Disney, Gemini, Wokeism…
Last year, I joined my children and watched a few minutes of Disney’s Little Mermaid. Unlike the Little Mermaid that I knew (white skin and red hair), this one was a Black and essayed by Halle Bailey....
View ArticleParametric Insurance for Disasters
One of the professional hazards in my line of work is that I’m at times invited to speak on topics that are complex and in which I have limited expertise. Last week, I had to speak on Parametric...
View ArticleMental Model for Categorizing Intellectuals
An apocryphal story has it that Confucius once became separated from his students in a strange city. They were searching for him when a local informed them that he’d seen a man who appeared...
View Article‘We Must Cultivate Our Own Garden’ for this is not the ‘Best of All Possible...
In the late 17th century, with scientific discoveries being the flavour of the season, Spinoza had already propounded his idea of God. Into this vibrant mix of new scientific thinking and philosophical...
View ArticleBest Comics – 2024
My habit of buying one comic a week was more or less maintained through the year. Some of the standout ones that I encountered: Hakim's Odyssey:This French trilogy tracking the life story of Hakim - a...
View ArticleThe Market-Friendly Dharma of Buddhism
During my previous visit to Dharamshala, an amusing sight that caught my attention was a group of Buddhist monks, red-robed, sporting Nike sneakers, sipping cappuccinos and completely immersed in their...
View ArticleThe Timeless Relevance of Hadji Murad
Forty years after his deployment in the Caucasus, Tolstoy wrote Hadji Murad, based on a real-life figure, over an eight-year period. Published posthumously, it is often regarded as one of the greatest...
View ArticleThe Political Origins of the United Nations
When the Charter of the United Nations was signed on 26th June 1945, the Second World War was still raging in the Pacific. Hiroshima and Nagasaki were yet to happen. And colonialism was very much alive...
View ArticleWhat I Watched – June 2025
Sound of Music: I realized that visiting Salzburg without watching the ‘Sound of Music’ would be unthinkable. So here I was, in my 41st year, watching something that should have been done in the first...
View ArticleKing Lear
When a piece of work carries tags such as “the greatest piece of literature ever written by a single person,” expectations are bound to be sky-high. However, King Lear failed to move me. While I could...
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