Category: Uncategorized

“She is a difficult person to describe, because she has no complexes of any kind,” said Govind Swaminadhan about 80 years ago. He was struggling to “describe” his younger sister, Padmavibhushan Capt Dr Lakshmi Sahgal nee Swaminadhan MBBS, DGO, INA. Dare I attempt a description that her brother could not? Here in Kanpur, which was…

Was Jesus afraid, or reluctant to empower his disciples? Did he not rather say that anyone who believed in him would infact “perform even greater works” (Jn 14:12) than himself? Jesus empowered his disciples; he did not feel threatened by them. The explanation lies in the same farewell discourse, “I am in the Father and…

Domination, dominion, domineering – these are words to which I am inherently allergic.  To that I will now add the word “domain”, in the context of cyber domains on the World Wide Web.  I was taken aback by a recent news report that the Vatican has applied for the exclusive use and control of the…

My schooling for eight years was in a boarding school in the Kumaon Hills, now in Uttarakhand State. That was at St Joseph’s College, Nainital. The hills act like a lodestone, beckoning me back every now and then. Whenever I go there on vacation with my family, we look for offbeat locations, where there is…

Her name is Ginger Einstein Bhatt! Does it raise eyebrows? That is the name of our female dog, or rather, 7 month-old pup. Why such an odd name? Ginger brown is the colour of her four paws. Her middle name is Einstein because, like her namesake, she has bushy eyebrows, again ginger in colour. For…

“A Dirty Dozen” was a Hollywood blockbuster of yesteryears. “A Dirty Picture” is Bollywood’s latest rage. But I have selected “A Decent Dozen”. Let me tell you why.  The recent nomination of Sachin Tendulkar to the Rajya Sabha (RS) has raised many questions in both sports and political circles. The Congress thought that it was…

Readers will pardon me for mixing up the punch lines of three different suiting ads – Dinesh, Only Vimal and Raymond’s The Complete Man. Unfortunately I haven’t seen the Dinesh Suiting ad for sometime, hence must be forgiven for forgetting the punch line. But I do remember two Dinesh Suiting ads, both featuring Sunil Gavaskar….

The Congress fared badly in the elections to various State Assemblies, particularly U.P.  The emergence of Mulayam Singh’s Samajwadi Party as a powerful force in U.P. has put paid to the Congress’ hopes of taking him on board and dumping Maverick Mamata’s TMC.  With Karunanidhi’s DMK and Pawar’s NCP also playing truant, the Congress’ options…

A pedestal fan, in the heat of summer, is a cooling experience, not just for the body, but also for frayed tempers! There is another type of “pedestal fan” that actually raises temperatures and tempers to fever pitch. This other “pedestal fan” is actually a fan of an icon; so we have sports fans, movie…

Do celibate Catholic priests need a safety net? How different is safe sex from unsafe celibacy? A recent meeting of the Conference of Diocesan Priests of India, held in Bhopal, MP, occasioned these thoughts. The priests “pledged to safeguard their celibacy vow in the face of modern day challenges, and treat it as a gift…