Culture
It is quite bizarre to read Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak and be able to understand anything. It is even more bizarre to agree with her views about mundane things like the news or being a little anxious about having a job next year, to find out the toilet bowl is one
Culture
June 5 was World Environment Day, which is presumably why an article entitled 'Hindu roots of modern 'ecology'' was doing the rounds on Twitter, despite having been published in 2016. In the article, its author Viva Kermani writes, Centuries before the appearance of the likes of
Culture
Alanna Mitchell reports in the New York Times that boreal forests in the world's north are being invaded by worms of the species Dendrobaena octaedra. They're decomposing the leaf litter and releasing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, transforming these carbon-negative forests into carbon-positives. In the process,
Culture
I saw this tweet yesterday: Information like this always reminds me of one fact that awakened me to the behind-the-scenes role that the natural universe plays in our cultural lives. The organic compounds called indole and skatole are what give human poop its unique and uniquely disgusting smell – an odour
Culture
At the outset, I had a great time watching the film. It ticked all the boxes of an all-round entertainer. What follows are some specific thoughts I had of the film that shouldn't be construed as criticism or as gratuitous suggestions to 'improve' the film in
Culture
After you find out that a male writer has been a lesser person than you thought he was, have you found it harder to read and appreciate his work? I bet you have. I'm sure it's the case with female, rather non-male, writers too but most
Culture
Rajinikanth's film 2.0, which released last year, was recently uploaded on Amazon Prime and I finally watched it in its entirety. It is a dumpster-fire of masculinity, sexism and misogyny, which is not surprising after Petta was what it was. 2.0 also goes one step further
Culture
Of late, there has been a clutch of Tamil films that have endeavoured to show the Hindu right-wing in poor light, associating its rituals with violence and oppression. The two most notable examples are Kaala and Petta, both starring Rajinikanth. Kaala was a modern adaptation of the Ramayana but told
Culture
Late last week, I picked up Ram Guha's Patriots and Partisans. I know shamefully little about India's modern political history – before and after Independence – certainly beyond the virtual borders of its scientific and technological endeavours. And to someone as receptive to new ideas on this front
Culture
A happy Lord of the Rings Day to you! March 25 is celebrated as such around the world (though not by too many people, I imagine) to commemorate what still endures as an excellent work of epic fantasy as well as – by its fans – to commemorate Frodo's destruction
Culture
Stanley Donen, who co-directed the famous 1952 Hollywood film Singin' in the Rain with Gene Kelly, passed away on February 21. Though it released to moderate success at first, the film went on to become a cult classic. The titular song, first composed in 1929 and which "inspired&
Culture
In an interview to The Wire Science last month, Venki Ramakrishnan, the molecular biologist, acknowledged that Indians had a bizarre relationship with the fact that he was a Nobel laureate: I’d left India when I was 19 I gave a lecture in honour of G.N. Ramachandran in 2008