Culture
Streaming now: the 24/7 human centipede
Have you heard of 'Bigg Boss Ultimate'?
Culture
Analysis
Marie Curie: An icon or 'in the way'?
Who would have been the most iconic woman physicist of all time if the Nobel Prizes didn't exist?
Culture
'Steps in the right direction' are not enough
To laud "steps in the right direction" is to flout an intentional ignorance of the government's track record.
Analysis
The persistence of NFTs
NFTs freak me out. One of the ways in which my grandmother lost touch with her daughter – my mother – was my mother's generation's access to and use of computers, smartphones and the internet. And one of the ways in which my mother and father are out
Analysis
Review of a review: 'Rocket Boys' (2022)
Tanul Thakur has reviewed a series on SonyLIV called Rocket Boys for The Wire. I haven't watched the show and don't plan to, for want of time as well as because, reading Thakur's review, I think I know enough about how the series depicts
Analysis
The new JNU VC’s statement has bad grammar. So?
I strongly disagree with some criticism that has emerged on Twitter against the new JNU vice-chancellor Santishree Pandit. The object of criticism is a statement that Pandit has apparently drafted and in which she states, broadly, what she considers to be her mandate. In response, BJP MP Varun Gandhi wrote:
Culture
Ricardo Bofill (1939-2022), architect
The Spanish architect Ricardo Bofill passed away on January 14, at the age of 82. I don't know most of his work, which means this note of remembrance is less about Bofill the architect per se and more about Bofill the designer of the La Muralla Roja, an
Culture
What I didn't like about 'Eternals' (2021)
I rewatched Eternals today and had some time to collect some of my thoughts on it. Spoilers ahead (including one each for The Tomorrow War and Shang-Chi and The Legend of The Ten Rings). 1. Too much deus ex machina – took 55 minutes minutes to find out what the Eternals
Culture
Look away
Not something I usually blog about but boy is this funny. (At least) Star Sports has been airing an ad for an app called 'Magicpin' that I think helps you in some way when you shop for stuff. And this is how the ad goes: So… a fight
Analysis
On science, religion, Brahmins and a book
I'm partway through Renny Thomas's new book, Science and Religion in India: Beyond Disenchantment. Its description on the Routledge page reads: This book provides an in-depth ethnographic study of science and religion in the context of South Asia, giving voice to Indian scientists and shedding valuable
Culture
Reading books, writing words
It suddenly feels like a lot more people have been reading a lot more books. Or maybe they're talking about it a lot more. I have one friend who went through more books in 2021 than there were weeks. And I've been quite jealous looking at
Analysis
On The Caravan's new profile of The Hindu
On December 1, The Caravan published a 50-page report entitled ‘Paper Priests: The battle for the soul of The Hindu’. The report – actually, as a friend put it, a big profile – has many good parts and many others, not so much, especially from the point of view of an insider: