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57 Tabs: The Joys of Wiki-Hopping

It is 10 minutes past midnight. To my left, I have a box of refrigerated chicken popcorn from KFC, and to my right, I have my phone. In my phone, I have 57 tabs open; Wikipedia pages, they are. The missus has abandoned me gone for a sleepover to a friend’s place and I have the house to myself. I snuggle under the blanket and reach for a book; ‘My name is red’. The data is switched off and the phone is a safe distance away, or so I think. Alas, no. I come across an intriguing word, reach for my phone and switch on the data. Google recommends Wikipedia; good friends they are. I read intently, for all of 3 minutes. Then, I long press and click on ‘open in a new tab’. Thus, begins the hopping; perpetual in scope and orgasmic in pay-off. Soon, I have 57 tabs open. When I was growing up, during my primary school, there was a library in the neighbourhood. It was big, it was free and it was welcoming. Many a childhood hour was spent there; lost to the world and yet, at the same tim

Just how much did Sachin mean to us?

Aspiration for success is the single most natural thing in the world. It is not a trait unique to human beings alone; it is the very fundament upon which nature exists. It is what gives rise to evolution and results in life as we know it. And yet there are times, when even before you begin, you not just suspect that you will not succeed, but know that you are doomed to, and, will fail. Nonetheless, you go ahead and do it anyway. Because it is not a choice, but a call to duty; like a mountaineer attempting to scale that one last impossible peak, a surgeon trying to perform the miracle that will not happen or even a letter of infatuation that you know will never be reciprocated. Failure is merely a meaningless by-product. And so I attempt to put in words, the emotion that cannot be explained but only be felt, the phenomenon that cannot be understood but only be experienced and a love that cannot be rationalized but can only be succumbed and surrendered to. I attempt to both understa

Of Federer and Nadal; of Sport and Us

There were 13 players on the field. But one stood out. And he knew it. There was a swagger to his walk, poise in his posture and his entire demeanour was of a man who knew there were a million eyes on him; who not merely was aware of and acknowledged it, but also courted the attention, craved for it and feeded of it. As the ball soared off his bat, 50,000 rose off their chairs in unison; but even before the triumphal act was concluded, the smiles were wiped off their faces and there was tension in their eyes. The fielder settled under the ball; it was to be a regulation catch. But, was it to be? The floodlights shone down upon him, almost sinister in their intensity, but that did not matter; he has done this a thousand times before. What mattered though was the thousands of eyes boring into him, the unnatural silence, the searing hostility of strangers, the expectations of teammates and most of all the stature of the man of whose bat the ball has soared from and was now hurtling

Jayalalitha is dead. Sexism in Indian politics is alive.

Yesterday, an astute politician and a popular leader, Jayalalitha passed away. There has been a spontaneous outpouring of genuine grief and deep dismay among most Tamilians. By all accounts, Jayalalitha had led an extraordinary life. From becoming a film heroine at the age of 16 to being a chief minister at the time of her death, much of Jayalalitha’s journey had been larger than life. She had had to display exemplary courage and tremendous willpower to defeat formidable foes, surmount numerous obstacles and beat impossible odds. Each time she was deemed vanquished, she rose like a phoenix from the ashes, stronger than ever before. And yet many of us are puzzled by her popularity, uncomfortable with the devotion shown to her and scornful of what we consider as the mindless sycophancy that reigns around her. The underlying source of all this thinly disguised distaste is our deep-rooted and firmly entrenched belief in the inferiority of the woman. In plainer words: sexis

The Ascent to Sandakphu

IndiaHikes - Sandakphu Man originated somewhere deep in the jungles of Ethiopia. And then, he walked, and walked, and walked; to become, arguably, the most dominant species in the history of the planet. Walking then, is the most natural thing in the world, and as old as the hills themselves. And yet, today, walking is an archaism. We live in the era of Uber and Amazon, of the remote and the elevator; all designed to not just make walking unnecessary but also unfashionable. Trekking then, inhabits this curious corner of contradiction, natural and unnatural at the very same time. For the first time trekker, this contradiction is all the more magnified; accustomed as he is, to the warm comforts of luxury travel, the lure and excitement of trekking is nonetheless elementary, almost primal even. As the first timer treks, flat terrain is his friend, all so familiar and so very comforting; if at all, monotony is the only damper. The descent is a trickier beast, with dangers potenti

Sarat Chandra Chattopadhay: In search of a name through rural Bengal.

A name is your very identity. And yet, you do not have the power to choose it and most often do not have the power either to change it. Does a name really matter? Are our destinies shaped in any measure by the name we are given? Do we imbibe anything of those who we are named after? If yes, do we also imbibe something of those, who we were named after, were named after in the first place? I do not know and let’s admit it, neither do you. What I do know however is that, for long now, I have been doused by curiosity to know more about this man, Sarat Chandra Chattopadhay. In my IIM Calcutta interview, my name struck a chord with the Bengali professor and we had a pleasant conversation on culture. On my first day in campus, as I was being handed the keys to the hostel room, the sombre security man, upon noticing my name, looked up, broke into an unexpected smile, and insisted that I visited Sarat Chandra Kuthi, across the Hugli. And so it was almost inevitable that I would one day vis