Miscellaneous

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A writer meets his idol

At the age of 14, Dilip Kumar had become a wage earner for the family. They were members of a mercantile community from Gujarat. These immigrants to Tamil Nadu lived in Coimbatore and Chennai, the state's capital. The death of this father slammed the doors...

Sita Paatti in New Orleans

If you want to be fluent in a language, experts say, you should relocate, briefly, to a place where the language is spoken exclusively. It will force you to find the words to interact with the locals -- that is the immersion method. Maybe, the...

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 Nadu. In 1966, Janaki Seshadri arrived at the Indian Institute...

Quark

Quark, a boardless eatery at the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, was an insider destination. Deep inside the campus, flanked by hostels, the canteen would open late in the evening. As students, we went there for an after-dinner snack or a hot drink, so we...

Erdos visits Madras

Picture Credit: Krishnaswami Alladi "Erdos in Mylapore, Madras" On a winter’s day in January 1975, two men walked down the sandy stretch of the Marina Beach in Chennai. It was still afternoon, but there was a breeze blowing, and they had the place pretty much...

The Best Little Bird Sanctuary in India

If you went to school in Chennai, chances are you have visited the Vedanthangal Bird Sanctuary, some fifty miles south of the city. As an eighth grader, I went there on a school excursion. Oblivious to the birds in the distance, my friends and I...