Zadie Smith’s Rules for Writers
No Nonsense 21st century Rules from one of the most the coolest writer around. 1 When still a child, make sure you read a lot of books. Spend more time doing this than anything else. 2 When an adult,...
View ArticleThis is what I learnt from VS Naipaul
In a postmodern world, it is absurd to look for such a thing as the truth. You just collect, distribute, sell, recollect whatever you wish over a period of lifetime and leave it at that. Vidia’s 78th...
View ArticleMasque of Africa: Baying for Blood begins
Though there are occasional exceptions, as a rule I avoid reading the reviews of books before the books themselves. But I couldn’t escape reading couple of reviews of ‘Masque of Africa’ that is due to...
View ArticleA quick snippet on the naipaulean narrative…
A travelogue can only be byproduct of traveling to a place that is new to you. When you look at something that is or has been known to you , it can only be reaffirmations or regrets. Because, You are...
View ArticleFollow up 2. Holy trinity of the person – judging the writer
This is the second follow up post of the old sticky remainder. You can find the first post here. +++ Not that long back I had written about how values, experiences and choices constitute the holy...
View ArticleFools and Nods on Indian Twitterdom
I know I am old for this but the sheer magnitude of cluelessness out there on the Indian twitterdom is startling, even by Indian standards. So a quick one whilst I write the other post I owe on...
View ArticleNaipaul and the world…
So here it is as promised. Wrote it whenever I got time last week, couldn’t get around to edit it though. Grab a drink or start a playlist. VS Naipaul’s latest alleged barb at the Royal Geographic...
View ArticleCall it prescience, or Call it VS Naipaul
Naipaul on Arab Spring: Because, Respect dear reader, has to be earned. It’s not begged, borrowed or imposed. It’s not the fashionable; it’s not the crowd, it’s not the fake nor the spurious. It has to...
View ArticleSculpting a Face….
The face of what Naipaul wrote as the ‘fundamental revision that is going on in India’. I’ve never seen so many Indian voices speak as one single voice – all those voices from a hundred different...
View ArticleTHE Indonesia
I’m reading two books on Indonesia. One, a rereading -VS Naipaul’s Beyond Belief. Well, I didn’t actually mean to start reading it again, but the recent trip to Indonesia made me look for one or the...
View ArticleOn Sir Vidia, Some Thoughts
This is not a piece composed after Sir Vidia passed away in 2018. I wrote this in 2008 after reading his then published book – A Writer’s People. Usually I manage to resist reading a review before I...
View ArticleRemembering Sir Roger Scruton…
Very much an overdue post. An original thinker and a charming gentleman. Along with Naipaul and Hitchens, he was one of the giants who had come to define what rationality meant during my evolving...
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