To (not) turn to the Dark Side

Even as the Festival of Lights – Diwali comes along, (arguably) the last thing that may come to someone’s mind is this photo: However, for me, this photo encapsulates much more than either the proverbial good vs. evil battle or some loony analogy to the Ram-Ravana war made just for the sake of making one. […]

Wollstonecraft and Women

Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-1797) is one of my favorite writers when it comes to women’s writings, because of her strong and yet lucid style of writing. She was an English writer, philosopher, and advocate of women’s rights. During her brief career, she wrote novels, treatises, a travel narrative, a history of the French Revolution and a children’s book, among other […]

The Saxe Heart

Who is anyone to empower women?’ were the electrifying words by Meenakshi Lekhi, Member of Parliament (Lok Sabha) and BJP leader, that rang across the venue-hall as she highlighted how women are the powerhouses of any family at the World Day Against Trafficking in Persons summit, jointly organised by United Nations Office on Drugs and […]

The Letter from the Queen

Even as the Queen’s speech was presented in the UK parliament (with Jeremy Corbyn and Dennis Skinner being their cocky selves), I can all but look back in warmth and appreciation for the Queen’s years of service to the people of her country, in particular, and to the world, in general, at large. Her Sapphire […]

The Cow in the Water

Recently, sitting in the Graduate Cafe near the Cam in Cambridge, I came across a couple of interesting sights. A cow who had fallen into the river and was wading through trying to see how to get out (which it finally did, after calmly wading past the banks that were at a height that was […]

Jay

While walking back from the Cambridge Railway station yesterday (1 May 2017), having renewed my National Railcard, I saw a most fascinating bird that I have seen previously on only a few occasions – the Jay. Largely brown, the (Eurasian) Jay has a patch of electric blue on its wings that stands out. A fairly […]

‘The Restricted Section’

In Christ’s College, Cambridge, we have a ‘restricted section’ of sorts: the Old Library. It is usually kept off-limits to even members of the college but recently we had ‘The Theater of Plants’ exhibition during which access was given (it is usually during such exhibitions or talks that the library is opened). And what a trove […]