Culture
Swastika
When I visited India the summer I turned 9 years old, my grandmother took my siblings and me to a jeweler so we could each select a pendant to bring back with us to the US. My brother and sister both chose the ...
Just Not Cricket
In a recent cricket match played between India and Australia in Sydney, the Indian cricketer Harbhajan Singh was accused of hurling a racist insult at Andrew Symonds ...
Free Market News
The newspaper business has changed radically in recent decades. Most newspapers are now owned by a handful of large corporations, even by "holding companies", with parallel interests in cement, telecom, real estate, etc. While profit was once.....
John Frum
Some time ago, Ruchira brought to my attention an article about a village on the island of Tanna in Vanuatu, where the people believe Prince Philip of England is a god. Though it might sound preposterous to many of us, it's actually not a joke. As the article explains...
On Diversity
Last October, I went sightseeing in Calcutta with a friend. We began with a short cycle rickshaw ride, took a local train to Sealdah, wandered near College St, boarded another train to the Kali temple at Dakshineshwar, caught a commuter boat ...
From the Outside, Looking In
... speaking of Muslims as fanatics and terrorists is not even considered bad manners; it’s seen as a comic expression of the truth. Suggesting that it might be a bit more complicated—that it’s ridiculous and hateful to so simplify a group ...
Rediscovering Golem
What is life anyway, and how did it really happen upon this world? As a physical phenomenon, is life an accidental and rare occurrence?
Buddha's Finger
The monks and proprietors of Famen Temple in China's northwestern Shaanxi Province, about an hour's drive outside of Xi'an, believe the Buddha has given them the finger Or four.Legend has it that after the death of Prince Siddharta (aka the Buddha) around 500 BCE, such was the
Death in the Afternoon
A hot Sunday afternoon in Mexico City. The largest bullring in the world is packed with feisty locals. Restless, they whistle and hoot before the main event when emotions run high....
Chinese Food for Thought
In gastronomic matters, I am squarely among the less intrepid of men. Raised by a vegetarian mother who wouldn't allow meat in her kitchen and a near-vegetarian father, I only had chicken and goat meat a handful...
On Telling Stories
We often ask what it is that makes us human, and much has been written about the unique (or not) gifts of humankind: our fully opposable thumbs, in-line toes, upright stance, tool use, large brains, reason, language, self-awareness....
Eugenics Record Office
James Watson, co-discoverer of the structure of DNA, is in trouble again, this time for a racist remark that has led to wide criticism and his firing from the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL), where....
Rock Shelters of Bhimbetka
In Aug 2005, I visited a remarkable site in Madhya Pradesh, India: the prehistoric rock shelters and paintings at Bhimbetka, discovered in 1957-58 by Dr. Vishnu S. Wakankar....
The Burning Ghats of Varanasi
Varanasi (Benares, Banaras, Kashi), on the left bank of the Ganga (Ganges), is one of the seven sacred cities of the Hindus. Among the oldest continuously inhabited cities...
The Carvakas
It comes as a surprise to many that in ancient "spiritual" India, atheistic materialism was a major force to reckon with. Predating even the Buddhists, the Carvaka is one of the earliest materialistic schools of Indian philosophy....
The True Cost of Our Gadgets
The next time we whip out our Blackberries, cell phones, gaming consoles, iPods, and laptops, we would do well to remember their true cost, beyond what we paid for them at the store. Each of these gadgets use an ore called coltan.....
A Day Trip to My Alma Mater
I got a B.Tech from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur (IIT, KGP). Sixteen years after graduation, I visited it again from Kolkata during Puja 05.Most students had gone home but the institute, though fairly deserted....
Global Democracy Index
The Economist magazine's intelligence unit has come up with a Democracy Index that rates 165 states and 2 territories on their democratic character. It examines 60 indicators across 5 broad categories: electoral process and pluralism, functioning of government...
The Idea of India
An Indian-American friend of mine recently asked me:
How did Indians themselves refer to India during the Raj? Did they call it "India"? I mean back then, it had independent state-like entities or "protectorates", with kings and other legislative bodies, as well as what are now Pakistan and Bangladesh...
Jerry Falwell, BIH
Jerry Falwell is dead. The news reports reminded me that besides the Moral Majority, he also founded a Christian madrassa called Liberty University. There are in fact scores of Christian madrassas in America, often ...
Land of the Free ?
Which country has the highest incarceration rate in the world? The United States of course. The prison population in the US has more than quadrupled in the last quarter century. Some 2.2 million are behind
Land of Two Rivers
"Punjab" comes from two Persian words, panj ("five") and ab ("water"), thus signifying the land of five rivers (the Beas, Chenab, Jhelum, Ravi, and Sutlej). The present Indian state of Punjab is the result of two divisions....
Le Corbusier's Chandigarh
Chandigarh may well be India's greatest achievement in urban town planning. But despite Nehru's enthusiasm, and the evident success of the experiment, the Indian political establishment seems to have learned nothing from it. Chandigarh ought to have become the harbinger for...
Melting Girls and Serpent Women
Two days ago I went on a day trip to Pushkar, a Hindu pilgrimage site, from Jaipur. It has what is said to be the only temple to Lord Brahma in the world. Bathing ghats encircle Pushkar Lake, which.....
A Mousetrap for Metaphysics
About six years ago, after an obsessive, multi-year engagement with history and philosophy, I struggled with the following question: Is it possible to reduce the vast range of humankind's metaphysical responses down to a....
Nalanda University
In July this year, I visited Nalanda in Bihar, India, one of the most spectacular archaeological finds on the subcontinent. Nalanda was once a famous Buddhist monastery and university. The region's ...
On Patriotism
Recent years have seen a surge in "patriotic feeling" across the US. One expression of this is the flag, which is now routinely seen on cars, shop fronts, windows, roofs, even jacket lapels. Many diehard patriots refuse....
On Personal Responsibility
The modern age has overseen a great expansion of our rights. Global disparities remain but there is no dearth of people who believe that rights are a good thing (at least for the social group they identify with most, be it based on race, nation, class, culture)...
Potala-in-Exile
The seat of the Tibetan government-in-exile is in McLeod Ganj (upper Dharamsala), a picturesque town overlooking the Kangra valley, below the snowy peaks of the Dhaula Dhar range in the Indian Himalayas. At one end of...
A Qawwali Concert
A year or so ago, I attended an open-air Qawwali concert in Jaipur by the famous Sabri Brothers, who claim direct descent from Mian Tansen himself, the legendary Hindustani musician in Akbar's court.
Reporting from Home
I'm a non-resident Indian (NRI). I left India in 1989 for a masters degree in the US. I then lived in N. California and W. Europe and had traveled to 50+ countries by late 2004, when I moved to India for two years to read, write, travel, and ...
Amartya Sen on Globalization
Where does "our own" Nobel laureate in economics stand on globalization? Earlier this year, I reviewed The Argumentative Indian by A Sen. A wide ranging book with sixteen essays on Indian culture, history, and identity, it ...
On Photography: Which Thousand Words ?
If a picture says a thousand words, which thousand words does it say to whom? If we all wrote down what we hear, no two accounts would be the same. A picture of an antelope can tickle a palate, provoke wonder .....
Servitors of the Divine Consciousness
In Jan '06, I visited Auroville for the second time (first in '96), but my interest was still purely anthropological. Yet again, Auroville-a township in Tamil Nadu founded in 1968 by the Mother (Mirra Alfassa), a French collaborator of Sri Aurobindo Ghose.....
The Birthplace of Ganesh
Dodi Tal, considered the birthplace of Lord Ganesh, is a lake in Garhwal, western Uttaranchal. We hiked 44 km in 3 days, going up and down from about 5,000 ft to 11,000 ft, where we camped near the lake....
The Oldest Conflict of All
Here is a debate between Professor Mansfield, author of the recent controversial study, Manliness, and Professor Kipnis, author of a similarly controversial new book, The Female Thing: Dirt, Sex, Envy, Vulnerability.
