The kanwarias are in the news, for all the wrong reasons – for smashing vehicles, including a police van, disrupting traffic and causing mayhem on the roads. The police in U.P., where the vast majority of kanwarias are to be found, are hapless spectators, with senior officials showering rose petals from helicopters on the “pilgrims”….

We are familiar with the Sadhu, usually a saffron robbed ascetic or mendicant. Till not so long ago most Sadhus had little or no worldly possessions, living simple and frugal lives. Maharishi Mahesh Yogi may have been the first to break the stereotype with his Rolls Royces and the stereo music of the Beatles. Madhu…

What the Dickens? This is not the tale of two cities, but a study in contrast of two of the seven sisters of the North East (NE); specifically Arunachal Pradesh (AP) and Manipur, where I spent a few days recently. My wife, Meera, and I, had been invited by Rev V. Kulandai, the former parish…

(A “Practical” Letter to our Beloved Brother Bishops of our Beloved Motherland India) This “practical” letter is a natural consequence of various pastoral letters issued over the last year by the archbishops of Gandhinagar, Delhi and Goa. These pastoral letters have been portrayed as innocuous appeals for prayer for the country, its secular fabric and…

(A sequel to “Men of Letters”) There is a story of a lover who kept writing love letters to his beloved in a village. Since she was illiterate the postman would read the letters to her, and even write the replies. After sometime the man found that the replies from his beloved had dried up….

A recent pastoral letter by Abp Anil Couto of Delhi has stirred up a hornet’s nest. Maverick BJP MP Subramaniam Swamy went to the extent of demanding the closure of the Vatican Nunciature in Delhi. There have been heated TV debates. I also saw a video of a Hindutva group stomping on the images of…