An old friend of mine called me the other day from London, after we reconnected on Facebook. “Shyam,” the voice said. “How are you? This is Jay, It’s been a long time.” It took me a few seconds to realise that this was indeed Jay, my Malayali friend who had previously spoken with a mild and pleasant Malayali accent. So what was this? Why was he sounding like Sir John Gielgud? Should I call him...
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Sartre would have been fascinated by the social workings of contemporary Bangalore. Heidegger would have been inspired beyond insanity. And Socrates, I can just see him now, walking around the social scene urging everyone to look within, saying, with a wave of his wine glass, “The unexamined life is not worth living.” “Authenticity”, defined as “the degree to which one is true to one’s own...
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There’s the messy way to eat a mango, and there is the wrong way. Unfortunately, I see an increasing number of people eating it the wrong way: any method that requires the use of a knife, a fork, or a spoon – cutting it and scooping it out, slicing and dicing it into cubes and using a fork and so on. No, the right way to eat a mango is to eat it with your hands, your mouth, your eyes, your spirit. Look at it...
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