Dr Barnard – The X-Ray man at Madras
Perhaps Dr. Christian Barnard’s blazing trail with his work on open heart surgery during the late 60’s eclipsed the valuable contributions of another, the Dr. Captain Thomas William Barnard, O.B.E.,...
View ArticleThe Peacock Throne and the Grosvenor
A Mughal throne in Pondoland? Many years ago, I wrote about the peacock throne and touched upon this very topic at the tail end of that article. The story has not died despite the musicologist,...
View ArticleSound memories from Sholay
1975 was the year the blockbuster film Sholay was released – I had finished school and joined College to master Electrical Engineering just the previous year. The music was already all over the radio...
View ArticleFarewell to a Friend - S Muthiah (1930-2019)
We are not destined to meet some people and, in my case, S Muthiah was one of them. I have always held him in great esteem, high regard and in our various communications found him never to be distant...
View ArticleLetters in Post
I am sure many of you will remember a time when we used to wait patiently for the postman to deliver a much-awaited letter. The post was always capable of evoking strong feelings, at times it was a...
View ArticleThe story of HE 842, a B24 liberator
I started out writing a fictional story set in our village at Pallavur starting with an object falling out of the skies and crashing into our paddy fields. The much consternation it subjected the...
View ArticleThe Chatans of Malabar
Driving lazily last weekend, en-route our local desi grocer, I passed by the Chatam street. We do have several towns and places in the East Coast of America named after locales of old Britain, and...
View ArticleOnce the Promised Land
The Anglo Indians and McCluskiegunge The Portuguese Mestiços had established precedent, when they congregated in Goa though a few remained in little enclaves at Mattanchery at Cochin and Bandra in...
View ArticleThe Officer and his Batman
When my friend told me the story of the bench warmer tradition in his erstwhile battalion, I was somewhat surprised, though not astounded. The British implanted some queer customs during the buildup...
View ArticleBlowing in the Wind
A remarkable tale – The Japanese Fu-Go There are some remarkable stories from the WW2 period, and this is one of those. Who could have imagined that a few schools girls participated in the mass...
View ArticleMacBook in the hamlet
This is an incident which amazes me each time I think about it, for it shows me how small the world has become these days; how small the distances can be and how opportune life can be. How a dream can...
View ArticleA Chikmagaluru Sojourn
And a little tribute to VG Siddhartha Hegde CCD The idea of spending a few days at Chikmagaluru at a resort in the middle of a coffee estate sounded alluring, and my partiality to estates, considering...
View ArticleHorse trading and Politics
This brief study started as I was reviewing Portuguese interventions into horse trading during the 16th to 18th Century in South India. While it was somewhat slow going, I noticed that horse trading...
View ArticleThe Letter
The post office in Pallavur never had its own building. I have not figured out why, perhaps nobody would sell land to the postal department. Anyway, right from my childhood, I have seen it as a...
View ArticleBharatanatyam - A 140 year old institution in Baroda
Tanjore’s Nautchinis, Tawaiif’s or Dancers in Sayajirao’s court In 1926, the Viceroy to India Lord Reading visited Baroda and was hosted by King Sayaji Rao. After somber discussions, they say down to...
View ArticleHanuman’s tunnel
Sheikh Othman (Hanuman) in Yemen Many years ago, one Sir Syed Ahmad Taqvi bin Syed Muhammad Muttaqi KCSI, commonly known as Sir Syed Ahmad Khan, an Islamic pragmatist, reformist and philosopher of...
View ArticleV K Krishna Menon – The enigma
Maddy in conversation with Jairam Ramesh, author of ‘A Chequered Brilliance: The Many Lives of V.K. Krishna Menon’ While many people have opined that they could never understand VK Krishna Menon or...
View ArticleGreatness, lurking in the shadows – VP Menon's Story
A chat with Narayani Basu, author of - VP Menon - The Unsung Architect of Modern India. When Narayani Basu signaled her intent to inform history enthusiasts about the life and times of her great...
View ArticleThe ill-fated Kashmir princess
The year was 1955. Indo China relations were quite warm, the Panschsheel had been signed the previous year. In 1954, Premier Zhou Enlai had visited Delhi, the ICFA was setting up bhai-bhai meetings all...
View ArticleNedyam Raghavan – Unknown to most
Lawyer, Freedom fighter, Statesman from Malabar We had been studying the lives of people from a past generation, those who fought for Indian independence. We read a lot about the Menon from the West -...
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