The Blog
Nenendu Vethugudura/ How Can I Find You?
Karukurichi Arunachalam, the legendary player of the nagaswaram, a wood-wind instrument of South India, was born in 1921, in Tamil Nadu. He died at the age of 43. In the year of Arunachalam’s 100th birth anniversary, I came across a moving short story about him, Nenendu Vethugudura, based on an incident from his short life. If Arunachalam was a virtuoso, turns out, he...
Read MoreMeenakshi and The Supernumerary Nipple
Legend says that the Pandya king, the ruler of Madurai, rejoiced at the birth of his daughter. She had beautiful eyes, like a pair of chiral fish. So she became Meenakshi (Sanskrit for “fish eyes”). The royal child had another physical characteristic, which the king...
Read MoreVeet — A Brick
And so the talk turned to sons who don't take as good care of their ageing parents as they should. The blame shifts to the daughter-in-law. The son gets off the hook -- old story. Which reminds me of the "sthalapurana" or origin story of...
Read MoreA 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...
Read MoreJournalists are Resourceful people
The very woman who’d discovered radium had seen her research grind to a halt for lack of it. After this outpouring the interview proceeded, and Meloney’s story appeared in the Delineator a few months later. In it she called Marie “the greatest woman in the...
Read MoreFrom Controversy to Cure
Inside the Cambridge Biotech Boom In the summer of 1977, a contentious debate about genetic engineering erupted in the city of Cambridge, pitting scientist against scientist and citizen against citizen. An unlikely mix of science and engineering, politics, the space race, and urban renewal transformed...
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