This article is occasioned by a rather innocuous request from my brother-in-law, Louis, in Australia. He wanted somebody to throw light on the Gospel reading of Sunday the 18th August. The “offending text” is from Luke’s Gospel, Chapter 12, verses 49-53. This text may sound downright offensive to family people;, where Jesus says that he…

The chances are that you have not heard of Datta Phuge of Pune. His claim to fame is that he struts around wearing 6.5 kgs of gold ornaments. Recently he got a shirt stitched for himself which is embellished with a further 3.5 kgs of gold. So with his shirt on his back he packs…

When I was in my teens I was fond of hunting, and even came 5th in the Trap Shooting event in the U.P. State Shooting Championships. In winter we often sailed down the Ganga hunting wild geese sunning themselves on the sandbars midstream. Drifting downstream was easy, but to go against the current was a…

RAMBO NAMO has done it again, and succeeded in grabbing the headlines. At a rally at Ferguson College, Pune, on 14th July, he accused the Congress of hiding behind a burqa. I have no problem with Narendra Modi attacking the Congress party, its policies or performance. However, he stoops too low to attack persons. His…

(Portents for the Future) From the time of his election about 4 months ago, I have been an unabashed fan of Pope Francis. He has just published his first encyclical “Lumen Fidei” (The Light of Faith) on 29th June, the feast of Sts Peter & Paul. Through the good offices of a friend I was…

The print media is called the Fourth Estate. During World War II spies were known as the Fifth Columnists. What of the electronic media (EM)? Should we call them the Sixth State of modern society? I would certainly not call them the sixth sense, for reasons that I shall elaborate. Actually, I don’t see much…