued an undergrad   course,  mainly to become eligible to appear in IAS exams....More..

When Neil Armstrong came to Delhi

Armstrong,  it appeared,  was given to keeping late hours for Indians .  He landed on the moon at an unearthly hour (IST),  keeping even Indira Gandhi awake till 4.30 a m.  We have Natwar Singh’s word  on this.  Incidentally, The National Herald brought out a special supplement on moonlanding,  a few hours after the regular morning edition had hit news stands....More

Farewell, my friend Raj Mongia

In retrospect , now that Raj Singh is gone,  I reckon I was harsh and went horribly wrong in judging him.  He was deadpan that day because of suffering of some kind;  because he was bottling up  something that nagged him ....More

London 2012: Lunch was on Kini

Catherine, Kini  had said , would await us in a sky blue Fiat.  We spotted each other right away.  Sushil  Nangia and I were the only passengers on the 10.52 from Victoria, London,  to get down at Herne Bay, Kent.  On the drive home Catherine filled us in on her seaside town,  and how she and Kini came to make it their home,  after 40 plus years in London.....More .

Finding Irshad - a Google-yuga saga

I blogged about him – Irshad Mia, where are you ? – in the hope that if Irshad or someone who knew of his current whereabouts were to read my piece in DadiNani , he or she would know where to find me. This was my way of sending a message-in-the-bottle, tossed out into cyberspace...More

Kabul calling

This was in 1967, when I was 29, unattached, and doing Europe overland. We were seven – a mixed group, aged between 10 and 50 – traveling in a 12-seater van on a London-Delhi run. Because of a nationality issue with Pakistan, Kabul turned out to be the end of the road for me...More...

A childhood with grandpa

At home grandpa, a retired cop, ran our household of three – that is, grandma and me – a bit like a police training establishment. I had a time-table for meals, play, study, and sleep. The only grace-time (when I could do whatever I felt like) was when grandpa had his afternoon snooze....More

Talking the walk, Swapna’s Delhi Walk

Carrying, as I do, an emotional baggage of having spent my college, and early working life in the city, I admit to reading Delhi – 14 historic walks with tinted eye-glasses that had weathered 30 Delhi summers (1950-80s)...More

Is Team Anna a threat to democracy ?

Britain’s academic and a Labour peer Bhikhu Parekh, in a recent lecture on the crisis in Indian democracy, is reported as saying, a growing public support for Anna Hazare-style protests, led by unelected campaigners, bode ill for Indian democracy...More..

Talking books, unread & reread

The bookshelf in front of my desk has often had me wonder, ‘would I ever be able to read all those books before my time is up’. I am 73 . Browsing the Net and channel surfing have pushed reading books to a back-seat in my re-ordered daily routine...More

Swing in the living room

Living room of my blogger friend in Ooty. Kalyani....

Of wasted subsidy, and freebies for ration-card holders

If govt. decides to de-list ration-card from acceptable proof-of-identity/address documents , nearly 60 percent of ration-cards would disappear from the books. Apart from reducing food subsidy outlay, scrapping so many cards from PDS records would lesson the scope for diversion of PDS supplies to the black-market...More...

Quake-hit Japanese on Twitter

I have no qualms about copy-pasting Jun Shiomitsu’s compilation , and I trust he would condone the plagiarism...More...

I was dubbed Arjun Singh’s man

Media during Arjun Singh’s regime had things going for them, much to the dislike of much of the bureaucracy and opposition politicians. They had reason to feel done out of govt. houses in prime localities, which were allotted to media people...More...

Bangalore, cricketers’ Pushkar

The Hindu cartoonist had in mind a vegetables mart.To put a spin on the veg. analogy, I would place Gambir in the onions basket...More...

A wish list for greening Mysore

I wish the govt. does not renew the licence (that expired in 2006) to the Mysore Race Club ; and, that the huge chunk of land in their possession is developed into a green lung space...More...

Nehru and the media

At press meets reporters took turns with questions ; and heard out their subject. Nehru , usually media friendly, was however given to occasional burst of temper. I know of an instance when he gave a chase to a news photographer, brandishing the baton he usually carried with him...More...

Trading with China

Indian IT companies are pretty cut up with the Obama regime that seeks to curb US companies outsourcing IT services that take away jobs from America. But we willingly submit ourselves to trade practices that create jobs in China at India’s expense...More...