Kendall Square and the Making of a Global Innovation Hub
If your travels take you to Boston, do take the T – the first subway system in the United States, built in 1897 – to get around town. Get down at the Kendall/MIT station…
Tastemaker Julie Sahni
Julie Sahni is something of an anomaly in this age of celebrity – she is famous, but few in India, her land of birth, know of her. She was born Deepalakshmi Ranganathan Iyer, on…
Cat in the Agraharam
The wealth of contemporary Tamil literature has always been just out of reach for readers like me who speak the mother tongue well enough but tend to stumble over the printed word. But you don't…
Quark
Quark, a boardless eatery at the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, was an insider destination. Deep within the campus, flanked by hostels, the canteen would open late in the evening. As students, we went…
Sarayu Hostel, IIT Women
Picture courtesy of Heritage Center, IIT Madras. Picture taken on 15, July 1966, at the inauguration of Alakananda Hostel at IIT, Madras Janaki Seshadri is to the immediate left of Ujjal Singh, Governor of Tamil…
Erdos visits Madras
One afternoon in January 1975, two men walked down the sandy stretch of the Marina Beach in Chennai. There was a breeze blowing, and they had the place pretty much to themselves. One of them…