I recently finished reading Vinod Joseph's first novel, Hitchhiker , published by Books for Change, Bangalore. Its protagonist is Ebene...

I was looking for a transliteration of an Urdu poem by Faiz Ahmed Faiz, and found it; but then I found this also, and it was amazingly beaut...

The sand under our feet - me and my friend P - as we walked toward the shore temple. Fishing boats drawn up on the beach. One or two tradi...

I was feeling aimless, discontented. I was babbling. I said, "I need a designer. I need a personal trainer. I need a guru. I need ...

[my remarks] "out of proportion blow kiya hai " Hema Malini said this, trying damage control after saying that North Indians who h...

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...