(This piece was written in 2006 for a narrative writing class at the Asian College of Journalism.) Located about four km from Pondicherry town, Thengaithittu could well be Keats’ unravished bride of quietness. Even the sea here, for all its proverbial chaos, is a prophet in meditation. The tall coconut trees lining the coast, theirContinue reading “In deep water”
Monthly Archives: October 2012
India’s Development Paradox Explained
First published in Biblio: A Review of Books, Vol. XVII Nos. 9&10 Sep-Oct, 2012. (Accessed online at http://www.biblio-india.org) Why is the India story a paradox of high growth rates on the one hand and abysmal human development indicators on the other? The Indian welfare state, with its innumerable development programs, is supposed to have wipedContinue reading “India’s Development Paradox Explained”
The other side of otherness – Reflections on fieldwork in Sainsbury’s
A supermarket store in the posh London Borough of Islington might come across as an unlikely choice for a research project in anthropology – a discipline whose historical association with the study of the exotic and the esoteric by (mostly) White, European men in remote places is well-known. But here was I, an Indian student finding my wayContinue reading “The other side of otherness – Reflections on fieldwork in Sainsbury’s”
An anthropologist among the journalists 