Life notes
What is a short story? If you were to visualise the completeness of a 'long-story' as arcs of different lengths on a circle, then I would say a finished novel could be 90% of the circumference. Or an epic fantasy series like Lord of the Rings to be
Life notes
There's a really yucky scene in the really yucky movie based on the half-yucky book Atlas Shrugged. A copper-mining tycoon who blew up his own mines says in a conversation with his railroad-tycoon friend, "They say money is the root of all evil. So I wanted to
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It was recently my birthday. I turned 30. The celebrations were muted – if at all – because there's something of a moment when you exit the tweens, and the first digit of your age changes from 2 to 3. On that day, it seemed more pertinent than ever to
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I haven’t ever been more interested in anything than physics and epic fantasy. So I thought it might be interesting to think about whether they complement each other. Being a science writer writing about things like condensed-matter physics and high-energy physics has taught me a lot about these subjects.
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What makes a train ride a train ride? I regularly travel between Bangalore and Chennai, using the morning Shatabdi every time. These train rides are not easy to love even the Shatabdi’s coaches have giant glass-panelled windows that offer beautiful views at sunrise and sunset. But the train’s
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Background information + The Wire's statements on the issue: 1. Panel Headed by Former SC Justice Aftab Alam to Examine Allegation Against Vinod Dua 2. The Wire’s Handling of the Sexual Harassment Charge Against Vinod Dua § 1. I strongly condemn Vinod Dua's statements vis-à-vis the #MeToo
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For the last two nights, the skies of Bangalore have been opening up, as if for me. Last night, it poured rivers. The sky flashed with the kind of lightning that makes you say you’ve never seen lightning like that. The entire empyrean turns that electric pink that you
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When thoughts turn stale, read a book. I'm reading two at the moment, which is telling. Patriots and Partisans by historian Ram Guha, an accessible narration of the historical roots of modern Indian national politics. Flights by Polish writer Olga Tokarczuk, a work of fiction that I noticed
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Chennai is my favourite city to land in an airplane over. The runway at its Meenambakkam Airport is oriented such that planes often have to land after manoeuvring themselves over the Bay of Bengal, approaching the city over the Marina beach. As a result, especially at night, it becomes evident
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I just got to Delhi from Bangalore. The sendoff in the latter city was great: the skies were overcast, with a darker, wetter layer of clouds looming at the zenith, set at snail's pace by a strong wind. Delhi wasn't too bad either. If there was
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(Re)Stumbled upon this article, by Ed Yong in The Atlantic, July 2016, this morning. As usual, it is rivetingly packaged. The strapline in particular caught my eye: Biology textbooks tell us that lichens are alliances between two organisms—a fungus and an alga. They are wrong. Makes you go
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I got into fantasy because my reality growing up was no good. The first videogame I played and really enjoyed, almost to the point of obsessing over it every available second, was Command & Conquer's Red Alert 2. I believe many players of the game will agree it