Tag Archives: bloganuary

Is memory a sin, or is it a salvation? Does it torment, or does it teach? Does it augment or does it attenuate? If humans are complex, memories are even more so. To live without a memory is impossible. The thought of future is not embedded in present but in the images of past. ItContinue reading “My Earliest Memories”

The Roman empire has produced many outstanding emperors and dictators – Julius Caesar, Augustus Caesar, Marcus Aurelius, to name a few. But an Empress? Popular history does not sing paeans of female despots of the era. It has undervalued several women on merit and has given them far less than what was overwhelmingly their due.Continue reading “Theodora: Empress to an Emperor“

“I hope to render the English name as great and formidable as ever the Roman was”, thus spake Oliver Cromwell, on being made the Lord Protector of England, Scotland, and Ireland in the year 1653. Oliver Cromwell was an English general and statesman who, first as a subordinate and later as Commander-in-Chief, led armies ofContinue reading “The Execution of Oliver Cromwell“

“Remove everything that has no relevance to the story. If you say in the first chapter that there is a rifle hanging on the wall, in the second or third chapter it absolutely must go off. If it’s not going to be fired, it shouldn’t be hanging there.” This advice offered to Maxim Gorki inContinue reading “The Master of Zero Ending“

The Mona Lisa is perhaps the most celebrated painting in the world. There could be few equals in terms of the number of eyes that have cast glances, furtive or deep, flitting or lingering on this small piece of immortal art. An archetypal masterpiece of the Italian Renaissance, it has been described as “the bestContinue reading “Mona Lisa’s Smile – Endearing Enigma or Bell’s Palsy?“

No man is mightier than the institution he represents. Posterity, if not history, commemorates not the might displayed when in power, but the imprint left behind in the trail of a man’s temporary exaltation to stations of authority. Today is the birthday of Justice John G. Roberts Jr., the sitting Chief Justice of the USContinue reading “Justice John G. Roberts Jr. – A Liberal Conservative?”

A hundred and seventeen years ago on this day an immodest piece of glinting rock caught the curious, restless and searching eyes of Frederick Wells, a surface Manager employed to supervise the mining of diamonds in Transvaal, South Africa. He was very sceptical of his find but the glint emanating from that half-kilogram of off-brightContinue reading “Diamonds are Forever; Sans Doute!“

“Some call it bootlegging. Some call it racketeering. I call it a business.” Even the most trenchant anthropologists would admit that successful gangsters are both daring and cunning. What motivates such men to a life of crime? The love of a good life, a thirst for power, a desire to earn the respect of theirContinue reading “Brilliant in Crime, Miserable in Death – the Life of ‘Scarface’“

In December 1848, US President James K. Polk made a dramatic announcement, “the accounts of abundance of gold are of such an extraordinary character as would scarcely command belief were they not corroborated by the authentic reports of officers in the public service,” officially acknowledging for the first time the presence of gold in California.Continue reading “The First of the Forty-Niners“

In Greenbier County Cemetery, West Virginia, stands a 125-year old tombstone with a historical marker. It commemorates the death of one Elva Shue in January, 1897, with an unusual pronouncement, “only known case in which testimony from [a] ghost helped convict a murderer.” The murderer so exposed by the ghost was a local blacksmith calledContinue reading “A Haunting Testimony”