Madras Musings
The Lady With The Diamond Nose-Stud
Vermeer, the Dutch master, was famous for his “Girl With a Pearl Earring”. In South India I am convinced he would have been pressed upon to depict “Lady With a Diamond Nose-Stud.” The middle-aged couple arrived at the famous Madras-based doctor’s clinic in their Rolls...
Read MoreMeterpodu : A Work in Progress
Once upon a time, auto rickshaws in Madras had functioning meters, so the legend goes.Asking the auto drivers to turn on that boxy contraption today is like committing a small crime. The unrevised, state-fixed fare is blatantly unfair to these men in khaki. But pay...
Read MoreNew Use for an Old House
If the preservation of a heritage building delights us, then we rejoice doubly when an old building is put to new use. Take the case of this 49 year old, two-storied bungalow in Nungambakkam that now houses Rasvihar, a jewelry shop, and Sarangi, the Kanjivaram...
Read MoreNot Arriving Shortly– Arrived
The poem was written on a sort of impulse. It was triggered by a comment I heard from a friend of mine – quite a culture-vulture himself – about another writer based in Bombay. My friend said that this writer was “so Bombay”, meaning so...
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Unknown Bestsellers
There is precious little for me to do in Chennai anymore. Most places I liked in my old neighborhood are gone: the quiet corner of a temple with a cannonball tree, the store that sells peanuts in newspaper cones, and the open-air market for...
Read MoreWhat is the funda?
The sylvan campus of the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras is a good degree or two cooler than the rest of the city. Here, deer prance alongside runners in the tracks and bonnet macaques hang around the residential hostels. At dusk, rose-ringed parakeets flock over tree-canopies....
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