Cyclone Biparjoy and Chennai
When is a natural disaster a natural disaster? It began raining in Chennai last evening and hasn't stopped as of this morning. But it's been intermittent, with highly variable intensity. In my…
Chennai
6 posts
India – where repairing a bad road could make life worse
There is a long road that runs from Mantri Mall to Sankey Road, in Malleshwaram, Bengaluru, called Sampige Road. There are eighteen smaller roads that branch off from it on either side (straightforwar…
A Brahmin wedding
I was at a wedding this weekend. It had a distinct Omelas-like quality throughout. For most of the elders present, it was an oru naal koothu — a single-day celebration that has been many weeks in the…
Groundwater extinction
In a report published on June 14, 2018, NITI Aayog, a policy think-tank established by the Government of India, claimed that 21 Indian cities would run out of their supply of groundwater by 2020. The…
Happy new year!
2017 was a blast. Lots of things happened. The world became a shittier place in many ways and better in a few. Mostly, Earth just went around the Sun once more, and from what we know, it's going t…
The marching coloumns
Every day is a swing between highs and lows, and in the last two months that I've experienced them, they've never been periodic. Setting off the work, the mood depends on the weather: cloudy i…