Observations, Thoughts and Stories as they form in the mind! Book Reviews, Art, Travelogue, Economy and Society
Being a Feminist I am inspired to raise my “woman’s” voice on the topic of baldness among women. The men should not imagine this field belongs to them alone. My daughter recently sent me a friend’s humorous musing on his baldness on his blog https://ajitmahadevan.blogspot.in/ He wrote that he was inspired to write by the musing … Continue reading Bald Wit
Arundhati Roy’s second novel “Ministry of Utmost Happiness” is not happy at all. A story that begins and ends in a graveyard can hardly be happy! Did not understand why she chose this title. In twenty years since she wrote her first novel “The God of Small Things”, she has definitely seen a lot of … Continue reading Arundhati Roy’s Ministry of Utmost Sadness
Ladakh is a ‘Cold Desert’, but the snow-capped high mountains ensure that there is a stream of water trickling down during part of the year. These form little rivulets, streams, rivers and lakes. We witnessed a confluence of streams, rivers and lakes in our week in Ladakh. As expressed in my blog post on “Soothing … Continue reading Ladakh: A Confluence of Rivers and Lakes
Ladakh is known as the Cold Desert. We understood the real meaning of this phrase on our week-long visit to Ladakh this summer. We had visited and seen the beauty of the White Desert, the Rann of Kutch, white salty marshy desert! And here we witnessed the rugged, natural beauty of Ladakh! There was hardly … Continue reading Snow Storm and Sand Storm: A Day in Ladakh
We were sleeping peacefully in our home in the prestigious IIT Delhi campus after an exhausting day of travel and partying! I woke up suddenly feeling that someone was lightly running over me! I sat up and felt around, but there was no one or anything! My partner slept peacefully! I fell asleep again and … Continue reading Elippathayam: The urban rat-trap
Here is a ‘scientific’ article that refers to the calming impact of being on a beach! This is something I have always experienced, but my word as an Economist would be less believable! This incredible feeling is now being termed the "blue space"! Being on a beach changes your brain so that it can reduce … Continue reading Soothing waterfront experiences, Ocean, River, Lake!
Jannat: Heaven on Earth is how Kashmir is known as. The world's most beautiful garden on the top of the World. HIndi Cinema shot on the Dal Lake in the 1960s an 1970s, Kashmir ki Kali. Heroine Sharmila Tagore the young beautiful Kashmiri woman, we recall from our childhood! So many decades spent in India … Continue reading Kashmir: Heaven on Earth: "Jannat: Yahee Hai Yahee Hai"
April Fools’ Day seems the perfect day to write this blog. I am also inspired by today’s The Ideas Page article in the Indian Express by Karla Bookman, “Hello, I’m wife of”. Most of us ‘married’ women have experienced this regularly, being addressed as “wife of”! Most of us don’t think about it and many … Continue reading April Fool Ladies: After all What’s in a Name?
Trying to grow anything in the desert-like soil and climate conditions of Ahmedabad is like trying to grow grass on your palm! I have always admired how fresh and healthy all plants looked in my father’s apartment in Cochin! Just the moist air, which we curse for the sweat, is ideal for them. You just … Continue reading Lesson from the Adenium Desert Rose and Patience of a Gardener
The new order of the day in higher education is the concept of ‘Flipped Classrooms’. MIT, Harvard and top universities are adopting it where the students prepare for the class in advance by watching the lecture on a video at home. The students spend time in the classroom discussing examples and solving problems with the … Continue reading Flipped Classrooms
We visited the Biennale 2014, two years earlier at Kochi, The art installations were amazing and the imagination of the artists was incredible. The Aspinwall, with the major installations, is an old abandoned sea facing Mansion, a property of an Englishman who came to Kochi in the spices trade. The first installation we encountered was … Continue reading Kochi Muziris Biennale 2014: Whorled exploration through the eyes of a non-artist
Unni-Verse 