Here's something different: an MGR fan-blog . MGR, an extremely popular filmstar and then politician, died on Christmas Eve, 1987. I f...

We flew from Chennai to Coimbatore. Most of Tamil Nadu is red and flat; then giant rocks or very small mountains rise suddenly from the pla...

burnblue.com sketchbook : From November 15, 2004 to June 8, 2005 I travelled through many countries, read 34 books, got sick 3 times, got ro...

My brother-in-law sent us an email, purporting to have been written by a doctor in Mumbai - one of those emails which gets forwarded from on...

It’s All Soul’s Day today – for Roman Catholics, at least; not for my cook, Mary, who’s evangelical. I drove past the Quibble Island Cemete...

Getting ready for NaNoWriMo , I have gleaned a couple of references to free programs / gizmos for writers. There are lots more, which you c...

A terrific thunderstorm last night. I saw a bright flash, as if a light bulb had exploded, and glass flying and clinking on the floor. A w...

I’ve been so down about the image-less state of this blog – and by extension, the fragility and futility of the world, etc. etc., that I was...

Back in March I wrote about how we had applied a medicinal poultice to the crowns of our three coconut trees, because insects were spoiling...

Two French students by Ramesh Gandhi

There's a fascinating / scary / terribly sad article in today's New York Times magazine: An Elephant Crackup? It is primarily abo...

It's fever season. We always have malaria and typhoid, to greater or lesser degrees; this year we have chikungunya. I'd never hear...

I suddenly wanted to read poems by Robert Frost. I had read him in high school, then did not for many years. I found this poem, which I ha...

Regarding my recent disappearance from the airwaves, Blogger has sent me this note: I have some good news and bad news for you. The good new...

August 22 is Madras Day, the (368th) 'birthday' of the city of Chennai, which was called Madras for almost all of its previous birth...

So we're vacationing in Bangalore, and we're in the bar, and sitting at another table is Feroze Khan , who was a filmstar once, and ...

August 15 is Indian Independence Day. Last night someone from Guest Relations called us and said that the hotel was having a flag-raising a...

Still on vacation, and still updating my arts blog with sketches and findings and such: fire star arts

It's always interesting to see what Sepia Gallery , in New York, is showing. Their current online exhibition has eight photomontages by...

I'm on vacation, first of all. Hurray for wi-fi! Secondly, a few days back I was able once again to see the blogsites which had been ba...