top of page
All Writings
Jun 7, 20094 min read
Conversations in the dark
To be quite honest, Isaiah Berlin, the Oxford political philosopher, has always seemed a bit too formidable to read. And except for one...
Apr 5, 20093 min read
Obsessions, destructive and redemptive
Every once in a while — sometimes in a very long while — you come across a book that you wish would not finish. You savour each sentence,...
Mar 8, 20092 min read
Book of Songs
Four decades ago,Khushwant Singh did a signal service to Sikhism by writing his classic two-volume History of the Sikhs, a work that has...
Mar 1, 20093 min read
Rainy day stories
I reach once again for the 1925 collection of Hemingway’s stories In Our Time, which contains the short story that best encapsulates what...
Feb 1, 20095 min read
Tormented by a restless breeze
I do not believe that I am qualified to write on Faiz Ahmed Faiz. But the memory of a long ago Moscow afternoon tempts me. As a young...
Dec 7, 20084 min read
Long shadows of short stories
The sky is a splattered sunset orange. The sun, a blazing hoop of fire, balances itself on the taught line of the horizon and then sinks...
Nov 2, 20085 min read
A slim selection
There are times when the mind hesitates to enter a substantial book, aware that it will not be able to do justice. I thought I had sent...
Sep 7, 20084 min read
The Exile
When they fought each other for the throne after my father’s death, guns were mounted on those minarets and cannonballs flew over...
Aug 3, 20084 min read
Inspiring a masterpiece
Normally I only glance furtively at obituaries; one never knows what, or rather, whom one may find in those columns. But the other day,...
bottom of page