South Asia Monitor • 28th March 2022

Kashmiri Pandits - Old and New: And how a film created a broad tent of a pan-Hindu identity

Why did the influential Purana Kashmiris not think of the 1990s Kashmir Pandit exodus as a personal issue and raise their voice? Why did they take part in the conspiracy of silence that seems to have cloaked the issue for 30 odd years?

The exodus of Kashmiri Pandits from the valley that Vivek Agnihotri’s recent film The Kashmir Files depicts so graphically, did not start in the 1990s. It has been going on for over 300 years! I come from a Kashmiri Pandit family in which the migration happened s

The Statesman • 16th March 2022

North is north and the South is south

North is North and South is South. And never the twain shall meet. And for a long time, in modern India, they did not meet. The portion of India above the Vindhyas went about its kheti-badi and its caste-based politics, its dips in the Ganga and its blips in GDP growth.

The young embraced in startling yellow mustard fields and got married under colourful tents called shamianas almost always accompanied by Band, Baaja and Baraat. And of course, lots of good food and alcohol. They lived beyond th

The Statesman • 23rd December 2021

New walls, new doors

The fact thats British parents could not travel from the United Kingdom to the United States to watch their daughter play, and win, the US Open final was more than just a bittersweet family story. It was one more stark reminder of how the Covid-impacted world has put up new walls and doors to curb international travel and how arbitrary they are.

Britons have simply not been allowed to travel to the US. This situation has persisted since the pandemic began in March 2020. In exceptional circumsta

The Statesman • 4th August 2021

No country for old folks

In the days when travel wasn’t so frequent and exposure to the western world was limited – there used to be two stories about the strange people who inhabited foreign lands that did the rounds on the Indian circuit.

They don’t bathe everyday was one and they leave their parents to die in old age homes was the other.

They were both uttered with the eyes screwed up with contempt, nostrils flaring with anger and disbelief and followed by the hands-cupped-to-the-ears gesture which begs divine forg

The Statesman • 11th February 2021

When small was meaningful

Our daughter got married in late 2020. Photos to share, congratulations to field, gifts to open, thank you cards to send, lots of feel good moments to savour yes, but something to write about? Not really. Except it was in the year of Covid-19. And we are Indian. The two just don’t go together. Any Indian astrologer looking at the charts of Wedding and Covid-19 would have frowned on the match and declared ‘Jodi nahin banti’.

Quite rightly so. We Indians are a sociable lot who love the following,

The Statesman • 15th November 2020

Diwali is Christmas come early

While I do visit India quite often, I have not been in India at Diwali-time for many years. In fact I was trying to remember when I was here last at this time of year and had this vision of helping hold a sparkler for my half-frightened, half-excited daughter who could today give a lecture on the air quality index to a room full of environmental experts – so clearly, it was a long, long time ago!

It has certainly been a Diwali like never before – subdued, solitary and silent. It has meant that

The Statesman • 3rd September 2020

Holidays: Change of place or just change of pace?

It is September and Europe is on the move. To beaches, to sun-soaked islands, to the countryside – anywhere but home. Nothing seems to stop holiday seekers. Not the patchy flights along agreed air corridors, not the threat of the pandemic hanging in the air and not even the dire warnings of quarantine as they return home from countries which are seeing a second wave of the virus. Europeans (Brits included as of now), take their summer holidays very seriously indeed.

Every summer, journalists de

The Statesman • 23rd July 2020

An ideological divide exposed

Ihave a confession to make. I have spent the weekend binge-watching the just released Netflix reality show on Indian arranged marriages. In summary, it is a reality show about a Mumbai- based matchmaker (the redoubtable Sima Aunty) and her roster of well-heeled clients in India and abroad. And yes, I said bingeing – not cringing.

Yet, cringe-worthy is the term most Indians seem to use when describing the 10th most viewed show on Netflix in India last weekend. I have very little patience with th

The Statesman • 10th June 2020

Fifty Shades of Black

As I write this, there are thousands of protestors right outside my work-from-home desk – in London’s Hyde Park. If I open the windows, I can probably hear them but it is a damp, grey day and I don’t want to feel cold, in addition to feeling gloomy. The crowds carry placards saying ‘Black Lives Matter’ and social distancing seems to have been sacrificed at the more sacred altar of solidarity.

London stands united with the American people in their grief and anger at the horrific killing of Georg

The Statesman • 20th May 2020

The parenting benefits of Generation Labelling

An article on how Gen Z is coping with the lockdown caught my eye in the papers recently: innovatively, by all accounts. Born between 1997 and 2010 – they have grown up with the grim reality of looming climate change and now the pandemic has made life even more uncertain.

However, unlike the Millennials before them, Gen Z does not complain or blame the earlier generations for creating a mess. They get on with things.

University plans upset? Never mind; I am going to be an entrepreneur. No scho

The Statesman • 16th February 2020

Is the Big Indian wedding missing a trick - or two?

Jalebis or gulabjamuns? Maybe the gulabjamuns, as the queue at the live jalebi counter is long and I really cannot manage both, as the second (and totally unnecessary) helping of biryaniin my stomach is saying ENOUGH. Aah! The gastronomic dilemmas of Indian weddings compounded by the NRI greed for Indian food make it a real pleasure for me to attend Indian weddings. Throw in the sentimentality of meeting old friends, the joy of seeing children grow up and get married and the whole social whirl