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C Y GopinathMidday |
Somewhere in Amritsar, a borderline berserk Punjabi chef devoted to the doctrine of ki-pharak-painda has declared open season on the dosa ...
Child abuse turns children into utilities, to be used and discarded. Child adoption can do the same when it is straddled by delays, paperwork and...
In a bipolar world, where people come to blows on matters of personal belief, admitting ignorance and having a nimble, evolving position matters ...
It’s that day of the year when you can do silly things and get away with it. Today, we examine what Twitter does to those who lie about the oats...
Being the greatest country on the planet requires great behaviour and values. As India changes and shines, perhaps smugness and hubris need to be...
Last week, out of the blue, I was reminded that Jesus did not write the Lord’s Prayer in the way we said it at assembly; and that no one in...
The corporation promoted the chef’s lack of schooling as though it made his genius special. But he was larger than them and larger than life. The...
At what precise moment after conception does an embryonic cluster of cells become a person? Or to put it another way, is there life after birth? ...
If you want to know why the Thais are a nation of such happy people, it’s their roots. The galangal root, to be precise. Which you can’t get here...
How do you know someone is a friend? How long should you expect a friendship to last? What keeps a friendship going? Is there any such thing as a Best...
Children need nonsense that rhymes. English nursery rhymes give them casual violence, racism, child abuse, sudden death and dark emotions instead ...
Does a parent have the automatic right to know everything about their adult child? And do they have the right to tell their children’s stories,...
In a world where outrage and anger are on tap, and where social media helps disseminate vitriol and lies, how should you deal with a hate attack? ...
If someone tells you that you can become a millionaire just by fantasising about it, why wouldn’t you give it a shot? We live in...
Scientists want to call ours the Anthropocene Epoch, the age of the humans. That’s big talk coming from a greedy, self-destructive species ...
Their life is full of ‘Holy shit! Me?’ moments. They feel awe when they behold themselves. They will always tell you they are so humbled by it...
Thinking of India as the centre of the universe allows the Indian to strut, talk louder, and act entitled and aggressive on the world stage ...
Old people are annoyances. What could they possibly add in a world where Google knows all there is to know? Amadou Hampate Ba had some thoughts ...
Like brat children of trillionaire daddies, we’ve destroyed everything that we’ve touched. We’re not the crown of creation, we’re god’s...
What can we learn from cockroaches about surviving an apocalypse? Which humans are already enough like cockroaches and likely to survive? ...
Once there were over 60 species of honeycreepers on Hawai‘i, making everyone happy. Now there are only 17. Everything happened after humans let...
Should we name our children to please ourselves and show off our creativity, or for their self-image and self-respect? There’s a lot more to a name...
There is nothing religious, reverent or civil about Diwali today. Good does not triumph over evil. A message telling me to be happy feels like sarcasm...
Psychology says our environments reflect who we are and our state of mind. What does Delhi’s filthy air say about who we are? A road shrouded in...
To its readers, JS was a cult. They waited all week to devour every word of the magazine. But there’s a good reason why it would never work with...
India has the world’s lowest divorce rate—but all it means is that Indian men and women are trapped in tedious, loveless, angry relationships they...
The media tells you who is blameless and who is a terrorist, and how to tell the good guys from the bad guys. But the world is still arguing about how...
In Mumbai, garbage is celebrated triumphantly on its way to Deonar, Bangkok’s garbage is collected efficiently and spotlessly. The trucks gleam....
If your city lies in ruins for decades, covered with trash, potholes and flies, you might assume that shabby is the new normal for mega-cities A...
More than half of Mumbai’s people live in slums covered with blue plastic. The other half, in their towers, are oblivious to the very people their...
ChatGPT declared that I was a renowned Kannada writer who’d started India’s first low-cost airline. I decided to find out who had inspired it I...
Many reports described India as ‘only the fourth country to reach the moon’. The time has come to ask why it was felt necessary to use the word...
Blue Zones, with unusually high numbers of healthy, old people, some centenarians, are suddenly the buzz. Don’t believe all you read Okinawa...