On this day in Mumbai my father died. He was eighty-one, his last birthday being on May 17th 2011. The only birthday of his he ever had at which I was present. When I was ten years old he stopped paying all alimony to my mother and after a year long battle agreed to pay…
One Step Forward
We take for granted the inexorable march of scientific inquiry with which we have grown up (my generation and the two before me). There have been in history huge forces which have stifled inquiry. In the sixth century BCE and for some three hundred years after, Greeks developed a mathematics than enabled them to chart…
You Would Understand Why
You Would Understand Why You would understand why – Why lilac and Chopin go together – Just before spring or after winter’s Retreat back into the earth – Our beginning and our end – You would understand this – This sudden sadness and lack of will – Then my body feels full-up with stones –…
The First Time
I know parents all tend to notice that children think as they grow up they are the first to experience things, and in the next breath take–for–granted inventions that are the common currency of modern living. We have all done it and we all continue to do it but there must have been a first time…
We’re Older Than We look
It is astonishing to think that the particles and atoms that make up the whole of matter were created from reactions going on from the instant of the big bang through the seconds and minutes afterwards. Not the least to think that the atoms inside our bodies, the ones that made it to Earth, may…
Skin Depth
There was a famous film based on a book, called Bhowani Junction which dealt with the racism of Anglo-Indians towards Indians. A racism based upon skin colour and inspired by the racism of white people for dark skinned people. A racism that still has its logic rooted in the fact that white people had the…
The Science In Religion
There are many books looking at belief vis-a-vis science and trying, desperately at times, to marry the two together. Only because so many people cannot bare to be without their belief. But there are a few very important ways in which the two are similar. We do not know if other animals have as intricate…
What Makes Greatness
I am sure the old saying ‘cometh the time, cometh the man’ (written in more chauvinistic times but still sadly very true) describes the fact that human history shows in times of crisis someone always bubbles to leadership and somehow gets peoples/nations/tribes through the crisis. As Toussaint Louverture boldly spoke out against slavery on behalf of…
The Role Of Superstition
There are many, and I am one of them, who think superstitions are somewhat bizarre and demonstrate a natural propensity amongst us to demonise, and secure our safety and lives by reference to nature’s magic. However when researching my book on lying I realized that there are some positive aspects to lying in as far…
The Confines Of The Infinite
Many thinkers have suggested that as long as you have an open mind, you can never truly be imprisoned. Many years ago listening to radio 4 I heard a series of programmes about the Malay peninsula in World War 2 and how the British interned suffered under the Japanese. I recall distinctly the story of…