प्रिय पार्थ, वेद और वियंका जया, आज से भारत में पितृ पक्ष शुरू हो रहा है। शायद तुममें से किसी ने इसके बारे में सुना हो, या शायद नहीं। इसलिए इस बार मैंने सोचा कि तुम्हें पितृ पक्ष के बारे में बताने से पहले तुम्हें उन दो लोगों से मिलवाऊँ, जिनसे तुम कभी मिल नहीं सके—तुम्हारे परदादा औरContinue reading “परदादा और परदादी से एक मुलाकात”
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From Odysseus to Hanuman — II
Hanuman For an Indian viewer, the question raised by Nolan’s Odyssey is almost irresistible. Why should Homer have all the fun? India possesses not one but an extraordinary constellation of epic and mythological traditions. The Ramayana and Mahabharata have survived not merely as texts but as living traditions, continuously retold through languages, theatre, dance, painting, folk performance, television and cinema. WeContinue reading “From Odysseus to Hanuman — II”
From Odysseus to Hanuman — I
Odysseus What does a filmmaker do when he has almost unlimited technological power and chooses to tell a story that is nearly three thousand years old? Christopher Nolan’s answer is The Odyssey. It is an audacious choice even for a filmmaker whose career has been built on audacity. He has taken one of the foundational worksContinue reading “From Odysseus to Hanuman — I”
विभीषण होना आसान नहीं, भीष्म होना शायद और भी दुष्कर
जीवन के उत्तरार्ध में चिंतन-मनन का समय मिल जाता है और नितांत वैयक्तिक विषयों से इतर, उनसे हटकर, व्यापक प्रश्नों को समझने की कोशिश भी अच्छी लगती है. रामायण और महाभारत के पात्र और उनके चरित्र सहज ही विचारों में अक्सर उभरते हैं. कुछ समय से एक प्रश्न मन में उठ रहा है और जितनाContinue reading ” विभीषण होना आसान नहीं, भीष्म होना शायद और भी दुष्कर “
What’s in a Map?
There are many ways of changing the world. Revolution is one. War is another. Elections occasionally manage it. The United Nations has now discovered a considerably less dangerous method: change the map. On September 4, the UN General Assembly voted 164 to 1 to encourage the world to move away from the familiar Mercator projection towardsContinue reading “What’s in a Map?”
The Actor I Never Met
Some actors enter our lives through films. A few somehow enter our memories and stay there, long after the film itself has faded. Anant Nag has been one of those actors for me. I have never met him. Yet the news that he is to receive the Dadasaheb Phalke Award for 2024 made me feelContinue reading “The Actor I Never Met”
The QR Code That Changed India -I
Part I: How India Learnt to Pay Differently There are technological revolutions that announce themselves with great fanfare, and there are those that quietly become part of everyday life. UPI belongs to the second category. Its most visible symbol is a little black-and-white square that now appears almost everywhere—in the neighbourhood grocery shop, beside aContinue reading “The QR Code That Changed India -I”
The QR Code That Changed India-III
Part III: From the Tea Stall to the World The story of UPI would be incomplete if it ended with the QR code at the neighbourhood shop. What began as an attempt to make domestic payments simpler has now acquired a larger significance. India is increasingly exploring whether the architecture that transformed payments at homeContinue reading “The QR Code That Changed India-III”
The QR Code That Changed India-II
Part II: The Price of Free There is a curious paradox about UPI. The more successful it has become, the easier it is to forget that it costs money to run. For the user, a UPI payment is almost completely frictionless. We scan a QR code, enter an amount, authenticate the transaction and the moneyContinue reading “The QR Code That Changed India-II”
BRICS: The Delhi Moment
The New Delhi BRICS Summit could hardly have come at a more difficult moment. The world is fractured by wars, trade tensions, sanctions and strategic rivalries. Even multilateral forums that were once accustomed to producing carefully negotiated statements are increasingly finding consensus difficult. Against this backdrop, the adoption of the New Delhi Declaration by allContinue reading “BRICS: The Delhi Moment”
