Ricardo Bofill (1939-2022), architect
The Spanish architect Ricardo Bofill passed away on January 14, at the age of 82. I don't know most of his work, which means this note of remembrance is less about Bofill the architect per se and…
Culture
164 posts
What I didn't like about 'Eternals' (2021)
I rewatched Eternals today and had some time to collect some of my thoughts on it. Spoilers ahead (including one each for The Tomorrow War and Shang-Chi and The Legend of The Ten Rings). 1. Too much…
Look away
Not something I usually blog about but boy is this funny. (At least) Star Sports has been airing an ad for an app called 'Magicpin' that I think helps you in some way when you shop for stuff.…
On science, religion, Brahmins and a book
I'm partway through Renny Thomas's new book, Science and Religion in India: Beyond Disenchantment. Its description on the Routledge page reads: This book provides an in-depth ethnographic stu…
Reading books, writing words
It suddenly feels like a lot more people have been reading a lot more books. Or maybe they're talking about it a lot more. I have one friend who went through more books in 2021 than there were wee…
On The Caravan's new profile of The Hindu
On December 1, The Caravan published a 50-page report entitled ‘Paper Priests: The battle for the soul of The Hindu’. The report – actually, as a friend put it, a big profile – has many good parts and…
Don't donate bad food and call it 'dharma'
There's a troubling pattern among some people who give food away to homeless people and beggars. I have seen this happen first-hand with my folks, my extended family and their wider group of neig…
The names of our dragons
The first piece of very-popular epic fantasy fiction I read was J.R.R. Tolkien’s Middle Earth saga, which, among many things, reminded me how much the American and British writers of ‘high fantasy’ ow…
Railroad to zealotry
"It would not be unusual for finger-stick testing to be met with skepticism," says a spokesman for Theranos. "Patents from that period explain Elizabeth’s ideas and were foundational fo…
Review: 'Love Death + Robots' 2 (2021)
I've been curious why the Marvel Cinematic Universe picked the Malthusian catastrophe for the ultimate disaster the superheroes rescue everyone else from. Narendra Modi has invoked the misguided i…
On the International Day of Light, remembering darkness
Today is the International Day of Light. According to a UNESCO note: The International Day of Light is celebrated on 16 May each year, the anniversary of the first successful operation of the laser i…
The Government Project
Considering how much the Government of India has missed anticipating – the rise of a second wave of COVID-19 infections, the crippling medical oxygen shortage, the circulation of new variants of conce…