[A shorter version of this appeared in The Hindu’s op-ed pages on Jan 4, 2016] The lesson from Paris 2015 is this: until world powers don’t stop digging black gold out of the bellies of Iraq, Africa and Saudi Arabia, the convoluted webs of violence, terror and climate change, will continue to keep usContinue reading “A New Year’s resolution from Paris 2015”
Category Archives: environment
In deep water
(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”
The birdwatcher
One winter morning in 1968, on one of his weekend ‘birding’ trips, an unsuspecting Theodore Baskaran was crouching by the bund of the Devarayan Lake near Tiruchirapalli, when a skein of bar-headed geese emerged from the skies. Dropping their wings, they landed on the placid waters of the lake, a few meters from where heContinue reading “The birdwatcher”
An anthropologist among the journalists 