A flood of UPA apathy isn’t really what Narendra Modi needs
A flood of apathy isn’t what Narendra Modi needs
The light is out, but life goes on
The light is out, but life goes on
Grim Fairy Tale 3 – The Dented, the Painted and the Demented
And then the Happy Prince delivered the demented answer that has since dented his ego and painted him black.
Grim Fairy Tale 2 – The Om Minister
Protesters. Maoists. Terrorists. Idealists. Rapists. Communists. Therapists… What’s the blessed difference? None at all, intoned the Om Minister, unshaken in his trance.
Grim Fairy Tale 1 – Nero gets a fiddling Lesson
Great Nero was in the midst of fiddling lessons administered by his stern and demanding Roman tutor. And then he heard it. It carried to his ears, feebly, above the din of sycophantic chanting from the courtiers and nobles. Slightly dissonant, wasn’t it?
City Zen Redux – Garbage Out, Garbage In
Garbage has raised a huge stink but we’re still obsessed with one end of the problem alone — that of disposal. Maybe we’re staring at the wrong end.
City Zen – Phantom trees and hungry buffaloes
What do you do when buffaloes mysteriously eat away your green cover? Hunt down the real thick-skinned culprits that wallow in public funds!
City Zen – Does our city need plastic surgery?
Until the mid-eighties, our groceries came bagged in old newspapers. We brought home rice and sugar in packages emblazoned with last week’s headlines. Fish and meat were first wrapped in banana leaves and then with brown paper. Beer bottles were surreptitiously swathed in double-rolls of weekend editions. Steel tumblers clanged at the nearby restaurant, then not yet suffixed with Darshini. Weddings were messy affairs even then but stray dogs industriously polished off discarded meals while cows champed on leaf plates. Recycling waste used to be a tradition, until we turned a new leaf.
City Zen – For a safer city, withdraw VIP security cover
Some old-timers fondly recall that much-reviled historic event, the Emergency, for a dictatorial government’s efficacy at enforcing law and order. “Trains ran on time, even criminals were shot at sight,” they reminisce with wistful pride. Sure, but why does a democratic society need a schoolmaster to rap its errant knuckles?
City Zen – A park by any other name
Ask your councillors where the parks have gone, and they will point proudly to a software park within ten minutes’ drive. Car parks, they promise, will follow. But a park by any other name doesn’t feel as green.