Readers of Rotary News are   familiar with the ground   realities of the education    system in India. They don’t need proof of its denial to thousands of less privileged; at the same time, Rotary is itself engaged in innumerable projects that make quality education accessible to children. Children

It’s been sitting on my bookshelf for a while now: If The Oceans Were Ink by Carla Power. A Pulitzer Prize finalist and named one of the ‘10 Titles to Pick Up Now’ in O, the Oprah Magazine, it is a book for readers across the social

Oh, I don’t read.” Like, it’s a waste of time. Like, it’s the in thing. Like, bro, who does that! The frequency and nonchalance with which I’ve heard this statement being tossed about over the last few years should have finished me off but

Mathamma works at the Madras Literary Society (MLS) located on the campus of the Directorate of Public Instruction in an early 19th century sandstone building with a high ceiling and beautiful rosewood embellishments. For some years now, diehard fans and well-wishers of the MLS have been trying

One of the reasons I am a fan of M S Dhoni is that he always speaks about the importance of living in the moment. In the context of his sport, cricket, he always points out that yesterday’s victory or defeat ends with yesterday and who knows what tomorrow will bring. All that matters is being

Whatever the weather — wet or dry or cold or hot — this is the season for long reads. In the last 10 days, I’ve had the good fortune of visiting two topnotch bookstores in San Francisco, both of which stock new as well as used books.

My mother tells this story of a time, back in the 1970s, when she and her sister-in-law decided their families could take care of themselves while they attended every concert they possibly could during the ‘season’ of music and dance in Chennai (then Madras). Balasaraswati, one of

Criminal Minds is the name of a popular television series and is one of several popular shows streaming on various digital platforms, but you would be excused if you weren’t aware of just how many people also enjoy reading about murders, espionage and mysteries of all kinds.

At the local beauty parlour recently I met a bespectacled 19-year-old whose disarming smile instantly got us chatting. “Are you from Nepal?” I asked, as she attended on my mani-pedi needs. “Darjeeling,” she replied. Right, I thought to myself, Nepali doesn’t mean she’s Nepali. Nepali means Indian

I always prided myself on being the kind of person who never judged a book by its cover until this overly righteous sense of self-worth hoisted me on my own petard (I have always wanted to use this strange phrase!) as I found myself unable to put

Haq achchha. Par uske liye koi aur marey toh aur achchha. The packed hall burst into laughter when chief guest Arun Shourie recited these lines by Pakistani poet Faiz Ahmed Faiz which declare that it’s good to have rights but if someone else dies upholding them, it’s