The Sense of Being Indian
Article / August 15, 2013

India, it is a puzzle of a million pieces. Sometimes they fit together and sometimes they just miss each other by a slight geographic or historical tampering around the edge.  India is the vibrant  folktale locked inside every historian. It is the ballad sung in the courts of Mauryas and Guptas.  India is the very beauty of the British Architecture that adorns Kolkatta.[a] It is the anomalies of French and Portuguese culture that brews in the cafes and clubs of Pondicherry and Goa. It is the friction which exists with the Chinese on the east and Pakistanis on the west and yet it is the peace which resonates with the harmony of South Asia.  It suffers from the stereotypes of western media and yet it enjoys the respect of western authors and poets. And this India is one of the many chapters an Indian studies , thus an Indian is the sense of graduating in few of the million myths, stereotypes, epitaphs , accolades and applauses awarded to India.   When my father was growing up, mathematics was the speed and accuracy of calculations, displayed in the oral recitations of multiplicative tables [ pahadas], and when I was growing up…

The Patriot Games: Expressing my National Pride in a Globalising World
Article / August 13, 2013

As our country gets ready to celebrate one of its biggest national holidays, citizens all over its length and breadth will gear up to put up a dazzling show of national pride. School teachers will teach their pupils patriotic songs. Housing societies will organize flag hoisting ceremonies, preceded by a seemingly polite but emotionally charged battle over which member will do the honours.